Mar 13, 2019
EP002 - Senior Editor of Auto Remarketing & AutoRemarketing Canada, Joe Overby
http://www.vehicle2.getspiffy.com
Episode 2 is an interview withJoe, Senior Editor of Auto Remarketing & Auto RemarketingCanada;recorded on Wednesday, March 6th,2019. He and Scot discuss a varietyof topics, including:
- Joe’sposition at Auto Remarketing
- Vehicle lifecycle - how people are buying andselling cars
- Howchanging ownership models (car-sharing, subscriptions) areinfluencing rental car agencies and dealerships
- Theevolution of automotive auction, both physical anddigital
- Theprogression of technologies for more connected cars
- Affordability of electric vehicles, as well asthe availability of used EVs
- Slowdown in autonomous vehicle hype
- Itlooks like dealers, auto auction companies (KAR/Cox) and rental carcompanies are on a collision course around the fleetmaintenance/reconditioning/remarketing space
Be sure to follow Joe onLinkedIn!Check out the multiple events hosted by Auto Remarketing and AutoRemarketing Canada, such as the AutoIntel Summit andUsed Car Week.
If you enjoyed this episode,please write us a review on iTunes!
The four pillars of Vehicle 2.0are electrification, connectivity, autonomy, and changing ownershipmodels. In the Vehicle 2.0 Podcast, we will look at the future ofthe auto industry through guest expert interviews, deep dives intospecific topics, news coverage, and hot takes with instant analysison what the latest breaking news means for today and in time tocome.
This episode was produced and sound engineered by JacksonBalling, and hosted by Scot Wingo.
Transcript:
Scot:
[01:01] Welcome to the vehicle 2.0 Podcast. This is oursecond episode and it's being recorded Wednesday, March 6th, 2019.In this episode we have our first guest and I'll give you a littlebackground. So here at Spiffy we are doing a lot of work atautomobile auctions. It's a whole industry I've always heard aboutbut never had experienced. So I was, I was reading online at agreat site called Auto Remarketing and I kept seeing some contentthere by a guy named Joe Overby. And I said, "Wow, I've got to meetthis guy some time" and went to his bio and discovered he is herelocal. So Joe is going to be our first guest here on theshow.
Joe:
[01:37] Scot, thanks for having me.
Scot:
[01:38] Yeah. When we have 500 shows out, you'll,this'll be, you'll put it on your resume.
Joe:
[01:42] That's right, first ever guest on Vehicle2.0.
Scot:
[01:43] Yes. We really appreciate it. And you're thesenior editor of Auto Remarketing and Auto Remarketing Canada. Sothat's interesting. So you speak Canadian apparently as well asEnglish.
Joe:
[01:56] I try to. My southern accent, a little bit,gets in the way.
Scot:
[01:59] Is that on your title? So you can go get someof the delicious Canadian beer or?
Joe:
[02:04] You have delicious, delicious Canadian beer andthey have the gravy fries, which are out of this world.
Scot:
[02:11] Yeah. Yummy.
Joe:
[02:12] Going up there in two weeks forthat.
Scot:
[02:15] Cool. Let's start off and kind of orient every,all the listeners about your background. How did you get into theindustry and where you are today?
Joe:
[02:23] So I went to went to NC state and I majored inpolitical science, did a minor in journalism and had worked in fortechnician for a few years. And the student newspaper and then hada job in sports writing at a newspaper in Georgia right aftercollege and worked there for two years and decided I want to trysomething different and get into magazines and applied for the jobback here in Raleigh at our S&A Cherokee, which is the parentcompany of Auto Remarketing. And I've been covering the autoindustry for about 12 years now.
Scot:
[02:54] Awesome. Cool. Yeah. And NC state. Awesome. Gopack.
Joe:
[02:59] Yes sir.
Scot:
[02:59] Tell us more about Auto Remarketing. So is itprint and online? Just online? And what kind of audience do youguys have? We'd love to know more about the publication.
Joe:
[03:14] So we're print online and we have a digitaledition are online. You know, we have our website obviously, andthen we have a wide range of e newsletters that we send out, kindof that's how we get our stories out. Our largest e-newsletters, adaily morning one that goes out to about 22,500 subscribers. Andthen we have, you know, various other daily and weekly newsletters.They're about the same size or smaller. And then we have a printpublication that goes out to 36,000 subscribers and then a digitaledition of our same, of the same magazine. It goes out to 50,000.And then we have the same another publication Auto RemarketingCanada for our Canadian audience. And that also has a weekly anddaily newsletters, and also a digital edition as well along withprint. And then a colleague of mine, a guy by the name of NickZulovich, he heads up a couple of automotive finance publications.So we have one kind of specializes in the fin-tech space and thenone that specializes in kind of the subprime lower tier financingin automotive as well.
