What auto and AI leaders posted, October 7. A used car price changes by $1,000 by ZIP code

Tuesday was about money that is near. Dealers count the price by area and the bill in service. Europe counts electric cars. People in AI ask who answers for the advice of a machine. Here is what dealers, auto analysts and AI people wrote and showed on X and YouTube in the last day. The news from the press is in the morning issue. I added my opinion to each post.

What dealers say#

The price of the same used car changes by $1,000 from one ZIP code to the next#

Car Dealership Guy shared research from J.D. Power. The same used car has a different price in different ZIP codes. The difference is from $100 to $1,000.

Jonathan Banks is the vice president of retail products at J.D. Power. He says the company takes sold-car data from 40% of franchise dealers, adds listing prices and uses AI. About 30% of the values change for the local market. In that group, about 40% change by more than a thousand dollars.

Banks says this also helps when a dealer buys cars. The dealer can pay more for one car. Another car can be a risk at the national price.

My opinion. The national average price is good for a report. But a dealer sells in a local area, and buys there too.

I would start with the trade-in. The salesperson sees the sticker price every day. Only one person sees the price that the store paid to the customer. A thousand dollars is lost there without a sound. Take the last ten trade-ins and compare them with the prices in your city, not in the country.

Post by Car Dealership Guy on X

Diehl wants an inspection video for 70% of cars and adds same-day service#

Matthew Whittenberger is the fixed ops director for more than 20 Diehl Automotive stores. On Daily Dealer Live he said that people gave him many more wins than a product or a process.

All service departments in the group have a hard rule. 70% of customers get a video of the car inspection. Whittenberger thinks the quality of the video is more important than the share. The group adds same-day express appointments and mobile service, and it wants longer hours.

His reason is simple. The customer wants it today. The customer does not want an appointment in five days.

My opinion. This is sales, but in the service lane. A customer writes that the suspension makes a noise. The answer is "the next slot is on Monday". The customer goes to a shop that can do it today.

I have my own number. 40% of customer contacts come outside working hours. Same-day service does not start with a car lift. It starts with the person who answers the customer at nine in the evening.

Post by Car Dealership Guy on X

Car repair in the US costs 60% more than in January 2019#

Car Dealership Guy gives data from CNBC, the St. Louis Federal Reserve and AAA. A routine or moderate repair now costs about $838. Technology is a big part of this. After a new windshield, the shop must calibrate the camera behind it. One calibration machine costs a shop about $28,000.

His conclusion is this. Complex repairs give work to dealers with the equipment and trained people. But the dealer must invest first.

My opinion. The customer does not know this. The customer remembers that the glass cost half of this, and sees a new bill. To the customer it looks like a markup.

The service advisor sells here in the same way as a salesperson in the showroom. One sentence before the work saves the talk after it. "There is a camera behind the glass. We calibrate it after the change. It is separate work, and this is the price." Say it before, and you get a yes. Say it in the bill, and you get a fight.

Post by Car Dealership Guy on X

At Strong Audi each technician goes to factory training two times a year#

Spencer Webb is the general manager of Strong Audi in Salt Lake City. Each technician in the store goes to factory training two times a year. Pay grows with each certification level. One of the technicians stayed for more than 45 years.

My opinion. Pay alone does not explain 45 years in one place. A person stays where each year brings more skill than the year before.

Almost nobody does this in sales. A salesperson gets training in the first month. After that the manager looks only at the plan. I would take the Webb system as it is. Clear steps, new pay on each step, and training that is in the schedule, not "when we have time".

Post by Car Dealership Guy on X

What carmakers and analysts say#

Electric cars took a third of the market in 12 countries of Europe#

Automotive News counted September in 12 large European markets. They make more than 83% of the sales in the region. Sales of battery-electric cars grew 62%. Their share came to 33%, and it was 22% a year ago. In nine months 2.3 million electric cars were sold. That is 42% more, and the share is 26% against 20%.

The publication gives two reasons. Fuel prices are higher, and there are new models that people can afford. Full data for all of Europe will come at the end of October.

