America REFUSES Electric Vehicles | Automakers PANIC | Episode 917

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It's noon here in Ventner City, New Jersey

and in New York City, New York.

This is Car Edge Live for Thursday, September 4th

with your host, me, Ray, in Ventner City.

And well, Zach, that travel in CEO in New York.

How are you today, handsome?

I'm doing pretty good, Pops.

How are you doing this one?

Hopefully you can hear me A-OK.

Let me know.

In the chat, Dad, very grateful to be-

I would hear her tell the room, but where the hell are you?

I don't know where I am, man, if I'm being honest.

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Pops, the big story I wanted to talk about this morning

is a continuation of something we talked about

a little bit yesterday, which would

be that we are seeing these EV automakers starting

to cut back on their production.

I'll start here.

General Motors to temporarily cut production

of two Cadillac EVs in Tennessee.

I've also heard, I've got to find it here, Pops,

the Chevy Bolt also seeing production cutbacks there

as well.

And then obviously, yeah.

And yet Chevrolet or General Motors

sold more EVs in a month than they ever had last month.

So there are certain segments of EV land

that are doing really well.

And our suspicion is that will end in about 26 days.

Yeah, you can see right here, DadGM,

to cut EV production amid expiring federal tax credits,

plan to scale back production of the Chevy Bolt,

the Cadillac EVs as well, which we've seen.

And then obviously, we talked about it yesterday,

GMC, electric vehicle as well.

So let's talk about this because there was also

the Polestar story yesterday, the new billion dollar

write down over at Polestar that they are taking a loss for

because they're no longer going to bring to market.

There, Polestar 3, electric SUV.

So let's talk about this, Dad.

America refuses electric vehicles.

The automakers are starting to panic.

Obviously, some month of September,

we think EV sales are going to be through the roof.

Yeah, what happens after that,

that there's starting to be a lot of concern?

I'd say concern is an understatement.

Pessimism is running rampant within the dealership network,

both for new and independent dealers.

There is a real fear that after having invested

millions of dollars into setting up EV networks

within these various dealerships to attract the EV buyers

that that's all going to wash away in a heartbeat.

There hasn't been this type of pessimism towards EVs

probably since, I don't know, Tesla first came out.

It is remarkable how dealers went

from having a positive expectation

as to what EV sales would be in the United States in 2021

to it is now a very negative pessimistic view

of where we're headed going into the fourth quarter of this year

after the federal tax credits expire.

To your point, Dad, here's the headline in automotive news.

Auto dealers reveal record level of gloom

about Q4 EV markets, Cox poll.

Finds, and if I scroll down here, Dad,

we can see it right here.

Dealers have grown more pessimistic

about electric vehicles.

Cox Automotive's dealer sentiment index surveyed,

asked 477 franchised and 414 independent dealership professionals,

quote, what do you expect the EV market in your area

to look like three months from now?

Index results greater than a 50

indicate respondents viewing conditions

as positive or improving, a score of 50 is neutral

and scores below 50 indicate conditions

are negative or weakening.

Cox began asking this question

in the second quarter of 2021.

Look at that line, Dad.

We're at 33 and 28 respectively

as the score down significantly

from where we were just a few years ago.

I mean, the pessimism to your point is palpable.

Oh, it's, listen, a lot of these dealer groups,

especially Ford dealers,

when Ford announced their big EV initiative

and in order to be able to sell the EVs

that Ford was going to build,

you needed to invest anywhere from $700,000 to $1.2 million

in EV infrastructure at your dealership

to have things available for your EV customers.

You could either go with the lower tier

and be guaranteed 25 new EVs to sell a year

or you could go with the higher tier at the 1.2 million

and receive all the EVs you could ever want.

So we went from that to where Ford then said,

how the hell would that program?

Any dealer that wants EVs can have them.

And now the dealers are saying,

hell, not only won't we want them come October 1st,

we don't think the American public

is going to be willing to buy them come October 1st

without all of the incentives.

Now, the one thing that stands opposite of all that

would appear to be Tesla.

Their sales are, they're off to some degree.

They're not having the same zest that they had in the past

but they are still far outselling

every other EV manufacturer, especially in this country.

So will that continue for Tesla?

Will the bloom come off the bud

starting in October even for Tesla?

That's something that I think everybody's waiting to see.

And I know there will be comments that will say,

but there was a time when Tesla's were selling really well

and they didn't qualify for the federal tax credits anyway

because they had exceeded their maximum sales levels.