Scot:
[04:28] Yeah. And then the broader Cherokee, are alltheir publications automobile-oriented or do they go into a lot ofdifferent kinds of B2B verticals?
Joe:
[04:35] Most of it actually is automotive B2B. I thinkwe have four prints, automotive publications, but then we've alsogot two local lifestyle magazines. Folks here in the Triangle area,probably know Cary Magazine and we just launched a magazine forHolly Springs and Fuquay called Main & Broad. And then our companyalso has done several custom publications where, you know, maybeit's a, an association or a, you know, company that will publish acustom custom job for them. But mostly, yes, our bread and butteris the automotive space.
Scot:
[05:11] Very cool. Yeah, it's interesting. The, youknow, you read the headlines, print is dying out, but I thinkthat's the daily newspaper. But it seems like where there's a lotof vibrancy is in kind of hyper local. So people want to know a lotmore about what's going on with their community. And then also in,in kind of a lot of the B2B verticals, seems like you have thosebases covered.
Joe:
[05:30] We've got a, we've got a captive audience, soto speak for the, for the B2B as well. Yeah.
Scot:
[05:35] Well, cool. We've got a ton of stuff we want totalk about. Let's start with what I call the vehicle life cycle. Itseems like you guys got financing and then then kind of like, youknow, the, the used car side, the remarketing refurbishing side.What are you seeing there, you know, around behavior around howpeople buy and sell cars. Is that changing or it's kind of the sameit's been over the time you've tracked it?
Joe:
[05:59] Certainly. Probably since about 2013, well,2014. It's become a lot more digital in terms of the actualtransaction. I mean, you had, you know, back then you had a lot ofcompanies like Carvana, you know the BPs of the world, the roomsthat have launched in the last five years. And more consumers, evenif they're not maybe signing on the dotted line and buyingcompletely online, they're doing, if there's five steps to carbuying, they might be completing four of 'em online and then goingand picking it up at the dealership or, or, you know, setting upthe deal online. So I think you're seeing a lot more movement tocompleting some or all pieces of the process online. And, and, andit's not just these, the startups that are doing it, dealers aregetting into the game as well. And you know, using softwareproviders to get in the game themselves in terms of online buyingand selling.
Scot:
[06:56] Yeah, I think one of the Superbowl commercialsthat was my favorite was, I can't remember if it was Kia orHyundai. Bt they had the commercial where the guy was in theelevator and it was Jason Bateman, and there was like root canal.And you know, like all these things and then like the bottom kindof the bottom level was buying a car and they were that companythat, oh, that OEM was rolling out a model that was very Carvana[inaudible] will come to you, you have a return period. That kindof a thing. So I think it's been interesting to watchthat.
Joe:
[07:25] Yeah, for sure. I mean the automakers are doingit and they're, they're doing it through their dealers. I meanpartly obviously cause a franchise dealer laws that they have to gothrough their dealers. But you know, they, they've got theinfrastructure of, of these large dealer networks that they can setthat up. Yeah.
Scot:
[07:40] How about, I'm kind of staying on the topic ofthe vehicle life cycle. You mentioned your sister publicationaround finance. What's, what's new there? I know I've seen somedata that leases are, are quite kind of, you know, continue to bethe most, one of the increasingly popular ways to, to, to finance acar. What else are you seeing in that?
Joe:
[07:59] Well, I'm one of the, one of the alternativesnow is some of the cult subscriptions and they, you know, insteadof in one of the, one of the models that has launched recently isone called Fair, which was launched by a guy named Scott Painterwho was the CEO and founder of True Car. And he brought in a guynamed George Bauer who's a former executive with the Germanautomotive. And I believe, you know, it's had a lot of, a lot ofexperience in, in that, in that space as well. But you know, theymodels like that kind of had, I've taken on the approach of, youknow, why jump into a 60, 66, 72 month loan when you can subscribeto a vehicle for, you know, a year if you want it at three months,if you want it. And then kind of get out and move on to the nextone. And it's, you know, not to get in the weeds too much, but itis a different little bit different model than say, you know, arental or a lease. But it just gives another flexibility for, forsomeone who doesn't want to set up financing for the next six yearsof their life.
