I might have been more of a believer around we were going to get to 100% EV. But at this point, dealers aren't going anywhere. I don't think that we're going to get to 100% EVs, not in my lifetime. And like I said earlier, I don't think that the use case for human autonomy at level 5 is ever going to happen.
What's up everyone? This is Car Dealership Guide. You're listening to the Car Dealership Guide podcast, which is my effort to give you access to the most unbiased and transparent insights into the car market. Before we start, I need your help to grow the Car Dealership Guide community. Please take a second to subscribe to the show and leave us a rating below so that more people can benefit from this content.
Alright, let's get into today's show. Steve Greenfield is founder and CEO of Automotive Ventures, an early stage auto technology and mobility VC fund that helps entrepreneurs race growth capital and accelerate their businesses. Steve previously served as TrueCars Senior VP of Strategy and Business Development and Auto Traders VP of Product Management and Business Development, where he oversaw the acquisitions of V Auto, Kelly Bluebook, HomeNet Automotive, Vint Solutions, and dealer science.
In this conversation, we talk about how will the car buying experience change for consumers in 5 to 10 years? Are smaller dealerships at risk of extinction? Will auto manufacturers go direct to consumer like Tesla? The most compelling investment opportunities in the EV space, the main trends that Automotive Ventures is focused on. And everything as a service, will you really have to subscribe to your car's heated seats? Here's my conversation with Steve Greenfield.
All views of car dealership guy and any guests on this podcast are solely their opinions. You should not treat any opinion expressed by car dealership guy or any guests as a specific inducement to make a particular investment. This podcast is for informational purposes only.
Alright Steve, great to have you here. Let's get started. So I think the where I want to start is the car business has changed a lot over the last 5 to 10 years and especially since COVID. There's been this acceleration of technology in the industry, but from your perspective, what will the car buying look like? 10 years for consumers?
Yeah, it's a good question and a hard question. I've been now doing this for like 23 years and you know at the beginning of the internet, you know, the salesperson was going to get disrupted. All cars were going to sell online. Very very much the Amazon ask sort of like experience that one would expect with digitization, but you know, then carbona here this last year. I'm sure we'll talk about that a little bit today as well. But you know, that was a great experiment, you know, and I think for no lack of demand, but you know, the unit economics never could make sense. Right. From taking the inventory risk to all the logistics of the vehicle, etc. But never mind the technology and then the sheer cost of getting getting audience.
But you know, I think to answer your question, I think the best example that we're seeing real time is car max right because car max now does offer an omnichannel experience in their words. So the consumer can opt for driveway delivery if they want or curbside pickup and you know, you read the earnings call transcripts and you know, they'd say that only 12% as of last quarter 12% of consumers are demanding sort of like this, this either curbside and or home delivery. So I think you know, we can only meet the consumer where they want to be met. And I, you know, I don't think that 10 years from now we're going to be 100% online driveway delivery, etc. Despite the fact, you know, there will be other car monies that pop up. And you know, you see what Lithia is doing with their rebranding the driveway dot com and wanting to have this national presence.
I think that the interest is there to provide the consumer with a better buying experience. But I think you know fast forward 10 years, we're going to see still see the majority of vehicles transacting face to face at dealerships. And you know, there'll be a lot of technology that enables transparency upfront and negotiation upfront. But I think that the physical handoff of the vehicle and some of the negotiation for the majority of transactions will still be at the dealership.
So, but you said something interesting. You said you said Carvano was a nice experiment past tense. Like explain that to me. Clearly, Carvano's market cap has gone decimated, but like you also mentioned a consumer demand is still there. So do you think that it's just the business model structurally did not work, but the consumer experience sticks around and dissipates throughout all the dealerships or do you think it's just altogether that type of consumer experience is just not sustainable.
No, I think kudos to the Carvano team. They prove that there is demand for that kind of experience, right? I mean, it was always intuitive and Amazon Esca experience per car buying, you know, we'd get support from consumers. I mean, that seems very intuitive, but someone need to prove that and the Carvano guys were able to prove that.
I think that the unit economics other than that one quarter where they were profitable, where cars were, you know, for the first time in the history of automotive cars are actually appreciating the longer you hold on. That that that boated well for that one quarter, but beyond that, I think it's really, really has proven to be for them a very challenging model to make the unit economics work. It would be different. You know, if they didn't have to spend $400 million plus per year in marketing, if you could both that experience on to somebody who's already got consumer eyeballs, Allah, Amazon, Allah Walmart.
It would be totally different and you might be able to prove out positive unit economics very quickly, but you know, just the sheer cost of generating that audience on the front end and then the incremental cost of all the logistics to get the car to people's driveways on the back end. I think just like was really, really challenging them for them to prove out positive unit economics.
But why has it been so difficult to change the car buying process, right? Or like on one hand, I tell myself, okay, it's the car buying process is, you know, as a dealer, it still works and it seems like or at least people online have very different perspectives from customers walking into the showroom.
On the other hand, you know, the business and you know, you look at you look at ratings and polls and whatnot, you know, use car salesmen are consistently ranked pretty low on, you know, trustworthiness and stuff like that, not as bad as politicians, but it's it's still pretty low relatively speaking to other industries. So, you know, what is it that that's just been so difficult about changing the car buying process or at least a perception for consumers?
Do you think it's just a stigma that stuck around and it's been tough to shake off? Does the car dealership business need to rebrand or what is it? Well, in some ways, but I mean, the challenge is one, it's a very large purchase.