So I don't know, I think it's a wait and see approach.

If I were the manufacturers,

I think I'd be doing what they're doing now,

which is cutting back on EVs

because you have to believe without that 7,500 bucks

that demand is going to crater to some degree.

That's what Cox Automotive thinks,

quote, October could be rough for EVs,

Cox Economist says that's the headline

of the subheading in the article on automotive news.

I'll just read briefly here, quote,

there has to be a hangover effect, Jonathan Smoke said,

but it's possibly year-end EV offers.

It's possible year-end EV offers could keep the slump

from ruining the entire quarter.

He said, I'm definitely in the camp

that if you have a longer time horizon,

this isn't going to be much of a speed bump for EVs.

He said, citing areas of the country

with EVs in operation due for replacement

state incentives for EVs also could expand.

He said, but I don't feel good about October

is what Jonathan Smoke said.

I think he's on to something there, Bob.

Yeah, listen, there's going to be so much

pull-ahead purchases and leases for EVs into September

that there just should be like,

people are just barely waking up for like a long sleep

and they're not ready to go out and buy an EV in October.

And the other thing that he said in there

maybe to some degree,

states will pick up the slack

as far as types of incentives are concerned.

I don't know, I have to believe right now

and I'm not an economist.

Hell, I'm not even a college, I'm a college dropout.

Okay, I'm a college dropout

and damn proud of it, ladies and gentlemen.

But I have to believe that states

are running into economic issues

that they had not anticipated.

There have been so many federal cutbacks in programs

that whatever money states could have found

that could have gone to EV incentives,

I think those funds will have to go elsewhere

in order to keep other things alive

and moving the way the public has grown accustomed to it.

So I don't really...

You don't see states stepping up to fill a certified...

They have the funds to do it.

I mean, you know, legitimately, at some point

you have to look around and you go,

where the hell's the money coming from?

Funds and also interest,

like what's the incentive at the state level to do that?

I don't think it's really there.

Dad, let's switch gears,

let's talk a little bit about the month

that has come and gone

because it does tie in to what we're seeing on EVs.

As you mentioned in a moment ago,

General Motors posted the best performance

they've ever had from an EV perspective.

And if I come over here to automotive news,

one of the key takeaways from Ford's monthly reporting

is that they also saw a tremendous boost

in their Mach-E deliveries.

We're also gonna talk about Toyota and Lexus here as well.

They continue to shine.

But dad, you can see here,

forecasters say that we saw an increase in August

because we were helped with Labor Day deals

and a surge in electric vehicle demand.

I think what's fascinating here

is really what we're seeing with the Mustang Mach-E.

So Ford saw their trucks and crossover sales

improved by 6.2% led by the Bronco Expedition Explorer

and F-Series sales actually declined 3.4%.

But then look at Mustang Mach-E deliveries

up 35% year over year for that month.

So we're seeing the pull ahead in the data here.

This is, I believe in my heart of hearts

that this is going to be one of the most unusual years

in retail automotive.

And what I mean by that is because of all the tariff talk,

we had huge pull ahead in sales

in the first quarter of this year

and into the second quarter

where people were trying to get ahead of price increases

that could come to fruition because of the tariffs.

So there was a tremendous increase in sales volumes

in April and May and June.

And then we anticipated that there would be

somewhat of a slowdown.

And there has been a little bit of a slowdown

but now because the EV tax credits

are going to go away the end of September

that there has been this push in August

and we'll see it for this month

of a pull ahead for EV buyers,

people that might have been in the market

in October, November, December

were suddenly finding themselves in the market

in August and September

in order to take advantage of that federal tax credit.

So there are so many factors

that have increased the amount of sales that we've seen

and move them to different times within the year

that I wonder what 2026 is gonna look like

if we don't have these pushes and polls

on people's behavior when it comes to tariffs,

tax incentives or whatever else.

I just think, I think 2025 is going to be

an anomaly and one of the most unusual years

we've ever seen in the industry.

Definitely puts into perspective for those of you

that are thinking about or shopping for a vehicle,

you've gotta stay on top of what's going on in the news

because it can totally change

when you're gonna get a better deal or a worse deal.

If you are not informed right now

and you're going into the market

to lease a new electric vehicle in October,

$7,500 bucks is a lot of money.

Doesn't matter who you are, $7,500 a lot, a lot,

a lot of money and to your point that earlier this year

there were also the tariffs last year and in prior years

there's been huge seasonality in the used car market

as a result of the chip shortage.

