This is a Volvo 850, but the “T5R” version is the faster, turbocharged one. It’s the kind of older car that can be fun, but it also means you should be extra careful when buying it used.
Auctions can be risky because you may not know the car’s full history. If you don’t check carefully, you can end up overpaying or buying a car with hidden problems.
A finance broker helps you get the money to buy or lease a car. They connect you with lenders and handle parts of the process so it’s easier to get approved.
DPF is a filter on many diesel cars that catches soot. If it gets clogged or can’t clean itself, the car can start acting up and you may see warning lights.
In car deals, “residuals” are what the car is expected to be worth later on. If that expected value is high, the monthly cost can be lower; if it’s low, the monthly cost goes up.
The Mercedes-Benz E-Class is a bigger, more “executive” Mercedes than the A-Class. In this story, it matters because the expected resale value used in financing got worse, changing monthly payments.
The Mercedes-Benz A-Class is a smaller Mercedes that many people buy as a daily car. Here it’s brought up because the dealer’s finance deals worked better when the car’s expected future value was strong.
The Mercedes-Benz C-Class is a smaller luxury car designed for comfort and everyday driving. Dealers and lenders pay attention to it because the price to finance it and its resale value can change over time. The podcast mentions it as part of a set of cars the finance company became less interested in.
The Tesla Model Y is an all-electric SUV/crossover. Here it’s the example of an EV the dealer found easier to sell and service because there were fewer problems after delivery.
A “pivot” means changing what you focus on. In this case, the dealer shifted from selling mostly non-EVs to focusing on electric cars because it was working better for their business.
The used car market is where people sell and buy cars that aren’t new. The hosts are saying more electric cars are now showing up there, which changes how dealers price them and how buyers view them.
The Tesla Model S is an electric car that runs on batteries instead of gasoline. The episode mentions it because the prices people pay for used Teslas can change quickly. That matters because it affects how much the car is worth later and what financing looks like.
Part exchange is when you trade in your old car at the dealership and use it to reduce the price of the new one. They’re saying they can see what kinds of trade-ins they’re getting.
It’s a tool that estimates how much cheaper (or more expensive) an EV could be to run compared with a petrol or diesel car. The idea is to help sales staff explain the cost difference using your own situation.
Some dealers offer their own warranty instead of using the car maker’s warranty. A warranty claim is when you ask them to pay for a repair because the car broke down while covered.
A heating module is part of the car that helps make and control the heat for the cabin. If it fails, fixing it can be expensive—especially if warranty coverage doesn’t apply.
A proxy bid is when you set a maximum bid ahead of time and the auction system bids for you. That way you don’t have to be there bidding in real time.
Term
paint bills are just astronomical
“Paint bills” means how much money the dealer spends repainting cars to get them ready to sell. They’re saying Tesla cars can require more work, so the repainting costs add up fast.
Dealers sometimes buy cars at auctions where people bid against each other. The “auction price” is the final amount the car sells for, and it affects whether the dealer can make money.
BCA is a company that runs car auctions for dealers. Dealers use it to buy cars, and the timing of paperwork and delivery affects when the cars can be put into stock.
Motorway and Carwow are websites that help people get offers for their car. Dealers can end up bidding for cars, and that can make pricing and timing harder to manage.
“Stock” here just means the cars the dealer has ready to sell. If it’s hard to control when cars arrive, it’s harder to plan sales.
Term
documents
“Documents” means the paperwork needed to legally move a car from the seller to the dealer. If that paperwork takes time, the car can’t arrive quickly.
LinkedIn is a website/app mainly used for professional networking. The host is saying it can even be used to find car buyers or leads, which surprises people.
A ZEV mandate is a rule that pushes car companies to sell more zero-emission vehicles, usually electric cars. For car dealers, that can change what cars they can get, how many people want them, and how much profit they make.
A cyber attack is when hackers disrupt a company’s computer systems. If that happens to a carmaker, it can slow down orders and deliveries, which can hurt dealer sales.
Channel mix means where sales come from—like individual customers versus business/fleet buyers, or different selling routes. If that balance changes, a dealer’s profits can change too.
Discounting is when dealers sell cars for less than usual using deals or incentives. If discounts get bigger, dealers often make less profit on each car.
Non-BEV supply constraints refers to shortages or limited availability of vehicles that are not battery-electric vehicles (BEVs). If manufacturers prioritize BEVs or face production/logistics issues, dealers may struggle to source enough non-electric inventory, affecting overall sales mix and profitability.
The Porsche 959 is a very old, very special sports car made by Porsche. It’s known for being rare and for having advanced technology when it was built. The podcast mentions it by name as a standout model.
They mean some buyers are skipping the in-between options and going straight from a gas car to an electric car. Instead of starting with a hybrid first, they’re jumping to full EVs.
A plug-in hybrid can run on electricity, but it also has a gas engine as backup. You can charge it from a plug, and it can cover some trips without using petrol.
A mild hybrid is a car that has a small electric assist, but it still mainly runs on petrol. It’s not usually something you can drive like an EV for long stretches.
Charging is how you refill an electric car’s battery by plugging it in. If it becomes less expensive or less of a hassle, more people may consider buying an EV.
Hybrids are cars that use two power sources—an electric motor and a gasoline engine. They’re often used as a middle step between gas cars and fully electric cars.
A “pure electric future” means a company wants to sell only electric cars. The point here is that the market may not be ready for that shift yet, depending on price and demand.
Geely is mentioned as the parent company of Lotus, which frames why Lotus’s strategy is changing. The segment suggests Geely’s influence and experience in China’s market could be driving Lotus’s shift in direction.
Hybrid technology means the car uses two kinds of power—usually gas and electricity. The discussion is about how that trend is affecting what’s being sold in different markets.
The Lotus Esprit is a sports car made by Lotus, known for being fun to drive. The podcast mentions it in connection with a possible “return” of the Esprit name. That kind of talk matters because it can signal new interest and new models coming to market.
“Embrace heritage” is a strategy where a brand leans on its historical identity—design cues, driving feel, and core engineering values—to guide new products. In this segment, it’s used to explain why Jaguar and Lotus are being discussed as trying to “go back to basics” rather than fully abandoning what made them distinctive.
The Porsche 911 is Porsche’s most famous sports car. Here, the speaker means the vehicle still felt like a 911 in how it looks inside and how it drives, even though it’s an SUV.
Jaguar is being used as a comparison point. The speaker says Jaguar can put a big battery under the car’s floor and still keep the car feeling luxurious and quick, while they’re less sure Lotus can do the same for a sports-car brand.
The Lotus Evora is a sports car made by Lotus, designed to feel agile and fun to drive. In this discussion, it’s mentioned as one of the cars that went away when Lotus shifted quickly toward electric models.
