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It's noon here in Venture City, New Jersey,
02:55
and our nation's capital, Washington, D.C.
02:57
And this is Car Edge Live for Thursday,
03:01
September 25th with your hosts,
03:03
me, Ray, here in Venture City, New Jersey,
03:06
and well, Zach, apparently in his apartment
03:10
in Washington, D.C., how are you today, handsome?
03:14
It's a rainy, dreary day here in D.C.
03:17
So decided not to head in to the office.
03:19
But folks, do we have a show in store for you?
03:23
We're gonna be talking about CarMax,
03:24
the latest quarterly earnings
03:26
from one of the largest car dealers in the whole world.
03:31
Are there some cracks in that foundation?
03:33
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Dad, let's start here from CarMax.
04:01
And I really wanna preface this with CarMax
04:04
has a 28% decline in profit, revenue down 6%.
04:08
This was on the heels of one of the largest
04:11
independent car dealers in the United States
04:14
recently going bankrupt, Tri-Color,
04:16
which we've been covering on this channel for a while now
04:18
in no way, shape or form, I'm suggesting here,
04:20
in the slightest that CarMax is going bankrupt.
04:22
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
04:24
I'm simply connecting that we have profit down 28%
04:28
revenue down 6% at literally one of the two biggest
04:33
used car dealers in the land.
04:35
And we have recently seen in the news
04:37
another really large top 10 used car dealership group
04:42
There's some used car market reset happening
04:45
at the moment here, Dad.
04:46
Well, and not only did their income slide 28%,
04:51
their revenue was down 6%.
04:54
Their sales were down and just the level set,
04:59
they are the largest purveyor and seller
05:03
of pre-owned cars in the United States.
05:07
They sell retail-wise, I don't know, about 800,000
05:11
used cars a year, wholesale-wise maybe another 200,000
05:16
so they're trafficking in close to a million
05:20
vehicle sales a year.
05:24
And so for the largest used car retailer in the land
05:29
to be struggling to the degree that they are at the moment,
05:33
I think speaks volumes about where we were at
05:37
where we were at in the affordability crisis.
05:41
And Dad, you can dig into the sales data
05:43
but even more damning is actually the finance data.
05:46
So when you dig in, you see obviously the top line numbers
05:49
profits down, revenues down, and then you dig it
05:51
a little bit more and you see, okay, an actual total
05:53
number of sales that the largest used car dealer are down.
05:56
Well, look at this, Dad, CarMax auto-finance.
05:59
They're just like Carvan and they're just like
06:01
all these other folks.
06:02
They have their own captive financing.
06:04
I'm gonna read this whole thing to you, okay?
06:05
I know it's a little bit long,
06:07
maybe I'll stop it a second,
06:07
but CAF, CarMax auto-finance, Dad.
06:10
Income decreased 11.2% to 102.6 million
06:15
as an increase in the provision for loan losses
06:17
outweighed growth in CAF's net interest margin percentage.
06:21
This quarter's provision for loan losses
06:23
was a staggering $142.2 million
06:27
compared to $112.6 million in the prior year's second quarter.
06:32
The provision for loan losses in the second quarter
06:34
of fiscal 2026 included an increase of 71.3 million.
06:40
And our estimate of lifetime losses on existing loans
06:43
primarily due to worsening performance among 2022
06:49
So the reason I bring this up, Dad,
06:52
is because the top level story is, sure,
06:55
CarMax profit down, CarMax revenue down.
06:57
The one layer deeper,
06:58
you peel back the onion a little bit,
06:59
there's sales, there are actual number of cars sold down.
07:03
You peel back the onion a little bit more.
07:05
They are starting to shake in their boots a little bit
07:07
in terms of the performance of their loans,
07:10
which is we know how they make most all of their money.
07:13
And it is a story we have been covering
07:14
across all aspects of this industry
07:17
for a long, long time now.
