This is what happens when automakers JACK UP prices | Episode 942

Happy Holidays! Want to give your host a gift? Consider subscribing, rating, and reviewing the show this holiday season. It really helps the show grow. From all of us at Believe, have a Merry Christmas everyone, and a Happy Holiday!

It's noon here in Ventner City, New Jersey, and our nation's capital, Washington, D.C., and this is Car Edge Live for Tuesday, October 14th with your hosts, me, Ray, here in, thankfully, drying out Ventner City, New Jersey, and Zach, well, getting ready to cross a big-ass bridge, it looks like. How are you today, handsome?

I'm doing fantastic pops. Happy Tuesday, October 14th to you. So grateful to be with you here today. We're going to talk about what happens, Dad, when automakers decide to jack up their prices and finally customers decide not to buy them.

Now, Dad, you went viral years ago. I mean, we're talking like six years ago now for your video about what happens to unsold new cars. So start us off here, pops. We've got some stories that we'll talk about that tie to automakers not being able to sell their expensive inventory, but start us off here, Dad. Do cars go unsold? Cars have a buyer eventually, correct?

Once a car has been invoiced to a dealer, a new car, okay, I'm not talking about cars that manufacturers hold on to, but once the vehicles have been invoiced to the dealer and shipped to the dealer, well, it is then the dealer's responsibility to figure out how to turn that hunk of metal into green cash, okay?

It is their car. They have to do something with it. So if they can't find a retail customer for it, they very well might just send it to the auction and take a brand new car with no miles and a clean certificate of origin, which is before a title,

and manufacturer statement of origin, and sell the vehicle at the auction for whatever they can get for it. Whoever buys it will then turn around and sell it as a used car at a price that is well below what it would have sold for as a new car.

But ultimately, every new car that gets invoiced to a dealer somehow, some way, gets sold. The idea that dealerships are sending brand new vehicles to turn into rust and dust in the middle of fields somewhere in America, that's not a business model that works.

So look at this chart, folks. Let me pull it up on the screen right here. New vehicle average transaction prices. Here's how they've evolved over the past few years. This goes all the way back to 2012.

Well, so you're looking at here over a decade of new vehicle average transaction prices, which are a proxy for manufacturers suggested retail prices, average transaction prices for new vehicles typically go up as MSRPs go up.

And you can see here, Dad, we are back over the $50,000 mark for new vehicle average transaction prices. And what are we finally starting to see? You and I demonstrated this a little bit yesterday when we were on the car edge car search, when we were talking about some of the manufacturers, domestic manufacturers like Ford, for example,

and General Motors and Stellantis who have run into issues seeing many of their vehicles sit on the market for, you can see here, a Genesis GV70 with a $61,000 MSRP sitting for 153 days.

And we're going to look into some of the data that we have access to thanks to the car edge car search in terms of how long vehicles are sitting. But Dad, let's talk a little bit here.

What happens, and look at the slope of this line, what happens as new vehicle prices go up more and more and more? What happens when these automakers jack up prices?

Well, eventually, it appears as if you start pricing more and more people out of the new car market. You know, you made a statement at the beginning of that saying that the average transaction prices are typically a reflection of the increase in MSRPs.

There was a time not too long ago, about four years ago, where there was this shortage of new cars. And what happened was those average transaction prices were significantly higher, not because the MSRPs of the cars went up, but because dealers attached an additional dealer markup to those vehicles.

So there are times, few and far between, when it is not because of the increase in the MSRP. What we're seeing today is strictly because of the increase in the manufacturer suggested retail prices on these vehicles.

And obviously, that is, if we equate it to a swimming pool, the depth of the water is shallower and shallower because, well, you don't need that much water because there's not that many people that can swim in that pool anymore.

Ooh, yeah, that's hitting home, Dad. Now, let's do a real example here. How about that? We know one of the vehicles that have seen its MSRPs go up significantly would be the Audi Q5.