Private equity is when investment firms buy a business and try to change it quickly to make it more profitable. The speaker is using it as a metaphor for how a brand can lose its “feel” after that kind of ownership change.
LIVE
The Cardiola podcast is sponsored by AutoTrader.
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Yes, I think I read that somewhere.
Well, with over 84 million consumer visits per month, they connect retailers like us
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each customer, incredible amounts of data about the cars that we'll sell in our local area,
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It sounds like AutoTrader is basically doing all the work for you, James.
No, John, I still do some things, like take out the bins.
Anyway, to find out more about how AutoTrader can help you, visit autotrader.co.uk
slash partners slash retailer.
Welcome back to the Cardiola podcast, where we pick our favourite stories of the week
and ask an industry guest to choose which were the best.
I'm John Ray, and joining me this week is the man with the poorly Volvo, is James Batchelor.
Yeah, I was wondering whether you were going to bring that up.
Hello, John. Lovely to be back.
It is nice to be back. I haven't been on for quite a few weeks,
because I've been in my garage trying to fix my Volvo.
So what's wrong with it? Is it not ready for the BTCC yet then?
It's not ready for the BTCC. I mean, I'm sure listeners,
I can't remember whether I've told the story on the podcast,
but just to give a brief overview of what's happened,
basically, I bought a Volvo 850 T5R from auction late January,
and I broke every single rule going, despite the fact that the number of buyer's guides
and how-to guides that I've written over the years of how to buy a used car,
particularly at auction, I broke all of the rules.
So I paid too much money for it, I didn't do my research,
and it's kind of bitter me on the you-know-what.
So, yes, so it hasn't been working, and I'm desperately trying to fix it,
because, as you and I both know, I'm trying to move house at the moment,
and I've got a rather large ornamental Volvo in the garage that doesn't move.
So it's a little bit stressful, yes.
I mean, some people have garden gnomes,
but yeah, I could see you with a black 850R.
Yeah, but anyway, I made James buy two Volvo from Japan,
and I think at least one of those is broken.
Well, in fact, the two that he's got in the UK at the minute are broken.
There's a third one to arrive soon, which probably will also be broken.
So there we go.
Anyway, what have you been up to apart from that?
Well, I have, it's been pretty quiet week, actually,
because I've just been on on car dealer editorial duties, mostly.
So I'm the one who's been cracking through all the stories,
but I did find time to go on a new car launch,
and you will be surprised at this, Johnny Ray.
It was for a mid-sized SUV that was powered by a petrol engine.
But which country was it from? Was it from China?
No, it was from Japan, which, ouch, I don't think that's really that unusual,
really, is it? But yes, it was just, it was rather amazing.
It was a three-hour driving route, which is very unusual these days,
because it's all about, you know, most new car launches are about the tech,
and they want to tell you about batteries and not let you drive the car,
whereas this was the other way round. It was lovely.
So it was throwback to the golden age of cars, and I really enjoyed myself.
The golden age of petrol SUVs.
What? What was it?
Master CX-5.
Oh, okay, right, now all is revealed, yeah, fair enough.
Yes, so, okay.
Yes, anyway.
Well, shall I stop us prattling on and introduce our guest?
Please do.
Lovely. So, join us this week, I'm pleased to say,
as founder of Used Car Dealer DB Automotive, it's, of course, Danny Bond.
Danny, thanks for joining us.
How are we doing? Okay.
Yeah, not too bad. Love you to have you on.
Yeah, thank you for having me.
Well, I think for anyone listening, obviously, we've had you on the
Car Dealer Live stage, but tell us a bit about yourself.
How did you get into motor trades?
So, I came from a marketing background, and at that time I was looking for different clients
to do social media marketing, stumbled across a car company, and I started looking at how they
did their marketing, how they got their customers. This certain car dealer weren't on
auto trader. They were doing a lot kind of on social media with referrers and things, and
I knew a lot about paid advertising at that time. So, I went into that business,
and with the paid advertising side, kind of transformed that business and grew it to the
point where the owner of the business at that time wanted me to come on board as like a self-employed
salesperson and sort of do my own spin on it. From there, what happened was is I was with the
company for maybe about nine months, and they just had a point where they had a fair few people
leaving them, and the line manager at the time looked at everybody else who they thought
might leave them in the future and just got rid of anybody that could have potentially left them.
So, I left there on a bit of a sour taste, and then just were forced really to set upon my own.
I'm still, I get on really well with the person that let me go, because it was the best thing that
happened. So, that was my sort of unorthodox journey into car sales.
Is cars something you've always been interested in, which you just kind of,
you just found it was a good business model and thought, do you know what, this works,
I'm going to carry on with this? I've always liked cars, I've not been very good with it,
I'll be honest, you know, like I've always been that person that's had a car and then
rolled over thousands of negative equity and gone to another car and gone to another car and
that's through me being young, that's kind of all, I remember that journey of
some of the cars that I've had, but I've always appreciated a nice car. I wouldn't say I'm a
full on petrolhead, but I do feel that I know what kind of a certain demographic wants and what
they want out of a car, so I can kind of niche down on the audience that, to me, the audience that
I'm going to sell to. So, tell us a little bit about DB Automotive then, so when obviously you
started it up after leaving the previous place, how long have you been going now?
Nine years, just shy of nine years. So, it started off brokering cars, where literally
people going social media with a little bit like a leasing company would say, we can get this car
at this price and I used to go on LinkedIn and I'd say, I could get a batch of these cars and
literally I'd just be sourcing cars individually for people and I did that for the first year from
a cost of coffee. We're meeting a girl called Jess and we're just literally, it would just
answering phone calls, getting clients requirements, working with finance brokers and just placing them.
From there, from the cost of coffee, we then moved to a 9,000 square foot showroom, which was
probably the worst thing I'd ever done at that time. It was like, I'm going to get me over
heads going from literally nothing to taking on this huge showroom and I walked live for the first
maybe 23 years of doing that. I couldn't get me, I could sell cars but I just couldn't
make money because my over heads would just spiral out of control. I stayed there for
seven and a half years at the showroom, just sorry, seven years at the showroom and then
I kind of got shoehorned out by some new landlords and then I won't go to and then
ended up in a bit of a halfway house for a year and we've just moved to a new site now,
which is like a 50 car outdoor pitch. It's got an indoor showroom and then it's got a big prep
unit at the back that we're just doing up at the moment. It's nine years of stress,
always having to pivot, thinking about what we're going to do next to kind of
maneuver into what the current situation of the world is and how people are buying,
but I love it and that's the main thing really. I think that would be a tale familiar to anyone
listening really, the constant pivoting and adjusting and trying to deal with whatever
challenges are throwing you away next. What sort of stuff are you stocking at the minute then?
