AAH #713 - Why Are Car Sales Suddenly Slowing Down?

Speaker 1: On online after hours is brought to you by bridge Stone Tires Solutions for your journey.

Speaker 2: Mister Vassilash, we missed you last week. I know, I know.

I was at the powertrain conference. The ESA puts on

pretty good conference too, by the way, but I did miss the show.

Speaker 3: So basically, nothing in history happened on October third in the auto industry. So I don't have a historical question

for you.

Speaker 4: But but so we're gonna.

Speaker 3: Nothing happened, nothing, nothing happened historically.

Speaker 5: Today.

Speaker 3: That's Stephanie Brinley, who's a s in global mobility.

Speaker 2: Yeah, we got Warren Brown, the famous forecaster and analyst.

Speaker 3: So this so you got some help here, because so I've reverted to a doctor data question.

Speaker 4: Okay, so we've all.

Speaker 3: Been pouring over the the Q three numbers, and of course I'm a little afraid that Stephanie's probably looking at a Excel spreadsheet of numbers as I present this question to you. Okay, So here it is, yes, Okay, in

the third quarter, one Stilantis brand sold eight more vehicles than Honda sold of one model in the month of September.

Speaker 2: Okay, so it's not fiat.

Speaker 3: So so you've you've got you've got one brand three months, you've got one model one month.

Speaker 2: Okay, So it's a difference of eight vehicles, process of elimination.

It's not Fiat because Fiat was way worse than that.

It's not Alfa Romeo because Alfa Romeo is way worse than that. And I got to believe Jeep and Ram

and Dodge did better than that. So that leaves Chrystler.

Speaker 3: No no, what, no, no, no, no, So.

Speaker 4: I watch you.

Speaker 6: He wants the vehicle too, doesn't it.

Speaker 2: Well, that would be ideal. The vehicle is a tough

part or what do you think?

Speaker 6: Warren?

Speaker 3: Okay, do you see what I'm saying?

Speaker 5: So I'm doing the calculations and I can't.

Speaker 3: All right, all right, all right, So Alfa Romeo sold two forty nine vehicles in the third quarter. Okay, Honda

sold two thousand and forty one passports in September.

Speaker 2: There you go.

Speaker 3: He just said, yeah, So just think about it. Just

that one model sold eight fewer.

Speaker 4: Which which is the endorsement?

Speaker 5: That's rude. I guess it's an endorsement of Alfa Romeo.

Speaker 4: Right, No, okay, all right, so do you see?

Speaker 2: Oh yeah, look I mean, you know, look, I love Alphas.

I think they're beautiful, they're a blast to drive. They

can't sell those things. I mean, think about that, a

little over two thousand cars in a three month period.

I mean, they're they're barely trickling out the door.

Speaker 6: They're barely trickling out the door. And you know, it's

a brand that that tried to come back and sort of key areas, like they understood who they wanted to talk to and who they thought were going to buy it and all that. And then Stellvia and Julia Stellio

and Julia I haven't had a ton of attention the last couple of years, because that's that's sort of a stillantis issue in general. And added they added the Tanale,

which is doing it's doing something. It's not doing great

and neither is the right.

Speaker 2: Okay, this is leading us into a discussion of sales, which is where we wanted to go. Anyway, the third quarter, Uh,

won't let me throw it out to you. What do

you think? Third quarter? Now, let me set this page.

Speaker 4: This is a year.

Speaker 2: In January, everyone was like, Okay, COVID's behind us, chip shortage is behind us. We have in the market pends

up demand and it's not happening. What is going wrong?

Speaker 4: Well, look, I think you could never get a better set of and I'll leave interest rates off for a second.

You could never get a better employment situation or a GDP growth situation.

Speaker 5: Than we have right now.

Speaker 4: Okay, and you can go back six or eight years whatever you want to do. A two point five percent

economic growth and maximum employment are two really good indicators that kind of prop up a market in any given year.

Right now. Then consumers went into the showroom and found

a level of pricing now that basically in the last three years has gone up quite a bit. Right, Everybody

wants to get their profit margins up because they got a whole lot of stuff they need to support. So

consumers walked in, in my view, in the in the third quarter and in the second quarter, walked in, saw the prices, saw reasonable discounts, and then asked the F and I department what's it going to take to finance this thing?

Speaker 5: And they left the dealership. I mean, the the.

Speaker 4: Interest rates and the lack of really aggressive pricing has finally caught up with the market, and it caught up with it started to catch up in quarter two absolutely caught up with.

Speaker 5: The market in quarter three, no question in my mind.

Speaker 3: So is this the availability of affordable vehicles?

Speaker 6: That No, it's it's a little bit more of that.

Everything is. So if you come in three or four

from from three or four years ago, it's that jump that's ticker shocks is kind of a thing. The medium

price has gone up quite a bit, and I think when you when you look at some of the sales though, they struggle with the affordability because the people who are buying are still spending a.

Speaker 2: Lot of money.

Speaker 6: So I'm like, what's really happening here? Are people totally

walking away because they can't and maybe they don't feel like dropping down to another segment? Are we kind of

at a consumer you know? Pent up? Demand is more

or less caught up. We're still uncertain about the about

the election coming up. I think interest rates are probably

even bigger problem than.

Speaker 2: That's what I wonder, you know, I think they're confederate, right.

So if I'm in the market, i want to buy a new car or new house for the same thing, and I'm thinking or reading that, hey, the FED is going to cut rates, I'm going to hold off. Why

buy now? If I wait another month or two, maybe

another half point comes off. I get a cheaper loan.

I wonder if or.

Speaker 4: There'll be a December surprise and I'll go in in December and see what particular deal that I can get from the manufacturers.

Speaker 6: And Yeah, I think the incentive part of it is part of it as well. But I think we have

to be careful with that that idea too, in that if if you suddenly start piling on incentives, we know where that goes. That doesn't ultimately really work for out

for the industry.

Speaker 2: Remember when happened, Remember when COVID hit and they swore that they would never do that again.

Speaker 6: I'm you know, there's some I.

Speaker 4: Know they're kind of maintaining of all the promises that have been made, they're kind of maintaining that promise. Let's

look at it a macro scale. Pick your trend number. Okay,

it's five years in a row, sales haven't hit sixteen.

Speaker 5: Million units in the United States, not one, not two five.

Speaker 4: That's that causes me to say, if the pricing philosophy holds, including the incentive philosophy, you kind of have to forget seventeen million units as a benchmark target to go after, and you better adjust your plant scale, your capacity utilization to accommodate that. And if you don't, there you go.

