Welcome to quite an eventful Monday as we not only take a first look at the Automotive News Top 150 Dealer list, but also dig into a he-said-she-said about Tesla’s affordable vehicle, as well as a quick primer on today’s eclipse frenzy.
It’s finally released, from the AN article: “The Automotive News top 150 dealership groups collectively sold 3,764,272 new vehicles in 2023, representing a 24.1 percent share of the industry's total retail sales of 15,614,328. In 2022, the groups on the list sold 23.3 percent of the industry's retail sales, or 3,231,490 of the industry's 13,865,803 vehicles sold.
Represented at ASOTU CON so far:
1. Lithia 2. Autonation 4. Group 1 16. Ourisman 26. Walser 59. DGDG 84. Sam Pack 87. CMA
Is Tesla's $25k car dead? Amidst escalating competition from budget-friendly Chinese EVs, Tesla is reportedly canceling its long-awaited affordable car project, pivoting the focus towards the development of autonomous robotaxis.
Tesla abandons plans for a $25,000 vehicle, a key part of Elon Musk's vision for mainstream EV adoption, in favor of focusing on self-driving robotaxis.
The decision marks a significant shift from Tesla's initial strategy to use luxury model profits to fund more accessible EVs for the average consumer.
Despite Musk's dismissal of Reuters' report as "lying," Tesla shares fell 3.6% at market close, with a brief recovery following Musk's announcement of a Tesla Robotaxi unveil on August 8.
Tesla's decision was informed by discussions in a large employee meeting in late February, communications from an unnamed program manager about halting the affordable car project, and a fourth individual optimistic about the strategy pivot. These were backed by messages and company communications seen by Reuters, highlighting internal deliberations and directions
Business is booming across a swath of the US thanks to today's total solar eclipse
Today's total solar eclipse, visible across North America, is likened to a celestial blackout event, promising an early afternoon spectacle from Texas to Maine, not to be repeated in the US until 2044.
The eclipse is anticipated to boost the US economy by $6 billion, with millions treating the event as a major holiday, rivaling the financial impacts of major events like Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour and the Super Bowl, as cities along the path of totality prepare for an influx of visitors and businesses roll out themed promotions.
Notably:
Indianapolis is preparing for 500,000 visitors—more than 7x the attendance of the Super Bowl it hosted in 2012.
Niagara Falls expects to host up to 1 million people for the eclipse. It typically gets 14 million visitors…throughout the entire year
Companies are rolling out eclipse-themed promotions, such as Delta’s two flights that track the path of totality.
Have you could say, Kyle, it's Monday, April 8. We have things to talk about. We will talk about the Eclipse. We're also going to talk about automotive news top 115 got some friends in there also ask the lovies the cheap Tesla
Kyle Mountsier:
I saw that as as the title this morning you made the title. I was like if he pulls that off, like those words out of his mouth, I did it in
Paul J Daly:
the Arnold accent
Kyle Mountsier:
California thing to say,
Paul J Daly:
you know, only I know that's exactly it. It all comes together. Why is it? I don't know. Why is it that everyone can say California like Arnold says it but he can't say it like everyone else says
Kyle Mountsier:
he can't say it.
Paul J Daly:
Well, you probably could. He's he's on the brand.
Kyle Mountsier:
Have you seen farm commercial?
Paul J Daly:
With Arnold? Yeah. Maybe neighbor? Oh, yeah. Neva? Yeah.
Kyle Mountsier:
That's a good neighbor. Does that? Yeah. That's a good one. I can get good one day farmers.
Paul J Daly:
I know. Well, look, this is a very typical Monday, where we just have a lot of
Kyle Mountsier:
everybody. We have to
Paul J Daly:
catch up on our high jinks. We don't communicate as much over the weekend. And so Monday feels like the best place to do it. Welcome to the show. Welcome to the Week, everybody. It's kind of a monumental day, because of the eclipse. We'll talk about that in a minute. Also, I think it's monumental because we are only 36 days away from ASOTU CON. Just coming at us once we get under. We're gonna be this time next week. It'll be under 30.
Kyle Mountsier:
Every weekend kind of shocks me because I'm like, oh, it's basically 40 days. And then you like hit a two day weekend. I don't know how
Paul J Daly:
I feel like I feel like it was like weeks comes off. Yeah, it's bittersweet. Like I can't wait to get there but there's so many things still to be done.
