I would argue at least 50% of the market is almost completely priced out. Wow. 50% of the market is priced out of the car industry. Yeah. If you think about the retail vehicle market, the most important number is the monthly payment. 100%. When you look at what households in the US, the distribution of their incomes, about half can only afford about a $400.
What's up, everyone? This is Car D'Oeship Guy. You're listening to the Car D'Oeship Guy podcast, which is my effort to give you access to the most unbiased and transparent insights into the car market. Let's get into today's episode. Jonathan Smok is the chief economist of Cox Automotive, a subsidiary of the $20 billion Cox Enterprises. In this episode, we discussed the state of auto lending and what's to come, how interest rates are impacting the car industry, the number one issue for car shoppers right now, the best and worst car deals on the market, what a UAW strike could mean for the auto industry, winners and losers in the EV space, and will use car prices go back to normal anytime soon.
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Alright folks, we got Jonathan Smoke on the pod from Cox Automotive, or as they call him in the streets, DJ Smokey Smoke. That's good to see you again, CDG. You too. Thanks for coming on. The most creative economists I've ever met, so pumped for this one. People are probably wondering, what's DJ Smokey Smoke? You should have listened to the first episode where we give some context on your DJing career. It's a little bar for the world of economists to be entertaining and creative, but I try to keep up.
Well, look, we have a lot to cover. Having done deep economy, just industry segment since our podcast, really. I think to lay the land for a second, and I'll let you introduce yourself to all of our new listeners. It feels like it's been a lifetime since our last episode of What's Changed in the industry. In reality, it hasn't been that long, it's been a couple of months. But since then, just to give a preview, we've seen new car sales continue to rise year over year. We've seen use car prices decline and then increase a little bit. Now we're seeing these potential strikes in Detroit with the United Auto Workers, specifically strikes that could potentially impact production for Stellantis, Ford, GM. We're seeing Elon Musk and Tesla cut prices on their EVs, new cars, like 20%. Just crazy price cuts overnight, and this was super recent a couple of days ago or so a week ago. We still have yet to feel the impact there, but there's so much going on. It's going to be a very juicy episode.
Before we get into that, can you give our new listeners, can you give us your background and exactly what you do?
在我们深入讨论之前,你可以向我们的新听众介绍一下你的背景和你具体从事的工作吗?
Sure. I'm the chief economist for Cox Automotive. For folks not familiar with Cox Automotive, we are the largest services company for the auto space. We basically have some familiar brand names to consumers like AutoTrader and Kelly Blue Book, where consumers go to shop and learn about vehicle values and the like. We have the top one, two or three software platforms that dealers use to manage all aspects of their business from CRM to inventory management to the back end, DMSs. So, our bread and butter software businesses are very much focused on supporting dealers. As a result, I work with dealers, day in and day out.
当然。我是Cox Automotive公司的首席经济学家。对于不熟悉Cox Automotive的人来说,我们是汽车行业的最大服务公司。我们基本上拥有一些为消费者所熟知的品牌,比如AutoTrader和Kelly Blue Book,消费者可以在这些平台上购物和了解车辆价值等信息。我们拥有一、二或三个顶级软件平台,供经销商使用以管理他们业务的各个方面,包括客户关系管理、库存管理以及后台的DMS系统。因此,我们的主要业务是支持经销商的软件业务。因此,我每天都与经销商紧密合作。
Then most people know me because of the Manheim Index. We own Manheim AutoActions, the world's largest wholesale marketplaces. Folks that listen to the podcasts, you mentioned going to Manheim PA on a regular basis and want a trip that is in terms of where it's located and what that's like. I've been in a role as a chief economist in the housing industry and now in the automotive industry and I came to Cox six and a half years ago, leaving behind my background in housing to get into automotive as a new learning opportunity for me, but really to leverage the vast amount of information that we have at our disposal to really get to understand and know this business.
So, bottom line, what I do day in and day out is to try to make sense of what's happening in the world and specifically relating that to trends we're seeing in the auto market because I'm trying to help people make good decisions and that includes manufacturers, dealers and lenders and consumers alike. So, I'm a big fan of the podcasts and I too am learning so I want to continue to contribute to this world.
I love it. Did you see my long form post? Is that what you're referring to about the Manheim trip?
我喜欢它。你看到我的长篇帖子了吗?你是在指那次曼海姆之行吗?
Yes. Yes. Yeah, good. I'm glad that because it's funny. I was thinking to tee up the Hollands Head podcast, largest wholesaler in the world. And I was thinking about, you know what, what's better than to just illustrate what that experience was like starting out? Yeah. Yeah. I was kind of like off the whim. It was funny. I ended up striking in court with lots of people. So that was awesome.
All right. So give us like the 4,000 foot overview of like what is going on right now in the car industry in general.
好的。给我们一个大致了解,概括一下当前整个汽车行业的情况。
Yeah. Well, there's always something going on. And you know, we last talked just about three months ago and I totally agree with you that several things are changing or have changed in that time. Fundamentally, if I take a step back, I would say that we're increasingly seeing the auto market move towards normalization and balance. You know, we've basically been in a world where the decline in new vehicle production from every factory in the world being shut down back in 2020 and then all of the crazy supply chain issues that happened as the manufacturers tried to get back up online meant that we have been severely under supplied in first the new vehicle market. But now that's cascading into the used vehicle market because the absence of new vehicle sales for three years in a row constrains substantially what can happen in wholesale and in the used retail market. So we've had a lot of abnormal trends. We've had demand exceeding supplies. So that caused tremendous price inflation first on the used vehicle side and then that cascaded into new and this year is starting to see pricing come down again.
