Peter Waddell in court, Polestar boss hails 'renaissance of the dealers', and latest on finance redress scheme – with Mike Askew, episode 244
Car Dealer Podcast
Peter Waddell in court, Polestar boss hails 'renaissance of the dealers', and latest on finance redress scheme – with Mike Askew, episode 244
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Car
Rivian
Rivian is a company that makes electric vehicles, including a pickup truck called the R1T. It's built for both everyday use and off-road adventures.
Concept
Clangors
Clangors are cars that are not quite old enough to be classic cars but are also not new. They are usually cheap and have some sentimental value, even if they aren't worth much money.
Car
Renault Mégane
The Renault Mégane is a small car that many people in Europe drive. It comes in different versions, including ones that use diesel fuel, which is a type of fuel that can be more efficient than regular gasoline.
Car
W211 Mercedes
The W211 is a model of the Mercedes-Benz E-Class, which is a line of luxury cars. Some people think it's not very exciting or fun to drive, but others appreciate its comfort and features.
Car
Evo
The Evo is a high-performance version of the Mitsubishi Lancer, designed for speed and handling. It's popular among car fans for its racing capabilities and sporty design.
Car
Impreza
The Subaru Impreza is a small car that is known for being fun to drive, especially the sportier versions. It's also good in bad weather because it has all-wheel drive, which helps with traction.
Car
BMW Z3
The BMW Z3 is a small, sporty convertible car made by BMW from 1995 to 2002. It's loved for its fun driving experience and stylish looks.
Car
MGF
The MGF is a small, two-seat convertible car made by MG from 1992 to 2002. It's known for being light and fun to drive, appealing to car lovers.
Car
Ford Puma
The Ford Racing Puma is a sportier version of the Ford Puma, which is a small car. It's designed to be more fun to drive and has better performance than the regular version.
Car
MG ZS
The MG ZS is a small SUV made by the MG brand. It's known for being affordable and stylish, but some owners have reported issues with reliability, especially with the gearbox.
Car
Skoda Karoq
The Skoda Karoq is a small SUV that is easy to drive and has a lot of space inside. It's designed to be practical and comfortable for everyday use.
Car
Mini Cooper
The Mini Cooper is a small, stylish car that is fun to drive. It's known for its unique look and good handling, making it popular in cities.
Car
Kia Picanto
The Kia Picanto is a tiny car that's great for city driving because it's cheap to buy and easy to park. People like it because it helps them save money on gas and is simple to use.
Term
plug-in hybrid
A plug-in hybrid is a car that can use both electricity and gasoline. You can charge it at home, and it can drive on electric power for a while before needing gas.
Brand
Peugeot
Peugeot is a car brand from France that makes different types of vehicles. They are known for their stylish designs and efficient engines.
Brand
Citroën
Citroën is a car brand from France that is known for making unique and innovative cars. They often focus on comfort and style.
Car
BMW i3
The BMW i3 is a small electric car that stands out because of its unusual look and eco-friendly materials. It was one of the first electric cars made by BMW, focusing on being different and fun to drive.
Term
lane keep assist
Lane keep assist is a technology in some cars that helps keep the vehicle in its lane. If you start to drift out of your lane, the car can gently steer itself back to help you stay safe.
Term
EV
An EV, or electric vehicle, is a type of car that uses electricity to run instead of gas. They are often better for the environment because they don't produce exhaust fumes.
Car
Smart Fortwo Coupé
The Smart Fortwo Coupé is a tiny car made for city driving. It's very small, which makes it easy to park, but some people find it uncomfortable to drive.
Car
Smart ForTwo
A Smart car is a tiny car that's easy to park and great for city driving. It's known for being small and efficient, perfect for navigating through traffic.
Term
range
The 'range' of a car is how far it can go before needing to refuel or recharge. For electric cars, this means how many miles it can drive on a full battery.
Brand
Volkswagen Group
Volkswagen Group is a big car company that makes many different brands like Volkswagen and Audi. They are known for their wide variety of vehicles.
Car
Renault Twizy
The Renault Twizy is a small electric car that's great for driving around the city. It's very compact and can fit into tight parking spots, making it perfect for urban areas.
Term
battery rental
Battery rental means you pay a monthly fee to use the car's battery instead of buying it. It can help lower the initial cost of the car, but you don't actually own the battery.
Car
Dodge Challenger
The Dodge Challenger is a big, powerful car that many people love for its speed and cool design. It's often talked about because it's a classic American car that competes with newer brands and models.
Term
PCP
PCP is a way to finance a car where you pay a deposit and then monthly payments. At the end, you can choose to buy the car or give it back.
Brand
Polestar
Polestar is a car brand from Sweden that makes electric cars. It started as a company that improved Volvo cars and now makes its own unique models.
Car
Ford Focuses
The Ford Focus is a small car that many people use for everyday driving because it's easy to park and saves on gas. It's often brought up when talking about how car companies make and sell cars.
LIVE
The Cardiola podcast is sponsored by Autotrader.
John, have you ever wondered why I, along with 14,000 other dealers, choose to partner
with Autotrader?
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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
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But when I do get stuck, which is, let's face it, most of the time, Autotrader 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.
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, as usual, is, of course, James Baggart.
James, hello.
Very formal.
Hello, John.
How are you?
Nice to see you.
Yes, and we are, for once, not in America, so we can't pretend that we can't sing anymore.
How was your jet lag?
Terrible.
Really?
Terrible, yeah.
I've just about recovered now, and it's what, a week after we flew back near enough?
Yeah, it was an interesting trip, wasn't it?
Lots of content to come from that, which we're busy working our way through.
I've sort of hit the ground running this week on the content side.
So looking forward to putting the videos out.
The first one's coming out on Sunday night, which is about the Rivian, which we talked
at length about on the podcast last week.
So I'm looking forward to putting that one out on the YouTube channel because I was
very impressed with that car, very impressed indeed.
Yes, I got that impression while we were in it, because, you know, for once in an EV,
you weren't shouting at it.
Exactly, yeah, very, very enjoyable one, that one.
And it's, yeah, I've been back at the dealership this week catching up on on stuff,
seeing what's been going on.
That's been that's been interesting.
They've had they had a busy week last week, sold quite a few cars.
I've turned up and the the drought has begun again.
I think we've sold one this week.
We've also we're also missing Luke, who is our, you know, handyman.
And he's he's gone off to Japan, followed your adventures once again, John.
You've come back into the dealership, told him about one of your holidays
and he's copied you.
So he's disappeared with two children under four on a 14 hour flight to Japan.
Very brave boy and he's enjoying that for two weeks.
But it's meant that Joe and I have been thrown back in to doing everything.
So I'm cleaning stuff again and just ruining stuff.
I had to fill up some some tyres with some air.
With you specified with some air.
You know me and mechanics and we've got a compressor in the dealership,
which I haven't touched for quite some time because Luke normally does that.
So I went over quite innocently, innocently, turned it on,
went round, filled up the cars and tyres, came back and realised
it had pretty much covered the entire that side of the dealership with oil.
I think I'd left a valve open and honestly,
the whole place was covered in compressor oil.
So yeah, he's going to come back.
He's going to be quite upset.
He's going to be quite upset.
Oh, this is when you hear things, this is the problem.
You need to just stay as the buyer on your little auction websites.
I don't even do that right.
Well, arguably, no, given the stuff that's been coming back to you recently.
But anyway, yes, that's another story.
But yes, a little bit slower at the moment, a little bit slower.
I've been chatting to a few people in the trade and they're saying it's pretty steady.
So yeah, I mean, it's it's a weird start to the year, I think, for for the most trade.
It's not been as great guns as many people thought it was going to be.
But today, it depends what market you're in, I think.
I know it's the cliche as well, but I wonder if the weather doesn't help.
