Stanton Fumes, Ford Employee Purchase, Cybertruck Rescued

Paul J Daly: 0:31

Yo, what's up? Wednesday? Lucky 13 December 13. We got a couple of things to talk to you Mike. Stan got, I think really upset over this one. We're also going to talk about Ford stocks and the cybertruck being rescued. People really want to know who it is how's that for anticipation? Why is Mike Stan angry? TheK

yle Mountsier: 0:52

stuff that makes them wait Paul? Give them we could

Paul J Daly: 0:55

go I mean, we could sometimes I think maybe we should go more sensational in some of our copy and texts because it seems to be working in some other places. You know, we've always focused on substance but maybe you know, maybe a little sensationalism too bad right? Especially if you have the substance to back it up. Right? Because you don't want to be click baby. Yeah, right. You know, the real substance. I mean, listen, wait, you wait, wait till we tell you how Mad Mike Stanton is alright, let's talk about this mess.

Kyle Mountsier: 1:25

That's for sure.

Paul J Daly: 1:28

Oh, good morning everybody on live stream Adrienne coming in first comment if you didn't know on LinkedIn, we live stream this show. We know a lot of you just listen to the audio version. We also live streaming on LinkedIn YouTube, and there's always this competition for who gets the first comment today and pretty frequent winners Adrienne wall Gibbs. Just saying good morning on the live stream and Brian Ortega. He was sleeping yesterday but here he is he's in the fight. Jacksonville is up in here. Ortega does no sensational.

Kyle Mountsier: 1:55

Every single Brian Ortega video, you know what sensational means? Exactly. Oh,

Paul J Daly: 2:00

man. Well, speaking of sensation. We're just gonna do half segue there we do every year and extravaganza coming up. Just about a week, December 21, Thursday, LinkedIn live event, go to LinkedIn page searches. So or just go to a sotu.com There's a banner up top, it'll get you right there. Live, you're an extravaganza, it's gonna we're gonna have guests and Christmas trees. And some other fun surprises. This is our third one. So I think we're just getting warmed up. But we know how to put on one of these things. And it's much better when you're there in the comments with all the other people in the comments, because that's probably where the real entertainment happened.

Kyle Mountsier: 2:35

Oh, it's so much fun. Yeah, just the interaction between the community because I like that's what I can never get over is the fact that uh, so do really becomes a community when it gathers around anything, whether it be the content or the events or anything like that. And so the extravaganza is one of those unique events. You should be there. Yeah, yeah. ASOTU.com Scroll down, boom, right there.

Paul J Daly: 2:54

Boop, boop, boop. Speaking of today, we have a webinar going on at 1pm. Eastern, you can still join, you can still sign up for it. It's with our friends at upstart transforming warming car buying the power of connected auto retailing. Quick Shot 2030 minutes, Kyle and I will be there will be kind of curating the conversation, taking questions, bringing out the insights, you can also go to a soda.com. Just scroll a little bit, you'll see the webinar, sign up you're in. We hope to see you there. Because these are always so much fun. It's so much fun, more fun than a regular old 55 minute webinar, where you fall asleep halfway

Kyle Mountsier: 3:28

in and out. Let's go. Alright, let's

Paul J Daly: 3:31

talk about some news. Because that's kind of what we do here on the show. All right, here we go. Let's talk about Mike Stanton. And his frustrations. We'll call them. The FTC finalized a new rule yesterday targeting deceptive car buying practices, including the junk fees, misleading promises. And look, this this could really transform they want to transform the automotive landscape. I don't think it's in the way that they think it's going to transform the automotive landscape. But it's gonna it's gonna head that way in June of July of 2024. For better or worse, the rule is set to go into effect on July 30. Requires transparent pricing prohibits non beneficial add ons, as they say, such as things like if you buy us a big maintenance package that has oil changes in it, but you bought an Eevee even if that's bundled in with a bunch of other benefits. They're like that doesn't work, or things like selling nitrogen and tires, especially if the composition of the air you're putting in the tires doesn't have more nitrogen than normal air. Those seem like you know, when they put those out front you're like, yeah, those scumbags why would they ever sell me that it's so much more complex than that? What they're, you know, their goal is to protect consumers particularly have some special provisions for service members from deceptive practices, which they say cost consumers $3.4 billion annually. NADA is obviously criticizing the rule for adding complexity, increasing compliance cost, and also for not giving this a fair chance. Like to like let's test some of these things out. Let's have a long discussion about them, as opposed to just jamming them through which is I think the biggest point of the whole push back on it, the Center for Automotive Research suggests these things could add as much as two hours to the transaction time of buying a car. Wow FTC saying this is going to save three hours, it's going to actually reduce the transaction time by three hours. I don't even know how to understand

