March 27, 2026 | WrenchWay’s Jay Goninen talks about what technicians are looking for; Hyundai pledges increase in U.S. production

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Welcome to Daily Drive for Friday, March 27th, 2026.

I'm Kellan Walker in Las Vegas.

Today on the show,

Hyundai announces a new goal for US production by 2030.

General Motors investments into technician training

and recruitment are starting to pay off

and Jaguar Land Rover has halted production

at one of its UK plants for up to two weeks.

Plus senior retail editor Dan Shine

sits down with Jay Gunnenin of Wrenchway

to talk about the results of the company's

Voice of the Technician survey.

We've had several dealerships that have printed it off

or presented it to their own technicians

and said, okay, what are we missing here?

Is this accurate with what you guys think?

If not, great, at least it started the conversation.

Let's run through all the news you need to know

to keep up in the auto industry.

Hyundai aims to build 80% of the vehicles

it sells in the US domestically by 2030.

CEO Jose Munoz informed shareholders of the goal

at the company's annual meeting in South Korea on Thursday.

It also aims to assemble those vehicles

with about 80% US supply chain content.

The automaker built about half of the vehicles

that sold in the US in 2025 domestically,

according to auto forecast solutions.

And the company said about 60% of its parts

are sourced from the US today.

General Motors dealers employ 23% more technicians

than they did in 2021.

The automakers investments into training,

retention and recruitment drove the increase.

This is because of the automakers investments

into training, retention and recruitment for technicians.

Technician apprenticeships are also up 18% since 2021.

And the amount of technicians

with the highest level of training has doubled.

This effort is crucial

amid the auto industry's technician shortage

to help their dealers recruit and retain techs.

GM is working with high schools and colleges for recruitment

and is working to train veterans and service members.

And Jaguar Land Rover is halting production

at its sole whole plant in England for up to two weeks.

The stoppage is due to a parts issue

with an unnamed supplier that occurred after a fire

at one of the supplier's facilities.

The plant produces the Range Rover and Range Rover Sport.

The stoppage is expected to end April 8th.

It includes a previously scheduled five day shutdown

for the Easter weekend.

And those are today's headlines.

You can find more details on all those stories

at AutoNews.com.

A wave of electric vehicles are coming off lease

and hitting the used vehicle market this year.

But many of these EVs will be worth less than expected

when they were originally leased.

And selling them isn't the same

as selling a used gas powered vehicle.

Content creator Riley Hodder sat down

with retail reporter Paige Hodder

to talk about this wave

and what it might mean for the used vehicle market.

Hi Paige, thanks for joining us today.

Thanks for having me.

Why don't we start with what are some

of the unique challenges that you kind of get

when you're trying to sell a used EV?

So it's kind of a whole brand new market.

It's a very young market, you know,

EVs en masse haven't really been around that long.

And so this whole aftermarket

or second market for them is really new

and it's really young and it has a very unique

kind of customer that you have to cater to.

You know, someone who has access to charging,

someone who's interested in an EV, which is not everyone,

but also someone who might not be able to afford a new EV.

So kind of a less affluent group.

There's also all of the challenges

that come with selling a new EV.

You know, you have to explain a lot of this technology.

You have to explain charging habits and battery health.

But then you have to adapt them to a used EV.

So maybe explaining this is how the last person

drove and charged this battery.

And that's what this means for the battery health.

And what does that mean for the longevity?

It's kind of a whole new language around cars.

We're all used to, okay, it has 50,000 miles.

That means this.

That doesn't really translate in the same way to an EV.

So you kind of have to teach your customer

how to talk about a used EV

and what to think about this asset as something

they're probably planning to drive

for at least a couple of years going forward.

So tell me, do dealers have an appetite to move these cars

or is it kind of like,

are they kind of being forced into this situation?

Like, how do they feel?

I got a mixed bag from the dealers I spoke to.

You know, some dealers in certain areas

are already moving these types of cars like California.

There's just like a lot of used Teslas around.

