JLR hacked, GVE enters administration, and only six cars likely to get full EV grant – with Joe Betty, episode 222

Jon, have I told you I'm addicted to CarWal's auctions?

You might have mentioned it, yeah.

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Well, that's more than you will ever need.

Exactly, Jon. So, dealers, if you're not on CarWal, you really should get in on the auction.

See what I've done, Jon.

Oh, God.

Anyway, to find out more, sign up for free at carwal.co.uk slash partners slash auctions.

Welcome back to the CarVealer podcast where we pick our favourite stories of the week and

ask an industry guest to choose which were the best. I'm Jon Ray and joining me this

week is Suzuki dealer, James Baggett. James, how many jibnies have we sold?

Couple, Jon, actually. Yes, a couple of Suzuki jiminies. It's been quite, well, I haven't

actually sold them. Joe's sold them. I just happened to be in the same dealership at the

time they were sold. But yes, we've had a bit of success with those imports that we picked

up last week.

Sorry, those imports that you didn't import?

I know. Do you know what the most ironic thing is? We've sold two brand new jiminies

this week and the ones that you and I bought on February the 7th still haven't been

IVH tested today. They're actually been IVH tested today. So they won't go out

the door until probably October. It's the difference between doing the imports yourself

and using someone who is an expert. So yeah, that's been quite exciting. I've had a little

bit of electric car work this week, though, Jon.

It doesn't sound like me.

Well, you know, everybody's saying you need to try electric cars. And you know, we

do try every now and again, we've sold Nissan Leaf before, bit of success with

that one sold pretty quickly. So I've bought another Nissan Leaf. Unfortunately, I didn't

go to pick it up. And it's got a few problems, Jon.

The main one is the fact that it hasn't got the SD card for the screen. And if you

haven't got the SD card for the screen, nothing works. So it completely stops.

So this morning, Luke has been up to the Nissan main dealer who tried to fix it

and basically said, not sure we can do anything with this.

We can't get hold of an SD card for that.

Now, you did actually ask me to have a look on eBay and see if I could find one.

And it is very complicated because it's not very complicated.

It shouldn't be very complicated, but it's very specific, isn't it?

Because this is a first gen leaf and they have like a system from Japan,

not a system like you get in a cashkite.

And so it's a completely different SD card.

It's a completely different setup.

And evidently, people who are selling one on eBay do that thing of,

I know what I've got and charge.

Well, they don't know what they've got because the SD cards are linked to the

VIN, which so if they're selling one on eBay, they're practically useless.

So the one that we bought is basically just a crap piece of plastic.

I'm going to throw the bin because it has to be new and coded to the car, apparently.

So that has been incredibly painful and also hasn't got a normal charging

cable, hasn't got like a three pin one.

So that's caused us a few problems because we can't plug it in.

So we're rapidly running out of charge.

But yeah. And also yesterday, I bought a Renault Zoe, John,

which I it was a part exchange.

It was part exchange.

And I had to give the guy the really bad news that when I experienced it,

it had a mileage anomaly.

So in 2019, the MOT station had put a three, a two instead of a three

at the start of the at the start of the mileage that had logged,

which basically throws it all out.

So I had a bit of a panic and I had to say to the guy, I'm really sorry,

it's got this and he said, well, how much will you give me for?

I said, well, probably five hundred quid and he went, all right, take it.

So I bought a five hundred pound Renault Zoe, John.

That's actually not bad value.

It's not bad value.

And I'm actually thinking about keeping it for the winter

because I rode into work yesterday on my pedal cycle and I got so wet

I had to had to dry all of my clothes with a hot heat gun,

which was quite the sight.

But yeah, so it's been an interesting week.

I mean, to say you've you've not got a tumble dryer in that little kitchenette

of yours with the next one, surely.

Yeah. But anyway, enough of boring stories.

You've got a brilliant guest. Let's get to him.

Yes. Oh, I'm fine, by the way, James, thanks for asking.

Are you good?

You know, I'm pretty sure I have you have been out and about

there, haven't you? Please tell me what you did yesterday.

Because I have just about I've been I've been driving some cherries.

I know it's like deja vu because I went to a cherry thing last week.

Well, they had the brand launch last week.

Yeah. And four days later, you're out driving the cars.

I mean, nothing like Chinese efficiency, is it?

Well, yeah, absolutely.

And would you believe in about another 20 days?

There's another launch for on the motor, the facelifted one.

It does feel a little bit like that.

They are really going at it.

I mean, I don't know when when did cherry actually

announced they were going to come here?

Because I either I slept through that announcement or the announcement

was the thing I went to last week, because they've suddenly appeared

and they've got 25 dealers already.

They've told me they want to get 120, which is not that far off.

I think I think it's 25 showrooms that are ready to go right now.

There's another X amount where they've agreed a partnership with people.

You're allowed to talk about all the cars like or is it under?

I can talk about I asked this question.

It's under embargo until Monday, but I can talk about everything

apart from how it drives, right, how they drive.

And do you know what?

I actually don't think they're too bad.

Put it this way, I drove there in my electric Peugeot and in fairness,

it was a very long way to Worcester or wherever they have I went.

But I would rather have left in one of the cherries

than drive back in the electric.

I mean, that's saying something, isn't it?

Yeah, but that person is driving is pretty crap.

It has it has a few problems.

Sorry if anyone from Peugeot is listening, but they're probably they're probably not.

So don't worry, probably not.

Anyway, I'm going to I'm going to introduce our guests now

because I'm boring myself.

So joining us this week from the YouTube channel, Shifting Metal

and what's the dealership, Bear and Motors is Joe Betty.

Joe, lovely to see you.

Very nice to see you. Good morning.

Good morning, Joe. Nice to see you. How are things?

Good. A bit more relaxed.

Well, you think so, wouldn't you?

But yeah, not not just yet.

We're still sort of in winding down phase.

There's a lot of accounts to to close down, addresses to change, etc.

So my stress levels are still quite high, but there's, you know,

there's glimmers of hope of relaxing.

I've had two weekends, which is novel.

I've had two weekends now where I actually have two days off, which is lovely.

That Sunday after a Saturday off is the most bizarre feeling

they have ever had in my life.

It's like, what? Why am I here?

What am I doing?

So, um, yeah, I'm quite stressed at the moment, to be completely honest with you.

But we are we're getting there.

We're making we're making progress.

So for those people out there who haven't been following,

which I'm sure everybody has anyway,

you've obviously got an incredibly successful YouTube channel

where you've been documenting the story of your of your used car dealership,

but you announced what was it two weeks ago?

Maybe maybe a little bit longer than a few weeks ago,

maybe four weeks ago that you were you were shutting up shop.

So I mean, to tell the story of, I mean, it's probably,

let's start at the beginning because I mean,

I don't really know the start of how you started the business

in the first place and tell me a little bit about how that began

and then how you've got to this decision.

OK, um, Cricky, I'll go, I'll try and keep it a fairly short story.

I am a heating engineer by trade.

We had a industrial unit that was full of heating supplies

and things we'd collected over the years

and I started clearing that out thinking we don't need this expense.

I'm going to clear out and sold off all the sort of

new old stock type of stuff that we had.

And I'm quite into motorbikes.

So once I cleared the space, I was like,

this is actually a lovely, nice, clear space.

And I put some some ramps in there

and I started working on motorbikes.

And I think then I decided I could sell a few motorbikes

while I'm doing this in between doing the admin

for my plumbing business and started selling a few motorbikes.

Long story short, decided that certainly where we are,

that motorbikes, selling motorbikes wasn't really viable.

You know, no one in our area is buying a motorcycle out of necessity.

So we had a BCA just down the road, started buying cars.

And the rest is history, really, a kind of quickly outgrew that site.

Barrow motors, as we know it, became available

and kind of threw my hat in the ring and yeah, off we went.

