Levi on Ventures, Lawrence on EV Market, Hatch on Volume Sales | Daily Dealer Live
Car Dealership Guy Podcast
Levi on Ventures, Lawrence on EV Market, Hatch on Volume Sales | Daily Dealer Live
Car Dealership Guy Podcast · Jun 29, 2026
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Person
Yosi Levi
Yosi Levi is the creator of 'Car Dealership Guy,' a very popular online brand and podcast that shares insider secrets and news about how car dealerships work. He used to run a dealership himself and now helps other dealers and buyers understand the car market.
Person
Alex Lawrence
Alex Lawrence is a businessman who co-founded a dealership that only sells used electric cars. He is famous for using social media to get millions of views and find customers without paying for traditional ads.
Person
Sam Hatch
Sam Hatch runs a successful used car dealership in rural Kentucky. He is known for using smart computer tools and social media to buy cars cheaply and sell them quickly in large numbers.
Term
F&I products
F&I stands for Finance and Insurance. These are extra add-ons you are offered when signing the paperwork to buy a car, like extended warranties, extra insurance, or protective coatings for the paint and tires.
Term
PP100
PP100 is a score that shows how many problems owners had with their brand-new cars in the first three months. A lower number is better because it means fewer things broke or went wrong.
Car
Hyundai Genesis
Genesis is the luxury vehicle division of the South Korean automaker Hyundai. It started out as a single high-end car model called the Hyundai Genesis before growing into its own separate brand that makes premium, comfortable cars and SUVs.
Company
Volkswagen
Volkswagen is a massive German company that makes popular cars, SUVs, and vans. They also own other famous brands like Audi and Porsche.
Place
Zwickau
Zwickau is a city in Germany where Volkswagen has a specialized, high-tech factory that only builds electric cars.
Place
Neckarsulm
Neckarsulm is a German city that is home to a major Audi factory where they build some of their most expensive luxury and high-performance cars.
Term
CRM
A CRM is a software tool that helps salespeople keep track of customers. It reminds them when to call you back, saves notes about what kind of car you want, and helps them send you emails.
Term
DMS
A DMS is the main computer system a car dealership uses to run its business. It tracks which cars are in stock, handles the sales paperwork, schedules repairs, and manages the dealership's money.
Brand
Tesla
Tesla is the most famous electric car company in the world. They are known for making fast, high-tech electric cars and building a massive network of fast-charging stations.
Term
out-the-door prices
An out-the-door price is the absolute final price you pay for a car, including all taxes, registration fees, and dealer charges. It is the exact amount written on the check you hand to the dealer.
Brand
Polestar
Polestar is a luxury electric car brand that started out as a special high-performance division of Volvo. They make sleek, modern electric cars.
Car
Dodge Charger
The Dodge Charger is a famous sporty American car made by Dodge. While older versions were famous for their loud gas engines, the newest models run on either electricity or a modern six-cylinder engine to deliver high performance with newer technology.
Term
buy here, pay here
A Buy Here, Pay Here dealership is a place where the dealer loans you the money directly to buy the car, rather than using a bank. They are usually for people with bad credit, but they often come with very high interest rates.
Term
VDP
VDP stands for Vehicle Details Page. It is the web page you land on when you click on a specific car online, showing you all of its photos, price, mileage, and features.
Term
floor plan
A floor plan is a special bank loan that dealerships use to buy the cars they put on their lot. Instead of paying cash for 100 cars, they borrow the money and pay it back to the bank as soon as each car is sold.
LIVE
We're doing better as a result of social media presence.
It doesn't do those three things, then it's on the chopping block.
It's in return on investment discussion.
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of The Daily Dealer Live.
I'm your host, Sam Dark, and thanks for choosing to be here with us on this June 29th.
It's the last Monday in the month of June as we head along into the holiday weekend.
We have got an action pack show for you today.
We start with Yosi Levi, CEO and the car dealership guy and a major CDG announcement,
CDG Ventures.
It's a media company, trusted dealer audience, founders, investors.
It's a big swing and we're going to unpack exactly what it means then.
We go straight to the future of retail with Alex Lawrence, CEO and co-founder of the EV Group,
EV Only Store, Social Media's growth engine, couple new locations coming soon as part of
today's announcement plus a third big announcement that he's teased online.
It's here and you'll join us as he makes that announcement.
Then we round out today's show with Sam Hatch from JRR Motor Sales,
joining from rural Kentucky with one of the sharpest used car playbooks in the country.
It's AI assisted buying, it's Facebook marketplace sourcing, it's street buys,
and it's the 800% mindset.
But first, let's hit today's automotive industry headlines.
All right, first up today in breaking news this Monday afternoon.
Cox Automotive is out with new research on who's actually shopping independent dealerships.
And both of today's guests, two out of three anyway, will be interested in this.
Using nearly 400 used car buyer responses collected between September 2024 and August
2025, Cox found that 79% of independent lot shoppers consider their vehicle purchase.
Well, it's a need.
It's not a want.
And the average buyer earns under 75,000 bucks and 43% carry fair or poor credit.
And about 56% of people pay cash.
Not because they prefer it, but because financing terms are often out of reach.
For independent dealers, the practical takeaway from Cox Senior Director,
Elizabeth Stigall, is straightforward.
Three-bot, these buyers are doing their homework.
So the listings, well, they've got a match.
Stigall recommends 20 photos per vehicle in full descriptions, including service history,
calling marketplaces a quote, digital mall, you want as much as content as possible.
It's the new showroom of the future, as is an aside or today.
Once they're in the door, keep the transaction under 90 minutes
and introduce FNI products briefly and early to avoid friction.
On to our next report.
This one is with JD Powers 2026 initial quality study.
And the headline, well, it's a significant one.
Reported problems with new vehicles declined at the largest year-over-year rate since 1997.
Ford led the mass market segment and Porsche topped luxury,
both measured by problems per 100 vehicles in the first 90 days of ownership.
Porsche posted 138 PPU 100, Genesis came in at 151, and Lexus, they came in at 156.
On the mass market side, Ford's 152 PPU 100 edged out Nissan's 156 and Buick at 162.
BMW earned the most model level awards with six followed by Hyundai Motor Group with five
in General Motors with four.
The one consistent trouble spot is infotainment.
We talked a lot about that on the show.
Mass market brands averaged 44.4 problems per 100 infotainment related problems versus
38.3 for premium brands with Android and Apple CarPlay connectivity accounting for a 1.4
PPU 100 increase in reported issues year-over-year.
JD Powers Frank Hainley said,
when tech becomes too complicated, the likelihood of customers experiencing a problem?
Well, it rises considerably.
Something to think about as we infuse more tech and capability into our vehicles.
In automaker news, Volkswagen is considering the largest overhaul in its history,
with reports this week that the automaker is weighing the closure of four plants,
including facilities in Hanover, Zwick, what?
That's a tough one.
Zwick, while Emden and Audi's
net-carcium site potentially eliminating 45,000 jobs combined with roughly 50,000 previously
announced cuts, total workforce reductions could approach 100,000 positions.
The supervisory board has been briefed and a July 9 meeting is expected to advance the discussion.