Of course, you're dealing with the economy and the issues facing the economy with inflation and then the medicine being doled out by the Federal Reserve that includes monetary tightening and most importantly substantial increases in interest rates. So you combine price increases with the higher interest rates and tighter credit. We have a real affordability challenge in both the new and the used market that limits demand and it's helped produce some of the normalization we're seeing because there are I would argue at least 50% of the market is almost completely priced out of being able to buy the way that they traditionally would.
So what do you mean by that 50% of the market is priced out of the car industry?
那么,你说的市场50%的人无力购买汽车是什么意思呢?
Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, if you think about retail, the retail vehicle market, it is a financing market. People the most important number is the monthly payment. 100%. And when you look at what the households in the US, the distribution of their incomes, about half can only afford about a $400 payment. And it is really difficult to produce a $400 payment in either the new or the used market today because of the combination of vehicle prices and interest rates. So it ends up being a market that's largely, you get a tale of two different stories left and right.
I would argue consumers are living in two very different worlds where high income consumers that own homes and lock down very low interest rate mortgages. are enjoying almost the best of times because they've got low debts that they're paying. And at the end of the month, they're seeing their stocks go up in most months and home values go up and it's a really positive story.
The other end of the income spectrum, you basically see consumers who spend more than half of their budgets on three things, food, energy and shelter and those things. That's where we've had the most inflation. And so they've been experiencing tremendous inflation and just trying to make ends meet. But those consumers tend to be consumers that traditionally drive the used car market and are a substantial portion of what we call subprime in the credit space. And so they're seeing interest rates that are north of 22% these days. And it's really hard to get a $400 payment on any vehicle that you can actually get financed.
So with all that said right now, let's just start with used for a second. Yeah, I saw, I always saw this chart, I forget to put it out. It pretty much showed this like a hypothetical underproduction of vehicles since 2020. Right. It was like, you know, we've underproduced 8.5 million vehicles since 2020 and all it's doing is going by what we should have sold in normal times versus what we actually sold. And it's also not perfect because people are holding their cars longer and whatnot.
But when you look at something like that and given the fact that, you know, inventory use cars are still at historical lows or at least for a certain period of time, which I'm sure you could provide more data than I can, how are used car prices rising again as of like past month? Like what's going on right now, you know, with interest rates at everything and people being priced out, how are prices going up again, at least on the use side?
Well, we're fundamentally very constrained. Also to the point of the people who have focused on the underproduction that we've had, think about it this way. Prior to the pandemic, we basically had a car park that was growing by about 5 million units per year. We were adding 4 to 5 million units. And that's the difference between the new vehicle production and sales that happened in the new market minus the vehicles we lose, what we refer to as scrappage in the industries. So the net effect was yes, we were growing the car park by 4 or 5 million.
So and give me like rough numbers, how many cars are operated in the US nowadays? Like about 280 million. Okay, 280 million. And if we were selling the white like 18 million new per year, 17 million. Yeah, we were selling north of 17 million for almost a full decade leading out to the pandemic. Okay. Which means that and then you're saying we're scrapping like 12 million or so we're kind of going out of operation. Yes.
So we've had several years through the pandemic, actually the first two years of the pandemic, car park shrink, because we actually lost more vehicles than we were bringing into the market as new. We've basically in three and a half years, we've added about a million vehicles when normally we would have added by this point about 15 million. So everything is just like out of equilibrium at that point. And then on throw on top of that, we've actually had a shift in where people live. And their preferences for transportation, plus we had two years of what we can characterize as the free money years, both in terms of stimulus and interest rates being rock bottom. So you actually had stronger demand than normal for the last four years.
Tell me more about you said preferences and transportation. Like what changed? What do people want now that they didn't, you know, three, four, five years ago?
Well, first obviously when COVID was a major concern, there was an enormous shift of people no longer wanting to share transportation. So public transportation fell dramatically. Even ride hailing fell dramatically. You really had a preference for I want to be in my own vehicle. I want want to be in my own bubble.
But then on top of that, when people started primarily working from home and driving more of what is still today, a very much a hybrid work situation, people were starting to migrate and look to own houses in places that were more affordable or more enjoyable. So you've seen a mass migration. from high population dense areas like New York City, Chicago, San Francisco to secondary markets and more rural locations that are absolutely more exhibit, private transportation specific. The urbanization. Yeah.
And so the vehicle has become even more important to households. And I would argue there are use cases which used to be a lot simpler. Just mileage being put on cars pre pandemic was driven by your daily weekly commute. Today, the commute is more complicated. And for some folks, isn't even an issue. And instead, you've got a model where I don't have a daily driver anymore. I have a vehicle that I need to drive to work a couple of times a week. But then I also need to hold my family around or I need to be able to tow up a boat on the weekend every couple of weeks or whatever the situation. I would argue that use cases for consumers have gotten more complicated too from a vehicle standpoint.
So we had a tremendous amount of people back in 2020 and 21 when they were getting stimulus money, when interest rates were zero or near zero and the lowest that we've ever seen basically changing vehicles, both new and used. Because retail sales ever were in 2021 and mostly driven by the volumes we had in the used vehicle market. But then last year that started to come to a screeching halt because one pricing started to go up dramatically in both 2020 and 2021. But then you had the Fed raising interest rates and that really started to change the story.
So how have interest rates most impacted the industry would you say? Like someone asked me today, someone was like, hey, so interest rates rising, like so what are people's monthly payments changing? I said, well, no, I said it doesn't affect it that way, but it's affecting in other ways, right? So suddenly you have to pay more for that house. And so I'm curious from your take, what is the impact of these interest rates, right? And will it be like short-lived, long-lived, like can you walk us through that a little bit?
