#138 - Hot Topics with Luke and Jeff

Hey, guys and girls, how you doing? Welcome to the Independent Dealer podcast. Luke, it is the beginning of October. What do you got going on, man? How have you been? I know I'm gonna see you. Well, we got like four or five days, right?

20 group, four or five days. You know, it's. We love October in the south because it's finally not 150 degrees anymore. We're gonna get like two weeks of fall and then I'll probably be summer again. It'll be winter at some point. You know, it's a, it's a good time of the year, but we've been chugging along. Business was off a little bit in September, but I can already see a bounce back in October. And I think the biggest thing was back to school and so many worries about our kids going to school or they're not going to school, our parents working this, that and other. It's been a. Been a weird time to say the least. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, good, man. I'm glad you've been doing well. I look forward to seeing you out there. At 20 Group, we're going to be in Salt Lake City. Hopefully we'll be able to get some live podcasts or some recordings there with some of our dealer buddies and get some good info and bring back some stuff to the dealer community. And of course, Luke and I want to thank all you guys for your support of the podcast. I mean, our subscribers and our listeners just keep going up, up, up. We really, really appreciate the reviews that helps us rank in Google and Spotify. So if you have found any value in what we have brought you, or if you really just dislike the things that Luke says, go and say so on the review platforms, itunes, Spotify. Wherever you get your podcast, leave us a review. It means the world to us and it's the one way you can give.

Back.

If we've got any value at all. You are listening to the Independent Dealer podcast with hosts Luke Godwin and Jeff Watson. Thank you so much for tuning in. Let's do this.

You know, 20 groups. Interesting. And you know, I love the traveling aspect of it, Jeff, and getting to see everybody, but I really think that we can. There's a lot to talk about right now. So I think the 20 group. And if people don't know what 20 group is, let's refresh. Jeff, it's 20 like group or like minded dealers, like size dealers? Not minded maybe. Oh yeah, not like minded at all. But it's up to 20 people who are dealers from different parts of the country who have essentially the same business plan. Right, Jeff? When we say same business plan.

Yeah, yeah. They're gonna group you by buy here, pay here, and size of portfolio. Yep.

And so we all get together three times a year, this time only two times a year because of COVID But it's kind of like our board of directors. We get to run things by, you know, our fellow dealers who can really put some insight. Some dealers have tried certain things we thought was a new idea. Some dealers said, okay, yeah, that did work, or that didn't work. And, you know, it's a way for us to kind of figure out what we're doing right or wrong. And I got a bunch of. I got a bunch of things I'm going to bring to y', all, which, you know, who knows what happens?

Good. Look forward to it, man. And that's. That's one of the best things. I mean, obviously we know the dealer community and the Facebook groups and other forums or groups to get some information, but it's so, like, fleeting in those moments where you log into Facebook and you read a thread and you get kind of a. Just the bare bones of a conversation or a concept. Whereas at 20 group, you're able to really flush out ideas during the sessions and during dinner and during lunches and the after hours where you really get to know these guys and kind of bounce ideas off each other. So obviously.

And the other thing, Jeff, is they get to see our numbers.

Yeah, yeah. Accountability.

It's kind of hard to lie to that about that.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. How were your sales? Oh, we doubled our sales last month. Oh, yeah. And you cut your grosses in half, so what's it matter? You know, it definitely helps with some transparency. But anyways, we've touted it. Obviously, there's previous episodes. We've talked to some of the guys at NIADA and MCM about their 20 groups, so get involved with them. Speaking of, Luke, the physical meetings, I don't know, man. I sat in on a couple of the sessions for NIADA's convention this year. You know, the virtual convention. And I know you did your session, and I'm sure you watched a few of them. It's definitely different, man. As much as I said six months ago, like, I think this might be the future of all conventions where we just sit in our desks with our little virtual reality goggles on and we're walking around virtually and doing this thing. It's definitely not the same.