My opinion. A third of the market is not a niche. Each third buyer comes with questions about charging, winter range and the price of the battery in five years.

A salesperson who answers "the brochure says this" loses each third deal. I would test it in one way. Ask each salesperson to explain in two minutes how much 100 kilometers cost in an electric car and in a gasoline car. If a person cannot do it, that person needs one training session this week.

Post by Automotive News on X

Chinese brands have about 12% of the market in Europe#

Automotive News writes that Chinese carmakers set a new share record in Europe almost each month for two years. In August it was about 12%.

Tariffs on electric cars from China only slowed the growth. The brands moved to plug-in hybrids. They build new plants in Europe, use idle plants and sign production deals with Nissan and Stellantis. More barriers can come. Some countries want tariffs on plug-in hybrids, and the UK can do the same. The EU discusses "Made in Europe" rules that can close incentives and government contracts for Chinese brands.

My opinion. You can see how fast they change direction. One type of car is blocked, so they bring a different one. Import is blocked, so they build a plant in the region.

The question "should a dealer take a Chinese brand" is old. The question now is "which brand and on what terms". I would look at three things. A parts warehouse in the country, the time of a warranty repair, and the resale value in three years. The buyer will learn about the design and the screens without help.

Post by Automotive News on X

Rivian set a quarter record, Tesla sold less but beat the forecast#

Car Dealership Guy gives the numbers of the third quarter. Rivian delivered 19,248 cars, and analysts expected 18,001. Tesla delivered 486,532 cars. A year ago it was 497,099. It beat the forecast by 29,636 cars with help from Europe.

The picture is not even. Cybertruck sales continue to fall. Analysts expect the R2 model, from $44,990, to bring growth to Rivian. The author's conclusion is this. Practical and affordable cars keep the demand, and the buyer is more careful now.

My opinion. The US removed the tax credit, and people still buy electric cars. So the buyer did not count the credit. The buyer counted the price and the fit with daily life.

Fashion sells an expensive and strange car. Fashion ends, and the Cybertruck shows it. A calculation sells a car for 45 thousand. A calculation is easier for a salesperson who can do it together with the customer.

Post by Car Dealership Guy on X

AI and sales#

95% of salespeople who only worked with inbound leads will not start to call#

Jason Lemkin, the founder of the SaaStr community, wrote about salespeople in software companies. 95% of people who only did inbound will not start outbound. This is true even when they miss the plan. And 95% of people who can do outbound will stop when inbound leads are enough for their pay.

Most salespeople want warm leads and renewals. A salesperson who does all of it exists, but is rare. If you want the team to do more, you must hire exactly these people.

My opinion. It is the same in a dealership. The salesperson waits for a customer on the floor and for a lead from the site. The database of past buyers stays closed.

Lemkin is right in the main point. A slogan does not change a person who does not call. I see two honest ways. Hire a separate person for outbound calls. Or give the first contact with the old database to AI, and give the salesperson the people who answered. The third way, "let us all make calls", does not work.

Post by Jason Lemkin on X

The best AI support agent resolved 70% of requests, the median one 48%#

Lemkin shared a test by Gorgias, a company that makes helpdesk software for online stores. Gorgias tested 13 AI agents on real stores. The best one fully resolved 70% of requests. The median result was 48%. The weakest was the AI that comes together with the helpdesk.

My opinion. The second number is more important than the first. The best agent and the median agent are 22 points apart. That is each fifth customer.

And look at the last line. The worst agent is the one that came free with the software. Dealers choose in this way. "Our CRM has AI, we will turn it on." Before that I would give it one hundred real requests from the store mailbox and count how many it closed alone. You can do this test in one day.

Post by Jason Lemkin on X

"I want to know what you suggest, not Claude"#

Dave Gerhardt, the founder of the marketing community Exit Five, came back to the joke from the day before and said it in a serious way. He does not want to know what Claude suggested. Claude has no skin in the game. There is no risk and nothing on the line. The employee has both, and that is the job. So he asks one thing. What do you suggest.

My opinion. I agree with each word. AI gives options. The decision belongs to the person who answers for the result.