Because I mean, we wouldn't know this because we've been in 30 degree weather
and it's been lovely.
But I just it's been so horrible here, isn't it?
You just feel like people aren't going out and buying standing out
in a wet carpark looking at damp metal.
It's just not not an appealing prospect, is it?
And we do love blaming something else when you're a dealer for the reason
that you're quiet. So in the summer, it's obviously because it's hot
and people at the beach in the winter, it's because it's cold
and people are standing out.
I mean, is anyone that anybody buys any cast?
Yes. Oh, dear.
Anyway, let's try and choose our guests rather than spotting on.
So our guest this week is actually a fellow podcaster,
so co-host of the very excellent Clangors podcast,
which I'm sure we'll get into explaining the name of in a minute,
and also boss of Creative Agency, Leica Creative.
It's Mike Askew, Mike.
Lovely to see you.
Hello, Chaps. Nice to see you.
Nice to see you, Mike.
Nice to have a fellow podcaster on because they're all set up
with proper, proper mics and everything.
So yeah, very, very nice to see you.
John and I, big fans of the Clangors podcast.
I've known you for a long time, too, Mike.
Tell people listening a little bit about that.
Where the idea for this Clangors pod came from and what is all about?
Well, it's a podcast that's hosted by myself,
Craig Cheetham and Tom Barnard,
both sort of three old industry veterans, really.
With the three old road testers,
they worked at Auto Express from the mid 90s to the mid 2000s.
I think during that period,
we pretty much drove every new car that was launched.
And there's been some that slipped between the cracks,
but we either did the launch or we would have done group tests
with the cars during that period.
So and those cars that were built during that,
that timeframe are what we call Clangors.
They're sort of they're caught between being classics and bangers.
So they're typically not a lot of money.
And but they're cars that we remember.
And it's always a shock when there's stuff
that you and I will have been on launches of.
And then you see them in scrapyards and things like you think,
my goodness, that's still be worth something.
It turns out they're not.
So mostly driven by Craig, who buys cars like he's running a dealership.
You know, he he acquired stuff.
He's got public car parks just full of tat he's bought from auctions and things.
And they're all they're all Clangors.
So he will get incredibly excited about a base level
McGann, you know, 1.6 non turbo diesel and he would buy that.
And he'd say, oh, there's only three of these left.
And you can I can see why there would only be three of them left in the world.
But he loves them.
He buys them.
We have a section in the podcast, which is what's Craig bought this week so far.
And we thought we're going to do this every fortnight.
We're probably not going to have enough cars for him to talk about.
But there's usually a huge list.
He is. And what I love about it, the podcast is like,
if Craig will obviously talk about the cars that he's bought,
which you're always there for, you know, for people who listen to this podcast
in that they run the car dealership because they love cars.
So they are they're obviously very unique things that Craig buys.
And I find that Tom sort of gets dragged along with it.
And I think you often hear that Craig has sold him one of these cars.
And you seem to be like the voice of reason that I know for you doing this.
Well, yeah, because maybe I'm because I'm a little bit older than them.
But I value two things, comfort and reliability.
And I don't neither of those seem to come with the cars that these two buy.
And you're right, Craig is the main buyer.
He's the kind of facilitator behind this and he sells stuff to Tom.
And generally, if Craig doesn't want it,
it's got to be at a certain level of acceptance, you know,
so that it does often go on to Tom who then sells it.
Those two are like fire and ice and I'm in this kind of lukewarm water
between the two of them, really.
And I honestly think they only have me on because I can edit.
Otherwise, they wouldn't have a podcast.
Give me the idea, Mike, of some of those cars that you've covered in those
because how many episodes are you in now? Eight is it?
Well, yes, I've got to finish this.
I need to edit episode 10.
So hopefully by the time this is out, episode 10 will be out.
And that the episode 10 was the latest one, which was the W211 Mercedes,
which Craig wanted to do and Tom and I didn't want to do
because we both think it's incredibly boring, dull, old barge.
But Craig has a soft spot for them.
What are we? We've done other cars in the past.
We did the Imprezsor and the Evo, which again, we liked, but Craig didn't
because he said they weren't clangers because you can't you can't buy
either of those for less than probably 20 grand now.
But you know, there was a period when they were super cheap.
Well, Citroen, Zara, VTS, things like that, the new Mini, which was 2001.
Yeah, so it's generally all the cars of that that era.
Some have done better than others.
I think we did Roadsters, which was the Z3 and the MGF.
And that did I think I was the best, best one that we'd done
in terms of, you know, people listening to it.
But yeah, and we're always open for suggestions.
We keep thinking we're going to run out and we realise you hit a rich
seam of something else.
So, yeah, it's and we always think we're not going to have any
memories of this car and then kind of trawls back through my mind.
If I'm going for a walk or a run or something, God, do I do remember?
They'd launch of that and X, Y, Z happened.
So, yeah, it's it's a good sort of memory exercise, if nothing else.
Yeah, and I do enjoy I especially enjoyed the Subaru and the and the Evo one
because I had fond memories of those of those cars when I was on the magazine
myself, I mean, they were they were really important cars.
And I just sort of I sort of remember being lent one of them by the road
test team for my birthday.
I lent us the Impressor and I just had the best weekend of my life.
I mean, I was 21 years old driving an Impressor around just thinking I was
the bees knees.
They were they were they were special cars, but we've been struggling
to buy those in the Orsons, John, and we've been trying to find the
Japanese Orsons.
Really? Yeah, loads of them available, but you can't win them.
Well, do you know what?
There's there's not loads of them available.
I think that's part of the problem.
I think everyone's everyone's either bought them, exported them or in Japan
they're sort of becoming a bit more rare and a bit more sought after now.
So where did they all go then?
Have they earned up in hedges?
I think they probably did.
Yeah, off the side of a Japanese mountain, possibly sort of agree.
They're not Klangers, I have to admit.
Yeah, I know we did kind of stretch the I think we just went to
some of the stories about it.
I think that's the thing you often end up with lots of stories
and they're not technically a Klanger or they are a Klanger and neither
of us can remember it because they were just so dull.
But yeah.
I mean, we we met each other when we were working together on
on Auto Express.
I mean, it was a it was a special time, I think, for my career.
I really enjoyed working for a national weekly magazine.
And it was I think really was in its hey, David, wasn't it?
I remember us having a party for for it selling 100,000 issues.
Yeah, in a week.
Not I mean, you manage that in a year now.
But this was yeah, this was when it was weekly.
And I mean, there were a couple of great things about.
I mean, certainly in the early days and until the sort of mid 90s
when we were nice or started there was pre Internet, which makes me
sound like an absolute dinosaur.
But it was brilliant because you could go on a launch
come back and then someone would agree.
So we want we want half a page for this and you'd have a week to write it.
And it was brilliant.
And now when I go to do a launch, you know, poor souls on there,
they've got to do three social cuts by midday, you know, and then they've
got a father story, have it up on the CMS and everything by five o'clock.
So they're back in their rooms and I mean, in my era, you know,
if you had to turn the copy around within a week, it was a tight deadline.
So yeah, I mean, and back then I think manufacturers are quite a bit more budget.
You know, you and I have both been on events where you look back
and you think, my God, how much does that have cost per head?
You know, and I know a part of the work I do in the moment is I do
events in the car industry.
And I know the pressure, the financial pressures, you know,
in terms of how much you can spend on these things.
Back then, my goodness, it was the Wild West, wasn't it?
Yeah, I mean, there really was.
I mean, can you remember was there any launch that really stuck out in your mind?
Was there one where you just think, wow, that was they blew the budget on this?
I think there were two.
There were one that Tom did, which I didn't do, which was the Maybach launch,
which was they put the car onto the QE2 and you sailed to New York.
And they said I had to go through one press conference in three days.
And that was it.
