🌡 Heating Up In Europe

TOGETHER WITH

Anyone remember watching Saturday morning car dealership infomercials as a kid? Vehicles rolling though in the background with huge pricing stickers and a big, bold personality telling you all about them. Those were the days!

Well, on to talk about EVs, Digital Retailing and ASOTU CON!! (the first 2 were just there to bore you before seeing the ticket link to the coolest auto conference this yr)

Keep Pushing Back-Paul, Kyle, & Chris

DEALERS

Lunch Plans With Maritime Ford

Maritime Ford in Lakeshore, Wisconsin, says there actually is such a thing as a free lunch. 🍽️

🍔 Once a month for 3 years, the dealership bought lunch for community members at a local Lakeshore restaurant. 🌭

🌮 They spent around $33K over the course of the program and helped some local businesses stay afloat during the worst of Covid. Not only did the eateries receive a massive influx of customers one day of the month, but the dealership posted the location of the free meal on their Facebook page the morning of the event, leading to increased traffic and word-of-mouth awareness of some of the city's quality establishments.🥗

Telling it like it is - Buying coffee is for business, dinner is for dates, and lunch is for friends. Great stuff! 🍕

AUTOMOTIVE

EVs, E-Fuels, Elon

Hyundai has linked up with Brooklyn's curbside charging company, Itselectric (boogie, woogie, woogie), to help expand charging options for EV drivers. 🔌

The pilot program will begin with six charge posts installed throughout the city in hopes of developing scalable charging options that can fit seamlessly into communities.

In addition to the unique benefit of providing free installation, operation, and maintenance of chargers to partner cities, Itselectric's charging solution also allows property owners to earn passive income from charging docks located on their property. ⚡

Stellantis is testing synthetic e-fuels, made with renewable energy, on 28 of its ICE vehicle models, potentially allowing for up to 28M of its fleet to become eco-friendly in Europe. 🌿

The carmaker states that the solutions being tested could reduce CO2 emissions by 400M tons from 2025 to 2050.

This is just one of many European carmakers’ experiments to replace gasoline in a rush to meet the European Commission’s autumn deadline to figure out how to ensure that ICE vehicles produced after 2035 operate on e-fuels alone. 🍂

It seems like they’re always in the headlines for one thing or another. This week, it’s mostly for rocky Q1 earnings. 🪨

In an effort to boost demand, Tesla has slashed prices on its Model 3 and Model Y vehicles five times since January, which has resulted in a hit to its profit margins. Gross margins were down 18.9% quarter-over-quarter and 33% year-over-year.

At least they did announce that starting this summer, they will finally begin production on their long-awaited Cybertruck. However, Musk is still being pretty coy about the details (as per usual), so we wouldn’t recommend holding your breath. 🤥

TL;DR – Hyundai slides into electric charging, Stellantis experiments with e-fuels, and Tesla hypes the Cybertruck in lieu of disappointing Q1 results.

TOGETHER WITH CAREER CHANGERS USA

Choose Easy

*Testing out a tough-love motivational speaker voice* Not having a fully staffed service department or sales floor is a choice!

Ok, maybe that is a bit dramatic, but if you are not working with Career Changers USA to fill your service drive with the best techs, you're making things harder on yourself than they need to be.

Larry Feldman is trusted by dealers nationwide to ensure the people they hire hit the ground delivering the highest quality work and experience to customers!

Contact Larry at Career Changers USA today and make the choice to make hiring easy.

AROUD THE ASOTU-VERSE

Clubhouse

Discover the ideal way to appraise a car.

David Long has helped dealerships all over the country implement buy centers and a huge part of that is developing and honing an appraisal process.

David and the All Things Used Cars community will help you perfect your appraisal process this week, with notable voices being Liza Borches, Brian Kramer, Tommy Gibbs, and Jasen Rice!

The only voice missing is yours! Tune in on Friday at 9 AM ET / 6 AM PT on the Clubhouse app.

AUTOMOTIVE

Europe, China, and the US.

🇨🇳🚘🇩🇪

China and Europe. The Chinese auto market accounts for a third of German automaker passenger vehicle sales. Due to the fierce investment in BEVs by local companies, German companies such as VW may lose not only the race to electrification but also their market share in China and parts of their domestic market as Chinese brands expand into Europe. As a result, analysts say a change of strategy will be required if German and other European brands will survive.

🇺🇸🚙👩‍⚖️

North America. The tightening material and assembly rules in the US are already moving the country away from Chinese dependency. The EV tax credit rules give US automakers an immediate but temporary advantage over competitors and make the US an unlikely target for expansion by Chinese brands. Nearly all vehicles currently eligible for tax credits are manufactured by US brands.

☕️🍺💻

However, missing tax credits do not thwart the Chinese brands' entire strategy. Setting up community spaces, bars, and cafes, as well as powerfully entering the digital space to offer direct sales, implies a possibility of branded social groups where the cost of membership is loyalty.

Telling it like it is - Planning coffee with friends will be so hard when all the coffee shops are OEM owned, and they have to scan your key-FOB before they let you in…

TECHNOLOGY

Wild Wheels

Curtiss Motorcycles has unveiled a new all-electric luxury motorcycle they have dubbed "The 1.” 😎

This innovative and well-designed beauty features an axis-centered design (ACD) system that has received a "Notice of Allowance" patent. To the dismay of competitors, this will keep their technology safe from replication for years to come.

Curtiss claims that there are no other high-end fully-electric motorcycle brands that currently exist, and they hope to capitalize on this market gap in a manner similar to Tesla's approach in the past.

Though not electric, this is one of the coolest bikes that we’ve seen in a while. And it actually works.

Engineer and science content creator Sergii Gordieiev of “The Q” has a love for building bicycles and has crafted a number of strange DIY contraptions over the years.

Apparently, this square-wheeled bike is actually pretty heavy and hard to keep going with just the pedals. But, what if they teamed up with Crutiss to smack a battery pack on that puppy?? We can dream…

Telling it like it is - Every now and then somebody has to reinvent the wheel, so we all remember why “don’t try to reinvent the wheel” is such a popular cliche. Thanks, Sergii!

Quick Hits

• A SpaceX giant rocket exploded minutes after launch in Texas. Video shows the unfortunate test launch over the gulf. 🚀

• Google employees have called the Bard AI chatbot “worse than useless” and “a pathological lair,” but the company has launched it anyway. Take that Microsoft? 🤖

• Disney’s “The Mandalorian” Season 3 is done and people are itching for the upcoming Ahsoka spinoff. 🛸

• The Oakland As have finished negotiations to buy a stadium on the Las Vegas Strip. ⚾️

• Study links good diet and exercise to arthritis prevention. 🖐️

History

• 753 BC: Romulus founds Rome (according to tradition).

• 1836: Texas becomes independent from Mexico.

• 1962: The Space Needle opens in Seattle for the World's Fair.

• 1989: Students protest in Tiananmen Square.

• 1967: GM produces its 100,000,000th vehicle.