Kyle Mountsier:
You know, one thing we haven't talked a lot about is is that we're doing so pitch tank was like a thing back on yes house that we did ever talked about this a lot or a year and a half I think or something like that. And the way that we do it you know David Kane has his you've you've had some other events do similar type of pitch stuff. But the way that we do it is like you have to get in and out in very serious and it is a it is meaningful the way that it happens. So I'm excited for we've got Chase Frazier, from FM capital, we got Steve Greenfield, some people that really understand software, understand tech in our industry coming to help judge those. So it's gonna be a lot of fun. Yeah,
Paul J Daly:
one of the my favorite. The things I like most about the format is number one, it's quick, right? So you force everyone to get their pitch in three minutes, which I think is helpful for everyone, for the dealers and for the industry partners. Because you have to get clarity you have to get there. And then you have people who ask the questions that maybe you didn't think to ask or you couldn't articulate in the right way. And for me, that's the most helpful thing. And I think a lot of people you know, when someone asks a question, one of the panelists you or chase or see Greenfield asks a question. I know a lot of other people have that question. And they're like, yes, I want to know the answer to that question. And that's what everybody wins. So yes, pitch tank is going to be live on two stages at a soda con. And so yeah, I know dueling pitch tank stages is going to be unbelievable. So in the studios, lots of reasons to go, the keynote speaker will get there, we have over 60 speakers, go to a soda con.com Just click on speakers and scroll the list. And then click on agenda and scroll the list of all the sessions that are going to be there. I've had so many people reach out to me in the last five days. I think people are starting to realize this as close and maybe they didn't hear about it didn't realize it was going down or like Oh, shoot. Oh no, this kind of this is the fun part. Because it's like out of the woodwork where people just start to like, show up. It's going to be a busy event. We're already twice as far ahead as we were this time last year in ticket sales and attendance. And everybody knows in automotive the last 30 days is when when the really ramp up comes by the way. If you're going are planning to go and haven't booked your hotel room, I know we've been saying this for like the last week and
Kyle Mountsier:
a half, there's 22 rooms left
Paul J Daly:
and that's it. They go less than 10% of I mean, like they gave us a ton of rooms we literally almost have this entire hotel. The live Casino Hotel is almost all asoto CON attendees at this point, but they're 22 spaces left. So if you're going do it now because we know people who are going who have registered tickets who have told us that they're going and haven't bought tickets yet that have not booked hotel rooms. Right there are other hotels but if you can you want to be in the event hotel, it's just you're right there. and it is not expensive. What are we at 169 a night or something? Like
Kyle Mountsier:
I think it's 191 with taxes and fees. Come on. You can they're beautiful on the Nashville on a regular weeknight and get that type of you
Paul J Daly:
know, it's a beautiful hotel. Okay, enough about that. Obviously thanks to our friends who made that possible specifically our presenting sponsor, Reynolds and Guba Gu can hang with you at a soda con. It's gonna be amazing. All right, show notes. Let's go. Finally here. The top 150 dealer list Automotive News top 50 dealer groups. The list was just released, they have collectively sold 3.7 million vehicles and 23 representing almost a quarter of the entire industry sales. So if you don't know there's like 16,000 dealers. This is only 150 of the 16,000 and they represent a quarter of the sales 150 of the group's of the group's 150 groups. I'm sorry, yes, yes, thank you very much. Yeah, because a couple of those have two or three stores. They're gonna be a lot of these groups and stores represented at a soda con. I don't know some little groups you may have heard of like Lithia auto nation group one oarsmen Walzer DGD G Sam pack CMA Cody holdings demand Trent like listen to soda condors we're gonna be with these people hanging out. Yeah,
Kyle Mountsier:
so absolutely. And here's the here's the other thing about this is there's a bunch of others that don't actually submit their, their fight their revenue dollars, or their sales dollars to automotive groups. So there are some other private groups that I know that have told me in private beyond the lay, if we submitted we'd be on that list and would push a few out at the bottom so you know, there'll be a few more there that that you're really gonna that are pushing the envelope and and challenging that but I'll tell you what, though, there are a lot that aren't on that list that are by far the best operators they just don't have the size and scale or want the size and scale sometimes single rooftops incredible multistore groups out there that are doing it local regional. So kudos slouch all those on the on
Paul J Daly:
the list. Cool. Congrats. It's fun to watch people go up and down. I was looking at our friends at Siaka that hit number 51 And they were like they were only like a few 100 cars away from via number 50 Man you know you know it's gonna ramp them up. Mr. C and the team there I'm sure crushing it. There's there's actually a lot of groups in there if you look at the volume numbers there's very little distance between a lot of those groups now
Kyle Mountsier:
Oh, no, no, it's very it's a tight race a lot of parody up there. Yeah,
Paul J Daly:
well, it's we said that all right. Speaking of I don't know
Kyle Mountsier:
parody upside down.
