Massive Movement in Top 150, Tesla Ups and Downs, GM Killing CarPlay

Paul Daly: 0:32Right q1 is over q2 starts today we're talking about massive movement in automotive uses top 150 dealers, Tesla ups and downs and GM killing CarPlay the people really want to get these third stories, man. Do we need to do the other? We need to ramp it up. Now we get in trouble.

‍Kyle Mountsier: 0:55

There's like 87 articles about automotive news top 150 And we're going to be the ones that talk about GM killing our car plane. Let's go

Paul Daly: 1:03

talk about the top 152 Look, it's a massive week Colin, I woke up with our running shoes on this morning. We're both wheels up for Arlington, Texas today. Today, we will be in Arlington, Texas, by late afternoon, actually. So we're going to be in dealerships all day on Tuesday, filming our TV show kind of thing. We'll tell you more about that in a bit. And then Wednesday is a Soto live tonight. Please join

us Wednesday night 6: 1:29

30pm. Eastern. If you're in the Arlington, Texas area you can get there. Go to a so two x.com right now and get a ticket and show up and hang out with us. Because we're bringing the band from Nashville, we're bringing the whole thing we got a bunch of dealers lined up, we have a workshop, a back to basics workshop taught by Todd Caputo beforehand. And if you can't make it out to Arlington, at least you can join us from the live stream of the tonight show

6: 1:55

30pm You go to a Soto x.com. Again, get on the live stream, join us gather your family around the Smart TV and we're going to have a whole bunch of fun as an industry. And it's only Monday.

Kyle Mountsier: 2:04

Speaking of fun, oh, but we had a whole bunch of fun on Saturday. And if you get our daily email and you get to Saturday, recharge 99.9% of the things that happened in the Saudi email were obviously a little bit of an April Fool's love thing. And if you saw the Darren gassing you might have made it through at least half of it and thought you were still listening to something real. I apologize.

Paul Daly: 2:27

I don't. I know. That was one of the best April Fool's scripts we could ever imagine. And Darren don't just did a quintessential job. You know, it's funny that we didn't even do that as an April Fool's joke. We recorded that back in like November, Dan was like, let's just do it, do a show and just see what happens, right? And he just starts doing all this hilarious thing. Like he's a big auto executive buy in stores like crazy. And then, you know, our team just kept it in the hopper. And then when April 1 came around, they were like, We know exactly, exactly which direction we're going. Speaking of things going in a direction. A good way. Wait for this every year this year is Automotive News, top 150 lists have seen some massive movement from overall market share at the top groups, several groups who are screaming up the list and some who have dropped off the list. After here's the big deal, right after a quarter of a century rain quarter of a century at the top of the list. Wow. Yeah, auto nation has lost the top spot, too. We all know who it is to lift the so Lithia claimed the top spot they went up 4.2% in new vehicle sales to up to about 271,000 audit group. The and a way to have my stat automation actually dropped 12% to 229. So lithium is acquisition aggressively, you know, they made it to the top of the list. So the six publicly traded groups on list this is interesting, saw their collective new car sales increased no supply there. But now they're just accounting for a larger and larger market share percentage wise as they go up. So like the consolidation,

Kyle Mountsier: 4:07

real things, consolidation, yep, all of that.

Paul Daly: 4:11

So here here, there are 10 groups, and we got some friends on this list, which is why we do talk about this when there are 10 dealers who climbed the most. The shot and Kirk Automotive Group was number one, as far as the most they've climbed. They climbed to number 99 Jumping 56 spots. The number three store the number three on that list is the CEO car dealerships who is now number 83. They jumped 32 spots last year, I texted Mr. C this morning. Um, he's ready to go. He's he's ready for number 25 He's like, let's just blow past 50 He's like I'm looking at 25 Also, we have some friends at Cavinder auto family jumped 18 spots number 57. And also got a couple a couple of relationships over at Del Grande dealer also jumped 18 spots.

Kyle Mountsier: 4:54

Yeah, Digi Digi with Gary Beaver and Nathan Hollenbeck. Both so you know both. So do fake falls in, we'll be actually hanging out with, with Jeremy here in just a couple of months at the Reuters conference. So it'd be cool to talk to him about what, what they've done and how they're how they're challenging things. So, you know,

Paul Daly: 5:11

we're featuring your Cavinder Auto Group. Eric Barbosa is going to be on the show on Wednesday,

Kyle Mountsier: 5:15

man, we're just all in the mix all in the mix. Yeah, so And interestingly enough, the top 150 and 23% of the overall of all US dealerships up a little bit from 2021. The other quite crazy fact is they also contribute to over 50% of the total vehicle sales for the nation. So yeah, just when you think about consolidation, the the, the top is getting bigger,

Paul Daly: 5:45

not when 50 is out. Did you say over 50% in the top 1% of

Kyle Mountsier: 5:49

new vehicle sales out in that wild? greenness? Here's, here's the anecdotal, anecdotal, because we're on LinkedIn. Apparently, in order to actually be on the top 150 list, you have to reply to the email that lets you be on the PR thing. And tell everyone exactly. No, no, no, that's

Paul Daly: 6:09

for best places to work. Ah,

Kyle Mountsier: 6:12

oh, I got you. That was mad.

