This is where we are, you know, how are we moving forward? Like what are goals? Is this realistic? Can automakers still maintain profitability? Can dealers still maintain profitability at this level of volume? If you talk about Civic, the Corolla, those vehicles do well. But as a segment, things have definitely gone down. So it's like everything is funneling into the SUV. I mean, even the Ultima looks like it's on the chopping block. So it feels like they're maybe in the middle of larger product renaissance of changing their product line. It is risky. And we're going to see a lot of this moving forward as automakers look to find a dance partner for certain things that they, you know, perhaps are struggling with or unsure about or don't want to go it alone, don't want to do the investment alone.
Welcome to the car dealership guy market update, a monthly discussion with automotive industry experts and dealers about where our car market is today and where it may be headed. Today, I'm speaking with Jessica Caldwell, head of insights at Edmonds. But before we get into the show, the car dealership guy market update is brought to you by Edmonds. Welcome back to the fourth episode of the CDG market update presented by Edmonds. I'm here with Jessica Caldwell from Edmonds. Jessica, how are you? I'm doing good. Thanks. How are you? Good. Good to see you. So today it is just me and Jessica. We've got a lot to talk about. Last month was, you know, pretty boring. Only a couple of things happened in our industry, right? We had 50 over 50% of the industry suffered an outage and no big deal. I know, but in all seriousness, it's been, it's been a, there's been a lot. So we'll, we'll dig into a lot of it and really go step by step into where we're at today and where we're going as usual.
I think to kick things off, Jessica, we just finished the second quarter, as I just mentioned. Where does the industry stand? Give us a high level overview. Right. So I think if we look at where Q2 stands, it was pretty flat from where we were in Q2 in 2023, which is interesting because I think all the thought was you get more inventory, you get more incentives, things start to normalize. And one would think that sales would really start to go up and we didn't necessarily see that massive of an impact. I mean, it was up about 8% from the first quarter, but that's seasonal, January and February volumes are terrible. So that's expected. But in terms of like, you know, raise and a lift from maybe last year or second quarter, I think that was more expected.
So, you know, to me, it seems like we're almost finding like our groove back after all of everything that's happened from, you know, obviously inventory shortages, you know, COVID kind of finding like our, new groove. So maybe this level of sales is sort of where we are. I mean, we did have, of course, which you had mentioned, the CDK impact, but that was at the very end of the quarter from a total volume perspective, but it necessarily be as as affected. But I think that that kind of just begs the bigger question of, okay, this is where we are, you know, how are we moving forward? Like, what are goals?
Is this realistic? Can auto makers still maintain profitability? Can dealers still maintain profitability at this level of volume? So I think that's, you know, sort of the interesting thing at play here is like, have we found a new normal? Well, tell me more about the CDK hack impact on sales. Yeah. I mean, it's hard. Well, it is funny because everything that happened in the auto industry is such a big news, but CDK was such a specific story that it was, you know, it almost felt very inside baseball. But in terms of impact, I mean, it was quite significant, especially for, you know, CDK customers.
It did feel very mixed in terms of who was affected and who was not affected and the levels of effects. And people like, wow, this has been very detrimental. I'm sure you have a lot of good anecdotes on this, whereas, you know, others were not. But from like a sales standpoint, we did see softness in June. June, sorry, was about 15.3 around around that. So a little bit on the lower side of where we have been tracking. So I think that that was an effect.
But if you look at the quarter from a volume standpoint, probably less, just because it happened at the very end of the quarter, but an impactful portion of the quarter where it was at the end of June and, you know, started to hit month end and also quarter end. You want to make these numbers up? Yeah. And I always like to, I always like to define SARS for any of our new listeners that are joining in, right? We're really talking, you know, seasonally adjusted annual rate, which really is referring to how many cars are we tracking to sell annually for the year.
So it's pretty, I would say, initially, I was more concerned when the CDK outages started happening, right? It was, you know, like right away, I have reflections of my days, right, in a dealership without when the DMS doesn't work for some reason to, you know, management system. It's just like a disaster, right? Everything's disrupted. I think that the industry very quickly adjusted back to manual processes as, you know, as expected, but I would say that it's clear that with the numbers you just mentioned that the industry was able to really, you know, readjusting capture sales, which is obviously a positive for the car industry.
And I think the issue that lots of dealers have mentioned with service is that it's just not as easy to adjust the manual process, right? You can't maybe hold a deal, paper it later, bring the customer back. It's just, it gets a lot murkier. You have warranty, excuse me, you have warranty submissions, right? With the RROs pricing out different jobs. It got very murky. The other issue with service that many people may not have thought of is that. Service is always constrained, right? Everyone is always short on text. No one, everyone is always at max capacity. So when you're losing that business, it's really, it's almost impossible to make it up unless you have people do over time. And again, that has other consequences later down the line.