Kyle Mountsier: 5:18

how they come up with those numbers. How are three or four pieces of paper going to add two hours to the transaction time and more? How are you going to reduce three hours? thing that is two and a half hours right now, I won't understand the logic here. We're gonna read

Paul J Daly: 5:34

Mike Stanton's comment, where he has an idea of how the FTC came up with these numbers buried in this comment. The same study from the Automotive Research Center for Automotive Research suggests dealers will face 18 to $22 billion in extra compliance costs over the next decade according as a result of the rule, far exceeding the agency's estimate of 1.3 to 1.5 billion. So if you're doing the math there, that's like 15 times 15x Oh, here we go. Mike, Stan, you can decide whether or not he's angry or not. He said on Tuesday. This regulation is heavy handed bureaucratic overreach and redundancy at its worst that will needlessly lengthen the car sales process by forcing new layers of disclosures and complexity into the transaction. here's the here's the one. The FTC made up data to support its claims, then rejected calls to slow the process down and test the effectiveness of its proposal with real consumers. We're exploring all options on how to keep this ill conceived rule from taking effect. I don't know how do you think he's upset?

Kyle Mountsier: 6:38

I think he's upset. And also like, anytime you're claiming that the FCC FTC has made up data. Wow, that's a that's a pretty bold claim. You know, here's, like, here's my level headed approach to this. First, we did it to ourselves. As an industry, we have brought this rule upon ourselves. Second, the vast majority of dealers are already complying with a large swath of the what this ruling entails, like they are clearly and transparently presenting prices online, providing products that are actually a value to a consumer in the vehicle that you're purchasing. And not, and don't have ridiculous add ons. There's no consumer that wants any of those things to be that way. So as a like, large, like overarching goal and target rule, I think that this does a lot of good for consumers, and elevates the best of the dealers out there that are already complying with the majority of these rules. So like, just my plain opinion is like, why wouldn't you want to comply with something that's better for the consumer? Now, the long tail of what are the things that inhibit the process of a car sale? What are the things that they don't understand and relationship between OEM and dealer and pricing rules and the way that people can click to get a price verse, what's available via the manufacturer approved pricing? How our current f&i providers structured to provide aftermarket products that may or may not include things and what dependencies are going to be outside of the dealer's control that relates this, there's just a massive amount of complexity that goes into a car deal that over a six month timeline is going to be extremely hard to overcome, and is going to take a ton of retooling from not just dealers, but more importantly, the partners that support the transaction process. And so you know, it puts the let's just call it the let's let's even just call it like split the difference. $12 billion onus on the dealers when a lot of this relies on their partners and and the inability both from the OEM and the tech partners to support what the what's going on here. And it gives unfair advantage to some of the new entrants that are going to direct to consumer and I would watch out for OEMs to go hey, look, we're just gonna solve this on our own. That's my that's my tack by the two minutes you just in a lot, but like it's just too complex to read.

Paul J Daly: 9:12

I think that's the bottom line. It's a very complex situation. In the end, I think everyone agrees they want the consumer to understand what they're buying. Yep. Well, and quickly and upfront. And if you don't, it's because you're trying to play a little three card monte. Right, which is back to your very first statement. That's the reason that this rule has just gained steam and momentum. So the best dealers out there are fighting back. We're trying to help you fight back by making it better, faster, changing the perception and look, this is this is something we're dealing with, right? We've been talking about this for six months now. This one thing and here it is, and we'll see where it goes. But Mike Stanton, and our friends at NADA are certainly all over