Volkswagen is also reportedly planning to reduce investments by about 15% to just over
130 billion euros.
That's about a buck 50 billion in US over five years and may spin off its core VW brand
and parts operations into separate entities.
Interesting.
Volkswagen's sharp sales decline US deliveries fell 13% in 2025.
For example, appears to be the driver.
Audi posted a 16% US sales decline in 2026,
forces the outlier setting a US sales record in 2025 with 76,219 deliveries.
As always, CDG will continue tracking as the July 9 meeting approaches.
And finally up today, two mid-market reads dropped this week.
But together, they paint a consistent picture.
The new vehicle market is holding, but the conditions underneath it, well, they're straining.
First up from CarGurus, their mid-year report.
We see new vehicle sales running a 1.4% behind 2025 through June.
Some of that could be impacted by the EV credit.
A modest gap though.
Last year's comparable period was inflated by tariff driven pull ahead buying.
That's the EV reference.
Meanwhile, average new vehicle prices have climbed to 50,900.
That's up 3.3% since December.
And monthly payments, well, they're averaging above 750 bucks and fuel prices topped
four and a half bucks a gallon amid the Middle East conflict before pulling back.
CarGurus director of insights Kevin Roberts called a continuation of longer term trends.
Affordability pressure compounded by oil prices and elevated rates stretching the market further.
On the U side, the data reflects where buyers are migrating.
The average price gap between new and used vehicles sits at 21 grand.
And units seven years and older now represent more than 40% of used demand.
Here's something interesting.
Sales of vehicles with 60,000 plus miles.
Well, they're up 16% since 2020.
And new vehicles aren't keeping pace with population growth either.
The current rate of about 45 vehicles per thousand people compares to more than 60 in 2000.
Which Roberts noted has direct downstream effect on used car volume as we all learned during COVID.
EV interest on CarGurus peaked when gas price is top four and a half bucks.
And has since pulled back with new EV share dipping from 4.9% in May to 4.7 at mid June.
Hybrids continued outperform.
New hybrid sales are up 18.8% year over year.
Used hybrids are up 34.3.
And as Roberts put it, quote, hybrids are definitely seeing the growth that we expected EVs to have.
And that, folks, is a wrap on today's auto industry headlines.
Interesting news, particularly as it relates to independent used vehicle experience.
As a reminder, we're streaming across all CDG social media platforms.
Post your comments into the chat.
We appreciate Ken C. saying, hey, looking forward to the pods always.
Great stuff coming today.
Sam, get us going.
Paul Solzman comes in.
Happy Monday, month-end exciting times.
Our own Hannah Farmer.
Happy Monday, CDG fam.
And it's off.
Our entire CDG Daily Deal Live listening audience is in the chat.
Dan C. 9440.
Can't wait to hear the Yosi interview.
Well, let's dive straight into it.
Up first today, the car dealership guy and CEO of car dealership guy, Yosi Levi.
Welcome to the show.
Can you hear me, Yosi?
I lost you.
I can hear you.
There you are.
I hear you.
All right.
Fantastic.
There you go.
Yosi, you've got a pretty cool announcement that you've recently made around CDG Ventures.
Tell us what that's all about.
Yeah.
I mean, first of all, it's great to be back.
I haven't been on the show in quite some time.
It has been.
The good part is that it's for a good reason, right?
We've been busy.
So we've been building a lot of things and creating as everyone can see.
Our work is pretty public in that sense.
We actually have a very big announcement coming in about a month.
So stay tuned for that.
I wish I could tease more, but I can't wait for the impact that this will make in the industry.
Separately, why am I here right now?
It's been a big couple of days for us.
We launched CDG Ventures, which I would say this has been a decent amount of time in the works.
CDG Ventures is our version of an investment platform that we're bringing to the market
to accredited investors where we're essentially finding the deals where we're participating,
like automotive tech deals, software deals in the market.
And we are to use the trite term that you always hear in Silicon Valley democratizing.
But in simpler terms, we're just simply bringing it to a broader market of accredited investors,
dealers in that sense primarily, to help them get access to these deals that we see on a
weekly, monthly basis and many don't.
And I'm happy to take a step back and give you more context.
But in a nutshell, that's what we've announced over the last couple of days.
So what does that mean to our listening audience?
To a dealership, to a dealer group, to an accredited investor as you talk?
I would assume most dealer principles, most auto groups would qualify as an accredited investor.
What opportunities does that give our audience to participate in?
You have to think that when I launched CarDealershipGuy, it over time morphed into a media company.
And along the way, we came across many challenges that dealers face.
Most of them came to us, hey, can you help us solve this?
Can you help us solve that?
Most of them we said we cannot or we know we can't deviate focus.
Some of them we said, yeah, we can't help you do that because we have,
there's some assets that we have at CarDealershipGuy which make it just very,
very effective for us to solve certain problems.
For example, we have a large audience.
We have a very wide network.
We have media and distribution.
All these different things that we have by being a media company enable us to just solve
different things.
Actually, the first service we launched at CDG was recruiting because we literally have
a huge audience and we also have people that are looking for opportunities.
We had a lot of dealers.
Since then, we've launched many more things which we've been pretty vocal about.
But over time, the vision for CarDealershipGuy really expanded
and we morphed into what we call today the home base for modern CarDealers.
We are aware CarDealers come in the morning to check the news, get their insights,
meet their peer groups and many, many more things beyond that.
We've become this one-stop shop for the dealer where we can offer you all these different
ways to get an edge at your dealership.
That is the fundamental premise of CDG.
It's creating different services, different solutions where a dealer can come to us and
they can leave with an edge one way or another.
It's no surprise that the most progressive modern dealers that are looking to offer the
best experience and really innovate their dealership are huge followers of CDG.
Long story short, this wasn't just a next step in our evolution.
We've seen all the value that dealers have helped create in these multi-billion-dollar
auto tech startups that have just proliferated in the last decade in automotive.
We've also seen that us, me being in my position really, I've had access over the last couple of
years to some amazing deals and some not-so-good deals, but all in all, I get a lot of deal flow.
Instead of, it used to be, hey, calling up a couple of people.
I'm participating in this deal.
Hey, are you interested?
And it just dawned on me.
I said, why are we not opening up this up broader?
Our network is a lot bigger than the 10 dealers that I speak to on a regular basis,
or the 20 dealers.
And so we said, if we can do this and open it up to accredited investors and actually
bring them deals, the way we're structured CDG ventures is there's no commitment.
Yeah, no commitment, no obligation.
You get access.
And why do it that way instead of raising a traditional fund, Yossi?
Because I think that in a traditional fund, it can create some adverse incentives.
First of all, we are at our core, our media company.
And there's many other services that have their own GMs or operators that run them.
But me and my core, my day-to-day is being in a media company and observing what's next
for the organization.
The beautiful thing about launching a syndicate like this, where today there's no active
deal at this very moment.
There's no obligation.
You literally put your email at cdg.company slash ventures.
You just put your email there and you get deals offered to you.
You can say yes, you can say no.
If you're an accredited investor, of course.
But the beautiful thing about that is that you have no pressure, right?
You can literally be picky.
You can be selective.