Number two is, I mean, there aren't very many product categories left now where you negotiate and especially with large purchases like what's left mattresses furniture and then like if you're smart enough jewelry, right, when you go by jewelry, you can negotiate. I mean, yeah, you can just buy them direct to consumer.
I mean, if you're buying a Casper mattress or any of these other direct to consumer brands, you're not negotiating any longer. So, I mean, I think and you're furniture if you're buying on Amazon, obviously, you're not negotiating any longer. So, I think we are migrating away from and Amazon has has has has trained the next generation of shoppers not to negotiate right in fact, if anything, price transparency and ensuring feeling confident you've got the lowest price is really hard on the Amazon experience. They do that deliberately, right?
It's really hard to get on and buy a product and be convinced that you've gotten the lowest price because there's no way to sort low to high like he used to be able to do on eBay. And you know, it's very convoluted. So, I think that given that it's a high price good purchasing is infrequent. There still is discounting both on new and on use.
I think and there's the uncertainty, you know, you know this better than me, but the uncertainty around whether I will get finance and whether I will be eligible for the incentives that I see online all means that you almost have to go in and talk face to face.
I'm a super prime buyer and I don't want to negotiate and I'm willing to pay MSRP. That's actually pretty easy to buy online. But if I'm not a super prime buyer and I don't know exactly which configuration of car that I want and I'm not certain if I'm going to get finance and I'm eligible for incentives, I almost have to go into the dealership.
So I think until such time as we say every car shall sell at MSRP and or every use car there's absolutely no negotiation. And we're very clear, hey, if you've got this credit score, you're going to qualify for this bank at this rate. And here's going to here's your payment and you can see what the FTC is trying to do.
I mean, they're signaling let's try to force the industry through regulation to get there and be transparent online with what the outdoor prices. And by the way, you know, commit to what the pricing is for F and I products ahead of time. Well, that's a little utopian. I don't think they're going to be able to well, how on earth? Because well, listen, you know, you finance customers every day, correct?
When a customer walks in, even if they've already done their got their credit score and they're certain that they're going to get a certain rate, how often are they actually eligible for the rate they think they're eligible for? Not very often. And the reason for that is because the different parts of the business are still so fragmented or you know, like they're just disconnected the lenders and the dealers and FNI products.
I think that's, you know, I think that's one of the things that Carvana did achieve, which is vertically integrating that entire vertically integrating, you know, the different parts that make up the car business and then connecting them through technology. And other dealers have done it as well, you know, like you've seen the Lithia do it. You know, there's just other companies that have managed to do that, but obviously takes a lot of money.
It's, you know, big upfront spend in order to provide that experience. So yeah, I do agree with you that where there's a lot of upstarts and you know startups that are trying to make that the norm for dealers, but it's been very difficult. So, you know, I've tried for a very long time to get all these systems to talk and it's just, it's really, really tough as a dealer and I consider myself pretty tech savvy.
So I can only imagine dealers that are less tech savvy or don't have internet or technology departments is probably even tougher. Yeah, so let's let's let's dwell there for a minute, right? So if you have the scale, if you're Carvana, Carmax, Lithia and you the scale to effectively have your own bank.
You write the paper and have your own F and I company where you approve and you can, you know, there's no uncertainty around whether a consumer is eligible, what the pricing is for this particular vendor customer. Then yeah, I think that's exactly right. But then, you know, you aren't thinking about a future where there's going to be huge scale economies and the giants of the industry are going to win because they're the ones that are going to be able to provide this tight integration and this much more seamless consumer experience.
你可以编写论文,并拥有自己的 F 和 I 公司,在那里你可以批准,你也知道,消费者是否有资格以及特定厂商客户的定价是否确定,没有不确定性。然后,是的,我认为这完全正确。但是,你没有考虑到未来会有巨大的规模经济,行业的巨头们将胜出,因为他们将能够提供紧密的整合和更无缝的消费者体验。
And maybe the vision is that, you know, there can be a few dominant, huge national brands, Aladriveway, Carmax, Carvana or whoever like replaces Carvana and then, you know, that's it. And then, you know, the average dealer is going to have a hard time unless they carve out this like niche in their local market where they're differentiated in the minds of the consumer. And then, you know, a hard time ever competing online because of all the disparate systems you said that are really, really hard to stitch together unless you effectively own those disparate systems.
So that's a perfect segue because, you know, I wanted to ask you what happens to small dealerships or dealer groups over the next five to 10 years. Do you think they can compete? It sounds like based on what you just said, it's unlikely. But clearly, you know, you run automotive ventures, you're bullish on the dealership model and innovation with the dealership model.
So, you know, I think that's a lot of the other owners are wrestling with this right now, you know, given that valuations are higher than they've ever been. Is this the right time to get out with all this uncertainty? And some are taking the opportunity to do that. Like with all the headwinds on the horizon on uncertainty is time to get out and put some money in the bank. But you know, I think that the dealers that I talked to that have like a good solid plan or like there's defensibility about having a good geographical concentration.
So, there are dealer groups that have 15 stores in one or two cities where they've got, you know, good, a representation of a bunch of different popular brands. And then they can harmonize the technology stack, promote that family's brand or whatever that brand is locally and build up defensibility at least within that one city. And then for what we just talked about, like, you know, allowing them to own their own bank and own their own finance products, etc.
