October 7, 2024 • 49 mins
Host, Mike Chung and Todd Campau from S&P Global Mobility explore the immense potential of vehicle registration data. You'll uncover how this crucial information not only monitors industry performance but also aids government and insurance sectors in strategic decision-making. Todd shares his unique journey from working directly with manufacturers to providing invaluable data insights, emphasizing the importance of data quality and precision sourcing in driving actionable results.
Ever wondered how vehicle registration data evolved from the days of Henry Ford to today's sophisticated systems? We take you on a historical tour, illustrating how state registrations and manufacturer data are meticulously aggregated to ensure accuracy and privacy. Learn about the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) system and its pivotal role in decoding essential vehicle attributes for market trend analysis and vehicle recalls. We'll also dive into the challenges of data management across all 50 states and the burgeoning trends in alternative propulsion vehicles like EVs. Despite some hurdles, discover why EV sales have plateaued yet remain a critical area for industry focus.
In our final segment, we shift gears to predictive analytics and the aging vehicle market. Todd sheds light on why the average age of vehicles continues to climb and how economic conditions and consumer hesitancy towards new technologies like EVs contribute to this trend. We'll discuss the implications for the aftermarket, from part proliferation to managing diverse powertrains. Plus, Todd offers invaluable advice for recent graduates aiming to enter this fascinating field—curiosity and challenging the status quo are key. This episode is packed with insights that will transform how you think about the intersection of data and the automotive industry. Join us and stay ahead of the curve!
To learn more about the Auto Care Association visit autocare.org.
To learn more about our show and suggest future topics and guests, visit autocare.org/podcast
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Mike Chung (00:08):
Welcome to Auto Care ON AIR, a candid podcast for a
curious industry.
I'm Mike Chung, Senior Directorof Market Intelligence at the
Auto Care Association, and thisis Indicators, where we identify
and explore data that will helpyou monitor and forecast
industry performance.
This includes global economicdata, industry indicators and
new data that will help youmonitor and forecast industry
performance.
(00:28):
This includes global economicdata, industry indicators and
new data sources.
I'm Mike Chung.
I head up market intelligenceat Auto Care Association and I'm
very happy to introduce myguest for today, Todd Campau of
S&P Global Mobility.
Hello, Todd.
Hey, Mike, thanks again formaking the time to be with us
(00:49):
and tell us a little bit aboutyour company and what you do
there.
Todd Campau (00:54):
So S&P Global Mobility.
Many people in this industryknow us probably by our legacy
names RL Polk is what we used tobe known as, and then over the
years we've changed brands manytimes.
But we provide vehicle andoperation data and other metrics
around the vehicles to thisindustry to help the channel
(01:18):
better understand what vehiclesto target and things that might
be opportunities that are cominginto the space.
I am responsible for theaftermarket in the Americas.
My title, I guess, is associatedirector of aftermarket
solutions, so we build a lot ofsolutions for the marketplace
and we're always interested tohear ways we can better help.
Mike Chung (01:40):
Oh, that's that's.
That's really helpful.
And for, as you mentioned, alot of our listeners are within
the aftermarket and they'refamiliar with the Auto Care
Association Factbook, to whichyou contribute registration data
, adoption of alternativepropulsion vehicles, age,
(02:01):
necessarily in the automotiveaftermarket space.
And, as we've talked about,what we like to do in this
particular podcast is talk aboutdata considerations for
analysis, because we're in thisday and age of big data, of
(02:21):
using algorithms, machinelearning, artificial
intelligence.
I think we have a lot ofinteresting things we can talk
about when we consider thesedata and how it can be used for
operational and strategicanalysis.
So tell us a little bit about,kind of your background, how you
landed in S&P Global, perhaps.
Todd Campau (02:36):
Well, that's an interesting longitudinal story,
kind of.
I been in uh the industry nowfor 21 years, almost 22 years
and I started at um cleaviteengine parts at the time, which
is now part of mala aftermarketum, and that was in 2003, I
(02:56):
believe.
Uh, I worked on the manufacturerside for the first 11 years of
my career and then the past fewyears I guess the past 11 years
now almost I've been at uh SMPglobal, helping more than just,
obviously, just one organizationand so, uh, that's really what
attracted me to this role,that's how I landed in this role
(03:17):
was some of the things I wasdoing with data um.
Having the opportunity to lookat it in the context of other
organizations was attractive tome and, you know, even at that
point I had been in the industryfor a while, so I had a lot of
colleagues and contactsthroughout the industry.
So when the opportunity aroseat IHS at the time I had a few
(03:46):
colleagues who thought I'd be agood fit and they kind of
connected me with theorganization and I had some
friends and folks that I hadknown for years that were
working there.
So I kind of discussed theopportunity with them and the
chance to work with at the time.
It was Mark Sang, who everybodyin this industry knows, and
(04:10):
Brian Funke were two of thepeople that were there that I
looked forward to theopportunity to go work on
product with them.
Mike Chung (04:13):
So that's kind of how I fell into this role.
Gotcha, thanks for sharing that.
And S&P Global Mobility.
You have clients acrossdifferent organization types,
right?
I would imagine you haveprivate clients.
You have a lot of clients inthe automotive aftermarket that
may be public or privately held.
I would imagine that you alsoprovide solutions and insights
(04:34):
to governments and otherorganizations.
Is that fair to say?
Todd Campau (04:38):
Yeah, that's one of the real interesting things of
this role is we serve at S&PGlobal Mobility as a whole.
We serve all kinds of customersacross all kinds of channels.
My channel really sitseverywhere but the OE, so
government and insurance,aftermarket, infrastructure
(05:00):
investments.
It's a smorgasbord ofopportunities, of new businesses
that we partner with here inEurope.
Mike Chung (05:09):
Right, and that's helpful, and I think later on
we'll discuss the differenttypes of analyses you're asked
to do at a high level, ifnothing else.
But in terms of the data, I'dlike to dive into that a little
bit because, as a purveyor ofdata, as an analyst of data and
(05:30):
insightful solutions, I thinkthere will be a lot of things
that our listeners can take away.
So, when I think about the factbook, I see data in there like
registration data, theirregistration data.
So, for those of you who maynot be familiar, how many
vehicles are on the road in theUnited States, and by vehicle
type, whether it is lightvehicles, commercial trucks and
(05:54):
this is the type of data thatcan be very helpful for people
in the industry, investors thatare looking to get into the
industry.
And it also invites us tell memore, right, because some people
may come to you and say, well,I'd like to know a little bit
more.
Can you go a little moregranular for me?
So I want to talk a little bitabout the origins of the data.
(06:17):
If you can, todd, tell me alittle bit about how you're
sourcing data, the things thatyou look for from a quality
perspective, and we'll startthere.
Todd Campau (06:28):
Sure.
So really, that is probably oneof the stories that we don't
tell enough anymore, becausewe've been in this business in
the aftermarket, for long beforeI was ever with the company, I
mean 20, 30 years, probably more.
We've been doing vehicles inoperation, for the story is, you
know, basically a hundred yearsago they started doing this to
(06:50):
settle an argument between HenryFord and Sloan who was running
GM, I believe it was as to whowas selling and registering more
vehicles, and so we've beendoing this for a very long time,
but we have honed this processyear in and year out over the
decades, and we do getregistration data from the
States, but that's not the onlysource we get data from, and so
(07:13):
one of the things we really doreally well that we probably
don't talk about enough is thatwe're a data aggregator, really,
when you think about the rolewe're playing, and so the data
that sits under our vehicles andoperation products sits under
several other products in ourorganization too new vehicle
registrations, used vehicleregistrations.