Sure. And that's a great point. It does not in the auto market, much like the US housing market, which by the way is relatively unique in the world. People are not subject to variable rates on the vast majority of loans that they have. So rising interest rates basically only impact new buyers. They don't impact existing buyers. However, in the vehicle market, most people who are buying a vehicle or selling a vehicle, so you have a potential lock-in effect that what we may see is a much more muted amount of demand out there because people net net will look at their situation and say, I can't really improve my vehicle circumstance because my payment is going to go up so much. You can't really figure out the calculus that will drive it. So it's more a limiter on what we can sell now versus what we could sell before. And where we see that most evident is again with consumers who facing the biggest affordability challenges, which are principally lower credit quality consumers. And we've effectively seen subprime almost disappear from the new vehicle market. And in the used market, we've lost about 5% of the market that used to exist. So you literally have... Does that matter? Is that 5%? That's like a differente? Or is that like a 5% that has no other options? How important is that 5%?
Well, I would say it's important. It's materially important. And it's especially a good reason why when you look at our surveys of dealers and our dealer sentiment, which we're rolling out the third quarter of this month, it's why persistently franchise dealers have been more positive about the whole economy and the auto market and specifically the used vehicle market than we see from independents. And those who service more of the credit challenge consumer have seen the biggest struggles. And some of its inventory related to, I'm not dismissing that there's also an issue with what vehicles are available and at what price, but credit plays an enormous role in that. Give us an update on the inventory situation, New Car Side for a second. People ask me, they're like, hey, why can't I still get a Toyota? Why can't I get a Honda? I can get a Chrysler Pacific off. So give us a why are some manufacturers still dealing with supply issues three and a half years like, I mean, come on, like, does something doesn't make sense? Walk us through that.
Well, it hasn't been an even tide. And so largely what we were seeing last year in particular was that European brands and Asian brands were far more likely to still have lingering supply chain issues.
嗯,形势并不平稳。去年我们尤其看到,欧洲品牌和亚洲品牌更有可能仍然存在供应链问题。
And in particular, the brands that we saw that were furthest behind were indeed the Japanese brands with Toyota being the most high profile one that seemed to be behind everyone else in seeing the recovery. And it was a litany of bad luck. Basically, there was an earthquake early in 2022 that set Toyota back specifically. It also impacted one of their major sources of semiconductors. So while others were solving their computer chip problems, Toyota was actually having newer ones last year.
The lingering issues in Europe were mostly related to disruptions from the war in Ukraine, which you don't hear about vehicles being assembled in Ukraine. We don't have a single vehicle sold in the US that is impacted directly by Russia and Ukraine. But Ukraine played a pretty important role, kind of like Mexico does for some of our vehicle production where significant portions of the vehicle, like wire harnessing, was done there. And obviously that was disrupted, but it was also the disruption of fuel and other kind of costs in Europe that caused some of those supply chain issues.
But flash forward and now even Toyota is very close. In fact, I think they set a world record for themselves in July for the amount of vehicles that they produced across all their factories globally. So I think we are finally at the end of the more significant supply chain issues. Just in time for a strike where actually multiple strikes to start unfolding.
Well, I want to jump into that. But before we get into that, one more quick question on Toyota. So do you think from here, do you think we're going to see again, all else being equal, right? There can always be some black swan event. But do you think all else being equal? Are we going to start seeing prices start to improve on Toyota, these Asian brands?
Yeah, I think we're moving towards normalization. And normalization will mean more inventory. That higher inventory is going to be more incentives. That is going to mean a return to discounting rather than paying above MSRP. We've already seen that for the brands that are more well supplied. But we're still, I think the average gap between what a consumer is paying to the sticker price or the MSRP is less than 1% so far this year when we were consistently experiencing 6% to 8% discounts pre-pandemic.
Oh, got it. So we will be seeing steps towards that direction. Do we get all the way back to what it was before? That's a matter of debate because some would argue that because we can sell more vehicles on order and the approach that many manufacturers are going to try to take to do more regional distribution that we may net net never get back to quite the same number of vehicles sitting on dealer lots. If I had, you know, as an economist, I don't feel strongly around the arguments of why can that happen simply because manufacturers will quote unquote be disciplined. This is an industry that has high fixed costs with different global and kind of company specific strategies. It only takes one player to push the entire industry in the wrong direction and exhibit A is not so much one player. But if you look how quickly inventories have grown this year and how fast incentives have followed. In incentives in August, we just got the numbers this morning. Incentives were up over 100% year over year. So it isn't even though inventory levels are still relatively constrained as you were pointing out, we're already seeing that manufacturers are really working hard to make the most out of the situation. But those inventory levels are where there is. Isn't it mostly domestic brands like GM for Stellantis?
Yeah. So when you look at it, it's more than it's more the domestic brands that are more likely to be normally supplied or close to being in some cases over supplied. But there's also segment level differences. Like I would say one of the things that's become absolutely clear since our podcast is that we've hit the first speed bump in electric vehicle adoption on the new vehicle side. So that's the one piece. What do you mean by that? That supply is building up rapidly of electric vehicles relative to the rest of the market. Tell us more there. Like what are you actually seeing like they supply and also I'm curious if you're seeing that for everyone excluding Tesla?
Yes. And in fact, most of the data we put out and we put out regular information in terms of I do a biweekly video and then we do some detailed inventory reports using our V-auto platform and V-auto is the top industry source of inventory management for dealers. So a lot of folks worldwide swear by Dale Pollack and his philosophies with velocity and inventory pricing and management. So we basically have the tools that let us track it.