But you know, at least the scale economics of negotiating down the rate on F and I products, etc. The simplification of going to, you know, one uniform tech stack behind the scenes for reporting purposes, etc. And at least they get that geographical defensibility. But I think that the single mom and pop stores, right, as they say, are going to increasingly hard time differentiating, and especially with everything that's going on with, you know, OEMs in many cases on the new side, moving more towards like an agency model or some hybrid of an agency model.
Tell us more about that. Tell us more about this agency model.
告诉我们更多关于那个事情的细节。告诉我们更多关于这个代理模型的信息。
Yeah, happy to. I mean, this is, you know, an area that I try to keep up on, although that's changing weekly.
嗯,很高兴能够帮忙。我的意思是,你知道的,这是一个我努力保持了解的领域,尽管情况每周都在变化。
So if you look at the friction, you know, as far as I'm concerned, you know, I've been 23 years in the industry, there's always been friction between an OEM and you mean a car manufacturer just seeing for the audience. Yeah, auto makers, correct. Yeah, the automaker and their franchise dealers and there's always been friction, right, be it, you know, the incentives, the facility upgrades, you know, image improvements, you know, brand alignment, you know, the new car allocations, you know, whatever it might be, right, captive finance, pulling shenanigans, consumer facing incentives, dealer facing its ass.
So, but you know, in the last couple of years, what's happened, we've had dealers print record profitability through the front end grosses, back end grosses have been like off the charts, and you know, no longer are we worried about dealers losing money on new car sales.
At this point, what we've got is, you know, dealers making like record profitability. And you know, the OEM has been watching this and saying, oh, this is interesting.
目前我们所拥有的是,经销商实现了纪录性的盈利。而且我们的制造商也一直在关注这个情况,认为这很有趣。
COVID has subjected us all to an interesting experiment, right, if you've got cars that all sell at or above MSRP. And we can dial down the incentive spend. And every car that we produce gets gets gets sold almost immediately, if not in advance, suddenly it's like, oh, the whole supply chain makes more money.
The OEM is make more money, the dealers make more money, the consumer, obviously, you know, have issues that you always talk about. And now we're going to have a bunch of consumers that when they go into trade in three years or sell their car, they're going to be way, way underwater because they've overpaid for these cars when they first bought them.
But the OEMs have said, okay, well, what have we learned through COVID? Well, you know, let's, let's try to build an environment where every car sells at MSRP. And consumers are much more conditioned for build order because everyone's going to make more profit.
The other thing is the OEMs, I would say in general, and maybe I'm generalizing here are dissatisfied with the inconsistency of the consumer experience and the dealerships, something you mentioned earlier, OEMs aren't happy that, you know, dealers reputations aren't very strong with consumers and consumers hate, you know, having to spend four hours of the dealership buying the car.
But on the OEMs aren't happy with any of this and haven't been for some time and they're like, oh, interesting. Well, what if we owned more of that consumer experience and we get the consumer to go to Hummer.com and, you know, put it down payment on a vehicle and wait for that vehicle to be produced.
We could still have the dealer be the point of delivery for that car, but no longer will they be haggling with the dealer all the negotiation on price, the trade in and the FNI products will all get, you know, basically negotiated online in a pleasing experience. And then the dealer will be a point of distribution and will help service the cars afterwards.
Is that realistic? And I say that simply because of, you know, regulatory laws, franchise laws and whatnot is that what we're seeing it sounds to me like a hybrid of some form of direct consumer. And I know it's not fully direct consumer, but like how realistic is that great, great observation.
So overseas, they're moving much more aggressive auto makers are moving much more aggressively. You saw Stellantis, for example, pair up the franchise agreements with 15,000 dealers last June over in Europe and replace them with an agent agreement where the OEM in that case, the automaker is going to take control of inventory and marketing to the consumer.
The dealer no longer has the inventory risk and the dealer no longer has to advertise to the consumer. They simply need to, you know, fulfill the orders of the OEMs are going to generate here in the US.
经销商不再承担库存风险,也不必再向消费者做广告。他们只需要履行OEM在美国产生的订单即可。
We have state franchise laws. And even Tesla has only, you know, broken those down in 20 cases worked in 20 states they can sell directly without having franchises. So, you know, that's an uphill battle for Tesla, but they continue to to to to nick away at that.
But I think what we're seeing play out here is exactly what you said. It's a hybrid model where the OEMs will introduce new cars like like the Hummer, Volkswagen is looking at reintroducing the scope brand.
They will sell direct and whether or not the Volkswagen dealerships play some role in that we don't know yet. But what you're seeing is this like experimental experimentation around the edges with the franchise model here.
But, you know, I think that we could all agree or from a dealer in OEM standpoint, we could all agree that selling every car at MSRP and not negotiating is really healthy for profitability. So, that's a good for consumers, but then you would have to believe that we will not get back to where we were pre-COVID with OEMs in general over producing cars and then stuffing the channel and then inventory backing up on dealers lots and then incentives coming and over the top to give both dealers and consumers the incentive of buying these cars where there isn't enough demand for supply.
So, when you say stuffing the channel, right, so when that car when that car hits the lot, explain to us like does the manufacturer book that profit as soon as that car hits the lot or go ahead.
