Stellantis Ghosts Car Shows, More EVs Than ICE for BMW, Meet AX

Paul J Daly: 0:11

Monday Monday, beginning of a new week it is January 14. Today we're talking about the Lance's ghosting car shows more be EVs than ice for BMW and meet the new term as that CX UX

‍Kyle Mountsier: 0:25

Did you say ice?

Paul J Daly: 0:29

We're gonna talk about it is it is like a strange day for Kyle and I because there's snow on the ground in Nashville not

Kyle Mountsier: 0:39

just not just like if you hear something oh yeah no it's like you're working on five and six which is it's not like a little

Paul J Daly: 0:50

Apocalypse Yeah,

Kyle Mountsier: 0:51

I mean just to be let me just clear the air here everybody all right when it snows 567 inches anywhere north of let's call it Cincinnati Ohio which is kind of my like lower barrier for we'll get this fixed right away. Everything shuts down not for one day not for two days like all the teachers in the area are like we get a free week. Easy. We don't have snow days built in like that doesn't exist.

Paul J Daly: 1:19

This isn't this is it? I mean, I remember I grew up in Philly and like, like a couple inches would shut us down obviously I'm in Syracuse now so a foot of snow right like we got church like morning. Literally last week it's no 10 inches and there wasn't even as much as a text message no one said on like, Hey, are we are we gonna postpone service now we're going and so but today Kyle is texting me about this. And I text him a picture of like the sunrising dry roads it's warmer in Syracuse right now. I had some guests come in they flew in last night from Chicago and Detroit and the the one was telling me when the pilot said on the flight fighting last night you're not going to believe this but it's 20 degrees warmer and scary. So I'm in this little sweet spot right now and it's just like hay for once to be the one with the sunshine and no snow on the ground is just a new feeling I don't expect it to come back what a fake what and I mean it's it's also a weird day because oh my goodness Parker a bad well into the show comments and if you don't know Patrick a bad GM Aviva Toyota, his son Parker is probably a soda is number one fan. He actually got a hand delivered like a one of six a soda hat. And so like I hope he's wearing a Parker if you're listening if you're wearing it right now. We're even if you're not, we want you to know that you are our number one fan. There it is. And we just like you a lot too. We have a lot going on this week. We have a new Auto Collabs episode dropping if you've not don't know, Parker's in Tampa for a tournament so he's in fine. He's sunshine. He's wearing the hat. Way to go Parker. We do have a new Auto Collabs episode dropping today Auto Collabs is one of our podcasts where we sit down have a little longer form conversations. Kyle, myself, Michael Cirillo, tomorrow's and here's the title is we're with Karen bird gm of colonial VW Subaru in the Philly area. Go Philly. Tomorrow standard equipment is what it's called tomorrow standard equipment awesome conversation with Karen

Kyle Mountsier: 3:18

puts on a masterclass for approaching challenge it's just that's a great way to put it that's that's really named the

Paul J Daly: 3:24

podcast that masterclass for challenge yeah, that you can go to any podcast platform search Auto Collabs, a UT o c o l l abs and we hope you check that out. Or you'll we'll be posting a lot of clips on our LinkedIn page. You can follow our LinkedIn page out of soda and a lot of good conversations going on there. Yes, three days from now calm. Where are we going to be?

Kyle Mountsier: 3:44

We're going to be in one NADA, which is in Washington DC, it's the Washington area dealers. Big Show there's a whole I mean, a massive show. Apparently, it's one of the biggest shows in the country that is like a lot of people don't know about, but we're going to actually be in on the political day there. And so the public policy, public policy, yep. And so there's going to be a lot of political representation, a lot of OEM representation and we're just gonna have some conversations about like the real stuff that's going on right now can't wait to to be there and share just what's going on

Paul J Daly: 4:17

with the community you crowd for us, right? Got a bunch of legislators some you know, members of the Congress

Kyle Mountsier: 4:23

that have to act like we have ties on you know,

Paul J Daly: 4:26

just a little bit more like an adult. But it's gonna be fun to like show the love people more than you love cars mentality and community to people who may have a perception that isn't the truth. You know, I'm

Kyle Mountsier: 4:37

saying you know, what else?