We have a VIN decoder, a plateto VIN, and all these data
(07:38):
sources come from the samewellhead, if you will.
The same wellhead, if you will.
And so to get to your questionabout data quality.
We believe that we've focusedfor many years on data quality.
We believe that in a lot ofways we are an indicator to the
(08:00):
state when they have a problemwith their data, because we
track the records coming inboundso closely that if we see a big
change in registration thatseems out of the norm, we go
back to states on.
You know, I wouldn't say it's aregular basis, but there are
occurrences throughout the yearwhere we go back to states and
say, hey, we think you'remissing some registrations for
this or that vehicle type.
Because we've been tracking itso long, we can see those trends
(08:23):
.
We also have relationships withthe manufacturers, so it's not
just registration data.
We're understanding the newsales that they say they're
selling into the marketplace.
We proactively understand thevehicles that they're going to
put in the marketplace with highlevel of coding, and that
becomes the foundation for allof our data.
Now, one of the questions we doget sometimes is you know, how
(08:46):
are you able to get that dataand how are you able to use that
data?
Now, we do have a lot ofcovenants with this.
Each state has its own covenantand we're very cautious about
personally identifiableinformation, or PII, but we also
are one of the trusted partnersthat do recall.
So we do keep that data andkeep all those vehicles garaged
(09:07):
in the right place so that if weneed to assist with a recall
that NHTSA requires themanufacturers to do, we're one
of the partners who can assistwith building those lists and
making sure those recalls happen.
Mike Chung (09:20):
Oh, that's fascinating, and I a hundred
years, that's amazing.
Oh, that's fascinating and I ahundred years, that's amazing.
And then to your point aboutkind of those firewalls, so that
it makes me think about banking, for instance, where there are
certain firewalls and protocolsin place to make sure that the
data is used appropriately, andthe fact that you're able to be
(09:42):
have that access in the case ofa recall is very valuable.
Todd Campau (09:46):
Absolutely, and that makes our data stronger
because we have to keep itaccurate for that and that
tracks all the way through toour vehicles and operation
product.
We really view it as a censusof the vehicles that are on the
road.
Sure, and that's the way weconnect it.
For a lot of people outsidethis industry is it's really a
vehicle census, vehicles,vehicles in operation?
It's almost synonymous with anyother census you could think of
(10:11):
, and so we can do a lot of thethings that you would look to do
with a census how old are thevehicles, what's the composition
, where are they at?
And so that's kind of theapproach we take with the
specific VIO product.
Mike Chung (10:20):
And if I think about it from a slicing and dicing,
drilling down perspective, thereare a number of variables that
you could sort the data on, andI'm just thinking about that 50
states mapping thingsappropriately, and then that
could be perhaps counterbalancedby vehicle manufacturers.
(10:42):
There's probably some sort ofnomenclature that is used.
Can you talk to that a littlebit?
Todd Campau (10:47):
Yeah, so we work with the manufacturers exactly
on that the nomenclature, theNHTSA VIN the Highway
Transportation Administrationdefined the VIN in 1981.
And that's kind of what we workwith the manufacturers around
is understanding the VINpatterns.
We sometimes call it for thevehicles they is.
Understanding the the vinpatterns we sometimes call it
for the vehicles they're goingto release and we have
(11:08):
relationships with virtually allthe manufacturers who sell
vehicles into north america tounderstand what they're going to
be bringing in and what theylook like so that when we see it
come in.
Another side note is most ofthe DMVs use our VIN decoding
capability in their registration.
You know if you go in and tryand register a vehicle they're
(11:32):
pinging the attributes of thevehicle against our VIN decoder
to understand that it's astation wagon or a sport utility
vehicle or whatever that is.
Mike Chung (11:40):
I see, and so there's a designated
nomenclature and the letters andnumbers in the VIN correspond
to things like make, model year,vehicle type.
Does it have things like Idon't know color or other
attributes like that?
Todd Campau (11:58):
A lot of that.
You have to get into the fullVIN and have what's called the
build sheet, and we're doing alot of work around getting VIN
specific information that we canbring to the marketplace.
But most of that, some of that,let's say, requires a build
sheet.
But the VIN does define yearmodel, which is a unique thing
to North America, but thatactually is in the VIN the year
(12:20):
model of the vehicle where itwas manufactured.
If it was a domestic or animport, there's a country code
characteristic.
There there's actually someability to identify the facility
that built the vehicle as well.
So if it was built in Kansas orDearborn or somewhere else and
that could help with the recall,absolutely Right.
(12:40):
And then it does get into someengine information.
It doesn't.
The base of the VIN doesn'ttell you the color.
The one thing missing and weget this question a lot that I
think should be in the VIN, thatwasn't, and you know if we
(13:01):
could go back 40 plus yearsmaybe we could change it is
transmission.
The VIN will not tell youwithout the full 17it VIN if
it's an automatic or a manual.
Now that's gotten lessimportant over the years here in
the United States becausealmost all the vehicles are
automatic, but that is one thingwe can't tell without the full
VIN.
Mike Chung (13:15):
And you mentioned engine type.
How about propulsion?
Because some of the stats welook at with you is adoption of
battery electric vehicles,hybrid electric vehicles, fuel
cell and so forth.
Todd Campau (13:26):
Yeah, so that's in there as part of that.
I guess engine in air quotes isunderstanding what the
propulsion system is and whatthe fuel type is.
Mike Chung (13:35):
So, when you take all of this data, this having a
uniform identification systemand knowing what all the fields
stand for certainly just pavesthe way for accurate, meaningful
analysis yeah, it's really thefoundation we think of.
Todd Campau (13:52):
Everything is to be able to accurately identify
those vehicles, and we havewhole teams dedicated to it.
I I'm just a consumer of it,but we have whole internal teams
that track this day-to-day,week-to-week for years.
Mike Chung (14:09):
So thinking about, this system has been in place
for 40 plus years, as you'redescribing it.
What might the future hold interms of could this then be
expanded?
What additional attributes canbe added?
How much flexibility is there?
Because I'm thinking about if,as new technology is introduced,
(14:30):
can that be coded into the,then can we talk about
propulsion systems.
Can you just kind of in your,in your crystal ball, tell us
what we might expect to see, foryou know, this type of data in
the coming decade or so?
Todd Campau (14:44):
sure.
So to my knowledge, nhtsa hasnot had any plans to make
changes to the actual VINstandard.
Um, you know, it's the big newswhen it comes to regulations is
the question of the OBD2 port.
Really nobody even talks aboutthe VIN right now.
Um, so that's one of thereasons we're starting to focus
(15:07):
on vin specific and some of ouradditional tools are our vin
decoding tool and we're tryingto find ways to drive that to
vio.
We're working on a new, some newproducts around the technology
going in the vehicle and thisthat's part and parcel of it,
like being able to tellorganizations you know what
vehicle had had I don't knowblind spot monitoring or lane
(15:31):
keeping or adaptive cruise.
Those are all things that arestarting to be interesting,
especially as organizations inour channel start to figure out
what where they should play arole in the evolving vehicle.
And so we're not leaning onNHTSA to add to the VIN to help
us understand that.
We're actually working to buildthat metadata out around the
(15:53):
vehicle ourselves, working withindustry partners, manufacturers
, everybody, because we reallythink it helps the overall
industry when it comes tomaintaining that vehicle and
making sure it's safe and ingood operating order and also,
ideally, producing as fewemissions as possible.
(16:13):
Obviously too, and so we thinkall those new technologies that
are coming in are hugelyimportant, but we don't think
that we can wait on NHTSA todefine a coding standard, right,
right, so we're doing itourselves.