So, this is exactly right. So, this is one of the big changes that I think will break the back of any illusions that the OEMs have around the agency model, which is like who takes the inventory risk? Because the beautiful thing for the manufacturers today and up until now has been, you know, there's no there's no finished goods on their balance sheet at the end of the production line that car is sold wholesale to that dealer and it's being shipped to that dealer and that dealer takes all the inventory risk, all the inventory risk. So, with the agency model and what's being contemplated overseas is the automakers will actually take the inventory risk. So, now those that inventory is going to sit on their on their balance sheet and the first quarter where there's going to be a car that's built that's a dud if you remember back the example I always use is the Pontiac Aztec. If you remember the puny attack there will be the equivalent of Pontiac Aztec's built in new this new EV world we're entering as we over produce EVs according to demand and I think that what's going to happen is the OEMs are going to be glad, glad that they're continuing to wholesale these cars to dealers and they aren't taking the inventory risk because can you imagine this over in Europe when Stellantis just to sort of call it Stellantis, but they've been pretty vocal about this.
You know, has some EV they build that they've got to take a billion dollar right off some quarter the Wall Street analysts are going to skewer them. And so, and they may suddenly lose appetite lose religion around the agency model when they realize that the negatives, the negative ramifications of potentially holding inventory on their balance sheet where you've got like massive losses because the cars depreciate so dramatically.
So you mentioned EVs I get asked about EVs all the time it's super super hot topic especially on on the internet and the twitter verse. We're and specifically you just mentioned over production do you think we're going to head strong into the EV segment relative to demand how do you see this playing out.
Yes, why don't we elaborate absolutely so yes so I think yes I mean if you look at automotive news they said recently that there will be 150 new EV models. Over the next two years we're seeing dramatic aggressive stimulation from the US government to try to get people to buy these things. At the end of the day I think that there just isn't going to be the demand maybe that a lot of people are forecasting not that there isn't a man I think for certain use cases EVs are awesome right.
For many use cases across the US US is a vast area you see one in five chargers aren't working right now according to JD power so even if we push all these EV and incent all these EV chargers if they aren't working and the handoff between the car and the EV charger doesn't work effectively well then we're going to have like massive problems I think with convincing consumers to buy these things.
So you think that it's going to be a problem because like how do you reconcile Tesla just had a great quarter I think they gained around 2% market share or so better than any other manufacturer of course EV so how do you reconcile that and and thinking that you know maybe we're over producing or is this just a problem that we're just not dare yet because EVs as whole are still less than 10% of the car economy at the moment.
Yeah so I suspect it will top out at around 25 to 30% there's no magic to that but I think that to me that's like the natural demand you talk to people and you know you see you see data that shows people like they're buying EVs as a second vehicle in a household that makes a lot of sense or I mean a dense urban area right where I can either ensure that I've got charging at home or charging somewhere at work or wherever it might be.
So I've got I've got charging that I can feel confident is going to work when I get there and be available but I think that there are a whole bunch of use cases you know pick up trucks that need for commercial purposes and towing capacity don't know if they're going to be able to figure that out right in terms of like the degradation of range people who commute long distances and have serious range anxiety. How are we going to address some of these use cases across the US so and then just general you know people are pushing back you see this it's become a very politic politicized topic there you know largely around you know the way people vote and you see that you know I think there's people who are going to be thinking this is a conspiracy theory and you the US government shouldn't be pushing so much of an incentive on EVs and I think that you know where the dust will settle on all this I think it's going to be a lot of things that are going to be done.
So I think we won't even get to 50% of EVs and the government will spend a lot of money stimulating demand and then you know when the incentive run out the truth will be told in terms of what actual natural demand is and I don't think that in this country in the US where you and I live I don't think that any time you know while we're alive the US government is going to ban ice cars I could be wrong they could ban ice cars but I don't think that that's going to happen in this country. I think there just needs to be a healthy balance I've mentioned multiple times I've been very vocal about you know these proclamations of going all EV or you know or one direction or the other I just think that you know like there needs to be a healthy balance and let the free market decide over a decade what you know what the market should look like but I do agree with you there that like banning ice you know banning this banning that only EV only high like there should just be a healthy balance and you know at the end of the day we just can't do it.
We just can't do a complete transition I you know I think about it from a business perspective right we want to try a new product you want to expand to somewhere you're going to do a pilot right you're not just going to go and put all your eggs in one basket and you know burn the bridges no you're going to run a pilot you're going to test you're going to see how is it performing. And so I think about it you know a lot more or I systematically that way as opposed to this like hard caught off but I also realized that you know I'm not in those board rooms I know a lot of it's just politics and you know sort of signaling and whatnot so I know there's kind of multiple angles to this yeah you and I are aligned on that for sure.
So let's talk about some juicy stuff on EV's because this is where I'm interested to kind of pick your brain or or get inside your thoughts. So what do you see the opportunities in the EV space you know like what's the picks and shovels right you've made some investments which have feel free to you know if you want to mention any here go for it but you've made some investments in the space clearly if we're out you know sub 10% today market share for EV's and you said yourself that you think it's going to peak around 25% or so and that's just your estimate but nonetheless that still you know accounts for more than doubling the current market shares are so there's still room for growth.
And so you know what are the picks and shovels here right where is the value creation or who's going to capture the value in this kind of transition to some you know some percentage of market share of EV's. Yeah no it's a great question so almost anywhere you look you can find opportunities I mean there's huge strides being made in battery battery chemistry what one is to you know get more density per kilogram and that will allow us to increase the range but equally important is like charging speed and there are companies out there that are building prototypes that allow you to charge a vehicle in like five minutes. So clearly like if we can build lighter batteries that have more more power you can think of you know aircraft use cases for short hop aircraft commercial you can think of sort of like cars that will way less and run for longer range per charge if we can get the charging at five minutes a charge it will be miraculous right we would not to really worry about as in installing as many chargers because the chargers can charge the car so quickly you can just cycle the cars.
