Dealer viewpoint: How Toyota Is Dealing With Market Changes

Welcome to the Porsche Club Insider, your one stop for all things Porsche and PCA.

Here's your host, Vu Gwin and the Insider crew.

Welcome everyone to episode 189.

We are back at PCA's national office.

Just wanted to say before I introduce everyone is to of course thank our presenting sponsor

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I want to thank you all for listening.

If you aren't currently a PCA member, there's one next to me here by the way.

But we'll talk about that in a bit.

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On this episode, we're going to speak to Martin Simon, a Porsche enthusiast who is

also the general manager of a Toyota dealership.

We'll find out how much and different the challenges are from the Toyota side.

I do want to welcome Manny and Damon as well.

They're the ones that keep this everything running.

Can I start with a question from one of our members that maybe some of our listeners can

answer real quick?

I had never heard of this one before, 986.2 Boxster.

He's having a starter issue and he thought it was getting heat soaked.

He's changed the ignition switch.

He's changed the starter.

It's been driving for a while, comes to a stop, then tries to drive again if the starter

just won't.

He's obviously replaced the starter.

I checked with one of our Goldmeister techs.

It's not a common problem, Eric.

I had never heard of it.

I hadn't heard of it.

The 914 said that problem.

Exactly.

The one thing I didn't think that might contribute to it that the Goldmeister said you

might want to check, Eric, is check your engine compartment fan.

Because those do fail and perhaps the engine compartment temperature is rising to a level

that is affecting your starter.

Look at that.

For those of you that are listening, if you've experienced this, comment below.

If you have any tips or suggestions for Eric to keep his starter from heat soaking,

I guess.

Yeah.

914 never had a relay, so all you got to do is insert a relay and that solves

the problem.

Martin here.

Simon, you are the Orzman Toyota General Manager.

I'm going to give a shout out to our mutual friend, Ed Wheaton, who hopefully he's a top

dog at Orzman.

He put us together and we'll hopefully have him on the show as well because he's got

some interesting insight as he has responsibility across multiple brands.

We have you on here today because, one, we want to learn a little bit about you

and your Porsche background, but then also maybe if you can give us some insight how things

have changed for Toyota because things are changing obviously for Porsche as well.

There are some similarities in the market and hopefully we can dig into that.

But let's just start with, what's your background?

How did you, what's your Porsche background first?

Well, great to be here.

Thanks for having me on.

I've been, I've been in the car business 20 years.

So I started as a paint and body tech and of course I just like cars.

Man, JDM World was the first thing.

So of course one of my first cars was a 93 Civic that had a smash windshield and smash

rear windshield.

Had to go to the, the, you know, crazy rays.

Yeah.

Crazy rays.

Oh yeah.

Had to go to crazy rays, grab some windshields, gorilla glued them in, you know, smush

the roofs back together and, you know, from there I went on to, you know, more

fabrication, mechanical work, started going into the service side of things,

became a service advisor, eventually flipped over to the sales side and so on

and so forth and just kind of worked through that way.

But, you know, with the Porsche, it was always just that dream car.

It was the, it was the car on the wall.

Yeah.

Whether it was the Carrera GTs, whether it was the 959s, just the 911s in

general, the iconic shape, the body, everything in the car, you know, some

people, you know, in these car communities I was in, they used to talk

about, oh, all Porsches look the same.

You can't tell which one's good, which one's not.

Yeah.

You know, but that was always something that I think was appealing to me, you

know, that it was, you know, some of them were wolves and sheep's clothing.

I mean, they were all high performance vehicles, but, you know, the

love of Porsche started very, very early.

However, it really was always just that poster car, right?

It wasn't until much later on that figuring out attainability, right?

Figuring out how to get into the brand or actually just, you know, be a part of

it rather than standing next to it, right?

Yeah.

And that was the same for Manny and I as well.

Like, we always had this dream.

I think we had other cars purely from a financial standpoint.

Sure.

You couldn't, you know, your first car wasn't a Porsche, but you

had that dream and Manny, Manny has, I think he's always really appreciated the

engineering of cars the way they were, they were, they were designed by the

dealer.

I think for me, I always, I'm a tinkerer.

So I've always tinkered with my cars.

And when I got to the Porsche world, I kind of had to learn, was that

reasonable to start tinkering or was it to keep things the same?

And like you said, which, which Porsche should you buy?

And is this a good model?

Is that a good model?

Should you do turbo, not turbo and all that kind of stuff?

Did you, did you find it?

How long did it take for you to get through all that noise and

understand which car you were finally going to get?

So I think in the car community in general, well, particularly in the

Porsche brand, getting into it's really daunting because

it's almost like you think that you're going to experience judgment

if you get the wrong brand for the wrong model.

However, you don't say, you don't say, but it seems like, you know, and

from the experience that I had over the years, that that's really

only external inside the community.

They're all appreciated.

Absolutely.

And I think that that's just something that hasn't been talked

about a lot because say, for example, I was on the JDM side

and if I was thinking about getting a Cayman or something, they're

like, oh, it's not a 911, right?

Right.

And but then you kind of talk to Porsche guys and they go, that's a great car.

Oh, yeah.

That's a great car.

That's a track monster.

That's going to that's going to eat my career ass up on the track.

Yeah.

You know, no problem.

You know, so I think that it took probably till late 20s, early 30s

that I kind of like figured out, oh, it's just a car.

And you know, I think that was also the same point too, where

I started to be less concerned with other people's opinions of it

and just enjoy the cars that I enjoyed.

And I got another car that I get a wrath of crap about because

everyone is the 93 RX seven.

Oh, I love those big single turbo, all the stuff.

It's all modded out.

I'm a tinker as well.

But, you know, people are like, oh, it's rotary.

They're unreliable.

They're this and that, right?

You know, and in the same way too.

So it was just like people would say the same thing about

the M 96 engines or something, right?

You know, for every single characteristic models, they've

got these expected problems, but I try to explain to people

that said, rotaries are fine.

But the reason why they've always broken is because one,

there's very few moving pieces.

You've normally got some 19 22 year old kid that's got 120,000

mile car that he decided to put on every single bolt on on eBay.

And he just blows it up.

And he goes, oh, it's unreliable.

Right, right, right.

But you've done zero maintenance.

You've done zero repair to the car to actually get it

ready for what you're trying to use it for.

Right.

So, you know, doing it right.

I mean, I've beat on this car for the past six years.

I'm not nice to it.

And that that's what I think Manny and I always in Damon as

well as when people come to us saying they want to get into

the Porsche world, we want to help them get into the right car.

Because much like what you're saying about the RX seven and

people saying it's unreliable, this and the other, a lot of

the people that have terrible experiences with their first

Porsche is because they bought the wrong Porsche.