07:19
And again, I'm not saying CarMax has gone bankrupt,
07:21
not in the slightest,
07:22
but it does come on the heels of Tri-Color,
07:25
a very large, independent, large dealership group
07:29
going straight to chapter seven bankruptcy
07:31
because they screwed up in their operations.
07:34
It is a damning report here,
07:36
I think from CarMax on the state of the used car market
07:39
and the state of auto finance,
07:40
we talked about it yesterday,
07:41
just continuing to kick the can down the road.
07:43
Let's just keep writing more loans.
07:44
Let's just keep approving more people.
07:46
It's a scary, scary time.
07:48
Well, you know, in the case of Tri-Color,
07:53
you can't just make loans to the people that,
07:56
well, you don't have to prove income
07:58
and you don't have to have a social security number.
08:01
because what could possibly go wrong?
08:03
Let's keep asking this, yeah.
08:04
But when you talk about CarMax,
08:08
you know, they're an organization
08:11
that is more mainstream
08:15
when it comes to who they'll approve a loan for.
08:18
Now, when you look at their new loan loss provisions,
08:21
it indicates to me that they're looking back
08:24
at the loans they made in 2022 and 2023
08:27
and whatever criteria they used,
08:33
when it came to who they would approve a loan for.
08:36
And it turns out that more and more of those customers
08:40
who bought in those years
08:43
are having difficulty in making their payments.
08:49
Is it simply because,
08:50
well, they were higher credit risk people to begin with
08:54
or does it have something to do with the fact
08:58
that it takes more money today
09:02
who get by than it did three or four years ago?
09:06
Another reason that Dad could also be
09:08
those folks that bought used cars
09:10
because that's all you can buy from CarMax
09:12
are maybe facing larger and larger repair bills
09:16
and are ultimately looking at this car and saying,
09:18
okay, you know what, never mind,
09:20
I'm done paying off that auto loan.
09:22
Dad, I wanna share a few more data points here
09:25
from CarMax, then obviously we are gonna touch into
09:27
the latest data we have on repair costs.
09:30
As of August 31st, 2025, the allowance for loan losses
09:36
This is 3.02% of all the auto loans held for investment
09:40
up from 2.76% as of May 31st.
09:42
So that is CarMax coming out to the public markets
09:45
and saying, hey, we have deteriorating performance
09:48
in terms of our auto loans.
09:50
That being said, the way that these companies make money
09:54
is they do not see these loans to fruition.
09:56
What they do is they sell them as securitization,
10:00
securitized asset-backed securities.
10:02
Subsequent to the end of the second quarter
10:04
on September 24th, 2025,
10:05
we executed our second non-prime securitization transaction,
10:09
this calendar year.
10:10
This was upsized to $900 million in total notes.
10:14
And for the first time include the sale
10:15
of most of the residual financial interest
10:18
in the transaction to a third party investor,
10:20
thus resulting in off-balance sheet treatment,
10:22
we expect to gain on the sale approximately 25 to 30 million
10:27
in third quarter income.
10:29
So you think about that for a second, folks.
10:31
Just put all these pieces together for a moment.
10:33
The only reason we have loan loss provisions
10:35
that is because after the financial crisis,
10:38
the federal government Dodd-Frank came in and said,
10:40
every single quarter, if you're a financial institution,
10:42
if you do lending, you now have to set aside money
10:45
for loans you no longer think you're going to come do.
10:47
So we've been getting that data for years.
10:49
What these companies do, however,
10:51
is they just hand the bag off to someone else.
10:53
They wrote the loan, they saw it mature a little bit.
10:56
In this case, they upsized to a $900 million transaction
11:00
so that they could net out their $30 million in profit.
11:03
CarMax doesn't care if those people pay off their auto loans.
11:06
They sold that bundle of auto loans to other people,
11:09
but every quarter, because of Dodd-Frank,
11:11
they do have to report to us their expectations
11:14
and their expectations are getting worse
11:16
at the same time that sales are going down,
11:17
at the same time that profit's going down,
11:19
at the same time that revenue's going down.