Tough to say, tough to quantify service. You know, of course, we'll see with the public groups, but on the sales perspective, I think your numbers add up to, or, you know, they, they make sense and anecdotally in aligns with kind of the sentiment on the street, which is that, you know, people adjusted processes and were able to capture a mosel. So it's pretty remarkable when you think that everyone lost or fit over 50% of our industry loss.
You know, they're, they're, they're pulse, right? They're, they're core software for at least two weeks. I know it's almost like going to work without a computer. Like people used to do that at one point in time and it's like, how did you do anything without, without a computer? So I imagine, you know, very similar that you get used to a certain way of doing things and, you know, pre this, it's even hard to, you know, hard to imagine. I did, yeah, it's interesting. You brought up service. I did hear from someone today that said, I just try to get my car serviced. You know, this, I got to the point where until the point where you can service the time and that's when the system crash. And he's like, wait a second. I thought this was already fixed. And it's like, well, there's going to be lingering effects. It's not necessarily everything's fine and dandy. No, it's been very glitchy. You know, these systems have so many tentacles and they integrate with so many different things, you know, and all these vendors. And so I'm still getting messages daily from dealers across the country just mentioning, hey, like this is still down that, you know, this software that connects is not working. People are still trying to smooth this out, but it seems as though, you know, the big, you know, the, the big disruption is behind us. So that's, that's a positive. Before we dive into brand specific metrics and how the brands have performed and continue to perform and who's doing better or worse, talk to us a little bit about inventory levels, right? Where are we out on inventory levels? We're coming off as we all know the last couple of years, historically low numbers on the new side. Where are we at today? Yeah. I mean, inventory is looking a lot better. I mean, just a little shy, probably around three million units, less than three million total. But to put in perspective, I mean, before COVID, we pretty much ran like three to four million. In terms of inventory in any given month. So being in like the high two million, almost three million ranges is almost getting us there because as we knew before, that was too much inventory. I mean, incentives were just everywhere and even looking at like the raw numbers, you know, it is a lot less than than it was. So it feels like we're kind of in a healthy place. Of course, that's not for every automaker. I mean, I'm sure Toyota wishes they probably had more RAV4 hybrids and what any hybrids for that matter. But, you know, and then on the other hand, you probably have, you know, companies like Jeep and slontus with with too many vehicles. So it's, you know, it's not necessarily a perfect science. But when we do look at inventory levels, I'm not really sure there's a need for them to get, you know, a lot higher given where sales are given the macroeconomic environments of high interest rates. You know, it doesn't feel like they necessarily need to grow. So that's why I feel like we're settling into kind of this era of, you know, perhaps more of a new normal where inventory shouldn't grow to like three and a half four million because we know that was not a healthy place and put a lot of pressure on the whole system.
So, yeah, it's definitely looking like what do you mean by that, Jessica? Like when you say, so what do you say that was in a healthy place, right? If I'm a dealer listening to this, I'm probably nodding. If I'm a consumer, I'm probably saying, Hey, like I want more inventory. I want an healthy place. Yeah. Yeah. I want done healthy. So like, what do you and I want to also like parlay this to incentives, which will I have some data there, which we're talking about in a second.
But what do you, when you say it, not a healthy place, do you think that do you think it's feasible for inventory to stay at this level? I mean, we are operating in a free market, right? And all these brands are competing. Like how realistic do you think that is? I mean, I think it's a fairly realistic as long as, you know, we're listening to, we'll have some Q2 earnings calls come up from all these automakers to see what their margins or profitability looks like.
Cause if that's good, then there really isn't necessarily a big need to turn things back up. I mean, of course, everyone wants more market share, but it is really doing that cost benefit analysis of like, what does that exactly? You know, seriously, do it does cost you to gain that share. And are there people there, even if you decided to turn the incentives on, are people going to buy the vehicles that you want? Because, you know, nobody really wants to go back to, you know, an era where days to turn for a certain vehicle is over a hundred. I mean, that does happen, but, you know, not necessarily as widespread as it once was, because nobody wants sales to be that slow and have to just give these cars away.
I mean, you know, I just still think about the time post recession where you saw deals like buy one. It was like buy one Dodge Ram and get like a Dodge Neon for free. I mean, it was under the Dodge brand back then. But those type of crazy incentives that you don't even fathom nowadays, but they did exist. And that's what happens when inventory disc is out of control and you have to produce your force to produce all these vehicles that you don't necessarily, you know, that you can't necessarily sell.
Speaking of inventory, two things I want to add there. Right. Number one, I've read a stat the other day that incentives as a percentage of vehicle price. I'm trying to think I think this was from Cox on a motor, but incentives as a percentage of as a vehicle price are have sort of leveled off. Which I found very interesting because in this increasing inventory environment. There seems to be that incentives have slowed, at least the growth has slowed. And I wonder, right, like, is that sustainable? Right. We can't have it all. We can't have slowing incentives increasing inventory and maintaining margins.