They bought the car that was clapped out, wasn't maintained,

or they just, you know, if someone's going into a nine eight

six or nine and M 96 motor, like I have like a list of things

that you should do when you get a used one.

Just do all this stuff and then you'll be set.

And then people have this expectation that they will, you

know, that they can be prepared for.

But it's those people that buy those cars thinking that

the purchase price is the only thing they need to worry

about and they buy a $15,000 nine, nine, six.

And then they're like, wait a minute.

Why do I have a $5,000, $6,000 bill now?

This is terrible.

I'm like, no, no, you should have gone into it knowing that

you need to spend that to make sure that you prepare

the car for the future.

Am I we get calls here all the time where they'll say,

I'm looking at a seven thousand dollar Panamera.

What could go wrong if I buy it?

What am I?

I'm like, what could go wrong?

I mean, but you've got the other spectrum of the buyer,

though, the guy who goes, I only want two thousand and nine

nine, seven that's got 5,000 miles on it.

But then on the mechanical side, the car hasn't been driven.

These cars need to be driven.

Oh, absolutely. They need to be driven.

There's like a happy balance.

There's a sweet spot of low mileage, right?

You know, for example, but to get a good value

car at a good price that you can drive because it's

been driven and maintained throughout that process.

I mean, you know, so some people just go completely

the other way. Absolutely.

I will take a car that has been driven regularly

and serviced as opposed to a cream puff that has been

sitting and only has 5,000 miles unless I had tons of money

and I was just building a museum.

Then it didn't matter.

Then I would want a little mileage car.

But I live in the world where I'm going to drive

my cars, right?

So yeah, my nine, six turbos got 75,000 miles on it.

And I got it because one, the opportunity came up,

but I bought it from a friend of mine.

I was telling me actually that this is he's a little

controversial in the Porsche community because he...

You know who he bought it from?

Yeah. Oh, OK.

So he runs a business in Baltimore County where he

swaps LS engines in the Porsches.

Oh, I know who that is.

Tyler, yep.

Yeah.

Yep.

Chavis Performance Engineering.

So he's a he's a really good guy.

He loves cars, but he's got personally cars

that have Porsche engines in them.

And then otherwise the LS ones.

Yeah. But you know, if there was anybody

that was going to buy a car from,

it was going to be him, right?

Because you buy from someone who's such an enthusiast

about the brand who goes through all the problems

of trying to fix them or swap them or whatever.

Right.

That, you know, that level of maintenance

or level of attention and detail of ownership

or drivability, I mean, that's what I want.

Yeah. That's what I want.

And you picked the right model.

I mean, as much as I love my nine, nine, six,

and it's been great for me and I'll knock on wood

lightly here, but the nine, nine, six twin turbo

platform, I mean, I still think that's quite the bargain

for people for the amount of power you get.

And I personally love the looks of a nine, nine, six.

Like, yeah, that's that's a great.

Did you pick the turbo because people told you to get a turbo

or made you get a turbo versus a regular?

No, I wanted it.

I mean, I've always been kind of a forced induction guy

when it came to cars.

I was about to say, you like big powers.

But well, you know, now I'm toning it down.

Oh, you've matured.

I tried.

Whatever.

This RX-7 can't hook up for anything.

It's 2600 pounds and 600 horsepower.

So, you know, you know, but it's just especially

with a nine, nine, six turbo.

I mean, what a great driving car, right?

But also I'm a lover of like older cars.

Given the same money what I've gotten,

I don't know, a 2000, like a 991.1 S or something like

that, I could get that for in that ballpark of money.

Some were close.

And I don't know, sometimes I think that

especially when you love cars,

that you love the car for what it is

and the screens and everything.

It's all just kind of a distraction, right?

And it's not nearly as analog.

I know people very cliche, it's analog

and all that kind of stuff.

That's why they say the same thing

is about manuals versus PDKs.

But, you know, just lack of distraction.

One of my favorite cars I ever had was an E36 M3.

Oh, very nice.

Yeah, super fun was, you know,

when it started its life, 275 horsepower,

when I sold it, it probably had 100 horsepower left.

You know what I mean?

It's just old, it's had miles on it, it's been driven.

But, you know, there's something about,

you know, actually being in the car to drive the car.

I was talking to a friend of mine,

he actually just bought a Toyota truck from me,

a manual Tacoma.

Nice.

And he's a great guy, he's in the military,

you know, appreciate all the military members.

And I've known him for 30 plus years.

He said throughout this time of owning my car,

you know, I realized that all the trucks

that I had previous to this,

because they were all automatics or whatever.

He goes, I was just, you know,

a passenger in the car that had some input.

But he goes, now I actually take my car for a drive.

Nice.

Right?

And then that's how I feel about my cars.

So I, nine and six turbo, I just take it for a drive.

There's no destination.

Right.

You know, it's like that journey, right?

And so that's the fun part about having a car.

Now, have you, have you restrained yourself?

Have you kept it stock or have you modified it?

So it already had a little bit of modification

done to it when I got it.

And I don't really see too much of a need to go much further.

Stock is already like for something, right?

Mm-hmm.

Stock 450 or something like that?

No, I think the CS or 450 package.

I mean, plenty of power for the street stock.

415, I believe.

415.

Yeah, I think you're right there, 415.

And it's got, well, has the turbo twist wheels.

Love the look of those.

So it's really just a little bit of spacers,

aftermarket suspension, lightweight flywheel.

Oh, OK.

And then the, what is that brand?

The BBI slave conversion.

OK.

Just a little bit of a stiffer clutch as well.

Right.

You know, but it means that I can't listen to the radio

because that flywheel is just chattering all the time.

Really?

Yeah.

But I mean, it's fun.

Yeah.

And again, for the street, that's really all you need.

And I've seen that platform modified to 800 horsepower,

which you can do.

But really, how much can you enjoy that on the street?

I mean, that's good for a clickbait.

Yeah, exactly.

But it's not usable.

So what do you ever drive it to the Toyota dealership?

Try not to.

You keep it on the DL?

Yeah, I mean, I think that a fair bit of them

know that I have it.

But I've got my electric Toyota sitting outside.

OK.

Well, let's talk about that.

How did you get to become the general manager of a Toyota

dealership?

You know, I actually reached out to Ed Wheaton

on a LinkedIn post.

Ah, OK.

And then so he actually gave me a call.

And then we sort of went through the process of seeing

what opportunities were out there.

I didn't know what I was applying to or who I was.

What were you doing at the time?

So I was still in the car business as a general sales

manager at the previous auto group.

OK.

And I was just kind of looking for a different challenge.

And then when he said, well, I actually am in need at Toyota.

So I love that brand.

I mean, my dad's got a 07 FGA Cruiser with 300,000 miles on it.

