Post Oak Motorcars is the dealership Lonnie Sosa runs. They describe it as doing higher-value deals, meaning they likely sell to a different kind of customer than a typical budget-focused lot.
A “first pencil” is the first set of numbers a dealer puts together for a deal. If those numbers are solid, the whole negotiation usually goes smoother.
They’re saying the EV tax credit stopped being available under the old rules. When that happens, fewer people qualify or want to buy, so used EV prices and sales can shift.
A “used EV lot” just means a dealership lot that sells used electric cars. Used EVs can be priced and sold differently than gas cars because of things like battery condition and charging.
Concept
one big beautiful bill
They’re talking about a big tax law that changed people’s refunds. The hosts connect it to whether more people are buying cars after getting money back.
They mention a tax rule that could let some people deduct interest paid on an auto loan. If refunds are bigger, some buyers may have more money for a car purchase.
They’re talking about used cars sold to people with credit challenges (subprime) and cars that are still fairly new (near-new). Sales in these groups can swing a lot when interest rates and monthly payments change.
They’re saying the cost of used electric cars is getting cheaper. That matters because it makes used EVs feel more like a normal option instead of a premium one.
“ICE” stands for internal combustion engine, meaning gasoline or diesel vehicles. The comparison is used to show used EV pricing is nearing the cost of typical non-EV alternatives, which can shift consumer behavior.
These are government discounts for buying certain clean cars. When the discount ends, fewer people buy new EVs, which can ripple through the used market later.
Used EV buyers worry about how healthy the battery is. If the seller shows the battery condition clearly, it’s easier for buyers to feel confident and pay a fair price.
Tariffs are extra taxes on imported cars or parts. If tariffs go up, it can make it harder for automakers to make money and can change prices for buyers.
Casting contamination means something unwanted got into a metal part during manufacturing. If that part is part of the engine, it can sometimes cause serious problems—like overheating or even a fire risk—so manufacturers issue recalls.
Term
GPHEV engines
This refers to a plug-in hybrid type of engine. The key point here is that the recall is about a possible fire risk caused by a manufacturing problem in a cast part.
Electronic stability control is a safety system that helps keep the car from sliding out of control. If it turns off unexpectedly, the car may not correct itself as well when you brake hard or hit slick roads.
This is about a 2026 Ram 2500 recall. The issue described could disable the car’s stability safety system, which helps the vehicle stay controlled in tricky situations.
A fuel pump defect means the car may not be getting fuel the way it should. If the engine doesn’t get enough fuel, it can stall—especially scary at highway speeds.
Negative equity means your car is worth less than what you still owe on it. When you trade it in, the “gap” usually gets added to your next loan, which can make the next deal more expensive.
Fertitta Automotive is the company the guest works for. They’re described as a dealership group that handles multiple luxury brands, which helps explain their business focus.
Inventory availability means whether dealers can actually get cars to sell. If there are more cars on the ground (or on the way), buyers have more choices and sales tend to pick up.
Bugatti makes very rare, high-end cars, usually in tiny numbers. The dealer is saying that for Bugatti, they already have buyers lined up before cars even arrive, so the usual “inventory problems” matter less.
Allocation is when a brand decides how many cars each dealer gets. If the cars are already allocated and reserved, the dealer doesn’t have to rely on finding inventory to make sales.
Rolls-Royce is a luxury car brand that sells fewer cars than regular brands. The dealer is saying Rolls-Royce adjusted production so there wasn’t too much car inventory sitting around, which helped them keep profits steady.
Bentley makes luxury cars. The dealer is saying they had more cars than they could sell quickly, and that usually squeezes profit because you may need to discount or spend more to move inventory.
Concept
ultra-exotic vs domestics sales cadence
They’re saying the sales rhythm is different depending on the type of dealership. Ultra-luxury tends to be more consistent day-to-day, while regular brands often have a big weekend rush and then a busy Monday catching up.
Chevrolet is a regular mass-market brand with lots of dealer activity. The dealer is saying their sales pattern is more “weekend heavy,” so Monday involves lots of cleanup work after the big Friday–Saturday rush.
“Trades” are the cars customers turn in when they buy something new. After a busy weekend, dealers have to sort out those trade cars and the paperwork so everything is ready to move forward.
Diversifying the portfolio means you don’t bet everything on one type of car or one brand. If one group gets hit by higher costs or lower demand, other groups can help keep the business stable.
The “tripod” idea means the dealership doesn’t rely on just one kind of car. By selling a mix of luxury, domestic, and import vehicles, they’re less likely to get crushed if one category slows down.
Tariffs are extra taxes on cars or parts coming from other countries. If imported cars get more expensive, dealers often sell fewer imports and have to lean more on the brands they already stock.
Import sales just means cars made overseas that are sold locally. If those cars become harder to get or cost more, dealers may sell more of the cars they can source more easily.
It means putting the right employees into the jobs they’re best suited for. In a dealership, that can improve how well sales and service teams perform day to day.
Metrics are the numbers a dealership uses to judge performance. The point here is that hiring shouldn’t be based only on hitting a sales-number target—you also want the right attitude and team fit.
“Culture fit” means the dealership is checking whether the person will work well with the team and follow the way the business is run. They’re using a second interviewer to make sure the decision isn’t biased and to flag concerns early.
They’re talking about giving one person the power to stop a hiring decision if they see a red flag. The goal is to avoid pushing forward with someone who might not work out.
A “silo” is when departments act like separate worlds. They’re saying the dealership tries to get sales, service, and other teams to work together instead of operating independently.
BCG is a well-known consulting company that publishes business research. In this segment, they’re being used as the source for a prediction about used luxury/exotic car demand.
They’re talking about the used market for expensive “luxury” and “exotic” cars. The point is that demand for these used cars is expected to grow faster than demand for new ones, so dealers need to plan their buying and pricing accordingly.
Company
DuPont
DuPont is a big company that’s known for industrial materials. In this podcast, it’s mentioned mainly because the hosts say it helped publish a study about used luxury car market growth.
This is the part of a dealership that handles used cars—finding them, pricing them, and selling them. They’re saying used-car growth is a big driver, but it only works if you buy the right cars in the right quantities.
They mean you can’t just buy any used cars and hope they sell. You need to choose the right types of cars and quantities based on what you know you can sell.
“Right mix” means the dealership should stock a balanced set of cars, not just a certain number. For example, they want the right kinds of cars at the right price levels so they can sell them quickly.
They’re talking about how fast the dealership can sell a car after buying it. Selling quickly (like within about a month) helps the dealer avoid extra costs and keeps inventory from sitting too long.
Concept
max PBR
“PBR” sounds like a dealership pricing rule/benchmark that helps them decide whether a used car deal makes money. They’re saying they don’t just list cars—they only move units when the pricing supports the business.
They’re saying don’t just buy cars and park them on the lot to look busy. The goal is to buy cars you can sell profitably, not just to have more cars sitting around.
The Toyota Supra is a sports car made for performance and driving enjoyment. In the podcast, it’s mentioned while talking about how people handle sales or delivery timelines. That’s likely because it’s a popular car that people often want quickly and in good condition.
They’re saying you can’t just stop buying used cars and hope things stay fine. Older cars keep losing value, so if you don’t bring in newer inventory, your profit gets squeezed and you can fall behind when the market changes.
It means there’s not much room to mess up financially. If you price or manage expensive cars slightly wrong, the impact shows up quickly in the dealership’s profits.
AutoNation is a large U.S. automotive retailer, and the speaker references it as their prior employer before moving into luxury store operations. Mentioning AutoNation helps frame the speaker’s dealership experience and how they transferred processes from a mainstream environment to luxury brands.
“Chevy” here means Chevrolet, a more mainstream brand. They’re comparing how sales work in a regular domestic dealership versus a luxury dealership.
Brand
post oak motor store
This sounds like the name of the dealership location the speaker runs. They’re saying they brought a manager over to help the luxury store perform better.
Car
Ferrari Lake Forest
This isn’t a car model—it’s a Ferrari dealership in Lake Forest. They’re talking about how the dealership’s vibe and sales process change when you sell very expensive, rare cars.
They mention Mercedes as the “normal luxury” comparison to Ferrari’s “ultra-exotic” world. The idea is that different types of luxury customers respond differently to how the dealership behaves.
A “turn” is how fast a dealership sells a car and gets another one in its place. “60 day turn” means they’re trying to move cars about every two months.
“90 day turn” is another way of saying how quickly a dealership tries to sell and replace cars—about three months. They’re saying ultra-exotic cars don’t fit that pace as easily.
For the most expensive cars, dealerships usually sell them slower because there are fewer buyers. “120 day turn” means they expect to hold and sell those cars over about four months.
Concept
re-ACVing the cars
“Re-ACVing” means updating the car’s value in the dealership’s records. If the market shifts, they adjust the price/value so the inventory stays “priced correctly” even before it sells.