Scot:
[09:04] Yeah. Yeah. That, that's a good segway. So partof the reason we started this podcast is we at Spiffy. We've putout this framework, we call the vehicle 2.0 framework and it's gotfour components, changing ownership, connected car electrificationand autonomous vehicles. And you know, Fair is a good example ofkind of the changing ownership going from kind of long leases tokind of micro leases. Then you've got Getaround, and Toro. That'smore Airbnb kind of like, you know, sharing almost car sharing. Andthen it's really topical because I'm sure you saw Lyft filed theirIPO and it's kinda caused this whole raft of in there, you know,Lyft talks about long-term, they don't think everyone's going toown a car. And then now I've seen like six top level articlesabout, you know, what's happening with car ownership. Any otherinteresting car ownership trends you're seeing?
Joe:
[09:53] Well, I just, I think that the, in terms of carownership, there's just such a variety of alternatives. Now, I meanthe, you mentioned Lyft, I mean one of the stories we had this weekwas Lyft has partnered with Cox Automotive, which owns kind of avariety of different vendors in this space. And they're on theservice side. You know, when, when you, there's a dealershipservice department platform where, you know, when you take yourvehicle to get serviced, they've got an automatic partnership withLyft. So instead of having a, a loaner fleet, that dealership canjust get set you up with the Lyft vehicle for that, you know, forthe time period that you're, your vehicles in the shop. And, youknow, you've seen those Enterprise commercials with, I think it'sJoel McHale where he says, you know, you can rent a car fromenterprise, you can, you know, car share with enterprise or you canbuy it from enterprise. So I think companies are realizing the, theamount of variety of, of different ownership models and the waypeople want to interact with their cars these days.
Scot:
[11:00] Yeah. So sometimes you know, the articles kindof doom and gloom for kind of the traditional dealer. Do you thinkthe dealer is kind of a dinosaur in this model or did they, theyhave to kind of just pivot and become more of like the servicecenter? So if we kind of go to the extreme, right, and we, we kindof, I think, you know, we believe car ownership's going to be moreof kind of fleets owning cars and people kind of, you know, usingthem on a smaller kind of timescale. It's not, all these things arenever going to be 100% either. I come from the world of eCommerceand we're like 15% of the city of retail is on the commerce. We'vebeen at it for 25 years. So, but you know, imagine there's a daywhere more like 20% of cars are, are kind of a fleet kind of amodel. Where do you think the dealer falls in thatspectrum?
Joe:
[11:45] Well, I think at this point there's still,there's still very much in the game. I mean, a lot of these modelsthat we talk about Fair and, and some of these subscription models,they, they worked through the dealership. So, you know, you may,the end consumer may go to their app and, and you know,subscription program or some sort of alternative ownership programthat they access through an app. That company, a lot of times we'llstill buy the car, you know, the delivery of the vehicle stillthrough that dealership and a lot of the dealerships are offeringthese services themselves. So I think that they, I think it's moreof a pivot that a dealer, you know, may shift part of its businessfrom, you know, 100% retail sales to portions of it being, wellpart of our inventory is going to be first subscriptions or carsharing, you know, for a ride hailing drivers and that sort ofthing. I do think there's an opportunity as well for dealers to bein the service business. I mean, for these vehicles, the servicebusiness of, of a dealership has long been the most profitableanyway. So, you know, they're, I think they're very excited about,you know, the ability to change their model. I mean, I was talkingto a dealer recently who said that it's in dealer's nature to sellwhat the consumer wants. I mean, it's a simple statement, but, youknow, dealer, a dealer wants to sell, however, you know, whetherit's an electric vehicle and autonomous vehicle or, or analternative method of ownership, a dealer wants to be the personselling that car and they're going to do it.
Scot:
[13:25] Yeah, absolutely. How about, and this may beout of your purview, but we were doing a lot of work now withrental car companies and I had kind of assumed that they would beon the decline because I've gone through a phase where if I go to acity now, I kind of do some math and figure out am I just gonnakind of Uber around or am I going to rent a car? And you know, thatthat bar is kind of increasingly leaning towards more ride sharing.But I was surprised to find rental car companies that are actuallygrowing pretty nicely. What do you think, you know, are they kindof going to start competing? The other argument could be mayberental car companies are better equipped to manage these kind offuture fleets than dealers are. Do you have any point of view onthat?
Joe:
[14:06] That's, that's interesting. I mean, I thinkthey certainly have the, if you think about what they already do,you know, a lot of them already sell cars. Just like dealers, youknow, they have, they operate in many ways likedealerships.