That's a great brand to be tied to.

Yeah, yeah.

But the brand in general, I mean,

we were talking a little bit before the recording.

And it does have a lot of similarities to Porsche

just as an import brand.

And we were talking a little bit about some of the challenges

that we face.

And right now it really is sort of politically

as an import brand.

So one of the challenges that we face

is that we all have talked about tariffs.

We've talked about importation.

We've talked about where production is happening.

But at a dealership level, even in my position,

I still feel very under informed

because the manufacturers, they're sort of dealing

with all of that kind of stuff.

They're the ones that are making the business deals.

They're the ones that are, you know,

the trade agreements, all that kind of stuff.

I mean, lucky for us, Akiyo Toyota has been sort of...

Vocal.

Vocal, but also leading the charge.

She's basically been doing the negotiation

with the US government for almost all

of the Japanese companies.

It's funny that you talk about this

because Manny has talked to several of our partners

in the local dealerships, how we obviously watch the news

and try to bring all of that here for the podcast.

And sometimes we bring up topics

with our dealer counterparts and they're like, huh.

Yeah.

I didn't hear that yet.

You know, and as you said, as a dealer,

you would hope that the manufacturer

will keep all these folks informed.

But before we go into that side of the house,

let me do a couple of announcements here.

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The first grand prize is a 2026 9-11 GTS

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And the second grand prize, which are the cars

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So let's get into the connection.

There is a connection

and some of our listeners might not know

the connection between Porsche and Toyota,

especially in the 90s

when it was a critical moment for Porsche.

Yeah, Porsche was on the verge of bankruptcy in the 90s.

They were selling the all-time low amount of cars,

nothing like today.

And when Wendland Wiedeking, the CEO from Porsche AG,

took over, he enlisted retired Toyota engineers.

And I think it was called,

Pergen was called Kaisan.

Kaisan, correct.

Kaisan, yeah.

And basically made the company more efficient.

While German engineering and the whole mystique of Porsche

was still there,

they weren't doing it financially efficiently.

And they instituted the just-in-time parts.

In fact, what I've read is they actually came in

and cut the racking in half.

So they couldn't store parts like they used to.

And the end result was the 993

was able to be sold $5,000 cheaper than the 964,

which was unheard of,

that this more modern 911 was gonna be $5,000 less

because of these improvements in the manufacturing

and inventory techniques.

So yeah, for the Germans, you go to the Japanese like that

and basically admit that they needed help

to save their company.

Took a lot, but it paid off dividends.

Mm-hmm.

And if you have the opportunity to visit Stuttgart

and go or even at Leipzig and go on the production lines

and you can see it's even today

at an even more advanced level

of this just-in-time inventory.

They literally have parts

that are delivered by the truck moments

before they are needed on the line.

The bumpers, the wheels, the doors,

like all of this is all computerized.

There's robotics involved as well,

but all comes together on the line only when it's needed.

So when you build your car with unique combinations,

all of the system knows that some shop is gonna produce it

or manufacturing facility is gonna produce it two hours away.

They have to produce it in time to get it on the truck

and let's not have the truck be late

so it gets there at the assembly area,

gets into the line,

and then Porsche finally does the final assembly

and of course the quality has to match.

I mean, it's an incredible, complex process,

but as Mani said, by refining this,

they've been able to bring about efficiency,

bring cost down,

but then also the quality of the cars have also gone up.

Pretty cool.

Now, I'm sure, Martin,

you're familiar with what's going on with Porsche

in terms of the complex puzzle

that they have to solve with the drop in demand

in China for Porsches as well as non-Chinese vehicles.

So when you lose a big market like that,

you have some challenges,

but then coupled with the fact that you have

your internal combustion engine, 718 and boxers

that were slated to go away,

EVs that are slated to come online,

then you have the whole battery issue.

Like, man, we feel terrible

that they have to try to figure all of this out

at the same time,

but there are some solutions

that people have talked about

where maybe they can take a platform from, say, VW or Audi

and create a unique Porsche vehicle and produce it.

That's not completely unheard of.

They've done that kind of before as well.

Toyota more recently partnered with BMW and Subaru.

How was that because you've gone through it

as opposed to where Porsche is thinking about it

right now, how was it received by the customer

when AE86, or what did they call them

when they first came out?

The little Subaru partnership car.

Oh, you're talking about the GR86.

GR86, I thought you were talking about the Supra.

And then also the Supra.

So Supra was, you know, lift the bonnet

and obviously you see BMW logos everywhere.

Like, how did your consumer base feel about that?

So it's always a mixed bag, right?

Because just like any other community,

there's purists.

I mean, you talk about a car.

I mean, the GR86 wasn't, no, no, it wasn't crazy.

The reason why it wasn't crazy

is because it was a new car, right?

So whether you had the FRS, the Toyota version,

the Scion version.

Oh, so you didn't go away from what it was.

It was just a new car.

Right, it was just a new car.

I think it was more controversial

when it came to the Supra, you know,

because you had the iconic 2JZ.

Exactly, how do you follow that?

Right, I mean, and to the point

where I have a 2JZ sitting in my closet at work

because I'll eventually build it one day,

but I have a brand new 2JZ block just sitting there.

But, you know, it really kind of brings to light sometimes

how much people miss the old stuff, right?

How much they appreciate it,

how much even the consumer who loved it back then

is now, let's say, for example,

financially capable to join that community

and now that it's changed,

now that it's, you know, a BMW engine, for example,

even the interior of the car

has the same BMW controls, the knob,

like the nav and info button, it's all there.

But just programmed into a Toyota branding,

I think it actually worked out well though,

because once people got around to driving them,

once people got around to experiencing it,

you know, it isn't necessarily a replacement,

it's more of an homage to what it was.

You know, it was a big, long nose car

with a powerful engine with lots of potential in it.

Sleek lines, it looked very close to, you know,

the concept that they put out years ago,

which is great, because, you know,

we all know that whenever we've got concept cars

that are coming over the horizon,

you look at it and these beautiful lines

and these aggressive looks and this futuristic shape,

and then you get the real car and it's like...

Yeah, well, and that's what we've talked about

in the past, like, a lot of our members,

a lot of the enthusiasts are so loyal to the past.

Like, when something new comes out,

if it's anything different,

they're just automatically gonna poo poo.

Like, it's easy to hate.

It was like the 991 to the 991.2.

Yeah, like, you can't expect a 2JZ to be made today.

Like, the parameters, the environment in which,

you know, that Toyota faces.

But are the customers that are buying the new Supra?

Yeah.

So we just had their show about this.

As vocal as the enthusiast are,

they're not necessarily buying the new cars that come out

because for whatever reason.

So they're vocal about it,

but they have no intention of buying it regardless.