A “write down” is when the dealership lowers the recorded value of a car because it likely won’t sell for the earlier price. It’s an accounting way to stay realistic about what the car is worth.
Holding cost is what it costs the dealership to keep a car sitting around instead of selling it. The longer it sits, the more money it quietly burns through things like financing and storage.
This is a Rolls-Royce that runs on electricity instead of gas. The “Black Badge” name is basically a special, more aggressive version, and the big question is whether luxury buyers are ready to treat an EV like a normal Rolls-Royce.
Concept
ultra luxury EV vs "second or third car" demand
They’re saying many luxury EVs are bought as extra cars, not the main car people rely on every day. So the question becomes whether buyers want the EV part, or just want the luxury brand experience.
The host distinguishes different kinds of AI—machine learning, generative AI, and AI agents—and notes that in automotive retail, “AI” can mean many different tools. They also emphasize that voice/text AI tools may not fit luxury brand expectations, affecting how dealers communicate with high-end customers.
They mean contacting customers who haven’t bought or visited in a while. The idea is to use data and AI to reach out again and turn that old interest into new appointments.
In this context, “lift” means incremental improvement from a marketing tool—how much additional engagement and appointments it produces compared to what the dealership had before. It’s essentially a practical ROI framing for outreach campaigns.
They mention Pam AI as a tool related to voice. That usually means it helps with phone calls or voice messages so the business can respond more effectively.
They’re talking about using AI to fix and improve car photos for online listings. The benefit is faster posting and more consistent-looking pictures, even if the original photos were taken in imperfect conditions.
They’re talking about using AI to make car listings look cleaner. The important rule they’re emphasizing is: don’t use AI to hide real damage—only use it to improve the photo background while keeping the car’s condition honest.
They’re saying the AI can take out things like dealership signs or price stickers in the picture. But it shouldn’t be used to cover up damage or mislead buyers about what the car looks like in real life.
The segment ties photo turnaround and listing readiness to pricing and inventory velocity—how quickly cars need to be marketed to match demand. In dealer operations, faster, accurate presentation can help reduce time-on-market and keep pricing aligned with the current market.
They’re comparing selling cars to running a great hotel or restaurant. Instead of just trying to close a deal, you focus on making the whole experience feel premium and helpful from start to finish.
They bring up Del Frisco's as another example of their hospitality background. The point is that great service and a strong story can carry over to selling cars.
They name-drop a casino brand to explain the kind of customer experience their company is used to delivering. The takeaway is about service quality, not cars specifically.
Company
Catch
They name Catch as one of the hospitality brands they’re involved with. It’s part of explaining where their “luxury experience” mindset comes from.
They call out The Palm because it’s a well-known restaurant franchise. The lesson is that customers expect a consistent, high-quality experience—similar to what luxury car buyers want.
After sales is everything a dealership does after you buy the car. That includes service visits, repairs, and parts, and it’s a big part of keeping customers coming back.
“Fixed ops” means the dealership’s service side—repairs, maintenance, and parts. A “Fixed Ops Friday” is likely a discussion about keeping customers coming back for service.
Retention means getting customers to keep using the dealership for service. If you maintain the car there over the years, the dealership earns repeat business.
Advertised price is the number you see in ads for the car. The point here is that dealers may need to present that price in a way that’s accurate and not misleading.
This means everyone keeps cutting prices to try to win the sale. The speaker thinks that’s not sustainable and that dealers should compete by offering a better overall experience.
A “commodity” is something where the only real difference is price. The speaker is saying dealers should stand out by making the buying and owning experience better, not just cheaper.
Hague Partners is a company that helps dealership owners with big-picture business decisions—especially when it comes to buying or selling a dealership. They also run events where people talk about what dealerships are worth.
Informative is a tool for car dealerships that helps manage and control parts of the sales process. It’s meant to work alongside the dealership’s existing computer systems instead of replacing them.
A pre-desking tool is software used before a deal reaches the “desk” stage, where final pricing, paperwork, and approvals typically happen. The segment frames Smart Pencil as a pre-desking tool that supports the sales workflow earlier, helping standardize and control how deals are presented.
LIVE
Hey
everybody welcome back to another episode of the Daily Dealer Live. I'm your host Sam
Darkin. Thanks for choosing to be here with us on Daily Dealer Live this Monday, April
12th, today's 4.20. Coming up today, two dealers, one operator, three totally different
lanes. Lonnie Sosa running post oak motorcars where the average deal is, well, high value.
Michael Byrd from Informative, the guy promising to end the guessing game on your first pencil.
And Alex Lawrence from EV Auto, six months after the tax credit is dead. His used EV
lot is, well, it's on fire, plus he's been down south driving Tesla EVs in a taxi fleet.
More on that, we'll get into on today's show. But before we do that, let's hit today's auto
industry headlines. First up today, the April 15th deadline closed the books on the first
tax season under the one big beautiful bill and the refund numbers, well, they're genuinely strong.
Adverage refunds were up 11% to $3,462 with the IRS having sent back $241 and oh,
I'm sorry, $241.7 billion overall. That's up 14.5% year over year. The new provisions,
no tax, no tips and overtime, larger standard deductions and the auto loan interest deduction,
they all contributed to bigger returns for many filers. On the ground though,
dealers' results were mixed. Some stores saw meaningful lists,
lifts particularly in subprime and near new used. While down payments, well, they actually declined
from $4,373 down to $4,212 on average in the used market as rising vehicle prices outpaced
refund growth. However, rising gas prices and elevated interest rates complicated what could
have been a cleaner read on the new tax environment. One more cycle of data will likely be needed
before dealers get a reliable picture of how the bill is actually changing consumer behavior.
And as a reminder, and as an aside to our daily dealer listening audience, we are streaming across
all CDG social media platforms. Do you have a take on the big beautiful bill and whether or not
tax refunds have increased sales in your store this past month? Post it up into the comments,
we'll bring it into today's text. Patrick Block ventures is super fast to come into it,
saying happy April 20th holiday. It's a holiday? Patrick, you got to tell us more about that.
Back to the news, then over in the EV world, sales rebounded in March with new EV sales up 20.3%
month over month and used EV sales up 53.9% from February according to Cox Auto's EV
market monitor. So this will be something, EV Alex will be super happy about and we'll be excited
to talk to him about on today's show. The used market is a more compelling story right now.
42,924 used EVs were sold in March. That's up 27.7% year over year with average
used EV prices dropping to $34,653 now within about $1,000 of the average ice vehicle price.
New EV sales on the other hand are still running 24.7% below March 2025, which isn't shocking given
the rebate that concluded after that. Following the expiration of clean vehicle tax credits
and Tesla continues to dominate with nearly 50% market share. The practical takeaway for
dealers is on the used side, off lease volumes building, prices are approaching parity with ice
and buyers are increasingly open to used EVs when battery condition is disclosed up front.
Next up today moving to a tariff update, EU auto exports to the US fell 22% in February.
That follows a 27.8% drop in January and the combined toll on European automakers is now
showing clearly in earnings. VW's operating profit as an example, more than halved in 2025.
Yikes, Mercedes-Benz took a $1.2 billion tariff hit that drove a 57% earnings drop
and BMW is forecasting a further 5-10% decline in pre-tax profits in 2026. For US dealerships
carrying European brands, if European OEMs continue absorbing margin pressure at this scale,
decisions around model mix, allocation, and incentive support in the US market could follow.
And also as a side note, CDG is working on a story on the tariff refunds that became
headline over the weekend and how that will or will not impact the automotive industry.
Trump is creating a portal in a way dealers or businesses can go get money back on the tariffs.
But how does that impact automotive? Stay tuned to CDG social everywhere for more information on
that. And finally, it's a busy stretch on the recall front for worth flagging this week.
Ford recalled, they were the most recalled OEM of 25, 1.4 million 25-2017 F-150s over a transmission
sensor fault that can cause an unintended downshift into second gear at speed. That's not good.
Stellantis filed two separate recalls covering GPHEV engines with potential fire risk from
casting contamination and 2026 RAM 2500s where a module fault can disable electronic stability
control without warning. Kia recalled, 141,000 Carnival minivans over loosening fuel pipe nuts
and a potential fire risk in Lexus. Recalled just over 9100 IS, RC and GS models over a fuel pump
defect that can cause a stall at highway speeds. For the full recall deals, remedy timelines
and owner notification dates, check out CDG's recall tracker on the CDG recall tracker on the
website. And that's a wrap on today's auto industry headlines. Lots of comments coming into the
chat today. DNC says negative equity is up to $7,300. That puts pressure on future sales, too.
That is a problem. Patrick comes back, heard from a friend, think about the letters 420.
Interesting. We'll have to chat GPT. That SWAT team, Sam probably doesn't celebrate.
Got to find out more about this. Eager K412 Audi is grappling VW down also Porsche.