And you can say, hey, if I really believe in this deal, a certain deal, I want to bring
it to the market, I have that ability.
I'm not bound.
I don't have this pressure.
Oh, we have a fund.
We got to deploy a fund.
That's not the goal, right?
That was never the goal to go launch a fund.
Rather, it's we have the ability that when we find a deal that we think would be incredible
or has really big potential and dealers would get excited about it, we can simply have them
send over the opportunity and they can assess it for themselves and decide, hey, I want to
participate in this or not.
Because guess what?
Dealers are the ones creating the value in most of these companies.
And so why not offer the opportunity that you can also participate in that value creation?
It sounds like almost like a shark tank with the ability because you're watching it.
You're looking at it.
You're making a decision about what the value is.
And then you can make a decision to jump in.
So I heard on social and you and I have talked, you're getting a lot of interest from founders.
What kind of companies you see are reaching out?
What does that tell you about how that startup world sees CDG?
What activity are you seeing so far?
So like I said, right now, there is no active deal.
This is us being prudent and saying, hey, you've got outreach though, right?
People are reaching out.
So we said, hey, let's start seeing, let's assess the demand.
We knew that we had demand through our network, but we said, let's just broaden that out.
And it's been amazing.
I mean, we've been very pleased with the outreach from both potential LPs and founders.
I would tell you founders reaching out, it's early.
We've had all across the spectrum, mostly auto tech software.
Which is not surprising.
That's typically who requires funding and capital.
And we've always had great deal flow.
Just given the reach of the platform and the network I built, there's always been good deal flow.
This has put an accelerant to it.
I don't suspect that the outreach that we've received over the last couple of days will
continue for weeks and months.
These things ebb and flow.
But I think the bottom line is that in the spirit of car dealership guy and CDG,
we are here to empower the dealer.
We want to help dealers, as we say, be able to thrive in a changing market.
That is essentially the vision of everything we're doing here.
It doesn't matter if it's circles, which is a peer group,
or if it's media, or it's this show that we're on right now.
It's all about to help empower the dealer so that they can navigate this crazy market
that we've just experienced over the last five years and we'll experience into the future.
This is just another part of that umbrella where we say you can participate in a specific deal.
When we bring a deal to market, you'll know that this is something that
I'm putting our vote of confidence behind, and we really believe in it.
Yossi, you've built this brand, as you say, as a news organization.
CDG's audience is based on trust.
It's based on reliability, fully transparency.
The editorial credibility you've built as part of this company.
How, Yossi, do you protect that trust when you're bringing deals that, as you pointed out,
may or may not succeed, but you're giving them an opportunity to thrive,
and you're giving dealers the opportunity to participate, accredited investors.
How do you protect trust when money's involved, Yossi?
It's a great question.
I think the first thing is that the way I structured CDG,
and notice I'm saying CDG, not car dealership guy, because it's two separate things.
It's two separate things.
People don't know, and it's not surprising.
CDG is the parent company.
Car dealership guy is one of the brands, and car dealership guy has its own head of editorial,
Ash, and has his own team, and the whole purpose there is, as they say,
separation between church and state.
So the beautiful part here is that CDG, the umbrella,
there's multiple entities underneath, and multiple business units underneath that.
CDG ventures being one of them, and car dealership guy being another one.
So to answer your first part of your question, two separate things.
Editorial has nothing to do with one and the other.
We keep them completely separate, and there's also separate operators.
So that's already a nice forcing function where people have to work together,
and it keeps me sort of insulated at the top.
The second thing that we do is that this is, again, venture investing is,
it's an asset class, and certain investors want exposure to that asset class,
and certain investors don't.
What I'm doing here is simply saying, hey, to the people out there in the sphere,
in my sphere, in my network, in the car dealership guy sphere,
that do want exposure to that asset class, that are accredited investors,
and that in many cases are car dealers, you have the opportunity,
you can assess on a deal-by-deal basis.
Of course, all these deals come with disclosures.
I've personally invested in dozens of these deals,
and they're just like in a venture investment,
there's a very high likelihood that you lose all your money.
But of course, on the flip side, there's also the likelihood of a power law hitting,
where one or two of ten, or who knows how many, does well,
and it makes up for all the ones that lost.
So I think that the bottom line is, if someone has the appetite for the venture asset class,
then this is an opportunity where they can simply,
with no commitment whatsoever, just get access to seeing what's out there,
assuming they're accredited, they can sign up,
they can just drop their name and email,
and they'll get access to these deals and make the decision on a case-by-case basis.
So, Yossi, as you make this available, I want to look a little down the road, right?
So, CDG started, and you started Car Dealship Guy as a podcast,
a newsletter, you become the media company.
Now, you've got this, well, CDG circles, the experiences this summer,
we're going to a retreat in Colorado, which will be exciting with select dealers who will be there.
You have really cultivated, created an entity and an organization that connects to dealers.
What is this organization?
CDG, even see Car Dealship Guy,
what does it look like five years down the road, Yossi, with this ad?
You know, Sam, we believe that it's all about,
the dealer of the future is going to have three sources of truth,
and everything is going to permeate from there, right?
It's going to be the DMS, it's going to be the CRM, it's going to be CDG, right?
We are the eyes and ears for the dealer into the outside world.
If the DMS is your COO, we're your CEO.
We get your news, we get you insights, content.
We get you ways to improve your playbook, access to talent, access to back,
the companies that you are helping create their value.
And so we are this intelligence apparatus that is just out and wide into the market,
and we bring that to the dealer.
That is exactly what we do.
And I'll tell you a secret, Sam.
From the outside, it's like, you know, we have these different things.
You know, someone, it's funny because someone told me,
hey, you're building like a miniature version of an alternative Cox Automotive.
I said, sure.
But I think that the point they were trying to make was that we are,
we're sort of building this enterprise that has different legs to it, right?
There's media, there's services, there's SaaS software,
and there's live activations like events.
Now there's venture, right?
So there's all these different legs to the stool.
The most important thing for me, Sam, is before doing anything.
It doesn't matter what it is.
It doesn't matter how amazing I think we can be at it.
It's do we have the right person, right?
I have, I'm one person.
I only have so much time in a day.
You gotta have the right people.
Yeah, of course, right?
It's, I start and end my day with media.
And that's also what I enjoy.
Like, I think I'm great at it and that's what I really like.
And guess what?
Other things I'm not great at and there's other people who are way better than me.
And so the most important thing is always before getting into anything,
you could offer me, you know, a castle in an article.
Like, I don't even know what you're going to see like,
you offer me anything.
By the way, that doesn't sound, you know, too, too exciting.
But the point I'm trying to make is that it's all about,
you have the right person first, right?
I am person first, opportunity second.
And so that's how I believe.
And similar to this, right?
We have a small team here behind the scenes that's helping me with,
specifically with the venture, with the venture opportunity.
And that's what led to the timing and the announcement.
If it wasn't having to write people,
then we wouldn't have even, you know, considered it.
And so it's just having to write support mechanisms
so that we can keep doing what we're doing,
keep scaling CDG and keep finding ways for dealers to thrive in this industry
that's changing so, so quickly.
All right, you'll see the producers are going crazy
because I'm way over time.