So being there since the end of 2019, really,

actually opened the doors February 2020

and then swiftly close them again like a month or two later

because there's only two of us at the time.

And yeah, we've been going ever since documenting everything

a few years ago on YouTube, something I wanted to do for a long time,

but finally got around to it and it's gone really, really well.

And on, you know, balancing everything up

and weighing everything up, decided that actually

I do think the motor industry

used car sales as just getting harder and harder.

And I think that, well, crucially, just everything is so expensive.

Even over the last six years I've been doing it has got so ridiculously expensive

that I've just been squeezed and squeezed and when I weighed it up,

I was like, well, do you know what, actually, by making

content and some of the other businesses

that I've kind of set up to service the motor trade,

that's probably where my time deserves to go.

And I kind of spread myself too thin.

And so that's why I really have decided to,

while we're not closing barrow motors as a business,

I have closed down the physical site where we were

and we're just going to run a leaner machine, not selling to the public.

I think I've had my fill of that, to be quite honest.

We'll do some trading of cars and, you know, try and

I suppose a way I explained it to someone the other day

was rather than having a car dealership and documenting what's going on,

we're going to be having a YouTube channel

that kind of has a car dealership on the back of it, in a sense.

We'll be, everything will have videos at the forefront of the mind.

Let's make this interesting for people to watch.

And that's where we are, really.

So yeah, about a month ago, we sort of let everyone know

today is actually the day I go and hand back the keys and the lease

and surrender the lease and all that sort of stuff.

So yeah, dawn of a new day, really.

How did it go down with the with the team

when you had to sit down and tell them your decision?

I mean, that must have been quite tough.

Yeah, some were quite understanding.

I think I think maybe people were starting to get an idea of what was happening.

Anyway, those, to be honest, you know, without getting too many details,

there's been some struggles and there's more reasons why, you know,

we made this decision.

So I'm sure some people might have been expecting something coming.

But at the end of the day, everyone's, you know, was quite sort of

they've had a great time working there.

It's been a nice environment.

I think maybe they disagree.

But I think I'm quite a laid back boss and probably to a fault.

I'm probably too laid back.

I'm not quite, you know, you almost need to be strict.

People, some people need that, don't they?

You're almost like, yeah, I did always describe it.

You're a bit like a running my business.

I'm a bit like a father figure, you know, people get upset

about things with each other and you've got to bring them in the office

and say, don't worry, you know, give them a bit of reassurance

and things are all right again.

But I think I probably made the mistake of kind of trying to be

everyone's friend and then being upset.

Perhaps when things weren't quite going the way I wanted.

So, yeah, I'm sure everyone was, you know, disappointed.

Definitely were, but understanding.

And luckily, there's absolutely tons of work out there.

Everyone's crying out for all the kind of roles that we had.

So everyone's kind of got themselves sorted.

And I genuinely think

everyone will be better for it and kind of in a better place

enjoying their job and their life a little bit more

because I take full responsibility because I spread myself so thin.

I wasn't there to be really the leader that I wanted to be.

I kind of hoped that I could kind of say, this is the roles.

This is how you do everything.

And off you go, it just is unrealistic.

It doesn't really work that way.

And I think under someone else's leadership,

where they really are 100% on something, it will

it'll be 10 times better for everyone.

So, yeah, you've now made that big decision

and you can you can sort of look back at look back at the industry

in some ways, you know, that kind of having that front front of house.

I mean, what do you think are the biggest problems?

You've mentioned a couple there about the cost.

But what do you think the biggest problems are for card dealers at the moment?

Well, I think customer expectations is definitely up there.

And, you know, interpretation of the law, you know,

we don't really have a hard and set, you know,

hard and fast set of rules, do we, for, you know, consumer rights?

They're kind of all open to interpretation and depending on the type of character you are,

that can can get really expensive.

Because I always wanted to try and sort everything for everyone.

I never really wanted anyone thinking that I was a bad person.

And it does happen.

And sometimes you do have to be tough and just say, look,

that's not covered under your warranty.

It's been 18 months.

Unfortunately, I'm not going to be covering your battery or whatever it is.

And you might still get a bad review for it, which is incredibly unfair.

And if you're like me and you don't really want, you know,

you want to keep your reputation up, that's really hard.

So customer expectations are just just untenable.

You know, I just it's very, very hard.

You know, you are kind of buying favor with customers

in a sense that's coming out of your bottom line.

Obviously, the expenses of everything, the expenses of everything

is just absolutely through the roof.

My sort of advertising bill every month was £5,000 or more.

And I don't know.

I mean, it's quite a competitive sort of saturated market, really.

Yeah.

It's always been quite a popular trade.

But I feel like it's even, it's probably that everyone,

everyone listening to this, there'll be plenty of people saying,

yeah, it's the fault of you sort of people putting it on YouTube.

And glamorizing it, because I certainly get those sorts of comments.

And maybe I like to think maybe I've given people the confidence

to start it if they've always wanted to do it.

And now they're finally going to give it a go.

But yeah, it's it is a heavily saturated market.

And you've really, really got to stand out whether that be

with your social media, whether that be with your customer service,

the product you provide, the, you know, the kind of levels

of preparation is one of those businesses that is quite low

barrier to entry.

You've just got to be able to buy a car or have a car and then

you can put one up for sale.

But after that, it's slim margins that just get slimmer,

the bigger you get.

And it's really competitive, you know, it's, it's tricky to

stand out and actually grab your attention.

You're either spending a lot of money, which means you're

making a profit or you're doing something different.

So, yeah, yes, it is hard, isn't it?

But you've done very, built a very successful YouTube channel

off the back of this.

And yeah, I mean, you, you, I think was it this year,

you hit the hundred thousand subscribers milestone or was it?

Yeah, well, sort of the end of end of last year.

So Christmas, sort of a new year sort of thing.

Yeah, accelerated ever since, hasn't it?

I mean, it's gone.

Absolutely crazy for you.

Tell me a little bit about, about the, the success of that

YouTube channel and, and the work that goes into it,

because I don't think people understand quite what you have

to put in the effort you have to put in for these, these productions.

Yeah.

Well, so yeah, it has grown exponentially.

It did start off of me just feeling myself like, oh, look,

I've bought a cheap Porsche Boxer in for 1500 quid,

because it's on 200,000 miles and they were terrible.

And wind noise everywhere.

But it's something I always wanted to do.

And I think the reason I started doing YouTube was I thought,

I think the motor trades are really interesting.

Buying and selling cars for me is really exciting.

If you get to do this as a job, that's amazing.

You get to try lots of different cars and people like to live vicariously

through other people, don't they?

If there was more people doing that online,

I would have loved to sit there and watch it.

So I started doing that.

And even though they take quite a while to kind of get off

the ground to start with, kept going because I knew I enjoyed it.

I enjoyed making them.

And eventually it was making some money.

And as soon as it was making enough money,

I thought I can hire someone to help film and edit these.

I did that.

And yeah, we've never really looked back since then.

We're just able to put more and more content out,

because I'd be in the garage, fending off phone calls,

trying to edit a video when I should be buying stock

and I should have been dealing with all sorts.

And now I am trying to edit a video

or I was doing it through the evening

and just destroying relationships and whatever.

So yeah, that takes a lot of work.

We've now got two full-time videographer editors

editing stuff.

We've got multiple channels.

We've taken a little break for a little while,

so that's a bit nerve-wracking.

But we're getting back into it now.

It does take a lot of time.

And I mean, one of our sort of things,

I guess we kind of pioneered in the motor trade

was our weekly video.

I was like, I think it'd be interesting

if we just filmed something from every day

and put it together at the end of the week

and you kind of get to do like a,

see everything that happens in a garage.

And again, that was me filming those just a half.

We haven't editing them all.

But it almost got harder work when it was

cameramen wandering around filming everyone editing it

because then I've got to sit there for an hour,

at least once or twice

and watch through my work week again,

which is a bit of a busman's holiday

and say, well, you can't leave that in

and I come swearing there or whatever this.