It's not, Jeff. And that's, you know, it's hard And I commend Niada for what they tried.

And absolutely, yeah, we couldn't, we couldn't have just gone without it. I'm glad they did it.

And there's really, there's some really good subject matter that was covered. It's just hard. And I think they, they made a valiant effort. But I don't, I mean, I know that we're not going to that. It's just, I think it's nice to have and the ability to do it. And it may be a bridge and there might be some, you know, actually there's probably some good things that could come out of it how you could do it in the future. But we need to be at convention and we need to have interaction with each other. So like you were talking about with 20 groups. So during those sessions when you bounce things off of each other because really the sessions are great. But what happens every time I moderate or every time I present, the feedback I get from people are reaching out to me and say, hey, you went over this, but could you dive a little deeper into that? And so I get to really talk to other dealers and sometimes they challenge me on something. I said, I remember the first time I ever presented at ciada. This has been probably seven, eight years ago. And it was a Buy here, pay here seminar. And I thought I knew everything about buy here, pay here, right? And I remember the first I walked into a 20 group. I thought I knew everything about buy here, pay here. But a dealer challenged me. He said, hey, the numbers you're given just don't resemble our numbers, right? And he challenged me during class and I, and I said, well, you're not doing it right. But what I actually did, that was the wrong thing for me to say. I was very young at doing that and went back and I talked to him after class and he brought up some great points and talked about how their business model worked. And I saw there was, you know, they weren't wrong. And I wasn't wrong either. Maybe I was wrong because I said he was wrong. But those little things that come out of in person and convention really create better dealers. So there was a lot of good content. Niada did, did great, but it's just hard. And what they did was hard for sure. And we're not going back to that. I hope, I hope everything is good for us to have a convention in the summer next year is what I hope.

And hopefully everyone is logged in and has got access to the, you know, post recordings and all the information that's there. Because, yeah, it is great, great information, but, yeah. Nothing replaces shaking hands with dealers and the synergy that just happens for both the attendees and the speakers. I think. I think with a live audience, you just inherently give a better presentation.

You do. And, you know, I've given. I've given presentations where there's a lot of people, and I've given presentations when there's not a lot of people. Let me tell you this. I want to be in the room with a lot of people because it is way better. And you just get this energy.

Feed off the energy. Yeah.

Oh, this energy and the questions that come up, it's just really good. And there's no way to really do a. Do that live.

Yeah.

Real life.

Luke, let me ask you, are you going to go to Nada in January in New Orleans?

I typically do now. There's been some. There's been some back and forth on whether this is happening or not.

Okay. Who knows if they'll fully pull the trigger on this thing? January, well, January, New Orleans, they pull.

The trigger, but there has been some pushback is what I've heard. So we will see.

I.

And I mean, nada is great, and it's not for everybody. You can get lost there for sure. But I believe that if it happens, I'm gonna go. Especially because it's on the east Coast. They rotate east to west coast. It just easy for me to get to. And I've even heard rumor that they might move it to Orlando.

So go in the bubble.

Yeah.

Everyone has to go in two weeks early, get tested. Yeah. I'll be honest, man. I don't care where they put it. I just want to travel, man. I'm just getting the itch to get out. And that's part of the 20 group. And the conventions is. Yeah. I mean, I vacation with my family, and that's leisure, but these have given me excuses to go to places I would just never have gone. And that's kind of a little side note antidote to the enjoyment of these. You know, I think I've done a 20 group in New Orleans, and that's the only time I've been there. I'd love to go back, but they're at the bubble. Whatever.

Yeah. So convention. Let's go ahead and say it was a great try in Iada. Y' all did a wonderful job. Let's don't have to do this anymore. Yeah.

I don't know. Hopefully they. Hopefully they have some pull over that. Speaking of training, Luke, let me ask you this. I've Struggled with just making sure that my guys, and definitely more specifically my sales team train regularly. How do, how do you make that happen? Do you just have to have an iron fist? Do you tie it to incentives and bonuses and things like that?