Speaker 6: And there's still more utilization. They can be evaluated. But

I think we did a lot of that is another word is plant shutting, But yeah, a lot of that's.

Speaker 2: A thirty look, right, I think I think we're at peak auto. I don't think sales will ever go much

over seventeen. I don't know that you even see seventeen.

You're predicting a one point four percent increase this year from last year. I mean, so that goes up to

fifteen point seven one million. I mean, so do you

see a seventeen number ever.

Speaker 4: Through twenty thirty? So we got what six years between

now and twenty thirty, right, maybe one out of six maybe.

Speaker 6: But I would say I would say that while seventeen sounded great and everybody got happy when we were at seventeen, we didn't always hold it. It never If you look

at we're at seventeen for a couple of years and then we came back down. Then we get seventeen, and

then we came back down. Seventeen is driven by incentives.

It's driven by it's not natural demand really, even though we were able to stay in it for a couple of years in a row, that's not where the natural demand really seems to be. I think it is much

closer to sixteen. It's much closer to sixteen five than

it is seventeen. So I'm you know, maybe that's where

we're really at.

Speaker 4: Yeah, if you really look at the data, there's been a downward slope since two thousand and seven.

Speaker 5: Yeah, if you really do the right hard Despite.

Speaker 2: The fact that the population continues to increase, and this ger thinking for the industry, population is going up, car sales are not.

Speaker 6: We were already pretty saturated. I mean, population going up helps,

but you were at three cars per household and maybe were it to or maybe you know, there's still there was room to play with that. We aren't looking at

a situation where population is going up and you were only at one car per household, or you were at less on one carp per household. So we're saturated to

begin with. We can have a few more people without

it driving up the sales level, especially for a new car right.

Speaker 5: Now, just to sixteen to five. Get on with this.

Speaker 6: I think that in a lot of ways. The industry

itself is doing that because they are looking at adjusting production more so than leaning into incentives. I mean, we

do have outlayers.

Speaker 5: I don't know about that.

Speaker 4: Every forecaster was above sixteen at the beginning of the year.

Everyone in the industry was, including myself. I mean, I

stand guilty as Joe.

Speaker 7: Sixteen one, but we weren't really so it was there was there any brightness, anything that stood out to you in the third quarter in terms of a model that perhaps did exceedingly well or type of vehicle that did seedingly well.

Speaker 6: And the reason that like that one thing sort of jumps out is is because at one point a little bit of negative growth, right if you're not really in a space where things are standing out in terms of good things, it's either hold steady, I mean and right now, holds in steady is good. I was on the phone

with Honday earlier this week and they're like, we have really strong demand. And I looked at any year I

guess in this stronger than being down, but it wasn't a super crazy outstanding monk. So you think holding steady

is actually not a bad thing.

Speaker 4: At the moment, I see a couple of things, REB four, Maverick Hybrids, don't you can look at the third quarter.

Speaker 5: I'm not a big quarterly guy.

Speaker 4: I'm kind of take the perspective of a year.

Speaker 5: And if you take the perspective of a year, V.

Speaker 4: Four hybrids, Maverick hybrids, Fords, Ford's doing well and REB four is doing well. Another one, if you really look

at the data for the for the total year, it's going to shock you. Asian cars are up as the

Detroit three continues to drop. And we're talking your cars

value value. Cars that hold on can also be sold

in Mexico. But I think that that's a positive trend

that you have civics.

Speaker 6: Civics are doing well. Yeah, and that's but that's that's

a matter of those those in that space. It doesn't mean.

Speaker 4: Three have given them the space.

Speaker 6: They've given them in the space, but they give them the space because they weren't profitable at it. And I

think you look at a segment like that and you go, Okay, maybe not everyone, Like how many people can be in the segment and still be popular and profitable. You look

at the minivan segment, Yeah, but we're running into running into setch for there like I'm saying, that's that's something to kind of watch going forward. So if they can

do it profitably, and again you alluded to Mexico, it is the fact that Civic can, croll and K four and all of these have multiple markets, and the domestics just weren't that great with managing small cars and international markets.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 4: So now General Motors is in the eighty percent world of the sixteen and a half million market.

Speaker 5: They continue to shrink.

Speaker 4: And my point that I think that I sent you out in the newsletter that I did was and I appreciate your point, but if they can't compete in the car business, how are they going to compete against the Chinese?

Speaker 2: Right That means at some point you say shrink, I say retreat. They've been retreating all over the world. They're

now retreating in different segments.

Speaker 5: That including China.

Speaker 2: At some point you got to put a flag a mountain and take.

Speaker 6: Absolutely better than it is. Hybrids I think are super

interesting right now. Maverick hybrid's doing well, like the ones

that have them are doing well.

Speaker 2: But I.

Speaker 6: Have a theory, let's hear it. I have a theory

that it's not really so much that people are groping up the internet and going, I want a hybrid, like that's where I'm going next. As they're strolling in, they

want the Maverick, And the Maverick Hybrid is there, and it's better fuel of front economy, and it started off as the most least expensive one in the lineup, so it was an easy choice.

Speaker 5: I agree.

Speaker 6: We're like, oh okay, it came in CRV Raut four the same thing. Handa and Toyota both have spent twenty

five years figuring out how to really get hybrids in the right space, how to make it sit nicely in the product mix, how to have it perform as well as consumers want, how to make it not be a trade offf and not be more expensive. Then it's not

the top expensive, most expensive vehicle in the lineup. So

you walk into a rail four dealership and the hybrid the ones there, and you're like, oh, okay, cool, I'm good.

Same with CRV so and there are there are some people who are looking for hybrids. That's there's no never

goes a zero. But I really feel like a lot

of these people are just walking in and going, you know this works, They're going to walk out and be happy.

I don't think they're getting something that they don't like or something that you know, it's just being shoved on them in a negative way. But I don't think that

it suggests that everyone that hybrid is is what people are looking for. The second part of that, however, is

regulations mean that electrification is happening in one way, shape or form. We're not going to move to more hybrids

anyway because we need it.

Speaker 4: We're going to move there because they walk into the showroom.

Speaker 5: And they see a twenty.

Speaker 4: Five thousand dollars vehicle, it's ice and they see a comparable and I mean equal BEV for thirty five thousand, and go, what.

Speaker 5: Does that one do again?

Speaker 4: And the salesman this I believe in your theory.

Speaker 5: I will add an additional one.