Mike Chung (16:27):
And if I can just go back to one other thing that
kind of crosses my mind,registration data from the
states, I mean at a high level.
Is it pretty similar in termsof the format that it's coming
to you?
Todd Campau (16:40):
No, no, each state is unique, and it seems almost
every year that there is a stategoing through a rewrite of
their process, and so the datateams that I mentioned.
And again, just full disclosure.
I feel almost no pain from thismyself, I just hear about it,
(17:01):
but we have team members on ourvehicle coding team and on our
data acquisitions team that aremonitoring this and seeing this,
and you know they're knee deepin it Anytime a state does a
rewrite to make sure we're stillgetting the data we need and
that everything's getting codedappropriately.
That's one of the reasons.
Early on in the podcast I wasalluding to the fact that
sometimes, even the statessometimes believe that we have
(17:26):
better, cleaner data than theyprobably have because we're
putting it through this cleaningprocess across all 50 states.
Mike Chung (17:35):
Right and I guess it sounds like all of the back end
work.
There's a lot of that going onthat your teams are going
through.
Do you hear about any bestpractices or recommendations
that they would make to statesthat way?
Todd Campau (17:51):
I think if states are willing, they certainly are
willing to try to help withthose things.
It does help.
Like I said, we have VINdecoders embedded in most of the
states too, so it's kind ofhelping us keep the data clean
on the inbound side as much aspossible, um, and so there are
teams that are working.
We have, obviously we have anactive government affairs team
(18:12):
that works with federal andstate governments, um, and as
much as possible we'll partnerwith them and just you know,
really the best practices aremaking sure you're not manually
keying things in.
You know, obviously make,obviously make it menu driven,
make it Vindicator driven, soyou're getting consistent data
Right.
But obviously the systems thatthey choose to implement,
(18:37):
hopefully in this day and age,are doing a lot of those things
for them already.
Mike Chung (18:40):
Right and I would imagine, from state to state the
systems they have, there may besome legacy considerations and
your group is able to have aprocess to kind of systematize
everything, so kind of movingfrom the data collection, if you
will.
I see you on stage, I see yougive presentations on trends.
Maybe we can turn for a littlebit to trends that you're seeing
(19:04):
in the aftermarket.
And there are of course, somany that we can talk about.
But one is something Imentioned earlier alternative
propulsion, vehicle adoption,and you and I have talked a bit
about battery, electric vehicles.
We talked a little bit aboutpolicy, talked a little bit
about hydrogen.
Is there anything that kind ofcomes top of mind that's kind of
interesting to you that youthink our listeners might kind
(19:25):
of find interesting here interms of what you're seeing
recently?
Todd Campau (19:29):
Yeah, well, I think it's been really interesting
the past year, I would say, towatch the news cycle.
You know, I've spoke on EVs fora lot of years at Apex now and
some of the listeners maybe havesuffered through those
conversations and some of thelisteners maybe have suffered
through those conversations.
But I think it was interestingto see the way the new cycle
(19:51):
changed so so negative, soquickly.
Really, when electric vehiclesales are not they've been down
over prior months occasionally,but really they've plateaued.
But if you read the new cycleyou're like, oh my gosh, nobody
wants an electric vehicle,they're not selling.
Like, what's happening?
The sky is falling, sky is notfalling.
You know I've been telegraphingfor a long time that I thought
(20:12):
it would be there would bechallenges to EV adoption.
Yeah, you know, a long timeI've I've even come out and said
that I thought that we as S&PGlobal are somewhat aggressive
occasionally in our projectionsbecause we were basing them on
what we were seeing.
Manufacturers say that you knowthey were going to be electric
(20:34):
by this year or that year.
Um, but it still goes back to.
You know, years ago my originalposition was it's really hard
to push something to grow fasterthan it wants to grow
organically, and I think we'rekind of dealing with that with
EVs.
We've had a lot of earlyadopters that have jumped in.
Um, and they were.
They want EVs to be successful,whether they just like them,
(20:57):
whether they're a part of the EVeconomy, you know, whatever it
might be, whether they're greenand they want to make sure they
think this is the green solution.
A lot of the early adoptersjumped right on, and now getting
that next wave of adopters wasalways going to be a challenge.
I think we're dealing with that.
Obviously there's economicconsiderations.
Right now, too, prices ofvehicles are high for ICE
(21:19):
vehicles, and then EVs are evenhigher.
Vehicles are high for ICEvehicles, and then EVs are even
higher.
You know, podcast number threeon Auto Care On Air, I think,
was one where Stacy was talkingabout EVs, and there was a lot
of good stuff in there.
(21:44):
So I think the story, though,for the aftermarket, as I'm
thinking towards this year'sround of presentations, is what
is this going to do to partproliferation?
Because you are seeing more evson the road, if you're, if
you're looking at the roadsyou're driving, you're seeing
more, most likely, than you dida year ago.
The volume in vio is growingslowly.
New vehicle sales are prettystable, similar to where they
were last year probably, and soyou're going to see more of them
.
The one fascinating thing abouta vehicle fleet of 286 Sales
are pretty stable, similar towhere they were last year
probably, and so you're going tosee more of them.
The one fascinating thing abouta vehicle fleet of 286 plus
(22:07):
million is how long it takeschange to happen, and I think
we're dealing with that with EVs.
For the aftermarket, though,what concerns me, what I see as
an opportunity, let's say,rather than a concern, is there
could be a future where there'sseveral million EVs, several
million ICE, several millionhybrid.
(22:38):
When you start to think aboutpart proliferation, I think
that's where the aftermarket.
You know, we've talked aboutpart proliferation since I've
been in this industry, and Ithink we need to go to the next
level on being efficient,because now you're talking about
four or five powertrains thatyou could be having to know how
to service, having to carryparts, for there will be,
hopefully there will be, someconsistency across some of the
part types, but these are verydifferent propulsion types when
(23:01):
you get into plug-in hybrid,hybrid, electric, diesel, gas
and maybe hydrogen we talked alittle bit about that earlier
today, you and I.
If hydrogen comes in, that'syet another one, and our shops
are going to be asked tomaintain all of them.
So for me, that's what I'mlooking at when I look forward
(23:21):
is what does that mean to theindustry and how do we mitigate
that from being a challenge tobeing an opportunity?
Mike Chung (23:29):
Fascinating and you touched on something interesting
there.
Hydrogen Seems like a promisingtechnology, but it could be an
infrastructure issue as well inthe uh the maintenance and
repair ramifications.
Todd Campau (23:44):
but tell us a little bit about your thoughts
regarding infrastructure,whether for battery, electric,
for hydrogen or otherwise sothey all kind of have a similar
challenge, outside of, obviously, gas and diesel, which we've
been doing again a hundred years.
Um, I think the infrastructureis, any way you slice it, it's.
(24:06):
It's not an easy picture, rightCause if you need to build
hydrogen, you want to buildgreen hydrogen, and that takes
time and a lot of money.
If you want to build a EVinfrastructure, that's also a
lot of money, a lot of time anda lot of power generation.
That we don't have right now ona grid that is already not
(24:29):
necessarily been modernizedenough as it is.
Let's say, it was not that longago.
I remember when the EasternSeaboard had a brownout in
probably 2007 or 2008.
Mike Chung (24:44):
Sounds about right.
Todd Campau (24:47):
If we put millions more EVs on, does that start to
happen more frequently?
That's a serious considerationfor EVs, but we know hydrogen is
also not easy and not cheapright now.
