All Star Automotive Cast, VinFast Ships 999 Vehicles to the US, Black Friday Delivers

‍SPEAKERS

Kyle Mountsier, Paul Daly

Paul Daly  00:00

Oh we are back. We made it through a great Thanksgiving holiday. Today we're talking about automotive news all stars vinfast shipping almost 1000 vehicles to the US and Black Friday hit home. Go Black Friday. Black Friday. And stay with me.

Kyle Mountsier  00:42

Oh boy. I'm excited about it.

Paul Daly  00:44

It's a great way to go and we'll save that. Man. How'd you do over the weekend?

Kyle Mountsier  00:49

Good. I did good. I ate some food. You know, not too much. When I'm couple did runs. Watch some soccer? USA tied England, which was impressive. And yeah, it's good. I ran Wales, which is even more impressive. Let's just roll that. Well, everyone, everybody in automotive is like, what's this guy talking about? Talking about cars. I mean, does it make auto autos?

Paul Daly  01:17

Well, I wait too much. I didn't run at all. And I also watched it at least one full half of a soccer match, which is a first for me and I had fun. I told I told like I'm maturing in my side. I feel like you have to mature I'm growing up growing up but thanks to Ted last so I knew about the pitch and the boots and the the all the things some of the things I knew at the plus six was

Kyle Mountsier  01:42

the US education of soccer comes down to Ted lasso Welcome to America.

Paul Daly  01:47

Well, it's just welcome to pop culture right? Oh man, I want to talk a little talk about that some of the time. Yo, so I don't know I watched the Eagles game last night and I had to stay up late because they just Eagles packers was a shootout and it was a fun game to watch but it was annoying because I had to stay up till the end. But dude that G M e V commercials were non stop all we could not believe it was nuts. Uh was it? Yeah, do I could not believe it in the one Sunday night football game I must have seen I'm gonna say 10 All featuring different models. I think the last one I saw was actually for the bolt. So they kind of like did all these you know the pickups and SUVs and the forward thinking they ended with the one that's the most likely to be like mass available and the most affordable

Kyle Mountsier  02:33

out though this is what's real clutch from GM is like, hey, partnership with Domino's watch Domino's put on a GM commercial to you see that one sheet now? Yo Domino's legit just goes like they go they basically everybody rolls in these like mini vans and you see all of the cars that would typically be you know a little bit older a little bit rundown from a delivery driver and then it goes without saying they hit a lightning bolt onto the car change it into a into a shower that and then at the end it's like three Chevy bolts lined up and like proud delivery workers and it's like a Domino's commercial that's a recruiting. Recruiting campaign. Heck

Paul Daly  03:18

yeah,

Kyle Mountsier  03:19

it was everything and GM just gets though. There you go.

Paul Daly  03:23

Very, very good, man. I love all that. I love that. Well, we're getting fired back up this morning. I woke up this morning with a great time to go start building the show and within like 30 minutes I was like all fired up like oh man, we got five weeks left. That's it in 2022 So we're gonna put the pedal down we got some new podcast launching today in the dirt from modern retail conference. This is such a great one Kyle you interviewed two young ladies from Bozar and it was just like new faces new voices same fire which is what

Kyle Mountsier  03:51

you taught if you've caught the podcast the automotive trouble market podcast on Friday you caught clip Megan you caught a clip of her but the whole 15 minute ish podcast with Morgan and or sorry not Megan Morgan and grace. Yeah is available now on in the dirt you want to check it out.

Paul Daly  04:07

It's also launching an auto collabs podcast today auto collabs. With was gonna say actually we're gonna use this to segue into our first story. Featuring the CEO of UVI Amir who was awarded one of the UVI was awarded the automotive news all stars Amir was so speaking of automotive news, all stars.

Kyle Mountsier  04:29

That's the first time we've ever pre segwayed a segue. I know

Paul Daly  04:31

precisely what to say, Wait, tell us a call. When you write something. You tell them what they're gonna say when you're gonna say you say it and you just tell them what you said. So we need an outro to the segue. Well, the annual list of automotive news all stars was announced. This is where a 40 individuals from support Yeah, from across OEMs dealers industry partners are kind of just celebrated for some achievement or some notable accomplishment this year from the article they say our All Stars persevered during X delivery We excellent products and services to their customers, introducing innovations that are key to the future of mobility and making other significant contributions to the industry in a myriad of ways. We note a couple of them here. Elon Musk was on the list this year for being an early adopter of EVs had nothing to do with Twitter. Early adopter of EVs dama dominate dominating, are leading the US luxury segment and turning Tesla's Fremont California factory which is their original factory into the highest producing factory in the US pumping out over half a million vehicles it did not know that. Also included in the list is a really close friend of ours close friend of asoto. We were all up in his Subaru store. Greg Co Co senior, this yoka dealers Founder CEO group in Philadelphia greater Philadelphia area, pushing forward this year with eight plus acquisitions. He stated plans to double his store count to 50 from 25 to 50. And last year when he was announced as being number 83. On Automotive News, top 150 dealers, he had revenue reported revenue of 1.1 billion in 2022. So one year later, he's at like 2 billion.