Scot:
[14:21] Yeah, and they have more flexibility becauselike, you know, dealers get kind of locked in, if you bought ithere, I want you to service it here and you know, and they'relocked into one type of vehicle. Like I'm not going to take my, myHonda to a Lexus dealer for now. They may actually, sometimes youtalk to dealers and they would actually do that, which alwayssurprised me. I never knew that was a thing. Yeah. But mostconsumers don't think that way. Whereas whereas Hertz, Avis, etc.Are, you know, manufacturer agnostic.
Joe:
[14:44] And they do have, I mean, you know, a dealer, adealer wants to get that, that new car sales there. They are goingto take a trade in and then, you know, either use it on their ownlot or, or take it to auction or, or you know, dispose of it viawholesale. But, as far as rental companies, I mean, I think, youknow, they certainly have the type of infrastructure, nationalfootprint that automaker or franchise dealership system has. Theyalso recently, I mean, if you'll notice that a lot of thesecompanies, either their, you know, the, the large rental carcompanies are either outright buying some of these smalleralternative, physical ownership platforms or they're working veryclosely with them to partner, you know, cause they know that theyknow that, you know, when, when you go, when, when somebody goes totravel there, they're doing the math that you just described. Youknow, it actually be cheaper for me to take a Lyft to and from ahotel rather than, you know, renting a car. And I think, I thinkthose companies are doing the math and partnering with some ofthose companies. And, you know, they, I know that they're evengetting into the connected vehicle space as well, these rentalcompanies. You know, I think they're just as progressive, you know,in terms of this technology as the dealership and automakersare.
Scot:
[16:22] Yeah. And I mentioned at the top of the showthat, you know, you guys put a lot of great content out there aboutauto auctions. That's when, as an eCommerce guy, it's kind ofinteresting to think about, you know, I haven't visited one, but alot of people at Spiffy have, and then they seem to be these giantfields full of cars. And you know, there's, there's a point in timelike a Wednesday morning and three days before Wednesday, you know,tractor trailers are showing up with cars and unloading them andthen they're getting washed and they're putting them through anauction process and they're loading them back up. It just seemslike a hugely physical analog kind of a thing in today's world. Isdigital hitting auto auctions and, and what's that look like andgive, give listeners that maybe they don't even know the industry,like maybe a high-level overview of and what's going on.
Joe:
[16:57] Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think the, I mean,first of all, the physical auction space definitely is stillhappening. I mean that, physical sales, you know, are still goingon every single week, every single day. But you do have where thetwo, the two largest corporate physical auction companies in theUS, Manheim and Adesa, Manheim is owned by Cox Automotive, which ispart of this global huge company, Cox Enterprises, Cox Automotive.And then you have Adesa which is owned by Clorox and services,which is a publicly traded large company. Both those companies arepushing more and more on their auction side to digital. I mean, Idon't have exact stats in front of me, but it's about 50/50 oftheir auction sales involve some digital element, whether it'ssomebody buying via simulcast or you know, somebody sitting on acomputer and buying through an online auction. They're pushing,those two large companies are pushing more of their business to thedigital side.
Scot:
[18:08] But digital, is like an overlay on the physicalor, or is it actually a separate digital thing so I could buy oneand it's not actually in a physical auction?
Joe:
[18:15] Right. So a little bit of both. Actually. The,for example, car and services, which owns Adesa also owns a onlineauction company called Trade Rev. And that is completely digitaland you think, oh, it's kind of cannibalizing. But no, it's, it'sreally a compliment to their existing auction business. CoxAutomotive has, you know, dealer to dealer sales platforms. Theyhave online auctions. So you know, these companies, the approachthat I've seen them take is they want to sell however the buyerwants to buy. I mean, and dealers are just like consumers and thata lot of them are moving more towards making purchases digitally.That said, I mean, there's still a huge role for these, for theseauto auctions. I mean, there's, some of them, for example, atManheim, there's a former Manheim location that now has been turnedinto a mobility fleet servicing center. So what they do is they,you know, they do all of the things that need to happen with afleet of, of mobility vehicles. So gassing them, washing,reconditioning. All of this sort of services you might think haveto happen on the backend, this former auto auction does. And Ithink you're going to see a model where you know, an auto auctionmight do a little bit of both. They might still have those physicalsales in the lane every Wednesday morning, but also sell vehiclesdigitally and act as a service center for all kinds of, you know,they already do a lot of ancillary services anyways. Now they havea new client and these large fleets of, you know, ride sharing, carsharing, you know, subscription services that it's a new clientelethat they can serve as those vehicles as well.