Through really quickly so that's battery chemistry and the charging infrastructure is very interesting you know it's it was amazing to me to see that JD power study with one in five chargers just doesn't work today. So it's driving Mercedes and Hyundai you know to think through like should we build our own proprietary which is exactly the wrong thing to do obviously broke many reasons but their own proprietary charging network where you know Mercedes charges will only work with Mercedes Tesla charges will only work with Tesla. So you know we're going to this proliferation of proprietary charging stations all over the US doesn't make any sense but you know because it's really hard to build a charger and then be agnostic to thirty different brands with different charging heads you know the flood configuration etc so.
So for gas stations based on brand. Yeah exactly right imagine that I got to go to my Mercedes gas station that's my BMW plant gas station so that doesn't make any sense but you know someone's got to figure that out and that's part hardware and that's part software. And then there's companies like we invested in a company called recurrent which I hope becomes the quote unquote car facts of you know you used pre used EVs like if you're a dealer and you're bidding at the auction for an EV how on earth do you know what life is left on that vehicle and then how do you turn around and retail that to a consumer and give them confidence that there's remaining life left on that battery right so I mean someone's got to be able to analyze these batteries for the used use cases of which there are many and propose that and then the last one I'll be able to do that.
And then the last one I'll mention is you know charging infrastructure is very interesting so we're about to invest in this company out of the UK that effectively has what I would call like a daisy chain for a fast charger. So right now it's amazing to me I hadn't thought about this before I talked to these guys not these guys a couple months ago but you know everyone is building a fast charger and it's associated with one or two parking spaces. So this company allows us to abstract away from that and plug this pentacle like device one end into the fast charger and then you can plug in up to 20 cars out of one fast charger and then the way electricity works I've been told you can't charge all the cars simultaneously you got to charge them in sequence but then you can dictate in which sequence you like the charge of cars.
So you know you're leaving earlier in the morning your car gets charged first you're paying more electricity rates you get charged first so you can build all of those premium charging the higher hierarchy right of whatever rules you want for a fleet for a condo for a dealership who's got you know 20 cars getting picked up in the morning out of their service bay you plug all 20 cars in and suddenly the sequence of cars that get charged will be you know dictated by the dealership in the software that runs on top of the hardware.
So there are plenty of things here you know it's funny we joke internally we could literally launch just an EV fund right now and we wouldn't have any any lack of companies that we're seeing and just have a thesis only around electrification hardware software both. Everything battery technology you name it I mean there's all kinds of efficiencies that can be found I mean even tells us talking about you know building different types of magnets in their batteries and not using as many rare earth minerals right so I think there's all kinds of technology that has to still be found and discovered and you can definitely you can I haven't seen any yet but I'm certain there will be EV only funds out there hunting for these kinds of solutions yeah well you know I've started to see some EV.
Only dealerships start to pop up what's your thoughts on that. I think it's good it's going to be enough demand you can definitely carve out a niche and the funny thing is like I think a lot of the dealers do lament around franchise dealers that I talked to around it is my salesperson going to be prepared to have these kinds of conversations.
I think it's a lot of panic your technician well your mechanic as well but I mean you know so what kind of charge you're doing need should I buy this charger this charger and isn't going to work in my house equipped properly you know these kinds of questions they're going to ask their salesperson and you know the average salesperson you tell me I don't think is going to be ready to be able to answer those kinds of questions so having having a dealership and sales people and service people to your point who have deep expertise around electrification probably is going to be a nice differentiator.
You mentioned recurrent on that note right you mentioned recurrent as one of the companies you invested in on the software side we spoke about hardware what other opportunities you see software that's just going to you know really make the used EV experience use EV purchasing experience for consumers easy better and for dealers overall help them facilitate more of those sales what do you see there anything else.
Yes so I think yeah unpacking well there's two things right so unpacking this spider web of this convoluted spider web of EV incentives where you know my salary the car price what percentage of that battery was built on American soil and sourced on American soil what percent of that car was built on American soil is going to be too much for people to figure out and for dealers to figure out too you know if the dealer get reimbursed or the dealer get paid or the consumer get the right paid on these incentives so there's going to be a whole bunch of incentives out there and this lattice work of incentives is going to be really hard to get through so I as a consumer are going to need to deal to go to a website somewhere and say look here's me here's how much money I make here's the car I'm interested in here's where I live and then have the magic eight ball kind of shake and then I come spits my incentive and the dealers are going to have to be able to hit that database the consumers are going to be able to hit that database so I encourage folks to be you know entrepreneurs to be working on that problem because that problem has got to be like here today and it's going to be even more prevalent in the future and I think that I think the other is probably you're charging.
Well I would say that then you think about the search experiment experience I'm going to go to a website and I'm going to try to search for a car and I'm going to want I'm going to want on a used car or a new car want to be able to search by range and remaining range on that vehicle on a used vehicle what's the battery condition to the whole new cluster of like filters that someone's going to have to be able to access on these third party sites and dealer sites to be able to accommodate the unique EV properties and then even sort of like you know chargers in which charging network will accommodate that EV. And then I think there's the whole layer of software that has to sit on top of these these chargers themselves and I think part of the problem part of the reason that we've got 20% of chargers not working is because we've got software incompatibilities and we the software layer itself needs to get smarter and there are companies that still need to be built in that area.
