Used EV Pricing, Rivian’s Pricing Adjustments, A Waymo on Fire

Kyle Mountsier: 0:31

It's Monday morning.

‍Jordan Cox: 0:32

It's Monday.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:33

It's February 12. It's the day after the Super Bowl it to get started dad got Jordan Cox hanging out and we were talking use DVS rivi. Ins and way Mo is on fire. Oh boy. Go isn't it they stopped. I haven't done the drop in a hot minute. I haven't done the intro and you did great. Like it's always a thing. It's always a thing, Jordan because here's, here's, like, you know what the ramp up is? You know what the music is we record this live, there's no post cutting or anything like that. You got to hit a downbeat. And so I'm just uh, now I'm excited. I feel like Mondays are ready for me. Yeah,

Jordan Cox: 1:12

that's right. And then you hit it out of the park. You're like, home run to start the day. Right? I

Kyle Mountsier: 1:15

did it go. Did you watch the Super Bowl last night?

Jordan Cox: 1:18

I did. What was your favorite part? Like whether it's the ads the game.

Kyle Mountsier: 1:22

I mean, I like I'm a sucker for all the way to the death game. Right. And so I could have cared less who won last night. But the fact that it went to overtime, they had a long second down a long third down. And that's right. And then a couple of great plays to the endzone, even just the orchestration, that you know, the commentators were freaking out about the last play like the orchestration of the movement. It was like choreography in the last play. That got me the commercials where the I got the biggest laugh out of the Reese's commercial. That's the one that kind of got me on the chuckle, you know. So I don't know, what about you? What's your favorite moment,

Jordan Cox: 2:02

you know, after like, reflecting on it. It's probably the pregame part of it because you hear all of these personal stories about how either their parents or their grandparents, that athlete was going to be someone someday and they believed in them. I know like, man, it doesn't matter, like what team they're on or who they are. And it it just it hit yesterday. especially hard for some reason.

Kyle Mountsier: 2:26

That's cool. That's cool. Yeah, you got well, it, I'll tell you what it is. It's like the more kids you add to your household, it hits harder. That's always like every time you see like emotional stories with kids, the volume of kids in the household amplifies the number of gut checks you get in the year. So that's what happened to you. That's what happened to you. Hey, we got 92 days to ASOTU CON, we're gonna have we'll get Dara, who is the writer of unreasonable hospitality there as our keynote speaker. He is the previous owner of 11 Madison Park, formerly known as the best restaurant in the world. And I see everybody in automotive talking about hospitality, I think it's gonna be a really key way to close out the event. Also, the webcam breakfast is going to be there. So if you're a member of the webcam community, or want to know what that's all about, you can register and register for the webcam breakfast, which will be the first morning the Wednesday it's the 15th. And you'll kind of get that time to network, get to know some new people have like a buddy system to go throughout the rest of the event and be engaged in all the content and the conversation and the connections that we're going to be having there. I'm pumped about that. Also, just a little bit of a note. Next week, February 21. At 1pm. Eastern, we're going to be teaming up with upstart auto retail to have a webinar all about bridging the digital divide. They've got a survey of over 100 dealers, the figure means sharing the insights, the understanding from that, you can go to a CIO to.com Scroll down just a little bit and click on the link to register for that. You're not going to want to miss that. We've done a few webinars now with upstart and they're always insightful. They're always great. Always great. All right. We got to get into it. Let's do it. I think we get like a few more days to talk about NADA show. And say those words. Yeah. In our in our conversations. The conversations were obviously centered a lot around EVs from political policy, to how things are going there, and the obvious turn in the market, but used market EVs are still something that are in high demand, but also heavily fluctuating. So the US market recently has seen a sharp drop of around 30% in the Eevee world, despite despite a small market share us TVs are becoming more accessible though. So now with the pricing lower, you've got more accessible franchise dealerships last last year sold around 180,000 us EVs, which are less than 1% of the market. So some opportunity there. Prices incentives, price adjustments in new EVs and government incentives are expected to further drive down the price of these use EVs. There are there's $4,000 on the hood. Now the cars, you've got hurts introducing these vehicles into the US market at rapid pace. I even saw Alex Lawrence last week talking about some of the vehicles on his lot like a Cadillac that was, I think, price less than $30,000 because of price incentives and price volatility. So the US Evie market is really shaping up for franchise dealers who are paying attention to go after what, what's possibly just a new market segment.