A sales manager should say this to the team directly. Bring anything, count with AI, check with AI. But at the end say "I suggest this and I answer for it". If not, the meeting becomes a reading of machine answers.

Post by Dave Gerhardt on X

Mollick remembered the copier repair technicians#

Ethan Mollick, a professor at the Wharton School, answered people who say that AI will easily replace workers. He remembered a study of copier repair technicians in the 1990s. It showed that work is complicated, improvised, informal and badly documented. In brackets Mollick added that technology later removed most of this job.

My opinion. Both parts are true, and both are about sales. A good salesperson does not work from a script. This person hears a pause, changes the order and remembers the last talk. No rulebook has this.

That is why AI with only a script sells badly. And the job changes all the same. I would start now to write down what the strong salespeople do in a talk. Not the text of the standard, but the words they say to the customer.

Post by Ethan Mollick on X

In brief#

Jaguar showed the production Type 01. Sawyer Merritt gives the numbers. The price starts at $130,000, the range is 400 miles, the battery is 118 kWh, and the car has 1,015 HP and goes from 0 to 60 mph in 3.2 seconds. It is a four-seat electric car from Jaguar. The brand lived a year with no cars on sale, and now it must sell a car at two times the old price. X

Customers keep cars longer, and service becomes the main thing. Eric Frehsée, the president of Tamaroff Group, says that longer ownership made the group change its service technology, process and staff. Dealers sell fewer new cars, and the customer sees the technician more often than the salesperson. X

Mazda, Audi and Volkswagen pay for private offers from dealer databases. Aaron Baldwin of Mobility Global Sales Solutions explains that the goal is one price in the message from the carmaker, from the dealer and in the store. A customer who heard three prices does not believe any of them. X

Porsche will show investors a plan to 2035. The CEO Michael Leiters is nine months in the job. The plan has the name Sports Car Company ’35. Automotive News says that Porsche shares lost almost half of their value after the IPO in 2022. The bet is a smaller but more profitable company. X

Ford comes back to the World Rally Championship. Jim Farley wrote that a full factory team of Ford will start in 2028. The brand has 50 years of history in this championship. X

Tesla lets the car power the house. Merritt writes that new Model 3 and Model Y cars together with a Powerwall 3 home battery add more than two days of backup power. The battery of such a car equals almost six Powerwalls. A salesperson gets a new argument, the car as an energy reserve for the house. X

Ford won an appeal about the right of first refusal for a dealership. A Maryland court overturned a $5.8 million judgment against the company. The case was about a 2019 deal, Automotive News writes. X

Capital Automotive Group bought six dealerships. The group from Raleigh closed the deal with Larry Cloninger, who retires. It includes six stores and a collision center in North and South Carolina. X

There are fewer terrible AI incidents than people expected. Mollick writes that AI has a billion users and hundreds of millions of them are in companies, but bad stories are rare. He says that this may not continue. I would not read this as "no need to check". X

Lemkin's agent chose the hosting. He asked his AI agent where to move. The agent named Render and wrote "my pick". Lemkin says honestly that he never heard of this service before. A machine starts to recommend purchases, and software sellers must think how to get into its answer. X

Google released EmbeddingGemma 2. Sundar Pichai introduced an open model with 740 million parameters. It works with text, code, images, video and audio on the device. X

What else they showed#

These are headlines without analysis.

• Car Dealership Guy. The hidden reason car buying still feels broken, a talk with Aaron Baldwin
• Automotive News. Hyundai CEO José Muñoz on a $26 billion investment in the US, an EV record in Europe
• Automotive News. How the Jaguar Type 01 broke with the design tradition of the brand
• Autocar India. First look at the Jaguar Type 01
• Autocar India. The new Honda Elevate, 252 thousand views
• Autocar India. Tata Aeris review, 105 thousand views
• Automotive News. A guest column on Chinese carmakers and the US market
• Sawyer Merritt. Tesla Halloween mode, pedestrians on the screen are skeletons
• Jason Lemkin. A venture paradox, you pass on a deal and you are right
• Grant Cardone. How to turn a goal into an opportunity