So they're pretty used to it.

Dealers in other areas where EVs

are just overall less common, you know, a little bit less.

The sense I got was that, you know,

there's a lot of these cars coming back to market

in the next couple of years.

And dealers know that that could be an opportunity.

But there's still a lot of unanswered questions.

You know, will people buy these cars?

Are people really interested in them?

How long are these batteries gonna last?

You know, do people think about the battery health

or care about that in different ways?

And so it's definitely a sense that dealers are interested,

but they really wanna test the waters.

And they know that it'll be a price sensitive thing.

You know, if they can price these cars really low

and make them kind of an affordability option,

in the same way that some EVs were

on the tax credits last year,

then maybe someone who's been priced out

of a lot of other areas of the market

might be really interested in one of these cars.

But like I said, a lot of unanswered questions

and, you know, the dealers that are interested in, you know,

buying and telling these cars are really taking it slow.

So, I mean, obviously, you know,

like dealers aren't the only ones, you know, invested in this.

Like how are they working with the automakers

to be able to sell these vehicles?

So if you don't know how leasing works,

the auto lenders that lease cars are automakers captives.

So they're, you know, finance companies owned

by the automakers that specifically lend to, you know,

if you're a Ford's captive,

you lend to Ford dealers and Ford customers.

And that's where leases come from.

And, you know, sometimes outside lenders

will have a partnership with automakers to be their captive,

but it's basically the same process.

And, you know, those are the people

that actually own the cars.

It's kind of like an extended rental when you do a lease,

you know, they're saying,

we will let you use this car for three years

for a certain amount of money.

And then when that three years is up,

you can choose to buy the car, otherwise it's ours.

And then comes the next step,

which is that person will bring the car back to the store.

That store is called the grounding dealership.

So it's, you know, where they bought the car,

they have to bring it back there, typically.

And that dealer will have a couple of days to decide,

do I want to buy it from the captive

and sell it on my used slot?

If they don't decide to do that,

or maybe they decide to do a couple of them,

but not the rest,

then the captive still owns those cars

and has to do something with them.

So they might put them on an online marketplace,

or they might try and sell them to other dealers

through wholesale auctions.

So we talked a little bit about captives.

How is this EV leasing boom kind of affecting them specifically?

Yeah, so it's a whole new kind of asset

that they really have in a volume they've never had before.

So that's not to say EVs are taking over the used market,

they will still represent a small portion.

But that volume is going to grow significantly

over the next couple of years.

And so that's kind of a whole new beast.

And on top of that,

there is the problem of the value of these cars,

which is that for a variety of reasons,

these cars depreciated more than the captive

thought they would.

So when a lender leases a car,

they have a whole curve and graph where they predict,

this is what we think the car is going to be worth

at the end of the lease.

And they calculate payments and down payments

and all of that based on that number.

And then the EVs lost value in the past couple of years.

And that's really stabilized,

but the past couple of years,

these cars coming back are worth a chunk less

than the captive thought they would be.

And so that kind of creates a unique problem

where if they try and price them

at what they originally thought they would be worth,

that's not going to be a competitive price.

No one's going to want to buy them,

at least with current demand.

But if they price them at current demand,

then they're taking a hit.

That's something they're really going to have to navigate

over the next couple of years.

Coming up, we'll hear from Jay Gunnenin,

co-founder and president at Wrenchway.

That's next on Daily Drive.

Almovio is taking aim

at one of the most fundamental parts of vehicle safety,

braking.

And the company says its next generation systems

can cut stopping distance by meters.

And at the same time,

we also see cost advantages for the fighter customer

because of maintenance topics.

It's significantly less maintenance

or even maintenance free over lifetime

of the entire product.

On this week's episode

of the Automotive News Shift podcast,

we'll hear from Dennis Fritsch,

vice president of Almovio's Safety and Motion Division.

He breaks down how Almovio is improving

braking performance,

including its push toward break by wire

and dry brake technology

that eliminates traditional hydraulics.