I mean, no, you don't. You have to say, you know, sales training is 8:30 Friday mornings. Every Friday morning, Jeff. It's part of your job description. You have to be here at 8:30 on Friday morning. You train for 30 minutes. It's all you do. And they will see the reward they get from the training and their paycheck will go up because of it. Marshall told me to do this three years ago, probably, I mean, he probably told me before that, but it finally stuck three years ago. And the increase in buy in, I guess I should say, from my sales staff to the things I've asked them to do has gone up a thousand fold since then. We had a horrible month in September compared to the rest of the year. It was our worst month since June of 19. So however many months that is 15 months, something to that effect. And I did miss two sales meetings in October because, I mean, in September, because I was doing something different. And when we had our meeting October 2nd last Friday, we started going over some applications and I said, hold on, the numbers were off. Like the, the numbers of leads were off. They weren't off that much. Let's look at what we had. Yeah. And so we started digging through and what I figured out from, from sales training, it was my fault too. It wasn't just my salespeople's fault. You know, we had a little bit the wrong inventory and then we were pressing to try to get those huge down payments we had gotten the prior months.

Okay, so they're brooming people that didn't have three or four grand down.

Oh my gosh. They were broom. And people that we should have sold cars to.

Yeah, yeah.

And. And it got them frustrated, which in turn got me frustrated. And it was a snowball. But if we'd have had those meetings earlier in the month and done what we were supposed to do, we could have rectified that early in the month. And training needs to be mandated by you. It needs to be done by you. But it's got to be scheduled and it's got to be done consistently. If you don't do it consistently, it's not going to work. And you need to do this for every aspect of your dealership service. If you have service, collections, if you have collections, sales staff and also your managers, you should have Those people in you should meet. Managers probably don't need to meet, but once a month. Collections need to meet weekly service, the service part probably needs to meet weekly, and sales need to meet weekly. And you've got to just have it on the schedule and do it.

Okay, make. Put it on the schedule, make it mandatory. And then from a. From a mod, from a operator standpoint, get. Get a. Figure it out, Figure out a schedule, what you're going to talk about, what you need to train on. Obviously, most of us as owner dealers, we know how to do it. We know the way we want it done. We just got to make sure we're communicating that. And then repetition, repetition, repetition.

And Jeff, even if you don't know how to train, if you don't feel like you know how to train, if you're an owner, I would think that you probably got a little bit of it figured out, right?

Yeah. You know how to sell a car.

You probably know how to sell a car. We've got podcasts where I've done training, where Marshall and I have done training, where I think maybe some stuff that you've done, and we've got some service stuff in there. So you look back through the podcast. We're here to help you train and just look. And also now you have. If you did the virtual with NIADA convention, there's a lot of things on there you can use to train or either give you the idea to train. So don't say, oh, I don't know how to train. You may not, but you need to learn.

Yeah, yeah. And even just training on scripts, I mean, you've got. You've got five scripts at your dealership that you want everyone to use the second they answer the phone, greet a customer, you know, go to close a deal. Like just those verbiage is role play. And that's gonna take up, you know, all you should.

Yep, you should role play. Probably one meeting a month, like real, like dig deep into it, especially on your greetings and things like that. Because, yeah, you think they're saying it, but they. They not necessarily saying, I think Marshall told you this. Write it down. Written it down. Go write it down. Because you don't want your sales staff to walk up to a customer and the customer goes, well, I'm just looking. Because the sales staff will put their hands back in their pocket and walk back in the building. And that's not what you want to do. Whether the customer want, well, he's just looking. Well, of course he's just looking. You said the wrong thing. So make sure you write these greetings down and you work on them.

Yeah. So true. And I think it comes back to something we have. I mean, we've touched in these in many episodes, but I think if you see failure within your staff at any level, it probably just comes right back to you. Right. Comes right back to you. You failed them by not training them. So when you see that salesman, broom, that customer or not greet them. Right. Or not close them or not say the right thing, it's because you did not teach him.