Speaker 4: The salesman that has the hybrid or the sales lady that has the hybrid says, well, don't leave.

Speaker 5: Let me show you the hybrid.

Speaker 4: Yeah, if you want the fuel economy, if you want the range, okay, And you you're anxious, but you heard about all these BEVs. Please don't leave the showroom.

Speaker 5: Here's a hybrid.

Speaker 4: And Toyota is a major I mean Toyota has made hybrids for what twenty years now, they got it perfected so well, I was gonna.

Speaker 3: Say that the forty eight percent of their sales in September, forty eight percent were electrified, which basically in terms of Toyota, I mean that easy.

Speaker 2: Well, they have a number of line too where you can only get a hYP right.

Speaker 6: Well, the cameri camera is just hard.

Speaker 2: I think Siana is the same.

Speaker 6: Way Camery, Santa Crown.

Speaker 4: Benza, well, Benza does not moode well for General Motors.

Speaker 3: So why Okay, So, so you have experienced at General Motors, I mean, so, I mean, what is your sense of what happened there? I mean earlier on you know, we

were talking earlier about the Vault, and you know that General Motors.

Speaker 5: Was kept and should have kept the bolt, but.

Speaker 3: They had the three mode hybrid that they developed with Mercedes.

Speaker 6: Yeah that was less effective and learn yeah, I.

Speaker 3: Mean, and so so they were they were in the mix.

Speaker 4: Why I'm I'm I'm the odd guy out on this.

A lot of people have argued that it's really the government that's forcing manufacturers to do things they didn't want to do.

Speaker 5: I don't believe that at all.

Speaker 4: I believe that Mary and Farley came out and said we're going to be all electric by twenty thirty five.

We're going to chase Tesla and we're going.

Speaker 5: To beat them.

Speaker 4: And the government looked at them and said, well, they think that they can do it, so when we come out with the new regulation, they've already said they can do it. This is way before the EPA came out

with their standards. They were chasing Tesla and Tesla stock price.

The government said well, they can do it, so let's put it up here. And then when it was put

up there's a different story.

Speaker 2: Now, yeah they all had heart attacks.

Speaker 4: Yeah, well but they asked for it, and I've written a couple of articles on this.

Speaker 2: Well they did, but this was before the market reality slapped them in the face.

Speaker 6: They weren't the only with saying it. It's not like

just Mary Barra and Justin Farley said I'm going to go electric. This was the narrative in twenty nineteen, twenty

twenty going into COVID. It was the twenty eighteen auto shows.

It was all about how do you do both going to have some ice, going to have some electrics, going to have we've we've got to do everything, and this is where we're going to go with it. Something in

the water in twenty twenty and twenty twenty one, and actually part of it was us getting back into the Paris Climate Accord. That was part of it. That changed

some of the dynamics. And the regulations in Europe and

China were getting crazier as well. In this little period

about eighteen months, it flipped and every announcement was nope, okay, we've got it. Now, we're all on board, we can

do this. And part of it was Tesla, because Tesla

was growing. They were building more cars and they were

selling more and they were having this fantastic growth and for some reason even now people can't figure out they don't sell cars, they sell technology, and they're like, well, we have to go after this Tesla. And that was

definitely driving a lot of things, but it was the wrong target, I think. And then you come into this

and if you look at bove adoption in twenty four and twenty five, I think I've said this here before.

I didn't think that twenty four was going to be a really it's important that it continues to go forward, but it isn't the year that tells you what consumers are going to do with BEV? Neither is twenty twenty five.

We don't have infrastructure yet, we don't have communication education yet, we don't have the number of choices that we need.

We have a lot more choice than we did, and there's a lot of really good choices out there, but there's not enough yet. So we're still pushing on the

rope here. We're still trying to get over this show.

Speaker 4: The thing we do have is plants, right, yes, but didn't I match what do you need?

Speaker 2: I still say as a segment, the BEV story is still a positive.

Speaker 6: Story, still positive.

Speaker 2: Sure, we're going to solve more than we did last year, and we're going to solve more next year than we did this year. And so with all these problems, there's

still over a million people going into showrooms and say I want an electric car. I think that's extremely positive.

Speaker 6: It's just not going as fast as this period, which I wasn't I was going to go that last time for you guys.

Speaker 2: GM is on the cusp of hitting a run rate of fifty thousand beds a quarter. It came very very

close in the third quarter to keep their momentum. They're

going to end the year, which was part of their guidance, we're going to be at a two hundred thousand a year run rate. I know this is over multiple models,

but GM has got this altium platform. Everything's built off

the altium battery, the altum platform. Is that going to

be enough volume where they can start to make money on electrics?

Speaker 6: It should be. No, I think there's potential there. I

think there's potential there. And one of the things that

I when I think about altium too is when you look at what's on the market today, it's still being evolved.

And so I think one of the cool things about Ultium is it's not just about the product platform that's here today. Is that, just like everyone else, they're learning

and building and the next generation is going to be that much better. And they've already figured out the multiple platforms.

And doesn't mean that somebody else can't be successful with a different strategy, but I think they've picked one that is going to work out well for them. Do they

need to revisit plugins and get into that space in the US, They probably do, But that doesn't mean that uld Tium is wrong, right.

Speaker 2: So I want to hear Warren's counterpoint, but then I want to come back to you. So you don't think

they're going to be able to make money on their beds at two hundred thousand a year.

Speaker 5: Remember part of that's Honda volume.

Speaker 2: Correct, it is, but it's still GM volume.

Speaker 4: I don't know what the negotiated price is, but I'll come at it from a different, different perspective. I got

a plant in Canada that's not even coming close to what thirty percent utilization.

Speaker 2: You're talking Breitrop, right, I.

Speaker 4: Got Orion that's empty right now. I got Canada. You know,

at some point in time you gotta get that volume up.

They're not going to use incentives to get that volume up.

You can't sell ninety six thousand dollars silverados, I'm sorry, Yeah, okay, you don't need a plant for that, or a ninety six thousand dollars Sierra pickup truck. You don't you need

a bolt and you never should have dropped it in my view speaking to General Motors, So no, Gerald Johnson said I need a million units by twenty twenty six, and I.

Speaker 5: Agreed with him.

Speaker 4: Gerald a GM manufacturing smart guy led General Motors manufacturing in both Europe and for the globe. He picked the number,

which I agreed with in terms of what do I gotta do to begin.

Speaker 5: To make money.

Speaker 4: I don't think I have a million units in the general Motors BEV forecast through twenty thirty.

Speaker 5: Wow.