And then they they airlifted the Maybach off it.
So they drove it around for a half a day and then they caught Concord back.
With Maybach, I can understand that.
You did cover that on your podcast, didn't you?
But the other one, the one that really got me was it Ford Racing Puma.
Racing Puma. Yeah, I did that one.
Yeah, it was at San Francisco.
What happened with that one?
Well, we they put the they put the cars on the bearing mind.
This was a car they sold about 300 of, you know, so they put the cars
onto the Virgin Atlantic plane.
We drove them into the crates and they put the crates onto the onto the plane.
And we were all in upper class.
And it was quite a new, new thing at that time.
So we flew to this flew to San Francisco, I think it was.
And then we drove up the that coast road.
I remember that was the name of that coast road that runs up California.
Yeah, that's the one. Yeah.
So we drove up and down that went to Laguna Seca.
Drove around the racetrack in there.
I mean, the hotels were just all amazing.
I think it were out there for three or four days.
And then we flew back again and everything.
And I think we I think we again, we ran about half page on it in auto express.
And but the other thing was about that launch was because it was Virgin
upper class was quite new.
We all got these kind of air miles, whatever Virgin equivalent of air miles was.
And it's basically two business cast flights anywhere in the world.
That was so, yeah, Karen and I went on holiday for, you know, afterwards with that.
I mean, it was astonishing.
I mean, the money that must have cost, I think it was about eight of us on there.
I don't think and they had the cars in the UK.
I think auto car driven one at Chopham the week before.
So it was we didn't need to do it.
But it was just I think they obviously had a lot of budget at the time.
But yeah, I mean, that was great.
I can't imagine that happening now.
No, I just it was a very boom time for the automotive industry.
Wasn't it back then the reason the auto express was selling so many magazines
is because there was a lot of cars being sold, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah, it was.
It was the internet just just for the listeners.
I think am I right in thinking, Mike, you, Craig and Tom were all on the road
test team and James at this time was reviewing screen wash.
Like this is that correct?
James was reviewing screen wash and windscreen wipers and also having to deal
with the people who were complaining to say that, you know, the gearbox
are falling out of there again.
Can you sort out the watchdog section, which I know, which I know James loved
very much. Yeah, my word, because the thing is, this was in the days of what
sort of towards the tail end of this.
We're really dating this now towards the tail end of faxes.
So, you know, it's to come in and there's like the fax machine.
Just firing out all of these letters from very angry customers who, you know,
bought an MGZS or whatever it was.
And if the gearbox and blow it up and and there was me having to ring up
the press office and and say, oh, you know, another one of your cars is broken.
What are you going to do about it?
It was very awkward conversations, many, many, many awkward conversations.
Yeah, what a what a joy that job was, Mike.
Let's talk about a little bit of how you got into journalism then.
I mean, was it did you train as a journalist?
No, I'm not a journalist.
I still don't count myself as I'm a kind of maybe a reviews writer
or something because I trained as a graphic designer.
Well, at university, that's why I studied.
And I started off working in graphic design.
And I got a sort of sideline going to report on races and rallies
because motorsport was my kind of passion, really.
So I did that for a magazine called Motoring News,
which they call motorsport news if even if it's still going.
And then I worked at other car magazines.
And but I was definitely a designer there and I just got sent on a launch.
Because I was interested in cars and someone obviously thought
I could string a sentence together.
So then I did a couple more launches.
And then I moved to Auto Express where I wasn't a designer.
I was a writer.
So that's kind of when I parked the design stuff.
And I worked for Dennis.
I worked for an auto express road tester for about 10, 12 years, something like that.
Launched a magazine called Test Drive, which was an unmitigated disaster, got fired.
And then I went back to being a designer again.
So I started to work for the car industry as a creative agency,
looking after launches and press packs and press releases and images and all that kind of stuff.
So, yeah, so that's kind of in a nutshell how I ended up doing what I'm doing now.
And a claim to fame.
You designed the logo for Cardiom Magazine, which we still use 18 and a half years later.
First issue of the magazine, the cover and the logo designed by Mr.
Mykeski. I didn't know that.
There you go.
I should have some sort of I should have had some sort of commission.
Shouldn't I some sort of dissent?
Trademark now.
Trademark logo now.
It reminds me of the story of Star Wars when they, you know, all the actors were doing
Star Wars and they got basically said that they didn't have any money.
So they said, look, we'll either pay you your daily fee or we can give you a percentage
of the rights of the royalties when it comes out.
So all the actors got offered this and they'd all set through the rushes and watch the sort of
I think they'd seen the first version of Star Wars, but without any of the special effects
and that George Lucas had cut sort of World War Two fighters in instead of the set of the where
all the spaceships are going to be.
I think to a man, everybody had watched that film and thought, this is going to be an absolute dud.
I'm going to take the two hundred dollars from my, you know, my acting fee and come them took
percentages and those percentages are worth millions.
Can you imagine how much there are worth?
So, yeah, not quite the same with Cardula magazine.
I'm sure it would have been the same if I'd have negotiated a deal with you for the logo
for Cardula magazine, but I probably didn't even invoice you because I'm the world's worst
invoice, sir. I'm the world's worst.
I think we did some Christmas cards for you one year and you said, and I did them for them
the next year. And I said, how much should I charge you?
You said, charge me the same as what you charged me last year.
I want to look back at the accounts.
I hadn't even billed you for them.
So, yeah, the best kind of supplier.
The best. Yeah, exactly.
No wonder you wanted to use me.
Yeah, exactly.
But you're on both sides of the fence now, aren't you?
A little bit. You do.
You're looking after sort of the PR side for some operations and you're still doing some.
Well, you know, I've used it in very common, some journalism.
Which bit do you prefer?
I have. Yeah, I don't think my employees will be listening.
But yeah, I kind of prefer the I do enjoy doing the events and the PR side of it.
It comes with a different set of pressures, as you can imagine.
So there is a sense of satisfaction in terms of, you know,
planning an event, carrying out an event, having just guests turn up
and then write about the stuff and everything.
There's kind of a start, a finish and an end to that.
The stuff I work for are electrifying as well, so which is an electric car website.
And that's nice.
It's like a bit of nostalgia about it because you kind of remember how it used to be.
So it's weird because I did I did events for kind of 10 years planning them.
And then when I started back with the electrifying, I would help them out for a bit
when they launched, I decided to go on launches.
And I suddenly had this sort of worry of when you're landing an airport,
they can go to Kerala, the journalist, make sure they're in the bus.
I thought, no, no, I'm the guest. This is great.
So it's it's been nice.
It's nice doing that.
It's nice, you know, doing things like running a long term and inviting stories
and things that kind of ticks that box.
But yeah, it is weird working for both of them.
And occasionally, you know, the two end up clashing.
You end up having to write a new story about one of your clients.
And that's that's when it gets a little bit tricky.
But, you know, there's nothing that can't be navigated.
No, it can be can be a challenge to that.
So I mean, when it comes to when it comes to electric vehicles,
then once we talk about them a lot in this podcast, as you can imagine,
I mean, what's your what's your take on how that market is is maturing?
It's it's a it's a tricky one.
It is very complicated.
And I think a lot of manufacturers,
what I mean, obviously, recently, there's the Stellantis kind of apparent rollback
in terms of we're going to start, you know, well, the headlight was we're going
to start making diesel Vauxhall again, which of course, they're not.
But it's it's a tricky one, isn't it?
I think when people say there's no demand for EVs,
I think you can insert a word in there.
There's no demand for our EVs because obviously the overall market is going up.
I appreciate it's mainly massaged with discounts and incentives
and carmakers aren't making as much as they want.
But I mean, it was like you were saying about car dealers always complaining
about something, the weather.
It's like farmers, they saw the two wet or two dry.
