The Car Business Is Headed Off A Cliff

Our industry is headed off of a cliff. We're going 110 miles an hour off of a cliff. Everything is changing really, really fast.

Would you not think that it's the job of consultants? And you know my opinion about consultants. I hate consultants. But would you not think that it's the job of consultants to tell people the truth and to help them avoid.

Peril?

I would very much think that they should be purveyors of foresight.

Now, I don't think the consultants we're talking about here get millions of dollars for their research and advice.

Dozens.

Yeah, but that being said.

If you paid a consultant, would you not be paying the consultant to tell you the.

Truth and have a good outside view of exactly what's going on?

Okay, so this is just an example of what's going on. But I believe, just like in politics in our country, not even I believe it's clear as day, it's not a belief, it's a fact that just like in politics, people's agendas are so easy to see and, and the truth is secondary to whatever their narrative is that they want to accomplish or feat. And so these consultants get paid by Ford and GM and, you know, the big Detroit three. And so they're trying to, you know, placate to them, but they're not telling them the truth. And so let's just play a clip. So this was a little symposium forum of some consultants on Autoline on YouTube talking about the future of electric trucks. One other thing before you play the clip that I'd like to say is I have no dog in this fight. I know you drive an electric car. I'm not in the market for an electric car or truck. I have no dog in the fight. The outcome of the fight that I want is I want our clients to succeed and navigate the next five years and gain more market share, be more successful, have more fun and enjoy the journey. But I don't want anybody to be blind to the fact that there's going to be some challenges and the truth is the truth.

Agreed.

But I don't like. I don't have an opinion about electric versus gas that matters. I mean, I have an opinion, but it doesn't matter. Right?

Yeah. The industry is.

You love your electric car, hands down. Yeah, I've not. I don't own an electric car and I'm not in the market for one. So the. This is auto line. Let's play the clip.

Well, let's talk about the fleet buyer for a moment.

Fleet buyers aren't going to buy $70,000 pickup trucks. There's no purchasing manager in the world that I'm aware of in the business that I've been in for 40 years that's going to say, well, you know, I know it's $20,000 higher, but let's just go after them and do this. Now, that doesn't mean that they won't get some fleet sales, but I don't see this as a fleet customer product one because of the price.

But in the long run, the maintenance costs are going to be less.

And.

The operating cost in terms of fuel economy are going to be less. But that's down the road. That's down the road. So I don't see this. And you know what? 100 units, 1,000 units.

It's going to break these companies if that's the volume. There's no overriding United States infrastructure in terms of incentives, a national distribution on charging stations that says this is what we're going to do. Now, maybe Biden will do it, maybe he won't. But at the moment, they're fighting an uphill battle that is enormous. So they'll be a niche player, and they'll be much more of a niche player in the fleet market.

This drives me crazy. So the context of this is they're talking about electric trucks and they're saying that by 2024 that electric companies like Tesla and Rivian will only combine with Ford and GM and they're every all seven manufacturer of electric trucks by 2024 will only. And wards. What do they call that? Wards, research and whatever.

Oh, it's fancier than that.

Yeah.

Intellectual or something.

They're only gonna sell 40,000 trucks by 2024 and that fleets aren't gonna buy them and.

We'Re still in 2020. And let me tell you guys something. If you just Google this and just. I'm not even a consultant and I know more about this than you guys. First of all, Amazon has already ordered 10,000 that will be delivered in 2022. They've already, they've. And, yeah. No, no fleets want electric trucks. Yeah, because they don't want customizable, low maintenance costs, low cost to operate. No fleet's going to pay $20,000 more. What is he talking about?

I don't know.

They already are. The electric companies are more flexible. They're lower cost to operate. And you're. You're telling people out there, I mean, I, I don't understand how you can get away with lying about stuff like this. I don't understand how Fox News does it. I don't understand how CNN does it. And I certainly didn't think in the car business we would be lying to people to this degree.

It's the same thing.

It lacks complete common sense. In fact, the facts are that Tesla has 1.2 million pre orders of their pickup truck. Let's just say 80% of those fall through. He still sold more than 40,000 trucks.

300,000 if my math is right. Somewhere around there he has a lot of. Lot of trucks.

Okay, I'm not a conspiracy guy, but what is the conspiracy here? Why, if you watch this whole interview, it's. It's nuts. It almost seems like I don't understand who the target audience is, and I don't understand what, what the motivation is to be so dishonest about the. The landscape of the marketplace.

Yeah, I guess I just think back in history, a couple of different things come to mind. One is, is like this, Hitler and Germany for sure. And then also all the people that were trying to convince the world that it was flat also. And then I think about. You remember the story of Pompeii? It's like this old city back in ancient times, and it was a beautiful city parked right next to a volcano, Mount Vesuvius. Well, after a while, what do you think happened to old Mount Vesuvius?