What a challenge from that German and that much esteemed German OEM. He says Audi and Porsche
dragging VW down in profits is the clarification there. All right, let's turn to our first guest
today. We've got an action pack show, as I mentioned before. Let's go to Lonnie Sosa, Vice
President of Fertitta Automotive. Lonnie, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me again, Sam.
It's great to have you back. Thanks for joining the show. So you've got quite the collection of
Tell us for the listening audience that doesn't know about you. Tell about yourself,
and how's business April of 2026, Lonnie? Yeah. So Lonnie says, of course, I run
Fertitta Automotive Group, which does own brands such as Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Bugatti. We even
have vintage Broncos or vintage modern, my apologies, which I can explain later. We also
have a Chevrolet Storm. We're looking to expand our current portfolio with more domestic and
import brands. Yeah, the market is actually taking a little bit of a spike this month,
compared to the last few months. We've seen a little softness going into the last quarter
of the year and a little bit of a rebound, I think, due to some inventory availability,
some programs that the factories are putting out, and I think just some interest from the consumer
all together. Yeah. Yeah. Where are you seeing the most opportunity right now, market-wise? You've
got the domestics, and you've got the high-end luxury exotics. Is it in the exotics, then,
as that inventory opens back up? Yeah, so the exotics are where we're seeing the lift immediately
right now. I think we kind of have two different stories, or several different stories, which
use each of the brands. Bugatti, of course, is kind of a one-off where we've pre-sold all of our
allocation of the new tourbillon, and we just continue to engage with our clients and take
even reserve orders for those cars. Rolls Royce, I think, has done a spectacular job going into
the end of the year with the turbulence that we had where they cut back the production of inventory,
which allowed us to maintain our profitability. Bentley, on the other hand, we got a little
long on the inventory, and so that's compressed some margins. We're getting some, you know, we
probably had some disciplines that weren't in place managing that inventory along the way,
and now coming out of the first quarter, we're starting to see some traction again there, too,
as well. So on Monday morning of each week, what is the difference in your ultra-exotic versus
your domestics? What is the difference between a Monday morning there? You mentioned inventory,
getting out of control at one store. That's a challenge in automotive anywhere. Where's the
separator? Where is the experience different in April? That's a good question. Not a lot of people
ask that. So, you know, ultra-luxury, it doesn't have the peaks and valleys that domestic stores
do. So when you come out of a weekend of an ultra-luxury store, Monday is no different than a
Wednesday or a Saturday. It's just kind of very steady, Eddie. And Saturdays are not our biggest
days with other customers. Of course, Chevrolet, it's just like any other dealer. I mean, you're
coming out of your biggest weekend Friday-Saturday business. You're coordinating, you know, you're
putting deals together, getting funded, scrambling to clean up the weekend's business, and,
you know, looking at all your trades, getting them organized, and getting them ready to go
through the shop. So, yeah, Mondays are hectic. Now, with the bigger margins on the ultras,
what would make you say, hey, we want to go deeper and longer into some of the domestics? Is it just
to diversify the portfolio? Or is there something you're seeing in the GM or some of the other brands
that you see opportunity this year? I think diversifying the portfolio is the big play, right?
I mean, you know, having the luxury, domestic, and import kind of having that tripod of a business
platform allows for, you know, for flexibility. Whenever you see issues come up, like, you know,
the tariffs, right? Or back in the day, you remember when the tsunami hit Japan and import
sales obviously went down, and you had to rely on your luxury and domestic stores to pick you up.
Or when you had the bankruptcies, you had to rely on the other. So, it just gives you a good foundation
to not go so deep into the red whenever these unforeseeables happen. And I think luxury is
just, again, more your, they're more ripples than peaks and valleys. So, it's just a steady
higher cost of entry, but a steady return. Yeah. So, in your intake form and backstage,
you talked about one of your biggest recent moves was getting right people into the right seats.
What's the actual play there? What did you change about how you hire or rehire or reassign roles
within the organization that felt brought you to this point where you're like, hey, we've got
strength with right people in the right seat. Yeah, you hit it all. So, I mean, from hiring,
you know, it's really easy in our world, especially when you're a sales manager and you
need salespeople. And you know that the metrics, hey, if the average is 10 cars per salesperson,
I want to sell 200 cars, I need 20 people, right? So, when you're interviewing, you're trying to
fill a seat because you're trying to get those numbers up. But does that necessarily, you know,
your mind isn't necessarily in the right place other than the numbers, the bottom line.
So, when we interview, we're trying to interview more thoughtfully and higher personality and culture
above and beyond just a skill set or experience, right? So, you know, we kind of have a couple
of methods, but the same thing applies to service and technicians and service riders and so on and
I have a department manager that's in need interview and associate, they're typically
assessing the skill set of that associate and whether they could fill that chair or not.
What I do for the second interview is I try to have another department manager who's objective
and their only purpose in that interview is to determine if this employee possibly is a fit
for our culture. And if they sniff something that doesn't feel right, they say something that doesn't
feel right, they can cut it off right there and then and nobody else has any way of overcoming
that objective. Right, veto. Yeah, no veto rights, right. And so that's quite, I mean, and from an
empowerment standpoint, that's incredible too, right? That means the team truly owns pieces of
the puzzle that ultimately create a successful employee, right? Absolutely. We try to break down
all the silos in the environment. We don't want to have just salespeople in one group and service
technicians in another group and service and BDC and we tried to get everybody to I mean, we eat in
the same, we eat in the same break rooms, we kind of commingle all over the dealership. Yeah. And all
of our brands. Yeah. So swinging from from employment over to the market. So BCG and DuPont recently
put out a study saying that the secondary luxury exotic market, they predict will grow one and a
half times faster than new through 2035. So you've got both, you've got the new and you've got the
used in that luxury exotic. What is that? What does that data point mean as far as how you source
and price used vehicles? And do you do you agree with that assessment? Will it continue to grow
through 2035? I don't disagree at all. I mean, that's where most of our growth is. When you look at
all of our metrics, we're going to constantly see year over year growth and use car operations.
And that just comes down to again, and if you're going to benefit from that growth,
you need to have the disciplines of buying the right inventory, trading for as much inventory as
you possibly can. And having the volume of inventory, if I say I want to have 100 cars in
inventory, do I have the right 100 cars in inventory, the right mix, right? And so you need to buy or
source vehicles that you have a history of selling, right? And selling in under 30 days or selling
at, you know, max PBR, but not just putting units out there just to put iron on the ground, right?
Yeah. So you talk about that. And I've read that you've said that you talk about in use car
successes, maintaining the disciplines. I'd love to know what is one discipline you die on the
hill for? And interestingly enough, you mentioned 30 days, a 90 day turn at ultra exotic can't be
part of that discipline, is it? No, no, but I'll tell you one, one that I would die on the sword for
is never stop buying cars. We get scared, you know, when, when, when margins get compressed,
when vehicles start aging, you know, when the market changes, we get scared and we want to stop,
you know, we want to control our inventory, we think controlling our inventory is all right,
we stop buying and maintain what I have. But those cars are still depreciating. And if they're
depreciating, that means your margins are going to get compressed. But how are you going to
outrun those low margins? You have to have the fresh inventory continue to come in
in order to maintain, you know, a good bottom line, right? You know, I've seen it in domestic and
luxury every single time we get scared and hit the pause button, we come back out of that dip.
And then we don't have the inventory to handle, you know, the new market that's coming at us.
And so now we're running behind, right? So what's, what's something that would surprise most people
in automotive about being a used car manager at an ultra exotic, like margin for error, like a percent
mistake is massive, right? And you have hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars in
decisions made daily, what's something most people don't understand about that used car
manager of an exotic? Yeah, that extra digit makes a big difference, right? And so yes,
the mistakes can have the mistakes show up on the bottom line a lot quicker than most other brands.
But, you know, when I came, I was with AutoNation for 17 years before I came over and started
running these luxury stores. And that was my fear too. But once you kind of get used to the fact
that there's again, there's an extra digit or two on the car, it just kind of falls into a regular
cycle just like any other store. And I will tell you this, I brought over a sales manager,
a general sales manager from my Chevy store into my, my post oak motor store with the luxury brands.
And what a phenomenal difference he's made, right? Because he's bringing, he's bringing that excitement
and that energy from that domestic environment where you're really scrapping for every deal
and bringing it into our world. And guess what? We've had an absolute, that's been another reason
why we've had such a significant lift. And it goes back to your first question with
the right people in the right places, right? And so you still have to have that kind of that spirit
and that, you know, that drive, but and you can really take, go ahead, go ahead. I love what you're
going to say there because I saw that in our own Ferrari store. So Aaron Ziegler purchased
Ferrari Lake Forest this past year. And at first you went in there and there, Lawni,
it's interesting. There's a balance between, hey, at this Ferrari store, everything's calm.