We're over time?
Cole Short is saying, you got a rapper, you're going to come.
Or eating our own dog food.
Is this amazing, right?
But listen, that's right.
We're on the show announcing, I love it.
There's one really good question that you've,
you got to give me an answer to five, 10 seconds or so.
Paul Salisman comes into the chat says,
what if a deal competes directly with one of Cardioship Guys major sponsors
or causes an issue on either side?
So that's an interesting question to throw out and be transparent about.
Quick answer on that.
No, it's a great question.
Look, I think a lot of these opportunities are early stage.
And, you know, it's not, could it happen?
Sure, it could.
And I think this is a testament to, to separate, like, you know,
like I said, completely separating different business units that we have.
I think we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
We haven't faced that situation where we've actually made that type of investment
today through CDG Ventures because we had, we've literally just launched this.
Yeah.
And so I think, I think it comes down to a case by case basis.
But I think, you know, when you look at major, you know, whether it be the,
the Bloomberg's of the world or like major media companies,
it's very, very standard for major media companies to have venture arms.
You know, I think New York Times, I want to say has like a major venture arm.
And so this isn't like, we're not reinventing the wheel in this sense.
We're just doing what others have done, but doing it specifically for the dealer community.
And by the way, you'll see our, the principle of fair competition is alive and well and
automotive. We all do better as better ideas, get growth and compete and,
and the best ideas went out.
And so what a cool way to bring this and make this available to potentially auto dealers,
credit investors and everyone else.
You'll see Levi CEO of Cardiola ship guy and the Cardiola ship guy himself.
Thank you so much for being on the show today.
Share your perspectives on CDG Ventures.
Thanks for being here.
All right.
We're going to get on with the ad read because we're going to go short.
Today's episode, it's brought to you by podium.
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by upwards of 26%.
So check that out at podium.com.
Thanks props to podium for supporting today's content,
including that elite conversation with the Cardiola ship guy himself.
You'll see Levi.
Appreciate him coming on the show and sharing all that is going on in CDG world.
Cardiola ship guy, particularly with CDG Ventures.
And let's keep going to another founder with another huge announcement today.
Let's turn quickly to Alex Lawrence, CEO and co-founder of the EV group.
Alex, welcome to the show.
Hey, Sam, my friend.
Good to see you.
Good to see you.
Welcome back on here again.
Welcome back.
It's always good to have you on the show.
What do you think about CDG Ventures?
Alex, before we go into your own big announcement,
Yossi made a big announcement today.
Yeah.
I mean, it makes total sense.
You guys get this proprietary deal flow, people coming to you to invest.
It makes a lot of sense.
Dealers generally are easy accredited investors.
They'll understand the product and be able to help make it better and makes total sense.
I anticipate that I will participate in some of those.
So I think it's great.
I think it's a smart idea.
When you've participated in all things CDG, including CDG circles,
you're a big member of the circles and you contribute and give feedback on it all the time.
But enough about CDG.
Let's talk your big announcements.
You've teased across social media.
You've got an entire audience here watching this very show today.
You've teased three big announcements.
Let's talk it.
What are the announcements, Alex?
Yeah.
I mean, the first one, I think matters to the industry as much as us.
The other two are more about what we're doing, but still hopefully interesting.
The first one is, I believe, at least we were, I think we still are the first used only,
so non-franchise, dealer to launch on Amazon Autos.
So if you want to buy a Tesla on Amazon Autos, you'll buy it from Evietto.
Among other Rivians and other EVs as well.
But yeah, that's live.
We've been working with them for, gosh, a while, 69 months,
getting this ready to be one of, if not the first used only.
And there's some reasons that make sense for that.
But we're live and we're now, you buy a car from us on Amazon.
When did it, before you give us the other two announcements,
when did you go live on Amazon?
Like over the weekend, quietly.
Okay, okay.
And we're still, we've got a few little kinks,
but you can go on there right now and you can go through the whole process and buy it.
We'll get a notification.
We'll call you.
We'll arrange delivery or shipment all on the Amazon experience.
So what was the market condition?
What pulled you into Amazon?
That's something a lot of dealers have looked at.
Many have taken the leap.
Hyundai and some other OEMs started early in the new car side.
They've recently pushed the used out.
Why Evietto with Amazon?
Yeah, I mean, so I think, you know, those were the manufacturer, the OEM decided, right?
And then the franchise is joined.
So like I had the luxury at times, sometimes it'd be great to be a franchise of making
those decisions on my own.
The moment I heard about Amazon autos, I, we're going to be there.
You know, my previous life was in technology.
You know, I can see a world where there's a lot of customers
that that's going to be a great option for them.
I mean, everybody knows Amazon's the best buying e-commerce buying experience on the planet.
And we all buy so many things there already.
It's so easy and the customer service and all those things.
So for me, it was instant.
We're going to be there.
And I started reaching out and saying, Hey, can we be there?
Can we be there?
Can we be there?
And to their credit, they started working together an internal case for why us.
And there's a few reasons.
I mean, in no particular order, you know, I'll say that I think that it's probably a cold day
in hell before Elon puts his cars on Amazon.
You know, I mean, the direct consumer.
Why wouldn't he do that?
Like he's got no dealer franchise network.
Amazon auto for anyone.
It seems like Elon Musk would be a good, a good match for that.
I mean, first of all, let's talk about the Bezos, Amazon friend, fair, fair, fair, fair.
That's good.
Friend in the relationship, right?
I actually don't think they're like anti, but also, I mean, look,
Tesla is a direct consumer car buying experience.
You can already do on Tesla and do on Amazon.
So, I mean, maybe they will.
I have no inside information whatsoever.
None.
So, Alex, a few questions from the chat before we go to your second and third announcement.
We want you to get all your announcements in.
Paul Salisman says, hey, Alex, is Amazon charging dealers for this service yet?
I know introductory, there was no charge.
Is there a charge today?
Yeah, they will be.
They'll be charging, I believe, a per store fee, as I believe their plan in the near future here.
And, you know, I can't remember exactly what they're launching with, but it's very reasonable.
And again, for me, I want to be wherever my customers are.
And Amazon believes that we'll provide the same experience they do, the customer service.
And so, we're grateful that they have confidence in us that we can represent them well.
Because the customer kind of, it's like Amazon, they're going to go back to Amazon.
Probably they have a problem.
And with a franchise operation, there's more strings that can kind of be tugged on there
with the use only operation.
There's less, I don't want to say leverage, but they've got to be thoughtful about who they partner with.
So, a couple of comments that are coming in that folks have asked about the Amazon deal.
You probably have the fresh newest perspective.
Finance, you're limited in terms of the finance providers and products to one or two companies.
Is that still the case?
And then used cars, you've got first rider refusal, but ultimately, if you don't want it,
they end up taking it as delivering on their promise to the consumer.
Did that cause you any pause as you went down the road on this, Alex?
So, their finance partners are actually really good ones.
I mean, it's like Wells Fargo, Capital One, Ally.
You know, I mean, they're great finance partners that we work really closely with anyway,
which again, pretty fortunate because a lot of use dealers don't get to work with those groups.