If I'm not mistaken, the Audi Q5 is one of those vehicles that saw a 15-plus percent price increase year over year. I've just come to the car edge, car search. We're looking at the new Q5, and you can see all of them have the little tariff alert on it.

I am curious. Do we have any of the 2026s yet? No, only the 2025s. But Dad, I mean, let's see. Let's click into one. We're in Phoenix, Arizona, Scottsdale, Arizona. This would be an area where you'd anticipate a relatively low-day supply of inventory because it's an affluent market.

So here's the 2025 new Q5 Premium Plus, $61,890 MSRP. The dealer invoice cost on this is $58,177. No wonder dealers like Sal and Audis, when they can get sticker price or to your point earlier, above sticker, let's look at the market insights here.

So the target discount range on this vehicle, the target price you should be shooting for from the dealer, $58,177 to $59,724. Drum roll, please. There it is.

And this is live. This is live, folks. I didn't plan this at all. Ask my dad, did we talk about this before we came on live? No sirree.

461 days supply. There are four similar Audi Q5 Premium Pluses that have sold the last 45 days within 100 miles of Scottsdale, Arizona, yet dealers have 41 of them right now.

What happens when automakers jack up prices and customers stop buying? And final data point I'll look at here, Dad. Let me scroll down. Let me scroll down. Let me scroll down.

Oh, bummer, we don't have the incentives on this one. I was going to see what the incentives were for Audi right now. But even without the incentives, I mean, you can see these vehicles are not selling.

No, and a 461 day market supply. What that means is that the current sales rate, okay, it would take 461 days to sell the remaining 41 Q5 Premium Pluses that are out there within 100 mile radius of that zip code in Scottsdale.

Now, that is a ridiculously long time to sell 41 vehicles. That is reminiscent of being an accurate dealer and having, say, two RLs on the lot, and you knew you had a year supply of them.

It should not take anywhere near as long as that to sell down those vehicles, but it's a $61,000 price point. We have surpassed the affordability of most vehicles.

There's too many vehicles you can get out there that are the size of a Q5 for, well, less than $60,000.

Well, Dad, we were just looking. It was like the first vehicle that showed up on the car search. Let me pull it back up on the screen. It was a Genesis.

Yes.

It was a similar price point. Yeah, there you go right there. 61,000. Oh my God, look at the one next to it.

Oh my God. I didn't know you could buy a Genesis for $84,000. Let's look at both of these.

Well, apparently you can in Scottsdale.

Wow.

I did not know they got that expensive. Let's look at both of these. We'll start with the GV70. That was a GV80 was the more expensive one.

Look like no data. Interesting. Let me do a refresh. I can't do that.

It's a 2026. That's why.

Interesting. Okay. Well, this is true, but we know we have at least one first sale, so that'll be an interesting one for me to look at.

Let's go here though to the GV80. $84,000 Genesis. Dad, invoice price $80,000. Again, why would dealers like, if they can sell at sticker price or near sticker price, these more expensive vehicles, they make a lot of money?

Yeah.

Well, let's scroll down here, market insights, target discount. There you go.

450 days supply. There are five of these for sale within 100 miles of Scottsdale, yet 50 of them are for sale.

This is another perfect, non-planned example of what happens when automakers jack up prices.

It sounds like the Genesis dealer, the local Genesis dealer and the local alley dealer should get together and they should have their brands sort of merge and they could take 900 days to sell those 91 units.

It's just, I don't, listen, when I think of a luxury vehicle, and I know Genesis has been around for 10 years now.

The first vehicle that pops in my mind for luxury mass market type vehicles would be Mercedes-Benz or BMW or Lexus. It certainly isn't Genesis.

That's not to take anything away from Genesis. I mean, they're good looking vehicles. They're attractive.

They've at least given it the look of a luxurious type vehicle, but it's a Hyundai for goodness' sake.

Just $85,000 seems like a lot of money for a gussied up Hyundai.

My suspicion is that even though it'll say Genesis on the engine, it's a Hyundai engine.