We do not have Tesla in our numbers. So what we're seeing in the data. Because Tesla is not a dealer customer first and foremost. So we don't have Tesla actively participating in that platform to give us visibility into a hundred percent of their inventory and how they are pricing that inventory. And the second is they're much more difficult to relative compared to traditional dealers in terms of their approach to advertising specifically what they have available to sell.
Essentially what I would describe is what's behind our numbers is if a VIN is being actively advertised as available then it's in our inventory numbers. So there's sort of no question. You can drill down to the make model and specific vehicle to know where it is and at what price and ultimately who's selling it. So our numbers track the industry numbers extremely closely and I look at it actually every single day but we share results sort of weekly.
And so back to the theme that we were describing if you look in aggregate for the new vehicle market this year, day supply has gone sideways to slightly down and day supply is simply the total inventory level divided by the active current sales base. And we use a simple rolling 30 day sales base. The industry does when manufacturers report their numbers they do a more I'll say sophisticated calculation where they take into account the number of selling days in the month and it basically reduces the day supply a little bit more aggressively than what our numbers do.
But nonetheless what we were seeing in the trend was day supply has been coming down all year long or at worst gone sideways which means that despite inventories growing and inventories have been up consistently about 80% year over year so far this year. Is that inventory or total new car inventories? Total new car inventories what are sitting on dealer lots what are actively being marketed to. 2. 80% year over year and what are the actual numbers?
Roughly we were right around 2 million total new vehicle units sitting on dealer lots. Okay 2 million that's up 80% year over year. So going back to your point on EV specifically we were seeing in the market this year where day supply was coming down while inventories are rising which that would signal strong demand right. That is correct and that's a good signal that if day supply is holding steady while you're increasing inventories it means the market's absorbing what you're delivering and you're not having a pile up of supply that would make you worry about future potential or future vehicle values.
Well the one exception to that is battery electric vehicles. Their inventory has increased almost 400% year over year even faster than the sales pace which year to date is up about 80% which means that the day supply number has been accelerating in its increase and we're currently at a day's supply for EVs above 100 days. So what happens next more than twice that we see for the new vehicle more? That's very high I mean that's twice the average.
So what happens next is what are all the things you normally see when something is over supplied. This counting which you already mentioned I mean Tesla is the 800 pound gorilla in that space and boy are they exerting their muscle and by the way from my view it's working. If there's any clear victor so far this year it's Tesla because they're maintaining their share yes they're making less money per unit that they're selling but they are not struggling the way that we are seeing some traditional brands and I think some of that boils down to some of the adoption issues that we're running into because if you think about where we are we basically have been selling battery electric vehicles to the choir to use the religious analogy we've been selling to the people who absolutely have sought them out and wanted to be the early adopters for multiple reasons.
Well now we're trending towards a policy that suggests at some point in the future the average American has to buy has to want and buy a battery electric vehicle and there is a big difference between the choir and the average American and some brands like Tesla how Tesla's brand or other new entrants like Rivian line up with consumers they're in great position because consumers align with those brands and think of battery electric
some other brands like traditional brands including high profile brands with battery electric vehicles like Chevrolet and Ford don't have quite the same line up with those consumers their consumers are actually not eager to get battery electric. vehicles and you also look at where those traditionally have sold they're in the heartland they are everywhere they are not concentrated in California or in the extreme urban the coastal yeah the coastal cities yeah yeah so there's we're just at an interest
I'm not and by the way I'm not conveying that I think you know battery electrics don't have a future and won't continue to grow I think there's just this is the first of many speed bumps that that we're hitting as an as an industry I actually think the number one issue to consumers is pricing and we're already seeing what happens when you're over supplied prices come down and that's going to cause more consumers to consider EVs and some of the other issues
like charging networks those are chicken and egg issues we solve those issues when we have more battery electrics that are in the market and for example companies that can see a profitable path to making all the investments they need to do with chargers so some of those other things that better everything you're saying makes sense right like we're going to see more discounts on with the EV specifically who do you think are going to be the winners and losers here right
like it's Tesla the winner and everyone else the loser or what does it look like well in in the short term I definitely think from a branding perspective that Tesla's winning this this inning or this quarter or whatever sports analogy you want to put at it and it's really hard you know if you look at the longer term forecast we've got we've got pipeline supplied directed forecast out to 2040 and at no point does Tesla not have the top market share in that forecast for EVs so yeah of course their market share erodes over time and at in by the year 2040 some other brands like Toyota will be much closer to them in in terms of their share of the market but Tesla is is a strong incumbent that I would not bet against and I think this year again is living proof that that they are doing well
What do you say by the way, what do you think about Toyota's like wait and see approach on EVs? I personally think it seems to be working well. When I talk to their dealers, to a person, they like that strategy. They think it lines up with what their customers are seeing. The market in general is seeing the most strength for hybrids and that path, and having an established expertise in making hybrids work I think historically has been good for Toyota and will continue to be a string.
But they're also highly rumored to be near announcing something with solid state batteries that really change the whole battery electric landscape. And oh by the way, what's the one brand with real experience with hydrogen, which is you know the other fuel that would be would help to address some of the range and and other use cases like for medium and heavies. So you know Toyota is definitely one that I think for a variety of reasons has to be viewed as as a long-term strong performer here.
The rest, I would say it's it's sort of a mixed picture. You're gonna have some growing pains because some brands are going to have to work harder to sell the same number of vehicles because their traditional customer is not an easy sell in terms of where they live and their orientation towards accepting battery electrics. So there's I think some brands are going to struggle. Every brand is in this game, every brand has multiple models in the pipeline. Some are more aggressive than others. You're saying is like EV models specifically, right? Yes, yeah.