So I've been interested towatch the policy over the past
year or so, even with theinflation reduction act is
probably the most recent one, uh, in that it was more agnostic
(25:09):
than maybe it was even reportedon, because it basically had
carve outs for hydrogen, forelectric, for e-fuels basically
anything that was zero or nearzero emissions fuels basically
anything that was zero or nearzero emissions.
So I think we may see a lot ofpaths run down to try to make
our fleet greener.
All of them have that drawback,though, of how do you
(25:32):
distribute the power, how do youstore the power and how do you
change over a fleet of 288million vehicles or 86 million
vehicles.
One of the guys I like to followon LinkedIn is Arne Franz.
He's the CEO of Amala, and Ithink even before I was on that
bandwagon, he was on thebandwagon of the fact that it's
(25:58):
going to take diversity inpropulsion types to get the
fleet to a position of beinggreen as fast as possible, and I
think he's totally right.
So we need to continueexploring new fuels.
We need to wrestle withhydrogen power generation and
vehicles.
We need some electric vehiclesfor some use cases.
Especially here in the US We'vegot a lot of different use
cases.
Electric vehicle doesn't workfor all of them right now use
(26:22):
cases.
Mike Chung (26:22):
Sure, electric vehicle doesn't work for all of
them right now.
As you're talking, it made methink of some of the stats that
you come to in stagepresentations like Apex, and
having to do with the CAFEstandard.
Right, and not to necessarilyget into a lot of political
discussion, but you mentionedpolicy and tell us your thoughts
regarding the cafe standard,perhaps the efficiency of just
(26:46):
setting a standard and lettingthe market come to its own
solution.
Todd Campau (26:50):
Yeah, I'm actually a big proponent of that.
I do think there's a rolegovernment needs to play because
there are levers the governmentcan pull to try to help
problems like infrastructure beaddressed more rapidly.
But I think it has to beagnostic because otherwise need
(27:36):
to let.
The way I say it is let smartpeople be smart and do what they
.
Just tell them what you wantand let them.
The government does have ahistory of setting aspirational
standards and then moving thegoalposts when it's clear we're
not going to meet them.
You know the 54 and a half mileper gallon.
Trump did kill that when he wasone of the first things he did
(27:58):
when he came into office in 2016.
The goal was to be a 54 and ahalf by I believe it was 2025
and he killed that, for that'sthe new vehicle corporate annual
fuel economy standard and hekilled that at that point and I
was like it kind of was a mercykilling because we weren't going
to make it, the manufacturerswere not going to get there.
(28:20):
But that's kind of the role ofgovernment too.
Like I think if they'reenabling all technologies to
green our fleet, then that'sgreat, and if they're setting
aspirational goals, that's fine,but realism does end up, you
know, winning the day in the end.
When, when it's clear we're notgoing to make something, uh, we
(28:42):
adjust.
So I think that they're playinga good role.
I don't always agree with allthe ways they do it, and that's
fine, but there's definitely arole for them to play and, um,
you know, setting aspirationaltargets.
Mike Chung (28:55):
Right, and I think I like the idea of not
necessarily getting tunneledinto one mandated solution,
because I think sometimes youget unintended consequences or
you learn the limits of aparticulars or cobalt, graphite
and so forth for batteries, andthen that becomes quite
(29:24):
complicated from a sourcingperspective and a policy
perspective Right.
Todd Campau (29:29):
Yeah, and again referencing back to episode
three of auto care on air, Ithink the conversation was great
around the fact that, also whenit comes to lithium, a great
majority of the lithiumcurrently being mined is
controlled by China, and soyou're right, I try not to make
it a political discussion, butgeopolitics does come into play,
(29:52):
I mean, and so that'sdefinitely consideration too
when you're talking aboutneeding lots and lots of
material that maybe a governmentthat you don't trust as much as
you would hope has majorcontrol of Right.
Mark Bogdanski (30:07):
Hi, I'm Mark Bogdanski, vice President of
Trade Shows and CommunityEngagement at the Auto Care
Association, and I'm thrilled toinvite you to join me in Las
Vegas at Apex, the Aftermarket'spremiere show, this November
5th to the 7th.
I guarantee you will have anamazing week full of unmatched
networking opportunities, accessto unparalleled educational
(30:28):
sessions, including our enhancedEV stage, our new ADOS and
sustainability stages, and ourAftermarket shop training.
You'll also see a show floorwith over 2,700 companies
featuring the latest products,services and experiences.
This truly is the aftermarket'shomecoming and you do not want
to miss it.
Register now at apexshowcom andI hope to see you there.
Mike Chung (30:53):
And shifting gears here a little bit.
One of the other stats we watchis average each vehicle's
scrappage rate, and I don't knowhow much you're able to comment
on trends that you're seeing ineither of these avenues, but
can you comment on what you mayexpect to see with regard to
average age of vehicles in theyears to come?
Todd Campau (31:14):
So I think average age is.
I do expect it's going to keepclimbing but it's going to slow
down again at a slower rate thanit has over the past few years.
I do think we're going to seesome softer new vehicle sales
years still for probably thenext four or five, maybe more,
and that always contributes toaverage age growth.
(31:35):
But really, for me, the storyin the average age it's an
interesting metric that cuts,catches people its attention,
but it really is.
When you dive into thedistribution of vehicles, um,
and just the fact that vehiclesare being in active service
longer, um, we're pushing.
(31:55):
We're not quite there, but 16plus year old vehicles are
pushing towards 100 hundredmillion, like when you think
about that, that's a lot ofvehicles that are over 16 out of
the 286 million.
It's like 85 to 90.
It's a lot and we expect it tocontinue to grow a little bit
through the rest of the 2020s,but it could reach pretty close
to a hundred million by 2030.
Mike Chung (32:17):
Incredible Because some of the trends presentations
I gave that four to 11 yearsweet spot, if you will those
have grown robustly from a fiveyear CAGR standpoint over the
past few years.
So we've been enjoying, if youwill, this sort of golden period
where that sweet spot four to11 years has been growing
robustly and the zero to threeyears has shrunk a little bit,
(32:41):
partly due to pandemic related.
So it'll be interesting to seethat the vehicles move from age
bracket to age bracket,absolutely.
Todd Campau (32:50):
It really is.
You know, that's one of thethings I talked earlier about,
the fact that this really is avehicle census, and so you
follow those bubbles, kind oflike you do on a census.
You follow those bubbles of lowsales years and high sales
years and you watch the impactover time.
And then my hope is thatorganizations in this space
(33:12):
especially are taking advantageof that and understanding the
ways to adjust their mixes basedon those changes over time.
But I do think you know we'vebeen saying the sweet spot is
that four to 11 range.
There's either, I think,potential for either a secondary
sweet spot or just a longersweet spot, but the key is the
(33:33):
mix is not always going to bethe same.
Mike Chung (33:34):
Right, yeah, and, as you're saying, perhaps
lengthening that four to 11,because if well over a third of
our vehicles are going to be 16plus and people are relying on
them for day-to-daytransportation, that could be a
considerable boon, if you will,for the aftermarket and
especially as vehicle qualityincreases over time and driving
(33:57):
patterns have perhaps changedfrom household to household,
those could be things to watchfor.
Todd Campau (34:01):
Well, yeah, when you think about quality changes
over time, the vehicles that arenow pushing past 16, 18, 20 are
those early 2000 vehicles, andif I were to point to a time
where overall quality wasprobably starting to increase,
that's probably when it wasstarting to increase the most.
You know, the nineties were notnecessarily a decade where all
(34:23):
the manufacturers were doingwell on quality, but I think the
early 2000s as a whole theywere starting to get that
quality picture together a lotbetter than they had
historically, and so I thinkwe're seeing some of that.