Paul J Daly: 4:39

Oh, yeah, NADA 17 days

Kyle Mountsier: 4:41

NADA. ASOTU CON coming in had

Paul J Daly: 4:43

all that good stuff. Let's get some news, shall we? Let's do it. All right, as you can think of auto shows, you know, you know it is just a layup. And you are gonna roll right. Certainly while you it's the Lantus scales back it's Auto Show participation dealer. As in North Texas are uniting to showcase vehicles, you know, pooling their resources and making sure Samantha still has a presence at the North Texas Auto Show. So the absence of still answers corporate support means that there will only be Shover models for sale. So obviously not a lot of vehicles that are in conversation like the electric grand 1500 rep and won't be there. Right rarely Gil Chris Gilchrist automotive you know him from his NADA stint along with the North Texas auto dealer association is going to band together to make sure that the brand has a presence there. They are focusing on a fish. So it's the Lantus. Let's talk about this for a second. This is the thing, the Lantis has had an ongoing absence from events like Sema, the LA Auto Show, CES, they haven't been in any of those. They're also pulling out of Superbowl ads this year. And we know some of the most iconic celebs while because they do a really great job. phenomenal job. phenomenal job mate made in Troy is like one of my favorite ads ever. And they're saying they're, you know, they're shifting marketing funds to other places. So, you know, there's a focus on efficiency, the strike did come up a little bit in conversations, but Charlie Gilchrist to saying when dealers think that it's important to be at an auto show, and to be in front of consumers, I think that should tell the OEMs how we feel about auto shows because we as dealers believe we need to have them. It's an efficient spend, he says, because we get a lot of consumers looking and shopping and actually going to buy studies proven that they actually buy vehicles. So I think it's important that we have OEMs there.

Kyle Mountsier: 6:38

That's interesting, because I bet if you surveyed a whole bunch of dealers, there'd be like a varying amount of of, you know, what they think the auto show actually provides. But I mean, I remember we, you know, what we the dealerships that I had in in Nashville, we had to supply the Mazda units for the auto show there. And we also supplied the staff for it. Yeah. And common. It was, yeah, they didn't, because they didn't like Mazda wasn't participating. But they kind of gave us some tier two resources to do that. Yep. And we got a lot of traction out of that, like we had a great engagement. We sent our top our top people that knew how to communicate with customers. And we like we would see the transition from Auto Show to showroom. And so there's still a place for it. If done right. I think it it definitely is a market segment. It's not the entire market that's interested in auto so that's why I think it's weird, you know, that you wouldn't put these most these newest vehicles, right, like people go to the auto show to see Ashley

Paul J Daly: 7:44

Bradley Lantus, right, they have some cult vehicles like the like the Jeep Wrangler, right, you have a lot of these subgroups. You know, the organizers of the Washington auto New Washington area, New Car Dealers Association went out to the organizers were telling us that they have growing attendance. And they are just saying like, we don't understand why OEMs are not putting resources behind this because people are showing up there in buy mode. So this is like on the ground too. And they were the same. That's anything you can do to show the OEMs. What's actually going on here is beneficial for all of us, which is one of the reasons we're covering the show later this week is to do just that and bring more attention to the show. So yeah, so hopefully, the Lantis will pay attention to this and get back into the game. But you know, if there's one thing that we can count on, is that when dealers understand there is a path to a sale somewhere. They are going to band together. What is

Kyle Mountsier: 8:38

it? What is it they say Paul's something about when dealers band together? No. Christ, Christ. Something about that? I don't know. I've heard that once or twice.

Paul J Daly: 8:48

Oh, speaking of things happening, segue. Okay, so I'll

Kyle Mountsier: 8:52

give that a five out of 10 milligram

Paul J Daly: 8:55

sales guys, the kids would say that this mid sales growth is most mostly electric for BMW as the combustion engine is hitting a tipping point, says BMW CFO as electric vehicles are now driving a majority of the company's sales growth. So more growth in EVs than in combustion. So basically, as environmental regulations and market pressures are pushing carmakers like BMW to expand those Evie offerings. BMW is aiming to increase its all electric sales to 33% not by 2030 by 2026. That's so all of their sales it was 15% of total sales in 2023. And they're moving that to 33% in 2026, as they introduced six new models of its new class spelled a really weird way. and EU II que la SSE Evie, only line CFO Walter Walter Myrtle says the current sales plateau for combustion cars will continue and then fall slightly. So he's like, we're going to plateau and then we're going to start to dip and despite the cost of batteries and new technology BMW has maintained To get target of 3 million sales by 2030. So they're staying on target with holding an eight to 10% profit margin and they did say these new EVs will be profitable. Yeah.