And I think I think I think car manufacturers are the same
unless they have a very easy way of selling cars.
They'll or anything that's difficult, they complain about and they will say,
oh, well, it's, you know, it's so much easier to sell this than the other
than it is these these different cars.
So I think it's nuanced.
I think if the market was was going down, I think there would be, you know,
there'll be obvious concerns about it.
But I think that, you know, as more as more brands are joining it
than the Chinese brands and that kind of thing, then it's natural
that the volumes that are going to be for individual manufacturers
are going to be a little bit less because it's not growing at the same rate
that that the new brands are coming in.
What's what models have you driven recently that have really impressed you then?
Is there anything that really stands out?
Do you know what?
It's I'm not going to say the dull stuff because it's not dull.
I just I just like cars that are easy to get on with
and feel like they've been designed for human beings.
And I think judging by what you said earlier about you're an electric car
that you're not shouting at, I think it's weird, isn't it?
Because you talk to people, you say, yeah, it's really nicely designed.
It just does its job and people are amazed by that.
But you'd say you'd be astonished at the amount of cars that we drive,
which just feel like it's an IT project or, you know, you just think it's just not finished.
And I've got I've got a Skoda Railrock at the moment
and had a Cooper born before that.
And they were just you just get in it and drive it.
And it does exactly what you want.
It doesn't think it does, you know, it does all the usual bingbongs,
but then they have to.
But it's just kind of, you know, you talk about people talk about design
and say, well, design is how it works.
It's not necessarily how it looks.
So in the Elrock, I've got at the moment, you've got a row of switches
that you would use the most frequently, you know, and you touch them.
And you haven't even got to take your eyes off the screen or anything like that.
And it's that kind of level of usability, which I think has been lost
as as the and I don't think it's not specific to EVs.
I appreciate that.
But EVs do have a level level of complication to them.
So, yeah, I mean, it's kind of the dull.
If I get in a car and it does what I want it to do and it doesn't stress me out,
then that's that to me, that's a good piece of design.
That's a good car.
Yeah, that's and I think that's exactly why I like the Rivian.
You know, with John and I drove it for well over a thousand miles,
I think from, yeah, from Vegas to LA back again and everywhere in between.
And it just worked.
And it's so I remember reviewing the video edit this week and I'd said,
yeah, I like this because it just works.
And it's like that.
We shouldn't be saying that about Monaco.
Yeah, it's a low bar, isn't it?
But it is a low bar.
So many things, which I mean, I was going to ask, you know,
compared to the stuff you were road testing in the 90s and the early 2000s.
You know, back then, I kind of think cars did actually, particularly from new,
did tend to just work and function, didn't they?
You get in a Ford Focus 1.6 or whatever.
And, you know, the key would work every single time and it would start,
generally speaking, every single time the radio would work every single time.
And now you get in a, let's say, a 60 grand German electric car and you find,
oh, OK, today I don't have any dials or today in my, you know, electric car,
the doors aren't opening because the key that I've got doesn't have any buttons on it.
You know, it's just insane stuff like that.
And I just don't know how we've got to the position that we have,
not to go all Daily Mail.
And I don't want to say I'm coming to, but no, it is bad how we've got to this point.
It is. I hired a, well, I had a car from Inverness Airport,
which was meant to do an event recce last week.
And I got, I always go for the cheapest because I'm paying my own bills.
So I just go Kia Picanto or similar whenever I hire a car.
And I got there, I got an MG ZS hybrid, plug-in hybrid.
So I got that as a win on the car hire lottery, obviously.
But I must have sat in that car for half an hour trying to get it to connect to my phone
to get it to, you know, to work out how I could turn the radio three down.
And it's a brand new car.
It had 120 miles on it and it had a USB-A port.
And that was the data port.
You didn't have wireless car play, had wired car play, but it had it through a US.
I haven't had a USB-A cable for two years, you know?
So I had to go and navigate to the nearest curries to go and buy one.
And, yeah, even then navigating that infotainment system was just, you know,
just make it easier.
Is it difficult?
When do you when do you think Pete Carr was then?
I mean, we've talked about this before, John.
And we thought I sort of think it's around.
I mean, I would say just before the emissions scandal, I would say, like 20.
What would that be?
Twenty seven, seventeen, twenty fifteen.
I kind of twenty fifteen, maybe.
Yeah. I mean, what do you think?
Like when were the cars perfect?
Wow.
Why have they say that?
I don't think they've ever been.
I think there's always been a challenge.
And, yeah, John, you were talking about those cars when we were driving that
they were easy to get on with.
I don't know if either of you remember when the PSA, as it was,
so Peugeot and Citroen, had those key keypads that you had to type in a code to drive.
Yeah, like the Zanzia.
And yeah, like an anti theft thing.
So yeah. Yeah.
And we'd always think and suddenly at Alltex West, we had two or three
like PSA cars on long term loan.
Could you remember them, you know, so you'd get in this thing trying to move it
and you think, oh, what is that?
And then if you typed in three times, you had to wait 15 minutes or something
for it to so that there's always been frustrations.
I think I'm not nowhere near what what the cars are now.
But yeah, I don't know when peak is.
I think for EVs, it might have been because I've just sold my eye three,
which I miss a lot already.
I mean, gone three weeks.
But that was kind of peak.
It was had eye drive.
So you didn't have to touch a screen or anything.
Didn't have any lane keep assist.
It didn't have.
And I do sound like old bastard now.
But yeah, it was just it was a beautiful car.
And I don't think I've driven an EV since my eye three that has as nice
a steering throttle break, you know, the calibration on that car is fantastic.
And I think, yeah, you just get into stuff now and just think, well, this is.
This is over complicated.
Maybe stuff will settle down.
It's always new tech.
It always takes a while to kind of bed in.
But you kind of think they probably just invent something else in between
that makes them big fan of the eye three, big fan of the eye three.
Yeah, I look for those for the dealership quite often.
We sell a few electric cars and they haven't they haven't sort of reached
my price level just yet.
Mike, give me an idea.
This is the worst question for anybody who writes about cars.
But OK, what's your what's your favourite car?
What's the best car you've ever driven?
I know it's a terrible one, but I love asking it.
What's the best car I've ever driven?
I think on the best cars to own, which was probably conversely,
the worst car to drive was I love the smart four to the what was the city
coupé, which I bought.
It's the first car I've ever bought new and it was a disaster to drive.
The gearbox was awful.
The suspension was dreadful, but it was just it was just an I mean,
I look at cars from a point of view of design, you know, that's kind of my job.
And I just I just thought it was a fantastically packaged car.
I thought it was just it was just terrific.
The fact that you could get two full size adults in this car that was shorter
than, you know, two and a half meters long.
It was see your pocket sideways.
It was just brilliant.
I mean, it was doomed to failure because we don't buy small in practical cars,
do we? But it's it was just a lovely thing.
And I, you know, I had mine for 21 years.
I had it from cradle to grave, ended up rotting because it sits in the sea air
where I live. So that had to go.
But yeah, that's that, you know, if I was to sort of think about what I would
like, one of those, I mean, I know it's not very exotic or anything like that.
I love a smart.
I've got a lot of affection for those.
First car I sold at the Clever Car Collection was a smart car.
Really? Yeah.
So yeah, a lot of affection for smarts.
And actually, they're a lot more solid than people think they are.
Yeah, well built. Yeah, well made.
Very well built.
And this is a car dealer podcast.
So give me your experience of car dealers, good or bad?
Crikey. Well, I would say that.
You're going to be honest.
No, I would say, I mean, I would say very good at the moment because
I would say that there's a huge knowledge gap in terms of new car dealers
with electric because we get to hear quite a few horror stories.
You know, an electrifying, you know, people who I think there's
there's always kind of worry of, you know, especially with electric is range.
