Changes Coming to the Car Business in 2025 | Car Dealership Guy

Next 12 months, what is going to change in the car business? Talk to me profitability, talk to me supply and valuations. What are we going to see? I think we're slowly going to see a return to what we had before. So that means more declines to come. I think that dealership profits will continue to decline a little bit. The new vehicle margins will come down as the supply increases. That'll be offset if we have lower interface by more vehicles being sold. The demand for stores will remain high because I think that it still provides one of the best return on investments over a long period of time of just about any asset class that I know of. Tell me about it. I get the PE firms emailing me every other week. Hey, we're interested in buying dealerships. Da da da da da. So I think that demand will stay there. So I think for those of you who are in auto retail now, I think it's going to be a very good period. dealership profits sit here twice what they were in 2019. Before the pandemic hit, the publicly traded retailers were making about $1,900 in gross profit per car they sold. That was new. That spiked to almost $6,000 in 2022. Fast forward to today in the second quarter of 2024, the average gross profit per new vehicle is about 3,500. So down from almost 6,000, that's roughly a 40% decline, but still up from 1900 before the pandemic. So if they drift back, it's out of pace inflation though. It's out of pace inflation.

接下来的12个月里，汽车行业会发生什么变化？谈谈利润，供应和估值。我们会看到什么？ 我认为我们会慢慢地回到以前的状态。所以这意味着未来会有更多的下降。我认为经销商的利润会继续略有下降。随着供应的增加，新车的利润率会降低。如果车辆价格较低，更多车辆被售出，这会稍微抵消一些影响。对门店的需求将保持高位，因为我认为从长期来看，它仍然是几乎所有资产类别中回报率最高的投资之一。 告诉我更多。我每隔一周就会收到私募股权公司的邮件，他们有兴趣购买经销商。所以我认为这种需求会一直存在。因此，对于现在从事汽车零售业务的人来说，我认为这是一个非常好的时期。经销商的利润比2019年时翻了一倍。疫情爆发前，上市零售商每卖一辆新车的毛利润大约是1900美元。这个数字在2022年飙升到了近6000美元。快进到2024年第二季度，新车的平均毛利润约为3500美元。虽然从近6000美元下降到了3500美元，大约下降了40%，但仍比疫情前的1900美元高。所以如果回落到疫情前的水平，仍将超出通胀速度。

Now, certain things I think are going to stick at a higher level. I don't think we're going to go back to 2019. Some of it is dealers have become more efficient. Some of it is I hope the factors are realized that over producing vehicles is a bad outcome. I think that cars will get a little bit cheaper for consumers. They're going to start to win a little bit. They've been punished through inflation and this lack of supply that had to pay a lot of money for new vehicle. They're going to get a bit of a break in terms of vehicle prices coming down. I think some of the retailers or manufacturers start to de-content some of the vehicles. I think that an interest rates will come down. Hopefully we have 50, 100 basis points drop in the next six months. That'd be the hope. That makes a big difference. I don't think any factories are going to go broke like they did in 2009, or the Great Recession when General Motors and Stylians rolled over and died. So I don't think we're going to see anything really big change. I think we're going to see things get better for consumers in terms of being cheaper. I think we're going to see profits decline for auto retailers to get a little worse for them. But I think it's going to be very good in terms of the ongoing profit in the next 12 months.

现在，有些情况会在更高水平上持续下去。我不认为我们会回到2019年。一部分原因是经销商变得更加高效了。另一部分原因是希望人们明白过度生产车辆是个坏结果。我认为汽车对消费者来说会变得稍微便宜一些。他们会开始受益一些，因为他们在通货膨胀和供应不足的情况下被迫支付了很多钱购买新车。车辆价格会下降，他们会得到一些喘息的机会。 我认为一些零售商或制造商会简化一些车辆的内容配置。我还认为利率会下降。希望在未来六个月内下降50到100个基点。这会带来很大的不同。我不认为任何工厂会像2009年那样破产或像当年经济大衰退时通用汽车和克莱斯勒那样倒闭。所以，我不认为会有很大的变化。我认为消费者在价格变得更便宜方面会有好转。汽车零售商的利润可能会下降，对他们来说情况会稍微差一些。但总体上在接下来的12个月中，未来利润会非常可观。