And we already had relationships with them, so it made it easy for them to turn us on.
So, that wasn't an issue at all.
At back end products, we'd like to eventually be able to install chargers and do some of the
things that are unique to us.
And I believe Amazon will let us do that down the road.
No promises, but I think that'll work itself out.
As far as, I mean, if a customer wants to buy a car for me, I'm not going to opt out of it.
It's theirs. They can have it.
Great. I'd love it.
I'm not going to be, we're not going to begrudge a customer regardless of where they bought the car.
So, no, zero concern for me that, oh man, that car sold on Amazon.
We could have made more back end on it if it's sold here in person.
You'll never hear us say that.
Yeah. You want the frictionless, easiest process.
And Amazon has the largest audience of anyone out there.
South Texas Crypto comes into the chat.
Alex says, trying it now, out now, but it doesn't let me search outside of 75 miles.
Is there any way to change that?
If I want to buy a car from you at 300 miles away, how do I do that, Alex?
Yeah. Again, I don't want to speak.
I think that will change.
I mean, we ship nationwide and so it's easy for us to sell a car.
But, you know, they're still working things out, right?
So, right now, they're working with.
And I think the other thing, in my opinion, that's more to protect franchise dealers.
Because, you know, if you're a Ford dealership in Chicago,
where you are versus California, they want you to go to the one that you're 75 miles closest to.
But for me, I don't have that potential limitation.
And so, yeah, I'm saying, hey, guys, let's open mine up because I can ship anywhere really easily
and affordably. And so, but right now, it does have a mileage limitation.
We will continue to follow this because we want to see your successes.
You go down the road on this, particularly from the independent auto side.
As a tee up to your next announcement, Stephen St. Peter Jr. comes into the chat says,
New England needs some EV auto locations, hopefully 27 or 2028, Alex.
What do you say to that? And then let's make your other announcements.
Well, Stephen is all he's constantly hitting me up with that.
I love the guy. I know him.
Love it.
So, we are opening more stores.
I mean, our audacious day one goal from almost six years ago is to be the largest seller.
And servicer of used EVs in the world.
Wow. Okay.
Ambition.
Yeah, that's been the plan from day one.
We're going for it.
So, we've got two locations in Utah, one in Nashville.
We purchased a location in Las Vegas that's a new build.
That'll be a flagship, you know, a dozen service bays and over 100 cars and a new cafe concept
that we're kicking around the drink concept with super chargers and everything else,
which we can talk about in a second.
And then we have a second location in Las Vegas that we're hopeful to announce soon.
That's actually a lease of an existing location that will open sooner.
So, that'll be two.
And then we've gone under contract.
We have a location in Dallas that we're hoping to get open for the end of the year.
There'll also be another flagship, 12 service bays, the concept, 100 cars, highly visible,
killer location.
So, we hope to be at five operating locations, Q4, Q1.
And then, you know, from there, we want to open three to four a year, you know,
in various states.
Maryland isn't one of them right now.
But if we succeed on our goal, you know, within the next decade,
we'll have stores in pretty much every state in America.
So, we're on our way.
One store at a time.
Strong, strong, strong.
Well, we'd be excited to hear exactly where those locations in Vegas are.
And in Dallas, as you ramp that up, what does that say?
A lot of pundits in the industry said, hey, look, EVs, they're going to die once credits are gone.
They're gone.
And now gases are outrageously expensive due to the conflict in the Strait of Hormuz.
And you've got to laugh a little bit.
Every penny the gas prices go up, you are proving the EV concept, even independent EV outlets.
Yeah, I mean, look, I want the war to end.
And I'm not chairing for that to be said with a straight face.
But I mean, look, there's never a dull moment in EVs.
And so I've also never been somebody that believes everybody should drive one.
I've never supported government mandates.
I'm a capitalist.
I've never thought growth was going to be a straight up line.
I've always thought it's going to be a steady growth line.
And none of that changes with credits, with gas prices.
They're a great option for people.
I'm in the used business, not the new.
I think they're two different answers if it's used versus new.
And so yeah, they're great cars.
I mean, almost anybody you talk to that's had one for the most part.
The vast majority love them.
They say they'll always have one.
And it doesn't mean that's the only car they'll have.
We don't hate gas cars.
We're not anti-gas cars.
But yeah, I mean, we believe that our business, especially the way we do business,
the way we don't have any fees or add-ons that we don't punish for cash,
that we don't require trades, that we give out the door prices over the phone
or via text within 30 seconds so we don't have any fees,
that we don't pressure you, that you don't go to an FNI office.
It's one person.
All these things, the way our people are compensated,
incentivizes them to do its best for the customer.
When you put all that together in a fun, unique environment,
no sport coats with name tags, nobody waiting for you at the door.
All these things.
Hey, what's wrong with the sport coats?
No, no, no, no offense.
If it's a Porsche and your ship, I get it, right?
Yeah.
You know, they'll go through on test drives.
There's all these things that can be different.
But, you know, I think that when you couple that with good value,
used EVs are good value.
They're fun.
I mean, look, Tesla came out with an announcement today.
They are up, they're hardware three and hardware four.
They're the latest self-driving and the previous version of self-driving.
Well, they just launched today a rollout that their hardware three cars
are getting a software update to make them much more full self-driving
advanced like they're for not quite as good.
That's completely free to all of these cars that have a hard hardware three for years.
They connect to their life and they get this massive upgrade
to their full self-driving.
I'd argue it's the biggest upgrade to any car for free in make ever, you know,
and that just happened.
And so there's a lot of benefits to the vehicles that I think
going to make them continually in demand at a nationwide level,
especially when you get more charging, which is announcement three.
Segway into it, right?
I love it.
I love it.
I think that's smart to do is an upgrade and to not charge for it.
And I think that'll set a good precedent.
In fact, speaking of charging, you have another announcement
as it relates to EV charging.
Let's talk that.
Yeah.
So the EV group owns EV Auto, but we want to try and own all the different ways
that somebody interacts with a used electric vehicle.
One of them is super charging.
So Tesla came to us last year to join a beta program
as one of their first partners to own and operate Tesla super chargers with them.
And so we've been working feverishly to acquire new locations.
And our first one will open probably the end of this week.
It's ready.
We're just waiting for it to get turned on at our Brentwood
at our Nashville, Tennessee EV Auto.
My understanding is the first
car dealership in America that has Tesla super chargers on site.
And so you'll see them at all of our new locations on site.
With a drink concept, a snack concept,
something fun to eat and drink while you're waiting.
But EV super charging, if you go to superchargepartners.com,
superchargepartners.com is an EV Auto or an EV Group company.
We've got about 20 locations that are under various stages
of construction development right now.
We've got four in Florida.
We've got the one in Nashville.
We've got one in Arkansas.
We've got a couple in Texas.
We've got a whole bunch in Utah.
We've got one in California.
We'll do one in Vegas.
And so we're building Tesla super chargers.
They're branded powered by EV Auto, but they're exactly the same.
They're on the Tesla network.
When you put in your navigation, it takes you there.
They work for all the brands.
So if you've got a Riviera or a Ford or whatever,
it's the best supercharging experience.
It's the fastest.
It's the most seamless.