You know, we've been around a long time. We've developed an incredible reputation. Don't do
anything too sudden. And it even reflects in the mood on the showroom floor, right? And then you
actually bring some people in from our Mercedes store and some of the other stores with excitement
with activity. And that's got to be one of the challenges that an ultra exotic is balancing
excitement activity with kind of, hey, don't move too fast, right? Because it'll scare the
clients. How do you explain that those two diverse kind of divergent needs moving fast,
but not too fast? You know, yeah, you can move fast, but still be professional. You can still
provide that high touch experience, right? And actually what we've seen is the client engagement
has even gotten better, right? Very excited with us. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How interesting. So,
you know, in your normal store, 90 day turn, do you have a turn policy at your ultra luxury and
exotic stores? Well, we're actually a 60 day turn at the domestic store. And, you know,
and I maintain that same 60 day turn on non ultra exotic cars at the luxury store.
And then when it comes to the ultra exotic, it's more of a 120 day turn. I mean, these cars are
too hard, right? But what you do at 90 days is you start re-ACVing the cars and do write downs,
right? So they're on your books, at the right money all the time. But again, replacing these
vehicles, it's just too costly to go do it. Some people would even say a four month turn like that
is too quick, right? Do you get a member of your team that says, wait, this is that vehicle
it would take us two years to buy this, we need to hold this for a year, a year and a half. Are
you absolutely? Absolutely. There's been back in the day pre COVID, you could sell a car at a year
and still make the same kind of money, right? As you would for a fresh car. Today's difference is
holding cost though. So I do want to talk AI in ultra luxury. But before we go there,
rolls just drop the Spectre black badge. It's a 659 horsepower fully electric,
half a million bucks, 490,000. Is your clientele ready for a luxury EV or is it still a second
or third car and that? Well, I mean, they're all second, third cars in the garage. But
what do you see demand for that rolls being? Believe it or not, even though we are in Houston,
Texas, right? The oil capital of the nation, we dominate with that Spectre. We dominate with the
Rolls EV. When it first came out, I mean, I had almost 70 pre orders for the vehicle sold. Wow.
Sold over 80% of those orders and we continue to sell everything that we take in allocation
and every single used one doesn't last more than 30 days. I don't believe. Wow. Okay. So there's
huge demand in Houston, which is which are in your market, which is an oil driven market. Yeah.
How do you explain that? I mean, at the end of the day, you cannot sell that car like an EV.
It is sold. It is a Rolls Royce with another option for a powertrain. That's it. I mean,
if you drove that car without ever knowing it was an EV, you would never know. Okay. Okay. Okay.
So talk to us about AI before we before we go back having the backstage, we're going to bring
you back for a conversation, hopefully touching on EV with EV Alex at the end of the show. So
thanks for sticking around for the round table. But AI in a luxury store, is it something that
actually moves numbers or is it still something that you're trying to keep away from your clients?
How do you talk and think about AI in a luxury exotic? You know, so AI, of course, we're all
exhausted with what AI is in our business today. And so you have to be very, very careful about
what you consider AI, which is basically technically everything that we've been dealing with
up until now is some sort of version of AI, whether it's machine learning or generative or AI agents.
But to your point with luxury versus like a domestic store, you know, we're very, very careful
and mindful with especially with the voice and text AI tools. That does not play well with that,
with with this luxury client, because it's such a high touch business that you have to be able to
pivot pretty quickly and be very, very genuine when you're engaging with them.
But when it comes to domestic, you know, we're missing so much opportunity, right, with follow-up
and let's say whether let's just use service, for example, we use AI to go out there and mine
our databases to reengage with dormant customers. And, you know, it may reach out to 200 customers
and we may get 20, 20 engagements and appointments out of it. Well, that's a lift that we didn't
have before. So even if it's kind of wonky and messed up a little bit, it's still going to be a good
use of the tool because we're gaining business and we weren't really seeing.
So is there a tool in your luxury exotic world that you're using that is delivering results that
way? I don't want to say delivering results yet. We're engaging with, you know, we use Podium AI
for our Google reviews, which I think that does really, really well. And then we use Pam AI for
our voice. But again, more on the domestic side, we're bringing it in to luxury, but very cautiously
because it just doesn't understand. It just doesn't understand, sorry, it can't even pronounce
Bugatti Shiran. So you got to be careful with how you're engaging with it. I see that you're
putting up something here that I sent to you. So this particular AI has nothing to do with
voice or data. This is re-imaging photos and making, this is taking what all of us,
it's a pain point for us to get photos online. So it typically takes five to seven days.
We're able to use this solution to take pictures of cars in any background, whether it's a photo
booth, rain, or high spot suns and regenerate these photos and make them front line ready
day one. Yeah, you can take pictures of these cars on the trade lanes and have them up within the hour,
taking them in on trade. So and it's called intelligence? Intelligence with an AI, right?
And then that particular solution is re-imagine. So I actually founded that company. I don't run
and operate it, but I founded that company and the people that do operate it are tech industry
veterans. And so go ahead. So how does that technology work in the ultra luxury exotic,
where they want to see every flaw in the vehicle, they want to see it in a real environment? Is the
AI-generated photos, do they still work or do you stick to the domestics on those?
No, no, no. So what you're seeing there, that does not remove the flaws, the scratches, dents,
and dings. We don't want to misrepresent the vehicle. It just takes so far that you would have
to wash, right? You'd have to, it could remove dirt, right? But it's not going to remove the damage
if that's the way you're selling the vehicle. So we're just taking the vehicle like as if it
gone through the car wash and making it front line ready. But this isn't a photoshopped image.
This is the actual image of the vehicle, just regenerated with the background, again,
using AI to remove the signage and the stickers. And if it had inspection stickers on it, things
like that. Again, speed and market is key, right? So in our world, we lose what domestic $50 a day
is what it costs per car. So do that times 40,000 cars if a big company had an inventory, right?
It's impressive too, when you look at the hood, how it does a nice replace on the hood of the
background, right? Like it anticipates all those elements, but to your point, still keeping the
flaws if there are any that would help a buyer make an ultimate long term decision. So you are in
the hospitality world because of the exotics. Most dealers on this show talk hospitality, right?
What do you think most dealers in automotive miss about hospitality first,
they could learn from when when they're studying or looking at luxury and exotics?
Well, you know, we have an advantage over most dealers. We are a our parent company as a hospitality
company, one of the biggest in the world for Tida entertainment, for Tida hospitality. I mean,
so we own hotels, casinos, restaurants. I didn't know this. Give us an example.
Mastros, Del Frisco's, Catch, trying to think of the Palm, Golden Nugget Casinos.
Okay. The Palm is great. That's great food, right? That a coast to coast franchise. So
excellent. Well, what do you take from that in automotive that most people misunderstand about
hospitality? Yeah, so it's it's we it's, you cannot make this a transaction, right? It's an
experience from the very beginning. And I mean, knowledge and being knowledgeable of your product
and being knowledgeable of your environment, you know, having a brand value story to tell
is key to engagement. And again, that leads to trust and trust leads to, you know, to for us to
be able to, to answer questions and do product presentations without sounding like a salesperson.
But here's what really kicks in. The transactional part of it or or transacting is actually the
easy part. It's the ownership experience that really kicks in with the hospitality. Once we
once that that client owns that car, I mean, we're we're friends with them for life until they
until they sell it and get the next one. But but that's that's kind of our biggest difference.
Our after sales team is much bigger than our actual sales team. Well, this is kill this is
killing me because now we need to go into after sales, but we're running out of time. So we're
going to come back to that with Alex at the end as part of the roundtable, because after all,
maybe we have you back for a fixed ops Friday, like retention in the service department, retention
of the organization. It's the number two, it's fighting for number one, I think with use car
acquisition and automotive today. And a lot of people made a big deal about the FTC letter that
went to 97 groups across the country. And that stand that FTC's taken NADA did a webinar last
Friday on it was awesome. It really set some ground rules for the entire auto industry as it
relates to advertised price. And my prediction Lonnie is is people are going to start to see the
value of creating an experience, not a commodity and this race to the bottom on price, hopefully
subsides as everybody plays on a level playing field. But we want to hear about this hospitality
piece. So Lonnie says a vice president for Tita automotive. Thank you so much for being on the
show today. We'll have you back as part of the roundtable. Okay, looking forward. All right.
The show is not long enough. We need to go longer. And by the way, we've got a ton of
comments in the text. So thank you for for being in eager case, given us a lot of comments on
different vehicles. And everybody must stop on snow at what your average recon cost and time on
the exotics like a lot of really good questions and comments on exotic. So we'll come back to that
hopefully much of it is part of the roundtable. But we really need to do you know, we need to do
Hannah, we need an exotics, a show that's focused on luxury and exotics, what that marketplace is
and what the rest of automotive could learn about how you sell the car and how you service it.