So that's the first question that goes to my head, right? Like what happens next? Will incentives continue rising from here? Right. Price has remained pretty flat. If you look at overall, you know, average vehicle price, it's still around like 48,000. That's been pretty consistent. So something has to give. The question is, are we going to see inventory level off like you're saying, or will incentives take another run and continue increasing from here? Well, I think we're seeing them level up and probably not be such a big percentage of sales. It's just because you see a mismatch in demand.
I mean, I think there are some vehicles where there probably is growing, some vehicles that are selling, like I mentioned, a lot of people that are looking at a lot of vehicles, like a lot of vehicles that are going to be higher. And I think that's the case of what we're seeing right now. I spoke with, and I wanted, before we transitioned to brand specific performance, which I want to talk about, how brands are actually performing numbers, I spoke with, I think, a lot of people are looking at the price. And I think that's a lot of people who are looking at the price. I think that's a lot of people who are looking at the price. I hope if somebody is looking at them, you're even going, like taking a ceremony here, I'm going to look at some finance. And I need details a little bit that I sort of don't active weight. MPH, there's a level of the net.
We don't have on a new car lot that we're buying in our country inventory to driver use car offering So, you know, we've been talking about this lack of supply It's you know, this is like, you know from the horse's mouth, right? This is real. This is there's fewer cars being returned from leases as we spoke about in previous episodes and a more of a reliance on these three to four cars to to compensate for that and So that is it's going to be also interesting to see how that impacts prices and you know again It's always there's always the you know the long tail effect, right? Ultimately more demand for those three to four cars more margin compression on the used car side and the cycle continues Yeah, I mean just for
someone like Toyota man the question is like well consumers just wait because they are brand loyal and You know if you want some of these vehicles, I don't know if there's necessarily perfect substitutes for them so You may have you know a line over at the Toyota dealership and a dirt of customers over at the Nissan dealership And that I think is the imbalance that we are You know that we are seeing but yeah, that is the that is the reality I mean we are seeing probably least returns. We knew we're gonna be an issue I think we talked about this a few years ago because we can see how few vehicles would be at least then what those volumes are and That's natural is like to have a used vehicle. You have to have a new vehicle first and we know exactly how many vehicles Were you know potentially gonna be you know returned at this point? I knew that it was just a declining number which is gonna put a brand like you know Toyota which you know once did a very healthy least business in a bit of a tough
spot right now So yeah, I'm not surprised that this is a this is probably a lot of alarm bells going on The car dealership guy market update is brought to you by Edmonds in today's automotive landscape car buyers invest more time than ever in researching considering and comparing options But for dealers the challenge lies in pinpointing the audience ready to make a purchase Enter premier by Edmonds premier offers dealers a groundbreaking way to connect with in-market car shoppers Precisely when where and how they prefer with over 20 million monthly visits Edmonds.com is the go-to destination for buyers seeking market insights Expert advice and budget tools to make informed decisions these shoppers aren't just informed their laser focused on the exact car They want now.
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Yeah, look I think mark I think more margin compression on the use car side doesn't surprise me I have frequent conversations about that with use card with use card dealers or new card dealers with big use departments I think the other thing that I think through is I Feel like you know that the the wholesaling market will continue getting more efficient and what I mean by that is Dealers are buying cars at record volumes, you know off the street quote-unquote from consumers but I think that you know the pressure is on for wholesalers may be auctions or you know B2B marketplaces to get more efficient and and Continue strengthening their value proposition Right because I it's not just of course supplies a big driver of it but you know price obviously matters especially in in a you know an environment with declining margins So I just see that I'm speaking sort of out loud here as I see what's trending in their industry But that's an area that I'm really kind of you know focusing on and trying to see how that's going to continue evolving
Yeah, I mean it makes sense Are you hearing just a lot of trepidation amongst dealers about like what to buy and how much to buy it for just because we've seen Such an up and down in terms of some of the used market over the past few years because I felt like that was very much a symptom At one point Well, I think first of all when it comes to the used EVs Lots of use card dealers are still taking advantage of the tax credit there. So that is absolutely having an impact Used EV prices have come down a lot they've sort of stabilized and Again, it's not surprising given that demand is increasing, you know with consumers. That's sort of that's a new That's something new that was started this year with the with the EV tax credit. I would say to answer your question directly I Don't know if trepidation I would there's definitely you know people are dealing with just margin compression and you know They're facing ahead on and remember to do that in an environment where interest rates are still Relatively high right we haven't seen these levels in about two decades So all that said the environment is challenging. We'll talk just in a second about performance on the new side But even on the use side I do this tweet where I say hey dealers tell me how you're doing the market and you know Lots of dealers comment on it on X and they say he kind of dissed on my sales and you know well then many times you know have phone calls or the messages and We'll just talk about you know kind of their specific market performance and it's just been very spotty like different regions of the country are You know operating or dirt really different volumes and they're doing some are doing better than others But overall it seems like you know that the conversation I have a bit more often is about margin Mmm as a rhyme or reason to some of the region the regionality because I think that's pretty interesting to it It kind of goes along with even some of the brands being a bit seemed spotty demand in different places I don't know if you heard that and I don't know I don't think I have any like good consistent trend that I've noticed, but I'm curious to know What do you think in terms of performance of the brands right and specifically standouts right like any brands performing great? Not great where we at