And so our goal is to have a couple hundred of these locations
all around the country at our dealerships,
but also in lots of other locations.
And our first one opens this week.
And the other 20 or so, they'll all open Q3,
maybe early Q4 this year.
So we're going to have a whole bunch of them that pop up.
What led to that deal?
How did you put together a deal on Tesla superchargers
as an independent EV dealer, a deal with Elon Musk's Tesla
to distribute those chargers, Alex?
Later or not, they came to us initially.
They watch our social media and Amazon does too.
And they think we run a good business.
And we sell as many used Teslas as probably any independent,
not Carbona or some of these big groups,
but we sell thousands a year of them.
And as soon as I had signed NDA initially,
as soon as they told me what it was, I said, I am in.
And yeah, you can't pull enough of us as fast as you can.
Yeah, I've done the other chargers.
Supercharging is the only way to go if you've ever done it.
It's the only way to charge your car.
So any economics you want to share with us?
How quickly do those superchargers become profitable?
And what's your ultimate goal in terms of number nationwide?
And what not, Alex?
Yeah, I mean, they're expensive.
You know, I mean, it's a million dollar investment
in the dealership in Brentwood for the latest technology.
These are V4, the fastest superchargers out there.
They've got the dock that works with any different kind of vehicle
and so forth.
And so it is a big investment.
You know, they're profitable immediately
in terms of like monthly cash flow as soon as you turn them on.
You know, really the function there is how much are they used?
And so Tesla has been a great partner with us
in helping us predict how much they'll be used,
which they have.
One of the greatest data companies on earth.
And so we feel like we've got good projections
and we're going to open as many as we can,
as fast as we can in as many A locations.
And so superchargepartners.com is a website
where people can actually go and submit their sites to us.
Hey, I've got a location.
I've got a restaurant.
I've got a party around.
Yeah, a cardio ship, whatever.
And they want a partner.
We put up all the capital.
We pay all the costs to install.
And then we'll either pay you rent for your parking stalls
or we'll let you profit share with us.
And so it's a no capital up.
And yeah, so that's a separate company from EV Auto
with its own team and so forth.
And we have a warranty company and a charging company
and a service company.
And so these are all meant to help the EV owner
in all the different ways.
Sounds like a CDG venture type venture,
but just an EV Auto venture of CDG.
Hey.
We should have brought Yossi back on.
We could have had a little wrap on that deal.
Hey, maybe we put a supercharger site or two in there.
But I hadn't thought about that.
That's interesting, Sam.
That's interesting.
You could bring them CDG across the country.
So now we're going to put Yossi's big old cartoon face on it.
Yes.
Yes.
Right off the charts.
I love it.
Now the chat is lighting up here.
So a couple of questions as we wrap up here.
SWAT team comes into the chat says,
is the drink concept a dirty soda bar?
Yes.
And Dale in progress says the drink concept
will include dirty sodas.
There's like four or five different asks on that one.
Yeah.
Yep.
Dirty sodas, fun snacks.
We're talking to different groups.
But yeah, it'll be, we'll have a really fun
Evie Auto style place to come in, get a drink,
charge your car, hang out.
You know, it's going to be a really fun,
use the bathroom, which is a huge thing.
And so, yeah.
So it's a totally new different thing that we're doing
that we think will add to the customer experience
for ONI and EV.
All right.
So as we wrap up, let's go to current events.
Last week, CDG, we reported here
that Polestar had been banned from the U.S.
beginning 2027, presumably on national security concerns.
But we don't know.
There's a distribution network of dealers across the country.
They're selling vehicles.
They can no longer do that in 2027.
What are your thoughts on that?
And then you're building these supercharger points.
China has incredible charging technology.
What's your take on China in the U.S.?
And should the U.S. have banned this EV
that already is in the U.S., Alex?
Yeah.
That was a shock, wasn't it, Sam?
I mean, I didn't start coming.
My understanding, and it's a bit limited,
is the rules kind of are what they are.
And there's some threshold there for Chinese involvement
in the production of the vehicles.
And it went over that level.
So I mean, I don't know.
I've heard through the grapevine
that there might be some ways to retrofit these cars
or do something so that they're,
but I think they're scrambling.
And so whether...
I think the safety concerns over China trying to snoop
on what we're doing in a variety of ways,
whether it be TikTok or whether it be AI stuff
with Fable 5 and Anthropic or things like this,
I think they're valid.
They're not our buddies.
And so, but I admittedly don't totally understand
the depth and breadth of that decision.
I just know, hey, if that's the rule and you broke it,
then I don't know if they have a choice, right?
So, but beyond that, I mean, Tesla Supercharging
is one of the most dominant monopolies
I've ever seen in my business career.
It's why all the manufacturers said,
you know what, Tesla, you win.
We're not going to do our own charging networks anymore.
We're changing our port to be native to your port.
And it was actually a really smart decision
because Tesla had such a...
They had a trillion dollar lead in charge.
They've got the best...
I mean, yes, China makes faster...
But the B4 is fast.
You just drive up, you plug in, you unplug, you drive away.
You don't have to pull a card.
It tells you how long to be there.
It predicts everything.
It's the easiest experience.
And so, you know, they're going to win Supercharging.
They've already won Supercharging.
And with...
Globally, or in the US?
In the US, I can't speak internationally.
I don't know enough about that.
But in the US, the Tesla Supercharger network is
and will continue to be the absolute dominant player
in charging, fast charging, especially as you travel.
Their network is just...
It's just exploding.
And part of it's people like us that are...
There's other people like us that are doing this, for sure,
in addition to Tesla's own efforts.
And so, I'll give you a quick example.
In Utah, we will have eight new Supercharging locations
along the Wasatch Front open before the end of the year.
So, think about what that does for my customers here.
I mean, that's eight new options within 150 miles,
200 miles from top to bottom.
Not even that, 150.
That's...
I mean, that just solved basically everybody's
charging concern in the whole market.
Now, do you give your customers some sort of a deal
on the charging cost at your charger, or is it market rate?
Because that's the only good idea.
No deal, but we're going to do some cool things
at our chargers.
We're going to have like a mobile detailer there,
an EV Auto mobile detailer.
Yeah.
So, you want to go in and get some food for 99 bucks,
we'll wipe your car down, we'll do the inside, whatever.
We're going to try that.
You know, like I said, we're going to do the drink stuff.
We're going to have a...
Since our chargers, you can scan and schedule
a service appointment while you're sitting there.
So, you know...
So, we're going to offer some special things,
and then we're going to give away...
We're going to have free waters.
We're going to give them.
And so, we're going to try and make our chargers
the best ones and the best experience
and the best locations.
Just like everything else we do at EV Auto,
it's customer first.
And so, yeah, I mean, we're going to try
and make it the best charging experience we can,
but the price will be in line with what all the others are.
Well, Alex Lawrence, CEO and co-founder of EV Auto.
Thank you so much for coming on Cardiola Ship Guide,
Daily Deal Live today to break this news
about all the great things that are coming on.
We'd love to have you back at the very end
for our roundtable as well.
So, Alex, thanks for being here sharing your perspectives.
Thanks, Sam.
Thank you.