So I'm with you but then I wouldn't be surprised

that you and I've been doing this for five,

almost six years now.

There'll be something in 2026,

some sort of black swan event

that changes everything in the car market again.

And you know what?

Even if it doesn't happen

I'm sure we'll come up with something

to speak it into existence.

Now one manufacturer that is doing well

amidst everything that's going on, dad, would be Toyota.

Look at this, dad.

Toyota sales were up 13.6% year over year,

12.4% for Lexus and 13.8% for Toyota.

So the brand overall 13.6%.

Let's talk about this.

Is that for August?

Yeah, year over year for the month of August.

Wow.

So let's talk about this for a second, dad.

Toyota is killing it.

Like just continues to kill it.

I mean, even look at this Subaru

had another down month.

Subaru didn't used to have down months year over year.

Mazda down month, Hyundai Kia up,

as you can see here as well, almost 11%.

But Toyota selling the most cars, growing the fastest.

And obviously the dealers have the most pricing power.

So it's so interesting month in and month out

to just see Toyota continue to crush it.

And they're actually to our point about America

refused as electric vehicles.

I'm not mistaken, they're the automaker

that leaned in the least when it comes to EVs.

They were, they leaned in the most

when it came to hybrid technology.

And it really made that the forefront of what it is

that they thought the future held.

When they first came out with the Prius

and they've been able to maximize that technology

and put it into more and more of their vehicles

and use it as that bridge to eventually

perhaps get to full electric battery electric vehicles.

You know, it is

Toyota, nobody has figured out how to do it better

than Toyota when it comes to

having created a reputation for itself

which has been taking hits recently

as far as reliability and the quality of their vehicles.

But nobody has done a better job

of navigating that, navigating production

so that there is just enough production

to barely cover the demand

and to do it in such a way

that there's never more than a 30 to 40 day

supply of vehicles at their dealership facilities.

So they have found the secret sauce that,

well, Nissan would certainly like to have

and others to where they have basically put

monetary printing presses

in every Toyota franchise dealership.

Okay, those dealers are making money hand over fist

because there's barely enough cars,

there's more than enough customers,

the demand to outstrips the supply,

the dealers are less aggressive than they've ever been.

It is remarkable what they have been able to accomplish

than others have not.

And, you know, are they smarter than everybody else?

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Daddy, do you want to hear something pretty cool?

In the past week, our AI negotiator has gotten 216 new Toyota

Altador quotes, okay?

From the first pencil to the last pencil,

what do you think the average savings is

that the AI has been able to negotiate on new Toyotas?

Six hundred and fifty dollars.

Two hundred and twenty dollars, okay?

I'm going to share this on the screen.

Two hundred and twenty dollars.

Now I'm going to do the same thing for Ford, Dad.

Ford.

AI negotiator reaching out to Ford dealers.

What do you think the average savings is

from the first OTD to the last OTD for Ford?

Three thousand dollars.

I wish it was three thousand dollars, man.

A thousand dollars, nine hundred and eighty seven dollars.

It's over three times that.

Almost four times.

Almost four times what you get at Toyotas.

So think about that for a second here to your point.

You know, we're getting structured,

organized data on this now.

And it's like just the Toyota dealers have so much pricing power.

And again, I do think it goes back to,

they did not go all in on EVs.

And I saw Justin put it in the chat here as well.

Right now they actually have a five days supply

of that BZ4X in the markets.

They're even the one EV that they do have.

You know, they've done a great job managing supply there.

And then of course you look at the year over year sales numbers.

They have the most vehicles sold and they're going the fastest.

That's a hell of a one to punch.

It is.

It just it just proves that nobody does better.

Nobody has figured out how to do it better.

And, you know, there was a time when

the monetary printing presses were at the BMW dealerships

because BMW dealers were making money hand over fist.

But today it really is at Toyota dealerships.

I mean, if the average additional discount

that the AI agents can get is a little over 200 bucks

from start to finish, where it's almost a thousand dollars

at Ford, I mean, that just gives you some idea

as to how non aggressive

the Toyota dealer has to be with the first offer

and and how the fact that there isn't

even greater than a thousand dollars difference

between the first and last at Ford is because Ford dealers

feel as if they have to be more aggressive

with their first offer than other brands would be.

Yeah, it's absolutely absolutely mind boggling.