Yeah, I mean it was kind of the usual suspects I think of what you would expect when those sales reports came out I think it was just you know right after the month had started you still have brands like Nissan Solantis Definitely struggling there showing you know quarter over quarter or year over year rather declines versus Honda Toyota You know done very strong. I would say so It is a bit of a mixed bag the majority of brands You know I think they saw a pretty decent lift over over last quarter and I think that was to be expected and year over year I'd say a lot of them were in the same place But a lot of the the trends that we have seen have continued You know we have seen some of the Japanese brands do do quite well and with the exception of Nissan Which some news just came out about some of their product lineup shakeups Which I which I think is quite interesting of what their rumored to discontinue get rid of a lot of their sedans I mean even the ultimate looks like it's on the chopping block. So it feels like there may be in the middle of a Larger product renaissance of changing their product line and it but it is affecting them right now here on the ground Why do you think that is like that's that's a statement that I would have been first of all I'm semi-shocked to hear now But even a couple years back to hear like you know even the ultimate might be on the chopping block or it like Why do you think that is you know the news out there right now is that they will discontinue the Versa in 2025 And then the ultimate likely in 2026 or after that
So that would ultimately leave them with a centro is kind of their their only car and They've already you know they've already cut maxima. So for a brand was such a strong I would say car presence for many years. It feels like Centro was like one of a lot of people's like first car experience and then ultimate and then size sedan I mean that was that was a pretty hot car there for quite a while I mean it's been it's been probably over a decade, but when that was redesigned You know maybe like in the early 2000s that definitely got people to turn their heads and got them to consider the Nissan brand Which is is so important But it does feel like it's kind of following the industry of Shuttering a lot of these these car lines and you know I think you know Nissan's been you know kind of bullish in some of their statements as it relates to EVs So it feels like they're changing some of their products now internal combustion into products and you know Leaning heavily to more towards the change for their electric vehicles They've talked about you know some some SUVs joining on the eV side and then following that some some sedan So it feels like maybe these nameplates will come back But perhaps not as internal combustion engine vehicles maybe as EVs Yeah, I mean look I think it's clear that it seems like every year We're just losing more sedans and you know, it's not a it's not a shocker if you just go outside Look at the street right you see more and more SUVs But it's definitely clear that I mean it's if you you know hitting the altima or potentially and you know like The scent the central these type of vehicles These are like the bread and butter vehicles and so it's clear that Dart their industry has you know completely fundamental when fundamentally shifted and Automate it was taking our take it on consideration for all their future models
I want to go back to a point you made you were talking over talking about the brands and performance in the market I want to close the loop on another conversation. We had on a prior episode which was we spoke about brand loyalty and You shared some stats with me, right? You put out a bunch of stats about market share and I think I found it fascinating to see that Toyota's market share was up 12% year over year in Q2 from 2023 and I'll tell you why I find that fascinating because I Like we all know Toyota has brand loyalty and I will also mention brand loyalty has eroded a ton over the last couple of years But that is a I mean that's a massive percentage That's by far the largest percentage gain out of any brand in Q2 year over year by far I think behind them is is Volkswagen Audi that gained 7.2% gain in market share so almost double and It's pretty fascinating because we knew that Toyota's lack of inventory was pushing buyers to explore new brands But if this if this tells us anything It's that the Toyota buyer is very loyal like you said and maybe this is not the buyer that purchased a competing Subaru or Hyundai Or kid the last couple of years
But needless to say it shows that as they continue rebounding inventory The brand is just very very resilient and is able to bring that customer back and grow at a pace like this And you even mentioned that they're still lacking hybrids and so it's it's tough to not be Just bullish on the brand and imagine that if they had fully if they were fully stocked with hybrids right now that their market share Will be rising even faster Right. I mean, I don't know if he's on their sales records for June pre assault 13 I think it was 13 units and we know Demand for that vehicle is way higher obviously than that It's probably one of the hottest vehicles in the country So the fact that they couldn't sell those you know I cuz I when I saw this some of the June top line numbers for two I thought wait a second this doesn't seem in trend and then when you actually like look at how some of their vehicle results It's like well if you can only sell a few units. How do you reconcile that? Yeah, how do you reconcile like such such such a great performance and the pre-estirteen units? Yeah, I mean they're gonna either have a monster July in August as soon as they can start selling these vehicles again Because I do think Prius is one of those vehicles that people will wait for you know if you want a hybrid that is You know, I can't believe I'm saying this describe Prius, but kind of cool design There's not a lot of options out there, especially that are more affordable
So yeah, and then on the flip side you look at Ra for sales. They were over 40,000 I mean the Ra for almost looks like you know, one of the Detroit brand pickup trucks that yeah, that's that's a good analogy All right, so let's go to the not so good, right? I had Aaron Ziegler on the podcast recently if you're listening to this and you haven't listened to that episode You have to go listen to the episode because it was very very good But we discussed stellantis also known as you know Christ for dodgy pram fiat and others and again another sort of eye-popping stat here that you shared which is down from 10.6 percent vehicle market share in the US down to 8.4 percent year over year. That's a 20% 20.9 percent decline year over year anything new that we should know about stellantis, right? We've spoken we've been pretty vocal about their struggles with pricing with you know vehicle selection Anything new going on there?