Yeah, and I think also dealers I mean you mentioned consumers buying EVs but you know I see it with dealers as well, but you know unsure you should I buy this EV versus this one and this Tesla for stat one and is this one in better conditions I think having better informed dealers that are able to source better quality cars and then of course sell those to consumers is going to be another opportunity as well.100% yeah, I mean I can only imagine poor dealer walking into an auction lane and seeing a Tesla and not really having bought Tesla's in the past.
How do you buy your first Tesla and not making the stake. It's not easy, especially you know when the price drops happen and then you know the Tesla new car price drops happen and then that impacted use car so you know some some dealers did take a bath and you know that was temporary. It doesn't mean that you should never buy or sell it even again but it was definitely added a layer of risk that you know made dealers think twice weight whoa like suddenly there's price risk and it wasn't only Tesla. It was you know then Ford dropped the price of their Mustang or their Maki and so there's suddenly the OEMs you know there's all these price fluctuations happening and it's just adds another layer of risk to the business.
So going a bit more big picture we talked you know we spoke about EVs and some opportunities but what are general trends that you're focused on investing in right now like what's the hottest areas or maybe not necessarily hottest but what's the most important areas that you're focused on when you're looking for companies and opportunities right now. So I'd love to run this by your viewers and see you know if you get some feedback and anybody wants to reach out to me directly can so I wrote about this is you know last week in my my Intel report for April but let me run this by you because you you and I have a chance to catch up on this yet but you know talking to dealer owners I've been struck with this use case so.
Features on demand right so we're going to enter this era where the vehicle features themselves are going to get unbundled and then you're going to be allowed as a consumer to make the choice do you want to pay for full self driving up front or by the month. You want to pay for you know the cold weather package up front or by the month and you'll you could see a world a couple years from now where many of the features on the car that were built into the car on the production line are only unlocked by consumers who want to pay per month so now you know I'm paying 99 dollars a month for a bundle of features that I didn't activate when I first bought the car but as I made more money or got a bonus I decide oh let me get rear heated seats.
Whatever is that happening Steve and I want to cut you off because this is that you're making a great point by like no far away far away no I'm saying do we actually get there to the point where we so you know I forget how the term for this subscription whatever everything like that do we really get to that point. We're already there I mean look at your credit card and like you're paying for Disney plus and Netflix and Hulu and whatever else I mean we're already getting there and like every every I mean are you an Amazon Prime customer yes you are right of course you are because everybody is in America.
So I think we're already there and yeah people have this visceral reaction but the truth is I only want to pay and younger people than me will only want to pay for heated seats during the months they use them. Wow. If I don't use them don't don't charge me right so I mean if there are features that I use a lot charge me and if there are features I choose not to use them don't charge me I think that's good right that's price discrimination in a good way.
But anyway so let me run this by you so you're in the auction bidding on a car and you're looking at a you know a three year old BMW three series. And you drive it around the auction lot and you're like oh this is a pretty good car it's got like obviously got some extra horsepower and you know it looks like the battery range is like 500 miles or whatever. But what you don't know is that when you get that car back to your lot which features that you are experiencing right now are going to be deactivated because the owner is about to cancel them on their credit card.
So what when you're taking in a car on an appraisal off brand car that you're you're you're you're used car manager isn't familiar with. And here she is test you know doing a quick drive in appraisal they're like they're not going to know what that car is going to look and act like tomorrow. Probably it's going to look much more like a base model than it does today the souped up model. So how on earth is an appraiser not going to get their fingers burned and know which services are being paid for by the month.
So think about the use cases here the consumer is going to want some guarantee that all all the features are that who's trading it in all the features are paying for are going to get canceled and then they want a certificate certifying all my features have been canceled on the long going to be charged. You're appraisers going to want to know which features are going to get turned off tomorrow because I'm not paying you for features that are going to be turned off tomorrow and then you know a week later when that use car manager is demoing that car to somebody. How are they going to be able to toggle on and toggle off the features to showcase what they might pay and will be OEM be willing to pay your dealership that's an off brand dealership something if at the point of sale you convinced that consumer.
To buy some of these subscription services and by the way what's the windows stick are going to look like in the future because I think it's going to look like there's going to be a bunch of areas that are great out that may that have been built into the car that may or may not ever get activated. So how are you going to sell that as a use car. Five years later if you're an independent dealer how on earth and you don't have access to the windows sticker data you're going to be late in features in the car that you don't even know about.
I don't have a good answer for that. So I would encourage is like you know there are there I just described multiple businesses that need to get built so entrepreneur should be thinking about these things and say oh okay cool I can build that central clearing house repository of all features. I'm going to be able to build the data around windows stickers in the future where I'm going to be able to protect that appraiser for making a mistake and appraising a subscription product that's about to be turned off tomorrow or I want to be the company that helps the consumer have confidence that when they trade that car and within 24 hours all of their subscriptions get cancelled.
They get reimbursed for the stub for the remainder of that month and they get a certificate that they won't be charged in the future. So there's there are businesses to be had but it were such such an obliterating edge early stage it's hard for me even to like obviously articulate what those businesses are going to look like.
I'm just trying to think of something that's analogous to this and you know probably a bad example but this sounds to me like you know building coin base in like 2010 or whatever it started it's like what the hell is a cryptocurrency let a little bit coin like you're building a what like a marketplace for this like it makes zero sense this it just sounds to me based on what you just said that. That this you know peaks or so in a decade or that's when it you know gets you know really mainstream because it's it's you're right I never I haven't thought about this and it sounds like this is going to be a really big opportunity.