Speaker 6: We get there.

Speaker 5: Wow.

Speaker 3: So okay, I'm curious about you know, you're saying two hundred thousand run rate that they're going to have just.

Speaker 6: Said two hundred, two hundred fifty thousand this year.

Speaker 3: But the thingbo this is that they basically only sold you know, they've sold under eighty thousand.

Speaker 2: But if you look at the third quarter, they sold including the Honda volume, which I think is important from a manufacturing point because it's GM doing that manufacturing. They

had what forty three forty six thousand BEVs sold in the third quarter, So I believe they'll finish the fourth quarter, all right.

Speaker 3: So I'm looking at I'm looking at the release right now.

GM's US EV sales Q three twenty four thirty two thousand, ninety five vehicles the others okay, and then in the second quarter it was twenty nine or twenty one thousand, nine hundred and thirty.

Speaker 4: I'll do one hundred and ten sales this year, and.

Speaker 2: You said thirty nine thousand, No, thirty two, thirty two thousand, and then there's about fifteen thousand hondas in there or something like that.

Speaker 4: But it's question for the quarter is well they finessed the production versus sales number.

Speaker 5: They always do.

Speaker 3: They find there's a pretty big delta between two hundred thousand and one hundred and ten.

Speaker 6: I think some of the some of the bright spots for the rest of the years. EKOONAXCB is just coming up,

and Silverada is going to get mid price ones as well.

They're not going to just stay at ninety six thousand.

And I don't disagree with any of those statements, but I think that the situation is you have to think about further out and we have to get over this chasm.

And it's here and it was on paper and for years you're like, you're going to hit a point where bov buyers, you're going to slow down and you're going to have the point that we're at and it's here, and there's a lot of like, what how did that happen? Well,

you know it was in the math, it was there, and there is an entirely realistic opportunity that BEV turns out to be thirty percent of the market and just sort of sits there for another ten years. That might

be what we have in spite of regulations saying that we're supposed to get someplace, and that's super challenging from a profitability standpoint. I recognize that, but that might be

what reality is. As we talk about regulations, as we

talk about an investment, as we talk about chasing Tesla, consumers were the wild card and that's who's holding it up right now, regardless of why, whether it's because of price, whether it's because of all the things that are being worked on and fixed and just take five years do they were the wild card.

Speaker 4: So it's a little a little bit of the snooker too is I think in my numbers, I actually have Hondikia Genesis selling more beds than General motorcyshear.

Speaker 6: I think that might be right, although I.

Speaker 5: Mean just.

Speaker 4: Think about that, and they're imported mostly for.

Speaker 6: No way the lease take away the lease, No you.

Speaker 5: Can't because it's in the law.

Speaker 6: Yeah, but I want to.

Speaker 2: Go back to it because I told you Stephanie was going to ask you about this GM needs hybrids. Is

that what this tie up with Hyndi is about. I

was shocked when they announced that they were going to work.

Speaker 6: I was a little surprised by that way.

Speaker 2: I shocked the GM would go to them, but maybe.

Speaker 6: That and they would agree to what It wasn't interesting, It was an interest. That tells me, actually that the

most important thing think about that is there is it's not necessarily that the automakers have to consolidate, right, That's been the story for a while, and so I have to consoliate aaril so you can't survive. There's other ways

to do it. You can partner in more specific things,

and gms more willing to do that. Hundai hasn't partnered

a lot before, so their involvement is super interesting. They

need to get back into some hybrids. I you know,

the question of whether or not they have to do it with somebody else it comes down to the scale of the manufacturing. I think that's where that comes in,

because they are still doing some hybrids in China. They

didn't like suddenly when you know, when they stapped building the bolt or the volt, excuse me, they didn't like take the engineering Johns and throw them too the trash like they know how to do it.

Speaker 5: They actually knew how to do it on the Silverado and.

Speaker 6: They knew how to do it on the Silverado. They

did it so that institution analogy and get valid had mild hybrid, you know. So it's I think that the

tie up is more about what can we do to make some of the components and get to some scale that way and maybe save a little bit of time on catching.

Speaker 2: You think that's what the Hondi deal is for hybrids.

Speaker 6: I think it's that more than anything else.

Speaker 5: They just didn't want to go to Toyota.

Speaker 8: Maybe you know who knows how that, but why did they go to Honda Honda on you know, on field cells and they you know, Honda's got good hybrid technology and they they worked together with them remember the Saturn red Line.

Speaker 2: Yes, even more than the Prologue, and they were going to do GM crews in Japan with I think the partnership has unraveled. I'm just guessing. I think that.

Speaker 4: That there was going to be there was going to be product swaps both ways that came unraveled.

Speaker 2: Actually something went bad with that and Honda said, not another thing that might have been is there's not really consolidation happening in Japan. But I believe the Ministry of

International Trade and Industry has come to the automakers and said, look, we're going to get our clocks clean. Toyota, you're going

to take care of Mazda, you're going to take care of Subaru, Honda and Nissan. Why don't you guys get

together and Mitsubishi you're part of Nissan. So I think

that's how they've grouped those things, And it wouldn't surprise me if Honda said to GMA, look, you know, we got to go with Nissan, say Anara.

Speaker 6: When the GM Honda announcement about the affordable car going away, it was about October last year, because we went to the Tokyotor show just after and in a round table talking to Honda CEO. Excuse me, you know, of course

it came up because it was three days before that the announcement came out. But his response at that time

was the reason was because we didn't see the ability to make an affordable baby. Because battery is still cost

on us ten grand. There's nothing they couldn't get. They

didn't they didn't really think they could get the battery small enough, is his point at that moment, and what they were looking at was in this in this time frame, between now and twenty thirty and between these products that are coming in the next couple of years. Not necessarily

forever you can't get it low enough, but in these next couple of years, we're not going to be able to get the battery small enough to be able to and cheap enough to be able to make it affordable.

And so why do the program. There may be much

more to all of this than that, because everything is multi layered, but that was that was the initial Honda comments.

Speaker 2: Well to the Chinese that you can't get.

Speaker 6: Well, and then you bring in a whole other set of set of numbers in there.

Speaker 2: But hey, look we're gonna have to take a quick commercial break.

Speaker 1: We want to do.

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field well, Atlantic they were.

Speaker 6: One hundred and eighteen percent and.

Speaker 2: Twelve cars over three months. It's increased. I have never

seen the wheels come off a car company as fast as they have it Stilantis. You know what a year ago.