The one thing that we know Hyundai has had issues with over their history is their engines imploding.

So I don't know. I just, I don't think of that vehicle as an $85,000 vehicle, although that is the manufacturer suggested retail price for it.

Now, what also happens when we see automakers jack up prices?

Well, when the demand starts to slip, which I think to be clear, folks, we are calling, we are waiting.

The demand is slipping. You start to see them increasing their incentives, but that has been what is so confounding about the car market over the past couple of years.

So on the chart here, the blue line is the same data we were looking at just a few moments ago.

That is the average transaction price for new car sales in the United States of America for the past, I don't know, 15 or so years from 2012 to today.

So 13 years, excuse me.

That's the blue line, which is going up into the right.

Now, the orange line that is showing you the average incentive spend as a percentage of the average transaction price.

So live with me here for a moment. If, for instance, the average transaction price for new cars was $100,000 and if the average incentive spend as a percentage of the average transaction price was 10%,

that would mean that automakers are spending $10,000 in incentives to get you and I to buy new cars.

The reality is we are at $50,080 is the average transaction price for new cars and 7.4% is the average incentive spend as a percentage of the average transaction price.

Look at that orange line. We are still not back to where we were pre-pandemic then.

Things have not gotten so bad that automakers, even though they have jacked up their MSRP significantly, even though they have increased the prices of their vehicles drastically,

they are still not incentivizing those vehicles in the same way as they were pre-pandemic when it was upwards of 10%.

We are at 7.4% down from earlier this year, for goodness sakes, or down from the end of last year, excuse me.

This is shocking to me that we haven't seen automakers step up more when it comes to incentives to sell these vehicles.

Do you think that might have anything to do with the fact that their profit margins have eroded dramatically over the past couple of years?

And why has that happened?

You know, there was all the write-downs and write-offs due to the exuberance they all expressed when it came to their investment in battery electric vehicles.

Yeah, I gave you a full screen for that one.

Yes, that hasn't quite panned out the way that they all hoped and thought that it would.

And then there's tariffs that have impacted it.

So if you are losing profit margin, there's only so much you can do on the incentive front.

If you as the manufacturer are trying your best to eat the added costs of all those new expenses and not pass them on to the customer,

well, then it makes it much more difficult to incentivize the sale of those vehicles.

Where's that money going to come from?

They only have so much money.

And last time I checked, these are all publicly traded companies and they are beholden to their stockholders to figure out how to get a return on the investment from those who hold stock.

Who's the case study dad for what happens when you have to finally increase your incentives even as your profits are eroding?

It would be Nissan, folks.

It was just last year, the headline in automotive news.

If you were the executive at Nissan, this was a day you were sick to your stomach because the industry publication, this is not some rinky-dink publication.

This is Crane Communications Automotive News posted the headline, Nissan Profit Falls 99% on US downturn.

And you just have to read the second sentence of the article to know what happened, a lackluster launch of the updated crossover.

So to your point earlier, dad, exuberance around products that have missed, Nissan's top selling nameplate forced the embattled Japanese automaker to what?

Hoist incentives on mounting inventories of the outgoing model.

The third sentence, the result was soaring expenses that nearly erased the parent company's operating income.

This is what happens when automakers jack up prices and eventually hit the ceiling.

Now, the leading indicator that they're feeling the pain should be, should be, I say should be, that we see this orange line on this chart go up more and more and more.

And what time of year are we headed into right now?

None other than, excuse me, the best time to buy a new car where we see these automakers push the incentives.

They, for lack of a better term, put their pedal to the metal in terms of trying to juge up sales.

I expect to see this orange line, dad, go sky high back to pre-pandemic levels, 10% plus in December because of that growing inventory that they're seeing.

Will it eat at their profits?

Yes, but you know, it eats at their profits even more and tells a story to the market that they are inept and incapable of growing, having stale inventory that they can't sell.

Prior model year new cars are going to fly off the shelves before the end of this year because the manufacturers are going to force themselves to take losses on them and increase incentives to do it.