When we first started, first year, we were just anything that anybody wanted, that time doing
loads of JLI stuff, which was brave for the first year doing lots of evokes and things like that.
I remember on LinkedIn, like I said, I said this at the talk that I did for yourselves,
like the first year, LinkedIn was 80% of my sales and that was nearly all JLI, like literally
going on LinkedIn and saying, if you want the hassle taken away of going to a showroom and you
need a certain car, get in touch with me and I would source in loads of evokes. The problem was
is I was sourcing lots of evokes for probably recruiters that didn't do that many miles,
so it wore DPF issues and stuff. Then when I went to the showroom, the first couple of years,
it was a bit of everything and then because we was doing the finance led stuff, I was seeing the
residuals were really strong on Mercedes, so we had two years of just doing out and out Mercedes
Benz, A-classes, E-classes, CLA's, JLA's, JLI's, that sort of stuff. For whatever reason, one day,
the finance company has decided that they didn't like the E-class anymore, didn't like the C-class
anymore, they didn't like the JLI, so the residuals got so low on them that that kind of monthly
payment the customers were looking for. That went, so we did the mixed German stuff for the
last few years and then the last quarter of last year, I sold a couple of Tesla Model Ys and I
thought, this is easy, this feels too easy. Then looking outside of my pitch now, it's probably 35
Teslas sat out there at the moment, so it's just made a pivot now to pretty much all EV
and it's working really well. It feels really easy in terms of that my prep bills are low
and I don't ever hear from the customers again when they go because there's not really much that
goes wrong with them. So I've kind of always had to as an independent, just pivot and not be afraid
to pivot, not be afraid to change things. If I see something that isn't working, then I can change it
and just by chance, I tried that with the Tesla stuff, I think that'll be me for the next couple
of years at the very least. My electric bills are high, the sky high, but yeah, that's where we are
in this current place. Is that what you'd say your kind of key to success has been over the past
nine years? Because for somebody who hasn't sort of been born and bred in the motor trades and
you've come from a marketing background, you're clearly doing something right to still be in it
after nine years, nearly a decade. Is it that ability to spot new trends and not be afraid to
change your operations? Potentially, but probably my biggest advantage of, I still think I'm learning
now and I'm nine years in, is in the times where it's been rough, I've come from another industry,
I come from a music industry, which I still work in the music industry now, like every now and again,
I was able to have six months where I didn't pay myself while we figured out, you know,
reinvest back in the business because it's so easy for, you know, I see so many car dealers going now
and it's not really their fault, it's just you can have three to six bad mums and that can be a
cash flow gone and I've had so many, what I call near-death experiences of, you know, through COVID,
through, we even had it when we were moving last year, that we've had a terrible last year,
this year going forward was amazing, but I've been able to say, right, okay, this is the time
where I'll stop paying myself for a little bit and then give the business a little bit of breathing
space to pivot out of that, maybe because I'm pretty entrepreneurial, I do, I'm not scared
to change things and things like that, but I've also as well probably, I've got away from a lot
of the vanity side, I think in my first, obviously from going from cost of coffee to a 9,000 square
foot showroom was vanity, I wanted that name above the door and it's like now, you know, the refit I've
done on this place is great, but I've kind of held back on going to Chris because you don't know
what's going to happen and you don't know what's going to happen in these next, you know, six to
twelve months, so I feel like you've just got to be kind of prepared and have a war chest,
have a little war chest and be prepared that things can go wrong and realise that, you know,
you can have a month where you can actually lose money and not be scared of it and realise it's a
it's a 12 month year, so maybe if I didn't have the extra income coming in from other places,
I might have made a lot of more in fear decisions rather than just steadying the ship out.
I mean, speaking of worldwide events, you're very well set up with EVs at the minute, was that
before, let's say, some things happened in the Middle East or have you found yourself happily in
the right place possibly for petrol prices going up? I think it was just the right place at that
time, so this time, a good friend of mine, David Gott from Lovely Car Company, you've had David on
the phone, you'll know David, good for him. I was doing the German stuff a lot, that's all I've ever
done really and he came to me and he wanted to know how to sell cars on Instagram and I actually
went and did a video with him and it run the German stuff and at that time, so I just kind of
give him a copy and paste, just do this and he was doing it, it was cool and then for whatever reason,
Artrade, I just fell out with the German stuff and the price marker just went too low and he
couldn't make a margin on it anymore and he was telling me when I've just started to do a few
Teslas and then when I tried a few Teslas, this was the back, what I don't know, when did, when
this year, wasn't it I think? Yeah, I don't know, feel like I was already doing it
before then and we speak pretty much every other day and we'll compare, we might be doing pretty
much the same thing but we're not in any competition because there's loads of people selling Mercedes
all over the country, there's loads of people selling Land Rover, it's just, I probably just
timed it right and I feel a lot of, there's so many traditional dealers that are scared of EVs,
like they might have had one bad experience by selling a 12 year old Tesla and then they've not
had enough margin out of it and the suspension arms have gone off, I feel the fear is what's holding
people back because it's as if they're embarrassed, what they'll have probably done is they'll have
probably slagged off EVs in the pub and stuff all over the southern EV and they don't want to say
to their friend but then eventually you've just got to smell what sells, it's just and work with it
but we style them up, we make our Teslas different which is probably our strong point I'd say.
I mean you definitely, you definitely are in the right place at the right time because I think
you know just just continuing what you were saying there, you know some of the dealers who jumped in
to EVs you know 34 years ago, I mean quite a few of them did get their fingers burnt
quite badly because of course you know the Tesla situation where you know used values of Tesla
Model 3s and Model Ys pretty much halved overnight didn't they so whereas now not only are there
you know worldwide economic reasons for growing interest in EVs but there are more EVs
being pumped into the used car market and more customers are actually seeing them as a viable
alternative to a petrol car so yeah it really does sound like you're in the right place at
right time but of course you can't be complacent though can you, I mean you've still got to
you know you've still got to be on top of your game.