You know, a dealer will say, well, it's got a range of 329 miles.
And we had an email from somebody this week saying that the dealer said
it won't do anywhere near that in the first two weeks while it calibrates itself.
But after that, it will be fine.
And that's just literally to kind of, you know,
fob you off for the first two weeks.
So you don't come back and say it's doing 160 instead of 320.
So I think there's a big learning curve.
And I think brands have looked at how they can fix that.
Because I know, you know, Volkswagen Group looked at the agency model
and think, well, that's the way to do it, because we can explain.
We can control the flow of information better that way.
But that's been ditched as well.
So I'm not sure maybe it will get to get better over time.
But, you know, certainly certainly the new and electric stuff.
It seems to be a gap in there.
Used wise, you know, I've always had good experiences.
When I sold my i3, I sold it through Motorway and the dealer was in Horsham,
called me exactly when he was going to call me, sent the bloat to collect it,
couldn't have been any nicer, really nice chap.
Money was there, you know, it was done.
I mean, so, you know, I bought a couple of used cars from dealers
and I've always been, you know, that's where that's where the kind of thing
that the gap in reputation is.
The people who are worried think that's going to be the disaster.
And I think I find I've been more disappointed with with main dealers
than I have with little independent, you know, used dealers.
Yeah, I find that those those smaller dealers, because their owner
operators a lot of time, yeah, a lot more passionate, aren't they?
And yeah, did am I right in thinking you had a you had one?
Can't remember what it's got.
It's a Renault, isn't it? The was it a Twizy?
Did you had a Twizy? Yeah, I did have a Twizy.
Yeah, I had it was the end of a financial year in it.
And my car.
It was either put the car on the QE to or buy a Twizy.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was it was like you were on the hook.
Well, I think it was like eight grand corporation tax.
And she said, she said, I don't think you need you need any computers or anything
like that, we can just offset against tax.
I said, no, computers fine, don't need anything else.
And then there's a dawn on the twizies about eight grand.
And at that point, and it still is, you know, it's 100 percent
offsetable against tax for an EV.
Yeah, so I bought one I called a Renault London West about two days
before Christmas. And I said, I'd like to buy a Twizy.
But here's the snag.
I need to have bought it and paid for it tomorrow.
Because that's my end of my financial year is the end of end of December.
So, yeah, we did the deal over the phone.
And I went into that with my eyes completely closed because I didn't realise
I was going to get stiff for 40 quid a month.
Battery rental.
You know, I thought I bought this car and this is mine now.
I own all of this. No, you didn't. You didn't own the batteries.
So, yeah. How many bombs did you bought it?
I have about 1500 in two years.
Yeah. But I couldn't get I couldn't get rid of it because you had
the way it worked with with Renault at the time is you had to find someone else
to take the battery lease off your hands and have all the paperwork done
before you sold the car. I mean, that's impossible.
Nobody's going to do that.
I think it's still the case, isn't it?
Yeah, I think they changed it.
You could buy the battery, but it was a ridiculous price.
It was like two and a half, three grand, you know, for a type for a 17
kilowatt hour battery. It was ridiculous amount of money.
But yeah, the only way around it was a dealership.
I found a dealer who wanted one to go and run parts from one side,
one one side of the dealership to the other.
He just was obsessed with it.
Humably, very small parts.
Yeah, nuts and bolts, I think, mostly.
But but he said it only take it off my hands if I bought something off him.
So I bought an M had to buy an MX five as the only thing that was on this
poor court, which I remotely fancied, which I then ran for a summer and then sold.
But yeah, that was the deal.
And I think I think I paid seven and a half for the twisty and he took it off
my hands for two and a half.
They're worth a fortune now in the pandemic.
They went up to like 10 grand, didn't they?
Twizzies, you can I'd actually quite like a twisty, to be fair.
It would be perfect for my commute.
Yeah, I thought I thought that.
But then, you know, I had to drive it.
Yeah, then you actually, yeah, the reality of it is you never use it.
It's like a motorbike.
You just think, you know, you end up falling over in the garage.
You know, unless you make a point of using it, which I didn't.
So yeah, I'd like listen, I lose so much money on cars.
I really do. I mean, I, you know, I buy cars new or nearly new
and then lose a fortune and then give them away for a fraction of what I mean.
When I died, I think the SMMT are going to have me stuffed
and put in a display cabinet because I've kept the car industry going for so long.
Oh, yeah, that's a way to be remembered.
Mike, thank you. Thank you for coming on.
Thank you for sticking around for for our stories.
But for those people listening, this is plug time.
Where do they find the Clangas pod?
Clangas pod, we're on all the the podcast platforms.
It's Clangas podcast or Instagram at Clangas pod.
And I do believe Craig set up a Facebook page for Clangas podcast as well.
So that's where you can find us.
Lovely. Well, nice to see you.
Thank you very much, but, John, we should probably do some stories.
We'll be right back.
Running a dealership means making hundreds of decisions every day.
But, James, when do you get the time to step back and think?
Well, John, I don't.
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Now back to the podcast.
So James and I are going to run through our favourite stories of the week.
And at the end, my guests decide which one of us chose the best ones
and who is the winner James won last week, my script says.
So off you go.
I did, three two for the record, John.
Right, let me pick my first story.
And I would like to go with news that last year there were a number of
complaints about the use car industry.
There was this is a report from the motor ombudsman
that put out their report on the number of complaints that they dealt with last year.
So they stepped in to 18,570 cases.
Now, bear in mind, there was 7.8 million use car transactions last year.
So this is a very small percentage of the market.
But I just looked into it and a little bit more detail into it,
exactly what these complaints were.
So I pulled up the report and found that the top 10 drivers of those use car disputes.
Do you want to have a guess that what was number one, John?
Flat time.
I mean, tyres were on there and yeah, that was number six.
Number six.
Now, the biggest biggest complaints last year weren't anything to do with mechanical.
They weren't mechanical disputes whatsoever.
It was customer service.
So 40 percent of the complaints they dealt with were to do with things
like incorrect mileage, warranty coverage, differing after purchase.
Retailers not responding to the complaints when these consumers put them in and failure
even stuff like failure to disclose stolen vehicles.
So yeah, customer service number one.
I like sorry, just failure to disclose.
If you had disclosed it was a stolen vehicle, would that be would that be
the right bit of customer service then?
Well, it is stolen, but to let you know.
Yeah, let's gloss over that one.
In second place was engine complaints with 35 percent of the complaints lodged.
And then in third place, vehicle exterior with five percent of complaints.
That didn't like the way it looked or no, that was because they didn't like
the rusty wings that they found or the wheel arch and door panels detaching.
I mean, that is a bit of a problem, isn't it?
If the wheels come off, it sounds like a smart car thing, really.
Yeah, or faulty panoramic roof and sunroof becoming inoperable.
So the reason I picked this story is because I actually think even though
these are about complaints for the industry, you got to remember that
it's only just one percent of used car sales last year,
that the motor ombudsman has had to step in.
Yes, it's not nice when these problems happen and they have these consumers
have to take them to something like this ombudsman who can mediate.
But still, one percent is pretty good going, really, isn't it?
Do you not think?
Yeah, I think I think that's all right.
And also, I think what you doing your
empire of used cars has taught us is that a lot of the time the customer
is not right. Am I allowed to say that?
Oh, yeah.
You know, there's a lot, a lot of things you've had.
And I think what what we've both come to learn is a lot of used car dealers
are aware that customers sometimes take the Michael
and will try and hand the car back for, I mean, a lot of the time
because they just don't like it and will, you know, find any, you know,
it's human nature.
You'll find any excuse to return something as I might on Amazon, to be fair,
if I've decided I don't want it anymore, you know, like some some complaints
you've had, you'll just get things about all the suspensions wrong
or something like that.