Scot:
[20:15] Yeah. So it kind of sounds like we've got threefactions fighting for this future of, of you know, fleetmanagement. So you've got the dealers and the OEMs kind of alignedon one side. And in the eCommerce world, it's interesting. So, youknow, you have kind of brands and retailers and, and those guyshave fractured themselves because there's been a lot of channelconflict where the brands are starting to go around kind of theirtraditional channels. So it'll be interesting to see if thathappens. But that's one faction do, we had the rental car kind offaction and the now it seems like the auto auction guys kind ofalso want to put their hat in the ring for managingthis.
Joe:
[20:48] Yeah, absolutely. And, and even then, you alsohave a, aside from the, the large kind of corporately ownedauctions, you have a lot of independent independently ownedauctions. I mean there's, I don't know the exact count, but there'shundreds of independently owned auctions and they're, you know,they're just as innovative and then getting into the same type ofa, the same type of play that, that these, you know, largecorporate auctions are as well.
Scot:
[21:16] Yeah. And I saw a company called ACV Auction,am I saying that right? And they just announced, I forget theamount, but it was like a big raise. Was it 70 million, a hundred.It was like a, it was kind of eye popping. Let's see if I can findthat. But that's more of just kind of a new new entrant. Right. Sojust pure digital if I understand?
Joe:
[21:35] Yeah, absolutely. They are a digital dealer todealer online auction and they have been, I mean it seems like fora while there, almost every other store we had was about them thanraising capital. I mean they, they have been, they hired arelatively new CEO I think has somewhat of a Wall Street backgroundand funding background. A guy named George Simone and they havejust been raising money and raising money and then, you know, TradeRev, which I mentioned earlier is I guess it would be a competitorto theirs. And they're, they're owned by, you know, one of thepublicly traded large company in the auction space. And then youhave, there was a new, a company from Canada called Eblock, whichthey just launched in the US in Burlington, Vermont. And then youhave just tons of other companies into this, in this digital,wholesale space where if you think about Carvana and Vroom and someof those companies and just think about, you know, those they're incustomers or retail customers like you and me, ACV, Trade Rev,their customers are, they're doing essentially the same thing, buttheir customers are dealers. Yeah. And there's just, they're wellcapitalized. There's lots of them. And you know, I think it's agrowing space. And then you, and then to add to that, there's, youknow, a company like a Smart Auction, which is a piece of AllyFinancial. They'd been around for 20 plus years doing this. Andthere's, it's, it's a growing space.
Scot:
[23:09] They're coming at it from the financialside?
Joe:
[23:11] Well, they're an online auction, but they, youknow, it's, it's a similar concept to me as it were. Dealers can goin and buy car wholesale cars online for their inventories. Yeah.Got It. Does Cox so, so noticeably absent for that was kind of Cox,do they have a digital auction platforms? They do. They have OVE.They have Manheim Express, which is a dealer to dealer platform.And you know, they're, they're very much involved in digitalwholesale. Yeah. Cox Automotive.
Scot:
[23:42] Cool. And while you were talking, looked it up.So they raised a ACV auction, raised 93 million in December andthey've raised 150 million total. So that's a pretty considerable.It's interesting because watching, so I come from the marketplaceworld and they've, they've kind of gone through this kind oftouchless to high touch. So, so kind of the famous example is a lotof people use Open Door. I don't know if you've ever shopped for ahouse now, but they'll go in and buy the starter homes and a wholearea of, so here in the triangle they've bought like any house, butbetween kind of 102k, they'll go buy it and then they'll run amarketplace. So, so imagine like, you know, Zillow went out andbought all the houses and was selling them. So it'll be interestingto see if we kind of go full circle and see someone like an ACVactually taking some inventory risk or something. You would imaginewith raising that much capital there, there's gotta be somethinggoing on there that's all that it's a lot of engineers behind thescenes deal for $200 million. Okay, cool. So changing ownership,some interesting trends there. How about connected car? What, whatdid, what do you think happens in a world where our car is kind ofconnected to the cloud and, you know, it lights up a lot of nicenew features for, for the consumer, but what else does it mean forthe future of cars?
Joe:
[24:56] Well, I think that this number one, it's sortof been progressively happening already. I mean with, with Onstar,with General Motors, you know, having the, having that kind offeature. And then, you know, on the way over here I had my, how topodcast and music and directions going through my phone. So there'salready a level of connectivity in cars and, and I think that is abigger, not worry, it's going to be here faster, I guess, thanautonomous vehicles. Yeah. I've, I've heard that, I've heard thatin the industry that, you know, that's, people aren't talking aboutthat as much as they are autonomous cars, but I think there's agreater chance that we have connected vehicles much quicker than wehave self driving vehicles. It'll be interesting it, you know,what's the, you know, what are some of the purposes to that, youknow, is it safety? I mean, that, that would be a, to me, you know,cars communicating with each other, you know, could be a big helpfor safety is that, you know, when cars are too close together or,you know, does it help avoid accidental oil, you know, or accidentavoidance. I think that's a potential play there. I mean, obviouslythe infotainment is, we're already there. Yeah. But I think there'sa lot of, a lot of room for growth there and I think you're goingto see that quicker than, than you are autonomous cars.