A year ago, we were going, oh my gosh, this guy, Carlos Tavaris's he's a miracle worker. He turned you know, uh,

he got Renault or not Renault Joe going again. He

got Opal going again. He's he's got double digit margins

for a full line manufacturer in the American This guy's a whizkit and now called Blamo. The dealers hate him,

the union hates him, his employees hate him. The Italian

government wants to string him up, and the Border directors says, yeah, we are looking for a replacement when his contract expires.

I don't think he's going to get to the end of his contract. He has wiped out. In this year,

what was the number Sewan thirty four billion dollars in market cap thirty four you know, in January the market cap was seventy billion dollars. It's about thirty five right now.

I have never seen things go south so Fa, and I'm thinking, if I'm on the Board of Directors. I've

got to show everybody, the shareholder, I'm doing my fiduciary duty.

We got to boot this guy out of here before it really collapses.

Speaker 5: What do you guys?

Speaker 6: Then, I think that he underestimated North America, not in its importance, but in the level of attention that it needed.

It seemed to be that the other brands and the other things were getting a little bit more attention, and you could just North America knew how to do it.

But North America is also in a period where it doesn't have as much product as it had before. And

we talked with the alpharom I was getting old. That's

been that's been an issue for these brands under multiple ownership, probably worse UNDERFEAT but still that's part of the problem.

The products aren't getting refreshed fast enough. Stillantis is on

the verge of having a really good multi energy solution, but it's not here yet, and so, you know, can you kind of get through And while they thought they were getting through to this, they let inventory get too high.

Pricing came up, and if you look at Wrangler and Gladiator pricing a little bit too. I think that the

Bronco and Wrangler are pretty much segment of the wrong right.

Toyota Forerunner plays in there a little bit, and what you really see is that that segment's not that big, and so they're eating each other up because Bronco's it's not like Bronco's, you know, it's it's still seeing up and down months. It's been very inconsistent, and Wrangler is

older than Bronco, so it's got a little bit of a disadvantage there. But there is since this magic, you know,

six hundred thousand unit market of people that want off road wranglers in that style of vehicle. So I think

that's been a challenge. Having one competitor is a challenge.

I think that's a lot of Worstilantis is at But upsetting the union and upsetting employees and everybody at the same time, isn't.

Speaker 3: The problem that they really don't have any new product?

I mean, the Wagoneer was basically the I mean of you know, across the board. I mean, what do they have,

What does FCA have that was introduced in the last year that was new?

Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's I think it's I think it's more than that.

Speaker 5: I think to take it from the top.

Speaker 4: There are contractual agreements that you could do with the UAW never looked at the language, but I looked at the reporting. I think that there's a huge trust issue

there that may go beyond I mean still not just maybe on the contract and lose the war.

Speaker 5: On that one. Two.

Speaker 4: You know they've had a number of recalls on that Wrangler and fires that have hurt them, certainly hurt their production.

Speaker 5: Okay, but I'll go one more.

Speaker 4: It's the same problem that we faced when I was at General Motors. And I'll give them a little bit

of advice here. Too many brands. You got to feed

Alpha Romeo. I don't care where it comes from. The

marketing people still need the attention, the focus, the pricing, and the delivery to the customer.

Speaker 5: Eh.

Speaker 4: Okay, Chrysler, Okay, next.

Speaker 5: Year Chrysler will have an airflow. Wow they have.

Speaker 4: They did to Chrysler what General Motors did to Saturn, bled it product dry. So look, you can pick on

any one particular product. You know, RAM should be selling

a little more. And I agree with your comment on

the Wrangler. Look at Stilantis's brands in North America and

the focus. We had too many children to feed at

General Motors. We couldn't feed Saturn and Geo and Pontiac

and Oldsmobile and Chevrolet and Cadillac and chryst Ourstantas can't feed Chrysler, Alfa, Romeo and Fiat and do a decent job to get that share back. So I would encourage them.

And they're not my customer, but I would encourage them.

Speaker 5: Look at your brands here and get more focus. So

what would you keep?

Speaker 3: I mean, so they've got Jeep, Ram, Chrysler, Dodge, Fiat Alpha.

Speaker 4: Well, what's what's wrong with having Dodge, Jeep and Ram?

Speaker 5: What's wrong with that? Nothing?

Speaker 6: I don't disagree with that. Actually, And I when back

when we're Chrysler and they were Fiat Chrysler and and and Sergia was right. I didn't really understand bringing Fiat

and Alpha and to the US and saying, Okay, we're gonna have this little car over here, We're gonna have this thing over here, and then we're gonna make We're gonna take Chrysler that at the time was still on that sort of near luxury premium thing, and we're gonna take it. We're gonna we're gonna make it mainstream, because

that's what we do. We take profit and we take

margin away. We make it mainstream. People mover and we're

gonna put Dodge in this whole thing, and somehow you're going to move everybody through those brands. A consumer doesn't

may go from a small car to a city and to a truck, to an suv to to all of that through their life, but they don't necessarily go from Fiat to Dodge.

Speaker 4: Don't totally.

Speaker 6: I totally agree, and that ever really made and now they don't have cars. But even even at that point,

I thought I didn't under I didn't really understand how you're going to keep everybody together. Now, while RAM and

Dodge of have had years, I still would maintain that that's splitting those two from the GAT gon't hasn't. It

hasn't been a disaster, but I don't think it's gained them anything but.

Speaker 4: Truly, But they didn't do it from a distribution standpoint.

Speaker 6: No, the distribution wasn't, say, but your marketing point is there.

Speaker 4: The vice president marketing only has so much attention span, okay, there's only so many meetings, so many hours in the day, okay, and so I okay, fall on your sword, get rid of Alfa Romeo okay, and fall on your sword and get rid of Fiat.

Speaker 5: Okay.

Speaker 4: If you're going to do Chrysler do it, then you better do something different.

Speaker 5: Okay.

Speaker 4: Yes, sure they have Pacifica and it's a great vehicle.

But Chrysler used to be a whole bunch of different product lines. It stopped being a premium product line long

long time could product could as so long as you built it here, resigned it.

Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, okay, So I mean I think we've surprising.

Speaker 3: You know, you're talking about Dodge. So in the third quarter,

Dodge sold twenty six, five hundred and fifty nine vehicles, Okay, And so that's over Hornet Charger, Challenger, Durango.

Speaker 5: Some of that is they it's going away. Some of

that is the going away stuff that I think.

Speaker 3: Chrysler sold twenty two, four hundred and eighty two. So basically,

you know, just four thousand difference between the two and it has, as you basically said, it has one vehicle now, right.