Like there's no kind of, well, OK, well, how wrong?
I mean, is it holding the wheels away from the car?
Then it sort of is working, isn't it?
And, you know, what was there was an electric car you had returned,
which I think you talked about in a video, which the person claimed wouldn't charge.
Of course, he evidently did charge because it the mileage on the range
on that car indicated that they've had to charge it at least twice to get it.
How is my driver charging funny enough?
Exactly. So you just you just think sometimes.
Yeah, I don't know if I'm surprised at this number or not.
OK, this is the only this is, of course, only the ones that go to the motor ombudsman.
And it's quite I mean, the fact that most of them are customer complaints
means it's quite easy to fix.
I mean, we just take the we take the view of clever car collection.
If we get somebody's not happy, we just give them money back
because we'll sell the car again and it's much less hassle.
And actually, I was talking to someone the other day about about this.
And we've had a few reviews off the back of when customers have had problems
saying that it's been dealt with really well and they've given us a five star review
off the back of it. Well, I actually think that's worth its weight in gold
compared to the money we've lost on buying that car back.
It's a lot a lot easier.
Funnily, John, I saw someone trying to reject a car in one of the WhatsApp groups
I'm in this week, they shared the customer's email, the customer had emailed
because they'd noticed the this is why they wanted to reject the car.
They'd noticed the tyres were three PSI over the tyres were three PSI over what they should be.
Well, that's an acceptable and they wanted their money back.
Genuinely wanted their money back.
So, yes, that gives you an idea of some of the dye as would I frankly.
I'm sure you would, I'm sure you would.
Oh, dear. Any comments on that one?
For me or is that like?
Well, yeah. And Mike, any comments on that?
Well, yeah, I think there's a degree of personal responsibility as well,
isn't there when you buy a car in terms of working out whether it's right for you
and a friend of mine bought an i3 and loves it.
But there's no space in the back.
I'm not sure, you know, almost to the point where I might take it back.
I think, well, it hasn't changed since since when you went to look at it on the fork
or it hasn't suddenly got less space in the back of it.
So there's a degree of that, isn't there?
But yeah, like you, John, I'd be appalled at the tyres were three PSI over.
I think it sounds like hang on.
You mentioned the start of this.
You were using the air compressor and somebody's addicted a car.
It's not one of your car prep prep, is it, James?
No comment. John, move us on quickly.
Oh, dear. OK.
Well, speaking of personal responsibility and taking it,
I'm going to move on to a story about the FCA and the car finance redress scheme.
And this is reports that the FCA haven't confirmed this,
but reports that carmakers own finance companies
or banks will be exempt from this particular redress scheme.
So I think this has come well, it says this particular story,
which I have not written, suggests that heavy lobbying by banks
and carmakers has led to the significant change.
But of course, I suspect this has come from one of the three criteria
that the FCA said they were going to use to assess whether anyone had a claim,
which was if there had only been one lender made available
to the customer at the point of purchase.
And of course, if you were to go to a franchise dealer and buy a new car,
generally speaking, your finance is provided by VW Financial Services
or whoever it is that runs the car maker that you're buying the car from.
So I, well, I'm going to hand this over to you, James,
to see what you think about this.
I found this surprising.
But I don't really know what to make of it, really.
I don't how can you how can you exclude all of those finance companies
and not exclude the likes of Blackhorse, Santander and all the third party ones?
You're on mute, which would help?
I just like I forgot to do a podcast section.
The I was also also slightly baffled by this one, John.
But I think the reason that they've been battling so hard on this
is because you would often get a very good deal from the manufacturer of finance package.
You know, they was they wanted to buy the car.
The reason the manufacturers put finance arm in place
was because it facilitated car sales, which often meant zero percent
finance or very low rates of APR to encourage more consumers into them.
So I think they've probably just argued that, yes,
we were the only one that was available, but consumers got a good deal as a result.
So how on earth can they complain about that?
Yes, but then that's true of new cars.
But is it true of used?
I mean, I suppose I don't know I'm not not operating a franchise dealer.
I can't really tell you how the finance works on used cars.
But I would assume some of these providers would also provide finance for used ones
and not at zero percent APR to be incentive.
It's strange how this one leaks out, though, isn't it?
Because there's no real official comments from the FCA, I suppose, and said,
we're carefully considering the feedback and decisions on the final scheme rules
have not been taken.
So it's clearly just some of these manufacturers leaking stuff to the F.T.
In the hope that the story creates a little bit more pressure.
But nobody really knows what's going to happen yet.
Oh, it's just such a mess.
You'd think by now we would have a bit of a clearer idea of it,
but it just seems to rumble on and change and chop, you know, quarter by quarter, really,
as to how this is actually going to turn out.
I suppose we just have to sit tight and see, which is not ideal.
Mike, I hate I don't really want to come to you with this
because it seems like quite a heavy story to ask you about.
But have you been keeping track of the car finance scandal I put in inverted commas?
No, but I want it all resolved so I can go on my social media
and not have loads of ads about being missold PCPs.
I just want cat videos and rally car clips for the 70s.
I don't want to be told I've been missold finance, so sort out people.
Excellent.
Oh, right, John, I'm going to move on to the story that we've both obviously danced around
because neither of us wants to talk about it
because we are probably going to get ourselves in legal hot water.
But we're going to have to cover it
because it was the most popular story on our website by some margin.
And it is the news that Mr. Peter Wardell,
the majority shareholder of Big Motor and World,
his High Court case has begun this week.
We know that because it was in many of the national newspapers, wasn't it?
And we had a reporter there in the High Court on day one to cover it.
And let's just say it was rather eye opening.
Some of the stuff that came out in this in this court case.
Now, I need to need to qualify this with the case is ongoing.
So the case is continuing.
So it's still being argued in the High Court.
They suspect it's going to take seven weeks.
Yes, you can see why we've not had a reporter in there
for every day of the court case, can't you?
Yes, I mean, that would be very expensive for us.
Not as an expensive as two cases arguing out the case on both cases,
on both sides account.
I mean, I hate to think what the legal bill is running out for this court case.
So this for those people who know nothing about this case,
this is about Peter Waddell, who was the
the owner and founder of Big Motron World, the car supermarket group,
still the majority shareholder.
He was removed from his post as CEO
two years after selling a shareholding in the business to Freshstream,
which are a venture capitalist firm.
He is arguing that he was dismissed unfairly
I think it is probably the best way of summarising it, John.
And they are suggesting that he wasn't.
Now, there's been a number of very outlandish claims
that come out in the court from both sides.
Peter has been accused of bullying and intimidating his employees.
And off the back of that, an investigation was initiated
and upheld several of those complaints, which
included the fact that he allegedly used racist language.
That led to his dismissal.
And a lot of those claims have been coming out in court this week.
He denies that.
He says that it's because of his dyslexia, dyslexia
that he uses nicknames to help remember people
when he is claiming unfair dismissal, harassment
and disability discrimination by Bluebell Cars,
which is the ultimate holding company of big motoring world.
So I think in short, John, this is a massive case for the most trade.
There are two sides here clearly battling it out
over control of the company.
But I think it's there's a slightly bigger picture here.
There will be other venture capitalist firms out there
that are thinking about investing in the most trade.
And that can be a challenge when you're investing into
into a company that is led by an owner operator
who has been running that business themselves for a long time.
And I'm speaking in general here.
You know, you are you're you're backing that person as well as the business.
So they'll be it will be interesting to see see how this one plays out.
Have to caveat this with the trial continues, John.
And you can follow that on our website as and when we get a reporter to the high court.
What did you make of it?
I mean, there's some outlandish claims that I haven't gone into.
But many people have probably read them on our website
and if they want to card in the magazine.co.uk, you can go and read them.
Yeah, they're absolutely are.
And let's move on.
It's a lovely day we're having here.