Yeah 100% and no with us, I know if I just sold a Tesla and it looked exactly the same as any
other Tesla that would say I don't know a big modern world or anything I won't stand the chance
but we style them up and lots of different take away from the interior and make it swayed and
we do things that make different wheel trims, we do things that make that person want to come to us
and have it different like for a year past I didn't even have a showroom like we had a handover
bay and a prep site and how we did it from there for that year was just god knows but like now I
can look outside of my window and I can see all my cars in front of me and it's just what people can
come and touch and feel and I feel as well excuse me is that I know where everything's going because
I know where my part exchange is at when I look at my part exchanges it's three litre diesel,
two litre diesel and people at the moment they're seeing it and they're wanting out and it's just
I think that as much as what's going on in with the war it's just made people think about EVs
again but I don't think that when diesel prices come down that they're going to stop thinking
about it because I think that they've they'll have already started to look like Tesla have got a
they've got a fuel saving calculator on their website we're going to well me first I'm going to
develop something similar which will go a bit further where it'll see exactly what car you drive
and it'll start to do the comparisons which the sales staff can then tell me your edge while you
talk to them on the phone and just cross comparison explaining about octopus energy on a night and
I honestly think that the EV mark well as we know from you know the car dealer
sure there was it's pretty much EV led and I'm excited for when you know the BYDs start to
drop a little bit and we can bring them into the affordable size of the used market I don't think
I'll be 100 Tesla I'll be honest with you I'll only think I think I'll only have a stock EV brands
which are 100 EV brands because I've had really bad experiences with other brands
who are traditional you know petrol diesel brand and they're trying EV I've had some really bad
experiences like I don't want to start naming them but some of the German brands their model is more
lent on doing everything possible not to pay on warranty on their own in-house warranty claims
that the warrant is expired too quickly and it's just I've had my fingers burned I went through a
run where I sold two of us a certain type of car lost £7,000 on them and that was because
both of the heating modules failed and it main dealer only part and they won't cover it so I do
I do feel like the EV only brands will did probably the way to go with what we do but
the moment there's only Tesla that feels like the most affordable at this moment in time
yeah they're definitely not all the same are they I think James who I'm sure is listening
from his Tesla driving back from Birmingham would agree with that with all the various
German EVs he said go wrong um I want to ask about social media in a second but before we
from I asked that where are you getting your stock from at the moment and how are you finding it
how are you finding getting EVs for example are people starting to wake up to the idea of selling
Teslas and things yeah this is going up yeah it's our stop turn at moment is about seven days
in terms of seller car is about seven days wow on the Tesla at the moment like I um I sit on the
independent dealer panel or trader sorry um that that was something that got brought up in
in the chat and I don't think people could get sort of the head around it but it's the demand
for what we're doing is is massive but when I'm at BCA when I'm looking at my proxy like I never
bid live in the hall I'm too impulsive and I buy from pretty much everything from BCA um I'm far
too impulsive and I can see the money that I'm losing out on cars and I've had to for my last
maybe 20 30 cars that I bought just gone as high just pretty much gone to retail money and just let
it happen and see where it goes and because I can't sell empty spaces it's just I can't do it um
so I'm finding it difficult in a way to you know make the money that you want to make but on the
flip side I'm managing to do the volume so it's kind of balancing but that's the reason for getting
this new place was my my paint bills are just astronomical at the moment because the Tesla
anybody who knows Tesla is the paint quality on the Tesla they're not the best you know like they
have it's it's thin so they if I didn't have my own like full sort of prep side that's about to be
built would it be sustainable if the if the auction prices keep going the same way I don't know
um but yeah the more people are just starting to see the definitely seeing the Tesla book especially
on BCA I don't like some motorway and car wow something you've got to play with yeah obviously
no um I was sat next to um the CEO at yours and um I actually said it didn't I said it in my chat I
said you know one of the biggest things that were that we have a problem with at the moment is
customers saying motorway have offered me this and I have that problem all the time but from buying
from motorway I'll be honest I don't buy as much as I should do because I can't control
when I'm going to have a car in stock because I can hit the and say I've won that car
but I've just got one that come in and it took 13 days to get in because they were uploading the
documents and then there were then it had to be on their terms and there was just like
just so much that made it hard whereas at least I can't as much as yeah I pay a bit more with BCA
I know that if I win 10 cars that day chances are I'm going to have 10 cars with me in the next
four to five days so that's for for what I want to do I do struggle and obviously that the issue
with motorways and car wows is it's plagued by dealers that are offering 1100 pound
over what they're willing to pay and then they're kicking them on the driveway and I'm not I'm not
that sort of person that I'd want to win do that you know I know a lot of people that do and I get
it but for me maybe I'm just a bit lazy but or maybe I've just got self-conscious that I don't
want to because I see that I see some people get really bad reviews on their google about them buying
cars but not selling cars and buying cars I've not used them as much as I should do purely because
I feel it's hard to control it well if you know the auction's worked for you I think that's great
you know it's just forces of course at the end of the day isn't it? So moving on to social media
because of course we had you on our our panel as a social media guru really obviously you said you
you started off selling cars pretty much entirely on social media I think most people would be
surprised to hear LinkedIn really yeah but how about now of course you've you've pivoted a bit
you I'm assuming did you when you got the site did you kind of look at it and say all right well
we can't this is not a sustainable thing entirely we need to have some classified ads or what kind of
you've pivoted basically haven't you to more classified stuff what's the kind of the logic
behind that? It was seven years before I went to Altrader. Really? Yeah seven years yeah
seven years I've been with them two a year properly I've had the odd I've put the odd
part exchange on there like as a page ago but seven years at that time
Steve Douglas will tell you because he's been there one and I've said speak to Steve a lot
at that time you could so we nearly got acquired years ago and one of the things that went through
in this potential acquisition is they were looking at my cost per sale in terms of my advertising
and I was it would cost me less than 20 pounds a car in terms of paid advertising like 20 pounds
a car when they worked out how much I'd spent to what to what I got back and I didn't even think
that I didn't know that that were good or that were bad I was just spending money on the ads and
seeing the result and then when that started to to go through that was the thing that they were
looking at because they could see that this person can get attention like pretty cheaply and then as
time went on the meta just kept Facebook at that time just kept gradually so if you if you look at
say handing out a thousand leaflets it used to cost two pounds a thousand back in I don't know 2019
and and now it's like 20 pound a thousand so and then more and more people got them to do in it
and it got more competitive so it went from 20 and I think at like
maybe 20 it got to 2022 and it like 180 pounds and it would come in more expensive than auto
trader but sometimes you wouldn't get anything and then the algorithm had changed and and then at
certain days it would go up and so it got it got really challenging so it's it were amazing for me