Kyle Mountsier  06:05

Also, I have it on really, really strong authority because I was standing there when he said it to me that he's now officially announced that he's going to go from 50 to 100. So watch out everybody. Yeah, he is. He tell you that dichotomy of difference in personalities between Elon Musk and Greg, Jr. on the Automotive News? Oh,

Paul Daly  06:28

soon. You're absolutely sublime.

Kyle Mountsier  06:30

Yeah, sorry. It's sublime.

Paul Daly  06:34

make you mad, just sit with us to this was the okay. So he would just tell it like it is all day long. But he's got that smile and you kind of like even if he tells you like the truth that hurts a little bit. You're like, yeah, he's kind of right. Also, today's we just mentioned our auto collabs guests. CEO of tech startup UVI 37 year old Amir, I don't know if it's Heever or however he v er. He basically transitioned the vehicle image scanning company that originally started to detect bombs underneath vehicles that like embassies and stuff to now kind of like a staple in service to automotive. We talked about it in the podcast today. It's a it's an amazing story. But now he got the award for like bringing this technology into service drives that scans the vehicle when it comes in and can detect like tire wear oil leaks, all kinds of things that could be wrong. Shanelle service advisors can suggest relevant and necessary service, right. So it's a win for everybody talking about revolutionising the industry as a lot of OEM partnerships. Auction partnerships, like those guys are just getting started. And finally, last one I mentioned and then we can just jam on it for a minute. Joe Manchin, West Virginia Senator got on the list for basically aggressive aggressively and successfully pushing to bring Evie related manufacturing back to the US. He was not willing. He was the kind of the holdout of the Democratic Party and said, No, I'm not going to prove this. Don't tell me that we can't get manufacturing back in the US. Don't tell me we can't be more energy reliant. So for all those factories going up there. I don't know. This is like Joe Manchin, gets a spot on this list

Kyle Mountsier  08:12

list, deservedly so because with the acceleration of everything happening in Asia and the changes in the Evie market there and being able to bring manufacturing to the US and we've already seen in the first like, couple months since that happening, new plants either being announced or broken ground on a big deal. Yeah,

Paul Daly  08:33

no doubt. Well, speaking of new Evie entrants breaking ground in the United States of America, segway I like to swing for the fences. This is a good one new Vietnamese Evie maker vinfast. We've talked about them before they just shipped their first batch of vehicles to the US on a company owned ship. The ship is awesome. It just says like Barnes is getting MASL and so they shipped 999 vehicles apparently, that is the luckiest number in Vietnamese culture. So the ship actually holds can hold 2000 They said 999 and they're going to be the first deliveries to customers who have pre ordered. Also some of them will be delivered to evey subscription startup autonomy, as you know, may know founded by Scott painter also founder of a little company called True car and little company called fair you know a quarter companies according to the company's female CEO, boy, lengthy to toy I actually looked up the pronouncing pronunciation to try to do it some respect. The second shipment I don't even know what the like Toy means. Water. No, I know this. I did research early Monday. The second shipment of their VFA VFA crossover could be as early as January. Interestingly enough, it's a $42,000 mid size crossover. This if you don't want the if you don't want the battery. Yeah, but if you want the battery, it's $1,000 but also this company is pioneering a battery subscription, they save the money by the car and rent the battery. So you don't have to worry about the battery don't have to worry about battery life. You know, it's it's on the company to maintain a proper properly functioning battery. So I think it's a pretty interesting play.

Kyle Mountsier  10:18

I mean, for $169 a month for the style, what you pay for a phone, and now you get a full battery in a car. Okay,

Paul Daly  10:29

I get it. I understand. I'll take it. That is pretty. Yeah, very interesting. I mean, to circle back to the beginning of the story, like the company is not manufacturing anything in the US, they actually said, the inflation Reduction Act credits and all that surprise them. However, they were already moving to build a plant in North Carolina, slated to open in 2024. They're about five months behind on their plans, but they're moving forward. The battery subscription, right, like we've talked about this before having the battery being the critical and kind of elusive material. When you're leasing a battery, you know, who owns it actually owns it,

Kyle Mountsier  11:04

like the longtime range anxiety, of like a decreased range based on my battery Half Life is that that getting rid of that, for me, is an accelerant to a purchase process, like quicker leasing the or even purchase because now I don't have to worry, like now I can purchase because now I can't don't have to worry about the battery. I think that that's a big deal. I also think that like recognizing that if we're building the technology inside the vehicle, to to house like software updates and the ability to continually flex based on what battery we have in it and the capacity of that battery, you have, like you have like the perfect marriage, I was actually reading something over the weekend, where the lines of code of a vehicle setup for any sort of autonomous driving will have over it was like over nine times the amount of lines of code of a tip, typical iPhone. So the difference between like 30 to 60 million lines of code to 800 million lines of