We've got a ton of comments coming into the chat.
I can't bring them all up, but go check them out
if you're watching live today.
We're going to keep going.
Next up today, Sam Hatch,
General Manager at JRR Motor Sales.
Sam, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much.
I'm happy to be here.
Great to see you again.
It's great to have you here.
Great to have you back.
You were on the podcast several months ago.
You and I were on together and we got to get to know you.
Since the podcast,
tell our Daily Deal Live listening audience
who you are, what you do,
and what's happened since your last on, Sam.
We are a small niche used car dealer
in the middle of nowhere, Kentucky.
And our main niche is wholesale.
And a couple of years ago,
the owners of our operation
who were thriving during the epidemic
and are doing really good in wholesale.
So, they got the wholesale to a little under
a thousand a month through those times.
And then it kind of dwindled down
where we average about 800 used cars wholesale a month.
And they wanted to step into the retail space.
So, I was able to kind of hit the ground running
because I already had my acquisition process
kind of taking care of.
And I was able to go into the retail space.
Our first year, we probably averaged,
I don't know, 50-ish retail units a month,
not including we have a buy here, pay here also.
And then now we're probably somewhere
between 72-ish units for the year right now average.
So, that's just on our retail side.
Our wholesale is crushing at about 800 cars.
And then we have a logistics company of 35 plus
nine car haulers as well.
Wow, wow.
When you were on in May,
you talked about trying to get ahead of trends
instead of being monopolized by them.
You're independent, rural Kentucky, no OEM badge.
What's the advantage of operating from that position
as an independent right now?
You're the second independent on.
Evie Alex is the first.
We'll have you both in the round table.
What's your leverage or your advantage
you have as an independent use dealer in June of 26, Sam?
It's way harder to reason with a line
when your head's in its mouth.
So, I wanted to do my diligence
to get my best foot in front of me
for the technology curve that comes
to where I'm at geographically.
Like we're last to anything, you know?
So, even when it comes to the market
in terms of relativity for EVs,
there's no, there's a reason why there isn't
a bunch of EV autos here in Central Kentucky, you know?
So, we're delayed.
So, how do I get, put my best foot forward?
First thing, I have to remember that
some of the largest titans that I go against
aren't new car manufacturers.
They're used car dealers, Carvana, CarMax.
They made a stab at acquisitioning privately
in an uncontrolled market long before
I ever thought of going on Facebook to buy a car.
So, just kind of, like I said,
putting my best foot forward,
so I'm not completely monopolized
by these people in the industry.
Carvana reported they sold 187,000 vehicles in Q1.
That means that they had to buy,
and not including their Odessa,
not including their wholesale operation,
but they had to buy that many cars off the street.
And I just thought to myself,
wow, how many of those were missed opportunities
by me and my dealership?
So, I don't have excuses when I'm looking at these other,
you know, I wish I had a franchise.
I used to have the poor me mentality,
but really it's like, how can I,
how can I be the dealer that the Tesla robot
is walking into inspect the car for somebody
who's getting it delivered in another state?
It's like, those are the types of curves
that I'm trying to get ahead of.
Right now, keeping an active pulse on the market
and staying ahead with AI,
taking advantage of these things while we still can.
We're not a podium store.
I'm still stuck to my roots with that
with responses here in Kentucky.
We have not had the best experience
with people responding to AI.
So, we've been slowly combating that,
and I'm really excited to see our acquisitioning,
our entire process for acquisitioning,
and then also the stuff that we're doing for marketing.
There's a huge, like RussFlipsFlips, for instance,
you know, just a huge person who came into the industry
and showed, hey, this is a completely different way
that you dealerships are missing business.
And I was like, well, I can't be missing business.
I'm up late at night, and I'm like,
if I post a wacky video or something informational,
people are gonna inquire at my dealership.
Five years ago, I could have sat in a room
full of like the top 1% dealer owners,
like you sound crazy.
And now you see all of them signing up
for the same service.
And, you know, you'll even catch me
on our social media pages doing the most outlandish things.
What's the same service?
What's the same service you're talking about?
What is it?
You said they're signing up for the same service now.
They called you crazy.
What are you talking about?
So, Russ will come to your store and sell you on training.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Getting out social media.
Yeah, yeah.
Period, you know?
It's like, well, what, five years?
I don't know.
Maybe let's call it 10 years ago.
Oh, hey, let's go to Nata.
Hey, these guys are going to allocate a ROI based off
of your exposure on their SEO page.
And your VDP has to look like this.
And it's like, well, I'm putting myself in the Cox box.
You know what I'm saying?
Where it's like, I'm only limited by what it is
that I can pay for.
And then organic marketing wasn't a thing
that was as talked about where you see somebody
who is literally taking average Joe's
in the middle of nowhere, use car stores, new car stores.
Doesn't matter.
It's basically just who wants to work.
And he's taking these people and they're creating
without any money spent an insane ROI just by selling cars
of people that would never venture to your store.
So a lot of comments coming into the chat.
DanC9440 says, does Sam have a floor plan provider?
Do you pay for all their vehicles, vehicle acquisitions
via cash?
Because that's an awful lot of transactions
on a monthly basis.
Who funds that, Sam?
That's a great question.
We've been in business for so long.
There's a couple, both.
We use private equity and our own capital.
So an agreement that was made a long time ago,
my owner has a outstanding relationship with.
Floor plans aren't...
Floor plans are a way for you to build a rope
and you can use that rope to find salvation
or you can use that rope to potentially hang yourself.
So I tried to...
I used to be 5000000 total
and we had, this is my previous job,
you know, Westlake, Next Gear, AFC.
The whole lot of them.
And it felt like every day I was doing an audit of some kind,
they will treat me like a literal criminal.
So I was like, wow, there has to be something better than this.
So we're in a small town where we were able to kind of find
a niche deal that allows our operation to thrive.
And I can't express to you guys enough,
we're not married to any vehicles.
That's why we push the volume that we do.
If we're making a dollar or maybe even losing in some situations,
we're going to sell the car 100 times out of 100,
800% of the time, volume solves every issue any dealership is facing,
in my opinion.
So back when you were on in May,
you talked about how you make money when you buy cars,
not when you sell.
And that's a common theme in the used car acquisition process.
Your cost sits at about 84% of market.
And then you list at 95%.
How disciplined does your team stay at those thresholds
when inventory gets tight, Sam?
And how do you do that?
How are you disciplined?
What's your discipline process for that?
Stack them deep and sell them cheap.
First off, let me just a quick one answer.
No, how do we stay disciplined?
Well, obviously I sort through thousands of cars.
I'm picking pieces of hay at a needle stack.
It's not a needle out of a hay stack.
Like I'm going through all this excruciating process
to maybe farm a yield that is none of them.
I'm trying to buy cars that our buyers are actively out
buying to then run at the auction.
And we try to get them before versus me getting a no sale report
and picking cars that nobody else wanted.
So kind of staying at that equilibrium
and keeping the lot replenished without suffocating myself.
That's why we have the cost inventory.
It's really funny, Sam.
Someone asked me the other day, they were like,
yeah, in the car business, you guys just
must have a set amount that you mark up a vehicle.