Because I think there are things to be learned both sides of it. All right, let's talk Hague
Partners. Today's episode is brought to you by Hague Partners. When it comes to selling your
life's work experience and reputation, it matters. Hague Partners is known for helping
family owned dealerships maximize value with a proven confidential process and record setting
results across multiple tier franchises. Learn more at HaguePartners.com. HaguePartners.com special
props to Hague Partners for supporting today's content, including this conversation with Lonnie
Sosa and the one coming up with EV Alex Hague Partners put on an incredible event at NADA this
year where they talk about the buy sell marketplace valuations. It is the place to be props to Hague
Partners for supporting today's show. All right, let's go straight to Michael Burd, Chief Revenue
Officer at Informative. Michael, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. Thank you for being
here. All right, for our audience that doesn't know you, who are you? What do you do in house
business in April 26? Yeah, so Michael Burd on the CRO at Informative. We have a solution for
auto dealers that sits over the sales process provides from that first interaction with the
consumer all the way through to the Get Deaf and I. It puts guardrails around the sales process.
We have a multi-layered fraud approach and we've got a new exciting pre-desking tool called Smart
Pencil. So that's who we are. So does this tool engage in interact with CRMs and DMSs?
Yeah, we integrate them all. Yeah, we sit right alongside the key systems that dealerships use,
whether it's a CRM or a DMS. They're, you know, LOS, whatever systems they're using,
we integrate right along the way. Okay, so what actually happens at most dealerships with the
customer when it comes to that first pencil, which talk about industry lingo, we need to change that
somehow, but first pencil, that's what we're using nowadays, right? Yeah, pretty much. So yeah,
when it comes to the first pencil, what dealerships are typically doing, they'll have a standardized
rate sheet. They'll have some standardized terms. Every consumer will come through, they'll get the
same 10.9% interest rate or whatever it may be at that dealership. And there is value to that
because you want to make sure we're not discriminating. So I want to give everyone
sort of a fair shake initially, but a lot of that information, the first pencil,
is based on what the consumer is telling us. It's not actually on credit data or real data that we
will find out as the sales process progresses. So you've talked a lot about, with Smart Pencil,
you want to move the desking function up bundle. Why do you say that's important to do in 2026?
Well, if we look at most consumers, affordability, which is often a monthly payment, usually how
they look at it, it's the primary driver decision making, right? So we got a lot of things working
against us right now, right? Most consumers, they know their credit score currently. 10 years ago,
most people probably didn't have as much information on their credit score. They know exactly what
rates are in the market. We have all these different sources online that can tell what they
can expect in terms of interest rate. We've got more credit challenge customers in the market today
that are buying cars. We've got interest rates that are pretty high right now making affordability
a challenge. So we've got a lot of things that are happening. On top of that, we're expected to
sell less cars this year. So when we talk about what's necessary to work in this current environment,
information is key, right? So if we know more about that consumer, we're able to give a more
accurate idea of what we're going to be able to do in terms of the payment, in terms of which
lender is going to buy that deal. If we have that information, we move it up funnel,
now we're dealing with more tools to get that deal done. So you actually, as part of that up funnel,
you talk a lot about credit qualified. How does, and you also talk about soft pulls,
how does a soft pull in April of 2026 actually give you information to actually map the customer
to a real lender program? What's the difference in that customer experience with the soft pull?
And what is a soft pull to our audience that may be curious the difference between a normal
credit pull and a soft pull? Right. So I've been in credit for 25 years, right? And what a lot of
people don't realize is there's all different credit products that are meant to be used at
different stages of the sales process, right? So historically in auto, consumer walks in and
we're going to run hard pull credit reports on that consumer. Hard pull credit report is going to
impact that consumer's credit score. It's going to show that they've liked financing. Soft pull is
a little bit different. So soft pull is usually a pre-qualification. Does not impact the consumer,
carries less compliance risk, still gives you all the information you need to know in terms of a
FICO score and all the trade line information that's important to find out the credit worthiness of
that consumer, but it doesn't carry all that compliance burden. So the credit bureau has designed
the soft pull to be used up funnel. That's the purpose of it. That's where it should be used.
Historically in automotive, we've done a really bad job of just using hard pulls throughout the
sales process, which is creating unnecessary compliance risk for the dealer. It's causing
impact to consumers. We've got our adverse action requirements. We've got all of our compliance
that goes along with that, a lot more compliance burden. So in a hard pull, there are triggers.
You have to have sign credit out there. There are triggers and you can go look up those triggers.
I won't quote them all because we don't want to get in trouble for not quoting all of them. But
there are, to your point, compliance issues. On a soft pull, is it broader? Can you pull it
without less commitment? And then what do you get out of a soft pull?
Yes, you have to receive authorization to run it unless you're doing a pre-screen, which is a whole
another animal, which we probably don't have time to get into today. But you're still getting the
authorization from the consumer to run the soft pull. That all stays the same. But since you're
not impacting their score, the back-end compliance is not as heavy as what it is with a hard pull.
So you're not required to get red flags out of wallet questions. You don't have to do adverse
action because you're not actually impacting their credit score. Okay. All right. So walk us
through what actually happens at most dealerships when a customer sits down and a manager starts
building that first pencil. What are they working with? Yeah. So do we want to bring that first
with smart pencil or how it works today? Sure. Yeah. Or you know what, start with us
how it works today and then with this tool, what the difference is and how it expedites it.
Yeah. So today, when they receive that information that they get from the salesperson,
they start putting together that in the desking tool. They start looking at the different lending
options. They start pulling together information. They may do what I referenced earlier and provide
standardized rate, but they're building that deal within their desking platform. So that can take
time. And as we know, when things get super busy, the more time we have to go and take through and
then what if the consumer says, I don't want this vehicle, I want to switch to this one, right? So
now we've got to rebuild it on a new vehicle. So it's a very time intense process for the dealership.
The knowledge base of the desk manager is really important to how effective they are at building
that deal successfully and understanding which lenders are going to buy that deal.
For smart pencil, the beauty of it is after we do that soft pull early in the process,
the deal is completely built for you. There's no effort. There's nothing the dealer,
the desk manager has to do. We run all those lender permutations in real time using the dealer's
requirements. Okay. Okay. Huh. I think, you know, there's definitely a school thought out there
that says you need a hard pull to structure a real deal. What do you say to dealers that still
believe that? In fact, we even have a couple of comments that came in. Patrick Blackfincher says,
I thought you had to do an adverse action if you're decisioning based on a credit score,
not necessarily hard or soft. Well, at the end of the process, you're going to have to run the
hard pull, right? So that's the trigger then. Exactly. Okay. Tell us a little bit about the
compliance requirements to retain that first pencil. Yeah. So the first pencil and actually
every pencil of that matter should be stored on that deal jacket for the consumer.
One of the things with our system is because we have a compliance platform that sits around
that process, every time we iterate on a deal and even if we switch vehicles,
we store the copy of that pencil. So we have a track record of every single pencil you're doing
on that consumer and switching vehicles is super easy. So if you've already built structure, you
built in all the information about the consumer, switching to a new vehicle is just literally
clicking to a different vehicle and inventory. It pulls in all the work you've already done.
You're not having to go back and rebuild that deal from scratch.
All right. So if there's a dealer watching today still building the first pencil the old way,
what's one thing you'd want them to walk away today thinking about?
Yeah. I think if we look at today's market and we think about what's missed at the desk, right?
So a lot of times profitability is left on the table.
With our system, we're able to streamline all of that for the dealership,
ensuring that we're protecting the profit on each and every deal.
And then also if they speed those deals in the desk, they're more creative with the approach they
take, whether that's looking at other vehicles. What does that 10 to 20% lift in vehicles mean
for your dealership? What does that extra profit or that standardized profit across all deals
mean for the dealership? So I think the desk is an area that dealers are leaving money on the table
today. So I think this provides a mechanism for them to protect that and maximize it.
So last week, the last couple of weeks, we've talked a lot about the FTC letter that was sent
out to 97 dealers last month by the FTC. Senator Bernie Moreno was on the show last week. He called
it a cleanup on aisle nine. He said five percent of dealers just aren't doing business the right
way. And he said it's his intent with the FTC to clean that up and to kind of raise the standard
within automotive. What role does desking play in automotive in this cleanup on aisle nine,
in your opinion? Yeah, I think desking is a little further down the line. But I think that when we
talk about what type of payments we're quoting consumers, especially when we look up funnel,
whether it's on our website or whether it's through a calculator or through a Mar-Tec solution,
I think one of the things that dealers are going to start looking at is how can we syndicate those
payments further down the process, right? What are we quoting them online? And what are we actually
quoting them inside the dealership? And I think that's a place that dealers have to start thinking
about. We build our solution so it can be syndicated through those different solutions that they're
using. So if they're using something out in the front of the process, whether it's a website or
whether it's a Mar-Tec solution, we can actually, when that consumer does step into the dealership
or does engage online to start a deal, we can syndicate that payment so it's consistent across
the board. And it's also credit qualified. So it's an actual fundable payment. It's not just a
guesstimate. Very cool. I do think actually that desking has a ton to do with this. It's not a
solid disagreement. I think you and I say the same thing. I think automotive is going to win this
year and in the future, the more transparent we are. And the more transparent we are at this
quote unquote desking, whether it's a pencil, whether it's disclosure, the more transparent
we are, the more control and choice we give consumers and the more clear everything is.