Jordan Cox: 5:49

That's right. The thing that always blows my mind is yes, there's always new things coming out market wise, but the people that go after that and are committed and dedicated to it, regardless of what area they're in, or what type of product it is. Those are the big winners. So that's why you're gonna see people like Alex Lawrence, or John Foley in the US side of it that are really going after it. They're putting all the power and effort behind that. And they have the right people in place to do that. They're going to be some big winners, I think in the US, Evie market just because of all these incentives and cash in the hood that you're seeing. Yep. Yeah,

Kyle Mountsier: 6:19

I would say that it's important to think about this as an opportunistic segment. Right. And there was a there was a couple quotes in the article from some dealers saying, hey, look, what, what would I be as a dealer, if I looked at every Eevee as I am, I don't really want that. Or I can't put an appraisal on it. Because I'm unsure of the market volatility and the value of it. I think the savvy dealers that really start to understand this market and even start to employ and train employees, specifically toward the use of Eevee market are going to see a significant advantage because you've got cost opportunity that you haven't had in the past because of the downturn in the pricing as well as the what's on the hood. And speaking of downturn and use an Eevee pricing. Segue. Hot segue on to the new car side. rivian has now reduced prices on its r1 T pickup and r1 s crossover based models my $3,100 aligning with federal tax incentives and introducing a new battery option to stimulate sales. There is this new battery option which is called the standard plus battery option and offers an additional 45 miles of range at previous prices, highlighting the company's response to consumer demand for greater value and range. Car. Carl Brown in executive analyst at icy cars said like every electric vehicle producer with a US presence rivian has to reconcile past expectations with current market realities. Shifting going on

Jordan Cox: 8:01

lots of shifting Look at that. It's like, ah,

Kyle Mountsier: 8:06

yeah, we're just gonna drop the price, give you some more for the price. And then you're gonna buy him right. I like they are going this is it's wild to me. And not just that. I think actually, someone on LinkedIn, I can't remember it might have been Steve Greenfield because he's always thinking of the way these things work together. But was just saying, if you would ascribe rebates to these, Evie, these new Evie OEMs as opposed to just changing the price right, which they can do because they don't have MSRP on dealer lots or anything like that. They're not Maroney labels on there. So the difference between like, changing the price verse rebate, these vehicles would all have like 25% discounted rebates over the last 25 to 30%. So the discounts are surely there. And they understand that the consumer demand for range and pricing is like the ultimate in getting these vehicles sold. Yeah,

Jordan Cox: 9:02

that's right. And it's funny when you drop prices like that, obviously in the new market because that does affect the used car market. We saw that big time with Tesla, like let's say five, six months ago and it's always interesting where they could just make those changes overnight just like that and it just it changes a ton in valuation across dealerships across the country. It blows my mind.

Kyle Mountsier: 9:21

It does but yeah, I mean and to see like what you have to do as a dealership and as a used car manager to stay up with these pricing even even as a new car manager to think like what am I competitors doing? Be like us car pricing and dynamics is literally changing daily staying in your whatever your screen is your max digital, your V auto, your VIN Q whatever that is like making sure that you're managing to use cars daily looking at market turn, looking at market day supply, understanding what the previous day previous seven and 11 day Sales rates are so that you can start to look at when is this vehicle going to sell, sell? What's my best opportunity for profit? Because like, my boss always used to say like first first loss is best loss. So if you got to drop that price today, it's going to be a better loss than waiting 30 days to drop that price used car attention to use cars is, is at an all time high. And

Jordan Cox: 10:23

that's where you find the good operators versus the ones that are lazy and just not going after you right?

Kyle Mountsier: 10:28

Yep, yep. Speaking of going after it. Segue another good segue. This crowd in San Francisco was full on going after it during a firework show during the Lunar New Year in San Francisco's Chinatown, as they set a YMO a driverless Evie, ablaze with a firework. The incident involves some smashing windows with the car eventually engulfed in flames as someone threw a firework into the stopped vehicle. Waymo reported no injuries as the cars would not carrying passengers at the time. And the company is collaborating with local authorities to address the situation. WeMo sparks spokesperson said this was a one off event amid concerns over increasing public hostility toward driverless cars highlighted by recent accidents involving autonomous vehicles. If you watch the video, it's it's like, I don't know. It's classic like America against the cars. I don't even know how to. It's like, it's not even like people against people. It's like, rage against the cars, right? It's like some sci fi rage against the machines movie, you know? Yeah, that's right. You,

Jordan Cox: 11:44

you would think you wouldn't see that in San Francisco. But it's one of the only places that way mo operates, right? Yeah.

Kyle Mountsier: 11:50

Man, like, I mean, here's the thing. I, I'm not a rage against the machines rage against the horse type of guy. So I would this would mean you would never see me do anything like this. But it does highlight I think, even in a place where you've got probably the most attraction to EVs, driverless, autonomous, autonomous vehicles. You've got this, like, weird kind of feeling that, hey, that's just a machine. And I don't have to respect it as I would human life, potentially. Yeah. It's just this weird dynamic that we just haven't approached in our, you know, in our society to this point.

Jordan Cox: 12:32

First, they start with putting traffic cones on them, and now they're setting them on fire. That escalated very quickly.

Kyle Mountsier: 12:37

traffic cones and fire traffic cones and fire Well, well, hey, our dealerships are not full of traffic cones and fire. They're full of real people doing real things in our communities every day. And we know that this retail industry is ready to go on a Monday. Because everything that we do is about so much more than cars. Let's go

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