But then there's also, I thinkthere's a huge socioeconomic
portion to this too, as vehicleprices continue to increase,
(34:43):
residual value continues to stayhigh and vehicles are
maintaining value a lot longerbecause there are households
that have to keep those vehicleson the road and we're going to
see opportunities to keeprepairing those over time.
Mike Chung (35:00):
Right.
And when we consider theeconomic climate, whether it's
disposable income gains beingcountered by inflation, vehicle
insurance increasingsignificantly over the past
several years, price of gasolinehas a mind of its own, and then
cost of vehicle and especiallyif you're a distressed consumer
(35:24):
with lower credit, your loanrate is going to be considerably
higher.
We do see data for that andinterest rates are fairly high
right now.
That and interest rates arefairly high right now.
So what you're saying makessense in terms of people holding
on their vehicles longer,maintaining them longer, average
age pushing up residual value,staying high.
Todd Campau (35:43):
Yeah, and I think the one other factor I think
you've summarized it really well, but the one other factor is
alternative propulsion.
Mike Chung (35:53):
Tell me more.
Todd Campau (35:53):
I think there's also a cohort of people that may
want to get into electricvehicles, but they just haven't
believed yet in the technology.
You know that the market'sready yet.
We do surveys each year andthat's one of the things that
we're tracking is do you thinkthe market's ready, are you
willing to buy an EV?
Yet?
And the metrics kind of it'scome down the past few years,
(36:15):
but it's still relatively youknow it's it's above half the
population definitelyconsidering buying an ev.
But I think a lot of thoseconsumers right now are like oh,
you know, they're hearing thenews cycle now and they're like
I don't want to buy.
I'd like to buy an ev, but Idon't feel comfortable buying it
now, but I'm not going to buyanything else, I'm going to wait
and see, sure.
(36:36):
And so I think you have thatfactor too of wait and see.
And now you're hearingobviously there's more noise
around hydrogen, plug-in hybrids, hybrids, lots of things that
are creating that curiosity asto where the what the future is
going to look like, and so Ithink some consumers are staying
(37:00):
on the sideline.
But again, going back to thisbeing a census of all the
vehicles on the road for all thehouseholds in the US, north
America.
We could expand it to Canada,mexico too, if we wanted to.
There's a ripple effect If thatfirst owner that typically is
buying a new car keeps theirvehicle that's one less used
vehicle for the used vehiclebuyer not to buy, and it, you
know, in a vehicle populationwhere vehicles probably are held
(37:25):
by four or five peoplethroughout the vehicle's
lifetime, we're elongating thatperiod too.
And so, you know, I think it iskind of a perfect storm right
now.
And this goes back to youraverage age questioning, and I
think that is driving averageage up as well.
All the factors you mentioned,um, one of the questions and
this is just a freebie, I toldyou we'd go off script at least
(37:46):
once, um, but one of the thingsthat, um, I often get asked is
do you think average age has?
Is it always just going to goup?
It's gone up forever, seemingly.
Will it continue to always goup?
And I think the answer isprobably no.
Uh, I can't put my finger onwhen it's going to happen,
because obviously I think weneed to get into a place where
(38:10):
there's more clarity about whatthe future of the vehicle
population looks like, but Ithink at that time, I think
there's a lot of people on thesidelines.
If interest rates come down,you know.
If EV infrastructure grows, youknow.
If something comes out of leftfield like solid state, you know
that's the big news.
If solid state comes andeverybody wants EVs, then I
(38:31):
think we could see the plateauof average age actually start to
come down.
I think there's potential forit, but right now we're in the
perfect storm of not seeingdecrease.
We'd almost need the perfectclarity, so to speak, to see it.
Mike Chung (38:48):
I think so are there any other indicators, as we
kind of start wrapping things uphere, that you're kind of
keeping an eye on as youconsider consumer trends, the
vehicle census, trends thatperhaps our listeners might be
interested in hearing?
Todd Campau (39:05):
I think we've been trying to think through a lot
more about the overall pictureof vehicles For this channel.
We've been telling for yearswhat are the vehicles, how old
are they, what are theircharacteristics?
We have introduced VehicleMiles Traveled product which
we've talked about in the pastas well, you and I where we're
(39:28):
trying to give visibility intowhere the odometers are on the
vehicles as a statisticalindicator of not only age in
years, but age in use and alsohow frequently vehicles are
being driven.
So an annual mileage numberthat's just the tip of the
iceberg we want to begin to getinto.
How are vehicles failing?
(39:48):
When are they failing?
Where are they failing?
So that you can then extend itinto being more predictive about
opportunities that are going tocome in the vehicle fleet, and
part of that is beginning tolook more at the technology
coming onto the vehicle too.
So we're not only telling youthat it's a 2015 F-150, but we
can tell you if it's got lanekeeping and blind spot
(40:11):
monitoring and ABS and it hadthe 20 inch wheels instead of
the 18s and it's driving thismany miles and those typically
fail at this rate for wheel ends.
We think that's a place that isreally valuable, and so really
we're.
That's kind of the path we'reundergoing right now.
We've have a legacy product ofvio that is really strong about
(40:35):
the census of the vehicle fleet,but how can we begin to help
our customers in this channel?
Mike Chung (40:43):
take that and make it actionable at the part level
so when you say these arefailure rates for x model, x
make and model in here we'retalking historical data, or are
you also talking aboutpredictive what can happen in
the future?
Todd Campau (40:58):
so there are obvious, and then obviously
there are a few products in inthe space um as well that are
doing some of this.
But but really, when we thinkabout a lot of these things, we
think about how we cantriangulate, predicting what's
going to happen, and I'm surethere could be some contributing
factor of what's happened inthe past.
There always is.
That's how you build a futureforecast is looking back and
(41:21):
understanding the past and thencombining it with other
attributes.
Obviously, we also you know wedo the channel forecast through
another part of S&P Global, andthey have a lot of economic data
and that also contributes tobehavior.
So when you can stitch all thepieces together and start to
(41:45):
build a picture of what youthink is going to happen, based
on a confluence of all thefactors that you have available
to you, that's where we wouldlike to get that's fascinating
and so, as you move towards thatproduct, just thinking from a
data quality, uh perspective,just maybe really reiterate for
us some of those things thatyou'll be looking out for yeah,
(42:05):
I think really, um, the dataquality again.
Obviously we love it when we canidentify a very specific
individual vehicle and then tieall the data sets across that
individual vehicle.
But, um, I think it's acombination of that love, that
very high level of data qualityand cleansing and people
(42:29):
monitoring that and also findingsources and partners that are
doing that themselves that youcan quickly integrate.
But then also, I mean, when youget into forecasts, having a
quality foundation is critical.
But some of what people look toour organization for as well is
we have a huge bunch of peoplethat know this industry from
(42:52):
before a vehicle is built to,the vehicle is leaves the fleet
via scrappage or whatever, andso part of it becomes.
How do you quantify and applythat knowledge, that
institutional knowledge that wehave in all these analysts, to
that data and then createsomething?
And so I think data quality onthe foundational data, the
(43:15):
actual data, is critical.
But then when you get intoleveraging machine learning we
haven't even talked aboutartificial intelligence or
anything like that, butleveraging machine learning and
data science then you can.
So in my past I have a computerscience background, so in my
past I have a computer sciencebackground.
(43:41):
It's almost like you tune theprocess, knowing that you don't
have every answer at that point,but building a quality
foundation of quality data thatis at the lowest level possible,
then collecting those analysts,insights and making them
actionable to a machine.