That's how that clean up on aisle nine will finish. And I think all of automotive,
I think we're going to benefit from this. I think as we find tools and technologies perhaps,
such as yours, Mike, that help make things easier, simpler and more transparent,
all automotive is going to win. Mike, thoughts on that as we wrap?
I agree. I think it's a great point. I think that and talking to dealers just talking to them
the other day is like, well, I don't want to show them the best payment out of the gate. I want
to get at least 20 nos before I get a yes. And it's that's old. I understand that perspective.
And I think more deals are starting online. Consumers are less likely to come into the
dealership till they feel like they have a real deal or they have terms and rates that they feel
appropriate. So whether we like it or not, it's coming. I think we've got to get ahead of it.
And I think tools like smart pencil are a great way to do that, to give that further up funnel,
get real fundable quotes to consumers, show them what the payment is going to be.
But then also have the flexibility where in the dealership, if that vehicle is not working out,
or it's going to be too expensive, being able to quickly switch to another vehicle in their
inventory. Yeah. And to your point about starting online, coming in brick and mortar,
that's horrible where we start online, and it falls one process. And then that quote unquote
pencil or dusking process looks different in store than it did online. It's disjointed.
Unfortunately, the more tools and technologies we can adopt and work with an automotive to
help make that contiguous all the way through the process. So the customer has had an elite
experience on the other side, that's going to help everybody in automotive. Michael Burd,
Chief Revenue Officer at Informative. Thanks for coming on the show today to talk a little bit
about smart pencil, the dusking process and ways to win in 2026. Appreciate you being on the show.
Awesome. Thanks for having me. Thanks for being here. Yeah, I can't help but think like the
letter that went out to the industry is it will be it will have an evening effect across the industry.
It's going to be a great, I think it's great news for this industry. And in center Marino's words,
the 5%, whether it's 5%, 10, 20%, whatever it is, as dealers work off the same page,
off the same ground rules, we're going to, I think all of automotive will benefit by focusing on the
experience rather than the race to the commodity bottom, which in some corners of the world has
been that. So next up, let's go EVs, independent EVs, no doubt, but crushing it with them,
Alex Lawrence, CEO and co-founder of EV Auto. Welcome back to the show.
Hey, good to see you again. It's good to see you. Your fourth appearance on Daily
Deal Align. We appreciate you being here. Let's do it. Yeah, let's go. You guys ask, I say yes,
it's fun. Thanks for being here. So look, we had to have you back because I opened up my social media
several days ago and I saw you in a driverless vehicle and it just made me smile to see it.
Tell us about the experience and I don't know if JJ and Dave, our producers have the video,
but if they do, they can queue that up and play it for us. Tell us where you were,
what you did and what your response was, Alex. Yeah, I was in Texas the last few days. I was down
in Austin and I downloaded the RoboTaxi app and put in a request for a ride. It showed up a couple
minutes later. Nobody was in the car. Cool looking Model Y jumped in the back and it took me on about
a 15 minute ride. There was traffic, people, construction. It drove very confidently and it
was like $4 or something. It was really cheap to take the ride and just some nice little touches
like when I got in, I could easily connect my phone and play my music or my podcast.
The rear temperature controls were set and when I got there, it kind of played some music to kind
of warm me up that we were getting close and just a really easy, easy, easy experience and the car
performed perfectly. So I was in Austin months ago for an F1 race and I saw Teslas driving around,
but they had people in them and they had elaborate apparatus attached to them. What has changed about
the technology now that it's not just Waymo, now it's Tesla that's also delivering driverless
experiences? Yeah, I mean, it's just, I think a lot of it's regulatory folks because I've got it on
pretty darn good inside info that the capability to do this stuff has been around for a while.
I mean, you would know. Yeah, look, it needs to be super, super, super safe. You've got to make sure
and so, but yeah, I mean, they just rolled out in, they're in Dallas, they're in Houston,
they're in Silicon Valley. I think it's going to be slow and then fast. I think you're going to start
seeing them pop up and a lot of people will be uncomfortable with a driverless car, but a lot
of people won't, especially when you can see potentially how much cheaper it is. And some
people don't really want to chat it up and the cars are always clean and, you know, quite frankly,
spotless. And so, you know, there's some folks that will prefer it for a variety of reasons.
All right, but what about those who are scared to death of the tech? Waymo was reported over the
weekend to have turned left into oncoming traffic. Like, that's a mistake. Yeah, no, I mean, and
I'm here to tell you, they still do make mistakes sometimes, but you know, the latest data from
the, what is the NTSB they track is either hours or miles. And it was something like, I mean,
I won't get this wrong, but it was something like every non self-driving car gets in a wreck,
one in every 600,000 miles or 600,000 hours, and then every Tesla FSD car is like one in seven
million. So, I mean, there are these, these ones that get in the news and there are, they're not
perfect, but the data says they're much better drivers than we are. Okay. All right, Patrick,
Block Ventures comes into the chat today. He says, curious how Alex's Nashville location is doing
versus Utah. And then I'll add to that. Do you continue to expand? You're in Texas, so you must
be, or you were? Yeah, yeah, you know what? It's been incredible. It's three X star projections.
We are sales are three times what they thought would be. And it is, yeah, there's a combination
of two things. I think one, you know, Nashville is a great market. We've got an outstanding look
like physical location. But I really think our social media, you know, people are coming in from
all over the place, they're driving from a couple hours away. And my experience when I'm there and
my teams are that, you know, they say virtually 100% of our customers say, Hey, we watch your videos
and, and, you know, they trust us. They know that, that we don't do any of, we're already following
the FTC rules to the tee. We don't change anything. All right. So, all right. So let's go to that. This
will be a great opportunity for you to highlight what you're doing. You and I are in a CDG circles
group. And so I can watch as you do things, right? And you have conversations within the group and
FTC letter news of that came out. There was a lot of question behind doc fee. Is it included in the
advertised price? Or is it not? And on the NADA call with the FTC version two last Friday, the FTC
was absolutely clear. By the way, Senator Marino owes me something because he got he wasn't completely
right. But great guy. It was a great interview. But doc fee FTC said by my interpretation that
it should be in the advertised price. You didn't wait for that clarification call. You went straight
at it included it. Talk to us about what your take is on that letter and what it means for
automotive. And how is this industry evolving and changing in 2026, Alex? Yeah, I mean, for us,
the only thing that we required that wasn't a part of the purchase price in the tax and registration
was at doc fee. We don't have they don't have to pay cash or finance. They don't have to trade in
a car. They don't have to buy any, any warranties or packages or anything like that. There's nothing
they have to do to qualify for the price that we listed online. And our doc fee was always listed
in the front, you know, it was always but in the state of Utah, it wasn't required to be like in
the actual price, ours would have the price and then it below it. And and so we followed that rule
and didn't think we were out of sorts. Our prices would have been in our case $500 higher than
everybody else's. But the minute I heard about it, we changed that we put the our doc fees for
99 we just added it to the price. Now we break it down. So when you see the price, you just see
the price. When you click on you can see the sales price and the doc fee in the total. And so that
was a super easy thing for us to do. No problem. And for a little while, yeah, go ahead. Lead
providers pull your price and they decide whether to dish up your vehicles based on price to market,
right? You would have suffered for a short period of time by having that doc fee in there and others
not. Is it a price worth paying or is it was it being overly cautious early proved out to be
accurate because that's what the FTC says that they wanted anyway, Alex. Yeah, I mean, we've always
been I think we're a leader in that stuff. And so why stop now it was obvious to me that that's
what they meant. I didn't need two webinars to decode that. I thought it was super, super clear.
What's going to be interesting is we've got a lot of dealers in our market that still aren't doing it.
They also do things like they require you to pay a shipping fee, you know, or they require that's
exactly they require you to trade in a car or so it's going to be really they're going to have to
do one of two things because what's going to happen is the public is going to police these folks.
They're going to turn it in the FTC has got a really easy way to turn in these dealers.
And and it's going to become public and I'm going to help. I'm going to be pushing this stuff on
social media saying, Hey, these are the new rules and everybody needs to follow them. But they've
got all kinds of other things that they are basically see either they're going to either
they're going to not require them anymore. Yeah, yeah, or the prices are going to have to go up.