Paul Daly: 6:13

I know. I know exactly what you're talking about. Well, well, that's coming out next, right, the best places to work in automotive. And if you don't reply to that email. That's true. That's true. You ain't getting on the list. I know exactly where you're going with that. But I was like, What is he going to say? So what met last year from Westar was like, hey, just so you know, we're still at the very top of that list. We just did reply to the email that's quintessential last year. So So, so yeah, it's a congratulations to all those who are moving up that list. You know, it just like biggest doesn't necessarily mean you're the best, but the biggest, obviously, you're doing a lot of things, right? Especially the people that are screaming up the list. And that is this combination of, you know, if I'm thinking of just the ones that we have relationship, and we know, combination of company culture, technology, and paying attention to the customer experience, like I mean, they seem like no brainers but I mean, when you think of those groups, Kyle, that's like,

Kyle Mountsier: 7:12

that's what they're doing. Yep, for sure. For sure. Okay, screaming up lists. Segway.

Paul Daly: 7:22

Alright, Tesla has reported a 36%, q1 over q1 growth. So q1 2022 versus q1 2023 Tesla jump 36% delivering a record 422,875 vehicles globally? You know, do they say largely to their recent recent strategic price cuts? 97% of all those vehicles sold? This is crazy to me. We're either model threes, or model wise 97%.

Kyle Mountsier: 7:53

Isn't that wild? Showing that like people are interested in a certain price range of vehicle most likely or a certain type of vehicle? Yeah, I mean, you start getting into those higher price range, and they only they only attribute 3% of Tesla sales. That's wild.

Paul Daly: 8:08

I know you think that who wants that? $110,000 Model X, right? Not. So they top their fourth, this q1 2023 beat their q4 deliveries by 4%. But however, we're gonna say analysts still expect them to actually deliver more vehicles. Wall Street expects their first quarter profits to slide. But Tesla is saying like, hey, like the price cuts were intentional. We are definitely seeing increased demand for a product. And they are saying we're going to deliver 1.8 billion vehicles this year, which is 37% more than they did last year. So I mean, they're obviously figuring out the supply game. And they're making some vehicles getting close to 2 million next year. Important point and

Kyle Mountsier: 8:53

it's got to be tough to continually increase your percentages by that much and for investors to be like that.

Paul Daly: 9:02

That mother from what is that Despicable Me every time we did something great the moms like Max like it built a rocket ship. The company also did say that due to the new tax, credit, federal Evie tax credit rules that are going to be reinterpreted or kind of like really put in place in q2, that $7,500 credit that all of those model three and model Y purchasers are able to take advantage of they won't be able to get the full $7,500 credit I'll probably be likely behalf because of the way you know mining battery materials and kind of how all that shakes out but that's a different story

Kyle Mountsier: 9:38

for Yeah, if you're interested in kind of the bullet points on that our writing team did a great job at lining out exactly what the regulations that came out late last week are set in stone now and what they're gonna be bringing so both price point and household income are factors to that. And so that's what Paul's talking about is just how much of that 7500 Are people going to be able to take advantage of is that going to move them to other makes models because of affordability. We'll see.

Paul Daly: 10:04

Not Joe Manchin has anything to say about it. Okay, speaking of things that two guys on this show have a lot to say about this. The whole show has been the build up to this moment,

Kyle Mountsier: 10:19

cleared out, cleared out. GM thought they could get one biased by releasing this information late on a Friday drive were wrong. GM has been working with Google since 2019. To develop integrated software for its for its operating system, its OS, and they have announced drumroll please. But EVs will support the popular Apple CarPlay starting is that April Fool's Day for Chevy Blazer, look at that literally, out of way, the April Fool's thing, but they did it one day too early. Unbelievable. Basically, what's going to happen is they're going to be faced with the choice to use the vehicle system only sync their Android phones, or Google black back to Bluetooth. Only used to get calls by vehicle speak

Paul Daly: 11:06

starting starting with the new Blazer 2024 blazer, which is going to be coming out any minute. So dude, I don't even know how to start it. Now. I'm

Kyle Mountsier: 11:15

kind of speechless.

Paul Daly: 11:16

I thought I was gonna have a lot of okay, well, because you did have a lot of words. So here's the deal. Apple has 46 plus percent of the US phone market. And you know, when those users get in this car and are considering this Evie purchase, it's going to spread like wildfire that you can't use Apple CarPlay. And you have to use a Google thing. And can I imagine the Reddit threads on this, and they're going to fire up. But let me say this because we've said this, and we were recently right when it came to OnStar. We said, mark our words on the automotive troublemaker, that this decision will be reversed. And they're gonna figure out a way because I just don't understand. I don't know if this was something to do like Google's requirement, or GM is partnership and everyone felt good. And this is going to come out. We think that this is going to be met with a significant backlash, that's going to affect sales, we think dealers are going to get involved and having a voice into this. Because it just seems like a really, really ill advised decision and just not I mean, not because we're engineers, but because we're consumers, and we are paying attention to what consumers want.

Kyle Mountsier: 12:23

I'll tell you what I can tell you this from a a website that I helped manage, is that the searches in the search bar for Apple CarPlay as compared to Google, like whatever they call right like people want to see. Auto. Yeah, no, nobody searches Android Auto. Everybody searches Apple CarPlay in the search bar. So you want to know what people like. And not just that, but but people with Apple expect connectivity. They expect it.

Paul Daly: 12:53

I'm sure Kyle's gonna mistake and I'm sure the car is so good. It's so cool. Andrei is so good that people are going back you know what?

Kyle Mountsier: 13:01

I don't just go back to regular old Bluetooth syncing up wind noise going everywhere.

Paul Daly: 13:10

Man, well, yeah, I decided to give it would just give it to you straight on a Monday morning. All right. Please go to a Soto x.com Make sure you you get click on the link so you can join us on the live stream or in person in Arlington, Texas.

‍