That's my guess, because again, this is what happens.

You said at the beginning, no new car goes unsold.

The price just gets lower eventually.

Well, and the other thing is that, you know, many of the manufacturers who spent the past two, three, four years losing market share and lost the confidence of their dealer body are trying to turn that around and regain market share.

And the ways that they can do it are through heavy incentives and lowering MSRPs.

But lowering MSRPs, we've talked about it.

That starts to erode some of the pricing power you've gained, whereas incentives are ephemeral.

They last for a month, then they go away.

The pricing power they've gained, I don't think we're going to see them walk back.

I think it's the incentives.

We're going to see them.

And in so many cases, when we've seen them lower the MSRP, the MSRP got lower because the content became less.

Which is also a lever that they can pull.

They can put fewer components.

One of the things everybody's talking about with Tesla at the moment is, yeah, they've lowered the prices, but a lot of things disappeared when they lowered the prices.

Which just shows that you can't continue to give everything that you give as costs go up in order to become affordable again to lower the prices, lowers the content.

You can't have both.

Yeah, but it's not only at contents for it because we've seen Mitsubishi and Nissan.

I'm not suggesting it is.

I know, but I think it's important to get into the nuance.

Mitsubishi and Nissan have struggled mightily here in the United States.

And those are both fairly economical and low content vehicles, but they've struggled.

Where have other brands done really well?

Or what other brands have done really well?

Other Japanese automakers.

Mazda.

Dad, we haven't even talked about Mazda.

They bounced back.

They had a lot of growth recently.

Toyota's not incredibly well.

Lexus, obviously.

So there are select few brands that are doing really, really well.

And then the broader auto industry is pretty screwed at the moment.

And again, my supposition is that we are going to see them.

It's not like they in the same model year can reduce the content to lower the prices.

The lever that they can pull with the most ease are incentives.

And again, we're not even to where we were pre-pandemic.

So if you hear a car salesperson say, oh, the incentives aren't going to get any better.

It's as good as it gets.

That's BS.

The incentives had been better years ago.

Pre-pandemic.

There is still room for the incentives to go up even though profits are being eroded on

the other side because of tariffs, because of EV, exuberance, et cetera.

If you gave a CEO the choice of either have to incentivize the hell out of your inventory

to sell it, or you're just not going to sell your inventory, they're going to incentivize

the hell out of selling their inventory because at least there's a growth story there.

At least they can gain market share.

And one of the things that you have to realize is that pre-pandemic, every manufacturer understood

that it was going to take 10 or 11% of that transaction price to be covered by the incentives

from the manufacturers, which was their way of saying, we know that we have overpriced

our vehicles, and in order to bring those prices back down to what appears to be affordable,

it's through us giving these incentives to make them cheaper or less expensive.

Now, the problem that we've seen recently is that the average transaction prices keep

going up, and the incentives haven't kept up with that so that, yes, the vehicles not

only are overpriced, but there's not a big enough incentive to motivate enough of the

population to want to participate.

Now, a couple more data points where I think the OEMs, the original equipment manufacturers

are screwing themselves, but that's to be determined.

I'm going to read out these next two bullet points, this one and this one.

As 2026 model year product arrives on dealer lots, the average new vehicle MSRP, commonly

called the Asking Price, also reached a new record high in September of $52,183.

That is up 4.2% year over year.

And then here at that last month, there were more than 60 models with average transaction

prices over $75,000 with total sales near 94,000 units, 7.4% of total sales, up from 6%

of total sales in September 2024.

In the rare era of six-figure vehicles, the Cadillac Escalade is still king, selling 4,300

units in the month.

So you have almost, I mean, it's a stretch here, but you have almost 10% of your new

car sales being $75,000 plus cars.

That is unsustainable long-term, especially when you start to look at some of the other

factors.

For example, we've said interest rates need to come down in order to sustain the new

car market.

Well, you know what's going on with new car interest rates right now?

They're actually going up, up to 9.73%.