And yeah, it does take a lot of work,

a lot more than you think really.

I think most people who've tried it realize that.

But so you've got to really enjoy it.

And I guess some people don't, I guess.

They hate sort of the editing side of things.

It's so time consuming.

You can spend, I mean, the editors here

might spend a day or two editing one video

that's gonna be 20 minutes long.

So yeah, it is a lot of work.

So again, it's a bit like the car sales.

You've even got to be not saying I am really good,

but you've got to kind of have it dialed in.

I think it's easier for me to have YouTube

and interesting content dialed in

than it is car sales, to be honest.

Have you always been the creative type?

Because you really have to think about

what you're gonna be producing, don't you,

with these videos?

And one of the things I think you're brilliant at

is coming up with the titles for these videos

that they really perform.

I mean, there feels to me watching on

that there's a bit of a journalist in you.

You know, you're quite good at writing those headlines.

Yeah, I feel like there's,

we need a little WhatsApp group between us

where we could be like,

if you were putting this in the car dealer magazine,

what would your title be?

Because you do have to,

I'm sure lots of other people,

but I call it like the packaging,

the thumbnail and the title.

And for me, they're the most important thing.

Completely change your video,

whether it's good or bad.

And sometimes I see other people starting this

and you look at their thumbnail and title

and you think, oh, I kind of want to reach out

and say, come on, we can do this differently.

Yes, so I have always been creative in a sense.

I've always liked, hence why I started with a motorbike.

So I used to customize, in fact that motorbike

behind me, I don't think you can see it very well,

but it's something that started out

as literally kind of like a pile of rust in a barn

and I converted it myself, welded everything up.

I'm quite hands-on, I like doing stuff like that.

And I like, at the end of the day,

being able to sit back and see something that I've created.

So it's probably why being a plumber or a heating engine

never really did it for me.

I mean, you can see you've put a boiler on the wall,

but you can't hop in it and drive it home and enjoy it.

It's just putting hot water around a house.

So yeah, there's definitely a trick to it.

I think it's a skill you can learn,

but it's a dark art as well, 100%.

I mean, as you know, you know,

I've had videos before that have absolutely tanked

and not really done any views.

And I thought, I'll tweak this.

You change one word in the title

and you can watch the chart for the views.

And it just spikes and goes through the roof

and might be one of your best ever.

So yeah, it's not dissimilar from,

you know, putting pictures up on auto-trader,

the car doesn't get any inquiries.

Go and take new pictures in a different location,

change the three, whatever they're called.

Little...

Attention grabbers, John.

Thank you. I can never remember that for some reason.

Hasn't grabbed my attention,

the name of those particular things,

but you change those and then suddenly

it's gone in three days.

So it's weird, isn't it?

It's almost like a psychological thing

of what grabs attention.

I, yeah, I have a theory.

There is definitely a psychological thing.

If someone's scrolling through cars on auto-trader,

or they're scrolling through videos on YouTube

and they've already once seen your picture,

your main picture for your car,

or they've seen your thumbnail for your video

and they've already like,

maybe I'd watch that maybe when they've dismissed it

and they've gone past it.

If they see it again,

they've already made that choice.

So they'll just keep doing it.

Whereas if you change it,

still could be the same video, the same car,

but they might just catch them in a slightly different way

and they'll be like, oh, that looks new.

And they'll click on it and then you're away, you know?

So, yeah.

It's these little tweaks, isn't it?

That you just, and you're constantly trying to work out

how they're gonna perform.

Joe, tell me a little bit about some of those cars

that you've bought over the years then.

I'm always interested to hear the cars

that dealers would never buy again.

I mean, if you had any that have just,

I mean, for me, Mazda CX-5 diesel, never again.

What about for you?

You absolutely would buy another one, James.

I'm waiting for it to happen.

No way.

I promise, you know, I've pledged now

on this podcast I won't do it again.

Is that the 2.2?

Diesel, yes.

Yeah, yeah, they're not very good.

I've had a few issues with those.

I definitely wouldn't buy, do you know what?

I'm eating my words here, aren't I?

But I would never buy in-genium JLR products again.

What do you mean the one you tried to buy for us?

We don't, I thought we were talking about me here.

Yeah, no, I used, I think I just had a really good run

of good luck with them, which ran out.

And yeah, they might have like minor issues,

but they just have so many minor issues, EGRs, DPFs.

You end up living with the customers

that you sell these cars to for so long,

that yeah, I wouldn't have another one of those.

I wouldn't buy a 1.2 PureTech engine car.

Again, same sort of problems.

Timing chain problems.

Those cars tended like routinely

as almost part of the service schedule

have new engines at about 50,000 miles.

It's almost just, you can kind of guarantee

that's what's happening.

So I did a video once where I bought one

and it had an engine replacement,

but it just wouldn't run right

and it would bring up engine problems.

And essentially what it was,

there was a slight diff variation between these engines,

depending on the color of the dipstick

would tell you whether that engine

would work with that ECU or not.

And someone obviously done an exchange on it

and then tracked it through the auction

and I bought it and I needed a blue dipstick

and I had a red one or something

and just headaches that you could do

with these modern cars.

They're just, I guess it's the emissions

and all that sort of stuff,

but they're rubbish, they're rubbish.

What I find so frustrating about this

is like, particularly with things like the Ingenium

and the PureTechs and EcoBoosts and whatever,

us journalists go along to all these launches

and hear, oh yes, this is a,

look at all the engineering we've done

on this fantastic new engine.

It's so efficient or whatever.

I feel like this is a uniquely car thing

that all these wonderful products come out,

like that CX-5 2.2 diesel,

when we first drove one of those,

we thought this is an amazing diesel engine 10 years ago

and now they're like chocolate.

I don't feel like in any other industry that's the case.

I don't feel like with laptops or boilers,

I don't feel like Worcester Bosch brings out a new boiler

that's all 98% efficient or something

and then five years later, you go,

oh no, actually turns out it's a crock of absolute.

Like, why is it, why is it car manufacturers

can't do it properly?

It just, it baffles me.

I've had a slight rant there,

but I'm basically asking, is it the same

in your heating business?

Do you just go, oh, you put in a boiler

from whoever it is and you go,

that'll be five or 10 years or 20.

Do you not really worry about it quite so much?

Definitely not as much.

I mean, everyone's under scrutiny, I guess, aren't they?

To be more efficient and kind to the planet,

but I think no one more than cars,

and I think which forces them to do these weird

and wonderful things.

Although does it force them?

Because there's plenty of manufacturers

who don't do these weird and wonderful new things.

But yeah, I mean, you get the odd thing, I suppose,

but I think with like a phone, for example,

you know, I remember things where you get like an iPhone

and for a while they were like burning people's faces

because they'd get so hot or something.

And they did a, like, you know,

you can't do an update on a car to change the timing chain.

Can you leave it remotely?

Once you've put them, I don't know,

are they not stress testing them enough?

Or I just, yeah, I don't know, but.

And also,

really, in a sense,

oh, I probably get a lot of flak for saying this,

but really, you know, cars,

their life term really is meant to be

like the warranty age, isn't it, really?

That's what the manufacturer's saying.

Yeah, give us 30,000 pounds for this car.

Even if it's up to seven years warranty these days,

but that's what they consider the lifespan of that.

So after that, it's like end of life for that car.

It might go on for 30 years, but that's it.

Whereas if you had an iPhone and it was 15 years old

and you were like, God, the battery only lasts

like half as long as it used to,

they'd be like, well, what do you expect?

You know, it's a phone.

You're like, yeah, you're right, I'll get a new one.

Whereas I don't think quite,

not quite as much translates to cars with that.

Now you've made this decision to call it a day

with the dealership.

I mean, do you think,

have other dealers reached out to you

to say they're thinking about doing the same?

