Selling Cars During Hurricanes, Auction EV Surprise, Robot Auto Assembly

Welcome to Wednesday! Paul’s in Moscow (not Russia), Kyle’s in Nashville as we talk about coastal dealers’ facing skyrocketing insurance premiums. We also talk about EV’s topping the Manheim auction charts, as well as humanoid robots spotted at a BMW plant…working.

Show Notes with links

• Coastal automotive dealers are facing skyrocketing insurance costs which have nearly doubled due to higher frequency and severity of storms, with wind coverage charges tripling in some areas from Miami to Galveston, Texas.
  • Troy Duhon, friend of ASOTU and owner of Premier Automotive in New Orleans, formed his own insurance company, Prestige Insurance, to provide wind and hail damage coverage for his dealerships. He also installed generators in each of his stores.
  • Chris Poulos, owner of West Point Lincoln in Houston, focuses on securing lot items and relocating vehicles to protected areas, but knows that high deductibles often hinder how much insurance can help. “In incidences [similar to Beryl], insurance — unless you sustain significant damage with significant flooding — is not going to really help you offset any of the cost involved in getting up and running."
  • Tom and Anita Castriota, owners of Castriota Chevrolet in Hudson, Florida, are able to move hundreds of vehicles to 10 acres of higher ground behind their dealership and have installed windows that can withstand 140mph winds.
  • Ted Smith, president of FADA, says that this time of year, pushing out information to help dealers minimize risk becomes a huge focus. “Standard operating procedure in Florida is to be ready, to take every storm very seriously and, most importantly, protect lives — but protect the inventory, as well.”

• For the first time ever, an EV topped the monthly best-seller list for Manheim.
  • In June, the 2023 Tesla Model 3 was Manheim's No. 1 seller and the 2023 Chevrolet Bolt ranked as No. 3.
  • The top 5 best-selling EVs at all auctions according to AuctionNet were; 2021 Tesla Model Y, 2023 Model 3, 2021 Model 3, 2023 Chevy Bolt, 2021 Model 3 (maybe a trim difference?)
  • This milestone reflects the growing presence of EVs in the wholesale market.
  • Manheim saw over 21,000 EV sales in Q2, marking a 108% YoY growth and in the first half of 2024, EV sales are up 97% with over half sold units (57%) are Teslas
  • "Electrics command a 2.1% share of Manheim sales, up from 1% a year ago," said Jeremy Robb, Cox Automotive.

• Robotics startup Figure released a video last week showing its 01 humanoid robot performing tasks at a BMW car plant.
  • The 01 robot demonstrated moving multiple components onto a jig with placement tolerances claimed to be less than a centimeter,, showcasing its potential to handle repetitive, low-skill tasks.
  • The robot uses neural networks to learn tasks and can work in human-designed spaces without requiring costly factory redesigns. 
  • BMW and Mercedes-Benz have both signed agreements with robotics startups to

Hosts: Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier

Get the Daily Push Back email at https://www.asotu.com/

JOIN the conversation on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/asotu/

Read our most recent email at: https://www.asotu.com/media/push-back-email

Transcript

Kyle Mountsier: 0:07

Good morning. It's Wednesday mid week pause in Moscow No, not Russia. I'm back in Nashville. We're talking about hurricane season Evie surprises and robots building cars

Paul J Daly: 0:20

not the robots you think though different robots

Kyle Mountsier: 0:24

ones like we've been having build cars for a hot minute like humanoid crazy looking things. We'll get to that.

Paul J Daly: 0:31

Are you human? New humanoid robots. Yeah, new ones, new ones.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:35

Other ones.

Paul J Daly: 0:36

I don't know why all of a sudden I can hear myself through my phone. I don't. I don't know like this. This road setup has been a thing. Yes. The road. It was so frustrating yesterday because I was in like the world's nicest airport lounge. I was in the Centurion lounge. I was so excited about it. At Atlanta airport and

Kyle Mountsier: 0:57

the new one in 11. It has a

Paul J Daly: 1:00

separate bourbon lounge in the airport lounge. It's so silly. And like the stinking internet kept cutting my stream yard feed. So I don't know. I think we need to take this right to the top.

Kyle Mountsier: 1:12

Take it right to the top.

Paul J Daly: 1:14

This is an outrage.

Kyle Mountsier: 1:15

This is a this is an outrage. Someone that Cox automotive know someone at Delta that you know can get us an aisle. I think Steve Greenfield can get this done for us. Yeah. Miles.

Paul J Daly: 1:27

Guy, there's, there's a lot going on around, we are releasing a new Auto Collabs episode. And this This was a fun one because we met with Abby Vita and Kathy Munoz of Ford University. And they kind of showed us they gave us a preview before the episode. So we got a behind the scenes look at the all new Ford training program, like the digital online training. And let me tell you, it's there thinking of things next level without it. Yeah, you

Kyle Mountsier: 1:54

know what I would love to hear I got some feedback. Actually, yesterday on LinkedIn, we might share at some point about this. But I'd love to if there are four dealers out there that are starting to kind of have their employees in this Ford University and kind of like the beta phase that it is right now. I'd love to get some feedback, like how's it going? What's it feel like? How do your employees enjoy it? Is it something that you feel like is going to be long lasting? So listen to the episode Auto Collabs. And then hit us up, hit us up a crew at a soda.com or send us a LinkedIn DM, and let us know what you think about the whole university because we'd love to get that real real time feedback when

Paul J Daly: 2:31

they're throwing the words around like story based cinematic training. I was interested. Let's just say

Kyle Mountsier: 2:39

that very, very much. Yeah. Let's get into it today.