at that time and again right place right time but I've said now if I were going to do it now
and I want to start a new brand now I'd have a go at doing it organically on TikTok I wouldn't do
any other platform and I'd just have a go at doing it from there and seeing what you can do about
spending because I firmly believe the second you spend a pound on those platforms for anything
the platform knows you need to the wants you to keep going and it's like a vending machine and it's
how hard do you want to go excuse me so it's I see a lot of people who and I think I answer this
question um and they say like and I say to people don't spend a penny until what you're pushing out
there your your copy is really good because you'll just burn money yeah um but yeah it were it were
amazing for me for that time but it's like now all traders nine out of ten are my sales now
yeah yeah I suppose this is the thing is if you if you were gonna sorry about I was going to say if
if someone decided to start a business and start selling through social media really like compared
to if you're auto traders and you're motors kazoo whatever everyone goes in on a level playing
field in that they spend a certain amount of money in there at the same level as long as they
pay attention to what those platforms are saying is the sensible way to advertise cars you know have
you used the have you filled in the description properly and have you put the right number of
images and so on but with social media you kind of have to be I don't want to say an expert but you
need to have some knowledge about what you're doing really even whether that's organically or
you know the paid for stuff even is is complicated for the average person to go into and start playing
around with isn't it 100% for me personally if I was to spend a penny on social media
now what I'd be doing is I'd have a pixel set up on my website and I would have a customer
hand over photo on my Instagram and every time someone clicked on my website the next thing
they saw on Instagram was somebody just having a car handed over you could spend £2 a day on that
and just that alone would get you that little bit more of a 1% advantage over the next person
because it shows right okay I've seen this customers dealer's car on auto trader
and now I can actually see they're a real business and I can see that people have had a good experience
if I was to do that now like just in terms of how would I dip my toe in the water and you can track
then how many people have visited my Instagram profile because they went on my website and it's
just that little subtle you're not actually trying to sell them something you're just showing someone
having an experience with your business you know you don't even have a call to action you're not
even asking them to you know to visit your website just something like that would be you know you go
on chat gpt and ask chat gpt how to do that advert on a free version it'll tell you how to do it
and once you've got your head around that you just leave that running all the time just keep that
running and spend a couple of pound a day and little things like that you might not see a
result from it straight away but if you know that they're visiting your profile that's one person
that's had a subconscious experience with your with your business which auto trader can't do
um like I talked about this when we did the auto trader dealer like the the quarter of a meeting I
says if there was ever to be an amazing update from auto trader if you had a feed like a for you
feed on your auto trader app and you had the dealers that you followed and that pulled in some
social media sort of posts from the dealers who you were following at that time when you were looking
at their cars and favoriting them as a dealer little things like that would be an update to like
how you make a decision of who you're going to buy your next car from because
the issue we've got the moment is AI backgrounds and and and things such like it's so hard to
determine who's a good dealer who's a bad dealer and auto trader because they all look like they've
got this amazing turntable background they spent 40 grand on when the customer doesn't realize it's
just an AI background and I feel like now the playing field isn't going level anymore you've
got AI right in your descriptions if you wanted to do it you've got AI doing your photo you could
have bad quality photos but AI will make them look good so how do you if you're both selling the
tape car how do you get that customer to think to go with you they might look on your reviews but
we do I do it on my google where if you look at my reviews on google it pulls me latest social media
post as well so you can actually see my latest post so it's I think it's as a car dealer going
forward when they let when the playing field everybody can kind of do it is just trying to
find that one percent to stick out and on social media and and that'll be that might be what next
then choose you rather than the other person you're gonna ask a question back so well no I was
I was just going to say that I mean you've pretty much covered it Danny but I mean that that was
one of the major discussion points on your panel wasn't it car dealer live in in March about customer
trust also customers are starting to be be a bit more shy and not actually probably pick up the
phone in in quite the way that they used to or actually physically go down to the dealership
it's more about looking for social media trying to work out whether this car dealer is a person I
can trust have they sold similar cars to customers and it's it's it's a slightly different kind of
world that customers are a kind of operating in right now really isn't it 100% and it's only
going to get they're only going to get shatter because they're used to to being on that like
another thing that I've pushed so hard with like with auto trade and hopefully to do it is
just WhatsApp give us a WhatsApp phone give us a WhatsApp phone because at the moment we have
what's called conversational cloud and the what might be saying that it's terrible it's
auto traders SMS system and when I say it's terrible it's not their system sorry it's another
it's another company called live person and you get an SMS from a you get an SMS that somebody
does from their phone that sends to you but then when it comes through to us on conversation
cloud it masks their phone number even though they've sent an SMS so then you've got to ask them if
they use WhatsApp and they go yeah it's on the same number and then I say well I can't see your
number and they're thinking well I've just text you how can't you see how can't
you see my number and I feel like you know obviously everybody likes a moan about auto
trade and what it costs and stuff but like like I've said to them just give give us a few stand
out features that which will make us think oh yeah it's worth it now be the first person to do WhatsApp
properly like apparently they do WhatsApp in one of their foreign entities like there's an auto
trader abroad and it's got a WhatsApp button that's going to be if you get your WhatsApp right
that's going to be the next thing of where that shire consumer goes we'll click that WhatsApp
button I guarantee that'll be highest clicked it'll it'll outdo message by 10 to 1 easy because
they're comfortable on there like I said in the chat I started sending voice notes like years ago
voice notes and even automated voice notes just so somebody could hear me and it gave me a better
chance of eventually getting them on the phone because and they voice note you're back and
we've just got to be prepared for the next level of a consumer because I guarantee one of the other
platforms will do it and they'll have that little bit of an advantage and just just know how to speak
their language and soften them up a little bit eventually if they'll come on the phone but I
don't think the average 25 year old of today wants to go sit in sit in a and have a piece of paper
put in the face we're showing them the gap and that I don't think they want that I think we've
just got to prepare for how we're going to serve them serve them better and I think that's kind
of maybe because I'm not from car sales me myself I try and think how would I want to be sold to
and that's kind of how we do it really yeah I mean on the negative
side of that though yes WhatsApp or an instant messaging service is a very attractive way for
a lot of the customers to buy a car but surely it's also easier for customers to complain about a car
as well isn't it on on WhatsApp because perhaps they've got an issue with their car they may be a
little bit low to pick up the phone and have a rant to the dealer down the line but it's easier to
have a you know a bit of an awkward conversation on on WhatsApp isn't it some of them seem to
enjoy a rant down the phone batch well yes yeah yeah it is but I think the the worst