11:22
Yeah, I guess somebody else gets to hold the bag
11:26
I get it, but it really, at least the point in my mind,
11:31
when we see what happened to tricolor,
11:35
when we see some of the difficulties
11:38
that CarMax is reporting, it indicates to me
11:43
that the affordability crisis is probably
11:47
a little bit deeper than what anybody wants to admit.
11:52
It has become harder and harder for average Americans
11:58
to be able to afford an automobile.
12:01
They were used, whether they're financing it or not.
12:06
Well, the average used car payment today is $550, okay?
12:14
The average new car payment today is $765.
12:18
That's before we even talk about automobile insurance
12:23
and when you have a loan,
12:26
one of the things you're guaranteeing
12:28
the lending institution is that you will keep full coverage
12:32
insurance on your automobile or truck, whatever it may be.
12:36
And well, the cost of automobile insurance
12:40
has gone up about 20 to 25% over the past couple of years.
12:45
You just showed a headline a minute ago
12:47
about the cost of maintenance.
12:50
Over repairs, yeah.
12:52
And maintenance and repairs for vehicles.
12:55
So that has gone up dramatically.
12:58
At what point does everybody just throw their hands
13:03
into the air and go, everything's too damn high
13:07
and I can't take it anymore, okay?
13:09
I can't pay for it, I can't afford it
13:12
between the rent for my apartment,
13:14
between the cost of the food for my family,
13:17
between the cost of the loan for the car
13:21
and the insurance and the maintenance and the repairs.
13:24
I don't have enough money to go around.
13:28
And that to me is the bigger takeaway from this.
13:33
It's impacting a greater portion of the population
13:39
Yeah, that's been my opinion.
13:40
I think you're spot on and it's why.
13:42
To be very clear, we're offering a promo right now.
13:44
If you are in the market, you're part of our community.
13:46
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13:47
We wanna help you make sure that you're not overpaying
13:50
and obviously, we'll cut our profit margin back in car edge
13:53
land to help our community out.
13:55
We've got the 20% off promo going right now.
13:59
We did bring it up again.
14:00
I'm gonna pull it back up on the screen.
14:01
Car parts, labor and tech complexity,
14:03
drive repair bills above $4,700.
14:09
So, Dad, this comes from CCC Intelligent Solutions.
14:13
And they're looking at parts prices,
14:14
which have finally started to go up
14:16
and the average total cost of a repair.
14:20
Which exceeded $4,730 in 2024.
14:25
Look at the repair.
14:27
Total repairs, all repairs.
14:31
Well, that's a lot of money.
14:32
It's a ton of money, man.
14:35
It's a ton of money and they get into it here.
14:37
Part of why we're seeing these prices go up so much,
14:41
down here, you've got more technology,
14:43
diagnostics and calibrations and all sorts of computers
14:47
and things like that.
14:48
I mean, it's taking longer for vehicles to get repaired
14:51
and there's more complexity when these vehicles
14:53
get repaired and it's costing more.
14:55
So, that's a huge factor to all of this,
14:57
especially if you're a used car buyer
14:58
and a used car seller or spent and it's more
15:02
a higher cost of ownership.
15:03
And the worst part of it is that we know
15:06
that the vast majority of Americans
15:08
don't have $1,000 to get their hands on
15:12
in case of an emergency.
15:14
Well, I don't know, I would say if they suddenly
15:17
come across a needed repair for their vehicle,
15:21
that's $4,730 and they certainly won't have
15:28
the money for that.
15:29
Perhaps they'll still have enough limit
15:33
left on their credit cards to be able
15:35
to put it on a credit card.
15:37
Oh, man, affordability crisis showing up in other areas,
15:40
the price of the used cars that they're trying to sell,
15:41
which is why they're selling fewer,
15:43
the interest rates, the repairs, the insurance,
15:46
it's the full spectrum that's really
15:48
screwing the consumer right now.
15:50
It is not a good time to be a buyer of most things.