I mean, I'll tell you, we've got a dealer here that requires a trade in and and it has to be a
trade and they want and you have to at the price they're willing to pay you if you don't the price
is $3,000 more $3,000 less than mine. Yeah, yeah, FTC clearly said you can't do that. I was astonished
Alex on the call on Friday, the Commissioner that was there with us said, he there is to your
point, there is a reporting methodology and he asked other dealers to report other dealers.
So at the end of the day, this industry will please itself. What do you
what do you think the change will be one year down the road and then five years down the road to how
a vehicle is bought? Bernie Braino said it's clean up on aisle nine, 5% of dealers are bad actors.
Do you think that's an accurate percentage? And then how much is this going to change things one
year and five years down the road, Alex? Yeah, I mean, bad actor, I think is pretty aggressive
term. There are a lot of franchise dealerships that are structured to they've got a process,
they've got to change. I mean, the cash price and the finance price at a lot of franchise
dealers around here, they're two different prices. And so they I'm assuming that as a franchise,
they're just going to have to comply because the fines are heavy, right? It's 50 grand per
occurrence. Plus reputational. What's that? Plus reputational. I would argue that that's the
the per occurrences is significant, but the reputational is even worse. No one wants
to have a large entity like the FTC coming after you know, and and but on the on the other stuff,
you know, like I said, I've got another company here, they charge $1,000 transportation fee.
And so I mean, they've always baked that into their margins. So now what are they going to do?
Are they going to pay less for cars because they've got to make more on the front end? Are they
going to raise their prices to include that and see how that does it in the market? But at the
end of the day, the customer wins because it's probably, I mean, help me, Sam, probably the
only industry that at least pops into my head where the advertised price and what the prices
when you get there are not oftentimes the same thing. Well, well, the the other example they
brought up and I agree with this is how many times if you bought a ticket on StubHub or Ticketmaster
and you expect to spend $200 on a ticket that you just have always wanted and you go to checkout
and it's one and a half times that and you're like, wait, how is how is there this fee and that
fee and this other fee? So like, Bernie Merino said, Hey, just do the right thing. I love that
the auto industry is going to end up just doing the right thing. And I think the lead providers
are having an important role in this props to Cox dealer.com props to true car props to car
gurus and everyone else that very quickly went to say, Hey, we're going to have the line we're
going to pull dock fee and we're going to do everything we can to dish it up and I hope they
police it. It's interesting because Google kind of took an effort at this several months ago,
but they really didn't have any there was no consequence. I think with the FTC here,
the consequence is significant, Alex. So five years down the road, how are things different,
would you say? Yeah, I mean, I believe that the vast majority of the industry will be level
playing field where the prices that are on the website will match the price that you show up and
can pay. And that the and as it should be, it's it's the responsibility of your salespeople to
show extra value that creates more margin at the point of sale. Hey, let me let me help you figure
out why you want this warranty or why you know, you know, but the days of the big difference
between stuff, though, is you're just sitting in your office clicking a couple of buttons,
you didn't drive in and spend two hours talking about ticket prices before it is still frustrating.
Yeah, and I remember Airbnb used to do that and they don't do it anymore Airbnb.
Final price. And so I think it's gonna be great, though. I think it's a it's a huge positive.
There are a lot of dealers I know that don't do that stuff anyway. And they're they're doing,
you know, everybody though, I will say this is a little bit nervous, like, yeah, well,
it's like the use the tax credit. Sam, there were a bunch of people that broke those. Yes,
there are a bunch of people that broke those rules. And guess what, they broke them all the way till
the end. And they made more money. And they're never going to get in trouble. Now that one had
an expiration date on it. This one does not. And so I'm hopeful that they'll make some examples
out of some groups around the country used and new after they've given plenty of time and plenty
of warnings. And and because the only way to really get their attention isn't necessarily
reputation, it's money. Send them a $2 million fine. And then and let a few of those happen.
And it'll that'll get some attention quick. Well, money maybe for the small and those who
haven't been around as long. I think reputation for the large groups is significant, right? I
can't imagine anything worse than, you know, you've you've founded a company that's 100 years old,
and you've put your life's equity into it. And, you know, it's taken away because GM's maybe who
were paid a little too much and aggressively, you know, went after it. We're going to have Don Hall
on head of Virginia Auto Dealers Association on Friday. He's always great on this topic. So
anybody that wants to join Fixed Ops Friday, he'll be on. So Alex Lawrence, CEO, co-founder
of Evia Auto, we're going to have you back in just a minute for our round table. We got to talk
about keys. We didn't even talk gas. And we got it. We got to talk. So we're going to go along to JJ
and Dave. We're going to go just a little bit long. So Alex Lawrence, thanks for being on the
show. We'll have you back in just a second for the round table. All right. By the way, we're
still working on our segue from the round table. We're trying to figure, Hey, do you actually
end the interview? And then do we come back? Or do we just join and just have everybody in? I would
we'll take your feedback. Anybody that wants to. But this is my favorite part of the entire show.
We get to bring back Alex Lawrence, CEO and co-founder of Evia Auto and Lonnie Lonnie. So as a
vice president of Fertata Automotive, welcome back to you both. By the way, Lonnie, did I get
Fertata? Am I saying it correctly? I forgot I'm butchering it. Fertita definitely butchers.
Do not take it out at me when I go to the Palm Restaurant or I go to Maastros. I love both of
them. So they are both great. So first question is for Alex. Alex, have you sold any of these Rolls
Royce EVs at a half a million bucks? No, but I aspire to have one someday because they are
absolutely beautiful vehicles. And I think what Lonnie was saying, they're just gorgeous. And
they also feel kind of a higher tech just in general. I think they the way that the but you
know, they're incredible cars. I don't I think it'll be a while before I touch one is my guess.
So you both agree on EVs, which I think is interesting from Lonnie's perspective. Lonnie,
what is the future of EV in your marketplace? Given the rising prices of gas? Is there a dollar per
gallon that breaks the market kind of like it did in 08 or do you think it's the market will be
more resilient to gas prices going up on the Iran war and the Strait of Hormuz being closed right
now Lonnie? You know, I think in the past when gas went up and down, it was a little easier for
the consumer to switch. If they were big SUV drivers, they would go into cars and sedans and
smaller cars. The thing that they's problem is that those sedans don't necessarily exist anymore.
So the other alternative is going to be EVs. So I think there's no doubt we're going to see a shift,
which obviously we're already seeing what the numbers you said earlier. But as far as EVs
going into the future, taking them the volatility out of it, I think it's just going to be another
drivetrain option, right? I mean, I'm a live vehicle, do I want the 8 cylinder,
do I want the 6, 4, or do I want an EV? It should be a consumer choice at that point.
Yeah, yeah. Alex, is the demand currently under anticipated? You mentioned you're at a multiply
over what you even you expected and you specialize in EVs. Yeah, I mean, there's a direct connection
to gas prices and EV demand. It doesn't take a genius to, but to my point, I mean, there's a lot
more affordable EV options now. They've almost gotten parity with their gas counterparts. But
one of the things that I like to bring up in any discussion, because first of all, I love gas cars,
I'm not a hater, and I've never been one that's thought EV adoption is just going to be a straight
line. I've always thought it's just going to be kind of a steady. So I'd like to think I'm kind
of a realist, but here's my question. Other than the Ferrari and the Lambo and the Rolls-Royce and
how many times has a neighbor like come over to you and said, Hey, have you seen this Ford F-150
that I got? Have you been in one? You got to go. I got to take you for a ride in the city.
Like you got to go, right? Or name your Toyota, name your whatever, great cars. People don't
be excited about them. But let me tell you what happens all the time. But I got to come pick you
Tesla. And there is an army of word of mouth marketers out there that are doing this every
day. And they're bringing in their neighbors. They're bringing in their mom. They're almost
bullying them in to buying these. And so the more people that have them as the modelized
number one selling car in the world, I don't think people are realizing that that snowball
is getting bigger and faster and stronger. People love them.
Yeah. So gradual adoption by word of mouth. I'm going to refute what you say a little bit and
I'll let Lonnie go at it. So I Drive is my demo at 26 Palisade. The owner of the company locked
up to me thinking I was had a demo from our Land Rover store. And he's like, that is a beautiful
car. Which Land Rover version is this? So I get your point, Alex, but there are vehicles gas
powered today that are that are catching eyeballs on the road that are surprising.
Hyundai and otherwise Lonnie, do you agree or disagree? No, I don't disagree. I think the
styling is really changing a lot a lot faster with most manufacturers. I will give this to the EVs.
That the limitation on styling is so far less than than your typical ice vehicle, which gives
you a lot of good options there. But I personally drive a three quarter diesel.
Hey, I'm a 100 miles a day. So I want to be up high and above everybody else.
Yeah. This is a great, great option way. I mean, I'm not suggesting that everybody,
I'm just saying I don't know. I don't know if too many neighbors are coming over and,
and you know, or you're going over there. I was saying, I got to take you for a ride
in this Palisade. You got to come sit in this thing. You got to watch it.