thing for complaints is chat GPT by far that's worse than what yeah like that's that's way worse
because all they're doing now is and and the thing with chat GPT is it's you know it's it's
like a dog it's your friend but then it's that other dog that other person's friend so it's like
it's literally it'll do what you tell it to do and argue the way you want it to argue yeah so
it's just I think that's a bigger problem than then how they send their message with us our
WhatsApp is on a CRM system so it's not just linked to WhatsApp it's linked to SMS
Instagram it's linked to Facebook it's all linked into one so it's hard to say that touch word
I hadn't had many complaints in the last sort of five maybe 56 months but I understand
I'll be honest my my yeah my things are always chat GPT emails like when I see what I've come through
I can't imagine that because I guess it's they've said I've got a problem with my
floor mat slightly loose do you think I've got a legal case and chat GPT will say absolutely
based on da and the sale of goods da da da send this yeah 800 word no no no
I was just we're gonna have to move on because we'll run out of time for stories but just very
quickly are you using AI within your business and if so how as we're all told to yeah what do I
use AI for um I don't use it for I don't use it for advert descriptions um I use it to
I have a lot of saved replies in my CRM system so I'll feed it past chats that would
that have been had by customers and work out what they're asking and stuff I'll use it for training
new staff um I will use it if I've got a sticky situation like with a warning but I'll also I'll
be honest sometimes I'll use it because some some customers will send us some questions which
have been AI written and there'll be some stuff I don't even know about a Tesla like like and I
have to ask AI myself to to know what it's about so I'd say I won't say a heavily heavily
rely I don't I don't like it for the adverts not a big fan of it um but I've been doing AI for years
AI in in sort of different ways um so yeah just I'd say light use interesting right uh I think
we ought to do some stories batch don't you yes now a quick word from one of our sponsors
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John have you ever wondered why AI along with 14 000 other dealers choose to partner with
auto trader well actually I didn't think so I'll tell you anyway with more than 84 million consumer
visits every month it connects us with more engaged car buyers and delivers more deals than anyone
else in the UK and now with the launch of buying signals we'll have brand new insights on every
deal showing how likely a customer is to buy the car they're interested in plus as someone
who set out to use AI and data as much as possible in my business I've found their technology data
and tools genuinely invaluable but when I do get stuck which is let's face it most of the time
auto trader is always on hand and committed to supporting us to get the very best from our
package to find out how they can help you visit trade.autotrader.co.uk now back to the podcast
so Batch and I are going to run through our favorite stories of the week and at the end
Danny gets to decide which one of us chose the best ones and who is the winner
James declared some sort of strange new series last week I don't know what he's talking about
so I'm just going to start on the basis that I won last week otherwise we're here all week
so I'm going to start with some news from north of the border and Peter Vardy so Peter Vardy of
course had quite an empire of car dealers and of course he's got car money as well car finance
company but in the last two years or in the certainly the last 12 months he's been scaling back
and it seems he's now offloaded if you want to use that word the last remaining dealerships that he
had which was effectively a couple of Porsche sensors I think to Van Mosel which if you've been
abroad to northern Europe you'll know is an enormous car dealer group in the likes of
Holland, Benelux if you want to use that particular word all those sorts of places
and they've got a couple of things over here I think they started off in the Isle of Man
strangely possibly for tax reasons who knows and I think they acquired a couple I think it was like
is it Breeze VW or something like that? Breeze Automotive and Ocean Automotive both two south
coast businesses last year late last year yeah yes so they're gradually increasing their footprint
in the UK which I thought was quite interesting they've gone completely to the opposite end of
the UK almost I've made with this because I can't remember where these are I think one's in like
one's in Perth and one's in Aberdeen so pending approval from the FCA of course
but yeah I thought it was quite interesting so but it's a sad well that's one part of the story
the other part is that car money which I think has been quite a successful part of his portfolio
has been sold to a Japanese trading group called Itochu which is just one of those
enormous Japanese thank you I try
but it's just an enormous conglomerate Japanese company that buys lots of other
business entities with a view to expand its well accelerate its expansion really
so a nice bit of news there but it's just it's like the end of an era really if Peter Vardi's
got rid of all these dealerships you know the Vardi name is as strong as anything in the
motor trade and to some extent it's come to an end what do you think of this batch?
Yeah it came out of the blue a little bit I know Peter Vardi has been slowly exiting
the the motor trade over the past couple of years but I mean it does feel like a big moment
doesn't it the last two retail sites have been sold to Van Mosel to be fair I always want to
call Van Morrison but I have to be a bit careful because I was writing the story yesterday and
I did find myself writing Van Morrison a couple of times so hopefully I've corrected every single
reference to that musician but yeah I think the interesting thing for me well there are two
interesting things but firstly with with Van Mosel as opposed to somebody you know the Lithias and
the Group One Automotives you know these big companies you know which have come you know
overseas they've come into the UK market and they've gone for the obvious players if you
look at Van Mosel they've gone for the very well respected kind of family run businesses
that have got great reputations in the motor trade and Peter Vardi is right at the top of that
of that of that scale really you know like you say you know he's got his origins obviously
with with Reg Vardi it's a it's a name that has been in the automotive sector for a very long time
very well trusted and I'm pleased for Peter Vardi I mean you know he's been very
candid with us over the past few years he's appeared on a couple of podcasts and at Cardi
live and explaining why he's making this retreat from the motor trade I mean it's a very hard decision
particularly considering his family background but you know he's just being
just quite upfront and honest about the fact that he wants to focus on other stuff and
the motor trade is a very changing business at the moment and he wants to focus on
particularly his philanthropic work you know through the Peter Vardi foundation he's doing
they've definitely bought a great couple of showrooms you know good staff and so yes it's
an interesting time isn't it and it'd be interesting to see what Van Mosel's next
move is because I'm sure this won't be the last purchase that they'll be doing so yeah
it's an interesting story a little bit out of the blue this week but sad times as well I think
yeah I think on the Van Mosel bit yeah you wonder if they're testing the waters for more
you know further expansion really but as you say it's interesting not to just go
all out and spend a lot of money on one group yeah maybe they're getting a feel for the market
perhaps Danny did you see this story what's your make of this I did see this story yes I saw it
I'm sure I saw it yesterday um which maybe comes back to my last point of
is the traditional showroom model is is is Vardi looking at that and thinking that
the is the juice worth the squeeze in terms of is it is it worth it is is all those
so ultimately we're all selling on the same platform we're all binding by the same gross
margin because we're all pretty much buying from the same place is it is that kind of spelling
a bit of a revolution in how the market is going is the young consumer seeing the value in
you know an established family brand do they look and think all go there because that's a
a generational brand don't know who knows yeah very it's very nuanced isn't it to use
James's favorite word because I think with with some brands certainly I think that is important
you know but I think when when your new brands come in I think that's somewhat important but
yeah you're right if you're buying a new Porsche where'd you buy it from it's