Even if Porsche built something that they,

everything they asked for,

odds are they still wouldn't buy the car.

But the people that are buying it

aren't these, quote, unquote, enthusiasts.

They're just used to the brand or whatnot.

It was that the case with the new Supra

where it was just new buyers who really liked the look of it

and didn't have a connection to the past?

I thought it was gonna be more like that,

but it was more half and half, you know?

It was definitely more half and half.

Once people started to realize the capability of it

and kind of what it was in its own identity,

I think that that was kind of the difference maker.

I mean, it really is up to us dealers to analyze these cars

but also figure out how to interpret them

to the general public,

to market and advertise them to sell them, right?

I mean, at the end of the day,

there are so many features and options on any given car

that unless you have the right person showing it to you,

giving you the experience of the car,

you know, you're not gonna get as full value.

You're not gonna see what it's really made for

or what the differences were, why it's better.

So the, in terms of volume in A86,

let's say that's the Cayman and then the Supra,

let's say that's the 911 versus the SUVs.

We have McCons, Cayens.

Oh, you're gonna have Rav4, you have Highlander,

you have the bigger one.

What's the bigger one, I can't remember?

The Grand Highlander and then also Sequoia.

Yeah, so you have all these other,

and that's really your bread and butter these days,

right? So the volume of these sports cars are so small.

Very, very small.

As an enthusiast, let's just celebrate

that the fact that they're still making them

because I don't think they're making a ton of money

off of them, right?

Because the thing is the volume comes so low, right?

I mean, for example, the Rav4,

number one selling vehicle in the world.

Yeah, fantastic car.

In the world, you know, they overtook the F-150s.

You remember those Mercos, F-150s?

Best selling car in America, yeah.

Or best selling car in the world, right?

But now they had to change their commercial.

Now they say F-series trucks.

Number one selling trucks in the world, right?

They lost it a puny Rav4.

Rav4?

Wow.

My daughter, Justine, is a proud owner.

She's a proud owner.

It's a great car.

It'll last forever, you know,

one of the other things that Toyota has

and similar to Porsche,

and particularly some of the more desirable models,

it's residual value, it's resale value.

Sure, resale, yeah.

Yeah, resale value, which is why a lot of times,

you know, we tell people to just buy the new one

because the used one, it's almost just as much, right?

And it has a higher interest rate

because it's a used car or something like that, right?

Something, but the thing is, I mean,

recent model years and stuff like that,

you know, financing is usually available

very close to a new car.

So that's changed over the years too, which is nice.

Are Toyota dealers doing what Porsche dealers do

and adding ADMs on certain cars?

I think some.

Really?

I mean, we don't.

I think the GR86 when it first came out,

didn't it have some ADMs on it?

Yeah, yeah.

Limited supply.

Yeah, I mean, limited supply, you know,

I can see the business model for that.

At the same time though,

it has to be like in your DNA of your business, right?

People have to be ready to respond to that, you know,

because when that first customer calls

and just sits there and calls you an absolute criminal

for trying to ask too much for a car, what do you say?

Right, and so the way that I was brought up

was to treat customers very fairly,

to offer great value and offer great service.

So it's not something that I ever kind of built into my model.

Yeah, but I also don't,

I mean, there's some crazy ADMs,

which I don't agree with, but you know,

if you're mad at anyone, I say this before,

is if you're mad at anyone,

be mad at the person that paid that crazy ADM.

Like they're in a business to sell cars,

they're in the business to pay overhead

and if they can make a little extra money

or a substantial amount of money,

like can you fault them

if someone's willing to pay for it?

No, and I think that that's fine, right?

Because really in regards to specialty models,

particularly the Porsche lineup,

I mean, I was talking to Mani a little bit

about kind of like barriers of entry

into ownership and into membership, right?

And if someone values that,

I mean, whatever something is worth

is what someone will pay for it, right?

So if someone's gonna put something out there 100 over

and then somebody pays it,

yeah, then it's probably worth it, right?

So back to the partnering with BMW and Subaru.

So if you were talking to a decision maker at Porsche,

do you think it would be wise for them

to take a platform from another manufacturer

and dial it in Porsche-wise

and try to get a car on the lot sooner than five years?

So I think the thing that I would probably say or ask

is what you're asking of this other brand or other company,

is it going to match your DNA?

As in, is it going to serve the same purpose

in the greater machine, right?

Or is this really just a cash grab to lower cost

to try to find new outlets and opportunities?

I think that the partnerships with, let's say,

Subaru and BMW were very calculated, right?

They didn't go to BMW to say,

hey, help us with an electric vehicle.

They said, help us with a performance vehicle.

So what did they do?

They took their most robust and honestly,

one of their more reliable engines, that 58.

I mean, that's a great engine, right?

And so you put that type of DNA, it was there to Jay-Z, right?

And so it matched.

And then the same thing with the partnership with Subaru,

right?

So we partnered with them with the little sports car,

but also the electric car.

So I have a BZ4 Exits, an electric SUV,

a little smaller than a RAV4,

but they have the Solterra,

which is the same exact car, right?

And so we can share in those platforms

because the technology and everything,

it sort of serves the same purpose for both.

It's just iterations.

It's like how they brought in the Kaizen expert at Porsche.

And it fit the DNA of what they were trying to do.

They needed to improve their process.

And Kaizen is two words that literally means

continuous improvement.

So that's been Toyota's ideology for a long time.

So they wanted to inject that DNA

into the Porsche manufacturing.

Yeah, they injected more efficiency

without losing their original DNA.

Right.

So they actually got a better car.

So that kept everything that they were looking for.

So I have a little comment because,

so Toyota, they've only done collaboration sports cars

over the past what, 10, 15 years?

Recently, yeah.

Yeah, they haven't built their own

all by themselves, which at first,

I thought, why would they do that?

But those cars have turned out so good

that it's like, okay, yeah, it works.

So my question here is, and maybe it's not a question,

more of a statement that I'd like to see

what your reaction would be.

Sure.

So Toyota and Mazda, there's that rumor going around

that they're going to do some sort of

collaboration sports car

and I forget which one it's supposed to be.

But how about this?

Toyota and Porsche get a new MR2 and 914.

That would be super cool.

I think that would be awesome.

What are your thoughts on that?

Oh, that'd be super cool.

Look, so I was shaking his head.

I think it's a great idea,

but I don't think there's any history

of Porsche ever doing anything

outside of their Volkswagen family.

Yeah.

True, true, but I'm thinking big here

because I would love to see something like that happen.

You would have to think within the family,

the Volkswagen family.

I think it would be a great idea,

but I know just knowing how we know

the Porsche family and whatnot, I don't see them.

All right, let me throw this scenario

and maybe ask the same question, but in a different way.