Look at those red lines, it's going up, not down.

So a really scary moment here, I think, for these automakers who are banking on a few

things to happen that unfortunately just haven't.

Well, we're back to the swimming pool.

You don't need as much water in that pool because there's not as many people swimming

in that pool.

But people who are swimming in that pool are wealthy enough to be able to afford those

$75,000 average transaction prices.

Yeah.

And you know, the reality is we get called out, I don't know how many times when we say

something like, well, with $35,000, that seems to be a reasonably priced vehicle in today's

market.

And people are calling us have gone, reasonably priced needs to be, I don't know, $10,000

less than that.

Everything is relative.

But what isn't relative is that there's not enough of a growing population or consumer

base that can afford those $75,000 average transaction price vehicles.

The customer base that is growing are the people that can afford a sub-35, sub-30, sub-$25,000

vehicle.

I like to think that that reading the comments on videos is a great way to kind of get a

pulse check for how people feel.

I posted a video yesterday on TikTok, it's done 150-ish thousand views.

The comments on this video, let's just read a few of them.

This video is about Ford increasing the prices of their trucks.

Negotiate a good deal, are you high?

They're overpriced by double.

That's not an $85,000 truck, it's a $40,000 truck.

Maverick at $35,000, it's a $25,000 truck tops.

The financing is also a joke as well as the horrible dealership, park-ups and packages.

You've got another one here.

They'll do everything but lower the price.

This is a choice Ford is making.

It says if the market is saying people don't want expensive trucks, well, Ford, listen.

Reading the comments on this one video demonstrates the sentiment that leads to, again, the title

of today's show, this is what happens.

Eventually, again, that damn orange line has got to have to go up.

I don't see another world or another way forward that the orange line, the incentive spend,

that has to go up from the manufacturer because eventually, they're going to realize the same thing

I think I've come to the realization.

Having a growth story is better than no story.

They want to be able to at least show that they've got market share growth.

We'll get profits back in the future.

Yes.

At least you got to show some growth.

Well, that's what Stellantis is doing.

They are basing everything that they're doing on gaining back market share that they so

gladly gave up.

Yeah, by going up market.

Yeah.

When they continued to go up market and continued to raise their prices and then suddenly now

have come to the realization that by doing that, well, we left our customers behind.

Oh, that's great.

We don't have any customers anymore.

We have to go back down price wise to go find our customers again.

It almost begs the question of why don't they think about this before they do it?

Why?

It was sexy to raise prices over the past few years.

You know what?

It's about to be sexy to incentivize the hell out of getting people to buy your vehicles.

Let's come here to have from Chris.

Thank you kindly, Chris.

Original equipment manufacturer dynamics.

So the automaker dynamics have just changed.

Manufacturers suggested retail prices are higher with a plan to incentivize at the beginning

resulting in a higher average transaction price and more room to make adjustments based on market demand.

To a degree, that is actually the strategy Stellantis had for the longest time.

Wasn't it kind of notorious in the industry that if you wanted to buy a Jeep, you were paying nowhere near,

or maybe Jeep's a bad example, but like a Ram pickup truck, you're paying nowhere near sticker price on that thing.

There's always big incentives versus some other automakers Toyota, for example,

where the prices are typically closer to the MSRP.

So I wonder if it's a little bit brand specific here.

Well, I think it is.

I mean, that goes back to my theory that the manufacturers basically said,

because of the 10% plus incentives that they have on vehicles,

they basically said to the public, our vehicle is overpriced.

But to compensate you for the fact that it is overpriced,

we will come up with 10% of that average transaction price from us to help you buy it.

It's almost as if, and you can call me crazy,

and I probably remember expressing this to factory reps at one time or another.

It's almost as if, if you know the damn thing's overpriced,

and the only way you can sell it is to have 10% worth of incentives to move it,

why don't you just lower the damn price of the vehicle 10% to begin with?

Why don't you price it where it should have been as opposed to where you would like it to be?

Price it at whatever point the customer says yes.