Do you think there's going to be other people

that are going to follow suit?

Lots, yeah, lots.

Surprised me.

I thought a few things surprised me.

Yeah, I thought the sort of audience

would turn on me a little bit with some have.

You know, you can expect that.

They're like, oh, I followed because of the garage

and you know, I don't want to watch anymore

or whatever, but mostly have been really supportive

and like, you know, you got to look after your health.

You got to look after yourself.

And the amount of, yeah, other dealers

who either imminently planning to do the same

or you know, it's a goal to get to a point

where they can close up their car sales operation

has surprised me.

And some sort of big social media names as well.

You know, I've been literally,

I got, you know, from doing YouTube,

you collaborate with people, you get a few numbers

and I had some messages come through

and I was expecting them to be like,

I'm really sorry to hear it or whatever.

And it wasn't at all.

It was like, it's just seeing your video

where you've closed down.

I want to do the same thing.

And we just talked back and forth about it

and kind of just did a bit of reasoning with each other.

And then it's like, that's decided it for me.

I'm doing it.

And you know, so yeah, at least a handful of people

that I know that are probably doing,

I've got some kind of presence on social media

are winding things down at least.

So it's quite funny because in the comments of videos

you'll get, oh, so and so would never do this.

You should have followed that person's operation system

and you'd still be going

or you'd get someone saying, you know,

you do a collaboration with someone else

and they'd be like, oh,

you'll be ending up where Joe is in 12 months.

And I'm like, yeah, that's their plan.

That's what they want to do.

It's not an insult, but thank you.

I don't think these people watch you.

I don't think a lot of people realise quite how difficult it is

to do, to run a dealership.

I mean, I, you know, even on a tiny scale,

I've found it incredibly stressful at times.

It's all, it takes over your life.

It's all encompassing.

You know, it's all hours of the day and weekends.

And if you've got families and other businesses

or other things to do, it's very, very hard to fit it in.

And I think, you know, one of the things,

and you've touched on it there,

that I've found a challenge to is customer expectations.

You know, you're selling used cars

and some of them will have problems

and we try our best to make sure we eradicate them.

But sometimes they do have issues,

but it's the attitude that they come back with

or the attitude they start with

when they come to visit in the first place.

I mean, I had,

I told the store in the podcast before

one guy turned up in the dealership.

He just treated me like a piece of dirt on his shoe.

It was absolutely horrendous.

And that gets you down, doesn't it?

It does become a challenge.

Yeah, 100%.

Yeah, I think the last time I came on here,

we talked about the fact that

one of the things I could never wrap my head around.

I can kind of understand it,

but if you sell someone a car

and maybe two months down the line,

a TPMS light comes on or something,

or say there's an even bigger problem.

There's a problem with the engine.

The engine management lights come on

and the customer will phone you,

but rather than being like,

hi, just to let you know, I'm having a bit of an issue.

Is it okay if I bring it in?

They're like, they're straight on the attack.

And I don't know if it's because

they think that you're gonna give them some resistance

because they think you're Arthur Daly or whatever it is,

or they feel like they've been conned somehow

and everyone's so emotional about their car, I think,

because it's such a big purchase for them.

Though strangely, it doesn't really seem to happen

in the same way with houses

as far as I've ever experienced.

But with cars, it does.

And they're right on the attack of you.

It puts you on the back foot

and then you just instantly, you hate this person.

You would have been like, look, yes,

this is why you bought it from a car dealership.

This is why you've got a warranty.

I'm really sorry you're having an issue,

but let's figure out how we can solve this for you.

That's what we're here for.

That's why you paid a premium to buy from a car dealer.

But by this time, they might have personally insulted you

and said, I knew you were a crook

and you and so and so were,

I knew and you just think, whoa,

where's this coming from?

You were lovely as pie a minute ago.

And yeah, it just, yeah.

I mean, if that's the sort of thing that winds you up,

don't do YouTube,

because that will wind you up even more

with the comments that you get,

you know, even more delusional, but.

What advice would you have for people

thinking of starting out in the most trade,

having been there, done it and shut the shop?

Well, just consider everything very carefully.

I used to get phone calls at the garage,

people saying, oh, I really wanna set up a car dealership.

I found a unit for 1500 quid a month

and I can borrow some money and get some cars.

But if I really wanted to do it,

I'd have to be giving up my 70,000 pound a year

train job or something.

I'm like, just do not do it.

Don't ever, please do it as a little hobby

on the side if you want.

Weekends and evenings, get a feel for it.

And what I would say is, you know,

a lesson I've learned is definitely like,

as lean and mean as possible,

because your profits get swelled up.

We were turning over sort of a good few million a year,

but it whittled down to practically bug a rule.

And if you're poor on time,

you try and buy it back one way or another.

And it's never as efficient

as being able to do it yourself or have to time yourself.

So yeah, I don't, just consider it very carefully.

I'm not sure now is the time.

I think it's had its golden age

and there'll be another golden age.

Unless you've got something that's a bit new and clever

and you've got a different take on things

which I really hope you have.

Just getting in just,

it's a really rudimentary kind of basic business model,

isn't it really?

You buy a used product, you hope it's okay,

you fix it up as best you can within a sensible budget

so that you've got a sensible used car to sell

and then you sell it to someone

and then you're on the hook for three to six months

and try and save some money at the end of it

while, you know, the stress levels are through the roof.

You're getting insulted.

It's putting you in a bad mood

when you're with your family and all that sort of stuff.

You really kind of like,

these are the sort of conversations I was having with myself

when I was thinking about closing the doors.

And you think, yeah, it's not,

you've got, as I keep saying,

I'm probably sounding like a broken record.

You've got to be doing something different or special.

I think it could be a great, great job.

But as making it, scaling it into a business,

you've got to be really, really good.

You've got to be a really good business person.

And I'm clearly not.

Well, I don't know about that.

You've got quite a few of them.

You've got quite a few businesses, Joe.

Tell us a little bit about what's happening next then.

What's next for the agenda for you?

I was waiting for this bit of,

I can do my shameless self-promotion.

Well, the main focus is just making us,

the best kind of videos that we can

and having the time to do them.

Cause I really enjoy making the videos,

buying interesting cars, fixing them up,

that sort of thing.

We're then going to,

if we're buying cars, we need an avenue out of them.

So for a long time, since about,

since about the original lockdown,

I've had cars bought for more.com.

So that was a,

cause we get offered so many cars being on YouTube,

far more than I could ever buy.

We set up a platform where other dealers can buy them.

So you can get a free dealer account.

You can go on there, you can look at those cars.

And if you want to trade cars

amongst yourselves in the trade,

you can do that as well.

So we've got that going.

I run a competitions business now,

which we're trying to sort of grow,

which has got a huge sort of charity element.

In fact, I started that probably 18 months ago,

I'd heard the story of a local lad

who had a really rare form of cancer.

And he essentially, he could get as much NHS treatment

as was available.

But in America, there's a vaccine, believe it or not,

which is pretty much your only hope of this not returning.

And it is about a quarter of a million pounds.

So over the last sort of 12 months,

having set this business up intentionally for that,

we've raised I think 27 and a half thousand pounds

for him.

We've just finished another competition last night

that's raised, well, we've helped them hit there.

They ended up going to 300,000,

which helped them hit their target.

And another one last night where we did

sort of 1500 pound donation to another charity.

So I think that and the videos are my top two things.

You know, I get a real good feeling out of helping

these people and being able to buy interesting cars

and let people win them.

And someone's really excited about winning them.

And we've also just launched a sort of car history

checking thing, which is called carbackground.co.uk.

So basically lots of bolt-on bits around the YouTube.

That's the main focus is doing interesting content

that people enjoy listening to what people is, you know,

whether it's the technical working on the cars,

giving you the whole process.

We're getting a lot of wheeler dealer comments.

Mike Brewer is going to be opening a lawsuit

against me soon.