I want to flip back for a second to the use side. We know that here is like you mentioned a new side. We're seeing the state supply increasing very much on the with EVs with certain brands, but the average use cars up like I think 45% or so since 2019 pricing, roughly, correct me from wrong there, it's like 40-45%.
Or are we gonna see this slow but steady decline in use car prices? Are is this short supply gonna get us buoy prices and use cars are not coming down? Like you might as well forget about it if you're in a market for a use car. Where we at?
Yeah, I mean my view is that we are very close to what balanced market price level suggests where we should be, and in other words what I'm expecting to happen from this point forward is more traditional depreciation happening and no more price correction happening in the use vehicle market. And the reason why we're more likely to trend in that direction is because we still have a scarcity of vehicles available and it's especially true now more so in the use vehicle market than the new vehicle market. And that scarcity doesn't get solved for at least three more years.
Because we basically can't sell the same number of use retail vehicles in 2023, 24, 25 because we just don't have the flows coming through the wholesale market either through physical auctions or other platforms because the lack of least vehicles, the lack of rental vehicles, lower levels of repossessions, other things that basically fundamentally drive what's available for dealers to sell retail. Not so, it's going to be a supply is going to be limited.
But yet on the demand side, this summer is living proof of the situation that as we simply see used vehicle values come down, we create demand. Because we've had thousands of people priced out of the market and we hit the peak in used interest rates in late March while the banking crisis was going on. And it's one of the positive factors that has certainly not got not only not gotten worse but has actually gotten better for the consumer since then.
Yes, we did see interest rates drift up in August, but to start September use rates are trending down again. We're more than a quarter of a point off of the peak for the year, but most importantly wholesale prices came down strongly in April, May, June, and July, and then that started to trickle into the retail market, especially more so in June and July and into August. So suddenly consumers who were looking. for a price point, looking for a specific monthly payment started to see it. And what happened? Sales started to pick up and we were seeing it loud and clear in our V auto data starting in early July and it's only progressively gotten better as we got through August. And I would argue it's proof that when you're in a tightly constrained market and you have no other big negatives happening like a recession unfolding if the consumer is employed and it's just a matter of affordability, then normal depreciation is going to create buying opportunities. It's just a matter of time.
What is normal depreciation like? What do you expect to see the normal year on a used car on a specific vehicle? It gets complicated when you look at averages like the man, I know that, but on a specific vehicle, you should see around 10 to 12% depreciation in an average year on an average car.
New brand new cars tend to lose more, older middle-aged cars tend to have a period where they lose the least amount, but over time it magically starts to. average 12% 10 to 12% down down a year and we've definitely not had normal depreciation for several years we also weren't driving as much too and if you think about depreciation what fundamentally two factors caused depreciation mileage and time because time you know things get old it's not quite as shiny and new you know all of those factors so let's talk about the other element here that might have a adverse impact on depreciation the strikes what is going on with these strikes but first of all
do you think it's going to happen which I personally based on you know all the information I've been reading and consuming I think it will but I want to hear what you have to say and then second of all if it does happen what do you think will be the impact on the entire car industry yeah I I definitely think it will happen I see the parties as being were aligned there so to to for apart and with too much both sides believing they have too much to lose to sort of compromise early in this process so then it becomes a function of well then how broad is the strike and how long does it last and quickly I just I want to chime in for anyone that the audience that's not aware of this I just I doubt anyone is but just in case you know I did auto workers right workers that produce cars here in Detroit so they have been you know pretty much saying that they're going to be striking they want to increase pay and other things are short of work week or whatnot you could google it and get all this information but the long story short here is this could you know hinder or completely stop all new car production right which obviously would be a bad situation because again we would get into shorter situations all right back to you
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that's right it would reverse a bit of the progress we've made or or potentially maybe at best just simply postpone further improvement so but that's where how broad the strike is because effectively the UAW only really impacts the traditional domestic brands so the question is do they strike one or all three or a combination the the I and I'm not an expert on on the labor market but from people that I truly respect and and I think you know have their finger on the polls the the odds on favorite to to have a strike is stellontus followed then by GM and Ford is probably below 50% probability of a Ford Ford just put out this video did you see a band chance did you see a little commercial no they just put out this commercial like I don't know like propaganda or something but you saw their Twitter page I was like hmm interesting it looked it was it was a bit rosy like I let's just put it like this basically what you're telling me right now that aligns with what they put out because it's a very rosy picture which it's you know based on what I've been seeing in hearing I was sort of surprised that they would put out something that rosy in this type of you know 10 days before their production is potentially not going to be working anymore so anyways well they're hoping that they keep those odds low it's not not unlike a political ad uh in election season I would yeah I would argue what it sounds like so then if you think about it none of the other brands that sell in the US are impacted by this so historically when strikes happen it really doesn't have a material impact on the aggregate sales numbers the last people to strike other brands or something yeah people other brands do better uh in those time frames and and take positions so the last big strike for the muaw was against GM it lasted over 40 days uh in 2019 uh I challenge you to look at the sales numbers and and find when that happened because you won't see it in your own numbers but that was also a market that was already over supplied um and had plenty of inventory on the ground for both GM brands and and other brands um so.
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you know this time could be different because we are coming out of the the uh the most constrained market we've we've ever been in um so I'm not saying that we won't necessarily see some in some impact where it would probably impact us the most uh is one no longer seeing inventory grow uh and starting to see days supply contract a bit along with that we would we would expect to see incentives no longer growing now that hasn't happened through August as I mentioned we're up over 100 percent in incentives year over year in the month of August so I think it's going to be first apparent in like uh the incentives that are being offered um you know how many low APR deals are being offered I would expect.