I mean I wouldn't say new but I mean the one thing that is concerning more on the business end is that they've had They've had quite a few top executives leave And it seems like you know when I look at the news for them There's another executive that's gone. It's like I'm seeing more about that than the actual product which is concerning So don't know what's happening over there But obviously when you see this number of high-level executives leave a company You know enough they're in a transition or what's happening, but that's not probably great news Especially in the short term just having that sort of revolving door of top management Yeah, no, I highlighted that's a great point I highlighted a couple of those departures at least three big departures and the most recent one was Someone in their software tech department. I forget the exact role now the reason that's very meaningful is because You know engineers Typically at least from my experience are like pretty loyal to their leader not not to say that other, you know You know different departments aren't but you know like manufacturing and stuff like that. It's a bit different I would suspect engine, you know software engineers. It's a it's it's it's a different or Just that certain loyalty to your leader and you know kind of buying into the product vision To see that many leaders especially like a software leader or tech leader leave It's it's pretty concerning.
You know I feel for the for the stylist dealers It's not a great position to be in but if you look at on the optimistic side You know deals have gotten a lot better for consumers, right? So that's a good thing for consumers and it on the dealer side. You could make the case that you know maybe The company hasn't hit like the bottom yet, but it could be a buying opportunity soon, right? Ford went through a similar thing over the last two years Where it was you know, I dealers on my podcast were saying I will not touch a four-deal ship. I would not buy one I would not acquire one at any cost Valuations fell and then since then it seems like the brand has rebounded and so you know these things go in cycles I think there's a potential opportunity there For Stellantis and for dealers to take a look especially because you are seeing some more Stellantis dealerships Pop on the market or at least you know owners being open to selling again. That's my anecdotal observation Again from from conversations, but nonetheless I think that you know if you're ever looking for a time to get into that business You know we may be approaching a bottom and no one can time the market It just you know, I think of it like opportunistically, right if someone is not doing well, right? Is that an opportunity? Right
and that I mean that companies had nine lives. I don't even I mean I can't even name all the owners that they've had since bankruptcy So, you know are they because I feel like they've always been like are they really gonna survive and they've managed to do it every time So yeah, I do think that even though things look not great at this point in time The likelihood of bouncing back is probably pretty high for them They're a good example and what we just discussed about right the shift to SUVs right jeep Chrysler Dodge I mean, you know, it's it's really these are SUV brands So talk to me a little bit about just how we've been trending from market share by segment Right we you just mentioned the Nissan stuff Stellantis over here is is not is not doing too hot But they're very SUV heavy. So where are we out with market share by segment? How is that evolving? Yeah, I mean, it's almost a product story really because if you have all these car brands shutter I mean where people being naturally funneled into a lot of times they're funneled into you know smaller SUVs So yeah, I mean you look at way things like subcompact cars have trended over the years like pre-COVID versus now There's hardly any on the market.
So it's like I want to say it's like less than 1% versus it was you know much more lively Quite a number of years ago and you know the same thing with compact cars I mean a lot of people talk about they're doing well and they are doing well in the short term because the ones that are left do quite well You know if you talk about Civic the Corolla Those vehicles do well, but as a segment things have definitely gone down. So it's like everything is funneling into the SUV Segment I'd say more strongly probably on the smaller side will continue to see compact smaller SUVs grow they have grown They're a big you know big portion of the market. There may be some affordable Fortability issues not for the larger SUVs even maybe starting at midsize because hoes have gotten very expensive You think about just some of the normal nameplates that a lot of consumers deem affordable feel like they're not very affordable nowadays So probably some issues there
And then I think trucks are are interesting as well because when interest rates went to 0% for 84 months Like everyone bought their big truck because it was like the moment they had been waiting for me sure we were in COVID but Whatever, you know that logic was pushed to the side When we just saw the truck market share really spike and now Things have reversed we're seeing it definitely go down from from where it was. I mean, I still say it's probably in a higher place And we saw you know pre-COVID But from where we just saw it recently It definitely has started to to to taper off a bit So a lot of movement I'd say with the segments But it does feel like all the products that consumers are buying is being kind of in an SUV type of vehicle So that naturally is going to be increasing over time All right, speaking of consumers, right this all impacts the consumer down the day and how dealers conduct their business Comscore put out a stat that pre-qualifications by bank lenders More than doubled year over year. They went from 25% to 53% of consumers I think everyone here listening that is either shot for a car or selling a car or as a dealer or as a GM or Sales manager or whatever Right, we all know that you know affordability has been top of mind for everyone and that's frankly the biggest challenge at the dealership It's all lumped together affordability negative equity. It's all kind of one big thing and we'll we'll talk about each one Pretty big jump in pre-qualifications, which again is emblematic of the broader trend in industry Can you use an overview of the health of the consumer today? Where we at from payment perspective interest rates just give us like a high level overview