And I'm enjoying I mean, have I covered that safely?
Do you have? I mean, I'll just I think you skirting around some of the
some of the allegations.
I mean, I will just cover some of the allegations in brief.
I mean, there was some it has been described as
advice commentators outside this perhaps even you, James,
that it's a bit like watching an episode of EastEnders.
There's so many things that kind of,
you know, allegations being thrown around about Peter Waddell's conduct
running that company.
I mean, one one of the headlines is alleged to have said that there are
too many Muslims in Enfield.
There was another one, I think, today wasn't there.
I'm trying to find the right story.
He's been accused of using his disabilities as this sort of fig leaf
as the as the one of the cases said to to hide behind
when using, you know, unjustifiable language.
And there's various various things that he's alleged to have said
and done, which are not particularly nice.
And but just going back to your your point about investing in the motor trade,
I think Big Moting World is a unique situation
really, because, you know, anyone that's come across Peter Waddell will know
he's a quite a character and, you know, he's
a force of nature in a way because he's built this organization up
from almost nothing at all.
I mean, I'm I'm from Kent and I remember, you know,
seeing Peter's businesses when they were much, much smaller,
when I was much, much smaller as well, you know, just a little site
in sitting born sort of thing.
And now it's this enormous car supermarket group in the space of,
I don't know what it is, 25 years he's grown into that.
So to come and buy a share of that kind of organization, which, as you say,
is so heavily reliant on this figurehead of Peter Waddell
to have him not there anymore.
I think I've said this before is probably going to be a bit of an issue
because all the culture, right, the or wrongly, whatever that culture may be,
does go with him, probably.
And I don't know whether to where I don't know where to separate the two
is big motoring world's performance financially.
If you look at it in the last 18 months, not so fantastic.
They've given lots of reasons for that, lots of investment being made,
sites being purchased and so on.
And of course, fluctuations in the used car market.
But how much of that is to do with
Peter not really being in control of it anymore?
I don't really know.
You kind of have to make your own minds up on it.
What my final point on this is I just I know Peter has brought this case to
Peter is bringing this case to court.
You know, it's his action against big, you know, bluebell cars, big motoring world, whatever.
But I don't think I just hope he doesn't live to regret
bringing it into into action.
Because as you say, number one, it's going to cost a huge amount of money.
That's a fair thing to say for any court case in the high court like this.
And I just I don't think he's going to come off particularly well from it
financially or otherwise.
So we'll just see case is ongoing.
Thank you. Yeah, it is indeed.
I just think there's so many things being thrown around.
And obviously, we've covered it.
The national newspapers have covered it.
It's been in the sun.
That's been in the Daily Mail.
It's been in other national newspapers.
There's a lot of interest here about how a business owner who built a 200
million pound business, you know, his claims,
has been has been taken over by by the by an investment company
and how, you know, he claims that that is it was a coup.
And that that was that the business has been, you know, in his quote stolen from him.
So it's it's a fascinating one to watch.
And I can see why the most trade I glued to the website reading stories
because it is like like I said, in my sub stack, it is like an episode of East Enders.
It is it is certainly like a soap opera.
So, Mike, if you I don't know, you've probably not followed this case.
But have you seen any of it when you've just looked at the website?
This maybe maybe in advance of this podcast.
I mean, it's they do the stories do catch your eye, don't they?
Well, I mean, I'm glad you've given me a sort of version of what's going on there.
But yeah, I mean, it does.
It's hard to comment on stuff that I don't know all the facts and everything.
But, you know, it's interesting, quite you've certainly bought the tone
of the podcast down with it.
Yeah, I mean, I think we're probably all just about stayed legal there.
So, excellent.
Yes, you go and read the stories on the Cardinal website
where we have written them in a very exacting way so as not to be
holding contempt, of course, but full of details.
Well, thank you, thank you, John, for letting me cover that one.
But over to you.
Any time, any time.
Who shall I talk about now?
I think I will talk about Polestar, actually, because convenient
you've covered this sort of in your sub stack,
which I know you like me to plug so that you get a bit more money, James.
Thanks.
Sorry, we as a company get more money.
The hard work I put in at five a.m. this morning is actually worth it.
Yes, yeah, that's the one.
Yeah, but Polestar, I'm going to talk about briefly and their boss
hailing dealers.
Oh, no, sorry, hailing this time as the renaissance of dealers
as the brand unveils biggest product push yet.
And I mean, that's, you know, it's a nice headline, renaissance of the dealers.
But it's telling that it comes from Polestar, which for a long time
was very adamant.
Well, initially it was adamant it wasn't going to have any dealers.
Am I correct in saying that, James?
It was just going to do direct to consumer, much like Tesla and lots of other
tech oriented businesses like to do.
And they have pivoted relatively recently to physical retail.
And evidently, I think is the UK has really been the pioneer.
I mean, it sounds funny to say we've been pioneering the idea of physical dealers
as though it's this brand new thing, but it's been pioneering it for Polestar.
And as I understand it, the boss, Michael, I'm...
No, come on, I've been waiting for this.
Lohscher, Lohscher.
Sorry, Michael, sorry.
It's very early in the morning here, it's 11.30.
Sure, he listens.
My coffee hasn't kicked in.
But anyway, he's been touting the UK as, you know, one of the sort of...
Well, it's touting UK dealers as one of the key successes for Polestar here.
Which is nice to hear, isn't it?
And I just... I'll bring it back to your sub-stack because you've rounded this up in a more sort of...
As you like to do, occasionally, is agency dead piece.
Because as you rightly say, lots of manufacturers have tried agency
and lots of them shouted very loudly about it
and how it was the future of car sales and so on and so forth.
And now we're down to three.
Is that right? Three car makers, you reckon?
Yeah, I think so.
And there's three brands, we should say.
Not three, not like Stellantis, you know, VW or whatever.
We're talking about Mini, Volvo and Mercedes, is that it?
And I think Honda, I think Honda, but I wasn't 100% sure when I...
I think Honda is doing it for one model, aren't they?
That was the last I was aware of.
Yeah, it's gone.
Excuse me, I spoke to a couple of dealers about this as I was writing the sub-stack
and it just came up in conversations this week.
And I just, I mean, one of them just gave me such a brilliant quote.
He said, what manufacturers forgot is the magic that takes place in the showroom.
And I kind of pressed him on that a little bit more.
I didn't include everything he said, but it was just the little things like he said,
we can tickle this, we can change that to get a deal over the line.
And most manufacturers didn't know these things even happened.
And it's true, you know, there's a lot of stuff.
It's like, well, actually, I can give you a little bit more for your part exchange here.
If you do this over here, it's about the moving the pieces of the deal around
to get those deals over the line.
You can't do that online.
You know, agency sales work when it's a simple situation.
Someone goes on cash buy, for example, just wants to order the car and have it delivered.
They work perfectly for that.
But, you know, as I quite clearly know in car sales, the deals are never like that.
Everything has got something you need to tick or change in some way, shape or form.
And I just think the management consultant companies that came up with the agency sales idea
just didn't realize that.
They thought that you could just copy the Amazon model of selling goods online
and that would work for cars.
And it hasn't.
And I think it just goes back to the sort of, you know, how angry dealers got about Kazoo.
It was because the Alex Chestman gave them some, you know, said that basically they did a rubbish job.
And I think the reason the dealers get so angry about agency sales is because it feels like to them
that somebody out there has said the dealers are not doing a good job
and they're not recognizing the role that they play in that car sale.
And I think that's why whenever they ring the arm, that's what they want to have a bit of a moan about.
So they're looking forward to agency dying and it sort of is.
And I just think even aside from all the rhetoric on it, car manufacturers seem to have this moment
where they forgot that they were manufacturers.
That was their job.