People are saying, you like the new wheeler dealers

because we got Ben the mechanic here

and he can kind of do all the mechanical work

and he's very methodical.

I'm buying the stupid cars, which make it interesting.

And I've heard that format sounds slightly familiar.

Yeah, yeah, it came to me in a dream.

I don't know.

It wasn't intentional, I swear.

It's just, yeah, I guess that's,

if you've got two people doing cars,

it kind of ends up like that.

So yeah, that's it really.

Well, I wish you the best of luck with it, Joe.

Fair play to you for all of those endeavours,

especially the charity one.

And thank you for coming on

and telling us all about it.

It's been lovely to see you,

but we probably should do some stories

if you're up for hanging around for those.

Absolutely, yes, no problems.

I'll stop talking.

Thank, well, very nice to see you.

Thank you.

We interrupt this broadcast for some breaking news.

John, I don't want to panic you,

but the Cardio podcast live

is coming round really rather fast.

Yes, I know that, James, because I own a calendar,

but clearly you've been not paying attention.

How dare you, John?

If I hadn't been paying attention,

how would I know that it's on the September the 24th

in Abandon that we've got the Polestar boss,

Matt Galvin, Vicky Hart from Waylands,

and Alex Bradley from Small Cars Direct on with us, hmm?

Well, technically it's closer to Didcot,

but I'll let that one go.

Anyway, I bet you've forgotten

how people can book tickets.

No, John, because on my script right here,

it says head to cardinamagazine.co.uk slash podcast,

and people listening to this

can book tickets with the special discount code PICCANTO

for 10% off.

There's a social barbecue after the recording

and plenty of time for a social catch-up

with other like-minded dealers.

We look forward to seeing you there.

This is a paid partnership in association with Dealerway.

John, guess what?

Oh, God, you've bought more ducks, haven't you?

No ducks, John, wrong there.

I've actually got a new habit.

I've signed up for Dealerway

alongside more than two and a half thousand

other rated and vetted car dealers

to sell my trade-party exchanges.

The site is designed for dealers

to sell their pie exchanges for more money

quickly and easily.

There's no sellers fees,

and buying a car costs just £99.

One of the cheapest around.

And when I haven't got the time to list the car myself,

I can even watch out for them the details

and they do it all for me.

That sounds awfully familiar.

So are you selling all your stock there now?

Not exactly, John,

but if I do have a sudden influx of Kia PICCANTO's,

I know where to send them.

Dealers can find out more at dealerway.co.uk.

We'll be right back.

Now, John, I'm really enjoying

how easy it is to pay sellers on car well.

And we presume you'd rather not pay them at all.

No, that is true,

but now I can do it with car well wallet.

You can pay sellers, finance houses,

and more instantly, literally in one click.

It's secure, easy to use,

and gets rid of all the pesky finance back and forth.

So total game, James and John.

That does sound pretty good.

If you want to find out more,

dealers can log on to carwell.co.uk

slash partners slash car well dash wallet.

Now, back to the podcast.

So James and I are going to run through

our favorite stories of the week,

and at the end, Joe gets to decide

which one of us chose the best ones and who's the winner.

James is on a very unfortunate winning streak,

so he's going to go first.

Three-one, just a little reminder for you there,

John, at the start.

What a week it's been of news.

Some really interesting stories.

There's some, it's quite hard to pick between them, actually.

But I think I'm going to go for the one

that I think is the biggest story of the week,

and that is this JLR cyber attack.

It started off at the weekend with a news broke, I think,

on Monday, possibly Tuesday, that what day was the first?

It was first was Monday, wasn't it?

Because it was a new registration day,

and news came out that dealers couldn't register

any new cars for the 75 plate, these JLR dealers,

due to problems with their systems.

Over the course of the week,

this has escalated and escalated.

It looks like there has been quite a serious cyber attack

of JLR.

There's a couple of cyber terrorists.

Is that what we call them, John?

You're a very techie.

Whatever you chose to call them, James, sure.

Cybercrims.

There's a few cybercrims out there

talking about the fact that they've done it.

One called Scattered Spider.

You part of them, John?

No, I'm a bit more scatter cushion.

I'm sorry, that'd be mine.

Brilliant.

There's another one called Lapsis Dollar,

and another one called Shiny Hunters.

These are the cyber terrorists that have gone out

and allegedly boasted on Telegram,

that app that often gets talked about

but nobody knows how to download,

boasted about the fact that they have hacked JLR's internal systems.

But it has got incredibly serious.

I'm making light of a very serious story here.

Their production facilities in the UK

have all shut down this week.

Apparently, their teams were told on Monday to go home.

All of the factory staff were told to go home,

and they're still not back now.

I didn't realise it's still not back

because I've not kept track of this.

So, it's now Friday, isn't it?

It's now Friday.

Update on the statistics.

No production.

No production, John, which is, as you can imagine,

incredibly serious for that manufacturer.

They've been hit by a number of headwinds already this year.

We've had Trump tariffs.

We've had other issues that they've had to deal with

which has caused them problems.

They were just sort of bouncing back from that.

We've reported some decent profits from them,

and now they're hit with this.

And I just think this is a lot bigger than we know.

They're not talking about it, obviously.

They keep issuing the same statement to the press,

which is a very vanilla one that they've been in attack

and they're looking into it.

But I think there is probably panic stations

that manufacture at the moment.

You only have to look at the damage

these cyber criminals did to M&S this year.

That cyber attack is rumoured to have cost M&S 300 million

pounds.

JLR is a massive company.

What is a week's worth of lost production going to cost them?

I mean, that is going to be incredibly serious.

It's going to be large sums of money.

And I think this is a story that's going to rumble on and on.

We've seen cyber attacks before on other manufacturers.

Honda was hit, wasn't it, in the States a couple of years

ago.

We've obviously had dealers attack too with Arnold Clark

and all of the problems that caused them.

But this is the first time we've seen it happen

to a UK manufacturer.

And I think JLR are in trouble, John.

Shall I tell you something very interesting about this?

He's in 2023, JLR outsourced its IT

to a company called Tata Consultancy Solutions.

You will never guess who M&S also in 2023 outsourced its IT

systems to.

And I believe the co-op.

I mean, in fairness, yeah.

Is this something you found out on the dark web

or have you read a new story that I haven't found?

I did this thing called Googling it, James.

And it just struck in my head because I

was speaking a few months ago to somebody I know who works

in IT for, let's say, a fashion brand that may or may not

be to do with playing sport on horses.

And he was telling me how, because he's

moved from different companies to different companies,

work for supermarkets, whatever.

And the constant thing is outsourcing IT

to other bits of the world.

Or just outsourcing IT in general is the problem.

Because consultancy firms don't quite necessarily

care as much necessarily about all these sorts of things.

And it can get a little bit lax.

And it's just saving money at the end of the day, isn't it?

And it's just the fact that this was the same company.

And I know Tata owns JLR, so it's sort of natural.

And Tata Consultancy does do the IT consultancy

for so many different companies that

aren't related to JLR or M&S or whatever.

That maybe it's just a coincidence.

But there were questions about whether lax security

at that particular firm had led to the M&S and co-op situations.

And I wouldn't be hugely surprised if it was also

the case for JLR.

Allegedly.

It claimed a source, et cetera, et cetera.

Yes, I haven't given Tata Consultancy

right of reply on that one.

But I'll jot them a quick email

and they'll be ready for the next podcast.

Please do.

We'll say we contacted them for comment.

Thank you. Absolutely.

Thank you.

What do you think of this one, Jay?

I mean, I don't know if you've been following it,

but this way every day there's a different story.

It comes out and it just seems more and more serious.

Well, it's terrifying, isn't it?

Like you say, the cost involved with that

is just terrifying figures.

Like you say, it's not good use, is it?

They're not really on a winning streak at the moment.

Are they, JLR?

I do feel like they're kicking them when they're down.