Yeah I think a big problem if it isn't solved but a big opportunity for the entrepreneur that gets the timing right wow and then so and what other trends I mean this is obviously a great one anything else that you're focused on obviously this is just one vertical anything else specific.
Well I mean just just in general over the updates right I think that you know we're seeing some consultants believe that a lot of a dealer service work the warranty and recall work is going to go away because of software pushes to cars in in lieu of taking the car in and getting that warranty or recall work a dealership so we're trying to figure out if there's an opportunity for us to participate in over the updates I think that servicing vehicles in general you know are there efficiencies to be had there by making sure that you know we're going to be able to do that.
And there are efficiencies to be had there by making your technicians and your service writers much more efficient we invested in the company called war cloud which automates the warranty processing back to the manufacturers on behalf of franchise dealers and that company is doing very very well but I think this whole area of you know robotic process automation you see all this buzz around AI right now but the practical implications of that is you know dealer is run pretty heavy with personnel.
I think a lot a lot of those personnel do repetitive tasks and anywhere there are repetitive tasks that a computer can emulate I think that there'll be opportunities to like basically free those people up and eliminate the positions out right and I think you know and also just add to that that you know as a dealer like technicians it's some of the hardest positions or toughest positions to hire because there's been a shortage of them for many years and it's you know you really can't find them in many cases you know you increase comp you offer you know bonuses and what not sign on bonuses it's still super tough because everyone's doing it so I think that's the you know on that positive just to you know relieve some of that stress on the on the system.
Yeah I mean I'll see yes the consumer electronic show in Vegas in January and one of the booths showed a simulation of a technician working on a break rotor repair and you had sort of like the equivalent of Google glass I don't know which technology I should know which technology it was but you'll be able to see visually you the augmented reality of like what the ideal repair was versus like the repair that I'm currently using it where to put the break pads etc so I think to your point I mean if you're going to have technician and make that investment give them the tools to make them much more efficient and so one area we're interested in is the whole you know automation you know augmentation and making much the employees much more efficient and replacing them but you know are there other technologies like the one I just subscribe to make your existing employees much more efficient and productive.
Steve you wrote a great book which I highly encourage you know anyone here to read it's called the future of automotive retail super interesting you know hearing your perspective on what retail look like and I like how you wrote it in a way where it's almost like a story you know you can tell how kind of car businesses evolved.
But you know just to give the viewers a taste of you know this book and specifically what that future looks like because everyone is wondering you know car dealership guy like when is when is car buying going to really change or be this or that you know what's going to change and I know we briefly touch on this early in the conversation but can you just give us like a you know I'm just a preview or a paragraph just so that people understand you know five to 10 years away what is that experience look like between consumers and dealers.
How has that experience evolved and how is it different from today.
那种经历如何发展,与今天有何不同?
Yeah so I think you can look back 20 years 25 years at the beginning of the internet right I mean there was no information there was a lot of information asymmetry there wasn't a lot of transparency for consumers so.
The horses have left the barn as they say and there will be more transparency so whereas on the front of the car deal the price of the vehicle there's been a lot of transparency now I can get invoice price now I know what the competitive set is I know you know the competition in terms of the car that I'm looking for I think there'll be a lot more transparency.
The deal is not like to hear this but a lot more transparency on the back end of the car deal you know the the financing and you know being able to understand exactly if I qualify what my rate should be if you're overcharging me etc and also transparency around the insurance products where there has not been is very very opaque part of that transparency will come through just the internet and being able to kind of cross shop some of that transparency will come through FTC regulations right.
That are already been signaled but you know really haven't come to barriot so I think that the transparency will be good for the consumer not so good for the dealer. So I think the fast forwarding 5 or 10 years it'll be much more transparent the consumer will be more in control of a lot of these areas of the car deal being able to configure it but as I said earlier where we started the conversation I still believe the vast majority of transactions will take place at the dealership large because it's a lot more.
It's a very large purchase and there's still is going to be a lot of uncertainty unless you're like a super prime customer and you're willing to pay with no negotiation. Yeah look I think that you know I I'm very pragmatic when it comes to this topic and people ask me like hey you know these dealers are going to disappear or this and I say well dealers are going to change right like you know yes a new car might not be sold at a dealership it might become the dealership might just be the fulfillment center right but then there's the service side of the business and and so I always say to people that ask me especially on Twitter I say dealers are not going to go away but certain aspects of the dealership model will and others will just evolve.
And I think that's where you know for like the car manufacturer is the dealer so important right it's the servicing of course there's a use car business parts distribution and whatnot. So there's just that's the thing about the dealership model in general that you have so many different revenue streams and in profit centers that it's a very diversified business and you know the use car business is a bit less so where you just really have one main profit center which is your use car sale of course that's made up of selling a car and a for some of the products and other things but it's still you know pretty distinct models.
So to move forward from there a fun one is just autonomous vehicles you know it's not a topic that I get asked too much about lately or too often I used to get asked about it a lot more but is this going to happen well like when is it going to happen are we talking like five years 20 years ever not happening what's your what's your take on a V's.
