OEM Meeting Notes, Drivers Switch Brands, Southwest Crams

Paul J Daly: 0:32

Good morning. It's Wednesday, everyone on the East Coast is finally starting to feel normal after the NADA show, at least I mean me. Today we're talking about meetings, a note from the OEM meetings, drivers switching brands and southwest cramming people into planes. Adrian, Adrian Gibbs first comments today, it was so

‍Kyle Mountsier: 0:58

good to see here this last one,

Paul J Daly: 1:00

it was to live up to the meetup because it was such a long time coming.

Kyle Mountsier: 1:06

So good like I am. The thing that gets me at NADA is when I just get to hug the next people I don't get to see all year because like my my friends, my family, our auto, you know, that's who I spend on like with you. And with everybody else. It's like, that's who you're on the phone with that. So you're on Zoom calls with. That's the relationships that you're building. And so to get everyone back together, it's just so good. I can't get over it. And it's Wednesday. Oh,

Paul J Daly: 1:32

Marco totally started with me. Good to see you, as well comment on the live stream. Hey, if you just listen to the podcast, we also live stream this every morning on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube. And there's people who like to chime in the comments. So if you haven't checked out the live stream, check it out some time. Also, if you watch the live stream, you should go over to Spotify or Apple Music or both. And subscribe. Troublemaker and just subscribe leave a comment. Let people know how you feel about the show. It helps us get the show in front of more people. But yeah, I agree with you, Kyle. It's like I have I have friends here in town in Syracuse, but I have so many more friends that aren't in town. And I when you see people it's like it never stopped. You just kind of keep rolling. It's a pretty amazing thing. Like I can

Kyle Mountsier: 2:17

see Glen patch three times a year and it's like oh wait, it feels like we're just hanging out last week hanging out every day. That's mainly because it's Glen passion. He just feels that way but you know, that replicates across a bunch of people. Yes. Hey,

Paul J Daly: 2:29

97 days from now we will all be together in person in Baltimore for a soda con. We hope that you can be there with us we're going to have 650 of our closest friends all together in one place. May 14 through 17th Make sure you go to a soda con.com Get your tickets now we have massive early bird discount going on right now that's about to change shortly. So now's your time to get it we have people asking if you can buy tickets yes you can. We only have a handful the speakers who are going to be there up on the site, but they are up on the site. One of the best or one of the most notable anyways, we'll get Dara, author of unreasonable hospitality. This book right here. Read it twice, two

Kyle Mountsier: 3:13

more posts about it yesterday on the old LinkedIn it was Whoa,

Paul J Daly: 3:17

LinkedIn. So New York Times bestselling author read the book, you'll be inspired by it. You're certainly be inspired when you hear him speak and get to meet him live at a soda con. So go get your tickets to soda con.com. And we'll get to be together and like in person for real for real. I think that's all for the announcements that I didn't do it. All right. So if you didn't know at the NADA show, they have what we call make meetings, all the OEMs have their individual meetings are closed just for dealers only where they talk about their strategies. They talk about maybe some issues they're having and try to inspire the dealer body for the vision going into 2024. So their top we're gonna go over the top five make meetings to give you a peek into the roadmap, as some key strategies and challenges were revealed from Subarus production come back to Ford's Evie Transition Plans are changing a little bit. So here we go. We'll give you the rundown Subaru dealers are celebrating a big rebound in inventory alongside electrification plans with Toyota. They expect to sell 680,000 units this year now that they figured out all the chip shortage and all that stuff, which will be their best sales year after 2019 after which they sold 700,000 units. So here's a quote from one Subaru executive. He said 2024 looks bright as we resolve past challenges and move forward with our electrification journey. Ford talked about dealer concern,

Kyle Mountsier: 4:36

electrification journey, Ford addressed

Paul J Daly: 4:40

dealer's concerns. There's a lot of them going around right now promising improvements in evey certification and dealer relationships with CEO Jim Farley. You know, committing to give to having some direct feedback sessions stating we're committed to smoothing out the bumps in the Eevee transition together while Elena Ford yes Ford great great granddaughter of founder, Henry Ford, who is now the chief dealer engagement officer. She basically talked about falling dealer satisfaction scores and said, I know you're not feeling great right now. And I'm here to fix it.