Yeah, I got frustrated last month and had a customer in the building. I didn't know the customer was in the building. Right.

Oh, yeah.

My salesperson came to me because we hadn't really been letting customers in the building. Salesperson came to me, said he really likes his car. There's a couple scratches. Well, I was in the wrong mindset and I said, I can't believe customers want freaking new cars on a 2014 Honda Accord. It's got scratches. Who cares? The customer heard me. Mm. What the customer do?

Did he yell back at you? They left out.

Of course they walked out. You know, because I made a mistake. Because I, you know, I could have looked at my salesperson. I said, this is a great training moment. Right. Said, well, what should you have said to that. That customer that you should have said? Well, beside those little scratches, is there anything holding you back from purchasing this car? That's what should have been said.

Right.

And that's what I should have said, but I didn't, and that's bad training on my part.

Yeah. Luke, let me ask you this, too. Compensation plans. I know that's a huge topic, and we could go on for hours and hours about it, but what do you see is the most effective way? And maybe more specifically, you know, we've been dealing with mechanics and hiring some new and just trying to get real top talent and retain top talent. And my theory is this, a good mechanic nowadays is going to be like a really good CPA or a really good, I don't know, a good dot com. They're going to become harder and harder to come by. And if you've got it, keep it and pay it. Pay what it takes to keep them because, man, it's getting harder and harder and harder. And I can replace my salesman. Someday it'll all be BDC and online and virtual sales and blah, blah, blah, blah. I don't know that I'm ever going to be able to replace my mechanic because somebody's got to diagnose these cars, turn the wrenches and sure, it all might become computerized and you know, blah, blah, blah, but you still got to have someone smart enough to know that stuff. So what do you do or any tips for us on retaining top talent?

Your culture is the biggest thing with retaining talent. It's not to pay, don't get me wrong, you got to have competitive pay. But if you can create a culture within your dealership or within your shop, people will stay okay. And even some people leave and then they automatically want to come back. So culture, competitive pay plan is number one. And you know, we can talk about, it's hard for us to compare apples to apples across the country on whether what you should pay an A level tech compared to, to be tech. But you know, in general you're going to pay 30 to 35 for a level tech and that's a master tech. And B techs, you're going to pay around $20 an hour, flat rate, we're talking. And then for a CTEC, you're going to pay anywhere from 15 to 17 or so. And then for lube people, you're going to pay it 11 to 12 bucks. So that's in general what you're going to pay. But as long as you have a good culture and people want to come to work, I think that's a big deal as long as your pay plan is competitive. But if people don't want to come to work and they're, you know, they're always worried they're gonna get yelled at or this, that another they're gonna leave. So culture's number one. I would say number two is competitive pay plan.

And what about perks, benefits? I mean, do you think, do employees value things like health plans and savings accounts and free pizza and loaner cars and you know, gym memberships?

And I don't think they do.

So does.

I don't think they do.

Only as it only is it only as it relates to your culture. Like if you're having, often you're having employee parties and get togethers where people enjoy hanging out with each other and they have bonding experiences and that's. That was better off.

I think, I think you could take the money that you would spend. Now don't get me wrong, I think, you know, people do need help, insurance and things like this. So if you can, if you can't afford to do that, I would say you should, you should offer it. But if you take the money that you would spend on all the junk around, you know, it's hard to keep up with all that junk, too, by the way, because I used to do some of that. But if you take and say, okay, all right, shop, I'm buying everybody steaks for y' all to grill out on Friday, that's a big deal, man. They really like things like that. So if we're talking about shop, that's, you know, that's good to do out there, you know, by bringing things in for lunch on the Saturdays or Fridays if you're busy. I think that's big for your inside staff. Pay plans are all over the board. I really think that at 20 group next week, we should do a survey on how people pay, you know, different parts of the. Of their staff, and see what we can come up with. Because I did have somebody reach out and say, hey, can y' all do one on pay plans? And.