I'm Molly Boygon,

tech and innovation reporter at Automotive News.

Join me on shift,

available this Sunday,

wherever you get your podcasts.

Automotive consumer marketing is complex.

Customer data is constantly changing.

People move, email addresses change,

loans end, leases expire,

and vehicles are traded in.

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Better marketing starts here.

Visit ExperianAutomotive.com for more information.

Welcome back to Daily Drive.

I'm Kellyn Walker.

Across the country, dealers are struggling to recruit

and retain service technicians

amidst a shortage.

That means apprenticeship and recruitment programs

are more critical than ever.

Automotive news senior retail editor Dan Shine

sat down with Jay Gunnenin,

co-founder and president at Wrenchway,

a job search platform for service technicians and more.

They talked about Wrenchway's 2026

Voice of the Technician survey results

and how technicians currently feel about their jobs.

Jay, great to have you back

on the Fixed Ops Friday edition at Daily Drive.

Dan, it's always a pleasure talking to you.

You always crack me up, so this is a pleasure.

That reminds me of the joke of the rabbi and the priest.

Can't tell that one.

So first, just remind folks what Wrenchway does

and what it's all about.

Well, it shifted a lot over the years.

When we first launched the company, it was all recruiting

and over time, we just evolved to where

we really got involved with the education side

of the industry, right?

So really trying to figure out this technician's shortage

in a way that actually tries to go about fixing it

rather than kind of duct taping together,

which is what we were doing with recruiting essentially,

taking one person from one dealership,

placing them in another.

We actually don't do any recruiting anymore.

So it's really shifted over the years

to really a platform that helps schools out, right?

And we just launched a program at the beginning of the year

called ASC Connects in partnership with ASC.

It's an ASC led program that we're running for them.

We bring elements of Wrenchway into that program,

but it's more of an initiative to try and figure this thing

out holistically and really try to figure it out

in why are we having the troubles that we are?

And so it's a six step approach that we've built out

with ASC and one of the very first things

was just getting an understanding

of how many schools are out there, right?

So we found that there wasn't a lot of good data

around how many schools were out there

with automotive programs and even going state by state,

it was a little concerning that we just have no idea

what the education system is putting out.

So we've worked hard at that going state by state,

identifying every high school with an automotive program

as well as the tech schools that have automotive programs.

And not only that, like what types of programs they have

and a good contact at each,

which surprisingly is more painful than you'd think.

We've really put a lot of time and effort into that.

That's something that we're going to do each

and every year is get an updated list,

updated contact list and kind of doing the same

on the dealer side as well

to where we don't lose connection there.

So all in all, we still have our school assist platform,

ASE connects where you're able to just kind of get an idea

of what the schools are looking for.

And the whole intent is to get industry to focus on a program

as much as they do the one person

they're getting out of that program, right?

And just knowing that a lot of, especially the high schools

are really struggling for budget,

we have the ability to help these folks out.

So if that teacher needs a case of brake cleaner,

they shouldn't be paying for it out of their own pocket,

which is happening a lot.

Why can't we step up and do that?

And it's really an effort to,

will it hopefully produce more technicians

in our industry at some point?

I sure hope so, because the more we can focus

on those programs and getting them to be powerhouse programs,

I think that we're going to find ourselves in better shape.

And then the other side of that is a data component to that

in understanding enrollment in schools

and then data on the industry side as well.

We built out our technician wage tool

because we had a meeting with the Bureau of Labor Statistics

and we're kind of disappointed in what their model was

and how they come up with the data.

And we actually had talked with a statistician

from the Bureau of Labor Statistics

and he was explaining his model

and it was honestly very concerning.

And he had said something at the end where he's like,

I didn't know anybody was actually using this data.

I'm like, yeah, just our entire industry

and all of our education system.

So we've really gone to work on that side

to where members of ASC Connects are helping us out

with that data piece.

And really that should help the shops themselves

understand what the going rate for a technician is

and really get a good idea

of what those technicians are wanting.