of how things are shaken out I mean the consumer stretch right now and I imagine people listening to this podcast I probably see those this person kind of come in every day to the dealership is that you know financially It's very tough because it's not only have you know cars gone up in price everything around us has gone up in price So trying to make those trade-offs of okay. I need to buy a new car now. What am I not going to spend money on At this point in time to to be able to purchase that I mean we have high interest rates the new apr's Averages still over 7% we've seen that for a number of months. It has not dipped It feels like kind of the Fed is like is is that for newer used when you say that's the average Over-summer said yeah, so if you look at new vehicles, what are the average interest rates on the loans in the country? There's still over 7% definitely, you know still quite high and when you add that on to 50 $60,000 vehicle You know you get these record high monthly payments over $700 which You know as an average feels you know extremely high I feel like I have these conversations with people in different parts of the country Maybe cost of levines a little bit less and they're like that's how much I pay for my rent or my mortgage or whatever it is It feels like Those are the payments they're turning into so we do know that that you know that the The customer is very much financially stretched but not just in the auto space in every space And I think that's what's really challenging right now
Okay, so new is over 7 where is where are used a PR is that currently? Yeah used a PR is even higher. I mean they're over 11% so You know if you're a used buyer out there I mean I think that things like certified pre-owned certainly help especially if there are some sort of subsidized industry programs But yeah, I mean used a PR's are are you know extremely high? So I mean those those shoppers that are Doing the research to figure out like what does my loan look like not only to shopping your vehicle But shopping your loan as well are probably the ones that are going to be the happiest because it's it's there's so many moving pieces And it's something that I think consumers didn't even really think about I think they just kind of Turned up to the dealership. They kind of knew a car they wanted to buy and then they kind of settled all that in the f&i office And now that's probably why you're seeing these prequalls go up because the loan portion is becoming such a big part of this process Can I even afford this because of the higher interest rates and the higher prices?
So Jessica Edmonds also put out a stat which I I followed this very closely And you you put out the stat about consumers Buying vehicles at payments over a thousand dollars a month. This is becomes one of the six barometer for consumer spending the car business the health of the market and in q2 2024 17.8 percent of All loans taken out on new vehicles right 17.8 percent so nearly one in five consumers paid over a thousand dollars a month right now Then by the way, that's shy that that is just 10 basis points shy of the record which is 17.9 percent Which was in q4 2023. So we're pretty much at the record or close to it. What I find interesting is New car prices haven't gone up but incentives have Instead of some actually spiked over the last year And you know this is only call it two to three quarters out But what gives right like is our consumers are going after more expensive vehicles? Do our people making more money? Is it inflation is it all three? I mean what what's happening? Doesn't feel like people are making more money. I feel like everyone is saying that like i'm not making any more money Even though things are a lot more expensive But I mean I do feel that like people have these You know vehicles that they you know that they that they want to buy And I don't know if they're justifying to the sales because everything is is more expensive out there But you combine some of these prices with the you know the high interest rates and and the interesting thing about right now is that We are seeing incentives on interest rates like there are subsidized programs. They're not the best They're certainly not how they were pre-covid, but they are out there. So we should in theory start to see that Average incentives are average interest rate go down, but we're not necessarily seeing that. So I think people are probably paying Um a higher interest rate on the higher end. So people maybe with worse off credit And they're kind of going on on that side of the equation Which is keeping the interest rate at where it is So I think that probably is some of the the dynamic that we're seeing out there because it should Go down and that's what I'm looking for. I'm looking for that moment in which incentives will impact it enough For that number to go down and we just haven't seen that yet And that's what i'm following as well. So it's going to be uh, it's going to be very interesting to see this next quarter especially with uh incentives that have sort of plateaued Uh, whether or not that'll keep rising and how that will impact us Yeah, I think the key thing here is just loan is just loan terms because We definitely like to extend the loan terms for as low as possible and a lot of the incentives that are offered are for relatively shorter loan areas that americans Don't want I mean if you're not offering something for over 60 months, I'd say it's not going to appeal to a lot of people But I think those are the sort of the number of 60 months 72 months 84 months. That's that's I think what people really That that's what you start to get like the heads turning Mm-hmm
So before we wrap up I want to touch on negative equity because there's been some changes there. If you can you set the table for us on? Again, where we add in terms of negative equities and industry how we how are things trending? Well, we know how things are trending not good, but Get me like if you could just be more specific on you know, it was specifically. The numbers behind how things are trending. I mean when you use values and trade ins were so high just a few years ago because we couldn't make cars. Um, this was not an issue because everyone was so happy. It was like, I mean I remember even seeing these stories that you know We helped put together like are you sitting on a goldmine in your driveway because your vehicle that there could be worth so much money. And it was the case people were delighted on how much money they were getting for their trade ins and things are starting to normalize.