Kyle Mountsier: 5:14

It's a big statement. Hey, look, I'm proud of her for at least stating the truth. Right? Yes. On, you know, they directly talked about the Eevee certification, and how what the cost of it is I was talking to Brian Finkel, Mike Meyer at Cox automotive yesterday, and he was mentioning that, you know, a lot of dealers that he was talking to NADA, were spending anywhere between 250 and $500,000 on EB certification, EB Rampa, you know, building projects to return an average gross profit of negative $14 per evey unit. So, you know, these dealerships aren't SAS companies, they can't start to have a burn multiple on their Eevee investment. You know, that's a

Paul J Daly: 5:59

good one burned multiple and Evie investment. Put that on a t shirt. A Hyundai is reporting success, obviously talking about their partnership with Amazon saying we're rolling with this partnership. It's going good. You know, and they're emphasizing dealer involvement. In this path forward. CEO Jose Munoz remarked, our partnership with Amazon is just the beginning of redefining car buying so obviously going into that but with all the agency stuff behind us now he's like we need dealer involvement. It's about time that came around. Chevy is looking to attract a lot of new customers to the brand talking about their upcoming Evie lineup, including the equinox and Silverado. You know, Evie adoption, we'll see Scott Bell, VP of Chevrolet Express. Our new EVs represent a gateway to introduce Chevrolet to a whole new audience.

Kyle Mountsier: 6:51

I feel like it's this is like a read the room moment. You know what I mean?

Paul J Daly: 6:58

Like camera on the speaker camera on the faces, right? Like, guys,

Kyle Mountsier: 7:03

we might want to talk about how we're not going to bring more EVs to you. Yeah, the next well, that's kind

Paul J Daly: 7:08

of afford that's what Ford did. Right? That's true. That's right. Ford Ford took their knocks early, and we'll see if Chevy learns anything from them or, or doesn't. Finally, Nissan is aiming for a US retail share of 6.1% with a Ford Focus on affordability and strategic incentives, riding on the success of their most successful models, like the Nissan Sentra, and the kicks, that's plural. Julie will Judy Wheeler Misiones Nissan's division, VP emphasized affordability and value will be our key drivers in reaching our ambitions have ambitious goals. Nissan obviously is picking up more steam than than they had been planning on so yeah,

Kyle Mountsier: 7:46

Sunday, everybody, we're going to be cheap. Yeah, people

Paul J Daly: 7:49

aren't gonna be able to afford our current strategy. I'm gonna buy one

Kyle Mountsier: 7:53

of these things. And that's a that's a big deal right now. I think that's actually probably the cleanest clean gains strategy of a mall. Yeah,

Paul J Daly: 8:00

I mean, we're friends with quite a few Nissan dealers who are doing really well. Yep, do really well as a result. So I guess there's nothing else to say about that. Nothing. Actually, you know, you know, I think actually, this kind of probably ties more into the GM story. So speaking of things that tie into the Chevy part of that segue, got me got me into funny mode on that one. McKinsey survey reveals a significant shift amongst evey customers with nearly 60%, saying they are willing to switch brands for better vehicle connectivity, challenging traditional brand loyalty strategies. So their global survey indicates a strong preference for advanced connectivity features, with a significant portion of customers ready to say we're gonna bounce brands, if we find better connectivity somewhere else in the US 38% of all vehicle buyers in over 55% in China prioritize connectivity over brand. I'll say it again, connectivity over brand CarPlay Chinese automakers lead in integrating connectivity features. So they're already paying Chinese automakers which we haven't seen their vehicles here yet, but they pay a lot of attention to how everything is going to integrate with your phone and your app. Consumers are showing interest in bundled connectivity options, and flexibility of subscription models. So saying we don't want to pay for it all upfront. We want to have the option to opt out if we want. And here's a quote from Ben Ellen Quig, Elon Queeg, senior partner at McKinsey says it's fascinating that you do not see brand loyalty, even on the luxury side when it comes to the ability to offer more excited, connected, exciting connectivity solutions.