16:00
Because I see it when I go to the grocery store,
16:04
I don't like to go too far down that path.
16:07
But everything has gone up in price.
16:09
And so when it becomes harder to be able
16:13
to take care of all your living needs,
16:17
food, shelter, automotive, what are people supposed to?
16:23
And there's, well, here in our country,
16:29
we put as much of it on debt as we possibly can.
16:33
And then, once you're making your minimum payments,
16:37
you're never really paying off that debt.
16:39
Let's keep it moving, Pops.
16:40
There's another big story that ties into this as well.
16:44
Bosch, cutting 13,000 jobs
16:49
to try and maintain profitability and sustainability
16:52
Bosch obviously creating tons of components
16:55
that go into vehicles.
16:56
This I thought was a huge headline,
16:58
especially in light of what we talked about the other day,
17:00
Dad, with Solantis shutting down plans
17:02
and all sorts of vehicles being discontinued.
17:04
I mean, this is another sign of the car market
17:07
being in a not-so-great shape.
17:09
And it's not just the car market.
17:12
It's the entire industry.
17:15
It is not just the manufacturer of the vehicles.
17:20
It is the suppliers who supply the parts
17:23
to the manufacturers to be able to build the vehicles.
17:27
They're all trying to navigate higher costs
17:32
and lower profit margins.
17:34
And it has become increasingly difficult for them to do it.
17:40
And one of the ways that they're trying to survive
17:43
is you're looking at this.
17:45
Bosch is cutting 13,000 jobs.
17:47
Nissan is closing seven of their manufacturing facilities.
17:53
You see it everywhere.
17:56
You know, Solantis is furloughing some of their manufacturing,
18:01
postponing some of it, delaying some of it.
18:05
Even Carmac said that they are searching for ways
18:09
to find $150 million in savings.
18:15
I hope they can find it.
18:19
But you know, that's a staggering number.
18:22
And so as we start seeing more and more job cuts
18:26
and things like that,
18:27
it's only going to exacerbate the situation as we know it
18:31
because there'll be more and more people
18:34
who are going to find it increasingly impossible
18:37
to meet their obligations.
18:39
There's, what do we do?
18:41
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could permanently change someone else's world.
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Another headline this morning, replacement auto parts firm,
21:10
first brands for pairs for Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing.
21:13
I mean, we're not cherry picking.
21:15
I mean, these are the headlines.
21:17
These are the realities of what's going on globally
21:21
for the auto industry.
21:22
And all signs point to cracks in that foundation.
21:26
But at the end of the day,
21:27
I guess if we can get people to prove for auto loans,
21:29
maybe the merry-go-round will keep going around.
21:33
But the problem is it's going to become harder
21:36
and harder and harder.
21:37
And the reason it's going to become harder
21:40
to approve those people for auto loans
21:42
is because most of those people are already overextended
21:47
with their existing credit,
21:48
whether it be their credit cards
21:50
or whether it be that their rent increased, whatever it is.
21:54
So as more and more people fall behind,
21:57
whether it be paying their credit card,
22:00
whether it be paying their utility bills,
22:02
whatever it may be,
22:03
it is going to become increasingly harder
22:07
for banks to be able to approve some of these people
22:11
for auto loans to keep that merry-go-round going around.
22:19
It is a sad reality that in many cases
22:22
we don't want to recognize.
22:25
We want to pretend that it's okay
22:29
that there'll be enough people out there
22:31
that'll be able to keep this going
22:33
when, in fact, that might not necessarily be the case.
22:41
Okay, Dad, let's take a quick breather
22:44
from that storyline.
22:45
We had an interesting headline in automotive news,
22:48
Brother versus Brother.
22:51
In Laws 2 to Alleging Financial,
22:52
Ms. Khanda got a dealership.
22:54
What is going on here, Dad?
22:56
Well, you know, one brother wants a little more money
23:00
than the other brother, even though they both control
23:04
50% of the business.
23:05
And, you know, sometimes...