Yeah, you know, what's so funny is we've, you know, a lot of dealers have said it, but we have it backwards. Sometimes the biggest moneymakers in the dealership sometimes are the salesmen. And a lot of times that's not who's making you the money. You know, especially in a buy here, pay here store, it's your collector that's making you the money. And in your recon shop, it's your A level diagnosis mechanic who's really making you the money. Because he's the one fixing something that you would have otherwise completely just thrown out, or, you know, instead of just replacing the entire engine, he found out what was really wrong with it. So, you know, I feel like you got to be really careful where you're putting your dollars.

Let's, you know, let's touch on a quick pay plan. When it comes to salespeople, we always want the young millennials that are excited to work and this, that, and the other. And, you know, I think I've said this before, but you really need a base hour to start these people. And, um, if you're not offering that, you're not hiring the best people to train. And what happens. I think the 25% of gross thing is gone. So I don't recommend that in any sales position. I think that. I think that ship has sailed. Okay. So, you know, I think it. I think the best thing to do is pay a flat to start with, pay a. You know, pay a good salary and have to be a great salary, but. And then show them how your pay plan works, because if you do that and they know where they need to hit to make a certain amount of money first, they're going to come to work for you because they've got a guaranteed. And second, if they see where they can get to and you train them properly and they see each month they start selling more cars, they're going to stay. And we don't want to turn and burn salespeople because if you do that, you're losing the connection to the people they've sold. The longer you can keep salespeople, the better because they are just building their portfolio. You think it's your portfolio, but really it's theirs. So you need to make sure that you. You teach them how to mine their business, to ask for referrals, to ask for repeats, and pay them a, you know, a good flat per their division of cars is. It's gonna really pay off in the long run.

What's an average car salesman gonna make per car sold in our industry?

So I think about $240 is probably where it's gonna land. I think maybe a little less in, you know, in buy here, pay here. But I think if you can keep. If you can keep your expenses, commission expenses under 250, you've done a good job.

Okay, 250. So if the salesman selling 20 cars a month, he's making 50. Make it 5,000amonth. 50, 60,000. That seems low to me, but it.

Might be a little low. It might be a little low.

About twice that per car, unfortunately. And I don't know if that's good.

But, yeah, I think that's on the higher.

I think they're on the healthy side, that's for sure.

I think in buy here, pay here, that's on the high end because, like, you just talked about, I mean, what's more important, the collection or the salespeople? And it's a little easier to sell a product in the. In the buy here, pay here market in another market. So I can promise you new car stores, if you've got a salesperson making. Well, if they're hitting. They're hitting 20, between 20 and 30.

They should be making 100 grand plus a year, right?

Oh, yeah. If they. I think, yeah, you're probably right. If you're hitting 20 in a new car store, you're probably making 100 grand a year.

Yeah, yeah, they're probably making 500, 600 a car, I imagine.

Yeah.

Interesting. Interesting. Okay, we will get into more depth on a pay plan. I just want to kick a couple of these final ideas past you, Luke, on this kind of random rant episode we've got going on here. Well, before we go There. First off, I noticed you don't have your headphones in today. Where are your AirPods at?

In my pocket.

Okay, good. Get a little feedback. We're gonna do something. We've got a sponsor now, so that means that we could actually afford to use equipment that's not stuff we borrowed from our grandma's house, which is kind of exciting for us. So no guarantees, but we're really hoping the production value of the podcast goes up. We're gonna be able to hear Luke more often, not make him sound like he's in some sort of a swimming pool or something. I know we got feedback two episodes ago.

I got to figure out how to make my earpods work on my desktop.

Yeah, and you only have a desktop computer. If it doesn't have Bluetooth, then I don't think you can Anyways. Dealer Re quick plug for them. They re upped Q4 to be our advertiser. Hopefully we're moving the needle for them. We definitely recommend everyone go talk to them. At least explore the options of having your own dealer owned reinsurance company. Right.