So the Macan ice version is obviously

the best-selling Porsche out there.

That is going away.

Your RAV4, as we just talked about

is your best-selling vehicle.

And most of them are ice.

I know you have them in hybrid as well,

but let's say the ice version of the RAV4

gotta go next year.

And you only have, in its replacement, an ice version.

I'm not, I'm sorry, a EV version of the RAV4.

How would you feel?

So we are leaning more towards the hybrid version.

Right, but I'm not saying hybrid.

In the scenario for Porsche, your RAV4,

it went from ice to purely EV.

You don't have that hybrid option, right, Manny?

We don't have a hybrid option right now

for the Macan.

So how do you feel?

Macan and Panamera.

So that is an interesting proposition

because when people think of a Prius, right,

in their minds, it might as well be an EV

because it's been known as the top level

of fuel efficiency for how long.

But as of right now, we have very few EV cars.

Right, I wrote it here.

You have the BZ and there's one more.

The CHR?

Yeah, yeah.

But that's what I'm saying.

There's so few of them because they've sort of mastered,

not being sort of unbothered by the EPA, right?

A lot of these EVs are in reaction

to having to lower the total EPA line-up average, right?

So I don't know, I think that some companies

are more prepared than others, right?

And then you have to do something as drastic as

pull an entire line, pull your best-selling line

because that's the only way that you can kind of...

It's crazy to think that, right?

That's why I posed it to you.

Your best-selling car is going away

and your only solution or the only thing

that's slated currently is an EV-only platform.

Well, it was sort of like how a lot of brands

have gone away from sedans.

I was actually going to ask you about that as well.

Well, because I used to work at Chevy.

So I worked at Chevy for the longest portion of my career

and our dealership, we were the number 10

cruise dealer in the country.

Wow.

3,600 deals.

We were selling...

In Baltimore?

Yeah.

That's where we bought our daughter's cruise.

Oh, yeah.

That's how I met Ed.

Oh, okay, okay.

We were 60 cruises a month, right?

And then they said, okay,

so we're not producing the cruise anymore.

You're like, whoa.

So what do we do, right?

So then you switch gears, right?

And so then we found more success

in let's say the Malibu or the Equinox line-up.

But then the Malibu goes away.

Then the Malibu goes away.

So then it was all Equinox after that, right?

And then all of the smaller SUVs then came the Trax.

Trax, yeah.

So then came, it's a Korean-built car,

but it's actually a really cool car.

And it was sizable.

It was about the size of a cruise.

It was just...

Higher up.

Just a little bit.

Not by much.

I think the market just wants that now.

That they have this SUV mentality.

No one, very rarely do people think sedans anymore.

I love the sedans.

It made me think about,

we were talking about collaborations and BMW,

to me, is on the same level as Toyota.

So it's not a shock.

We inherited a Chevy.

What's a Sonic, the one we have?

Oh, you're something.

Which I found that was the DeWoo.

And to me, that was Chevy taking a quick buck

because there's no way I equate DeWoo to Chevy.

Because I have a suburban that's been flawless

for almost 300,000 miles.

And then I get this other thing that breaks down

every 5,000 miles.

And when I find out it's a DeWoo,

I'm like, well, that makes sense.

That makes sense.

Because it's...

And so to me, that took my view of Chevy

and dropped it down a couple of notches

because I thought, here they are,

they're just going after the money grab

because they needed a sub-compact car.

And instead of building one themselves,

they just bought DeWoo's and rebadged them.

Yeah.

So more a little bit about the disappearing market

for sedans are, you helped out.

The reason why we connected was because through Ed

and one of our staff here was looking for a new car

and they were getting the run around with some dealers

and your dealer took great care of her

and got the exact car that she wanted.

And I'm assuming at the price that she wanted,

but she was one of the unique persons

that wanted to get into...

She had a Camry sedan, got into a new Camry sedan.

I didn't realize and many pointed out to me,

Camrys are no longer ICE only, they're hybrid.

And so when I saw her car

and I saw the performance ratings on it,

I'm like, wow, that's impressive.

A sedan that does like crazy mileage and stuff like that.

I would think that market didn't even flinch

when it was moved to a hybrid.

How many people come in and realize

that they're also buying hybrids for the Camry now?

So sometimes they do, sometimes they don't.

One of the big pillars that we have

really is educating people, right?

You know, it was much like anything with sales,

it really comes down to education.

Education builds value.

So the more somebody knows

or the more you can tell them, show them,

let them experience about a vehicle, then they'll...

It's not a plug-in hybrid, it's a regular.

And I would think, this is not a plug-in

that makes people think it's a regular gas

and less complexity maybe of having to hook up a charger.

Even the plug-in will give you...

It's not even about the complexity though.

It's about the convenience, right?

It's about like the life intrusion almost.

So I've always been a combustion guy,

basically just how I've been talking.

The car that I have is not a demo.

I bought it and I bought it before I worked for Toyota.

And...

You're busy?

Yeah.

And you're busy is plug-in.

Yeah, it's full EV.

Full EV, okay.

Yeah, and for me, it was a great deal on the car.

I kinda liked the way it looked

and I was like, oh, this is a good option

because prior to that, I had this Range Rover Sport

and I had it for a few years and I was like,

oh, it's a cool car.

It's great and I had a few of them in a row.

And I was like, oh, just let me try something different

because I'd get a new car like every two years, truthfully.

But a big part of the reason why I got the car,

it drives like a normal car.

You know, I'm not trying to offend any Tesla people

but the way that they drive it

like feels like a roller coaster.

And this car drives like a normal car.

So when I introduce people to this car,

let's say I meet a customer and I talk to them about it,

this is the first thing I tell them.

By the way, it drives like a normal car.

And they go, oh, and that's a big thing, right?

But so you mentioned plug-in hybrids

or kinetic hybrid systems like Toyota has,

it's not an intrusion to the way they live their life,

right?

It's great to know about it.

It's great to be educated about it

but as long as it doesn't screw up their flow

for how they operate or how they live,

they just say thank you for the extra fuel economy.

Like I think you also enjoy much like Porsche does,

like a Toyota product.

We talked about depreciation.

I think Toyota products are known to hold their value

because they're so reliable and such.

Hybrids I would expect is not even an issue.

Do Toyota EV only have depreciation concerns?

Yeah.

More than the rest of the lineup.

Because people don't know when they'll have to replace it

or how much it will cost to replace it.

So how do you talk to the customer through that?

So the good part is that the Toyota owner

tends to be a very long ownership.

Yeah.

Long ownership cycle.

Yeah, very, very, very long ownership cycle.

I see people come through our service department

that have 2012 Tacomas with 150,000 miles

and they go, yep, she's just getting started, right?

Yeah.