And I said, no, we don't have a set amount.
I'm just selling every car for what it's worth.
Rather, I'm making money or losing money.
Sometimes I make a lot of money.
Sometimes we don't make any money at all.
But that's how we stay very true to that profit strategy.
So as we finish, because we're going
to go into this roundtable with Alex,
we've only got about a couple of minutes left.
When you were on last, you walked us
through building an AI-assisted script
to automate your viado shockwave workflow,
instead of clicking through filters like everyone else does.
For a GM who's never touched anything like that, Sam,
what does that look like in practice?
If you can give it just about 30, 45 seconds
before you go into the roundtable.
And what problem did it solve that automated script?
Stay tuned, because we'll present it to the world here
shortly, because it has been so successful.
That is something that we're working on currently.
The whole scope is this.
Instead of sorting through every car on a stockwave,
ACV, whatever, compile that information,
correlate it to your profit strategy with a tool like viado,
plug it in, and then have a report that designates,
hey, what cars are closest to my profit strategy?
Put them to the top for me.
And being able to talk to an AI tool
to be able to cipher to that information is, you know.
Yep, yep.
All right, Sam Hatch.
Jill Mandra at JRR MotorCells.
We're excited to hear that announcement when that comes.
Hopefully, you'll, like Alex Lawrence did,
break that news here on CDG Daily Deal Live.
We'll have you back just a moment for the roundtable.
And we're just keeping things going.
Roundtable right up, Alex Lawrence.
Welcome back to the show, Sam Hatch.
Thank you both for being here.
So, Alex, let's dive into it.
What's one thing most dealers are still underestimating
in June of 2026 about social media?
Oh, yeah, I mean, guys,
I'm talking like heavy eight figure,
attributable contribution to my business last year.
It is the number one lead source without a close second.
We're talking, you know, 10 million plus organic views a month.
Literally sales every single day in all of our locations.
It's overwhelming with the customer volume online
and in person.
It's hard to do.
I did it for years without-
The hardest part about it, Alex, what makes it hard?
Because a lot of people would see your post.
They'd be like, hey, he just puts a camera
at any time something interesting happens.
You know, he gets his Delta 360 and he'll message about it.
That's not that hard.
What's hard about it, Alex?
Yeah, I mean, I'm going to be brutally honest.
The reason our channel does well
is because we show the good, the bad, and the ugly.
And a lot of car dealers don't want to show
the behind the scenes of how their dealership runs
because it's not all great news.
I'm just going to be brutally honest.
And also, there's a fair amount of private stuff
that goes on.
So you have to have a good filter there.
Also, I think you have to have a certain comfort level
that I do have a full-time camera guy
and we don't script things.
And everything's real and falls me around,
but that's what people want.
Has it gotten you in trouble, Alex?
Have you ever gotten in trouble for something you've posted?
And I don't know what trouble means, but backlash?
Sure, absolutely.
And some of it's deserved.
And you just have to take that and go, yeah,
I'm not perfect.
And I make decisions that I would make differently.
And I say things I wouldn't have said that way again and so forth.
But at the end of the day, it's real.
It's authentic.
They know they can trust us.
They know that we take care of people.
And so look, Sam brought up rust.
There's the skits.
There's the funny stuff.
There's the educational.
And so you've got to be authentic.
And that's hard to do.
And you also have to do it consistently
for a long period of time, which is cringy and painful
and lonely.
And so it's tough.
And also, it's a big moat for us.
Because it's also not something you can buy.
It doesn't matter how big of a dealer group you are.
You just can't get the dealer principle
and just start following around with camera
and just overnight get 10 million views.
I mean, it just doesn't work like that.
And so it's not the right fit.
Everybody shouldn't be doing it.
But if you're a salesperson, if you're an independent salesperson,
I think you're crazy if you don't figure out how to do it.
Yeah.
All right.
So the producer pushing me on our time deadline here.
I want to ask a question as we wrap up today.
Finish this sentence.
The dealer who wins the next 24 months will be the dealer who.
Sam Hatch, you go first.
Who implements media into their dealership
and integrates a acquisitioning tool
that isn't going to the auction every week
and successfully joins 800% elite auto group to fortify
your decisions to be made?
A prop to Glenn Lundy there.
I think that's really truly understanding and leveraging AI.
Sam, I'd love to talk to you.
That's not just like drinking the Kool-Aid
and saying the buzzwords, but like really has figured out
how to use it in their dealership.
I also think the ones that really embrace and lead out
and support and own the FTC rules,
like we are going to do this across the board without question.
This is how we're going to operate period forevermore.
And then I do think the ones that figure out authentic,
I'm going to call it media.
It doesn't have to be just be, well, I mean it's mostly social,
but authentic media because customers are just yearning for real
and authentic and transparent.
They're sick of TV commercials.
They're sick of ads.
They're sick of Cardiores.
They don't trust.
And so those three things.
And not everybody actually responded to the FTC,
a letter being in the marketplace as they should.
There are people that ran towards it.
We did that.
There are many that have ignored it, hoping it'll go away.
And that is definitely not a good best practice.
Sam Hatch, General Manager, JR Motor Sales,
and Alex Lawrence with big announcements
today on Cardioreship Guy, Daily Deal Live CEO
and co-founder of EVO Auto.
Thank you both for being on the show today.
Appreciate you both being here.
Thank you.
You know, it kills me because I always want more time
in the round table.
And unfortunately, the show ends every day,
but we just keep going.
DNC, the producers keeping Sam in check.
They have the hardest job of all, correct.
And lots of love for both Sam Hatch and EV Alex Lawrence
on the show today.
And to you, our Daily Deal Live listening audience,
thanks for watching Daily Deal Live.
We break down the biggest moves in the car business
as they happen.
Don't forget, we're here live.
Every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, by the way,
this Friday we have a special July 4th episode.
We've got Grant Cardone.
We've got Aaron Sibler.
We've got Senator Bernie Moreno and a bunch of others
coming on to talk about the next 50 years in auto sales.
So don't forget to join us this Wednesday
and Friday, 1 p.m. Eastern.
So if this is your world, hit like, hit subscribe,
turn on those notifications so you never ever miss beat.
And we'll see you next episode.
Thanks for being here, everybody.
About this episode
Explore the shifting dynamics of the automotive market with host Sam Dark. Car Dealership Guy CEO Yosi Levi joins to announce CDG Ventures, a new investment platform democratizing auto tech deals for dealers. Next, EV Only Store's Alex Lawrence discusses the future of electric vehicle retail and expansion plans. Finally, Sam Hatch shares his high-volume used car playbook from rural Kentucky, detailing AI-assisted buying and Facebook Marketplace sourcing. The show also covers critical industry headlines, including JD Power quality rankings, Volkswagen's potential restructuring, and the surging demand for hybrid vehicles.
Original notes
Today's show features:
Yossi Levi, CEO of Car Dealership Guy
Alex Lawrence, CEO & Co-Founder of EV Auto
Sam Hatch, General Manager at JRR Motor Sales
This episode is brought to you by:
Podium – Most AI is a black box. Podium's is yours to control — and it increases conversion by upwards of 26%. Check it out at http://podium.com
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