The good news is, Jaguar have not been affected

by this at all.

I know.

You know, yeah.

They've not registered any cars this month,

but then they don't have any to register, so.

Maybe the cyber attackers all have ingenium-engined cars

and they're just trying to get their own back.

Well, John, move's on.

Come on.

No, you'll go.

Look, I'm going to talk about one of your stories,

which I'm sorry, I'm going to breeze through this

because I'm very bored of talking about the electric car grants

because I talk about it every month

and you get on your high horse about how it's a shambles,

oh, et cetera.

Oh, Dave.

I'm not wrong, though.

No, not wrong.

But this is, helpfully, what you've done, James,

is done a bit of investigation

and you've wrapped it all up into one story

so that we never have to talk about it ever again

because you've researched, you know, every week we go,

awesome, new cars have been announced for the grant.

Oh, isn't it terrible?

None of them, the full amount.

Well, you've done a bit of research

along with Tom Barnard of electrifying.com

to see just who, which manufacturers

have actually applied for the grant,

which ones have been told that they're not eligible

and which ones are likely or think they're likely

to be eligible for the full 3,750-pound top grant.

And the answer is,

six cars are likely to be eligible for the top grant.

No, two of which are on sale, which we know about,

which are the two Fords, the Puma and the Transit,

Courier, Custom, Connect, something or other.

It's on AO.

Other words, yeah, other words, yeah.

Which most people have never heard of.

The Nissan Leaf, as we've talked about,

Nissan are confident and hopeful that it will be approved,

but of course it doesn't actually exist yet,

hasn't been put on sale.

The other three are some Stellantis cars.

So the Citroen C5 Aircross Long Range,

specifically the Long Range version, again, not on sale.

Same for the Grandland, which is kind of the same car.

And also the Vauxhall Frontera,

which is a much smaller, much cheaper EV SUV thing.

Again, all we've got here is possible,

but not on sale yet.

That's it, that's your lot.

And slightly more trouble,

but I mean, that's troubling in itself.

Those are the only ones that are going to get the full whack.

But also the list of car companies

that are not eligible for the grant at all

or have not actually bothered to fill in the forms

and apply is slightly curious slash concerning.

So for example, Kia have not applied to the grant.

Don't quite understand why.

Because they've got Anthony, go on.

I think it's their plans.

And I think they know they're just not

going to get approval.

I think the power grid in South Korea

where they're made is not entirely green.

I think it's a lot of it is cold powered,

very similar to China,

which means that they probably wouldn't get it.

And yeah, the Ford Puma, whose batteries are,

as I understand it, come from South Korea.

Romanian.

Yeah, but the cells come from somewhere,

it depends how far they're drilling down.

I think as far as I'm aware,

the batteries come from South Korea

and the Puma, I could be completely wrong.

But anyway.

So Kia haven't applied, Audi haven't applied,

but they haven't got any cars under 75 grand.

Fiat, I found really strange, not eligible.

Why is Fiat not eligible, James?

No idea.

Bearing in mind that the 500E is made in Italy,

its batteries are made in Italy or Hungary.

I don't really completely understand why that's not allowed.

This is why it's so confusing.

Because it's not just implicated where the car's made,

it's where the batteries are made,

which apparently makes up a very large percentage

of what tier it goes into.

But then the other bit is how's the electricity

produced in that country?

So you have to have the moons aligning to get this gram.

It's very, very difficult.

Well, and it gets even more complicated than that,

doesn't it?

Because when we were publishing this,

I had a flick through it and sort of raised,

well, if the Vauxhall frontera, for example,

is ending up in this grant, getting the full whack,

why isn't the very similar Citroen C3 Aircross not getting it?

And why is the same with the C5 Aircross?

That's fundamentally the same car underneath

as Peugeot E5008, for example, long range.

That's not included because the factories,

they're both made in France.

The two factories in France,

one is more green than the other.

So one has got some solar panels on the roof or something.

And that means it's eligible for the full whack

and the other one isn't.

So it is so granular this.

It is.

And I think that's the problem.

And that's why I wanted to do this investigation

because we've talked about it, as you've said,

many times in the podcast.

And we were sort of guessing, weren't we?

How many cars we thought would be eligible

for this top rate?

The problem is, you go out and tell consumers

it's a 3,750 pound discount off your electric car.

That's what they're expecting.

They don't understand,

none of them are going to do this sort of research.

None of them are going to look into it.

They're just going to turn up a dealer and say,

where's my 3,750 pounds off, please?

And when they get told no,

it doesn't look good on the dealer.

That's the problem.

It looks like the dealer is holding it back.

But what they need to say is actually,

sorry, it's the government

and the way they've put together this grant,

et cetera, et cetera.

I just think it's ridiculously complicated.

I don't think the government realized

they'd only have six cars eligible

for this top tier grant.

I don't think they had any idea

of how many cars were going to be eligible at all.

And it's, I applaud the government for doing something.

We've been banging on about it for ages.

We need some help,

but this one is just overly complicated.

It's caused too much hassle

and it's causing problems in showrooms.

And that's why I do keep on getting on my high horse

at it because it's annoying.

It should have been simple.

It should have been a simple VAT rate cut

for all electric cars

and do what they wanted to do,

which was sell more electric cars.

Whereas unfortunately,

it's turned into this manufacturer kicking issue

where if your plants aren't green enough

or your electric cars aren't quite green enough,

you don't get the grant.

Well, it sends out the wrong message in my opinion.

So I asked Cherry about this at the event last week

and it was a very firm, no comment.

Was it?

Yeah, I said, are you disappointed

that you're not included?

They don't remove you from the lodge.

No, not like that.

But no, no, we have not commented on this.

It's no comment.

There you go.

But I don't genuinely,

I don't think the Chinese brands care at all.

I think they've got so much margin in their cars

and all actually all this has done

is exclude some European car manufacturers

and Korean car manufacturers.

Almost by accident is what it feels like.

Yeah.

What are you saying?

Words, so.

You know what you think, Joe?

Well, I have to say,

I am just blissfully ignorant to all of this, luckily.

It sounds like a headache.

I mean,

Every week, I mean,

it's just for the last six weeks

we've talked about it, Joe.

I mean, come on.

Yeah, it's easy to tune out, John.

What can I say?

It is a headache, isn't it?

And it's just, I can't say,

I feel like the whole new car market

and the whole EV market, everything is all

just a bit depressing.

But yeah, I'm blissfully ignorant to it all.

It sounds like a headache,

but I'm glad I'm not worrying about it at the moment.

Stick with that.

It's probably a lot easier than having to speak

to every single manufacturer in the UK

as I had to do, unfortunately.

Shall I move us on?

Okay, I've got a couple of stories that I could pick from

but I think I'm going to go with

the AutoTrader story

because this one has,

this is a little bit of...

AutoTrader story.

Yes, there's a, sorry, John.

Let me explain.

So AutoTrader is changing the way that they email dealers

about with their lead notifications.

So up until in the, well,

as it stands currently,

if you get a lead from AutoTrader as a dealer,

you get an email saying you have a new lead,

which we all get very excited about.

And it has the customer's name,

telephone number, if they've input it,

email if they've input it,

and a message normally says,

can I come and test drive your car, please?

And then you'd respond to it.

So that arrives in your inbox

and for us we use DealerKit

and it arrives into our DMS

and we get a notification

and we reply via the DMS system.

There's a lot of dealers out there

that don't operate their businesses with a DMS.

They operate just via email.

So when those emails arrive,

they reply directly to them.

AutoTrader is having to change the way that that is done

and what they're doing is they're removing

the contact details from these emails.

So you'll just be told, you've got a new lead on Xcar

and those customers that don't have a DMS

will have to go on to the AutoTrader portal,

which means logging into a separate platform

and then they can reply from it from there.

This has, I mean, it sounds,

it sounds like it's a bit of a storm in the teacup

but there's a lot of dealers.