And making them actionable to amachine and then directing the
machine with expertise frompeople that know the business,
you come out the other end with,I think, a quality product that
(44:03):
you can stand behind, becauseone of the nice things about
being a forecaster is thatyou're expected to be wrong,
like you're not gonna get 100%right every time, but if you can
build a methodology that peoplecan be confident in and my
personal philosophy has alwaysbeen being very upfront with the
assumptions that we make, howwe apply them and, obviously,
(44:26):
the risk profile that'sassociated with those
assumptions Um and that's whateverybody in this industry does
anyways when they make theirforecasts is they've got to say
we believe this is going tohappen or that's going to happen
, and then we got to quantify it.
And so I think quality iscritical when it comes to
managing your core data, butthen having the flexibility to
(44:51):
build scenarios is equally asimportant.
It's just important to letpeople know where that line is
of factual data versus forecastdata, and how?
How you arrive at the answersyou arrive at.
Mike Chung (45:09):
Really helpful.
So two last questions.
One is kind of advice for thefuture generations.
As you think about recentcollege graduates and they're
entering an analytical field orthe automotive field, what types
of things might you guide themon?
Todd Campau (45:26):
I think it's critical to be curious.
I've always encouraged peoplethat are coming up behind me
younger people in automotive andother places is to be curious,
to challenge the status quo.
Not just to challenge thestatus quo, but one of the
(45:46):
things I hated when I came onearly is anytime somebody said,
well, that's just the way, we'vealways done it.
And I'm like, why, ask thatquestion, why?
And they may be able to pointback to something where like,
okay, that makes a lot of sense,but that you might just find
that they made a assumption 20years ago that they're still
(46:07):
choosing to live by and the dataand the technology is passed by
them and there's many betterways they could do that.
And so I encourage curiosity tothe next generation, I think,
and I also would say I thinkartificial intelligence is
getting all.
It's soaking up all the cycleson news right now, whether it's
(46:29):
chat, gpt, just artificialintelligence.
I think the one thing that Iwould encourage everyone with
artificial intelligence is toremember it's only going to be
as smart as what you pointed at,so it's not going to be a
silver bullet, that richfoundational data that I was
mentioning earlier that we thinkis critically important to
(46:51):
everything we do.
If you're pointing it at asource like that, then you're
going to get be able to get alot out of artificial
intelligence.
But if you're just going in andasking it to do something based
on whatever it can find on theinternet, it could be a garbage
in garbage out situation.
And so I encourage people notto be afraid of artificial
(47:12):
intelligence but to have theright context around it and find
ways to leverage it inday-to-day tasks, in processes
you know, in products they'rebuilding out even intelligence
up to be successful, and thattakes at least for now, that
(47:34):
still takes a smart individualto leverage that tool in their
tool belt.
So those probably be the twothings is be curious and look at
the tools that are available toyou and use them, but always
run it through pastoral sanitychip.
Mike Chung (47:54):
Really helpful advice.
So my last question to you isthis, and as we're closing up
fall leadership days here,really glad you could come and
participate.
Um, what was the best meal thatyou had here while you're in
town?
Todd Campau (48:06):
Wow, that's a good question.
I don't know we we did.
We just did Chick-fil-A.
That's always a good time.
I think we went to a speakeasyand then an Irish pub on the
first night down I think it wasJames Joyce, maybe down on the
(48:27):
inner Harbor, and I'm a I'm ashepherd pie fan, so I had some
really good shepherd's pie there.
Mike Chung (48:32):
Okay, good, and it's .
It's encouraging to hear thatyou still remember it after
several places of having somegood beverages.
So, todd, always a pleasure tosee you.
Thanks so much for sharing yourinsights and your knowledge
here on this podcast.
Thanks for tuning in to anotherepisode of Auto Care On Air.
Make sure to subscribe to ourpodcast so that you never miss
an episode.
Don't forget to leave us arating and review.
(48:54):
It helps others discover ourshow.
Auto Care On Air is proud to bea production of the Auto Care
Association, dedicated toadvancing the auto care industry
and supporting professionalslike you.
To learn more about theassociation and its initiatives,
visit autocareorg.
Welcome to Auto Care ON AIR, a candid podcast for a
curious industry.
I'm Mike Chung, Senior Directorof Market Intelligence at the
Auto Care Association, and thisis Indicators, where we identify
and explore data that will helpyou monitor and forecast
industry performance.
This includes global economicdata, industry indicators and
new data that will help youmonitor and forecast industry
performance.
(00:28):
This includes global economicdata, industry indicators and
new data sources.
I'm Mike Chung.
I head up market intelligenceat Auto Care Association and I'm
very happy to introduce myguest for today, Todd Campau of
S&P Global Mobility.
Hello, Todd.
Hey, Mike, thanks again formaking the time to be with us
(00:49):
and tell us a little bit aboutyour company and what you do
there.
Todd Campau (00:54):
So S&P Global Mobility.
Many people in this industryknow us probably by our legacy
names RL Polk is what we used tobe known as, and then over the
years we've changed brands manytimes.
But we provide vehicle andoperation data and other metrics
around the vehicles to thisindustry to help the channel
(01:18):
better understand what vehiclesto target and things that might
be opportunities that are cominginto the space.
I am responsible for theaftermarket in the Americas.
My title, I guess, is associatedirector of aftermarket
solutions, so we build a lot ofsolutions for the marketplace
and we're always interested tohear ways we can better help.
Mike Chung (01:40):
Oh, that's that's.
That's really helpful.
And for, as you mentioned, alot of our listeners are within
the aftermarket and they'refamiliar with the Auto Care
Association Factbook, to whichyou contribute registration data
, adoption of alternativepropulsion vehicles, age,
(02:01):
necessarily in the automotiveaftermarket space.
And, as we've talked about,what we like to do in this
particular podcast is talk aboutdata considerations for
analysis, because we're in thisday and age of big data, of
(02:21):
using algorithms, machinelearning, artificial
intelligence.
I think we have a lot ofinteresting things we can talk
about when we consider thesedata and how it can be used for
operational and strategicanalysis.
So tell us a little bit about,kind of your background, how you
landed in S&P Global, perhaps.
Todd Campau (02:36):
Well, that's an interesting longitudinal story,
kind of.
I been in uh the industry nowfor 21 years, almost 22 years
and I started at um cleaviteengine parts at the time, which
is now part of mala aftermarketum, and that was in 2003, I
(02:56):
believe.
Uh, I worked on the manufacturerside for the first 11 years of
my career and then the past fewyears I guess the past 11 years
now almost I've been at uh SMPglobal, helping more than just,
obviously, just one organizationand so, uh, that's really what
attracted me to this role,that's how I landed in this role
(03:17):
was some of the things I wasdoing with data um.
Having the opportunity to lookat it in the context of other
organizations was attractive tome and, you know, even at that
point I had been in the industryfor a while, so I had a lot of
colleagues and contactsthroughout the industry.
So when the opportunity aroseat IHS at the time I had a few
(03:46):
colleagues who thought I'd be agood fit and they kind of
connected me with theorganization and I had some
friends and folks that I hadknown for years that were
working there.
So I kind of discussed theopportunity with them and the
chance to work with at the time.
It was Mark Sang, who everybodyin this industry knows, and
(04:10):
Brian Funke were two of thepeople that were there that I
looked forward to theopportunity to go work on
product with them.
Mike Chung (04:13):
So that's kind of how I fell into this role.
Gotcha, thanks for sharing that.
And S&P Global Mobility.
