Automotive State of The Union

Q4 Strategy Sessions: Andy Guelcher on The Used EV Wave That’s Coming

Share episode

Shoot us a Text.

Episode #1177: Q4 Strategy Week rolls on with EV operator-extraordinaire Andy Guelcher. We dig into life after federal credits, the coming surge of affordable used EVs, New York’s eye-popping BrightDrop incentives, and why dealers must become “energy experts” to win the next phase of EV adoption.


Show Notes:

  • Post-credit reality check: EVs must stand on their own. Falling MSRPs (hello, $29K Bolt) + better charging infrastructure are easing range anxiety and widening the addressable market.
  • Get ready: a flood of off-lease EVs in 18–24 months could reset used-car affordability and pull younger, tech-open buyers into payments that actually pencil.
  • New profit centers: vehicle-to-home and vehicle-to-grid will let customers power homes and sell back to the utility—turning EVs into assets that can offset car payments.
  • Commercial play: New York’s BrightDrop program (big per-vehicle incentives; 3-year EIN, 5-year use/5K mi/yr, 80% in-state) makes fleet vans “nearly free” for qualified businesses—move fast.
  • “We’re making our team the energy experts—training with GM Energy—so we can explain the whole ecosystem, not just the car.” — Andy Guelcher

Join Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier every morning for the Automotive State of the Union podcast as they connect the dots across car dealerships, retail trends, emerging tech like AI, and cultural shifts—bringing clarity, speed, and people-first insight to automotive leaders navigating a rapidly changing industry.

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

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

Unknown:

Good morning. We're at another session of our q4, strategy sessions. We have none other than Andy gelcher, the principal. GM, whatever you call him, whatever we call him, he knows what he's talking about. When it comes to EVs, we call him other things off camera, because he can take it post your child. We did whatever you want to call the guy. He answers when food is food is on. Oh my gosh. Welcome Andy. What you want to show up this morning to get roasted?

Andy Guelcher:

Yeah, thank you guys. I appreciate

Unknown:

it's his love language. Let's get into it. So q4 is coming. We had a major transition with the EV federal tax credit expiring, you have a pretty direct perspective on this, that when it expired, you said, like, good, it's about time tell us a little bit about

Andy Guelcher:

that. Yeah, you know, I think that they've been around since essentially the Bush administration, maybe even slightly before that. And I think they really are at a night, really time when they stand on their own right, they got to stand on their own and they there's enough product out there in the market, there's enough penetration in the market where I think it can you're starting to see prices come down. General Motors is releasing the bolt again. 29k baby. Yeah, the affordability issue is, is a big, big deal. And I think that's going to be a really, really great thing to address that. So we're pretty excited about it.

Unknown:

Yeah, you know, you kind of just said this, like, there's enough product in the market, we have been discussing that the fact that you, you incentivize this, like, rush on EVs, actually creates a lot more product just on the road that you can see, like, as an anecdote, are you just seeing locally, a bit more of Oh, I see EVs on the road, and now I'm taking an interest in that is that, is that playing out kind of in the showroom, it

Andy Guelcher:

is. And I think that, you know, people are getting more comfortable with it, because they're starting to see the infrastructure. I mean, if you look at infrastructure from a charging standpoint today, just in New York State versus three years ago, it's wildly different. So the range anxiety, which was the primary concern, and most always really starting to go away. And to your point, yeah, seeing them out there, and seeing kind of the adoption, your neighbors, your friends, the peers, right? That's that's a big deal too, and that's certainly

Unknown:

helping with it. Tell us about used EVs. Are you selling a lot of used EVs. What's your strategy there, especially heading in now that the tax credit has gone heading in through the end of the year.

Andy Guelcher:

So I think we don't sell a ton of used EVs, but I think over the next 18 to 24 months, you're going to start to see a lot of these used EVs come off of lease, and they're coming off at residual values that were in some cases artificially lowered to be able to hit part of the sales strategy from OEMs. So you're going to have a very, very large segment of affordability in used cars because of all these used EVs coming back off lease. And I think that's going to make for a very interesting conversation, because everybody's talking about payments, and, you know, there's no cash down, and we're going to 84 months right now. This is really going to help with a lot of that, and we'll have a much improved infrastructure to charge them, and the peers and, you know, the seeing them out on the road, and people adopting them just because other people are doing it, will start to take a little bit more of a hold, too. So I think you kind of it's not a perfect storm, but I think there's an opportunity coming, and I think we got to be ready to take it.

Unknown:

When do you think that's going to start to happen? Start to happen?

Andy Guelcher:

Yeah, as soon as these cars start to come back off leash. And I think once people get over the, you know, it's, unfortunately, it's still kind of a political polarization issue, the EV versus non EV, and it's really, it's

Unknown:

just, do you feel like that's going away, though? Like, do you feel like it's on a decline? I think

Andy Guelcher:

it is a little bit, but it's just another power train. And I think with think with AI and everything that's going on with factories and, you know, AI doing a lot of this stuff, I think we're going to see another maybe two or three power trains over the next decade so, and it's just going to be the next power train. So starts to subside, and that kind of, you know, narrative starts to go by the wayside. I think it's going to help with the adoption too. But I really, really think that from a used car affordability standpoint, over the next 18 to 24 months, it's going to be a really, really big deal. Well, I

Unknown:

think that that's an interesting call on like Next Wave adoption, because majority of affordability is focused at like younger professionals or people entering the buying process, or the or the necessity to buy a car. And from a cultural relevance, you see younger people probably leaning into net new technologies a little bit quicker, so now they can afford that used EV, and it primes them for powertrain, you know, agnosticism, essentially, like I now, don't rely on the powertrain as as the point of purchase, it's the affordability. And so I get into the market, probably a generation that doesn't need or a buying persona that doesn't need a lot of range. They're not going on long trips, they're staying a little bit more local. And so. Uh, used EVs becoming kind of an arbitrage way to get into the ecosystem. Seems like that's a that's one I hadn't even considered.

