🐆 Speeding Up Well

TOGETHER WITH

Wheels up again and we are headed to Vegas for Reuters’ Automotive Retail 2023 event. Check us out across socials to follow the event and make sure you catch The Automotive Troublemaker this morning for a preview with our good friend Steve Greenfield.

We are also releasing ‘Amplify’ this week, a new podcast collab with Reuters. Be sure to check out the convos as we release them from the floor of the show!

Keep Pushing Back
-Paul, Kyle, & Chris

DEALERS

Speedy Recon with All Things Used Cars

David Long and the All Things Used Cars community wasted no time getting into the nitty gritty nuts and bolts of increasing speed and effectiveness in reconditioning.

While there is nothing quite like running a successful dealership, small metaphors like grocery store produce management and financial asset trading drew parallels to the pre-owned vehicle business' need for quick inventory turnover, strategic merchandising, and innovative marketing strategies.

David Long and the community highlighted the importance of prioritizing reconditioning based on market demand and conducting granular evaluations of return on investment.

Here are ten practical tips we grabbed from the discussion:

1. 🍌 Treat Inventory as Perishable Goods: Just like a produce manager, recognize that cars depreciate over time, similar to the shelf life of produce.

2. 🐆 Swift Movement of Inventory: Aim for quick reconditioning and sales of vehicles to avoid depreciation, similar to how perishable goods need to be sold before they rot.

3. 🎡 Merchandising and Inventory Rotation: Refresh your display continually and prioritize selling older stock to prevent stagnation and minimize losses due to depreciation.

4. 🪧 Creative Marketing of Older Inventory: If a car isn't selling, think creatively about how else it can be utilized or marketed.

5. 🚗 Prioritize Reconditioning Based on Demand: Fast-track cars through the reconditioning process if they have high demand and low supply in the market.

6. 🗂️ Adopt a Portfolio Management Approach: Rate vehicles based on their market desirability and diversify inventory to balance risk, similar to how banks manage their assets.

7. 📏 Measure ROI at a Granular Level: Evaluate performance and return on investment by each segment and model, not just overall.

8. 💪 Foster Strong Interdepartmental Relationships: Collaborate closely with your internal advisor and the used car department to enhance overall efficiency.

9. 🛠️ Utilize Effective Management Tools: Make use of tools such as the Vehicle Acquisition Network (VAN) to manage buy centers and improve acquisition efficiency.

10. 🎓 Continuous Learning and Adaptation: Stay updated with market trends and customer preferences. Be flexible and willing to adapt your strategies based on these insights.

Telling it like it is - As always, our inbox is open. Have you learned a new way? A secret sauce? A key to keeping your used car business thriving? Hit reply and let us know!

TOGETHER WITH FULLPATH

GPT On Your Side

Don’t let everybody else have all the fun. ChatGPT for car dealers is here!

Fullpath has launched the industry’s first automotive-focused ChatGPT integration. The new service will revolutionize dealer-customer interactions with AI power to produce an unparalleled online shopping experience.

With Fullpath ChatGPT, you will:

💬 Deliver excellent customer service 24/7 with zero man-power
💬 Provide lightning-fast, accurate responses to all customer inquiries
💬 Integrate OEM offers, specials, & inventory data to provide precise answers to dealership-specific questions.

Dealers ready to leverage groundbreaking AI can sign up now and join the waitlist for Fullpath's transformative ChatGPT integration!

Take a deep dive into all things Fullpath ChatGPT at the live launch on June 7, 12 PM EST! Register here.

AUTOMOTIVE

Motor Morsels: GM, VW, Toyota, and Tesla

😬🎷⚡️

GM wants to take a bigger bite of the fleet market with its new business unit, GM Envolve. Fleet and commercial customers will receive a comprehensive path into electrification with EV models, battery storage, integrated charging, and all the data-driven jazz you'd expect. Companies like Domino's and AutoZone are set to partner with Envolve at various capacities.

🦘🇯🇵📈

On Friday, VW announced a 39% year-over-year jump in deliveries for April. Worldwide shipments for the company totaled 720,200, boosted dramatically by a 79% surge in the Chinese market, with 255,700 units delivered. VW's deliveries from January-April are 14% higher than in 2022.

😅🙊😬

Toyota announced Friday that the data of 2.15 million Toyota and Lexus users has been publicly available for a decade due to an oopsie-daisy. The human error has affected almost every Japanese user signed up for Toyota's main cloud service since 2012. The company blocked outside access when the issue was discovered and will put systems and training in place to prevent future issues.

🇨🇳🛑📡

China will force Tesla to recall 1.1M vehicles over a braking problem. Tesla says it will push a fix in an over-the-air software update allowing drivers to choose the energy regenerative braking strategy. All Tesla models manufactured between Jan 12th, 2019, and April 24th, 2023 are included in the recall.

TL; DR - GM dreams of electric fleets, VW is having a year-over-year glow up, Toyota apparently leaked its own data, Tesla wi-fis a recall to its Chinese drivers.

CULTURE

Games, Gardens, and Generating The Next Generation

The cat is out of the bag. Non-gamers are catching on to gamers taking days off to enjoy new releases on launch day. Even the folks NPR, who have not played a game since they did an exposé on Pac-Man's effect on the number of fingerprints the average quarter has (probably), are reporting on people taking Friday off to enjoy the new Zelda game, "Tears of the Kingdom."

Chris has asked that nobody tell Paul and Kyle about Death Stranding 2.

YouTube is highlighting gardening content in a feature called "In Bloom." It is the time of year for it, and as more people return to ideals of simple living through gardening for beauty, personal balance, or food, it makes a lot of sense they would do so with the full support of video creators around the world. Honestly, there ain't no wrong way to love a garden, so we are all in.

“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.” ― Cicero

The Pope is asking Italians to have more babies. At an annual conference on birth rates, Pope Francis urged the Italian government to find solutions for the economic and social issues preventing young couples from having kids. Finding and keeping gainful employment and reasonable housing are the problems the 86-year-old religious leader sees between Italy's young adult and parental bliss.

86 years old and so concerned with population health, the Pope must have like …15 kids, right?

Quick Hits

• Musk steps aside as Twitter CEO. 🐦

• Meta announced image generation AI for marketing. 🤖

• Astronomers witness explosion in space ten times brighter than any previously witnessed supernova or bursting star. 🔭

History

• 1905: The city of Las Vegas is founded in Nevada.

• 1957: Britain tests its first hydrogen bomb.

• 1962: Chrysler Turbine car prototype is introduced.