You have clients acrossdifferent organization types,
right?
I would imagine you haveprivate clients.
You have a lot of clients inthe automotive aftermarket that
may be public or privately held.
I would imagine that you alsoprovide solutions and insights
(04:34):
to governments and otherorganizations.
Is that fair to say?
Todd Campau (04:38):
Yeah, that's one of the real interesting things of
this role is we serve at S&PGlobal Mobility as a whole.
We serve all kinds of customersacross all kinds of channels.
My channel really sitseverywhere but the OE, so
government and insurance,aftermarket, infrastructure
(05:00):
investments.
It's a smorgasbord ofopportunities, of new businesses
that we partner with here inEurope.
Mike Chung (05:09):
Right, and that's helpful, and I think later on
we'll discuss the differenttypes of analyses you're asked
to do at a high level, ifnothing else.
But in terms of the data, I'dlike to dive into that a little
bit because, as a purveyor ofdata, as an analyst of data and
(05:30):
insightful solutions, I thinkthere will be a lot of things
that our listeners can take away.
So, when I think about the factbook, I see data in there like
registration data, theirregistration data.
So, for those of you who maynot be familiar, how many
vehicles are on the road in theUnited States, and by vehicle
type, whether it is lightvehicles, commercial trucks and
(05:54):
this is the type of data thatcan be very helpful for people
in the industry, investors thatare looking to get into the
industry.
And it also invites us tell memore, right, because some people
may come to you and say, well,I'd like to know a little bit
more.
Can you go a little moregranular for me?
So I want to talk a little bitabout the origins of the data.
(06:17):
If you can, todd, tell me alittle bit about how you're
sourcing data, the things thatyou look for from a quality
perspective, and we'll startthere.
Todd Campau (06:28):
Sure.
So really, that is probably oneof the stories that we don't
tell enough anymore, becausewe've been in this business in
the aftermarket, for long beforeI was ever with the company, I
mean 20, 30 years, probably more.
We've been doing vehicles inoperation, for the story is, you
know, basically a hundred yearsago they started doing this to
(06:50):
settle an argument between HenryFord and Sloan who was running
GM, I believe it was as to whowas selling and registering more
vehicles, and so we've beendoing this for a very long time,
but we have honed this processyear in and year out over the
decades, and we do getregistration data from the
States, but that's not the onlysource we get data from, and so
(07:13):
one of the things we really doreally well that we probably
don't talk about enough is thatwe're a data aggregator, really,
when you think about the rolewe're playing, and so the data
that sits under our vehicles andoperation products sits under
several other products in ourorganization too new vehicle
registrations, used vehicleregistrations.
We have a VIN decoder, a plateto VIN, and all these data
(07:38):
sources come from the samewellhead, if you will.
The same wellhead, if you will.
And so to get to your questionabout data quality.
We believe that we've focusedfor many years on data quality.
We believe that in a lot ofways we are an indicator to the
(08:00):
state when they have a problemwith their data, because we
track the records coming inboundso closely that if we see a big
change in registration thatseems out of the norm, we go
back to states on.
You know, I wouldn't say it's aregular basis, but there are
occurrences throughout the yearwhere we go back to states and
say, hey, we think you'remissing some registrations for
this or that vehicle type.
Because we've been tracking itso long, we can see those trends
(08:23):
.
We also have relationships withthe manufacturers, so it's not
just registration data.
We're understanding the newsales that they say they're
selling into the marketplace.
We proactively understand thevehicles that they're going to
put in the marketplace with highlevel of coding, and that
becomes the foundation for allof our data.
Now, one of the questions we doget sometimes is you know, how
(08:46):
are you able to get that dataand how are you able to use that
data?
Now, we do have a lot ofcovenants with this.
Each state has its own covenantand we're very cautious about
personally identifiableinformation, or PII, but we also
are one of the trusted partnersthat do recall.
So we do keep that data andkeep all those vehicles garaged
(09:07):
in the right place so that if weneed to assist with a recall
that NHTSA requires themanufacturers to do, we're one
of the partners who can assistwith building those lists and
making sure those recalls happen.
Mike Chung (09:20):
Oh, that's fascinating, and I a hundred
years, that's amazing.
Oh, that's fascinating and I ahundred years, that's amazing.
And then to your point aboutkind of those firewalls, so that
it makes me think about banking, for instance, where there are
certain firewalls and protocolsin place to make sure that the
data is used appropriately, andthe fact that you're able to be
(09:42):
have that access in the case ofa recall is very valuable.
Todd Campau (09:46):
Absolutely, and that makes our data stronger
because we have to keep itaccurate for that and that
tracks all the way through toour vehicles and operation
product.
We really view it as a censusof the vehicles that are on the
road.
Sure, and that's the way weconnect it.
For a lot of people outsidethis industry is it's really a
vehicle census, vehicles,vehicles in operation?
It's almost synonymous with anyother census you could think of
(10:11):
, and so we can do a lot of thethings that you would look to do
with a census how old are thevehicles, what's the composition
, where are they at?
And so that's kind of theapproach we take with the
specific VIO product.
Mike Chung (10:20):
And if I think about it from a slicing and dicing,
drilling down perspective, thereare a number of variables that
you could sort the data on, andI'm just thinking about that 50
states mapping thingsappropriately, and then that
could be perhaps counterbalancedby vehicle manufacturers.
(10:42):
There's probably some sort ofnomenclature that is used.
Can you talk to that a littlebit?
Todd Campau (10:47):
Yeah, so we work with the manufacturers exactly
on that the nomenclature, theNHTSA VIN the Highway
Transportation Administrationdefined the VIN in 1981.
And that's kind of what we workwith the manufacturers around
is understanding the VINpatterns.
We sometimes call it for thevehicles they is.
Understanding the the vinpatterns we sometimes call it
for the vehicles they're goingto release and we have
(11:08):
relationships with virtually allthe manufacturers who sell
vehicles into north america tounderstand what they're going to
be bringing in and what theylook like so that when we see it
come in.
Another side note is most ofthe DMVs use our VIN decoding
capability in their registration.
You know if you go in and tryand register a vehicle they're
(11:32):
pinging the attributes of thevehicle against our VIN decoder
to understand that it's astation wagon or a sport utility
vehicle or whatever that is.
Mike Chung (11:40):
I see, and so there's a designated
nomenclature and the letters andnumbers in the VIN correspond
to things like make, model year,vehicle type.
Does it have things like Idon't know color or other
attributes like that?
Todd Campau (11:58):
A lot of that.
You have to get into the fullVIN and have what's called the
build sheet, and we're doing alot of work around getting VIN
specific information that we canbring to the marketplace.
But most of that, some of that,let's say, requires a build
sheet.
But the VIN does define yearmodel, which is a unique thing
to North America, but thatactually is in the VIN the year
(12:20):
model of the vehicle where itwas manufactured.
If it was a domestic or animport, there's a country code
characteristic.
There there's actually someability to identify the facility
that built the vehicle as well.
So if it was built in Kansas orDearborn or somewhere else and
that could help with the recall,absolutely Right.
(12:40):
And then it does get into someengine information.
It doesn't.
The base of the VIN doesn'ttell you the color.
The one thing missing and weget this question a lot that I
think should be in the VIN, thatwasn't, and you know if we
(13:01):
could go back 40 plus yearsmaybe we could change it is
transmission.
The VIN will not tell youwithout the full 17it VIN if
it's an automatic or a manual.
Now that's gotten lessimportant over the years here in
the United States becausealmost all the vehicles are
automatic, but that is one thingwe can't tell without the full
VIN.