It's very common.

And I think that that's much less common

in most other brands.

So the cycle of ownership of a Toyota owner is much longer.

So although it's like nice to know that it's worth money,

you know, it's like,

I know a guy who's got a 993 Turbo.

Right.

But he's never gonna sell it.

Right, yeah.

You know, he's never gonna sell it.

So he's like, yeah.

What's the matter?

Yeah, it's nice to know it's worth 300 grand,

but what does it matter?

Right.

You know, it's just, he's just gonna own it.

So same thing with Toyota customers.

It's nice to know that your car

is worth a fair bit of money.

And if you wanted to trade it in in a couple of years,

you get really great value for it,

but why would you?

Yeah.

You know?

So how about the manual versus automatic of,

I think the GR series of Toyotas finally came out.

Cause for a while, the Supras,

the Supras came out automatic only

and then they finally came out with manual.

In the Porsche world,

we get this statement all the time,

but what people don't realize

is it takes much longer for a dealer to sell a manual car

than it does a PDK car or a automatic.

Sure.

I think that also bleeds into one thing

and this is kind of off topic,

but it's the modern society of drivers

or lack thereof, you know?

I've got a lot of younger cousins and stuff like that.

And they're all in there like early 20s.

Half of them don't have driver's licenses.

They don't care about driving.

They can Uber or Lyft anywhere.

Uber or Lyft, everything's on demand

and everything's just like ready to go all the time.

You know, the transportation is no longer

like a pillar of freedom anymore.

It's sort of just like it just comes with a territory.

You're just gonna hit some buttons.

But I'll counter you with,

I think those people have always existed,

but they had to drive in order to get around, right?

Like if you think about in high school,

there was just people that drove because they have to,

but they never loved driving.

So now these people,

your cousins that you're talking about,

they have an option.

But I think if you see any cars and coffee,

if you see all the events that we have around,

I think that there are more enthusiasts now

because of, you know, internet influencers

and this, that and the other.

I think there are more,

this is not about manual versus automatic,

but this is more about enthusiasts.

But I think we have more enthusiasts today

and more things to do as a car enthusiast

because of the internet.

Sure, I mean, to be fair too,

to your point, the organization of community

has become more advanced, right?

Yes, absolutely.

I mean, the car,

the car meets that I used to go to,

Dunkin' Donuts, right?

Yeah, like 10 people, 12 people.

Yeah, it was the same people that just showed up.

The sat around the Dunkin' Donuts parking lot

because the owners didn't mind

and no one caused any trouble

and you just sit there

and drink your $1 coffee, you know,

and just look at the same cars

that you see every single week, right?

And then the influx of, you know,

more clubs and more organized events

and more official events really,

more than anything else,

that also brought in like a higher level consumer, right?

So I mean, again, I've just,

other than Hunt Valley horsepower

or cars and coffee or something,

you know, in my viewpoint of my experience,

there was actually not that many events like available,

right? Exactly, exactly.

But then, you know, the younger generation,

like my kids, I've, I don't want to say force

is a strong word, but...

Highly influenced.

Yeah, I, actually, I put them in a car

and they had no choice.

They had to drive a manual.

But it's more selfish for me

because if I need to help move a car,

they gotta be able to drive one of them in anyways.

But today's society,

if you enjoy the romance of a manual,

absolutely enjoy it.

The younger generation coming up, I think,

also puts the performance aspect of,

because back in the day,

when you chose an automatic,

it was typically power robbing

or it was the slower version of the car.

But today's automatic slash PDKs,

they're lightning fast.

They are the higher performance cars.

So they're not giving up something

to be able to row their own gears.

We row our own gears, really, it's just romantic.

I hear a lot of them call dual clutch

transmissions manuals.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

If you search on like AutoTrader,

they come up as that.

Oh.

Yeah.

So if you were to search manual,

DCTs and stuff like that, they all come up as manual.

Okay.

Now, how does,

we talked about how China and such has affected Porsche,

but I would think Toyota is a Japanese brand.

And if China is pushing their folks to buy a Chinese,

a BYD or whatever, it has to have affected Toyota.

And so what's it been like for you

with the drop in market in China?

And let's not forget you mentioned it earlier,

the tariffs and such.

Well, I think that those effects,

I mean, as a manufacturer, they're gonna feel that.

I think that Toyota North America sort of,

I don't wanna speak for the executives of the company,

but it sort of like operates on its own.

Because I mean, for example,

the manufacturing in the US,

80% of the Toyotas that were sold last year

were built in the United States.

You know?

And I think that that's something,

a really big deal on what the Japanese company

that Toyota is to invest in the American economy, right?

And I think that's why we've also done so well.

But that being the case,

the factories are running at an average of 107% efficiency.

Oh, wow.

So they're churning out as much as they can,

and yet it's still a fairly scarce product.

So the uniqueness of a Toyota dealership is this one thing.

And for all my other Toyota dealers out there

and salespeople and sales managers,

they know that Toyotas are actually hard to come by.

So when trying to find your employee's car,

you know there was only one within 250 miles

that matched her description?

Really?

One.

And you got it for her.

Yes.

Kudos to you.

Your team.

You know, and that comes from good relationships

and stuff like that,

because you have to trade with other dealers

to know where to get what you need.

But with the amount of efficiency

and the amount of product they're putting out there,

it's actually still not enough,

because there's only about 1,240, 1,246 dealers in the US

in comparison to say a domestic like Chevy

where there are 3,600 dealers.

So, you know, that effect that the Chinese market has,

you know, I think it really is more on a global scale

that's kind of outside the US.

You know, what they're trying to do

with some other things,

whether it's, you know, products

or items in the car that they produce

and sort of that trade agreement,

I think that that's gonna have an affectation later.

But, you know, right now,

I think that everyone's just sort of trying

to figure out what's going on.

Yeah.

And in the product mix of Toyota,

and Toyota has been very vocal about hybrid technology

and obviously the Prius is just like the gold standard

for a hybrid.

And now they look cool.

And now they do look cool.

I will say they do now look cool.

With a set of rims,

like you could be pretty well set.

So do you think Porsche should,

because as I told you, they went from ICE

to Pure EV, Macan.

And we're starting to hear the,

and Porsche has hybrid technology,

but I think there is more of a under like emphasis

on hybrid technology in future Porsche products.

Do you think that's a good idea?

I think it has to be, right?

Because, you know, a lot of these companies in general,

let's say car companies,

they have to do what they have to do to survive, right?

And, you know, just because we want something,

you know, there's a decision that's made so high up

in the stratosphere that trickles down

to eventually culminate into that one droplet

that you want as a consumer,

you know, whether it's, you know,

someone's like, I want a manual ICE engine Macan.

Well, how does that happen, right?