Speaker 4: So what saving Chrysler the way that Lott is given total credit, the way they organize their distribution system in the United States, where they put all those brands in one showroom, so the Dodge person. The Dodge person can

very easily send it down to the seven four boost later and sell it Chrysler PACIFICA. If they were separate,

they would have been dead already. My point is, is

Stillantis big enough to have five brands.

Speaker 2: Not in the US market?

Speaker 5: Right?

Speaker 6: But they weren't an FC case huh, weren't an FC either.

Speaker 2: He was like, the chickens have come home to roost now, I mean, you know, but I'm going to throw something else on top of my observation of what's gone wrong at Stilantis. Chrysler, let's call it Chrysler was a beautiful

industrial machine, highest margins in the business of any full line manufacturer worldwide, double digits cash generator accounted for sixty sixty percent of the profits at Stilantis. If I'm a manager,

it's like, oh my gosh, how do I help these guys?

How do I keep this machine running? How do I

oil everything? How do I make sure that it's perfectly

tuned up? What a Carlos come in and do? He

started slashing and burning. You guys have the highest costs.

We're going to outsource this to Morocco. We're going to

move this stuff out to India. We're going to take

all this stuff out. All you guys that were running

everything that made all the profits, you're out of here.

You don't know what you're doing. And he took this

beautiful industrial machine and he broke it. I agree with

everything that you guys have said about pricing and inventory and the product line, but I think this guy is got cost cutting mania. And I'm not against cost cutting.

I think it's extremely important. But if it's your single

largest source of profits, you don't go in and start cutting like crazy. And I think that's been his fundamental mistake,

and I think it's another reason why he's going to get thrown out of there. I mean, I keep so warrant.

They hit over one hundred days supply, and it was at the end of last year. Didn't somebody in Auburn

Hills say, hey, guys, we're up to seventy days, We're up to eighty days, we're up to ninety days. I've

said this on the show before. My reading and talking

to people is nobody wanted to point this out because they knew they were going to get their head chopped off.

Speaker 4: Well, I will going through the bankruptcy times. I have

a perspective. We've made an agreement with the UAW.

Speaker 5: We have a profit objective.

Speaker 4: We have to keep the plants running, we have to thin the fixed cost right. And so you get into

a world where you got to keep the plant running right.

And so you're talking about production going.

Speaker 2: I know, but because you booked the profit, book correct profits.

You booked the profit. But you're talking about a time

the bankruptcy when I mean it was cheaper for General Motors to build a car than to not build a car.

That's how upside down their finances were. I'm talking about

this beautiful industrial machine that's the most profitable in the business.

And and boy, and that's what I talk about keeping it tuned up. You see inventory getting out of hand,

you throttle back on production. Maybe you do a little

bit more incentives, you do something, but you don't let it get out of hand. And they let it get

out of hand.

Speaker 6: And then and then Jim came back and said, well that the Americans don't know how to sell things.

Speaker 4: Well, that's a cultural distinction between Europe and North America that's existed goes beyond sales because I thought the engineers did, and they told me.

Speaker 2: Their perception is that Stillantis is telling them the stupid Americans don't know what they're doing, and we've got to come fix it. And it wasn't broken, and it wasn't broken,

and it.

Speaker 6: Wasn't broken, and I think there is that does kind of go back a little bit to the different, different view that that Tavares has, But that's who Stillansis chose.

They chose, They chose a guy who got his way up by cost cunning, and so are we surprised?

Speaker 5: He angry again keep the plant running?

Speaker 2: But I mean, isn't isn't the issue that the consumers are just not buying their products? I mean there's all

these other problems, but I mean it's just like basically, okay, is there something that is sufficiently compelling for customers to go in and buy lots of something from them? And

we're not seeing it?

Speaker 5: So who's I.

Speaker 2: Mean, So I don't know if that's all to varus problem.

I mean, no, you can't like.

Speaker 10: That.

Speaker 6: We talked about like had so many production problems that they they weren't able to really kind of get it going and going grand flipping.

Speaker 4: Flipping compass from all over.

Speaker 6: The place and going to the one hundred and ten thousand dollars grand Wagon ear. I don't think that. I

don't think the market's ready for that, but not ready for like that was a little bit risky. But you

put on top of that having production issues that you couldn't build enough of them anyway. You couldn't even weigh

yourself because the sixty to sixty to eighty thousand dollars wagon ear is fine, there's nothing wrong with that pricing, and you still could have accept that production issues were affecting both of them. So you had two years of

a product that was supposed to be doing great, and once they started building it, it starts really it did start picking up. That does not help this whole scenario.

You go drill into the problems that make it a little bit worse.

Speaker 3: But what I think about it is that you're mentioning that the Maverick Hybrid and people were going into Ford stores all of a sudden and saying, Wow, I really want to buy one of these things. Or when the

Bronco killed pricing, you know, people said, gee, I really want one of these things, and so it built sort of a vibe for the Ford.

Speaker 6: Brand that is highly positive.

Speaker 3: And my question comes, where's the vibe for FCA.

Speaker 2: Well, there's stuff in the pipeline, but that's what I want to that's the pipe. Ask you about first warn,

this extended range pickup truck, the ram Charger going to have what six hundred miles range? Something crazy and it's

a lot of toe can haul. Is a traditional pickup

buyer in your opinion, going to say, yeah, that's the EV truck for me. It's got a gas engine and

plenty of range and towing. Or are they going to say,

you know, I'm going to stick with my tried and true pure ice truck.

Speaker 5: Well, I look if if if the pricing is right.

Speaker 4: Remember General Motors promised the thirty five thousand dollars Equinox and advertised it on TV and they still haven't actually put have they put it into the dealer yet. They

advertised that on TV the tit four months ago and all the reporters wrote about the thirty five thousand dollars Equinox that's coming. What happened to the thirty nine thousand

dollars Silverado EV?

Speaker 2: Yeah?

Speaker 5: Where did that go? Okay?

Speaker 4: So my point is I think it's a very interesting alternative because it provides the towing horsepower that's required and the flip the huge generator that it flips to get that extended range vehicle. If the pricing is right, I

think they'll have a good vehicle, just like they will with charger. Charger could be the future of what muscle

cars are. Horsepower and deva.

Speaker 2: So what do you think, Steph E rev pickup? Is

a traditional buyer going to go for it?