23:08
This is like hard dealership reality 101, isn't it?
23:10
Oh, my God, it is, it is.
23:14
It's kind of sad in the sense that, you know,
23:20
these are brothers, you know,
23:22
this is a family business,
23:24
fourth-generation family business
23:27
where one brother is alleging
23:30
that the other brother is withholding income
23:34
to the first brother,
23:36
has been showering gifts and salaries
23:41
onto his family members, not necessarily his brother, though,
23:47
and, you know, spending unwisely.
23:50
And they had come to some type of agreement,
23:55
a settlement where the one brother was going
23:59
to pay the other brother like $8.5 million
24:02
and buy him out of the business.
24:05
He hasn't given him any money,
24:07
so it's just kind of sad to watch, you know,
24:10
family members fight this out.
24:12
This is not uncommon in the auto industry.
24:14
I'm thinking Dad of Dark Cars,
24:16
which is relatively close to where I live here in Washington.
24:21
The Darvish family, I mean,
24:23
I think if I'm not mistaken,
24:24
wasn't it like the daughter of the owner?
24:26
Yeah, Tamara, I think her name was.
24:29
Yeah, they forced her out.
24:31
They forced her out?
24:32
Yeah, yeah, she was like, she was like me.
24:36
She was the spokesperson for the family and for the group.
24:40
She was primarily the face of the franchise,
24:43
probably because she was a woman
24:45
and she looked better than her brothers.
24:47
And, you know, but her father said,
24:51
nah, you know, we love you, but I love my sons more.
24:55
And they literally forced her out of the business.
24:59
And so this is a little bit of what happens
25:00
in the car business.
25:01
There's a lot of like family dynamics,
25:04
typically some nepotism, yeah.
25:07
There are any number of children of dealer principles
25:13
that have a high paying jobs within dealerships
25:18
and upper management positions within dealerships,
25:23
not because they've earned them,
25:27
simply because the owner said,
25:29
well, you know, the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree.
25:32
This kid's got to be good.
25:34
And in so many cases, the kids don't want to do it.
25:37
They would, you know, if you want to just give me the money,
25:39
give me the money, but it is not uncommon
25:44
in the automobile industry for sons and daughters
25:48
to end up in high paying,
25:50
high, high important positions within dealerships
25:54
that have realistically no reason to be there.
25:59
And then you get your headline in automotive news
26:01
about lawsuits and things like that.
26:03
One more story for today, dad.
26:04
This comes from LinkedIn.
26:07
It actually is a post-fri a dealer over there.
26:09
I'm going to read it out.
26:10
This is from Andy Wright.
26:11
I've been writing about this issue.
26:12
This is from yesterday.
26:13
I've been writing about this issue
26:14
for almost three years now.
26:16
I can't believe it's almost Q4 of 2025.
26:18
And we still have no proactive solution in place
26:21
on the large third party classified listing sites
26:23
like car gurus, cars commerce, car facts
26:25
and auto trader US to police deceptive pricing tactics
26:29
by dealers trying to gain the system.
26:31
In doing so, they are not only deceiving retail customers
26:33
but they are also compromising the data
26:35
that everyone in our industry uses
26:36
to appraise market and merchandise inventory
26:39
within software systems
26:40
that many of the same third party
26:41
classified listings platforms own.
26:43
It's mind boggling to me
26:44
that the aforementioned companies
26:46
continue to refuse to take proactive action
26:48
to police this stuff on the platforms they manage
26:51
in either brand or D platform dealers
26:54
that engage in these practices.
26:55
It's time that the leaders of these companies
26:57
take responsibility and do the right thing
26:59
but one can only imagine that they will not
27:01
because it might mean losing the monthly revenue
27:03
from dealers that leave their respective platforms
27:05
because they can no longer gain the system
27:07
and deceive people.
27:08
Where is accountability
27:09
from the big third party listing companies?
27:12
And you can see here,
27:12
we've got an example from Andy.