Nice, what brings us together today

is you've recently released your voice of the technician

survey, which I think you do every other year,

every third year.

Every year, we've actually done it the last three years.

So it's our third year of doing it.

All right, and high school kids, college kids?

This is all technicians.

So yes, yes.

And what's funny when we first launched this report

three years ago, I was a little scared when we did it

because I thought it was going to be all entry-level

technicians, but what we found when we actually did it

was that the average technician that responded to it

had 21 years of experience.

75% of them were ASC certified.

About half of those technicians were dealership technicians.

And so there was a lot of more experienced technicians

and in one way, that's really cool

because you're getting good feedback,

but in another way, you're a little scared

because that shows you how empty our cupboard is

kind of at that entry-level stage.

So tell me some of your key takeaways

from what you saw on this survey.

I know you talked about what techs are looking for.

You talked about, they talked about pay structure

and they kind of gave their feedback.

What are some of the things that kind of jumped out to you?

Well, it's easy to start with the negative

and I'll start with the negative,

even though I don't like to.

We do a net promoter score.

All dealerships are familiar with net promoter scores.

The sad part is it's gone down yet again this year, right?

So we continue to see that drop and not drop

just a little bit.

Each year it's dropped a little bit more

kind of voicing that dissatisfaction

from the technician crowd with what they're seeing

and that part to me really stinks

because you've got so many great organizations

treating their people really well

that I think a lot of times

that negative narrative comes out of that,

but I also think it's maybe a signal

for a lot of dealerships to take this

a little bit more seriously, right?

The dealerships are really, really focused on fixed ops.

It feels like as much now as ever.

And so if this is such an important

and vital piece to your business,

why not take a survey like this

and just check it out, right?

Look at it, see if it generates any ideas within your head

and try to get some level of understanding

of where that dissatisfaction is coming from.

And really for me, I'm really trying to decipher

is it that they don't like the job itself?

Like you hear a lot of complaints online

about how the physical toll it can take

or is it that they don't like the employer

that they're working for?

We actually dissect that in the report.

I do think there's concerns there.

I think one that really stuck out to me

was that on the dealership side,

there were only 36% of technicians

that would recommend their dealership to a friend.

And to me, that's really, really concerning

because if you've got over two thirds

that wouldn't recommend their shop to a friend,

that's not great, right?

Like we need to work on that.

Yeah, a lot of questions about pay structure.

And kind of what technicians kind of favored

as opposed to one-way flat rate

as opposed to other ways.

Yeah, pay structure,

we ranked the industry's most urgent issues

and higher pay was by far number one.

84% of technicians said that's the top priority,

better pay structure.

That's my top priority too.

It's all of our top priority, is it?

Case my bosses listening.

Better pay structure in general,

which I think speaks to some of the discontentment

with flat rate as a whole.

And I think what we're starting to understand more and more

is that it's not necessarily just that it's flat rate, right?

I think when you look at what these technicians

are looking for, I think it was nearly 40,

it was 40-something percent that preferred flat rate

or flat rate with a guarantee.

And I'm flipping through my pages here

to find that exact number.

But the thing is there are people,

and I've talked to technicians that have told me,

if you take flat rate away from me, I'm leaving.

Like I love flat rate.

So there are that crowd that really, really enjoy it

and like it and it's fruitful for them.

But then there are others that just absolutely hate it

and they tell all of their friends about it

and they really have concerns over that.

And so I think what we're seeing

and what I'm seeing from really strong dealerships

is the ability to adapt based on the technician, right?

So rather than maybe having one formalized pay plan

for everybody, I've seen a lot of dealerships giving options,

kind of menu options on the way

that the technician would like to be paid.

I think that's showing that you're listening, right?

It might add more administratively to the dealership,

but I do think it shows that you're listening

and that you care.

You also see, like I think with the more experienced

technicians, what they get frustrated with

is if they're being paid flat rate,

but then they're getting put on the most difficult jobs

because they're the best in the shop,

they're losing out because they're good at their job, right?