Speaker 6: Yes and no? And I say that because there are

still there are limits to that. It can toe what

ten ten or eleven thousand, but there's still pickup buyers that need more, So it doesn't answer every pickup truck buyer's need, and there's still a chasm in that part of the market as well. It has the potential to

be the thing that gets them there, but I still think it's going to be part of the mix, especially for the next few years. It's not it hopefully it's

dominant maybe, but I don't know that it will be because when you look at RAM, you do have variations all the way through in complexity.

Speaker 2: So will it sell at seventy thousand dollars?

Speaker 6: Why not?

Speaker 4: I mean really, all right, so it will sell like lightning cells I think it is.

Speaker 6: It is hard to do a little bit better than lightning.

Depending on pricing is important. But seventy thousand dollars for

full size pickup is not crazy right now?

Speaker 2: Not crazy?

Speaker 6: So I said that I don't think is a terrible price.

Speaker 3: All right, on dred thousand, let me ask you this question. Okay, So,

so Warren mentioned the Charger has the possibility of being all that and more, and we're talking about the ram charge of the e rev Okay, So the guy who was running both of those brands, Tim Caniscus, suddenly leaves. Now,

if this were the future and it was all going to be bright and shiny.

Speaker 2: What do you have left? I think this comes back

to this whole Carlos Tavares thing of the Americans don't know what they're doing, and they're not cutting costs fast enough when you have to cut cost, cut cost, cut cost, and so you guys, you're out of here. I'd love

to know if Tim left of his own accord, if he left because he was frustrated. I mean, look, this

is a guy that the people in Chrysler loved him.

The dealers loved him, the customers loved him.

Speaker 6: I'll give you three before, three months before.

Speaker 5: Cultural bridging.

Speaker 4: Is an achilles heel of the automobile business that needs to be recognized. Rememberer the merger of Equals, which okay.

Speaker 2: Turned out it was not at all, it was a takeover.

Speaker 4: No, but the cultctural differences between a German organization. I

lived this with Opel and with Chevrolet. That's not new

and that exists. And it takes a leader, a real leader,

to break through that cultural difference. Doctor Z Okay, well, no,

it really does.

Speaker 5: You have to recognize it.

Speaker 4: I mean, you know at Opal, the Opal German engineers who were great engineers, you know, said well, yeah, that's the mini van for the United States. We need a

whole bunch of more engineering money and tooling to make the one that the Germans really want. And when you

really spliced it and let's did a great job at clearing that clutter, a really good job of Claire. There's

only one engineering budget.

Speaker 5: It's my engineering budget. I heard him say that multiple occasions.

Speaker 4: Okay, but there the cultural differences exist, and you have to break through that with leadership, otherwise you're going to get what you're going to you're it's it's not insignificant.

And the real leaders recognize that.

Speaker 6: And that's where you're getting If the if the word on the street is Tavarrus is saying the Americans don't know what they're doing, that's the cultural issue. And there

and and under Sergio Marcioni, that was much less of a problem. The company did operate.

Speaker 2: The Italians and Americans.

Speaker 6: They did, They did pretty well. I won't say but.

Speaker 2: They I don't believe or Tavirus ever said the Americans don't know what they're doing. It is the impression of

the handful of engineers that I've talked to you that that's the attitude at Stilantis and Paris.

Speaker 6: And and I. It may be it may be part

of the attitude. It might be just cultural differences in

the way that they're talking to one another. It could

be that simple. In some ways, it may not actually

be true disrespect to one another. It could be the way.

Speaker 2: But to the point burn Hills, they're getting rid of thousands of people and moving them to low cost country, or moving those jobs to low cost which is a.

Speaker 6: Different issue than whether or not you think the Americans can do it or not. That's a cost cutting issue.

That goes back to the cost cutting issue. But Warren's

right for sure that cultural issues maintain. I mean, what

we're talking four years into twenty one, we're talking three years into this. In three years, you really think you

can solve all cultural problems and this is a massive thing to do.

Speaker 2: Listen, there's even cultural differences. When one American company buys

another American company, there's a culture crash because those cultures at those companies have been different. Now throw in something

from a different country and just exascerate.

Speaker 6: And in some ways to cease stilances. Have some struggles

and three years, three and a half years into this, this merger doesn't mean it can't be successful going forward and is not an entire shock because of what they're trying to do, the number of things that they're trying to put together. You don't easily merge two companies and

the companies that size to run into some hiccups at some point. Is not a shock and they wouldn't have

come up in the first six months.

Speaker 4: Yeah, cultural cultural awareness is an achilles heel of the automobile business, especially between Europe and North America. If you

go and look just close on this. If you go

a look at some of the major joint ventures, even outside of the automobile business, and you study those.

Speaker 5: I teach this at LTU.

Speaker 4: Okay, it's the cultures that couldn't merge and so all of that, all of that balance sheet value that was in the merger gets wiped away because the leadership can't coach the team on how to overcome that. It's an

achilles heel.

Speaker 6: It really is that needs to which one has been successful.

I'm trying to think of one that, like on a long term that really has worked because we're Yeah, would.

Speaker 3: Culture argue that when Chrysler took over AMC, that's the one.

Speaker 7: Okay, struggling the cultural difference between south Field and Detroit?

Speaker 2: Not sure?

Speaker 4: Well, I think you were talking about beyond the culture, beyond the border here order. I mean, yeah, they're very

difficult to find one.

Speaker 6: It's very difficult to find one that's that's gone long enough to still you are out.

Speaker 2: I would say, would be hard pressed to find any.

I mean, for a minute, Mazda disaster, Aston Martin disaster, Volvo disaster, I mean they never made a dime off any of that stuff GM bought what ZOOKI sab Isuzu got nothing out of it, zip zilch.

Speaker 6: They turned Jewu into jam Korea, so that hasn't been bad for them.

Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe you could argue that.

Speaker 4: That was Nick Riley though, that's leadership if you if you study the issue, is Nick Riley demanding it?

Speaker 2: BMW getting Bentley? That might although they're in trouble right now.

Bentley is Mercedes with Rolls Royce or excuse me, Volkswagen with Rolls Royce.

Speaker 6: The other way we're at BMW.

Speaker 2: Excuse me, I got that mixed up. That's right. But yeah,

so I would say BMW Rolls Royce is arguably worked.

I can't think isn't this is this is still European.

European though, And so we're talking about No. I said

American and Japanese didn't work.

Speaker 6: German and English?