Paul J Daly:

That's wild. That's why we had Andy On the show

Andy Guelcher:

today. Yeah, there you go. Another layer to this onion is all of the technology and the products that are coming that are going to be able to access, vehicle to home charging, vehicle to grid charging eventually. And you're starting to see that with the utilities come to fruition. So we're going to be in a world where, essentially, you can have products that complement your EV where you could theoretically make your payment to your the lender, or you're doing arbitrage with the utility, and you're able to get a check back on a monthly basis. And I really think as these products continue to get more normalized and drop in price, that also becomes part of the conversation, right? So now I can use my car for just more than transportation. It can charge my house. I can get money back from my, you know, utility. That's got to be part of the conversation too. And that will continue to build momentum as well.

Unknown:

All right, bring, bringing us back to q4 of this year. Um, what? So you have a Chevy dealer, so you're selling EV Silverados. You're selling EV blazers. What else you selling? Bright drop the large van, yeah. Do they have a smaller version of that van?

Andy Guelcher:

They do. Well, there's two versions of the van. One is still pretty big.

Unknown:

I saw one that was like the size of, like, a big Chevy Astro, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's a little bigger than that, but because my first business was a reconditioning business

Andy Guelcher:

out back, if you want me to try to convert it for you, that would be great. Put

Unknown:

some shag carpet on the dash for me. No, but I saw that, and I started drooling, because my first company, like it was man and Van business model, we reconditioned and did wheels. And I was like, I want to start a service business out of that thing. You do tons with commercial. Is that a big part of your EV strategy moving forward? How do you see four Do you see fleets adopting

Andy Guelcher:

it? Well, there's a there's a program right now through New York state that's probably going to run through the end of the year, because the money is going to run out really fast, where these bright drops to businesses are almost free. It's that much money, and that's a big deal. So what you're going to see over the next 60 to 90 days is a ton of bright drops getting sold to a lot of businesses in New York State, because this program is out there right now, and it's that's

Unknown:

good. Give me some more details. I'm about to start a service business right now on the show. But no give what are some of the details of that? You say almost free. So what's the truck cost? What's the incentive?

Andy Guelcher:

So I want to say the incentive is $50,000 per vehicle. I think. Don't quote me on that, but it's pretty close. And I What

Paul J Daly:

are the criteria for qualification,

Andy Guelcher:

tax, ID number for three years, the business has to operate the vehicle for five years, 5000 miles per year, 80% of which has to be done in New York state. So there's some, some, you know,

Unknown:

yeah, I think more than cars needs a production van, like right now. Holy cow,

Andy Guelcher:

listen, dude, and if you're trading something in, if you're taking something out of service, the incentive gets even bigger. It's, it's a very, very lucrative program, very

Unknown:

I'm about to be driving a more than cars production van all over this town, all over this i and and like, just for those of you who don't know, Andy has gone so far into commercial over the past five years that I live in Syracuse, and Andy is like, I don't know what you're like, about 30 minutes north of Albany, so it's you're about two and a half hours from me, and I'm driving by your billboards in my city. Yeah, I want to ask you, how, how do you get this into the showroom, like, from a retail perspective, and the training, the requirement of knowledge on this for your people, how are you making sure that you're keeping your people on top of the changes, the shifts, the understanding of like, how the market is moving, you know what GM is doing, and getting that practically down to the showroom.

Andy Guelcher:

So literally, before I hopped on here with you guys, I was on a call with GM energy. I'm installing one of their systems in my home, and one of my caveats to doing that was having them come and train our whole team on the system that's going into my home so they can speak intelligently about it to our customers. Because one of the biggest pain points you have, going back to the technology that connects the car, is the lack of knowledge. From the sales consultant standpoint, from a service advisor standpoint, they really don't know what this stuff is or what it does. Yet, if we can bridge that gap, and we become the energy expert, up to and, you know, or excluding rather the install, you know, that has to be a qualified electrician. But if we can know as much as we can about these systems to relay this knowledge to the customers, that also breaks down a large fear barrier that still exists, oh, I don't really know what that is, or you're gonna have to call somebody else. And, and this is a large reason why a lot of customers purchase their charger online instead of buying it at the store with the car, because the service advisor, I don't really know that we need to have a culture where everybody knows enough about it to speak intelligently about it, and that's what we're working toward.

Unknown:

I mean, I'm kind of like at the end of this, it's not what I expected, but this is really getting back to being. Taking a holistic approach to EVs. When most people are thinking, like, how do I sell what I have? You're like, no, it's like, look at what's coming down the pipeline. Make sure that you're in a position to be at the center of this energy conversation and all the other stuff. Kind of comes naturally to a dealer. This is the vehicle. These are the features, right? This is how much it costs. This is how we finance it. But I'm gonna roll the outro music, because I think, like the fire hydrant needs to close, it's too early for this everybody to get this. Andy, thank you, as always, for sharing your time with us and your expertise with the industry. It's good to know that you're out there fighting the fight. We'll see you soon. Bomar,

Contributor

Kyle Mountsier

Host
Contributor

Paul J Daly

Host