Scot:
[26:26] Yeah, it's been interesting. So a lot of, a lotof companies kind of went with their own kind of, you know, app,App store thing and now it seems to be kind of standardizing on a,you know, the Apple system or the Android and kind of Amazon. Itseems to be having some legs with Alexa, kind of, in the car. Yup.It's interesting to see what happens there.
Joe:
[26:46] And another point to that. There's a, there'sbeen a couple companies that have come out with basically devicesthat you plug into the onboard, got an onboard diagnostic port. Andso as long as the vehicle is something, it's either sometime in the80s or sometime in the 90s that if your vehicle was made after acertain point, you can turn it, you know, 1995 Toyota Camry into aconnected car by plugging in their device to a, to the onboard, theOBD two sensor. So it's, it's really interesting. Even used carsare becoming connected cars.
Scot:
[27:21] Yeah. And some companies like a Verizon has Humwhere now that not only do you plug that in, so sometimes you canplug the sensor ended, it'll talk to your phone and get to thecloud, but sometimes it will have its own cell phone connection inthere so it can, you know, to your point it can, it can addretroactively add connect to capabilities. Yeah. Electrification.So there, there's a, you know, avi is a autonomy is like the shinybulp, but in the industry, but electrification seems to be kind ofgrinding out a lot faster. What do you think about that?
Joe:
[27:51] Well, I think the biggest issue I see isaffordability. I mean, new car affordability in general is alreadyan issue. And it's driving a lot of people to the used car marketright now. And that is partly as a function of consumers moreinterested in trucks and SUVs and crossovers than they are sedans.It's a, naturally the price goes up on those vehicles. But youknow, I, I think you look at it like the Tesla's of the world andsome of these, you know, electric vehicles or are too far past aprice point where they don't make up for the gas savings. But Ithink there, there are people working on that. I mean the, actuallythe next, next couple stories I'm working on, one of them is abouta, a company called Current Automotive and they are a used electricvehicle dealership that sells primarily online. They're actuallyone of the co-founders is part of the, or has families that thebuilt Jacobs Automotive Group up in Chicago. And then the otherco-founder I believe is a former Tesla executive, but they are, youknow, having, having the point now we're where there's enough usedelectric vehicles that are hitting the market. Having thatinfrastructure of a, of a dealership type of organization that cansell them, you know, I think should help some of the affordabilityaround electric vehicles.
Scot:
[29:23] You don't think a $35,000 Model 3 is, we thinkwe have to go lower than that?
Joe:
[29:29] Well no, I mean I don't think so cause I, Ithink that the way new car prices are now, that's probably aboutwhat average for a new car now.
Scot:
[29:38] Yeah I think average is between 30 and 40k.Right?
Joe:
[29:39] So, you know, I don't know there has to golower than that, but I do think it is a positive sign that thereare going to be used vehicle options for people that, you know,don't necessarily want to shell out 35 grand at the low end for anelectric vehicle. And then, you know, you had another, another kindof story we're looking into is the the former House majority leaderRichard Gephardt,is signed on as an advisor with Fisker Automotive.And they're in that same kind of electric vehicle space in there.They're looking to basically solve the pain point of, you know,creating a, a workforce for people to build electric vehicles. Andso I think with more options I think the price will come down on,on electric vehicles. And again, going back to the kind of thedifferent types of ownership models, there's several differentiterations of electric vehicles. You know, you have your hybrids,you have your-
Scot:
[30:44] Different plug in hybrids.
Joe:
[30:45] Exactly. Yeah. I know a lot of people that aredoing the plug in hybrid thing kind of helps with the range anxietyto have an internal combustion engine there. So I think there's,there's more options come to the table. I think you'll see theprice come down and more people get into them. I don't think we'regoing to get it go away from internal combustion engines. I mean,not only because of the infrastructure challenges, I mean there's,there's political challenges do it as well. I mean, there's entireindustries that would lobby against that. So you know, I think, youknow, I know certain countries are probably will go 100% evs, but Idon't think that's going to happen in the US.