Paul Daly  12:15

code. Wow, almost, we're approaching a billion lines of code. Isn't that nuts

Kyle Mountsier  12:21

that is on so yeah, figure out the battery, you take care that I'll just keep driving sound good? Well, I

Paul Daly  12:28

mean, part of that is the financing. Like what's the depreciation curve on a battery versus the vehicle, it'd be interesting to see how it might be easier to finance the vehicle without the battery, right knowing. But then again, like is the vehicle useless? If the what happens if you don't pay your battery subscription? Your credit card associated with that is our credit card vehicles, the battery will stop, you know, stop delivering charging three. It's a brave new world. But it's just an interesting development. And we'll we'll see how it goes. I love it when people try new things that that actually makes some sense, right? They're not just throwing it against the wall. It's like it actually makes some sense. So it'd be fun to see how this new player pans out how the American market responds to it. And, you know, I think that there's a big opportunity for vinfast to to partner with some US dealers to help service and maintain these vehicles. Oh, boy, do I have a Tesla service story that's not in the show that I can't talk down. We're gonna talk about Tesla, sir. We'll talk about it later this week on the podcast talking about later this week. Better. Third one this? Yeah. Oh, there goes just hey, we were off for a few days.

Kyle Mountsier  13:40

After I wiped through in my introduction story. I was like, yeah,

Paul Daly  13:44

the world stop movie. We're only at 13 minutes, though. We're still doing it. We're doing good. All right. I don't know. How do we segue like Fridays we have about Black Friday, of course. Segway. So Black Friday sees both increased foot traffic is of 2.9% this year in physical stores as well as record online sales all time record at 9.1 billion. This is in spite of consumer stated concerns about the economy surveys are showing that 60 plus percent of Americans actually said they that they're concerned about the economy effected their spending decisions on Black Friday, yet, spending is still up the previous record was 9.1 2 billion in 2020. It dipped down a little bit to 8.9 billion in 2021. And now it's back up above the 2020 high some of that could be because of inflation. But you know, according to Adobe analytics, electronic sales alone, we're up to under 21% over an average October day, with the top sellers being get ready ready for a surprise Apple products. Drones Oh x, x Xbox series X and games like FIFA 23 is probably gonna have a really great year right over the holidays and the World Cup and all that had just come and also some pokeymon paraphernalia now. I was out I think, actually I didn't go out on Black Friday, but we did go to the mall as the family. The Daly family has not gone to the mall to like shop and have something in a long time. And you went on Black Friday. No, no, no. We went on Saturday. We went on set. No, no, no. We have standards Kyle. Covering on Friday. Yeah, no, we went on Saturday. And I was I have to say it was the first time the mall felt Christmassy in a really really really long time.

Kyle Mountsier  15:33

Really? You know, it was really surreal. So speaking of malls, I so I was in Ohio Cincinnati where my wife and my family both live. And like the mall growing up living there and middle school high school was Tri County Mall. And we went to a movie over near there. Literally this massive I mean ginormous mall that you used to not even be able to get in and out of starting November 1 is shut down all wow and large restaurant how ridiculous the dichotomy of like foot traffic up put malls didn't make it and Bob

Paul Daly  16:12

that one didn't make it it's almost like if they made it they made it around here in Syracuse area we have three we only have one now. The nicest biggest one has all kinds of but there's so much entertainment in the mall. Right another big difference. A big part of the mall is like restaurants and like Dave and Busters and

Kyle Mountsier  16:30

you know get air the trampoline park. All the national malls are they're all centered around entertainment or having a having some sort of like movie theater attached to it right? Oh, yeah. And I like that foot traffic. So I will say you know, the inflation is up 8% We're only up to point one 2.9% Or to the math carry the one do the math carry the one it's not. It's not perfect, but just the increased foot traffic. Every single deal that I'm seeing posting or text messages that I've got over the weekend is like oh, boy, a boy. We're good day. So I'm, I'm pumped going into December I think I think December in automotive could could be a really, really big winner.

Paul Daly  17:11

So I'm hoping for a big wonderful. I am to a speaking of big winner. I'm not gonna hit the trend. But as we kind of ramp out today, urine extravaganza is happening. We will have more details now that we're coming in. Definitely on Tuesday, December 20 is the 21st 20th 20th December 20 market counter right now over your calendar app. cember 20th. Tuesday be like you're an extravaganza what's it going to be 2pm 2pm

Kyle Mountsier  17:37

one central to two to

Paul Daly  17:39

four Eastern, put on your calendar now. So you remember so you can be there. We got a lot of work to do today. We have a lot of news to catch up on. But we'll be ready for so whatever you're doing today, lean back in, shake off the Thanksgiving turkey, whatever. We got five weeks left in 2022

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