You know, their job is to make sure that their factories are efficient
and they're churning out the right number of cars to pay the right number of employees
to come in the right number of days in a year
and all the right number of bars of steel in to melt into doors and so on and so forth.
Like when you get into the actual dealing of selling cars and or selling any product
and having inventory that sits around for a long time, getting dated and depreciating,
you get into a whole other world of pain.
It's so much easier to just give it over to someone else so that they can just deal with it.
You know, why does, you know, in the sit, sell washing machines to curries
to sell however they see fit rather than trying to do it themselves?
It's because it's not a nightmare.
You know, it's not unique to cars, I don't think.
And I can't think of many, you know, maybe we look at that as a slightly dated model,
but I can't think of many manufacturers that produce physical things
that sell them direct to consumer successfully and manage to deal with things like
when a new model year, whatever it is comes in,
not discounting all the old ones, for example.
The only one I can think of is Apple, who went miraculously when a new iPhone comes out.
All the old ones disappear from Apple stores.
I don't know where they go or what they do with them,
but that must be a very tightly managed supply chain to be able to do that.
You can't manage Ford focuses and things like that in quite the same way.
You need to have a way of just disposing of them.
And I think that's where dealers are extremely helpful as all these manufacturers have discovered.
Mike, as a car buyer, when it comes to buying new cars online purely without seeing a dealer,
what's your take on it? Would you do it?
No, I don't think I would.
I like to think I'm moving with the times and up to date with everything like that,
but I think there's still a better place for a physical dealer
and also, you know, the art of selling stuff, basically, and being knowledgeable about it.
And I think that's possibly where there's a bit of a gap.
And I know that Scodal and Volkswagen have certainly looked at moving their electric cars first to this agency model.
And that's the other one you want to put on last because they are so...
Most people are switching for the first time.
You really do need to be taken through stuff.
Yes, they're easy to live with and easy to operate once you know,
but there is quite a significant change, isn't there, in terms of a lot of stuff to get used to?
And to think you're trying to do that with a click on a mouse and then go collect it,
it's, yeah, it's a false economy because you end up having to get in the car back, I guess,
when people realise it's not for them.
Whereas if they'd been to test drive it and spoken to somebody honestly about it,
I don't think you'd have that.
So, yeah, I think definitely I can see why so many brands have reversed the decision
and gone back to, you know, having their own retail as well.
Yeah, I'm sure it sounds like a good idea when after the pandemic dealers are making loads of money,
but I can see why it's changing.
Right, John, can I just wait for one more in?
I know we're sort of out of time, but I just want to talk a little bit about Cardia Live,
which is coming up on March the 19th at the British Motor Museum in Gaiden.
We've announced today another manufacturer managing director.
It's Lorraine Bishton, who is in charge of Subaru and X-Peng.
She's going to be joining us on the stage alongside Suzuki boss David Cately
and the recently appointed Dacia UK brand director, Lena Ribeiro.
So we've got those three manufacturers joining us for the day.
We've got a packed event.
You can find out all the information on our updated CardiaLive.co.uk website.
Can't wait, John, because you've done that this week.
Lovely.
I will have for the time this podcast, Lance.
Little to-do reminder for you.
Yeah, it's going to be a great day.
We're really looking forward to it.
We've got some fantastic manufacturer panels, including those Chinese Challenger brands.
We've got some great dealers coming along, some brilliant headline speakers.
And I'm very much looking forward to it because it is a month away today.
Yeah, tickets available on the website, CardiaLive.co.uk.
Plug over.
Very good plug, yes.
And I'm looking forward to our two different manufacturers sessions, as you say.
I think, yeah, it'll be interesting to hear from those Challenger brands.
I mean, there is technically a Challenger brand as snuck onto our main manufacturer panel there.
Yeah.
But...
We've got great representation this year from the manufacturers, haven't we?
I mean, we've got Peugeot's Nicola Dobson as one of our headline interviews.
And then there's four manufacturers on the Challenger brand panels and three on the manufacturer panels.
There are lots of interesting people who will be able to give their take on what's happening this year.
So, yeah, very much looking forward to it.
Absolutely.
We'll come around very quickly.
Lovely. Speaking of coming around quickly, the end of the broadcast is here, so...
Very nice.
Beautiful segue.
Thank you.
I try.
So, Mike, before I ask for your verdict, are there any stories you think we should have covered this week but we haven't?
Aside from any particular headlines around minor royals, obviously, which has been quite big news this week.
Well, no.
Not least for Land Rover.
If I'm not allowed to use that one, then no, I don't have any new ones anymore.
So, no.
I think you've covered it most succinctly.
I don't know how you managed to wedge the royals into this story, but you did.
I mean, into this podcast, I'm very good.
Well, he was in a car, wasn't he?
That's close enough for me.
We've covered a lot of ground, haven't we?
We have.
So, aren't there any stories...
Oh, sorry, no, I've just asked you that.
I'm going to have to ask you.
It's in my script twice.
I'm going to have to ask you, who chose the best stories or what was your favourite story?
Well, if I'm honest with you, lads, they're all a bit dry.
I'm glad we get an honest answer.
I'm going to choose...
Who's leading at the moment?
Is it James at three?
He's three-two to me, so...
Okay.
In the sense of fairness, I'm going to vote for John's poll star story to make it three-all.
That's...
Thanks.
It's very kind.
I like to think it wasn't out of charity.
It was actually because you're very interested in electric cars.
That's what it was.
I mean, the others, the other two, I didn't really understand what you're talking about,
but I said what you were talking about with that one, so that's good.
Absolutely fine.
It's probably just James's accent, so I wouldn't vote.
Could be.
Yeah, could be.
Lovely.
Well, all that's left for me to say then is thank you to Mike for not just judging me the winner,
but joining us today and talking about your Clangus podcast,
which hopefully everyone will go and have a good listen to now
and catch up on the...
Well, it's about a dozen episodes.
Well, ten.
Ten, hopefully, by the time this is published, isn't it?
That's the plan.
Yeah.
Well, thanks for having me on.
It's been a pleasure.
Nice to see you.
Don't be strangers.
Thank you very much.
Good to see you.
Thanks for coming on and giving us your opinion.
Very nice to see you.
Absolutely.
And we didn't even get to ask you about what James was like to work with in circa 2005,
but we'll gloss over that.
I'll just ask you after this.
Thank you as well to James for giving your thoughts on Screen Wash,
and thank you for listening.
We'll be back next week with another episode, so make sure you're subscribed,
so you'll be notified when that goes live.
If you want to check out the stories you mentioned today,
take a look in the show notes below,
or head to cardielomagazine.co.uk.
And also, don't forget to head to cardielolive.co.uk
and book your tickets for our events literally next month
because they are selling out fast.
Thanks for listening and goodbye.
About this episode
Peter Waddell's court case takes center stage as the podcast discusses its implications for the automotive industry. Mike Askew, a guest and fellow podcaster, shares insights on the 'renaissance of the dealers' as Polestar's leadership emphasizes the importance of traditional dealerships in the evolving market. The episode also touches on the latest developments in the finance redress scheme, providing listeners with a comprehensive overview of current industry challenges and opportunities. Expect engaging anecdotes and a lively discussion about the state of car sales and the unique cars that often slip through the cracks.
Original notes
Used car sales generated more than 18,500 customer complaints in 2025 – Motor Ombudsman
FCA agrees to climbdown over car finance redress scheme with carmakers set for exemption
Peter Waddell accused of using disabilities as a ‘fig leaf’ as High Court trial continues
Waddell ran ‘fiefdom’ and complained about ‘too many muslims’, court hears
Polestar boss hails ‘renaissance of the dealers’ as brand unveils biggest product push yet
Car Dealer Live 26 manufacturer panel now complete with Subaru and Xpeng chief joining line-up
Car Dealer Podcast
Car Dealer
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