I mean, Joe will know

because he speaks to lots of them too

who were quite cheesed off about this.

They were cheesed off

because they don't want to log into another system.

If you're a dealer,

I mean, I think we explained,

we had some like 12 platforms

that we have to log into

when it comes to selling a car.

It's a pain in the ass

because you have to remember

all of your different passwords.

It is complicated enough as it is.

You don't want to be logging into something else.

AutoTrader say, this is vital.

They have to do it to protect the customer data.

It's something that is easily leakable

into an email system.

So if it goes into a DMS

where it's pulled down via an API,

I'm saying words I don't really understand,

but if it goes into a DMS system,

it's a lot more secure

and those leads will continue working.

So if you use someone like DealerKit or other DMS is

and ingest those leads from AutoTrader

and you reply via DMS, no change whatsoever.

But if you're one of those dealers

who rely on the emails

and Umesh Samani, chairman of the IMDA,

Independent Motor Dealer Association,

told us he was one of those people.

He does it this way.

And he said it was a big hot topic on his members forum.

They've got a forum that two and a half thousand

on independent dealers.

There's lots of them that are not happy

with these changes.

AutoTrader, on the other hand, have told me at length

it's vital that they have to do this.

It's a way of protecting the customer data.

But at the same time, you've got these dealers

who are having to change their processes.

It sounds like a small thing

and there'll be lots of dealers out there

listening to us who this doesn't apply to.

But there are equally a large number of dealers

where it does apply to them.

And it's gonna mean it's gonna be a bit slower

to respond to emails.

So yeah, it's a bit of a complicated one, John,

but it's the sort of thing that

when AutoTrader changes something

it makes a massive difference

to workflows of dealers out there.

And I can understand what they have

and I completely understand why they needed to.

But there are dealers out there

that are gonna have to change the way they work.

And that has frustrated them.

Joe, let me ask you the question

because you've probably heard the same things I have.

Yeah, yeah, well, funnily enough

my AutoTrader subscription ended today.

But yeah, it seems like a bit of a non-issue,

doesn't it, in a sense.

But I mean, to some,

but I think when AutoTrader does anything

which is usually putting the prices up

and changing something that dealers aren't happy with

it always feels like they're taking something away

and putting the prices up.

I understand why dealers are gonna be annoyed.

I can understand.

It's a bit like when you're trying to buy a car

same as selling a car.

You know that customer may have sent out

five or six inquiries to whoever dealers in it.

I genuinely believe it's like,

quickest trigger wins sort of thing.

So there'll be people who get an email,

it'll pop up on their phone,

they'll highlight the phone number

and call it straight away.

Whereas now they've got to log into an app.

Which let's face it,

if you've got to log into the portal app

and you've got to highlight

which of these pictures has got a bridge in it

and do all that sort of stuff

which it makes you go around

about three cycles of each time

and then sends you a code and drives you mad.

It is frustrating.

But as with everything that AutoTrader does

where they sort of remove a feature

that dealers like and dealers complain

that they haven't really listened to the dealers.

We'll have to get used to it.

That is the one thing I wish AutoTrader would change

is that those stupid pictures that come up saying

identify the bike or like you say,

identify the bridge or identify the bus.

And even if you click all the tiles,

it never works, does it?

And you end up getting another one

and another one and another one.

I've wasted a lot of my life clicking images

of bikes from Thailand or something.

I've got a top tip for you, James,

with those specifically for AutoTrader

because it's trying to,

it says we need to verify if you're a human

and it asks you to click on the motorcycle

and it might be, if there's like a slither

of a motorbike handle in the thing, don't click it.

It almost expects you to be half blind

and miss a few things.

So if you're too perfect, it thinks you're a robot.

Don't do it.

Yeah, you need to just be a bit more useless with it,

which is where I've been excellent.

But yeah, you need to not be quite so efficient

and it works better.

It doesn't make you do like three loops of it,

which drives me crazy.

Oh, thank you.

Oh, that's going to save me a lot of time.

John, you've got me from AutoTrader.

If any developers from AutoTrader are listening

and you'd like to reimplement

a different recapture solution,

there are other providers that don't use bikes,

stairs and traffic lights.

It's always stairs.

Do get in touch.

Yeah.

I think you're changing that.

Shall I move this on?

Yeah, move this on.

Move this on.

I can't believe you've not talked about GVE.

Well, there was a lot of good stories this week.

Okay, well, I'll end on a low point,

which is that Supercar dealer GVE London

has appointed administrators

as they're facing a rather uncertain future.

Now, James and I did disappear off to GVE a year ago.

A year ago.

And then a mere four, five weeks ago

actually got around to editing the video of it.

So we visited their showroom,

lots of interesting metal in there.

And they're an interesting business

because they, controversially,

if you're a Supercar dealer,

you get a lot of flak

if you are not buying the stock,

but you've got it on sale or return,

i.e. lots of the stuff in their showroom

wasn't owned by them.

It was owned by customers

or other businesses.

What have you?

Who had said, do you know what?

Pop it in there,

put whatever price you think it will sell out

and when it sells, you give me the profit.

So it's a very lean way

of running your Supercar dealership

rather than having to fork out 250 grand

for each Lamborghini that sat in there.

But it doesn't seem to be a business model

that's worked terribly well.

And I can sort of imagine why

because, I mean, I'm preaching to the choir,

no one listening is there's a reason

there's a reason that the motor trade works

in the way that it does rather than saying to your customers,

yeah, I'll put your Yaris on my forecourt for six months

and see if it sells.

Because it just wouldn't function.

The customer would want too much money for it.

It would be up at too high a price.

It would just falter and stop working.

That's my personal opinion of sale or return.

Anyway, this has been a big story

all over social media,

which is why I'm bringing it up.

And that's partially because GV were all over social media,

particularly if you were on YouTube,

if you were in the kind of circles

of seeing lots of Supercar influencers

and YouTube channels and so on,

you'll probably have come across GV

and they've all come out

and talked about the situation that's been going on there.

And it's not been a very orderly process

of going into administration, has it?

There's been lots of question marks

what's happening at GVE?

And unfortunately, the poor people at GVE

have had to deal with quite a lot of flack

in the process of this.

George, who we spoke to at the dealership in our video,

he's had a pretty horrible time.

He's suggested that his people have been contacting his mom,

all these sorts of things.

Did I hear death threats?

Is that a thing that's happened?

Yeah, no, that's not happened yet.

You can pretty much just hear many of the incidents

getting death threats, unfortunately, these days.

So it's all been quite unpleasant,

but it's also been a difficult situation

for those customers who've got their cars

in that showroom on sale or return,

because of course, if my 250 grand Supercar

is sat in a dealership in Oxbridge or wherever it is,

and you hear that that dealership

is going into administration

and the doors are gonna be locked or whatever,

it's panic stations, isn't it?

So it's been a bit of a wild topic.

Tom Hartley's got involved on social media,

suggesting that perhaps, I'm gonna put this delicately,

suggesting that a business model

was perhaps not the one to go for.

Very well done, John, very well done.

I mean, what did you make of this story, James?

Were you surprised?

I was surprised,

because it came out on Friday night, I think,

which meant I ended up ruining my Friday night

when I was supposed to be enjoying my dinner

and ended up writing the story.

Well, I'm glad I did,

because it was one of those stories

that just absolutely exploded on our website,

because obviously there's a lot of people out there

looking into what was happening.

They first posted a notice

to a point administrators with the High Court,

which was sort of a,

it's basically a way of protecting your business

for a period of about 10 days

to try and make sure that you are covered

with creditors.

They said that they were negotiating

with an investor who was gonna come in and help out.

That obviously hasn't worked out,

because they have appointed those administrators today.

I saw a lot of videos online.

There was a big thing from between Yanny,

the influencer and GVE.

I think they had some beef, I think.

