GM + Hyundai = Team Up, Stellantis + Dealers = Squabble, Consumers Accepting Cookies

As we’ve passed the halfway point of the week, we’ve got Michael Cirillo in the studio to discuss GM and Hyundai’s new partnership, how Stellantis and its dealers are in a little bit of a tiff, and a new study that says consumers know exactly what they’re doing when they accept website tracking cookies.

Show Notes with links:

• General Motors and Hyundai Motor Co. have announced a partnership aimed at exploring collaboration in a variety of technological and production areas. With the increasing demand for efficiency and innovation in the automotive industry, both companies are looking to scale up operations and reduce costs.
  • The collaboration includes vehicle development and clean-energy technologies, such as electric and hydrogen powertrains.
  • Both companies will explore co-development opportunities in passenger and commercial vehicles, as well as internal combustion engines.
  • They will also review joint sourcing opportunities in battery materials, steel, and more to reduce costs and improve efficiencies.
  • GM and Hyundai’s combined sales of over 10 million vehicles annually could rival giants like Toyota and Volkswagen in scale.
  • Hyundai Executive Chair Euisun Chung emphasized the potential to enhance competitiveness: “This partnership will enable Hyundai Motor and GM to evaluate opportunities to enhance competitiveness... through our combined expertise and innovative technologies.”
• Stellantis announced a 21% increase in August sales and dealer inventory falling by 10% over the last 2 months. Despite these gains, the automaker's U.S. dealers have expressed dissatisfaction with CEO Carlos Tavares.
  • The Stellantis National Dealer Council claimed Tavares' "short-term decision making" hurt brands like Jeep, Ram, and Chrysler and urged Stellantis to spend more on clearing outdated inventory, citing declines in U.S. sales.
  • They stated in a letter, “For over two years now, the US Stellantis National Dealer Council has been sounding this alarm to your US executive team, warning them that the course you had set for Stellantis was going to be a disaster… and now that disaster has arrived.”
  • Stellantis responded to the letter: “We don’t believe personal attacks are the most effective way to solve problems.”
• A new survey shows that American consumers are becoming more aware of online data collection practices, pushing retailers to reconsider how they handle privacy.
  • Over 50% of U.S. shoppers know what it means to “accept cookies” online.
  • The vast majority of consumers typically accept cookies, with younger shoppers (18-34) more likely at 79%.
  • The survey shows that online shoppers often accept cookies for enhanced user experiences, full website features with session tracking, and site personalization.
  • “The results highlight growing aw

Hosts: Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier

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Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

Music.

Kyle Mountsier: 0:05

Good morning. It's Thursday, September 12. Cirillo is on the pot. We got guests so son, guestos. We're chatting about GM and Hyundai, stellantis and cookies

Unknown: 0:17

everywhere I

Kyle Mountsier: 0:18

go, the people really want to know who I is and who Id they stop. There's nothing wrong with talking about some cookies first thing in the morning, you know, just to really make you question whether or not you're going to commit to the diet today, you know, about

Michael Cirillo: 0:32

to say, talking about cookies in the morning got me in all sorts of trouble over the last

Unknown: 0:38

you're like, I tried to leave all that 30 pounds behind this last year,

Michael Cirillo: 0:42

killing me, 30 pounds of cookies. That's

Kyle Mountsier: 0:44

what it was, something like that. Goodness. Cirillo, how are you, sir? How's your Thursday morning started? That's

Michael Cirillo: 0:51

great already. Like, are we just getting older? Is it just Thursday already? Is it Friday? Seems

Kyle Mountsier: 0:57

to happen. Actually, it was Tuesday this week. And I could have sworn it was like, Now, granted, my son has soccer on Tuesday nights and Thursday nights, so like, the evening of those two nights kind of gets like, which one are we at? And I could have sworn I was going to be waking up the Friday and I was all done with the week. It was weird. Yeah, you're the coach. No, no, no, but it's like, spent

Michael Cirillo: 1:23

so much money on juice boxes before in your life,

Kyle Mountsier: 1:28

and and gas. Like, it's a it's a semi club team. They're like, 40 minutes north one week, 40 minutes south the next week, 40 minutes east the next week. I'm telling you, white commutes

Michael Cirillo: 1:40

when you're like, still in work mode, but, you know, you got to switch to, like, it's the most silent 40 minute drive

Kyle Mountsier: 1:48

it is. Yeah, I will say like, you know, there's, there's a lot of our listenership that does work from home, a lot that work at dealerships. And, you know, I, I for 12 years of my almost 13 years of my life, went to a place every single day that was anywhere between 20 and 40 minutes away. And there's something to that, like ramp up time period and the ramp down time period that you just don't get. It's like, okay, here we go and run downstairs. That's my commute, and bam, everything hits you right in the face. It's a whole thing, yep,