Speaker 3: Right, So my AMC theme then holds yes, yeah, okay, but here's my question to you. Okay, so if there

is no evidence that partnerships or takeovers of Europeans in American companies, does this this basically mean that American companies ought to stick to their knitting and really focus on what they should be doing and focus on the American market and not worry about other parts of the world.

Or is the world sufficiently interconnected such that, Boy, if you're not looking at the other parts of the world, you're gonna get your ass handed to you.

Speaker 4: Well, I think it's the latter. I think it's the ladder.

Speaker 6: But look, I'll go back.

Speaker 4: Cross cultural diversity. You look at the State Department, Okay.

I learned about the State Department because you know, I talked to all the embassies when I was in all the countries that I operated in. Right, they send their

folks away for six months for language training, for culture training, for other leadership training before they're ever sent to their overseas assignment. At General Motors, it was well, they did

a little bit of it, not six months, and certainly you learned a language once you were over there. Here's

your plane ticket, okay. So it can be overcome leadership training,

switching people between the cultures that are on their way up in the organization. Okio and Hogan, when they finally

got to that level, they understood one another. Now, it

wasn't as successful in terms of Toyota and General Motors, but taking people from Switzerland and moving them to Poland, so they understood the Polish culture was part of what we did at General Motors in Europe.

Speaker 10: And so I think, I think, don't, don't eliminate, don't become so North American cloistered that.

Speaker 4: You'll run your company into the ground. Okay, it's a

leadership issue. It's the twenty first century globalization. Hello, cross

cultural get to it.

Speaker 6: And to your question, Gary about just paying attention to what you know, the issue is not whether or not you can figure out how to build a car for Europe.

The issue is that communication between the two companies. Absolutely,

So it's really the product isn't the problem. It's the

leadership and the communication and the cultural interactions between them that are holding things up. And if you're not understanding

the other side and you're not able to think about it from the other side's of view, then things are getting blocked. More so than can either version of this

company come up with the right car for the right product.

They can do that, but they need to work together on it. And that seems to be where and mergers

in general where that's that's a problem.

Speaker 4: I'll give you an example, deaders At you came over he kind of became American right in terms of the ads that he did and kind of the comical nature, and I think he actually studied it. Biggest mistake they

just sent him back home. It was time. It's time

for him to go home. Maybe it is maybe two

or three years or four years. And an assignment is

not how you bridge cultural diversity. I put that when

I teach my globalization class at LTU, I put that at the top of the list in terms of how you're going to be successful in a global enterprise.

Speaker 5: That's that's my opinion, and it's.

Speaker 6: On the list in every NBA class. But somehow it

doesn't actually translate to being done.

Speaker 5: Because you don't understand how we do it here.

Speaker 2: So Gary, closing thoughts, I'm still sort of looking for the shiny thing within what we've talked about here, and I'm having a difficult time finding it. Yeah, stuff closing thoughts.

Speaker 6: That's a good question on the shiny thing. Given the

uncertainty and kind of the the issues that the industry is facing in general, if we come up with the kind of a steady year, it's kind of okay. We

do have a port strike things.

Speaker 2: Into the port strike, hurricane.

Speaker 6: We we do need to see interest rates come down a little bit. We do need some more affordable vehicles

to happen, and braces aren't receiving as fast as consumers would like. But there's we're getting there. We're getting there.

Speaker 2: Warn't closing thoughts.

Speaker 4: I'm looking for the brides shining star on the hill.

Speaker 3: Oh they have a war in the Middle East too, So.

Speaker 4: I'm gonna I'm going to close on a different approach because they're Look, they're bright spots.

Speaker 5: You got new.

Speaker 4: Sheet metal coming out in twenty twenty five, and some of that sheet metal is the most spectacular stuff that's ever been launched, both on the bed side and on the ice side.

Speaker 5: Okay, new stuff. We'll all go get to see him

at auto shows and all of that. Okay, Uh, just

take a.

Speaker 4: Look at the Car and Truck of the Year nominees in terms of that type of quality product that exists in the market. So I'd say that that's a positive.

What may overcome it, And one that I've written about is the no matter who's president, the protectionist sentiment drum is beating very, very hard, harder than it ever did.

When we convince the Japanese to do voluntary export restraints. Okay,

that was a modicum of protectionism. Fast forward twenty five

years later, Japanese are building vehicles in the United States with American labor and their higher reliability and better priced So I see protectionist sentiment coming. I see a renegotiation

of USMCA. I see some type of potential Section two

thirty two National Security clause being implemented by whoever is elected president.

Speaker 5: I would say both are going to do that.

Speaker 4: So while I think the business is running, maybe not a trend okay, and maybe we stumble a couple of quarters, there will be growth and new sheet metal will attract customers.

Those interest rates I agree need to come down. I

am worried that from the stuff I've read that Congress wants to do. We have, and this is my phrase,

we have don't nuts disguised as carrots.

Speaker 5: Okay.

Speaker 4: We don't need to feed people donuts to get them fat through protection and make that in the guise of giving them carrots to be more competitive.

Speaker 5: Okay. I see in the next five or six.

Speaker 4: Years there could be yet another automotive company in North America go under. And the only way they're not is

if we build a wall, and I'm not talking about immigration.

I'm talking about a wall that keeps Chinese vehicles from coming to the United States, either import imported through the Port of Los Angeles, or imported from Mexico. Okay, if

I said it once in this particular series, if you can't compete in the carbasinsiness with the Asians, how are you going to compete with Chinese?

Speaker 5: And the sooner you get to what Fairley's doing.

Speaker 4: On the low cost stuff from Ford, I think has some advantages if they execute that program correctly. So there

are things that are going on, and those are bright shiny things, but look for the protectionist sentiment. I'm sorry

to end it on a gary on such a negative note, but you have to.

Speaker 5: We all have to keep our eyes open on that.

Speaker 2: Well. Yeah, I'm going to end it on a high

note because my observation picks up on what you said.

There's nothing wrong with this business that new product can't fix. Yep,

And there's a lot coming next year, and there's a bunch more in the pipeline later in this decade. So

that's what I'm going to count on is the industry to really hone its competitive skills and come out.

Speaker 4: Including economies of scale. Oh yeah, on the battery electric stuff,

all that absolutely well.

Speaker 2: With that, we're going to wrap it up, Stephanie, thanks so much for being here, Warren, you two and Gary.

I will not be here next week. We will be

here next week. You will be here, will be here

next week, and so I hope we'll all of you out there. Thanks for watching.

Speaker 1: Out online. After Hours is brought to you by bridge

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AAH #713 - Why Are Car Sales Suddenly Slowing Down?

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