Kyle Mountsier: 9:43

Here's here's the reality is the future of car technology, I believe is how much can your phone, control everything that you do in your car because the route of Like everything we do is actually derived in the phone. Yep, it manages our to FA it manages our logins, it manages safe passwords, it manages our preferences across, across everything that's doing, right. So like, think about your phone is the operating it's become the operating system of like the centrality of your technological life. And so why would you as a manufacturer, want to disjoin that from the user, when they get into the car, and I hear all the time, people are like, I look, the first thing I look for is how does the CarPlay or the or the Android show up in the mains in the car system? Without a doubt, first thing I go to? I'm the same way, like how does it sound? How does it feel? Can I click through it?

Paul J Daly: 10:51

I'll tell you what I drove. When I took a trip to Atlanta, late December. And it was dead, by the way between Christmas and New Year's. So I rented like this Audi Q seven for like, 70 bucks a day. It was awesome. And it was the hardest thing to connect my phone to. Worse. I was like, I literally had to sit in the car for like seven or eight minutes. I mean, like, Okay, wait, let me pick it. Oh, I don't have to pair it with. How do I it was it was like probably once you get it all dialed in. It's you know, outies or tech, technically and advanced usually. But yeah, I just wanted to do it easy. And so I don't know, we'll see what happens with the CarPlay thing with GM. I still think they're gonna backpedal on it. Or they've developed some groundbreaking infotainment system based on the Android platform that makes my iPhone awesome in the car.

Kyle Mountsier: 11:39

I mean, it would have to be as good as the Tesla system. And I'm still surprised that Tesla actually hasn't come out with the phone because that's exactly what I think that these operating systems should be. Yeah, the

Paul J Daly: 11:49

Tesla system is good. Speaking of coming out with new things.

Kyle Mountsier: 11:55

You're excited about prioritizing your mobile device. No, I'm so mad at this story. Southwest Airlines is introducing new Ricardo

Paul J Daly: 12:02

that is why I put this one in here because I know you'd have in 2025

Kyle Mountsier: 12:06

design to maximize cabin space on their Boeing 737 Max eight planes, you know, the ones they got, nobody really wants to fly. Nobody wants to fly those right now. signaling a shift towards thinner seating to accommodate more passengers. So today are going to feature this new, thinner, beautiful look at that thing. You can see it on the video, if you're looking at it Recaro seats in 2025. They are aiming for get this efficiency and more passengers per flight. I mean, the only good thing about this whole deal in my personal opinion, this is an opinion piece is that they are adding a new personal device holder in lieu of traditional in flight entertainment system. So you can drop phone or your iPad. Right on the back of the seat. It's got this little flip down.

Paul J Daly: 12:54

There's a charger and every seat, right? Yeah, charge right there. Yeah, it's,

Kyle Mountsier: 12:59

I mean, it basically looks like a slightly elevated Allegiant, Jet Blue, whatever, you know, just got like a little bit more padding on the headrest than then those but it's essentially a piece of cardboard with fake leather on it. Right?

Paul J Daly: 13:15

Like three stacked pieces of cardboard with fake leather. Yes, some some airlines that are going to the seats, actually use the extra space to add premium rows. So you can buy like a Comfort Plus or you know, something with 3435 inches of legroom but not southwest. They're like, Oh, we can fit a whole nother row in there, which are, are the owner of the production company that we use. And that is our partner in the Docu series we make if you haven't seen it go to more than cars.tv The team was with us NADA. He calls southwest affectionately he goes guys let's just face it Southwest is like the public transportation of the skies.

Kyle Mountsier: 13:53

That's exactly right. It is because you get everybody file in find your sheet sit down and get out of here.

Paul J Daly: 13:58

You go on the plane, you look for the least weird person, you sit next to that person, right. And if you're last on the bus, you have to sit next to the weird people center seat with the weird people. That's how it goes. Well. We don't have any weird people in this community, certainly not us. Whatever you're doing today, we hope you remember that this business is so much more than cars. It is about the consumer. It is about your team members about making everyone feel like they're moving forward. We'll see you tomorrow.

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