It erupted.

Weird. Completely buried Pompeii. And the thing is that they were definitely. And there's no historical basis for my belief of this is how it happened, but I'm going to guess that before Vesuvius erupted, there was probably some sort of a sign, right? Because usually you start to get a little bit of an indication of these types of things. And there was probably somebody that lived in Pompeii at the time that said, you know what? That big hill that sits right outside of Pompeii, it's smoking. And I feel like something bad's gonna happen. I'm going to move. And everybody else just said, you know what? I'm glad it's warming up the city. And then eventually it blows up. It covers the city in minutes and everybody dies. That's what it reminds me of. There's people out there saying, it's okay, it's okay. But behind the scenes, the world's changing, right? And you've got to prepare for it because otherwise it happens to you and you get buried in soot.

You know what it reminds me of is it reminds me of nada. The National Auto Dealers association years ago, when I used to try to speak at their Events, I won't speak at their events. I won't have a booth. I could care less. Never brought me any business anyways. It's a, it's the biggest waste of a hundred thousand dollars you could ever spend going and do and doing that event, honestly, in my opinion. But they make you present your keynote or your workshop to them and all their, you know, their panel of whoever, some of them are from the Nada Academy. And so I present it and they said two things. They go, you got to take out two things. And I'm. What's that? And they go, you can't say Satan in your pet the dog story, so you can't refer to your ex wife as Satan. And I was like, I'm not taking it out, but I'll pretend like I am, but I didn't take it out. And then the second one is, you can't talk about Tesla because I had a story about my doctor and his Tesla and this is I don't know how many years ago, eight years ago or something.

And I'm like, well, why can't I talk about Tesla? And they go, well, it's not popular with the dealers. And I go, yeah, but it's the elephant in the room. Yeah, but it's just not a popular subject with the dealers. And I'm like, what are you, Are you guys here to help dealers navigate the future? Are you here to be popular in like, you're the worst parents ever, like, eat all the candy you want, come and go as you please, get pregnant when you're 13, when you like. It doesn't like there is no fundamental truth. It's just like, oh, well, it's not a popular subject. It's the world today. It's what's going on. It drives me. I don't know if you can tell, but I should check my blood pressure on my eyes because how do these guys get away with this? It's straight up lying. It drives me crazy. Like I kind of expect it from Fox News and that sort of thing. But I for the life of me don't understand how these half rate consultants can go around saying this stuff. And these aren't the big consulting companies. This isn't McKenzie. They would never say that. I guarantee you. McKenzie. I've seen some of the McKenzie research about what's going to happen in automotive. And let me tell you a couple things. You know what you need to get really good at?

Tires and alignments.

Tires and alignments. Because the electric cars will break and they'll have Problems, but they don't have as much maintenance and the maintenance they do have, they need to think of us for tires and alignments because that's how we're going to retain them. That's what we should be telling people. We should be telling people how to honestly navigate the future. Not that. Oh no, that's, that's a boogeyman that doesn't exist. No. Electric cars and trucks are coming and they're going to come and people are going to buy them. And the other thing too that drives me crazy that everybody leaves out of this equation, and I've said it on the show before, is China is, is Full Electric by 2026. They sell twice as many new cars a year as we do. They are the driver of why Volkswagen and all these manufacturers are going to half of their, their lineup being electric. It has nothing to do with us. We're gonna get it because that's what they're making. They're going to make it popular because that's what's coming off the, the line. Because when, when a country is as dominant as China is in new car sales, like literally twice as much if not more than us a year in new car sales, that's what they're building the factories to make and they're full electric by 2026. And so you got to look at the whole landscape. But I don't, I don't know. I don't even know if this is of any interest to, to our listeners.

And well, I think it needs to be. But whether or not it is an interest, it's gotta at least be something we start.

Consultants.

You don't have any theory to the conspiracy of this. Should we just move on?

We can. I agree with you though. I think it's a complete, like we're just trying to tell people what they want to hear and not really looking at.

Really. Are the CEOs of the, of the manufacturers out there really that naive that they need these, these consultants telling them this? They know the truth. They're looking at real numbers.

Yeah, but they sleep better at night knowing that they're going to be fine.

Is it the dealers that they're trying to brainwash?

That's what I think. I could be wrong.

It's, it's, it's crazy to me. Thanks so much for watching this clip of Service Driving Revolution. We're uploading new stuff every day, so make sure you subscribe and click the bell icon. Icon so you don't miss out. If you have a question you'd like us to answer on the show. Call 8333 Ask SDR and we'll answer your question on the show. That's 8333 Ask SDR. For special deals on our books and training, head over to offers.chriscollinsinc.com that's offers.chris collins, inc.com I'm Chris Collins, and I'll see you in the next video sa.