27:14
Steelers advertising a $39,799 2021 BMW 3 series
27:20
and it's a fair deal
27:22
but it doesn't include the $799
27:25
catalytic converter etching,
27:27
the door edge guards and cup guards for $395
27:30
and appearance package for $1,495, et cetera, et cetera.
27:36
Now, Deb, the reason I bring this up in part
27:38
is because I think it's a great point
27:39
and also I'm in here commenting
27:41
about what that we're doing.
27:45
I said, we are so close to car edge
27:46
to have a solution in market.
27:47
Our AI agents are receiving thousands of out the door quotes
27:50
each month and more organizing and compiling the data
27:53
to show users which dealers add fees
27:55
and add-ons to their online advertised price.
27:57
Having to show you a demo, Andy,
27:59
I appreciate you continuing to beat this drum.
28:01
It's important no one wins in the current paradigm.
28:03
And dad, I was the load away by this response.
28:09
Zach Shefska, this is from a man named Ryan.
28:10
You are running AI agents to dealers
28:12
every month to get quotes from them.
28:14
Do you care about the fact that you are wasted
28:15
the time of the salespeople?
28:17
The sales reps that are engaging with your AI bots.
28:19
And I replied, where was it?
28:24
I guess this all gets.
28:25
How do I not see my reply?
28:29
It looks like my reply got taken away.
28:33
Do you see it here?
28:36
Did they remove my reply?
28:39
I don't know, but what was your reply?
28:42
Oh, there it is, right there.
28:44
Customers pay us $40 to access the agent.
28:47
The only reason they are paying that
28:48
is because they are highly intentioned
28:49
and want to buy a car.
28:50
Our third party listings program has 42% 90 day sales rates.
28:55
Our audience is uniquely high intentioned
28:57
if you're mistaken, Ryan.
28:58
To which he said, I don't think you actually
29:00
answered the question.
29:01
Customers pay you $40, they can run multiple AI bots
29:04
across multiple dealerships at once.
29:06
How does that not waste the time
29:07
of the salespeople at the stores?
29:09
So two things going on here, dad,
29:10
that I want to bring up.
29:12
One is, I freaking love Andy Wright.
29:14
He's been beating this drum for years.
29:17
He's been saying, hey, car gurus, cars, commerce, car facts.
29:20
You guys don't actually provide a solution
29:23
to consumers or to dealers.
29:24
You allow bait and switch pricing.
29:27
And we at CarEdge obviously want to eliminate that,
29:30
abolish that, and the way that we've come
29:32
without delivering that is using AI agents
29:35
to reach out to dealers on behalf of customers,
29:38
get OTDs, organize them, and then flag dealers
29:41
who do add-ons, bait and switch, things like that.
29:43
That is coming through.
29:45
Then there's this principle debate from this man, Ryan.
29:50
Isn't it unethical or immoral to have AI agents
29:53
contacting dealers?
29:54
Isn't that wasting dealership?
29:55
Well, I think what Ryan is suggesting is that,
30:00
the customer really should be the one
30:01
that has the waste their time doing it, not the AI agent.
30:04
And realistically, Ryan is suggesting
30:10
that because customers can use this AI agent bot
30:15
to negotiate on their behalf with more than one dealership
30:19
that we're wasting salespeople's time.
30:25
Perhaps maybe the salesperson would actually answer
30:30
the original email with the information
30:33
It's not even that, though.
30:34
It's anybody's time.
30:35
It's not even that.
30:37
It's not even that.
30:37
Sorry, man, sorry to cut off.
30:39
What is the way to get the best deal in today's market?
30:41
You contact a dozen dealers.
30:43
You ask them for an OTD quote, you negotiate.
30:46
Who cares if you're using an AI agent to do that
30:48
or you're doing that?
30:50
It's the tactic is still the tactic.
30:51
So I don't even care.
30:53
I don't care about anything.
30:54
It's like, that's the way to get the best car deal.