Somebody's got to make a decision all the way up here.

And then it goes to R&D, then it goes to marketing,

then it goes to budgets, then it goes to manufacturing,

then it goes to testing, and then it goes to,

is this a, you know, a market item

that we can even put out?

You know, what's the audience for this market, right?

And then does it make sense?

Right, and that's the same,

we talk about this all the time,

how enthusiasts wants wagons.

There's a wagon guy over there.

Oh, yeah.

But the reality is, how many wagons can you sell?

I mean, sure.

Like, that's why every time.

For Therese Mo because people aren't buying.

People aren't buying them.

We love them as enthusiasts,

but when it comes down to putting our money down for it,

no one buys them.

So you can't fault.

And that's because somebody like me can't afford them new,

so we're hoping somebody else buys them

so we can get them used.

Yeah, but.

And that never happened.

The manufacturer can't hope to get your sale five years

from the time that they produce it.

But I can hope that it'll work.

What, I'm just curious,

what percentage are you just off hand

of your customers actually order a Toyota

versus buying one off the lot?

Or having you find one for them

and just bringing them in that are even built?

So a lot of our customers come in

and see what's available in the pipeline

and then sort of reserve it before it arrives.

Long before it arrives,

maybe like a month and two months, something like that.

So it's not necessarily like an ordering cycle

as much as it is that,

even for the Toyota customers,

they're actually well aware of the scarcity.

So they go, I'm looking for this.

Because that would have been the route

that we would have gone with your employee.

If it didn't exist, which it almost didn't, right?

You had one or there was one.

And all the dealers know that there's only one.

Oh, wow.

There was one.

So, well.

I don't have to tell her this later

because I don't know if she realizes that.

Yeah, but.

She said that with different dealers she talked to.

They all, I said, oh, do they have one there?

And she said no.

They said they can get one.

Right.

But they kept trying to sell her the car

that she didn't want.

She's there like, why don't you buy this one?

They're like, I want that one.

She said, why don't you buy this one?

I want that one.

Right.

And just as a circle,

I remember, I don't know, 10, 15 years ago,

they used to come to us and say,

what would it take for your members to order a Porsche?

Sure.

To dream Porsche.

And they would say, you know, you're buying your dream car.

Wouldn't you want it the way you want it?

And we would tell them, well, here,

we're used to driving to a lot

and coming home with the car that same night.

Not being told, well, in three months

you're gonna have your dream car.

Right.

And I said, so that's a mentality.

But after COVID hit, that was kind of like

almost forced upon.

And then people suddenly started saying,

oh, I can order all my cool options

that I want, my special color and everything.

And then, you know, Porsche realizing that

now they've got them exactly where they want them

started sending them emails saying,

hey, your car's just started being produced.

Here's the photo of it.

It's photo day two and whatnot.

So in the long, because of COVID,

I think Porsche got what they wanted

was people ordering their dream cars

versus the dealers ordering them.

Yeah.

And hoping they get the mix right.

But I still think they're ordering only black, silver

and white cars.

Well, funny statistic, black, silver and white.

What percentage of consumers do you think

own a black, white and silver car in the US?

Oh, I would say 70%.

Yeah, I would say 70%.

85%.

We're so boring.

And that's why you look at the,

you complain why colors aren't available

because people don't buy them.

Because it's the market demand.

The market demand.

The dealers gonna order or put cars in their lot

that they can sell.

Bright yellow, I love blues, I love,

but people are gonna buy the gray one,

the silver one, the black one.

So you can't fault them for stocking those colors.

Yeah.

And I'm a, for the family car,

I'm definitely a victim of that, right?

You know, right now we have a black Sequoia.

I'm like, ah.

I love colors, but for some reason

I have mostly boring colors

because I buy them,

I get the best deal on used cars

that are kind of the ones that don't stand out, right?

Now to be fair, my 996 Turbo is silver,

but it's because I want it in silver.

But if you had the opportunity to get it in speed yellow

or like the green.

You still gotta live with it though.

Yeah.

It's different going to cars than coffee

and seeing one and seeing it.

It looks pretty cool.

I would love to have a bright color car

and I would rock it every day if I could.

You would drive that Rubystone Cayman that we had?

Absolutely, if I could afford it,

I would drive it every day.

Yeah, there's my car.

That's very nice.

That's typical German color.

Now you have the fairly rare front bumper guards on.

In the US, yeah.

Little boop boops, yeah.

Little boop boops.

Yep.

Very cool.

Yeah, I mean, it's super cool car,

but that's what I mean.

It's like I like the way that it looks, right?

I mean, you're right.

Well, let's take it back for a second.

If something were to be speed yellow,

I mean, it would be a roof.

Oh man, absolutely.

I mean, it's just sort of like,

for me a lot of times,

the identity of this car has to like match, right?

Right.

The only thing missing on your car is a PCA sticker.

Yeah, so.

And center caps.

No, we haven't gone that route yet.

Still don't have.

But we will definitely get you set up with that.

One last question before we kind of catch up on

the business end of the podcast is

Mani and Damon are always saying,

it's pretty interesting that we're sitting

in the middle of this paradigm shift

in the automotive industry.

And for a while there, it was like,

oh, it looks like we're gonna go full speed ahead

with EV.

Now we're starting to see hybrid technology

and as we were talking about my staff's car,

she moved into a hybrid and really didn't even flinch.

And she's getting more power, better gas mileage.

I'm not even sure she realized it.

I don't want to speak for Charlotte,

but I mentioned something about the battery.

Yeah.

Oh, it has this kind of warranty on it.

And she was like, is that good?

She doesn't even know she has a hybrid.

I didn't think that was a key thing.

That's what really surprised me.

I mean, we wonder how many people buying cameras

realize that they're buying a hybrid

because it doesn't say hybrid all over it.

And then it also made me wonder,

and I want to ask Steve Postel,

the general manager of Portion Valley,

how many people get in the new Macan

and don't realize it's an EV?

Oh, that's interesting.

Now we know from the look of it immediately it's an EV,

but how many people get in

and then are later told this is the EV?

Right, and we talked about the new GTS,

the number one prize for the Fall Raffle.

It's a GTS with staggering performance,

but they put T hybrid on the side of it.

And I'm like, why did you, you didn't need to do that.

I mean, maybe we did hear about

how you kind of have to put that for the first responders

so that they know that there's a battery and be able to.

I get that, but remember like the GMCs,

I think they had like green hybrid emblems

on the both sides, on the back, on the grill.

And it really only got like five miles more range

or whatever it was.

If it's a good performing car,

just leave it as a good performing car.

Like, why do you have to announce it in the world?

Now we got explained to them.

I can't tell you many times I've said,

it's not a Prius hybrid.