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all the manufacturers that aren't deliberately trying to gain share in this period uh to potentially become a little bit more conservative uh but mostly it's it's the dealers it's the dealers with the stores for the brands that are being disrupted uh that that face the biggest challenges do. you think the uh the UAW United Auto Workers do you think they're there may be like overplaying their hand I mean if you said stellantis they have the most inventory in the market right now like are they sitting in their boardroom like kind of chuckling like cool like let's take a 30 day break here get supply levels back down you just buy some time they're not under pressure like how do you view that well I I think they I think the UAW has some strong arguments behind what they're they're looking for uh in terms of of restitution of some uh of some pay and and benefits that were cut uh you know back in the great recession uh and essentially looking at uh lack of progress that they've experienced for for quite some time you you can argue that that they definitely had to have a reason uh to be holding holding out for more now deliberately choosing stellantis I don't know the details of the contract specifically uh with with stellantis and and why stellantis first but part of the reason why stellantis is so well supplied right now I think has been preparing for this deliberately uh being focused on having something to sell and knowing that they would most likely have a disruption come this fall stellantis was being conserved I mean they've had they've been what I would characterize relative to the market as over supplied all year long and they have not been super aggressive with incentives or financing deals or leasing or selling into fleet um they've done some of those things periodically but they've definitely been building up a war chest of inventory yeah to be able to leverage in this situation so it's it's two groups each with war chests each with in some cases someone argue existential reasons to be fighting and by the way one of those key reasons that both is worried about is electric vehicles because the user layer well the ua w is concerned that. unless they get concessions and agreements from the manufacturers uh that that future electrified plants will be unionized that some of those plants uh will not be unionized because uh building an electric vehicle is less work it's less complex it doesn't take as many uh workers you're working right up against companies like Tesla uh that are not unionized uh and and from that perspective um you know potentially have a have a cost advantage so you can you can see why both sides are very worried about it because if the future eventually becomes 80 percent 100 percent electrified then what is the ua w's role if none of those factories um
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so are you yeah i mean so let's say for a second right so uh strike happens you know we don't know how long it'll be but let's just say starts with stellantis you said people go flock to other brands are what are we going to seem q4 are we going to see inventory's decline prices start rising again or at least you know fewer discounts and rebates i would i would expect that to be the case in in a in aggregate um i certainly would would expect to see no no further progress on on the SAR um i would expect the SAR to you know have some of its lowest sales paces of the year for new new vehicle sales right just for people that don't know like SAR being the the amount of new new vehicles that are sold in a year pretty much yeah it's the it's the seasonally adjusted annualized rate for every month that essentially tells you this has kept that up for an entire year this is what your your pace would be and we are pacing right now what's the number year to date 15 for uh august was one of the slowest months uh since the very beginning of the year at 15 and what what was 2019 like 18 18 million or so uh 17 right on the dot 17 got it okay so we were at 18 8 13 8 22 what was 2021 uh it was it was a little bit higher i think it was 14 1 god so 13 8 was like the bottom at least for now yeah hopefully wow um a lot a lot of moving pieces
All right, so before we jump into state of the lending market a lot of requests for like lending and interest rates and stuff like that is very interesting a lot of people are you know really curious about that um but before we jump into that like give us something give us some favorite buys like where do you see deals right now i mean you have your figures on the pulse here um but like where where do you see deals for consumers like what's uh what cars right now would you recommend to a friend if they're like hey i'm looking at a good deal right now what is it well electric the best price for almost any brand um you know that has been offered and you're far more likely to see incentives um what's interesting the tax credit the IRA created a really big the way the IRS interpreted the rules in the IRA created a very big loophole that more vehicles are available to get the tax credit if they're leased um than not but it's at the discretion of the finance company doing the lease on whether or not they actually apply it and so far we're not seeing consistent evidence that all brands are aggressively pursuing that so i would be looking at leasing offers because we are seeing lease offers improve um and they tend uh that that tends to be a place that manufacturers will go first before they go to more cash on the hood or deliberately cutting prices um you know in in the marketplace um i think we're seeing more buying opportunities and more discounting um all summer long uh in the luxury market uh so i think you're in much a better shape if you're if you're a traditional luxury buyer to be looking at luxury and again uh i i would be looking at leasing first uh that's potentially a place uh where uh the manufacturers are getting getting more aggressive um you know i can also highlight where i wouldn't start looking if you're purely looking for a deal yeah i mean toyota is the the lease supplied and and year to date has been uh the least amount of of discounting that's out there but historically toyota has always been that way uh so if instead you look at it of by you're no longer paying a premium i'm actually hearing some individual toyota dealers tell me that for the first time in august they're they're uh paying they're selling vehicles closer to invoice uh then stick to yoda dealers yeah yeah wow so i what cars are those are we talking corollas or i think it was a broad mix uh across the board and um again if you think about the situation toyota finally has supply and if that's happening with toyota then what do you cascade down to the competing brands the right guess is if you're in the market for uh for a vehicle then right now before the strike potentially starts to change behavior is the first couple of weeks of september you know it's a lot of people tell the folks not to buy until the last week of the month but uh that's actually not true across the board in terms of of getting the best deal on a vehicle actually you can quite often get some of the best financing deals early in the month um so what why is that um i'm not i'm not certain why that's the case but what what i what i tend to see in the data is that people who buy in the first week of the month tend to be the people that are most um actually price sensitive looking for specific new programs that are coming out and they seem to pull the trigger so you disproportionately get people who are we're hunting for like specific programs and and uh financing deals as opposed to just uh negotiating interesting yeah yeah maybe it could be you know with the people getting paid or something and you know they're the more kind of budget-conscious people so they just got paid and they're going to use the money towards the vehicle we've definitely seen that on like you know people get paid Fridays and stuff you see an uptick of just you know consumer traffic on Fridays right people get paid yeah come just you know buy a car.