30:57
We made it so that a user can click a button and do that
30:59
instead of having to spend, I don't know,
31:01
two or three hours going back and forth with each dealer.
31:04
Like, it's just black and white here.
31:06
And so the idea that it's wasting a salesperson's time
31:09
is the equivalent of saying
31:10
when a customer reaches out on their behalf,
31:13
they're still contacting 10 dealers.
31:15
Well, my point is when you listen to Ryan's argument,
31:23
Ryan's argument is basically saying,
31:25
hey, we like the status quo.
31:29
The people's time that's going to be wasted
31:31
are the customers who are trying to buy the vehicle
31:35
because that's the way we want it to be.
31:38
We would much rather waste the customer's time
31:41
than have the customer waste our time.
31:45
Well, I've got a great idea.
31:47
How about we find a compromise
31:49
that doesn't waste anybody's time?
31:51
Maybe it's time to pull the automobile industry
31:56
kicking and screaming into the 21st century
31:59
and realize that you need the customer
32:03
more than the customer needs you.
32:05
There's two huge things here.
32:06
One is sooner rather than later,
32:09
we are going to make it so that car edge
32:12
provides all the data.
32:14
You know, if you're car gurus,
32:15
hi car gurus, if you want to work with us, you can.
32:18
We'll give you an API to access dealer add-on data.
32:21
You want to be able to address Andy's point here?
32:25
You don't, the customer doesn't even have
32:26
to come to caredge.com.
32:28
We'll sell that data.
32:29
You want to know it?
32:29
We'll sell it to you.
32:30
Put it on car gurus, put it on car facts,
32:32
put it on cars, commerce.
32:34
I want everyone and their brother
32:36
to have access to that information
32:38
to finally level the playing field.
32:41
And the AI agents give us that data in an organized way
32:44
in a database that we can then leverage, right?
32:49
Two is the tactic is you contact multiple dealers,
32:51
you get the best price.
32:52
Who cares if it's a human being doing it
32:54
or an AI agent doing it?
32:55
And quite frankly, a customer spending 40 or 50 or 100
32:58
or a thousand bucks to get access to tools
33:01
to help them buy a car,
33:02
how much more of a highly qualified customer lead?
33:08
Get out of here, man.
33:10
Like this is so good for the industry, so good.
33:13
And to your point, I think it's gonna happen
33:15
with some dealers embracing it, dealers like Andy
33:17
and other folks out there kicking and screaming
33:19
saying, no, this is the worst thing
33:20
that could possibly happen.
33:22
No, the future is more efficient.
33:24
The future is way more tech enabled
33:27
and the future is way less opaque
33:28
and much more transparent.
33:31
And I'm seeing through this fight that,
33:35
well, we're probably not gonna get invited
33:37
to any automotive news things
33:41
where they want us interacting with those in the industry.
33:46
We're gonna be there, we're gonna be there
33:47
because if you're pissing people off,
33:48
you're doing things right.
33:49
And there's also gonna be people
33:50
that evangelize the work that we're doing that
33:52
because it finally solves the root problem,
33:54
which Andy's right, those companies aren't going to do
33:57
because they're gonna lose their subscription revenue
33:59
and they're publicly traded.
34:00
They have to every single quarter go out there
34:02
and say, we're making more money.
34:03
No, CarEdge is the only company that's positioned
34:06
to actually do this and it fires me out.
34:10
Well, I am so glad you're fired up.
34:13
When are you gonna take that bike down off the wall
34:15
and ride it somewhere with all that energy you have today?
34:19
Ride it all the time, that it's rainy here today,
34:22
Oh, okay, well then don't do it today.
34:23
Anyway, I thought that was super interesting y'all.
34:25
So I wanted to share it and I'll go back
34:27
and reread some of the comments
34:28
that came through during that time.
34:29
And if you are interested you can use our AI negotiator,
34:32
just go to caredge.com
34:34
and you can get access to it from the CarEdge car search
34:36
or just go to caredge.com slash AI.