And you know as a result we're starting to see negative equity creep back up. I mean it was very low Um, and it is still lower than it was has been historically there's been points in time where it has been higher. Um, but I think probably the more concerning thing is just the amount of negative equity that's at a record. It's over $6,000. So people are rolling $6,000 into their next car loan and that You know, that's probably how we get these very high monthly payments as well. Um, people taking advantage of of that. So I think that that probably is Is is fairly concerning because we have to these people that are trading in relatively not very old vehicles and it's sort of like Why is that happening and are are they okay with that decision? And you know as a result this you know, the amount like I said has hit a record level $6,000 is definitely a lot of money.
Do we know adjusted for inflation if that is still a record or we're unsure on that? It probably is. I mean looking back in time it usually was a lot lower like. It probably is a function too of car prices going up as well. So maybe adjusted for car price changes as well as inflation Maybe things are you know more directly to car prices, but I'd say that it it likely would be So drilling into negative equity and this is the fun part, right? We see that. Well, yeah, well as as you know as fun as it can be for the conversation It's obviously not a great situation either way, but we do know that EVs are at record levels of negative equity and are driving lots of this. And again every dealer listening to this knows this right If you if you held on to EVs as prices were being cut you felt it If you didn't you saw the price drops, but EVs are leading it now again. I like to put up I like to think positively and I asked myself right, you know Whenever there's you know quote-unquote a crisis. Well, what's the opportunity? And I think the opportunity here is check out this stat.
This was actually we wrote it in in our car district at newsletter I'm not sure what's the primary source. It isn't sourced in a newsletter, but we. The team pretty much put together this stat they shared and they wrote that the average mainstream EV is now just $1,500 more than its gas powered counterpart. And here's here's the crazy part right that's down from $8400 of difference in May 2023 so what that tells me is that You know, we are likely past the big drops right or or let's say differently Prices have used EVs and used gas are likely closer to parity at this point or getting closer and For all the dealers that I spoke with you were kind of you know scared to touch EVs and have the demand right? I'm not talking about the areas of the country that maybe don't have the demand for electric vehicles And that's totally normal and we're strictly speaking here about just like a money-making capitalist perspective, right?
I don't care about like pro anti I could care less right. It's an asset. It's a piece of metal Can can't make money but in all seriousness, right? When you think about that it feels it seems like the you know They've to two different types of vehicles are getting close to price parity Which as a dealer I would perceive it less risky to potentially try to retail some of those vehicles if I have the market for it so An interesting data point every dealer can listen and then can do it with it. You know as they as they please I know people are very passionate about this topic to be honest. I'm not I'm very dispassioned about it It's just you know, it's it's nuts and bolts, but that's just my opinion But I'm curious if you have any thoughts on that.
Yeah, no, I mean I think that's an interesting status because you know if that is the case then what is the issue? like why are people not necessarily that interested and I think it kind of Points to you know something that we have been talking about just the other challenges of owning an EV because it's not a one-to-one Substitute an EV an internal combustion engine you have to do a whole new you need a whole new system and do people just not want to do that and is that gonna what it's ultimately gonna hold things up until the infrastructure is as seamless as you know having a gas station Because that is something that always comes up in surveys is that consumers don't want to deal with the hassle of owning an EV They're like, yeah sure it's you know, it seems fine But you know, I don't really want to go and do and learn all these things because technology scares people at the end of the day New technology is scary Doing different different things differently is scary kind of departing from what you have known your entire life is also scary So getting over these psychological hurdles seem to be the issue because if price is not an issue anymore Then what is exactly going to hold it back and maybe we have to start addressing some of those those concerns.
So it's probably a high education piece that won't be need to focus So it's like it's going beyond product and price but more and and and speaking of scary It's not just a consumer that may be scared Um, it's also the oh, oh, yeah. Recently Volkswagen group announced that they are going to invest five billion dollars in a joint venture with Rivian Uh, this sort of kind of sent shockwaves through the industry because it was like wow surprising You know legacy automatic action going to invest in Rivian, you know one of the ev you know upstarts What's your take? I mean what what is going on? Are we going to see more of this type of you know, it's it's it's some form of consolidation Right at least capital consolidation for this, you know for developing this technology But what's your take on this investment by uh by Volkswagen? Yeah, I mean from the Rivian standpoint, they need money. I don't think that's probably too much of a question They need the cash. Um, I think from the Volkswagen standpoint probably getting a better hold on You know evs in general probably specifically as it relates to to software, um, you know They have been developing evs, you know fairly aggressively and they haven't necessarily I'd say you know set the world on fire with them yet so Developing better vehicles and you know to me it's just like you got to pull back from Volkswagen because it feels like they haven't really been the same Since maybe like diesel gate if it like the company Changed rapidly from that point and there was a lot of pressure on them post that point to Make environmentally friendly vehicle.