All right let's talk about um lending so what is the deal with lending right now um and just kind of walk us through if you can repossessions delinquencies right i did look at some Cox automotive data you know looks like we are from a delinquency or repossession perspective back to 2019 levels i want to say but i'll let you i'll let you kind of give us the delay of the land there yeah
so credit has is the market melting or are people overreacting the market is not melting i i i will definitely uh sort of call that out specifically if anything the market is simply normalizing in in some key metrics like defaults and repossessions and we're not even we're not even back to 2019 levels uh with with the those activities what is that number can you share that exact number with us sure um so the default rate for example and and that's that's what matters the most because a loan has to be in default before a repossession can happen um and we look at Equifax data uh every month uh to judge how auto loans are performing and uh year to date we've got a default rate in 2023 that is 2.5 percent and it was 2.9 percent uh last uh in 2019 uh last year it was 2.2 percent um up from an all-time low in 2021 of 2 percent so 2.5 percent of all auto loans in the market are in default and that's below 2019 levels of 2.9 percent okay got it
So, that's well, that's below 2019 which is decent but what about s&p global put out this data which was like percent of ABS loans 60 plus days delinquent um and they showed that we are at the highest rates since 09 we're actually higher than 09 it's at about five and a half percent roughly talk to us about that what is that
so that's that's been where we've seen more evidence of stress has been in delinquencies 30 and 60 day delinquencies on auto loans have been at record levels every month this year for the specific month there's strong seasonality in delinquencies uh people are are usually the furthest behind in January uh coming after the holidays. and pre-tax refunds and then when tax refunds hit delinquencies fall because people are using the tax refunds to catch up and then we start to see delinquencies rise again so we have been seeing delinquencies pick back up their piece of growth though slowed in the month of July and i'm anticipating in the month of august uh for for there to be less growth in uh severe delinquencies uh but from a total amount of people that are behind 30 to 60 days uh it is definitely at historic levels uh we've got data back to 2006 and it's the worst July uh compared to uh any July back to 2006 um so what we're not seeing happen is people are falling behind 30 or 60 days but they're not they're they're curing their situation
and that was gonna be my next question to you right like what are these loan extensions like that's a cheating like how can you just extend the loan like what is this explain this to me because i i did not come from this world right so i view this like so simplistically right alone. is delinquent how can you it's about to go into default how can you extend that or is that just the bank saying hey we don't want to take that we don't want to realize that loss yet or what's the deal
good well two two two things and it's actually key to understanding why this is actually a symptom of inflation versus a symptom of absolute distress that leads to further problems and credit uh really evaporating and in the auto market um usually delinquencies are high when people are losing their jobs people are not losing their jobs people uh we have i mean yes the unemployment rate ticked up in the month of august but it was because more people came into the labor force we've actually added a over four million more people to the payroll rolls uh since the pandemic and uh we've had historic you know beyond 50 year lows of uh the unemployment rate and most importantly for every unemployed person there's one and a half jobs available to them which is leading to above average wage growth so usually lenders are are worried when people are losing their jobs and you don't cure somebody who's 60 days behind uh and extend their loan or come up with a new payment plan uh for them uh in in circumstance when when they're not gain gainfully employed um so that's a key difference
The other difference is vehicle values as we were sharing vehicle values have not and will not go back to the levels that they were in 2019 um where we actually see uh loan vintages uh loan in the in the loan performance world people talk about vintages so it's it's based on what month was the loan created um well loan vintages for new vehicle loans there's not a single vintage yet that has uh above that has below average uh positive equity meaning every new loan that's been made uh has basically more equity in it than it normally does at this stage in its life and it's when though what type period are you talking about all time periods i'm talking all active vintages of of new loans um and bulling them.
Down to each other so people yeah so inflation pushed up values people obviously have more equity in their vehicles inflation pushed up values and people have put the most they've ever put as down payments on auto loans over the last three years so they started from an out of position as well so what does that actually mean like does that just mean that banks are okay with extending your loan because they know you have so much equity in that car and yes i believe in the cases that uh lenders are actually doing that but it it often also means that consumers can cure their own situation and sell the vehicle and you've got more dealers buying directly from consumers you had giving the vint on you know you've got all of these venues to potentially capture the equity uh in the vehicle uh that are that that's far easier for consumers so fundamentally i think that and being employed and having above average wages are causing consumers to sort of cure their situation either with the lender or or buy their own activities we do see problems with where there are our problems with loan vintages are used loans made in the second half of 2021 and virtually all of 2022 they have above average defaults uh they have below average equity in their vehicles because those people bought at the peak of used vehicle prices and have seen above average depreciation since then so that reduces the options that those consumers have either in the marketplace or with the lender.