yeah you sort of go through wherever it's going to be the cheapest and can get it the quickest I
think to some extent yeah right that move us on right yeah let's move on to to another you know
big figure in the motor trade but a business that is very much locked into the traditional
showroom model and that is of course virtue motors you know listed dealer group you know
191 outlets they've got across the country you know it is it's worth reminding us how
enormous virtue is sometimes and their financial results for the past year came out
this week it made for very interesting reading a revenue was up 1.5 to 4.83 billion pounds
but profits were down reported profit before tax fell from 24.8 million to 20.3 million
and adjusted profit before tax fell from 29.3 million to 24.5 million so tough times but you
know obviously in financial results you know you do have to be very open and and and explain the
reasons for that I always find virtue are very open and very um were very candid in the reasons
for you know the the the effects to their to their business and they've been very open you know
11 element has been um of course the the zev mandate you know the the car manufacturers
who are slashing um new electric car prices um which is in turn makes it difficult for for the
car dealers concerned and also virtue you know was a was a big um partner to JLR and of course
JLR had its big cyber attack um September October last year and virtue took a big hit
from that particularly from surface revenues so um yeah it's it makes for interesting reading but
the the outlook does look quite good the first two months of the next financial year are starting
to look better for virtue but yes um it's it's it's been a big week really because you know
virtue motors is very much a bellwether for um for the for the motor trade really
yeah I think so because they're so uh well they've got fingers in a lot of pies haven't they
so to some extent that diversification is great but of course yeah in an instance like this it
opens you up to um losses in the manufacturers that aren't doing so well if I can put it like that
um yeah I mean the cyber attack one yes I've forgotten about the cyber attack one is interesting
and it's with with JLR but of course they were insured for quite a substantial amount and got
quite a chunky insurance payoff um as a result obviously not actually covering the amount of
lost profit unfortunately but a decent amount of it was covered um but yeah I mean the these are
always good because virtue result story is always great because Robert Forrester is always quoted
in them um in his usual plain speaking way and of course in this particular one he's he's uh
let his feelings be known once again about the zev mandate he says the zev mandate is
distorting volumes margins and channel mix for new car and commercial vehicles alongside
elevated discounting and potential non-bev supply constraints well I don't think anyone
would disagree with that particularly um but it just it goes to show the challenges in the
market at the minute for for new car dealers doesn't it yeah yeah necessarily yeah and and on that
point you know um over the past 12 months virtue have sold off a few dealerships a few honda franchises
etc um and they've like a lot of dealers they are going heavily with the chinese as well jacu
cherry um geely but of course you know they they they've got 100 you know over 190 sites across
the uk and so they've they are very um prone to you know having such a balanced pork you know
such a sorry a very varied portfolio of brands you know there's some brands that obviously doing
incredibly well at the moment and some other brands which are which are struggling to with this
you know with with the zev mandate so of and of course virtue by the very nature of their size
they are very um sort of prone to to the ups and downs of those of those car brands
daniel i'll come to you for your thoughts uh briefly before we move on yeah it was quite
i was just trying to work out what what percentage net profit is that so 24 million from
4.8 would say 4.8 billion turnover now you're asking uh how can i do maths get chat gpt load is that
john yeah i'm just i'm just trying to work well whilst john works on that because i'm just you
think about things you like that and you think you only need a
couple of more living wage increases on on your workforce and it's scary how that number can
can shrink and yes you know 24 million seems seems amazing 24 i feel like 24 million or 4.
something billion is yeah i can i can understand their frustrations i can really understand it
yes that percentage out i haven't i i've not had enough coffee it's 959 54 in the morning it's not
kicked in yet but i was gonna say it's a fair point actually and surprisingly well i mean perhaps he
has but we haven't written it in this story there's no mention of uh the costs of employment in this
which i would be something that i would imagine robert would be happy to talk about in the in
the report but anyway um shall i move us on yes yeah do uh say that have i actually chosen a story
to move us on to oh what should i talk about i don't want to talk about the fca uh i'm not gonna
talk about the fca i'm gonna talk about evs because the fca news is not news uh but news from kazoo and
is nearly one in four according to them one in four buyers intend to switch to an ev for their
next car so 24 percent of buyers are expecting their next car to be an ev says a survey that kazoo
has done of about 2000 people um which is quite chunky i mean just for reference when they asked
in january it was 21 so in some ways it's not a surprise that it's jumped since certain events
in the middle east um but interesting nonetheless i thought um so of course naturally that's dropped
the number of people considering an ice car down from 47 percent to 45 hybrids also jumping a little
bit um where's the diesel figure this is what i'm interested in it doesn't seem to be a particular
diesel figure but i it's interesting that there's some there's some numbers to back up what i think
we will are imagining is happening in the market anyway i think there's a what did you think batch
yeah i think the interesting part of that survey for me was a quite um kazoo worked out that quite
a lot of people are um intend to sort of leapfrog um from petrol to electric whereas you know up
until now it's been very much a you know kind of baby steps towards pure electric whether that's a
mild hybrid or a full plug-in hybrid whereas kazoo feel as though that this this pool
of 2000 people that they quizzed you know i can't remember the precise number but that a sizable
proportion of those people um are willing to jump from petrol straight into an electric car next time
and you know you know let's you know look at the the use dv mark at the moment and and the current
how buoyant it is at the moment i'm sure you know dany you know you you will comment on this um
why wouldn't you in some instances um you know i i was talking to darin martin about this during
the week about um uh particularly the lower end of the used e v mark at things like around the
10 000 pound mark you know you look at what you can get as a used e v for 10 000 pounds you know
things like a voxel course or electric you know which okay it's not a a solution for for lots and
lots of people i know but if you if you've got a customer example that's not the example i would
have picked that to be honest i don't know i but yes if you if you can allow
me to to finish my point john that would be great but in that instance if you've got somebody who
is considering perhaps you know a petrol voxel coaster for example that's switching to an electric
not only is it the same price point but it's also very familiar it's just a voxel
coaster with an electric motor so you know it starts to get to the point where when there's
prize parity um and you've got the you know you've got a home wall box you know you've got the right
lifestyle for an e v what you know the the the risk of switching to an e v just suddenly gets a lot
smaller doesn't it same i mean i can imagine what the reports are on this yeah yeah i i'd agree
maybe obviously when um kazoo have done that survey we're talking it's it's in the war so
it might not necessarily people who just might just be that diesel my diesel buyers or petrol
buyers might not have even been looking at that moment in times they're thinking oh god i don't
want to have another one because i'm already cut spending enough for this but yeah it'd be
interesting to see if you ask that hopefully you know if this this stops ask it at quote for and if
if everything stopped by then to see if it's still the same the thing probably at the moment what
is letting evs down in the cheaper end of the market is the insurers are still putting quite a
high cost of my no recent look at my my son's learning to drive at the moment and i were thinking