Kyle Mountsier: 10:10

And they probably will be because BMW got to make some money. You know what I'm saying? They've also been doing the Evie game for quite some time. They haven't got a lot of press for it, but they've been doing it for quite some time. So it's not something new to the consumer base, they're already kind of warmed up for this, you know, instead of just like dropping everything all at once. Also, the the new class is just the German version of new class. So it's like it's just translation. But it I do, I do think it's kind of funky. And it's, you know, it's a cool brand play that to take that across across borders. So I like, yeah, it's great. Yeah.

Paul J Daly: 10:46

Speaking of renaming things.

Kyle Mountsier: 10:51

Seven out of 10 so recent retail wire article is asking whether or not associate experience classified as a x airness norm for retail successes, as retailers are recognizing it as being a crucial factor. So retailers are especially like in in anything retail. So think about, it doesn't matter if you have a store or a storefront, or even an online store, retail has seen its fair share of people come and go. Longevity as employees is not, you know, seen a lot in retail. And so they are needing to increasingly focus on the well being of their workforce, recognising the direct impact of employee satisfaction. So as opposed to being CX for customer experience, or ESI. The new term is associate experience. The big goal is to move the term from employee to associate recognizing that this is across all all employees. So it's not just manager, it's not just frontline employee, but they are all associates in creating that experience. One of the companies that is seeing the biggest shift is PepsiCo, as they've recognized that the importance of empowering employees, allows them to kind of be the best self is the way that they termed it in the article and the quote there. But it's really just like promoting health, promoting a great experience promoting a great employee experience, which I think we've been talking about alive and

Paul J Daly: 12:24

smiling from ear to ear when I read this article first. Alright, first of all, because there's somebody who may have may not have invented the phrase love people more than you love cars, who may or may not already call every team member and associate. Liza Borches. So when we're talking about a AX associate experience, we've seen a concerted push in retail automotive over the last five years to not strike like this work life balance that has been I'll be careful here has been I think, way too far. It's taken way too far. And it's led to business effectiveness, consumer service and effectiveness. You can't take your associate experience so far that your consumer experience suffered, right, it has to be a symbiotic thing. So I think automotive has contrary to popular, you know, stigma. Automotive has leaned in to associate experience in the last five Well,

Kyle Mountsier: 13:24

I think because there's a lot of people that have said, Okay, associate experience actually emphasizes a work life balance that doesn't require just giving more of quote unquote, life into the balance, right? Because if you have a great associated experience, there's no detractor for being in your work environment. Yes,

Paul J Daly: 13:48

no, that's perfect. You know, I've always, not always over the last 10 years, I've developed this theory or principle actually on my teams. And it just boils down to one word thriving. If I can focus on my people thriving Guess what? People can thrive in all of their life, even if they're working 50 hours a week that you know why? Because what you're doing and what they're doing is professional is contributing to their mentality to their energy to the way they feel about

Kyle Mountsier: 14:19

themselves. Joy brings them fulfillment brings them purpose, to have a work environment that has a that is thriving, which allows them to actually thrive more in the life experience without a doubt all work versus people who are thriving don't put in the resignation that they just don't just end you don't even need to that's just ever

Paul J Daly: 14:47

I'm thriving let's change thing let's change things. It's not true and like look like you and I know like put down a shirt if you thriving as you don't resent it. That's a LinkedIn post for later. Yeah. But the bottom line is It's very difficult to do you and I've experienced this right? running a startup, it's demanding, right your attentions and you see people in all states and I know if you're watching see people in all states have thriving or not thriving. Right. And those indicators, you know, those indicators are like, you're winning here. You're losing here, but the bottom line man, focusing on thriving. Yep, like it's a winner. It's a winner. Well, I guess we'll end there. We hope that you thrive today that you help the other people around you thrive today. You help your consumers thrive today. Do you love people more than you love cars? We will see you here tomorrow.