100%. If you're yourself. Yeah. If you're in our market and you've gotten established, especially if you're buy here, pay here, you've got to do your reinsurance company CPI warranties. Everybody needs to be offering a warranty on your car. There's tax advantages, there's wealth generation. There's all these things that can help you advance your business. And that's what we're in here for. We're not in here to be in business for a year and get out. And reinsurance will help create that wealth. And dealer Re is the best people out there to do it, in my opinion.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So what happens here when we have, you know, trained mechanics working on gas engines and then working on California mandates all electric vehicles in 20 years. Does. Does having an electric. The majority of cars being sold in 10, 20, 30, 40 years being electric, does that eliminate the used car salesman?

No. Gosh, no.

Okay, would we be buy here pay here on Leafs and Teslas and Lucids and Rivians and all these other electric guys.

So I remember when. Let's go back to just carburetor to fuel injected man. When are, you know, cars with, you know, ECU's compared to ones without, you know, or ECMs. So everybody freaked out, right? Oh my God. It's over. It's over. We can't, we can't do anything anymore. We're not gonna be able to work on cars. That are fuel injector. We're not gonna be able to work on cars that have computers and everybody, you know, that, that didn't affect anything, man. I remember thinking, oh my gosh, all these driver warning systems and braking systems, all these things, it's going to, oh my gosh, we're not going to be able to work on them. Well, we can work on anything. Right. The electric car may make the buy here, pay here, business better. They don't break. You know, that's a huge thing about our customers. You know, their cost of maintenance should go down dramatically. And I think between now and then, battery technology is going to get so good. I think the other day, Elon Musk, now Musk goes out on tangents sometimes, but right now I think it costs about $25,000 for a Tesla battery and he believes within three years he can get it to $5,000. So if that happens, I mean, it's a big deal. We, we used to sell a lot of Priuses and Priya, whatever you want to call it, when they're multiple. And I remember people not wanting to buy them originally because they were like, oh my gosh, the battery goes bad, then it's over. Right, right. Well, what happened is if you explain to the customer, hey, that battery actually costs less than the transmission does on a normal car. And the idea that your transmission or your engine would go bad in a, in a Prius or any hybrid situation is relatively none. I've maybe seen one bad engine.

Yeah, we got one in the back.

Right now with a bad engine. You can have it, you know it.

No, totally agreed. You got an electric car, you're dealing with tires, brakes, rotors, and you're probably.

Not dealing many brakes.

Occasional trim item.

Yeah, most of them have regenerated brakes. And so, yeah, I think I've never put brakes on a Prius. I mean, that, that's how. I mean, I've seen Prius with 400,000 miles. I've never put. So what.

So my concern would be, when you do have so many different manufacturers coming out with an electric car, you are not going to be able to communicate and diagnose those cars outside of their factory warranty. That's what freaks me out.

There's a law.

There's, there's a law technology, right.

There's a law on the books that prevents that from happening.

But you've got to have the special equipment to interface with it or the specialized knowledge or the, or you're going to have to send it to the dealer to get it reprogrammed because you had to replace the door handle and the door handle integrates into the whole fricking car.

Well, I'll be willing to bet you you won't have to send it to a dealer. I'll be willing to bet you that they can actually remote into the card and program it, so.

Good point.

I really think. I really think it's overblown. I think we can. I think we handle it.

I had a lady call me the other day, and apparently there's some grants out there, federal and state grants to have electric charging stations installed at businesses.

Yep.

I'm thinking I got to take advantage of that. Like, I have not sold an electric vehicle yet. A hybrid, yes, but not a truly full electric. I've never had to charge one. But why not have three or four charging stations on the side of my dealership? Because in five to 10 years, guarantee, I will need them.