Scot:
[31:26] Yeah. China seems to be very aggressive. Sothey're, you know, they've got massive pollution problems andthey're pushing for that big subsidies. And they're building out ofthe, all of the infrastructure will be interesting to see whathappens there. Do you guys cover electrical infrastructure at all?Like, do you know how many chargers and companies like Chargepoint?There's a lot of startups trying to dissolve the chargingchallenge.
Joe:
[31:46] Not yet. I'll say, we, you know, our focus hasmainly been in the the used car retail and you wholesale space andsort of the, that side of the industry. But in the past, you know,three or four years, we've really ramped up our, for lack of betterword, automotive technology coverage, whether it's mobility,whether it's, you know, EVs online buying eCommerce as become ahuge part of the industry. And so it's kind of been a huge part ofour, of our coverage. So I think as, as more of those models gaintraction, that that'll be something we'd probably open, openourselves up to a little bit.
Scot:
[32:24] Yeah. I think the industry is not really readyfor electric cars because when we visited an auto auction and theyhad almost a whole, there were helping Tesla do a kind of a bunchof refurb kind of stuff. And their biggest, one of their biggestchallenges was having so many Teslas there, they couldn't chargethem all.
Joe:
[32:41] Yeah.
Scot:
[32:42] So they would like, you know, they had a lineof a hundred Teslas and over, you know, over a period of time thebatteries, you know, they're, they're using some electricity andthey would kind of brick the, the vehicle and have to go figure outlike once it's bricked, it's hard to get it to two power. So, so,you know, it's interesting to like, you know, the, theinfrastructure we always think about on the consumer of the retailside of charging, but it kind of flows through, you know. Imagine arental car company trying to do this and you know, having to add,you know, they're going to have to charge hundreds of vehiclesovernight and the infrastructure, on that side, I don't think a lotpeople think about that. But that's big too.
Joe:
[33:15] And there's probably companies out there thateventually if they're not already, would go and work with therental car companies and the auto auctions that they can set upcharging stations. You know, if they say we've got too many Tesla'shere at the auction, the charge, all of them, you know, at thiscompany as I'm sure it could come in and do that.
Scot:
[33:34] Yeah, they're expensive though. Each one ofthose is like, you know, a hundred to 200 k and like with, when youput it all in with the, the backend electrical plus the wiring andthe head unit. Yeah. It's expensive. Yeah. Cool. And then the, theshiny bulb in the industry is autonomous vehicles. What do youthink about that?
Joe:
[33:52] I think it's going to be awhile before theygain a whole lot of traction. I think there's, you know, what I'veseen mainly is that it will be like as a staged rollout where it's,each level is kind of staggered I guess. But you know, I think lastyear the, the much publicized, you know, unfortunate, you know, theaccidents that resulted in fatalities involving self driving cars.I mean I think that kind of slowed it down a little bit. I thinkthe, there's too many, too much safety concern right now. Whetherthat's overblown, it's still there. I mean I think, there's a lotmore testing that needs to be worked out before those gain any kindof real, you know, measurable market share.
Scot:
[34:40] Yes. Yeah. It's been interesting to watch itCES. I haven't been to CES in a while, but I watched the coverage.And this is the beautiful thing about social media, you don't haveto go to these things anymore. Save a trip. And it seemed like thelast three CESs is prior to 2019 we're all a lot of autonomousvehicle hype and then this year it was kind of like the reality ofmore of the things they were showing were, you know, reallyconstrained public transit kind of thing. Just so you know, thesevehicles are going to go in a very predetermined route with its ownlanes and a very safe kind of approach and they're only going to go20 to 30 miles an hour and they'll have a human in there. And soreally kind of pulling back from that, you know, I'm just going tohop in a car and it's gonna drive me coast to coast and I won't, Ican sleep or something like that.
Joe:
[35:22] I think it's more of a pragmatic approach. It'scities looking at how do we solve these mass transit issues, youknow, whether it's a or, you know, even even companies, I mean whowere, you know, if it's a, if it's a self driving a shuttle at acompany or something that it goes around the campus or, or youknow, helping cities out, solving those, solving those issues, moreof a pragmatic approach rather than a retail consumer just wants aself driving car, like, you know, on the Jetsons orsomething.
Scot:
[35:51] Yeah. So any other trends in Auto Remarketingthat, that are kind of top of mind with you?
Joe:
[35:58] Well, I think going back to the, just theincreasingly digitize digitalized presence of, of the auto auctionindustry. I mean I, I think there is, it's an interesting timebecause so much of it is, is going digital, you know, and despitethere being still the need for the physical auto auction becauseyou're moving these large assets and it's, you know, there's a lotof physical movement. It's still needed in the industry. It'sinteresting to see how you'd mentioned the ACV investment. It's,it's been really fascinating to watch how much money and how muchattention is, is getting paid to, to that side of the business. AndI think it's a, it's only going to grow from here. You know, thatthe digital wholesale environment.