Paul J Daly:
Oh, is Tesla's$25,000 Evie plan dead missed escalating competition for budget friendly Chinese EVs Tesla is reportedly canceling its long awaited affordable car program, pivoting focus toward the development of its autonomous Robo taxi. So this basically, you know, it does mark a big shift. Tesla has been talking about the $25,000 Evie for a long time. And now the Chinese EV makers are it was like they were like 25. We're going 10 How about 10? But so this all is based on Reuters releasing this Arctic exclusive article saying it cites multiple sources within the company that say the plans are dead. Elon Musk's, dismissed the report as quote, lying Tesla shares did fall on was 4%. market closed, they were down as much as 6% until he, you know, came and got back on and said, Actually, we're going to be releasing the robo taxi. And we're showing everybody on August 8, so he actually put a date to it. It's not the future. Right. So the the article cites I not put it in the show notes. Oh my gosh. Okay, so basically, I must not put in the show. And so basically, they cite three separate people in the company, a multiple of internal reports that were shown to Reuters and they were able to examine that some of them listed the project name for this cheap Tata or this low cost, Evie by like a number, like a couple letters and number like a codename. And so like, they were able to confirm all this stuff. This is all their source. So they must have had a lot of confidence to release this Elon says not they're lying about what part? I don't know. But um, you know, according the biography by Walter Isaacson, he's actually cancelled this program before and then reinstated it again. So I don't know.
Kyle Mountsier:
Yeah, this is a big shift though. I'm sure it's continuous continuously a thing you know, whether or not Tesla has to do it to maintain the market share that they want. I'm not sure you know, if you want to get technical H 4422. And 91 have apparently told some suppliers to halt further activities. But see, that's where I think okay, maybe they're owning a little bit more than supply chain in order to get the result of the lower cost vehicle so I would watch out for that. Hey, the documents were saying the supply As I'm just watching out for a little bit more supply chain management by Tesla, because I think that's where they when they when when they produce and manufacture all their stuff. And no,
Paul J Daly:
gosh, it's I mean, obviously the margin pressures on Tesla had said, you know, like their quest saying we're gonna produce 20 million vehicles a year at some point was Robo taxis low cost. Yeah,
Kyle Mountsier:
I think the bigger issue for Tesla is their q1 results, right? They missed it, they missed their projection by like 14% or something crazy. It was their largest miss in in projections yet to date. So I think that's where they're probably focusing all the all the energy right?
Paul J Daly:
There is there's like another lane that you can think about Tesla, and we talked about this quite often is that they're not a car company, an AI company, they're a data company. They're an energy company, right? Like all these other things that they are based on money.
Kyle Mountsier:
Now, it's another company
Paul J Daly:
on par with technology. It's all it's all inside. Elon has brain. But I think the point is, like we in the auto industry are focusing on their automotive related news automotive related reports. However, I wouldn't count them out of like coming to market with these, you know, autonomous robots or some big AI developments or something that changes the stock price quickly, when you realize there's going to be a substantial revenue stream that has nothing to do with cars. Right, but it's hard. I mean, we just think about it as a car company. Are you gonna think about things a little differently speaking of thinking, or seeing things holy crap a little differently today
Kyle Mountsier:
being a lot. This is wild because the business right now, businesses in the path of the eclipse are booming across the US due to travel and tourism and a lot of other things that have to do with the solar eclipse. Couple little dates here is the last total solar eclipse to go across the US was in 2017. We won't see another one in North America until 2044. So you got a little bit of time to wait on that. The Eclipse is anticipated to boost the US economy be by 6 billion millions treating the event as a major holiday rivaling the financial impacts of major events like Taylor Swift, Ayers, Tory and the Super Bowl. As cities along the path of totality prepare for a massive influx of visitors. Here's a couple of them. Notably Indianapolis is preparing for half a million visitors more than seven times the attendance of the Superbowl it has raised 12 Niagara Falls, expects to host up to 1 million people for the Eclipse, they only get 14 million visitors annually. So one day they're gonna get 114 of their their annual visitors. Yeah, I saw that, like a town somewhere in Maine is basically expected like 100 Exit population or something like that, because of the location of it. And like how it looks to have
Paul J Daly:
clarity, they brought in some food trucks and porta potties food trucks and porta potties. Here's, here's
Kyle Mountsier:
a fun one. Couple sciences have been quoted and saying, Hey, look, this is just a rare opportunity to see the solar system, do its thing and be a little bit crazy. Especially because the moon is gradually moving away from Earth at 1.5 inches a year. So beware, in 600 million years, you won't be able to see this any
Paul J Daly:
better get out there and do it then in that case, I love how a Delta actually has two flights chartered along the flight path or along the path of the totality. They sort of move by delta, I'm sure they'll be some fun stuff coming out of the flight. Hey, if you're on that, or you know anyone that's on it, hit us up,
Kyle Mountsier:
let us know. NASA is also planning to quote unquote race, the total the solar eclipse, they've got a whole bunch of computer and imagery that they're going to be doing at 50,000 feet. So I'm excited about that. They're they're going to be looking at that, that ring, the cornea around around the moon because it's like the most optimal time for the cameras not to bust at 50,000 feet so it'd be some pretty cool imagery coming out of that it
Paul J Daly:
got it well look whatever you're doing today. We hope you see the clips. We hope you sell some cars. We hope you care about some people. Go to a soda come down come and buy your soda con tickets and book your hotel. Wow whatever you do, we will see you tomorrow. Have fun watching the clips if again