Because that's what they think,

that it's portion is making,

becoming more fuel efficient.

Right.

And I go, it's pure performance.

It's not like a Prius, I said, it's more power.

But it is in a sense like a Prius

where like you don't have to worry about it.

It's not like you're plugging in your GTS or anything.

Like you just drive it.

You just drive it and the battery takes care of itself.

They have plug-in hybrid Prius as well.

Correct.

They do, they have that as well.

Which I think is great because you get,

depending on your commute,

you might be able to pull off a four.

Yeah, I'll go all day without it.

It's the same thing though with a four-runner.

So they have a four-runner hybrid now.

New four-runner, sick car, super cool.

But the hybrid model,

it's specifically there for performance.

More power and more takeoff, all of that.

Yeah.

So I mean, it's the same ideology, right?

I mean, it's just, it's supplementary.

It's not a crutch anymore.

And I think there was a point in time

when the quickest zero to 60 Toyota

was actually a RAV4.

I think it was the RAV4.

Oh, I don't know that.

Like hybrid, whatever, with like 300 horsepower.

Like it was the quickest zero to 60 car for a little while.

I can see the comments coming in right now if you're wrong.

No, I actually remember something.

Am I, am I, I'm not dreaming this.

There was something about that like,

I don't know, three, five years ago.

I remember reading.

Exactly, because I remember going,

that was the thing.

The RAV4 was the fastest car in the Toyota.

What was the GMC cyclone back in the day

would be the fastest Ferrari could sell?

Fact-check me, people.

I just remember on top gear

when Jeremy Clarkson proved the M3 was more fuel efficient

than a Prius.

Oh yeah.

He would flat out around a racetrack,

getting better gas mileage.

I mean, to be fair, you know,

and I'm just giving you a little foresight

into the Toyota future,

but we're gonna soon see a GR RAV4.

GR RAV4?

I don't know, if you wanna look that up

and take a look at that,

this thing's actually pretty sick.

I should have sent you a picture of it

because it just came back from the National Tour.

I'll try and bring it up right now actually.

Interesting.

Okay.

It's cool.

It's a, it is a performance oriented RAV4.

Wow.

All right, folks.

Well, we're definitely gonna have to have you back

because I would love to talk more globally

about the dealerships and what they're facing.

It's a different world,

especially with EVs and hybrids

and where we believe a lot of the money-making

is for dealerships is in the service area

with cars that don't-

By the way, I'm just gonna cut in real quick.

Is it that one up there on the screen now

if you're watching YouTube?

Oh, on the red one.

It's the red one, okay.

320 horsepower.

Wow.

There you go.

Plug in hybrid.

Interesting.

All right, I wanna remind everyone to be sure

to head over to PCA.org to sign up

for PCA's newsletters, performance news,

e-brake news, and mart fresh all free.

In the news, Manny collected,

we're gonna kick that off with,

I saw the interior,

but this has to do with the new electric cayenne.

So now it's in the LA being tested.

And the main thing to take from this,

if you go to the auto evolution website,

is there's gigantic headlights

that everyone was seeing that was really ugly,

which I knew Porsche was just doing that to disguise it.

You can see the headlights are normal size.

They still got the sticker on it,

but you can see now the cut out for that.

It was just a sticker they put on there

to give the illusion of ginormous headlights.

And I wonder if it's the same with the cayenne,

the top quote unquote headlights that you're seeing

are actually just running lights.

And actually, will the headlights be down below

like the electric McCann?

I'm sure.

It should be the same, right?

Yeah, same technology.

But not pictured is,

and I think it's gonna look really cool

because it looks cool in the McCann Electric.

It's the off-road package,

which on the McCann they did a phenomenal job.

So I can't wait to see what that will look like

as well, but it's almost here.

And the front end doesn't have gigantic headlights.

So everyone who said that was ugly,

I can't believe we're making that.

It's a disguise, folks.

And they maybe have another changes.

They do a great job of hiding stuff in plain sight.

And this is a good example.

Yeah, and some insiders we've spoken to

that have taken the new electric cayenne

around for a spin.

They were even more impressed with that platform

than they were when they were initially introduced

to the electric McCann.

So I can't wait to drive it myself.

That'd be pretty cool.

The next news item, I would say,

when you talk about lawsuits, it's not as fun,

but we should probably talk about it.

So this is a class section lawsuit

for the Porsche Mobile Charger Plus,

which is a charger for your house that was overheating.

And so Porsche's fix for this was to throttle down

the amperage so it was taking 20 hours to charge your car,

not the nine and a half to 10 and a half

that people were expecting.

So what was it?

Basically come home, plug in next morning,

go back to work, you had a full charge,

wasn't happening.

They found that was because instead of really

fixing the issue, they just throttled down

the amperage and hopefully no one would notice.

Someone noticed.

Everyone noticed.

So yeah, from when from 40 to 20 amps, I think,

which is pretty huge.

That's noticeable.

If you're, I'm sure if you own one of these chargers,

you have probably been contacted by the law firm.

And if not, just Google it and maybe you'll get

the new replacement charger,

whatever portion is going to do to fix this.

Well, as we're recording this,

I know several of the PCA members

are having a great time at Treffen Jackson Hole,

which sold out quickly,

but we are still accepting folks for Unstock 2025,

that's going to be November 16th

that Porsche Santa Clarita registration is open.

We're kind of getting down to the wire

of how much room we can accept people.

So if you plan to be there

and you want to show your modified Porsche,

go ahead and get registered soon

because we will close it.

Please send a good picture of your car.

You mean take the car out of the garage?

Close up of your engine tells me nothing about your car.

Yes, we want to make sure we understand

the modifications you've done to your car.

So I want to make sure and point you over

to PCASimRacing.com.

If you're looking to race with PCA folks online,

check it out.

We've got some how-tos

and we've got definitely some races you can watch

and we have some live coverage on PCA's YouTube channel

as well of some recent races.

And if you're looking for some PCA insider swag,

we have our bottles, we have our mugs

and t-shirts if you like.

And if you're just simply looking

for a PCA insider decal,

send your address information to podcastatpca.org

and we'll send you a set so you can show your love

for the PCA insider on your toolbox or on your car.

Finally, is there anything else

before we wrap this one up?

Nope, it was very enlightening.

Thank you for joining us.

And like I said, we have to have you back.

I have more dealership questions

that's definitely at least an hour long.

So thank you for coming out

and we are going to make you the newest PCA member

and make you official here before you get out of here.

Everyone, thank you for listening.

Be sure to like, comment and subscribe

and consider sharing our show with fellow Porsche enthusiasts.

Until next time, stay safe

and we'll catch you down the road.

I'll see you in the next one.

Bye.

Dealer viewpoint: How Toyota Is Dealing With Market Changes

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