Kyle Mountsier: 9:55

there on it. Speaking of being on it, segue I

Paul J Daly: 10:02

change the energy of the show a little bit. Ford's electric chief vehicle digital and Design Officer recently made the largest nonfamily investment in the company since 2004. When these tracking that began, so maybe longer, purchasing $2 million, personally, a Ford stock, reflecting obviously huge confidence in the automaker future. He's former Tesla. There's another company he used to work with, I can't remember, but he's been around the block Doug field acquired 182,000 shares at $11.05. Each was doubles the $1 million stock purchase by former CEO Jim Farley, when he was just the CEO bought a million dollars back in 2020. Obviously singling optimism, Ford's spokesperson commented on this transaction, Doug has substantial ownership interest in Ford stock, which shows he believes in the company's future verified data, the company notes the purchase is a sign that Ford you know, this confidence from an employee insider confidence that Ford is undervalued. Right, so it'll be interesting to see what the stock does. You know, it's a big deal. I mean, counting dollars of your own money for stock, although down 7% This year, has risen about 45%, since Jim Farley became CEO in 2020, with field playing a very key role in vehicle services and technology and certainly the direction of the company moving forward. Yeah, it's

Kyle Mountsier: 11:21

really I mean, to watch to watch a high ranking employee buy a whole bunch of stock personally, and not from some sort of fun is interesting. Obviously, they're stuck in his comp plan, which means if you have an undervalued stock and you purchase a bunch of it, and there's perceived raised in raise in value, you can see the remaining amount of your stock options, which is probably in your comp plan go up. But also it exudes a lot of confidence. And so there's there's both sides of the coin to this. And I'm, I'm pumped because I'm like, Alright, if he's ready, if he's if he's seen if he's seen the light through all of the turbulence and the Eevee side of stuff that we've seen in the last two months, then the old way, like, let's go, here we go.

Paul J Daly: 12:05

Speaking of Ford and confidence, segue in the same sentence.

Kyle Mountsier: 12:12

So a Twitter user captured a Tesla cybertruck failed attempt to climb a snowy hill, requiring his rescue rescue by his friends get this Ford superduty racing cars about the off road capabilities of a cybertruck. And of course, slightly embarrassing the new vehicle. We've got, we've got the video. It's just a little bit, you see that?

Paul J Daly: 12:35

The Tesla's just so many questions when I see this video. And so like

Kyle Mountsier: 12:41

more questions about the driver, they're just

Paul J Daly: 12:43

listening. You're watching the vehicle and probably a 15 to 20% incline of packed down snow, which seems a little bit more like ice with a Christmas tree in the back. And it's just spinning its wheels going forward a couple inches sliding back going forward. It's probably how far from the road 15 feet from the road? Yep,

Kyle Mountsier: 13:00

not far at all. Yeah. Okay, so I mean, that the Twitter post did say the driver didn't air down the tires, which typically would be something that you would do if you were in one of these trucks in deep snow or ice a little bit more traction, right if you if you really knew what you were doing in the thing you know, that they didn't show everything but it was clear that there's a good chance that the low end weight of that vehicle was making it very very hard for him to

Paul J Daly: 13:30

get I think the weight might fix that one a little bit. Also notice there are no tow hit like toe hooks or recovery points on the vehicle at all. And now this was one of the candidates it was a release candidate which is why it's got the big RC on the side door so it wasn't like a production model maybe they added those but yeah, like you know those little hooks under your car like if you can't know I mean so I think they actually had a hook onto like the control arms which doesn't sound very great for the truck mag grayed out but if you look at the situation, I think this is operator error like there's no way they should have gone down that slope to pick up a Christmas tree trying to be all cute and fancy they did it to themselves because I don't know that the Super Duty would have made it up that incline either without Aaron down the tires or

Kyle Mountsier: 14:13

spit it's still funny and we're still going to see more absolute more tiktoks about and Twitter videos about cybertruck Can't wait for the next one. Hey, if they're hating

Paul J Daly: 14:21

on you just means you're probably doing something wrong. That's usually how it goes. Oh, well we hope we don't get hope people are hating on you but we hope you're doing a lot right today. We know one of those things is focusing on the people side of your business and understanding that is what makes the profitability difference and then we will have to worry about rules anymore.