Michael Cirillo: 2:25

hey, but you get to say you walk to work every day now, there you go,

Unknown: 2:30

up uphill, both ways, actually, just so, just so everyone knows. Oh, man, hey, we

Kyle Mountsier: 2:36

got a couple little pieces of content. We got another in the dirt episode with Jamie butters of automotive news consumers lead this market. It's called in the dirt. Is the podcast that you're looking for. And then we have an asotu Edge Quickshot webinar today, this afternoon with Beth Caro and Erica Calderon. Calderon, you're going to want to check that out if you go to asotu com, scroll down just a little bit, and then you will not have to you can register for that. Get it. If you can't make it, you'll get the recording the whole nine yards. So gotta tell you about the content, but we got news to get to. Let's get into it. Michael Cirillo, first on the dock. Big article on like seven different news platforms this morning, and it looked like signing day on college morning. General Motors and Hyundai Motor Company have announced a partnership aim aimed at exploring collaboration in a variety of technological and production areas. With the increasing demand for efficiency and innovation in the automotive industry, both companies are looking to scale up operations and reduce costs. They are exploring a bunch of CO development opportunities in passenger and commercial vehicles. As well as get this internal combustion engines, they'll also review joint sourcing opportunity and battery materials, steel and more. Their combined sales of over 10 million vehicles could rival giants like Toyota and Volkswagen scale. So when you think about the total technology going into multiple different types of vehicles, Hyundai executive chair Eisen Cheung emphasized the potential to enhance competitiveness, and said This partnership will enable Hyundai Motor and GM to elevate opportunities to enhance competitiveness through our combined expertise and innovative technologies. I got one question for you, who won in this deal? MC, who wins in this deal? Oh, well,

Unknown: 4:30

you're like, I can't say. I can't,

Michael Cirillo: 4:33

yeah, I can't say I got clients from both of those automakers.

Kyle Mountsier: 4:40

Got him? Um, yeah. I mean, I like, when I look at this, you know, you see, historically, a lot of these, like joint partnership between legacy OEMs. Recently, you've seen Toyota, Subaru, Mazda get into partnerships, and a lot of it's over. The, you know, the the underbelly of the technology of the vehicle. You're, you know, you're just seeing more people do that. And when you look at GM and Hyundai, both are really, really interested in battery technology, really interested in pushing the EV boundaries. You know, you get a little bit design with Hyundai, you get a little bit of, you know, avant garde with GM. So we'll see how some of that kind of works. There's

Michael Cirillo: 5:29

a couple of thoughts here too. Like they're probably like, how can we make the new Sierra EV the weight of a Hyundai Sonata so that it gets 3000 miles of range, not 400 The other thing is like, this is kind of like in a very asotu esque mind set that I have here. It's like, hey, if the automakers who fiercely compete with one another can find an inroad to start working and collaborating together, then maybe, just maybe that's a signal for the rest of us that why compete when you can dominate, why compete when you can collaborate, and what will be the the outcome of that? So that's, that's how I kind of think of it. Yep,

Kyle Mountsier: 6:13

yeah. I love, I love collaborations, and it's right in line with what we're all about here. Speaking of collaboration, solantis, dealers are requesting greater collaboration from the stellantis CEO and leadership. And even though stellantis has announced a 21% increase in August, sales and dealer inventory falling by 10% a lot of the US dealers are still dissatisfied with CEO Carlos Tavares. The National dealer Council claimed that Tavares short term decision making hurts brands like Jeep, Ram, Chrysler, and urged Salamis to spend more on clearing outdated inventory, citing declines in US sales, they stated in a letter, and here's the quote, for over two years now, the US stellantis National dealer Council has been sounding this alarm to your US executive team, warning them that the course you had set for stellantis was going to be a disaster, and now that disaster has arrived. Stellantis response said, we don't believe personal attacks are the most effective way to solve problems. They did still antics. Did report a 40% drop in first half of the year operating income, with key brands like jape and RAM seeing significant sales decline since 2019 um Tavares did acknowledge earlier in the year, his quote was, we were ignorant. I should have acted immediately so we, you know, there's been a lot of like, industry pundits calling out the fact that stellantis is days in inventory days on lot has been getting long in the tooth for quite some time, and and now us dealers really, really pushing the boundaries of calling them out in the public eye. You

Michael Cirillo: 7:56

know, what would the implication be if they just came out with an upsell at point of sale for a jeep, say, where it's like, for an extra 500 bucks, we will supply you all the rubber ducks for life, the amount of money that Jeep drivers spend on rubber ducks to put on each other's things. We sometimes I'm like, how's this person sealed the windshield? But what would the revenue implication be for Jeep if they just said, Hey, an additional$500 and we will give you all the rubber ducks you could ever want for the rest of the life of this vehicle. I bet you map that against sales, $500 per Jeep customer per the amount of sales, they're sitting on, millions of dollars of revenue just on ducks. Well,