So perhaps maybe jumping into the ev space Like almost kind of forced into it. Like maybe it wasn't Necessarily the biggest passion project there, but it was something that they had to do to you know, perhaps change their image a bit Um has kind of got to them to this point where Maybe their evs don't feel you know as as good they make quite a few I mean, I'd say the quality is different amongst all of their their band brand portfolio But I'd say they're probably not like necessarily like a class leading like we would talk about it You know in great lengths of how great it is right? So, you know, I think developing that that better vehicle is is you know sort of What they're aiming to do in the future? Against a lot of their rivals who you know probably have a lot more buzz in this in this area So what so what do you think if you had to sum it up in like one word or two words, right? Good idea or good investment bad investment. What's your take from a strategic perspective? I think it was a decent decision It's just that raving is a startup. So how much how much do they really have there? You know, I guess that probably is is is the question. It's but maybe that's what a legacy automaker needs You know is is that component of it because they can already that you know They got the manufacturing portion down, but it is the other things that they need help with But it is it is risky and we're gonna see a lot of this moving forward as automakers look to find a dance partner for certain things that they You know perhaps are struggling with or unsure about or don't want to go it alone Don't want to do the investment alone. I mean, I think this has been common. It probably is just going to Be even more more common, especially, you know, because we have electric we have electrification Which you know obviously we talk a lot about but also autonomous technology.
That's coming fast and furious as well So it's like these are big Changes that are going to completely change the auto industry And that is a scary expensive proposition So talk to us about the next couple of months. I mean, what's your outlook in the next three months? I feel like I gained a lot of gray hairs over the past 30 days so It shaved a couple of days off my life over all this all this crazy all the craziness that we just experienced in the last month You know with the the hurricane and CDK obviously unfortunate But you know just been very very hectic. So what's in store for the next three months? Talk to me. What do you think? Yeah, well, I mean, here's a deal I think we what we are seeing now is just like a series of black swan events Like it just feels like before a hurricane or something like the CDK would send us like You know, we would go into panic and now it just feels like oh, it's just another crazy thing that's happened Not a industry because it feels like there are so many of those I'd say for the next three months things should be Fairly stable, but we do have an election on the horizon which can completely change things Especially, you know on EVs, but you know with the election cycle, I think coming up that can really start to change things I mean, especially if we have a new administration that can really affect some of the You know the rebates that we're seeing for electric vehicles and if that's the case, what would it do to that market? I mean, I think right now EVs are pretty much selling on Leases, I mean, we have you know almost 70 percent of EVs are sold on leases and it makes sense with the tax credit.
If that was to go away What you know what is happening to this market especially since this whole conversation has been about all these companies investing So much into into this technology like where does that leave it? And then all of a sudden will it change again in four years time from now? And that uncertainty I think is is probably pretty hard for automakers to to grapple with so That is I'd say probably a big You know that could be a big potential change in 2024 But I think you know from the You know from the ground level I say for the next few months I think I feel like things are going to kind of carry on as as what we are seeing It's just the bigger picture. I think that's a bit more Discerning and that's not really in even a long-term look It is it is pretty much in the short term
Any winners or losers that you're forecasting for their city or from a brand perspective anyone you think like you think we're going to maintain course Do you think we should expect to maybe break some trends and we know the usual stellantis teyota Teyota outperforming slants underperforming anything alice on the horizon that your pain attention to Yeah, I mean, I don't think there's anything that is looks like it's going to go off course necessarily it feels like things are going to kind of stay as the army There's not really any catalysts and things that are moving. There's not necessarily any massive like product shifts I mean, hopefully, you know, Toyota will can get some Prius numbers up because 13 is probably not going to Be good for them and for the rest of the year. I imagine that's probably different already, but You know from a from an auto maker perspective. It's not as if there's like any like big changes incentives could change things Someone gets a bit more aggressive with incentives I mean still on this did you know admit that they do have a pricing issue They have addressed it a bit. Are they going to do it more aggressively? So I'd say smaller changes but not necessarily any like structural Differences, you know expected at least in the short term
Well, but Jessica Caldwell always a pleasure. Thanks for coming on Thank you. This episode has brought you by my very own car dealership guy news CDG news is here to help you stay updated on all things automotive We're not your typical news crew. We're bringing you concise unbiased car industry news and easy to digest formats From the hottest headlines to podcast summaries dealership best practices and industry insights We've got it all covered and guess what? It's all free no paywalls just like we always promise hop over to CDG.News That's CDG.News and check us out where all your is for your feedback. Tell us what you need Give us your honest thoughts. We're here to deliver real value So don't wait head to CDG.News now or click the link in the show notes below All right. Hope you enjoyed that episode Please give the podcast a rating consider subscribing to the show and check the show notes for links to what we talked about Thanks for tuning in. I'll see you guys next time You.