Does that pose any systemic risk or is that just like some vintage that's going to get wiped out and do the rest of the history like i don't think it causes systemic risk because what we see with uh the asset back securities or the specific lenders is the rest of their portfolio is performing better than normal so even at an individual lender basis uh you're you're not likely to see defaults even kind of get back to to full normal levels it would take a recession it would take a scenario of people losing their jobs in the millions uh to really cause more more of a systemic issue
got it and moving forward from here right based on trend what do you see happening with delinquencies and repose for the next you know two to three quarters or at least two quarters what are you seeing there
well i'm hoping to see delinquencies no longer go up i'm expecting that because real wages have turned positive this summer meaning when you look at wage growth relative to inflation rate most households are now back to a scenario that at the end of the month they're getting ahead rather than falling behind and if so i would expect with prioritization for auto people don't want to lose their vehicles they know how expensive it is um you know to replace it especially if their credit gets dinged um i'm expecting delinquencies to improve or at a minimum not get worse and i'm not expecting defaults to in the year even back to 2019 levels but i'm expecting them to slowly move in that direction which means that yes we will continue to see more repossessions um each week each month because we're simply uh returning to normal uh default rates from a very low level of defaults plus by the way we have record number of loans uh outstanding so that alone even at the default rate was consistent you would you would see um more defaults happening and more repos happening purely as a function of the of the population
all right so i want to i want to kind of sum this up super simply right so first of all if if you're in the market for a car you said look for EVs because they're as from a deal perspective those are the best deals in the market right yes great and then use car outlook next three to six months what do you see there i think many people should continue to see lower prices on used vehicles so it's going to open up opportunities to buy if you're looking for a specific price point or a specific monthly payment where the action seems to be the most this year the part of the use car market that's been strongest are on certified pre-owned vehicles and those can be officially from manufacturers but i would say many dealers also offer their own certified program and in in many cases that's a super win for a consumer because even though the vehicles uh advertised price may be higher than a non-certified. unit when you factor in what you're getting with an extended warranty in many cases and with what is uh most of the time a much better interest rate you end up with a monthly payment that more than compensates for the you know higher price paid so it's a it's a win-win for the dealer and the consumer a lot
all right so so give us the rest of your takeaways like anything else that we missed right we spoke EVs we spoke Teslas we spoke strikes new car use car lending what am i missing
well i mean looking out the horizon you know we're constantly trying to figure out what's going to happen next week next month and the next five hours and i think the worst is behind us i'm increasingly optimistic that we'll avoid a recession for the economy i think the consumer remains resilient because of the labor market and i think we can thread the needle um and and make it through if so the vehicle market is past its worst point in every channel and our outlook has growth in every channel meaning every sales channel whether you're a franchise dealer an independent dealer looking at the used market versus new all of it has growth in the years ahead but i would argue it's a mixed story because when you look at it what we're going to take is five years to get us back to 2019 levels of transactions so competitively if you're a dealer in the marketplace it's actually going to be just as hard if not harder we're supply constrained unused vehicle inventory so a lot of dealers especially franchise dealers have enjoyed tremendous growth in the used market and the playing field is going to be a little bit more level between independent dealers and franchise dealers over the next several years unlike the environment we've had for the last five years that has decidedly favored franchise dealers at the expense of independent dealers
why do you think it's going to be a bit more level though because of the age of vehicles that are available to sell in the car park what we're missing are vehicles that are less than five years of age which is precisely what franchise dealers sell and what we have millions more of available you just need to get the consumers to sell them to you. or trade them in
our vehicles that are more than five years of age and so for franchises to even maintain their level of used retail sales they're going to have to sell older vehicles which is putting them in the domain of competing more directly with independence and I think some are going to choose to sell fewer used vehicles and they'll be happy because the new market is coming back for them and they're much more profitable than they have been there and they're seeing profits and other parts of their business but it's still going to be a rough road for independence
so using just independence or it's are going to are going to suffer the most no I think it again that inventory leveling out a little bit will help independence do better than they then they have because this is their this is their what it was it called their flywheel yeah they can operate and they they know best how to perform and there's no question that if you cater to a credit challenge consumer that's where there's pent up demand there's been an absence of people buying over the last two years that I think will increasingly come back into the market as we see interest rates come down and they will come down I'm not optimistic that we're going to see rates down three full percentage points from where we are today but I would be willing to bet within two years will be down at least two full percentage points and that can make a meaningful difference
uh uh do you think so what do you what do you have to say to the like the higher for longer camp right people think rates are going to be higher longer why do why do you think rates are going to come down well I think in terms of Fed policy I I you have to buy what they're selling right now and believe that they're going to remain high yeah I I think most most of what I'm seeing from macro economists is that the Fed probably won't start cutting until late next year and when they do they're probably going to cut rates by about two full percentage points but it'll probably be gradual like quarter a point every quarter or something like that so it'll take us one to two years to see those rates come down but use rates are a function of the bond market and the risk premium that lenders are charging in terms of their specific yield spread and actually yield spreads have outpaced what the Fed has done this year so we could see use loan rates come down half a percentage point or even more simply if the delinquency rates uh start to flatten out and and improve and if the economy turns the corner and there's less uncertainty there
okay starts with that kind of proof yeah because lenders are going to be willing they are often more willing to be more aggressive and they ought to market because the collateral is easier to retrieve and if we're proving the vehicle values have no more correction to them again that just reinforces their yeah it can be a little bit more risk-all mm-hmm yeah
um I love it Jonathan smoke this is great very insightful I think people are going to love it so any any last thoughts oh just keep it up guy you you've done the industry and consumers alike a service with this I enjoy listening to every single one of the podcasts there's always something I wear you have to tell us one secret do you have a twitter burner account yes or no a twitter burner account you're not active we don't see you active enough yeah I was you know sometimes you know do a little tweeting and this and that so I I do actually have two different accounts because I have to let my anger out but that's typically about it's typically about sports teams and not so much about the vehicle market fair enough listen if you would have said no I wouldn't believe you anyway so I love it all right um dude this was great thanks so much and I will talk soon all right hope you enjoyed that episode please give the podcast a rating consider subscribing to the show and check the show notes for links to what we talked about thanks for tuning in I'll see you guys next time