Paul J Daly: 2:43

Let's go. Oh, see. I just messed up my whole thing. Here we go. Here we go. All right, talking about some news today. This is so very, very relevant. Actually near my house yesterday. I wasn't there but like about 50 miles away a storm rock through one of the towns topple the steeple on a church flip some cars over. So weather's getting crazy and dealers on the coast so coastal auto dealers are facing skyrocketing insurance costs, which have nearly doubled now, due to the higher frequency of storms, the severity of storms, wind coverage charges have tripled in some areas from Miami to Galveston, Texas. Troy Doohan we've had him on before a friend of us so do owner of Premier automotive in New Orleans, formed actually he's like I want to form my own insurance company prestige insurance to provide wind and hail damage for his dealerships. He also did some things like installing generators at all of his stores. Chris polos, owner of West Point Lincoln in Houston focuses on securing lot items, relocating vehicles to protected areas, but he knows high deductibles often even limit how much insurance can even help. He says quote in incidents similar to barrel insurance unless you sustained significant damage with significant flooding, it's not really going to help you offset any of the costs involved in getting back up and running. Another I know another dealer Thomas knew that castriota owners of castriota Chevy in Houston and Florida are Oh Houston. Oh hub sorry, Hudson, Florida. Yeah, so I'm reading the thing. They're able to able to move hundreds of vehicles, they move these vehicles tent to a 10 acre site of high ground behind the store and they've installed windows that can withstand up to 140 mile an hour wind

Kyle Mountsier: 4:24

goodness, this is one thing.

Paul J Daly: 4:28

I wonder if they're bulletproof too. But Ted Smith, president of Florida auto dealer Association said this time of year, pushing out information to help dealers minimize risk becomes a huge focus saying quote, standard operating procedure in Florida is to be ready to take every storm very seriously and most importantly, protect lives. But protect the inventory as well. Yeah, it's

Kyle Mountsier: 4:49

it's really interesting if you've never, you know, lived or worked in the auto industry in a place where there are there's severe threats often. It's kind of weird. To think about this, it's it's, you know, anybody that kind of sits in the middle of the US except for you know, heavy tornadoes like can't really do anything about that don't really recognize the things that like Minneapolis Minnesota has to go to in in snow storm preparation or what Florida has to go through and just prepping for hurricane season like, do we have everything ready? Uh, you know, do we have the secondary lots? Do we have these garages that we can put things in to make sure that these multimillion dollar inventories are are safe? It's a whole nother ballgame. And planning now is extremely important. You know, there's there's a lot of dealers that have been doing this for years, but there are some new dealers out there. Some new acquisitions, different people getting a management, it's just, it's just great to be aware of it because you hit August, and things can start rolling in pretty quickly.

Paul J Daly: 5:53

So absolutely. You know, it's when we're talking about storms of this nature, the coming through, seems more more furiously than ever, but snow is not that bad all of a sudden. I mean, I've known this anyway.

Unknown: 6:07

Okay, we got snow shovel, some snow right moves, you

Paul J Daly: 6:11

can move it out of the way you can. Let's try to get out of the way buffalo type snow it's really just kind of, I would still take a few to Buffalo snow over hurricane that destroys everything. Because like you can just wait it out. Right? You can move it off property. You can wait it out. But I mean, the rest of the year is really nice in those areas. Speaking of things that are very true, we get to segue. Oh yeah, we had for the first time ever, an Eevee topped the monthly bestseller list for Manheim auto auctions in June the 2023 Tesla Model three was Mannheim is number one seller wow the number no that's not number one selling Evie that's the number one selling vehicle period auctions. Check this out. The Chevy Bolt also made the list here are the top five top five model Why 2023 model Y or I'm sorry, 2021 model Y 2023 model 320 21 model three, the 23 Chevy Bolt, and then at the end it says 2021 model three is the last one maybe it's a different trim. But but check that up top five EVs. However, the top five vehicles overall at the auction, number one was Tesla number three was the Chevy Bolt. It reflects the growing presence of EVs in the wholesale market. Manheim saw over 21,000 Evie sales and cute quarter two marking get this a 100 per 8% increase year over year. For the for the quarter. The year as a whole like the first half of the year is up 98 97%. Over half of those are Tesla's and here's a quote from Jeremy rob from Cox automotive, he says, electrics are 2.1% share of Mannheim sales overall, which is up from only 1% A year ago.