It's playing as a slide that I show from back in 2013 I think it's more good Stanley had said that by this point with half the cars on the road would be like fully autonomous and it would decimate you know new car sales because the car could be much more efficient there was a stat I remember people talked about the average cars only being used 4% of the time if we can increase that that utilization rate then there we we have way too many cars right for for the mileage driven so you know every every Uber I believe I believe Uber's business was built on the premise that they thought that autonomy was coming and the only way to squeeze positive unit economics out of Uber were to have like the remove the drivers entirely so that's another topic entirely I think that my short answer would be for human cargo moving humans around level 5 full autonomy is never going to happen.
Wow that's bold I think that I think for moving non human cargo around we're already seeing evidence of it right whether it's Amazon flying drones and dropping off packages whether what they call on on roads platooning you're going to see this soon which is going to freak people out but you know if you remember the the Logan movie the Wolverine movie in the future you're going to have basically a platoon of semi's in the first cab you have a human driving but every subsequent cab and trailer there won't be humans driving there's going to follow the rules follow directly behind that first semi on the road and these things will be doing long haul trucking across the U.S.
It's going to alleviate any challenges we have with labor shortages around long haul trucking and it'll be eerie to see these things because you'll see five or ten trucks all lined up and the only human will be in the first cab of the first truck so we're seeing that but the reason I say that about human cargo is the fact that it's just challenging right you think about how these cars work and if you try to drive a car with a lot of these eight class systems in snowstorm or thunderstorm today they turn them off they'll warn you and then they'll turn them off because you know they rely on lenses right there's cameras light are radar and those lenses have to be clean and clear and you know I grew up in Toronto and at this time of year if you go to Toronto all the cars are caked with salt and those lenses aren't working so if you're relying on clean lenses to interact with the environment to compare to a reference map of other cars that have seen this surroundings it's not going to work so I think this utopian oh in every single climate in every single condition we're going to have full autonomy isn't going to work there's a reason why you're these full autonomous tests from way more in cruise and even Tesla are typically in you know Phoenix or SunEvail because the weather is perfect every day there you start bringing it up to you know different cities in the northeast and it's not going to not going to work so I think that we will not full autonomy in my lifetime they might call it full autonomy like Tesla does but in a lot of conditions it'll warn the driver and then turn off so I mean it doesn't reconcile with removing the steering wheel and pedals from these cars because if the car is going to like pull over in a thunderstorm or a snow storm and hand back control it can't hand back control if there's no steering wheel.
Well I mean I think that initially I was going to say that is this just like an American thing because of regulations because we know that technology is you know at least a portion of it is there already but so you think that this is just global right you don't think that anywhere else we're going to see full autonomy. Well I don't know there will be experiments done right where the government can reach down and push push on this and we'll see how that works out I still think that you even despite that I think everybody who comments that it's still safer than having humans I'm always amazed that you know two in the morning I'll get into a city I hop into an Uber with a guy that could be drunk could be drugged up and I'm relying on this 23 year old kid who I don't know I put my life in their hands what a crazy. What a crazy what a crazy value proposition when you think about uber launching and how successful they've been and how we all use it and then you think of exactly what you just said that stranger quote unquote is going to pick you up and I think of this often one of these ubers around around the country I think I'm counting that they value their life as much as I value my life because they don't we're not aligned and I shouldn't be in this uber I ordered door dashed other day and the driver was like extremely communicative like hey I want to wait there.
Hey I'm waiting to pick it up and it's funny because like I'm so not used to it I'm starting to get suspicious I'm like is he is something happening what why is he telling me every single step he's making is he like you know fucking with my food but end up being fine nonetheless but yeah I mean it's it's a crazy you know just did you ever suspected might be AI and not even a person. Man now with Chad GPT they're going to hook it up to door dash you're going to get a delivery to you with a drone it's going to be crazy crazy world. Alright so we're just about to rap pop I want to ask you a fun question what have you changed your mind down in the past five years.
Wow that's a good that's a good question I think well one my answer around autonomy would have been very different five years ago I think five years ago I might have been naive enough to think that maybe you know dealers were going to face their demise which I don't think is the case at all. And you know five years ago while there wasn't this you know huge stimulation to try to incent consumers to buy EVs I might have a more of a believer around we were going to get to 100% EV but you know at this point dealers aren't going anywhere I don't think that we're going to get to 100% EVs not in my lifetime and you know we like I said earlier I don't think that the use case for human autonomy at level five is ever going to happen.
Fascinating and Steve can you tell the audience for anyone that wants to learn more about you automotive ventures and you know for everyone that's wondering also full disclosure I am proud and tiny LP and automotive ventures so you know I have some skin in the game but for anyone that's interested can you please tell them where they can learn more about your company.
That's great and we appreciate your small small but very strong partnership the relationship so we you know you can you can find us at automotive ventures calm we are an early stage VC investing in both mobility and automotive technologies around the world and happy to have a conversation at any time you can subscribe to our weekly Intel report that goes out Monday mornings at 7 a.m. that I write over the weekend and happy to get your comments on that that's free and we also have an investment club so when we do find deals we offer those up to our investment club there's no there's no cost to join so you can join and start seeing our our deal flow immediately and then invest in any of our companies with checks as small as $5,000 so happy to have anybody join our investment club as well.
Steve this was awesome we're going to have to do this more often in the future as the trends change of all you make some more investments I think everyone's going to be super interested to hear what's going on so thanks for coming on really enjoyed it. Well I appreciate everything you're doing for the industry and you're following in a testament to your fulfilling a really big need out there so I appreciate everything you do and the commitment you have to the industry I appreciate that man thank you.