But it draws eyeballs. And I say it a little bit tongue in cheek, right? Because it's not the
most exciting demo that's sitting out there, but it does, you know, there are some eyeballs to it,
right? So yeah, yeah, yeah. What what are the design limitations of gas versus EV that allows EVs
to be a little bit, I think when you say, hey, you got to come check this out, Alex, I assume you're
talking about, I assume you're talking about the technology piece rather than the design
elements. I don't think EVs by and large are that good looking, are they?
I would agree. No, I think, I mean, some are better than, you know, of course, as you go up the chain,
the Tycons, I think it's a really good looking Porsche and, you know, the more expensive ones.
I think I like the R1S, the seven seater Rivian SUV. I think that's got a nice build quality
to it and stuff. But no, people are, it's the self driving and the acceleration.
You don't have to, you don't have to have a key, you don't have to press a button,
you don't have to do any of these things. It just always before you and, and so it's like
getting a new iPhone. It's like getting a new iPhone. Yeah, it's like, oh, let me show you my
model Y, like the look of it. People have seen a million of them, but it's, it's what the cars can
do and what, how much money they can save. You know, I, I built a website, EVautosavings.com.
You can go in and put your zip code, the kind of car you drive and how many miles you drive a month
and it will tell you how much money you'll save versus gas. That's a smart idea. That's a smart
idea. You know, all you're eating on is typically under a dollar, so. All right. All right. Next
question up in the round table here. So you both have very different business models, very different
segments that you're targeting and working with. Alex, you look at Lonnie's business model and think,
what's he doing that you could borrow? And Lonnie, you look at the same of Alex and say,
hey, what's an, what's something you could borrow back that would make your business model
better? Alex, let's go with you first. What would you borrow from Lonnie's business model and ultra
exotics? And he's got domestic as well. Yeah. I mean, well, the culture that they have of how they
view customers is a long-term relationship. And the, the culture that they have of serving the
customer and comes from, sounds like the parent company has, you know, started that and drives
it down into their automotive business. But, you know, I would love for somebody that bought a
$15,000 Model 3 for me to feel like they bought a new Ferrari from Lonnie, like in terms of how we
cared for them and the time we took with them and the, and the quest, the way that we answered
their questions and things like that. So I would love to have my customers feel like his, you know,
luxury customers do and have my team treat people that way with that long-term perspective. We're
here to, you know, have you come by many cars from us and refer many people to us and not get
caught up in the, in just the transaction? Yeah. Lonnie, what's one thing? You know, I think that
the days of transparency and information are here and they're here to stay. So I like what Alex is
doing with this separate website where you can go and determine the cost of ownership of these
vehicles. I think any information we can provide the customer, right, to help make their decision
making process even easier is better. So the more transparency, the better. I love what we're doing
with the, what we're doing with the transparency with the FTC regulations. I hate the pricing
structures that we have right now where you have to raise to the bottom and yeah, it's just, it's
bad business. So I really, I really think that's, this is the way we're going to go in the future.
Do you think we'll see dealers turning dealers into the FTC? I mean, they said that on that call. I
was astonished that they, that they sent that, that, but you know what, at the end of the day,
to Alex's point, I think it'll be that sort of kind of action that is going to just clean it all up
and, and it'll put us in a, and listen, so much better to have happen in this administration
than any other, right? Where it would be a complete overreach and different, different models. So
all right, what's the single bit? I have two more questions and we'll be, we'll wrap up.
Single biggest threat to your business model in the next 24 months. We'll start with Alex and then
Lonnie. Well, I think that for many years, I wondered why more people weren't
selling EVs. I kept waiting like, God, you know, everybody kind of hates them and hates on them
and nobody wants anything to do with them. And, and I think over the next 24 months with gas prices
and stuff, we're just seeing a lot more people that are acquiring them at auction and I'm not
wanting to sell them to us, not wanting to get rid of them. And so, so yeah, just increase, increase
competition for a used EV inventory. Yeah, I've asked you this before, Alex, would you become a
franchise DV dealer? I mean, Tesla would be the easy one, but if a Chinese OEM came out and said,
Alex, we want you to distribute our EVs, would you do it in the US? I'd have very serious
conversations with them because those are great cars, no question about it. Yeah. And I've,
man, if Rivian or I've turned down, I'd like, I, there were a few names names, but that I didn't
believe in the vehicles that they were bringing to market. But yeah, I would be, I would definitely
love to have that conversation. I don't think that'll ever happen though. I don't think that'll
ever happen. I think you'll see Chinese EVs in America for a very long time, if ever.
Yeah. Well, Senator Moreno and others have said it will never happen. Trump said he's open to it.
Well, what, what, what's your biggest threat to your business model next 24 months?
I think for, I think for all of us, the biggest threat is the manufacturer direct to consumer
sales. That would be what concerns me the most. Yeah. There's a lot of work in the industry to
prevent that from happening. Sony, Honda recently pulled back on that VW despite all their financial
challenges seems to be going forward. Now a little tongue in cheek with this one, if you both swap
stores for a week, Lawni at EV Auto, Alex at Post Oak, who's most comfortable Lawni uncomfortable
rather? I think, I think, I think I would take that one. I'd probably be the most comfortable.
Most comfortable, right? Yeah. Yeah. Who's most uncomfortable? I'm not from the car business. I'd
be those guys that chew me up and spit me out. All right. And then final, final question for
both of you. What's one piece of advice for the dealers watching who's not in either a camp ultra
exotic and or EV just a normal store trying to figure out where the puck is going in April of
2026? What's one piece of solid sound advice for our listening audience today? Lawni, you first and
then we'll round out with Alex and we appreciate you both being on. Yeah. I'm going to always go
back to make sure that your disciplines stay intact. Never stray from no matter what shiny
objects come, especially AI. Be very, very, very careful with the AI. It's a great injection into
our business, but it's also you need to be very cautious with how you do it. Yeah. Yeah. That's
great words from an exotic dealer that has all the shiny toys. You've got all of them. All of them,
Alex. I'd say run towards this change with the FTC. Yeah. Lead in your markets, lead in your
industry, go over the top. It's, I mean, you've got these huge organizations. It's like a battleship.
You just can very slowly move them, but start those things, change your compensation process,
start looking at how your teams might change, changing your advertising,
just like run towards it, be a leader, you know, drive along your peers and be somebody in your
market that is really embracing this and publicly embracing it and say, you know, we didn't used
to do it that way, but we're going to do it that way now. And EV Alex, I think you're the only one
hoping the Strait of Hormuz stays closed for a long time because gas prices benefit EVs.
Although I would tell you there's probably a lot of components that will end up suffering. So we
hope the, yeah, I'm not, I'm not like all in on that. I mean, I do have a human side that worries
about the actual conflict and the things that they create that are very serious. All jokes.
All jokes. Thank you. Well, Lonnie and Alex, thank you both for being on Daily Deal Alive and
participating in this round table. Appreciate you both being here today. So thank you.
Thanks guys. And to you, our Daily Deal and listening audience. Thanks for watching Daily
Deal Alive. We break down the biggest moves in the car business as they happen. What a fun
conversation we've had today coming up Friday of this week. We've got Don Hall. He's going to
give you his recap on the NADA webinar and you don't want to miss that. So don't forget, we're
here live every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, 1pm Eastern. So if this is your world, hit like,
hit subscribe, turn on those notifications so you never ever miss a beat. We'll see you next episode.
Thanks for being here, everybody.
About this episode
Dealers in three very different lanes—ultra-luxury, credit/desking tech, and used EVs—break down what’s changing in 2026. Lonnie Sosa (Post Oak Motorcars) argues used luxury growth depends on disciplined inventory buying, the right culture hires, and hospitality-style trust. Michael Byrd (Informative) pushes “Smart Pencil” with early soft-pull credit to create fundable quotes faster and reduce compliance risk. Alex Lawrence (EV Auto) celebrates used EV momentum and driverless taxi rides, then focuses on FTC “advertised price” compliance and what it means for pricing transparency. Tariffs, recalls, and tax-refund sales effects set the backdrop.
Today's show features:
- Lonny Soza, Lonny Soza, Vice President of Fertitta Automotive
- Michael Byrd, Chief Revenue Officer of Informativ
- Alex Lawrence, CEO & Co-Founder of EV Auto
This episode is brought to you by:
Haig Partners – When it comes to selling your life’s work, trust the advisors who have built a reputation for maximizing value for family-owned dealerships. If you are considering a sale, divestiture or looking to grow, begin a confidential conversation at https://haigpartners.com/.
Informativ – Informativ's SmartPencil gives dealers a credit-qualified, lender-specific first pencil the moment a soft pull returns -- VIN-level accurate, optimized for both consumer payment and dealer profit. It eliminates the guesswork that costs deals and speeds up the sales process. See how it works at https://informativ.com/
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