Kyle Mountsier: 8:06

Yeah, I mean, this is obviously a market shift. I think that the dynamic here is obvious. There's there's just more of these, you know, as far as throughput, right? So you start to recognize that that's just different. But this is an opportunity, in my opinion, because my guess is that the reason for a lot of these going through the Manheim auto auction is because dealers maybe don't know what to do with them. Maybe they sit on ground because the advertising persona or the knowledge gap in the showroom is still there. So I would say like if you're wholesaling a bunch of EVs know that there's a market out there on the retail market for this and acquiring that market share is theirs for the taking. You know, don't ship these things to the auction retail these cars, know the inventory, understand the sales process, understand how to market these vehicles in your area. It's a whole other subset of opportunity. And they're super loyal buyers, so you can get these people back for that second buy. Man, I my watch out is hey, don't be just shipping these to the auction because you don't know what to do with it.

Paul J Daly: 9:17

Yeah, I mean, there's plenty of ways to do it. There's plenty dealers who are willing to help. You know, our friends like John Foley, Jimmy Douglas, you know, another thing is crossing my mind. Now that we're talking about this, these are just the Mannheim numbers. And there have been a number of other Eevee marketplaces that have popped up where people are wholesaling EVs. So it's at Mannheim, but like platforms like Jimmy Douglass's plug only does EVs and they're moving east wholesale EVs all across the country. So you know, they're just usually v's are hot the tax incentive. And, you know, we were driving. So we were driving from Spokane, Washington to Moscow, Idaho, because that's, that's how you do the pilgrimage. That's great. Yeah. And, you know, as I was driving through the rolling hills of As you know, Washington across the border of Idaho, across the rolling fields of great rolling fields of grain, literally. And I didn't have cell phone service, I was like, Oh, hey, no EVs.

Kyle Mountsier: 10:15

Not a single one. Not a single one.

Unknown: 10:18

No. What? What were you gonna say? Oh,

Paul J Daly: 10:23

I was just gonna say like, like, I think you're right on the money though. As we've seen dealers lean into selling you EVs as a used EVs, especially with the tax credit. I haven't heard a single one regretted, have you? No, not a single one. They're all profitable. And they have a great customer base forming in that and it's brought it No pun intended. It's brought like another like a type of energy to the store as well. I think like people get excited about a new product. That's really buzzy and culture. No fun either.

Kyle Mountsier: 10:53

Toyota I was there. You know, I was at Beaver Toyota yesterday, they have a cyber truck sitting on the showroom floor. You would not like I could have made a full on like, goofy vlog show about how many people took selfies in front of that thing. And if so, for our period, it was unbelievable. Absolutely.

Paul J Daly: 11:11

So a man that was there. That's you didn't get to drive though.

Kyle Mountsier: 11:15

Did you know I didn't know they don't let anyone at it.

Paul J Daly: 11:19

I can I can understand why I can understand why. All right, let's bring it home.

Kyle Mountsier: 11:23

Let's let's bring it home robot robotics startup figure released a video last week showing its own one humanoid robot performing tasks at a BMW car plant. The Owen rom robot demonstrated at moving multiple components onto a jig with placement tolerances claimed to be less than a centimeter, showcasing its potential to handle repetitive that flow task skills. Look at that thing. If you're watching the video, you can see this thing just like dropping a panel in right there. He uses neural networks to learn tasks and can work in human design spaces without requiring costly factory redesigns. BMW and Mercedes have both signed agreements with robotic startups to explore these innovations. While Tesla is developing its own humanoid robot optimists. So figure was founded by a gentleman named Brett ad cockin, Illinois born entrepreneur born into a third generation. Well, my computer just went nuts. Cultural business. Wow, that went crazy. Yeah, an agricultural business and has now built several tech companies, including vettery and online talent marketplace, which was sold for 110 million Archer aviation and even tall company who has taken public on the New York Stock Exchange, and has a$1.5 billion dollar contract with United Airlines. So he's no

Paul J Daly: 12:44

slouch is wow, you know, he's he, I feel like he's our kind of people and if we can get to him, that'd be really great to talk with him. But you think of this look at this combination. Evie it's also he's building these, you know, vertical takeoff landing aircraft. He's building humanoid robots that are in a manufacturing facilities putting together vehicle parts. And he also cared enough to start a talent platform, because it came from a farm like you put start putting all the pieces together and you realize there is like this desire for to help both the labor force as well as repetitive tasks, repetitive jobs, as well as overriding technology on this like this. This Yeah, it's

Kyle Mountsier: 13:27

a multi real meal approach, right? Yeah. It's not just like, oh, everything automation, there's the human element, the automation element, how do we take repetitive tasks, offload them to robotics or to, you know, alternative intelligence? You know, it's this multi prong approach and I love that it's it's leveraging tech and people to do the jobs that they're best at. I have one question that we go.

Paul J Daly: 13:52

Will the robots be able to vote for in the UAW election?

Unknown: 13:57

A that I think we should get out of here.

Kyle Mountsier: 14:04

Oh, man, we got we had a lot to do. Hey, the reason we do this every day is to share with you the things that you can be thinking about to serve customers better. You can serve customers well with all that information.