Now let's come here to the chat.

We've had a thoughtful contribution come through from Andrew.

Thank you, Andrew. Thank you, Andrew.

I think certain areas will be affected more than others.

Like here in bigger cities in California, charging stations are common,

but thinking of areas where stations are less common.

So this is back to Americans refusing electric vehicles.

I think Andrew's spot on.

We've like tons of research that talked about range anxiety.

Can I actually charge somewhere?

Heck, man, I had the Mazda CX-90P have for a week.

I couldn't charge it a single time.

They delivered it to me with no charging for the for the EV component.

I tried to charge it in one place, but it wouldn't work.

It's tricky.

Well, and and EV sales, whether

my my supposition is that the new car franchise dealers

that that were at like thirty three percent being pessimistic.

Well, they were in places other than California.

OK, there are certain pockets of this country

where EVs have sold and probably will continue to sell well

because of the infrastructure, not only because of the federal tax

credit incentives, but state incentives.

I believe Oregon has some pretty hefty state incentives.

I believe Washington State, Colorado, have some hefty incentives.

I'm pretty sure California must.

So it is it is.

There are certain states where you're always going to sell

a higher percentage of EVs than other states, just because in some states,

people are more willing to look at and adopt new technologies

as opposed to some other states where they're less likely

to be open to something like that.

Yeah, I forget if we mentioned this the other day,

but Volkswagen is also doing pullback on their EV production as well.

So it's state specific, it's automaker specific,

but the general trend here is there's a slowdown coming to that part of the market.

And again, makes the folks over at Toyota look like total geniuses right now.

Dad, let's come here from Boricua.

Thank you for this.

Hi, always nice to see you guys.

I'm having a hard time getting a good lease on a Honda ProLog in Connecticut.

Help. By the way, I love your dad talks to you.

It's so cool. Great dad.

Great. He is a great dad.

This is a friendly reminder to everyone that tunes into these shows

and everyone in the car edge community.

We offer all sorts of car buying services back on our website, caredge.com.

20% off car edge insights, which can help you get that lease deal

or our car buying, which are also car leasing services.

They're 20% off for a few more days here to take advantage of that.

We also do have the AI which can reach out to dealerships on your behalf too.

You can access that from the car edge car search as well.

So I would just say we've got tools, we've got services.

We're here to help and look at this, Dad.

We've got this from Labrador country.

Hello, Rain, Zach.

I bought the insights as well as the negotiator for the month.

I have to say, well done to you guys and your whole team

for putting this together.

The AI got one dealer down $9,000 and it kept asking for more.

My wife and I decided on a different vehicle,

but that was amazing to read the back and forth between the dealer and the AI.

It's pretty magical, man.

When it works, it really works.

And then you take over and you transact.

It's a pretty cool experience.

Well, here's the thing with the AI, at least at this point.

It doesn't suffer from emotions.

OK, there there's no fear in asking for more

because it doesn't know any better.

Oh, no, it's one job is to operate on your behalf to get you the best deal.

It's pretty cool.

Yeah, so so there's like no built in bias or fear of missing out.

They're just going to keep asking.

It's it's just going to keep asking until it realizes it's asked

as many times as it can and the dealer can no longer afford to give up anymore.

So it's pretty remarkable because it takes all of the emotion out of it.

Every one of us as human beings, when we're purchasing something,

when we're spending money, there's emotions attached to it.

And and so when you're going back and forth with a dealer,

trying to get an out the door price, you know, at a certain point

when the dealer says, oh, really, there's no more to give.

And the next email I get will be somebody that wants to buy it.

You know, suddenly that triggers the emotion of the fear of missing out

on on what the dealer has suggested is a great deal.

Well, the agent doesn't suffer from any of that.

OK, it doesn't know from that.

It just knows that I think I can get more and it's going to keep asking.

And so that is one of the most wonderful aspects of the AI agent.

It just it doesn't get it doesn't allow emotions to interfere

with what it's trying to do.

I bet you, you know, there are probably some of the emails

that go back and forth.

Somebody in a dealership is probably doing its best to take shots

at the AI agent, thinking it's going to insult it.

And the AI agent just really doesn't give a damn.

I think you're on to something, Bob.

I think you really are.

Hey, one more note when it comes to our E.V.

headliner for today, dad, VinFast, did you see this?

Their quarterly loss widens amid heavy spending on ambitious growth strategy.

Did you get a chance to pick at this?