Possibly.

I'm like you that evening.

Very good, John, thank you.

Yeah, they said that sort of blew up on social media.

I think he did a few reels

and there was like two million views of them within 24 hours.

I mean, they went absolutely crazy.

And then I started seeing some other videos

of some of these people who had cars in this dealership,

because I don't actually know what happens

to cars on sale in return

when a business goes into administration.

If the doors get closed,

do those cars become part of the administration?

I mean, they're obviously-

I wouldn't imagine so.

It'd be a bit like if you're, I would guess,

and I'm not at all an expert on this,

which is why I host this podcast.

But I would imagine it'd be a bit like, James,

if we over at Cardi Latau

has leased Ford Focus or something,

and then we went into administration,

that car is not owned by us.

It's owned by a lease company

and a similar sort of deal, isn't it?

Or if you have someone stocking loans,

Lloyd's Bank or whoever it is owns those cars.

In this case, it's Yanny or whoever owns that.

Well, I saw some of these videos I saw during the week

with people breaking in, some of these car owners.

There was a guy who posted that I'm inside GVE

and he sort of scrolls around

and there's hardly any cars in there.

Just like nothing like when we went

and the pictures that were published on the website,

just a few odd supercars dusted around.

And then there was another one

that I think some of the pictures I saw on the sun

were of police inside.

So it's obviously got very serious,

very, very sad to see,

but we'll have to wait to see

what the administrator's report has to say

and what's gone on.

The final thing I say about it is I think it's,

I mean, again, we don't know the situation,

but it's the perils of the double-edged sword

of being out there on social media and YouTube and so on.

I mean, the two people talking to me here,

I'm sure we'll see the other side of it.

You know, if you put yourself out there like that,

if they were just, well, I think any supercard eater

is probably gonna have this sort of situation,

particularly in the setup that they had with Sailor Return.

But when your average dealer goes into administration,

nobody but the local newspaper,

really, that's an eyelid, do they?

But here it becomes quite big news.

Yeah.

What did you think, Joe?

Yeah, I feel for them and I think with the,

you're saying about the point of what happens with the car

if it's on Sailor Return,

I think probably the worst that could possibly happen

is those cars would potentially,

if someone was coming in to collect on debts,

they would seize them potentially

and you would then have to sort out the fact

that no, they don't belong to GVE London,

they belong to me and you'd have to maybe GVE

should pay a release fee or something,

but you'd be paying it.

So I can understand why when it's such large amounts.

Well, and also, I guess when people just get panicked,

the cars might just disappear off the face of the earth,

they might be, I'm not saying they would,

but what supercars get put in shipping containers

and pieces and reassembled in some other

Eastern European country, so yeah, I mean, I feel for them.

I imagine they were feeling the pinch just like anyone else

and a Sailor Return model,

I don't know anything about it,

I don't know anything about supercars,

but if you're doing Sailor Return,

the other thing is you're not making as much money

as you are if you own the car,

you can have the full markup,

but you're offering the seller or the owner of the vehicle

more money that we get privately

and you would take a little bit off the top

which might be a set fee or it might be a commission base,

I don't know, but it's not gonna be the full whack,

like if you're Tom Hartley

and you've put your life savings into that car

or whatever, so I feel for them

and I feel for them in the sense

of this sort of social media exposure

because you're right, John,

and even I have had,

since, I think I spoke to the local press

when we were saying we were gonna close down the garage,

we've not gone into administration

and we're not in financial troubles,

we've just made a decision to close the garage,

but we did an article with the local thing,

the Sun newspaper who obviously does little articles

on us for whatever reason, put it out

and I had to then quickly address it

and we've, despite having spoken

to say like people we had stock funding with in advance,

they went into an absolute panic,

even though I told them this was coming,

they went into an absolute panic

because someone there has seen the video

and then gossip gets around,

our Euro car parts account got closed

the day after we'd ordered parts from them

and they're like, well, you're closed, aren't you?

We're like, no, no, the business isn't closed,

we've just, oh, well,

so obviously someone's watched the video

and they're like, oh, okay, close account,

I can't even say.

Bizarre.

And we had a customer car in for a warranty job

that we were still fixing and it said to him,

by the way, we're closing down the site,

that's why you see there's not many cars here,

but we're not going anywhere,

the business is fine, we're fixing your car,

the guy was a big fan of the channel as well,

video came out on the weekend where I said,

I'm closing the site and I go through

the same whole process of we're closing the site,

the business is carrying on, absolute panic

and thought I was stealing his car, essentially.

So I feel for them because it all just comes in a rush

and everyone feels sort of, I don't know,

everyone is entitled to their opinion,

but they want to share it with you

and I feel for George, if he's not a,

you know, an owner or whatever and yeah,

it's a big story, I feel for everyone involved really,

it's just a shame, isn't it?

But it'll be, I'll still be interested to find out,

you know, what happens,

is there something salvageable there or not?

Yeah, I think just finally just on this,

I mean the sailor return thing must be incredibly difficult

to do because you're working on that margin, aren't you?

And if that car comes back, it's still coming back to you,

as the dealer, you're still gonna have to fix it.

So it only takes a few warranty claims

on some of those cars to put you in trouble, doesn't it?

I mean, can you imagine what it costs

to put a new engine in?

I'm just looking at it,

he's got a row of galardos

or whatever they are behind him.

Well, do they put 1.2 pure tax in those?

Yeah, an ingenium engine in that hurricane.

Well, let's face it, even a wing mirror on one of those

is probably gonna be 5,000 pounds.

I mean, yeah.

And you know, how difficult customers can be

when you're selling a, you know, a Sportage,

you're selling a Lamborghini,

you say, look, we've got a second arm

and we can get from Italy here,

it's immaculate and it's gonna, you know, whatever.

No, it needs to be brand new from Lamborghini,

you just know the sort of arguments

you're gonna be having.

Yeah, I don't.

And I don't think they were making whopping profits

because when I produced that video,

I tried to look into their accounts

just to get an idea of what they were doing

and they were still publishing those abridged accounts

where you don't have to put in all of the details.

So they can't have been turned over

a huge amount of money

because I think the limit is 10 million

for you to start having to publish everything.

So it could have been on a precipice, really,

is what I'm saying.

So anyway, I will stop talking

because we've been going on for ages, Joe.

We have, we've gone over our allotted time.

So, Joe, before I ask for your verdicts,

are there any stories you think

we should have talked about this week

but we haven't?

I can't think of any.

I think you've been quite comprehensive.

That's my answer.

Thank you very much.

So I'm gonna have to ask you,

who chose the best stories

or what was your favorite story?

I think, although I almost don't want it

to be the top story,

but it is the most interesting.

It's the GBE London story.

So well done, John.

Thank you, John.

Thank you so much.

I have to say a close second is the JLR one

because I'm really interested.

I feel bad that we're sort of following

the two sort of dramatic stories here,

but, you know,

so I don't know what happens.

That's definitely how it is on this podcast.

We are hyenas going off to the remains

of companies or horrible things.

Oh, the chat GPT,

we could probably produce that image, John, for us.

I'd rather not.

Well, that's a lovely little victory for me.

Fantastic.

But all that's left for me to say

before James says anything else

is thank you to Joe for coming on today.

It's been great to catch up with you

and hear about what you've got going on

after your dramatic newspaper headlines, et cetera, et cetera.

Thank you for having me.

Now, it's been a pleasure.

Very cathartic as well.

Nice to see you.

Yes, yes.

And thank you as well to James.

I don't know why, but I always say that.

And thanks for listening.

We'll be back next week with another episode.

So make sure you're subscribed to be notified

when that goes live.

If you want to check out the stories you mentioned today,

take a look in the show notes below

or head to cardinamagazine.co.uk.

Thanks for listening and goodbye.

JLR hacked, GVE enters administration, and only six cars likely to get full EV grant – with Joe Betty, episode 222

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