So I. I was listening to a podcast the other day, and there is a company right now that this month was going to hit the hundred thousand mark in the country, not the country in the world of having charging stations. And this was a huge deal because it essentially put electronic electric charging stations on the same platform as gas stations, because I think there was only like 14,000 gas stations in the US or something to that effect. But there's almost now as many electric charging stations as there is gas stations. It was pretty interesting. I never looked at it that way, but the infrastructure is being built. And so if you can get on and have a gas station sitting out front of your dealership, why not? Right?

Yeah, A charging station, even for your own vehicles, you know, not even for consumers. Just because, you know you're going to be buying electric soon. And I mean, I don't think the chargers themselves are extremely expensive. The install's a little bit depending on what capacity you're buying and the charging time. But anyways, super interesting concept to think we could buy here, pay here electric vehicles in 20 years.

If any of us, you know, I'll do it.

Oh, I know I would. I think the same thing, man. And then you just, you know, you integrate and you have some sort of an agreement with the, with the manufacturer and you hit two buttons and the car drives itself back to your dealership. Right. You've seen that. Those jokes where you don't make your payments on your Tesla and it just repos itself.

I think what we may be moving to in our industry is maybe you and I would own, let's say 800 instead of having 800 accounts. You have 800 cars. Right?

Right.

That are automated, that you can buy shares of, that will come to your house, pick you up, take you where you need to go. So I think that could be something that happens in the future, too. There's always going to be our customers to serve. Right. We've got to decide how to serve them. And if that means us owning a fleet of cars that our customers can use, that's what it's going to be. If that means Having all EVs out there, that's what that's going to be. Transportation has to happen because our country is too big to not have public or not have private transportation.

Well, and a thing like Covid makes you think how much you value private transportation over public. And if that continues to be the pattern for future years of these health pandemics, you're going to definitely want your own vehicle, whether it drives itself and gets sanitized in between or whatever the crap it does. But, you know, that's an interesting. And maybe just with the couple seconds we have left on those lines of ownership, I mean, I guess I don't see. I don't really see a time. Well, maybe mixed where people don't really want to own their own vehicles. I definitely see vehicle ownership as being. It's like having a second, an extra room in your house. Right. You've got stuff you store in your vehicle. You know, me being a dealer, I drive a different car every single day. I don't have one that keeps my stuff, and I hate it because I never have what I need when I need it. My wife would never survive if she didn't have her own car. Right. She hates it when I'm swapping her out because we have to transfer everything over. So I don't know if America or the US in general will ever say, hey, I don't want to own a car. I just want something to come pick me up and drive me here and then drive me here and drive me there, and I'll just tote all my crap along with me. But there'll be a little bit of that. But maybe before that, Luke, do you ever see a subscription model taking effect where you just say, hey, man, for $400 a month, I'm always going to have a car for you. And they'll be here at the lot, and you're in the red tier, which is $400 a month. You can come here and swap out for a nominal fee, any of these vehicles that have a red sticker on it at any time. Just keep paying $400 a month forever.

There's one holdback that is something that could happen tomorrow, but there's one holdback, and that's called the insurance lobby and trial lawyers. And so I guess there's two things. So until they figure out how to insure the person instead of the car, we're going to always have this problem. I think it's coming.

So you would say. And that's. That's. I guess you're right. That's the rub between a lease, because it's basically a hybrid lease. Right. I'm going to lease. But I'm not leasing you on a specific vehicle. I'm leasing you on a pool of vehicles that you could drive at any one time. And your GEICO policy will cover you regardless of whether you've swapped out for the black one or the red one or the sedan or the truck.

That's right.

It's covering you as the driver under any collateral that you drive.

And as long as it's owned by Jeff's leasing company and you've got also have a barrier in there where Jeff's leasing company can't be sued when that customer crashes into another customer.

That's already there, right? I mean, that's already there with leasing companies.

Well, not in all states. I know people want to talk about all these, you know, the Graves Amendment and this, that and other. It's still not. Still not concrete.