34:38
And again, surfacing and providing all this data
34:40
that we're getting on who adds add-ons,
34:42
how much they charge dock fees, hiding fees
34:45
from advertised price to OTT, that will all be coming soon.
34:48
And quite frankly, I really do hope
34:50
that those big players in the space
34:52
have a relationship with us someday
34:53
and on each listing, it should have
34:56
like the CarEdge scorecard or the CarEdge report card
34:59
and it shows, hey, this dealer's known
35:01
to actually increase their prices by 12%
35:04
when you actually get the out the door price
35:05
because they add fees, they add add-ons.
35:09
We wanna get that in as many people's hands as possible.
35:12
Yeah, that's the type of data that consumers can use.
35:17
When you can compare two local Honda dealers
35:21
and you see one has $3,000 worth
35:25
of mandatory accessories that you need to buy
35:28
and the other has zero.
35:31
But the one that has zero usually has a higher listed price
35:36
but there is gonna be zero additions,
35:39
I'm going to the one that has zero additions.
35:41
And that's how that information can be
35:45
significantly important to the customers out there.
35:49
Oh, it's coming folks.
35:50
It is coming from Rich.
35:52
Thank you, Rich, really appreciate
35:53
the very kind contributions.
35:55
Found Zach's manual transmission learner,
35:58
the Hennessey F5 Hypercar.
36:00
Over 2,000 horsepower and a frugal $3 million price.
36:05
You know, may I say that I think it was Tuesday,
36:11
I went and got my car serviced
36:15
and I found the perfect learner
36:19
and it was a six speed manual transmission
36:23
from Mazda Miata 5.
36:26
Rag top, beautiful car, love it.
36:28
What, it's a $3 million price point?
36:30
I think it was 33,000, maybe 35,000.
36:35
Beautiful two-seater, lovely color
36:39
and I thought to myself, you know,
36:41
I could get in there with Zach to help teach him.
36:44
I just may never get out because it's so loaded
36:47
but oh, that would be such a fun car
36:49
for you to learn on.
36:51
Yeah, I think that would be a potential.
36:53
Well, thank you, Rich, for the kind contribution.
36:55
Hey, I just want to call out folks,
36:57
if you work professionally, whatever,
37:00
if you're on LinkedIn, come follow me over on LinkedIn
37:03
and endorse the stuff that we're doing over here.
37:07
Like that comment that I just shared.
37:09
Let's have our voices be heard here.
37:12
Remember, the CARS Act was supposed to help
37:13
with a lot of this, but obviously,
37:14
that's not coming to fruition.
37:16
So it's going to have to take companies
37:17
in the private sector or public sector.
37:19
It's going to have to take like a company
37:21
to figure it out, not the federal government.
37:23
So please, if you're not following me
37:25
or engaged with me over on LinkedIn,
37:27
I would really appreciate it,
37:28
especially as we go more and more public
37:31
with commentary like this.
37:33
And again, a huge shout out and thanks to Andy
37:36
for starting the conversation,
37:37
but it's really important that the auto industry knows
37:40
we're here and we're changing this paradigm
37:43
and we are going to deliver.
37:44
Whether people like it or not, I don't know,
37:47
but we're going to deliver
37:48
because it fulfills our mission
37:49
and what we're passionate about.
37:52
Well said, young man.
37:53
Okay, folks, that's a show.
37:54
We'll be back tomorrow for another one
37:56
of CarEdge Live, a Friday edition.
37:58
So that should be quite fun.
38:02
I'm going to eat some lunch and get back to work then.
38:04
You know, I was just thinking the same thing,
38:07
except for the get back to work part.
38:10
But I was thinking...
38:13
I'm going to eat some lunch, yes.
38:17
All right, well, enjoy that.
38:18
Thank you everyone for tuning in
38:19
and we'll catch you back here tomorrow.
38:20
Yep, have a great Thursday, everybody.
38:23
We'll see you tomorrow at noon Eastern 9 Pacific.
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