And I used to have these conversations with my factory reps,

and it was like you'd get this deer in the headlights look staring back at you.

We don't do that, that's not the game we play.

The game you play is you overprice it,

and you offer a big incentive to get people to buy it.

And then sometimes the vehicles become so unpopular

that you can't put a big enough incentive on it to sell it.

I'm good now.

Car market 2025, Rich, appreciate you Rich, thank you so much.

It's not 1975 anymore Raymond.

I'm looking for a time machine, I'll keep you posted.

Are you Raymond?

No, your full name's just Ray, right?

My name is Ray.

Or as I used to, you know, when people would say Raymond,

I would say well actually my first name is Just, J-U-S-T.

Because my name is Just Ray.

My parents bless their hearts figured if they named me Raymond,

people were only going to call me Ray anyway.

So they said let's just name him Ray.

And then well there's the likelihood he's not going to be the brightest kid in the neighborhood.

So let's make his middle name Alan and instead of making it with two L's,

let's just make it A-L-A-N.

Let's keep it as short and as possible.

And well I think it served me well.

I'm just Ray Alan.

Folks, if we can help you out with anything and if you've enjoyed today's conversation,

please subscribe to the channel.

We love seeing that number go up and we appreciate our community here.

Our website, my dad and I for the past six years have been building CarEdge.com.

We have an incredible team behind the scenes working every day to serve you and our community.

If you are in the market, as the new car market heats up here, as inventories build up,

as incentives build up, we have car buying services.

We have all sorts of tools with CarEdge Insights

and so much more that you can take advantage of.

Please, please, please go spend a few minutes back on CarEdge.com

and encourage your friends and family to use CarEdge.com.

And may I make a suggestion?

I'm all ears.

Encourage everybody you know to utilize CarEdge and other resources out there

before they buy something and then they get in contact with us and say,

can you help?

Can't help after the fact that that makes it really, really difficult.

We get a lot of those emails and yeah, it's tough.

Yes, it really is.

I mean, you know, we're here to help before you make the mistake.

It's really not much we can do after you've made the mistake.

Yeah, absolutely.

Well said, Pops.

Folks, we'll be back tomorrow.

I'll be live from my dad's apartment sitting right next to him.

So tune in for tomorrow's show of CarEdge live and Pops, enjoy the afternoon.

I'm going to get back to work busy day.

Well, I'll let you get back to work.

I think we have a meeting at 1.30, is it?

And then maybe after that, it's off to the ACME for me.

So did you want any snacks or anything for when you're here tomorrow?

I'll text you.

I love you, Dad.

I love you too.

Talk to you later.

Looking for the ultimate car talk?

Buckle up for CarCast, the podcast that blends horsepower, insider knowledge and big personalities.

Join me, Motorator Matt DeAndrea, along with Edmunds.com, Editor-in-Chief Alistair Weaver

and WWE Hall of Famer Bill Goldberg.

As we dive into the latest rides, car culture and behind the scenes stories, you won't hear anywhere else.

From track-tested reviews to legendary car collections, this is where passion meets performance.

Subscribe to CarCast Now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

This season, it really helps the show grow.

From all of us at Believe, have a merry Christmas everyone and a happy holiday.

This is what happens when automakers JACK UP prices | Episode 942

About this episode

invoiced to a dealer

manufacturer statement of origin

retail customer

new vehicle average transaction prices

MSRP

General Motors

Stellantis

dealer markup

Audi Q5

Audi 100

Genesis GV70

Genesis GV80

Lexus

BMW

Mercedes-Benz Be Mercedesbenz

Hyundai Genesis

engine issues

incentives

profit margins

battery electric vehicles

publicly traded companies

Nissan

pre-pandemic levels

Tesla

Mitsubishi

Mazda

tariffs

Cadillac Escalade

Ford Maverick

original equipment manufacturer

Jeep

Ram pickup truck

Toyota

Request an Explanation

Want to learn more?

Help improve this episode

More from CarEdge Live