Kyle Mountsier: 8:44

I think, actually, to your point, and I know you're being a little bit facetious, but also not the the stellantis brand historically, right? When you think about a jeep, or you think even about Dodge vehicles, and some of like, the culture of owning one of these cars, like, runs deep, right? It is, like it might be a muscle car, or it's a type of ram truck, or there's, there's definitely even cultures around the Chrysler brand, right? But significantly cheap. And I think, I think what you're actually saying is, hey, as an OEM or as a dealer, get closer to the culture, right? Get closer to the culture of the rubber ducks. If you got a Miata club and you're a Mazda dealer, get closer to that. If you got an off road club locally and you're a Toyota dealer, get closer to that with your trds, right? Like, get closer to the culture, and you win. As opposed to, just, like, having a narrative of, we have cars you want to buy one.

Michael Cirillo: 9:52

Exactly what makes you different? What makes you unique? I mean, you look at, we often cite brands like Apple or Amazon or whatever. There's like. Culture, cultural integration to these types of brands, you feel like you're a part of something. Well, Jeep has had, to your point, has had this for so long. And yes, the idea of rubber ducks kind of makes me laugh. But if I was a Jeep dealer, I would totally add this to my thing today, I'd just have like, bins of rubber ducks that you just, like, scan a QR code and, like, take handfuls with you, because they're like, seven cents to or three cents, but Right? But it is. It's the cultural thing. And then I mean, just the the the other thing here is, this is the car business. Leave your emotions at the door. Okay, if you feel like people are making a personal attack, it's because our human nature just usually doesn't have a better way of expressing our frustration. So just listen. Yep, you know, just listen.

Kyle Mountsier: 10:49

Speaking of just listening. Stop segway, the parody of awareness is coming for us when it comes to cookies and news survey shows that American consumers are becoming more aware of online data collection practices right now, over 50% of us, shoppers, according to a new survey, know what it means to accept cookies online. The vast majority of consumers typically accept cookies with younger shoppers in the 18 to 34 range, more likely at 79% actually accepting the cookies. The survey shows that online shoppers often accept cookies for enhanced user experiences, for website features, with session tracking, site personalization, CEO of Carter, the Shau candle wall, I got that very good. Said the results highlighting growing awareness and the importance of transparent cookie policies. So just like the a ton of this has been, you know, talked about over the last four or five years within auto, but having a very like consumer aware cookie policy, consumer aware cookie banner, understanding how and why consumers might or might not interact with that, and being clear about how you're handling cookies, I think, is like coming to a moment of parity, where I remember seeing a survey just a little over a year ago where it was only 13% we're actually aware of what that we're doing, and now we're seeing, you know, over 50% in Just a year because of the prevalence of it.

Michael Cirillo: 12:23

Is it weird for me to say that, even as a tech guy, guy that's built hundreds and hundreds of websites and this and that I don't even pay attention anymore and I just click Accept all, just so I can be done with it? Yep,

Kyle Mountsier: 12:36

well, I hit Accept all because I'm like, Hey, I'd rather have more like, better experiences across more devices, across more applications, and including this current website and the personalization that it might offer, I'd rather have that than like, potentially not get tracked. Like at this point, everybody knows where I'm at, where who I am and what I do, because we've been we've had cookies for years and years and years and years and years, and there's these ghost profiles. So like, why not get a slightly more better experience right now?

Michael Cirillo: 13:11

You know where it gets kind of freaky in this vein. I mean, you know me, my brain's already gone to some other I'm on Mars already, but I'm like, okay, like, we can make a big deal out of this, or we can accept it. And to your point, the implication of, like, I would rather have a say and a control and who is tracking me to provide me a better experience. But the reality of it is, this shouldn't be thought of as some like, scary thing. Oh my gosh, like, we're being tracked. I downloaded a free app on my iPhone and put my put one of my most obscure email address, like the one that I send spam to, right, right, and it came back within about 10 minutes, told me my wife's name, my in laws names, their address, my sister in law's

Unknown: 13:59

addresses.

Michael Cirillo: 14:00

So like you, might as well, since we already know we're all being tracked to a degree that none of us want to admit. Just get a better website. Get

Unknown: 14:13

a better online, just get a better day, just

Kyle Mountsier: 14:16

get a better experience. I think we talk about that a lot, whether it's online or offline, pay attention to your consumer. They're learning just as much about you and the retail practices as you are about them. Go serve someone today, see you tomorrow.

Unknown: 14:42

You