Scot:
[36:45] Cool. Awesome. And you guys have, you mentionedearlier that you spend more time on kind of, you know, some of thefuture vehicle technology stuff. And I noticed that you'd put a lotof events on this seem to be kind of anchored around this. Telllisteners about some of the events you guys host and how they canlearn more about this.
Joe:
[37:02] Sure. So we do, we have four automotiveconferences each year. Two of them were actually coming up inCanada. I'm heading to Toronto in a week and a half. That'll be forthe Toronto used car industry. But this summer in Raleigh we havethe Automotive Intelligence Summit. This is our second one. Itreally, it focuses on just the, you know, a lot of what we'vetalked about today, you know, autonomous vehicles, the connectedvehicles, digital retail, the use of big data and data analyticsand artificial intelligence and the, you know, things, you know,what role does blockchain management have in, in automotive. So alot of these tech driven changes in automotive. This conference,you know, we'll address, and again, it's our second year of doingit. It's going to be July 23rd through 25th in Raleigh at theMarriott Crabtree right across from the Crabtree Mall. But if, ifpeople are interested in learning more, they can go toautointelsummit.com. That's autointelsummit.com. Or they can hollerat me on Twitter @AR_JoeOverby and I can share more informationthere as well.
Scot:
[38:25] Cool. So I think you said four, so two inCanada, Auto Intel, is there a fourth one?
Joe:
[38:30] Yeah, absolutely. Our signature event. I'm gladyou reminded me. Our signature kind of flagship conference is UsedCar Week and each year we host that in the fall and it's typicallyin the southwest. This year we're going to be in Las Vegas at theRed Rock. Last year we were in Phoenix or Scottsdale, Arizona. Andwhat it is is it's four separate conferences that are all kind ofpart of the used vehicle life-cycle. So we have a retail focusconference on pre-owned. We have a finance auto finance conference,we have the repossession and recovery space. And then we have ourNational Remarketing Conference, which is the kind of wholesale,the auto auctions, that sort of thing. And we're actually going tobe celebrating our 20th anniversary of that National RemarketingConference. But that's going to be November 11th through 15th in atRed Rock in Las Vegas. And folks who are interested in that canvisit usedcarweek.biz. And that and that again, you know, it iskind of an overall auto industry conference, but given the natureof, of automotive these days, it is going to be tech. You know,there's going to be some tech focus, some innovation, some, youknow, talk about digital and that sort of thing as well.
Scot:
[39:55] Yeah. So just kind of reading the between thelines sounds like the Raleigh one is maybe like hundreds, low,hundreds, a couple hundred folks. Anything in Vegasis going to beat least single digit thousands if not tens of thousands.T
Joe:
[40:08] Yeah, the Auto Intel summit, we had about twoor 300 last year, very kind of boutique conference, but you know,everybody there was very engaged and there to, you know, be in thesessions. And again Used Car Week is a broader, larger, you know,we've been doing it for a couple of decades, it is in the, youknow, I think last year we had about, attendance was about 1600, Ibelieve. Yeah.
Scot:
[40:36] Yeah. Cool. Yeah, it's fun to go to kind ofboth cause you kind of, you know, the smaller shows are more in aminute and literally deep on something but maybe not as actionablesometimes. And then the networking is good and then the bigger onesyou can kind of go and have a list of here's five vendors I want tomeet. And it a lot more to kind of tactical get, get business done.So it's good to kind of go to both, I think.
Joe:
[40:57] It's like going to a basketball game at Cameronindoor stadium versus going to a football game at Carter Finley.It's just, one's a big crowd and loud and once you know, it's smallintimate atmosphere, so, yeah.
Scot:
[41:09] Absolutely. Cool. Well Joe, we don't want totake more of your time. Appreciate you coming over to Spiffy torecord the podcast. Excited to have you as one of our first guests.You mentioned your Twitter handle. If folks want to, that's one wayto kind of get in touch with you. Are you active on Linkedin orother social media and maybe let's definitely kind of bring them tothe website too.
Joe:
[41:28] Yeah, absolutely. Certainly active on Linkedin,just Joe there. And my email, if anybody has any questions aboutour conferences or about our publications. It's atjoverby@cherokeemediagroup.com. The website for all of ourpublication is Autoremarketing.com.
Scot:
[41:53] Great. Thanks for coming and thanks Jackson onthe audio engineering side.
Joe:
[41:59] Well thank you Scot. This has beenfun!