Well, so I did not because to me, like, their their ambitious

growth strategy might be going from one dealership to two.

OK, it is it.

I don't I don't believe there's any other E.V.

manufacturer out there that is as much of an afterthought

as VinFast is at this particular moment in time.

The only other brand that I can think of

that would be an afterthought like that was Fisker.

You know, I mean, because VinFast has been threatening

to sell EVs or lease EVs or do whatever the hell they wanted to do

with EVs in this country for the longest period of time.

They were going to sell direct.

They were going to create a dealer network.

They were they were not.

They were they it's like nobody knows anything about VinFast.

VinFast doesn't know anything about VinFast.

It is it is the most nondescript, unheard of E.V.

manufacturer trying their best to sell two or three visa months

to this country. I'm sorry.

Was that the and that's in my opinion, ladies and gentlemen.

Thank you, Bob.

Excuse me, the EV automaker or whoever they are reported

a net loss of eight hundred and twelve million dollars for the quarter.

Fifteen percent more than the previous quarter.

They did deliver, dad, thirty five thousand eight hundred and thirty seven

vehicles in the quarter, which is that worldwide.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is that in this country.

No, but that I mean, like, you know, five five hundred and thirty seven

might have been in this country.

They they're losing. What's that?

Let's run rate that eight hundred million times four three point two

billion dollars a year.

And they're right up there with Lucid. Yeah.

Yeah, I know a guy that if you pay him enough,

he can show you how to lose even more.

Mr. Rawlinson, I'm sure would make himself available

because Vin Fast is supposed to be a very, very, very wealthy company.

You know, and and let's face it, who does it when when you think E.V.

OK, who doesn't say to themselves, I'm going to Vietnam for that?

I mean, really, who who has not said that that Vietnam

is the E.V. cutting technology capital of the world?

OK, nobody, in my opinion, nobody ever jumps to that conclusion.

It was like when the Ugo came out,

where people supposed to suddenly think that, oh, yeah, well,

if I want to get really great up to date automotive technology,

I'm going to Yugoslavia, that wasn't the case.

And it's not the case with Vin Fast.

I mean, God bless them.

I'm glad they have as much money as they have.

And sometimes it's really impressive how much money

companies are willing to lose in order to make themselves

seem bigger and better than they really are, in my opinion.

Keep the lawyers off my back.

You're crushing it today, pops.

You've got from Charles.

Can we move on from talking about E.V.s?

I know it's news, but it's the same news.

Hey, today shows what it's about tomorrow.

Obviously, we'll be back with something different.

Appreciate you tuning in, though, Charles.

And from Labrador saying, I had to stop because they asked

for another thousand dollars off and a few months of oil change

is another maintenance.

Who knows if it would have gotten it or not?

Again, so fun, what we've been able to build

and how it's helping people back at CarEdge.com.

Again, from the reminder, if we can help you in any way,

check it out back on the website, CarEdge.com.

And remember, if you're not in the market to buy a car,

but you're just like hanging out with us,

you can track your vehicle value.

Just click on what's my car worth.

And you can see a projected future value,

as well as when to potentially sell your vehicle

back on CarEdge.com.

Click on what's my car worth.

We can help you save money with insurance,

warranty all that fun stuff as well.

Pops, let's call it a show.

Okay.

I'll be back in Washington, D.C. tomorrow.

My normal studio, not sitting here

wherever the heck I am.

So looking forward to doing that

in our normal environments.

Oh my goodness, are you training back today

or tomorrow morning?

6.30 a.m. train tomorrow.

What times that gets you into D.C. around 9.30?

9.30.

Yeah.

Well, that gives you plenty of time to get home,

get changed, get showered, get,

well, you don't really shave,

get showered, get shaved.

Yeah, and make your way to the studio.

Oh, I am so looking forward to it.

Oh, and for everybody out there

that happens to be an NFL football fan,

the season kicks off tonight, ladies and gentlemen,

not too far from where I am,

about 60 miles from where I am

at the link in Philadelphia.

It's going to be crazy.

Fly Eagles fly.

There you have it.

Happy NFL season, folks.

All right, Pops, I love you, enjoy the day

and I'm sure I'll talk to you later on.

But if not, I'll catch you tomorrow.

Absolutely, love you too

and see everybody back here tomorrow

at noon Eastern in Ventura City, New Jersey

at Washington D.C.

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America REFUSES Electric Vehicles | Automakers PANIC | Episode 917

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