And I think that is really damning to our industry

because if you're a young person, you're looking at that

and you have that disgruntled person

that has really worked their tail off,

they've gotten to a point in their career

where they are the best of the best,

but now you've got maybe a lower skilled technician

that's getting a lot of under car work

that's just killing it on flat rate.

That's where I tend to agree with them

that maybe the system's not as fair as we'd like it to be.

Yeah, so taking into account different things,

what technicians are looking for,

the pay structure, the 40 hour work week,

their top issues and whether they want to stay working

in this industry, what kind is your message to dealerships

as some of the, to kind of take away

after they hopefully go and read this survey,

what do you think is a takeaway for them

or what they should learn from it?

Well, if a dealership is anything like me,

I still have to print stuff out, right?

And maybe that's making me old,

but I remember with this report specifically,

going through and there's so much in there

that going through it digitally was not doing me justice, right?

So I had to print it off and I just went through

and started making notes note after note after note.

And I think I would encourage a lot of the listeners

to do the same where you actually look at the data, right?

Don't just browse it, don't skim it,

like look at what they're looking for.

And you talk about the work schedule,

there's detailed responses on work schedules

and I think it's 52% have it as that they would not work weekends.

So if you're a dealership and you're open Saturdays,

even Sundays and over half of the technicians

won't work on the weekends,

like maybe that's something you need to adapt your strategy on

or come up with some type of hybrid schedule,

which I know a lot of dealerships are already doing.

So more than anything,

I think it's to actually take a look at the report

and not only just browse over it,

but do some deep research into it and some thinking

and have open conversations with your team about it.

We've had several dealerships that have printed it off

or presented it to their own technicians

and said, okay, what are we missing here?

Is this accurate with what you guys think?

If not, great, at least it started the conversation, right?

And I think that's the big thing

that a lot of technicians are looking for.

That's great, Jay.

Always great to chat with you and kind of catch up

on what Wrenchway is up to

and the voice of the technician survey.

So really appreciate you jumping on.

Have a great day.

You too, Dan, thank you.

That's Daily Drive for today.

I'm Kellan Walker.

Thanks to Automotive News executive producer Jake Neer,

as well as our own Riley Hodder, Richard Truett,

Molly Boygon and Paige Hodder

for their reporting for today's podcast.

You can get the latest news on industry crises,

used EVs, automakers, production goals

and everything happening in the auto industry

at AutoNews.com.

Come back over the weekend

for our weekend drive edition of the show.

Our own Michael Martinez and Larry Bella Quett

talk about the week's biggest stories,

including Sony Honda Mobility's decision

to scrap its affiliate EVs.

And Stellantis' move to start finding workers

who part competitors' models

at its North American headquarters.

In these workers' defense,

there are some instances,

hilariously, where security has ticketed older vehicles

that used to be owned by Stellantis

and no longer currently are,

and they didn't realize that.

So some of these workers do have legitimate gripes.

We'd love to hear from you.

Let us know what you think of the show

and the topics we covered today.

Send us an email at dailydrive at autonews.com

or leave us a voicemail at 313-444-2774.

And if you enjoyed the podcast,

remember to like, leave a review and subscribe

so you never miss an episode.

March 27, 2026 | WrenchWay’s Jay Goninen talks about what technicians are looking for; Hyundai pledges increase in U.S. production

About this episode

employee retention

Hyundai

technician training and recruitment

Jaguar Land Rover

Voice of the Technician survey

dealerships that have printed it off or presented it to their own technicians

training, retention and recruitment

technician apprenticeships

technician shortage

electric vehicles coming off lease

EV

50,000 miles

Tesla

price sensitive

leasing

Ford's captive

extended rental

wholesale auctions

Experian Automotive Marketing solutions

ExperianAutomotive.com

apprenticeship and recruitment programs

Wrenchway

duct taping together

brake cleaner

technician wage tool

Bureau of Labor Statistics

going rate for a technician

pay structure

flat rate

used EVs

production goals

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