Well, Lexus, Toyota and everyone else is doing it right now to a pretty large frigging degree.

Yeah, but they can do it because they do it on such a huge degree. And they've got own staff attorneys who can fight when something egregious happens. So there's still some levels of fixing that needs to be done before we can really get to that. But I think. I think that's a great model. And there's company. Cadillac's trying it, Volvo's trying it. I think actually Cox has a division called Clutch or something like that that offers that program. So there's programs out there that. That can do it. But there's still some pushback. And there's going to be pushback, but I think it's a great idea. I'm all for it.

A car club, you know, that sounds interesting to me. Logistically maddening. And just for the record, I wanted to go back to the electric vehicle thing for a second. An electric vehicle without autonomous driving, to me is trash. I do not want an electric car if it cannot drive itself. That's the Future. I don't care about EVs. I don't care if you power it with freaking unicorn tears. If it can't drive itself, I don't want it. You know what I'm saying? Like everyone talks about all of these electric car companies popping up and these guys have got this fast one and these guys have got this one. Does it drive itself then? No. Then don't even talk to me about it.

Why does that matter, Jeff?

Because that's the whole point. I don't need an electric car to have an electric car. So I can plug it in my house and instead of me burning fossil fuels, the coal company up the street can burn fossil fuels to create the electricity to power my car. You know, I'm not trying to save the environment. What I want to do is freaking get in my car, clock out and end up, you know, three cities over in three hours and then wake up and go to work. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah. No, I love that idea because I like to read a lot. So, you know, if I could read down the road, that would be.

Not to mention the safety, man, you take the drivers off the road. Do you ever think about that, Luke, when you're driving down a two lane highway and you think, I have put my entire life in that massive truck coming at me. I put my entire life in that guy's hands right now. Yeah, 24 inches, 24 inches away. That guy ends my life.

So I've never, I've never thought about that, Jeff. Now I'm going to have nightmares.

You are. Every time you're booking down a two lane highway late at night, that man could drift, yank the wheel and end both of our lives right now. And I 100% trust this stranger in this 20,000 pound rig coming at me. It's mind boggling. So make them all autonomous. Make them all talk to each other.

Well, that puts a lot of insurance companies out of business. You know, I'm not.

They'll find another way. I'm sure there'll be something else for them. But anyways, that's, that's my rub with electric vehicles. And me ever buying a Tesla, I'd have to get full autonomy.

I think we're, I think we're as close to full electric on everything as we are to full autonomy. I think it's. I think you're right. I think it goes.

They're hand in hand, right? 5G. You know, you get that whole 5G network in and they can all talk to each other through the network. And blah, blah, blah.

Yeah. So don't. Don't fret.

When.

When crazy states like California decide that they're gonna. They're gonna blow everything up and only have electric vehicles in 15 years. Well, guess what, y'. All. Newsflash. That's gonna happen anyway. Yeah.

You're not investing in any hydrogen vehicles, are you?

You know, that was years ago.

It got a real hot. Real hot tip on this company. Hydrogen electric nonsense.

That's. Yeah.

If you guys have followed me in the forums, you know my outspoken negativity towards the other Tesla knockoff.

You know that BMW developed a hydrogen vehicle here in South Carolina years ago, and hydrogen fuel cell, I guess what they call it, they used to drive them all around South Carolina because BMW is manufactured up in the. Upstate, and they used to drive them around. And I don't know whether that technology died or what happened, but it's. It's gone, I think.

Yeah. Proven not effective to build hydrogen stations across the country and compressed hydrogen and blah, blah, blah. And. Yeah. Anyways, another. Another dot com scam. We'll see how that shakes out. But, Luke, man, that was great chatting with you, Hope. Look forward to seeing you on Sunday, huh?

All right, buddy. See you then.

All right, everybody, stay tuned for next week's episode. We'll be talking taxes, I think.

Yes, sir.

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