about well i ended up getting him a seat of beef about i were thinking about looking at an ev for
him but you know like the cost to ensure it was just astronomical it just didn't work so hopefully
if the insurers one day kind of you know take the foot off the gas in terms of the charging so much
for it it might open that market up to even the first time buyer which would make it very interesting
yeah that's true i'd not know if he really talks about the insurance of them but yeah
that's it right do you want to squeeze one more in batch at this time yeah um it's between two
stories and i've chosen which one i'm going to go for i mean it's it's in a similar kind of vein
with evs and hybrids um it's lotus actually some news from lotus this week where they are scaling back
their um full electric plans i mean it's yet another car maker who has uh sort of woken up
and smelt the coffee a little bit really and has realized that that a very aggressive push to
towards a pure electric future perhaps isn't quite right considering um you know where the
market is and particularly and the brands that are doing it are the high-end brands you know
and that kind of a 100000 pound electric car market uh it doesn't seem to be there at the
moment jaguar are you listening to this um but lotus have kind of realized this also a big reason
why they've changed their plan to uh to go pure electric in 2028 is of course you know they are
owned by geely and in china at the moment there there's a big push on on hybrid technology
which is why in the uk we are starting to get quite a few uh chinese plug-in hybrids appear
here at the moment and um so so um so lotus have kind of ripped up that plan to go pure
electric by 2028 and instead they've um they've decided to uh to actually um build a v8 powered
v8 hybrid supercar which um is uh quite remarkable news isn't it there are obviously it's led to a
lot of speculation that it's going to be the the return of the esprit um and uh yeah it's just it's
quite interesting isn't it i mean i do kind of me putting my cynical hat on here i do kind of um
get a little bit worried that uh is this another danie bahar moment which uh which our listeners
might remember that uh it former owner of lotus i think it was about 15 or 16 years ago came out
with this very grand plan of lotus's future and i think it's going to be like six or seven new cars
one of which was going to be a new esprit and it kind of just just was quickly forgotten about
wasn't it and and the situation changed i don't think it's going to be that kind of situation
geely seemed to be a very shrewd operator um i don't think it's going to be that kind of moment
but uh it is it's much like jaguar actually who are also in the headlines this week with the whole
type 01 um announcement it's this kind of desire to sort of go back to basics and
sort of embrace heritage which you know with lotus you know we we all know lotus for its
super cars and sports cars don't we not necessarily you know a thousand horsepower electric SUVs
no that's right and i i was i was talking to somebody i was talking to a fellow journalist
about the lotus situation at the moment and it just it feels like lotus unfortunately and
wizards although glr we're spending money on things and employing the right people to engineer
and design things they can't it's very hard to take a manufacturer that's known for small
lightweight things and transition to electric SUVs and then keep some of that dna still in there
there's not really much like i think everyone threw their arms up in the air when the kn came out
for Porsche for example in whenever it was 90 2001 or something like that um but that at least
intrinsically did feel like a Porsche you know all the it you'd sit in it and it was 9 11 ish in its
interior put it that way and the way that it drove and and so on even though it's an SUV and i just
don't think that works for Lotus so i personally worry about the Lotus name i don't think and i
you know i wouldn't i don't envy them trying to i think they've got a tougher job than Jaguar have
to some extent because at least Jags are big and luxurious and whatever and sticking a
enormous battery under the floor and it'll still be big and luxurious and quiet and fast and all
that i don't think it really works these EVs Lotus not to completely you know pay on this idea
i mean the v8 is a strange one though isn't it because they're presumably going to buy that
v8 in from someone gd group doesn't have a v8 anywhere currently as far as i'm aware no no engineer
one specifically for this i would guess no perhaps they might put a rover v8 in you never know they
might probably find find stocks of those somewhere i don't know i think you're right with the Porsche
allergy because i know there was a lot of chrism in the kn came out but at least Porsche
was still investing in their sports cars at the time whereas it seems like Lotus kind of
to use that word again pivoted but pivoted very quickly to big electric cars to the detriment
of their sports cars the lease went off sale you know cars like the Evora and what have you
disappeared as well so it was a very sudden shift towards electric and now you just feel as though
they're just trying to kind of row back a little bit and try and bring the brand back to to what
we know it will fall really um yeah it strikes me a little bit as like when uh what's the word
private equity buys a buys a brand like a fashion brand or something like a luxury brand and then
you find suddenly it's all not quite as nice and they've completely lost the plot that's sort of
what it goes off for me but anyway Danny what did you what do you think of Lotus at the minute
yeah well my landlord here is a lot of specialist uh so big mention John John Seale sports cars
that's all pretty much all this whole heat that's all he sells and it's when when we talk about it
it's how you educate people it's an enthusiast's brand and like you say it's a heritage enthusiast
and has it missed a generation that are coming through now where like you say you've got you've
got options like Jaguar Porsche so yeah it's I can understand why they try to
reinvent things and and come out but it'd be interesting to see what where they'll be in
in 10 years time will it just be a brand where like I say it's a heritage and it's more of a
classic of a classic brand but I guess time will tell indeed um so I think we're running out of time
so Danny before I ask for your verdict are there any stories you think we should have talked about
this week but we haven't we could have talked about the big motor and world court case but I'm
just being another thing I've been following that quite quite quite closely um that I could
I haven't dug too much into it I were definitely going deeper into it last week but
other than that obviously I know there's there's a lot of stuff with with the fca um
I could go on we ain't got another hour to go on about that but I feel that I think the story I'm
because it is the like you say it's the end of a sort of end of an era of a family generational
brand and maybe it's it's it's the sign of where the industry is is going and it's a sad time
but that's going to be the story I'm going to pick excellent yes it's a it's a bit of sweet
win for me that but I will absolutely take it well all that's left for me to say on that note
then is thank you to Danny for joining us today it's been great to hear from you and get your
insight about all things social media as well and uh do you hope you'll come back on in the future
as well yeah lovely stuff and thank you as well to James bachelor if you are a part specialist for
mid 90s volvos do get in touch um and thank you for listening we will be back next week with
another episode I don't think I'll I think you're hosting this next week that you're doing you're
being me um unless you've forgotten I know things change quickly in the world of motor retail
show business don't they guest one week and then hosting the next week so can't wait you've been
upgraded congrats um you don't get paid anymore unfortunately um other than that uh make sure
you're subscribed taking notified when that goes live if you want to check out the stories you
mentioned today take a look at the show notes below or head to cardinalmagazine.co.uk thanks for listening and goodbye
About this episode
Dealership consolidation and EV buyer intent take center stage as the hosts recap Peter Vardy’s exit—selling the last retail sites to Van Mosel and moving his “car money” to Itochu—then dig into Vertu Motors’ results, where “revenue was up 1.5 to 4.83 billion pounds but profits were down.” EV consideration is rising fast, with Kazoo data suggesting “next car so 24 percent of buyers are expecting their next car to be an ev,” while dealer margins are squeezed by ZEV policy, cyber fallout, and shifting used values.