Mike Chung (13:15):
And you mentioned engine type.
How about propulsion?
Because some of the stats welook at with you is adoption of
battery electric vehicles,hybrid electric vehicles, fuel
cell and so forth.
Todd Campau (13:26):
Yeah, so that's in there as part of that.
I guess engine in air quotes isunderstanding what the
propulsion system is and whatthe fuel type is.
Mike Chung (13:35):
So, when you take all of this data, this having a
uniform identification systemand knowing what all the fields
stand for certainly just pavesthe way for accurate, meaningful
analysis yeah, it's really thefoundation we think of.
Todd Campau (13:52):
Everything is to be able to accurately identify
those vehicles, and we havewhole teams dedicated to it.
I I'm just a consumer of it,but we have whole internal teams
that track this day-to-day,week-to-week for years.
Mike Chung (14:09):
So thinking about, this system has been in place
for 40 plus years, as you'redescribing it.
What might the future hold interms of could this then be
expanded?
What additional attributes canbe added?
How much flexibility is there?
Because I'm thinking about if,as new technology is introduced,
(14:30):
can that be coded into the,then can we talk about
propulsion systems.
Can you just kind of in your,in your crystal ball, tell us
what we might expect to see, foryou know, this type of data in
the coming decade or so?
Todd Campau (14:44):
sure.
So to my knowledge, nhtsa hasnot had any plans to make
changes to the actual VINstandard.
Um, you know, it's the big newswhen it comes to regulations is
the question of the OBD2 port.
Really nobody even talks aboutthe VIN right now.
Um, so that's one of thereasons we're starting to focus
(15:07):
on vin specific and some of ouradditional tools are our vin
decoding tool and we're tryingto find ways to drive that to
vio.
We're working on a new, some newproducts around the technology
going in the vehicle and thisthat's part and parcel of it,
like being able to tellorganizations you know what
vehicle had had I don't knowblind spot monitoring or lane
(15:31):
keeping or adaptive cruise.
Those are all things that arestarting to be interesting,
especially as organizations inour channel start to figure out
what where they should play arole in the evolving vehicle.
And so we're not leaning onNHTSA to add to the VIN to help
us understand that.
We're actually working to buildthat metadata out around the
(15:53):
vehicle ourselves, working withindustry partners, manufacturers
, everybody, because we reallythink it helps the overall
industry when it comes tomaintaining that vehicle and
making sure it's safe and ingood operating order and also,
ideally, producing as fewemissions as possible.
(16:13):
Obviously too, and so we thinkall those new technologies that
are coming in are hugelyimportant, but we don't think
that we can wait on NHTSA todefine a coding standard, right,
right, so we're doing itourselves.
Mike Chung (16:27):
And if I can just go back to one other thing that
kind of crosses my mind,registration data from the
states, I mean at a high level.
Is it pretty similar in termsof the format that it's coming
to you?
Todd Campau (16:40):
No, no, each state is unique, and it seems almost
every year that there is a stategoing through a rewrite of
their process, and so the datateams that I mentioned.
And again, just full disclosure.
I feel almost no pain from thismyself, I just hear about it,
(17:01):
but we have team members on ourvehicle coding team and on our
data acquisitions team that aremonitoring this and seeing this,
and you know they're knee deepin it Anytime a state does a
rewrite to make sure we're stillgetting the data we need and
that everything's getting codedappropriately.
That's one of the reasons.
Early on in the podcast I wasalluding to the fact that
sometimes, even the statessometimes believe that we have
(17:26):
better, cleaner data than theyprobably have because we're
putting it through this cleaningprocess across all 50 states.
Mike Chung (17:35):
Right and I guess it sounds like all of the back end
work.
There's a lot of that going onthat your teams are going
through.
Do you hear about any bestpractices or recommendations
that they would make to statesthat way?
Todd Campau (17:51):
I think if states are willing, they certainly are
willing to try to help withthose things.
It does help.
Like I said, we have VINdecoders embedded in most of the
states too, so it's kind ofhelping us keep the data clean
on the inbound side as much aspossible, um, and so there are
teams that are working.
We have, obviously we have anactive government affairs team
(18:12):
that works with federal andstate governments, um, and as
much as possible we'll partnerwith them and just you know,
really the best practices aremaking sure you're not manually
keying things in.
You know, obviously make,obviously make it menu driven,
make it Vindicator driven, soyou're getting consistent data
Right.
But obviously the systems thatthey choose to implement,
(18:37):
hopefully in this day and age,are doing a lot of those things
for them already.
Mike Chung (18:40):
Right and I would imagine, from state to state the
systems they have, there may besome legacy considerations and
your group is able to have aprocess to kind of systematize
everything, so kind of movingfrom the data collection, if you
will.
I see you on stage, I see yougive presentations on trends.
Maybe we can turn for a littlebit to trends that you're seeing
(19:04):
in the aftermarket.
And there are of course, somany that we can talk about.
But one is something Imentioned earlier alternative
propulsion, vehicle adoption,and you and I have talked a bit
about battery, electric vehicles.
We talked a little bit aboutpolicy, talked a little bit
about hydrogen.
Is there anything that kind ofcomes top of mind that's kind of
interesting to you that youthink our listeners might kind
(19:25):
of find interesting here interms of what you're seeing
recently?
Todd Campau (19:29):
Yeah, well, I think it's been really interesting
the past year, I would say, towatch the news cycle.
You know, I've spoke on EVs fora lot of years at Apex now and
some of the listeners maybe havesuffered through those
conversations and some of thelisteners maybe have suffered
through those conversations.
But I think it was interestingto see the way the new cycle
(19:51):
changed so so negative, soquickly.
Really, when electric vehiclesales are not they've been down
over prior months occasionally,but really they've plateaued.
But if you read the new cycleyou're like, oh my gosh, nobody
wants an electric vehicle,they're not selling.
Like, what's happening?
The sky is falling, sky is notfalling.
You know I've been telegraphingfor a long time that I thought
(20:12):
it would be there would bechallenges to EV adoption.
Yeah, you know, a long timeI've I've even come out and said
that I thought that we as S&PGlobal are somewhat aggressive
occasionally in our projectionsbecause we were basing them on
what we were seeing.
Manufacturers say that you knowthey were going to be electric
(20:34):
by this year or that year.
Um, but it still goes back to.
You know, years ago my originalposition was it's really hard
to push something to grow fasterthan it wants to grow
organically, and I think we'rekind of dealing with that with
EVs.
We've had a lot of earlyadopters that have jumped in.
Um, and they were.
They want EVs to be successful,whether they just like them,
(20:57):
whether they're a part of the EVeconomy, you know, whatever it
might be, whether they're greenand they want to make sure they
think this is the green solution.
A lot of the early adoptersjumped right on, and now getting
that next wave of adopters wasalways going to be a challenge.
I think we're dealing with that.
Obviously there's economicconsiderations.
Right now, too, prices ofvehicles are high for ICE
(21:19):
vehicles, and then EVs are evenhigher.
Vehicles are high for ICEvehicles, and then EVs are even
higher.
You know, podcast number threeon Auto Care On Air, I think,
was one where Stacy was talkingabout EVs, and there was a lot
of good stuff in there.
(21:44):
So I think the story, though,for the aftermarket, as I'm
thinking towards this year'sround of presentations, is what
is this going to do to partproliferation?
Because you are seeing more evson the road, if you're, if
you're looking at the roadsyou're driving, you're seeing
more, most likely, than you dida year ago.
The volume in vio is growingslowly.
New vehicle sales are prettystable, similar to where they
were last year probably, and soyou're going to see more of them
.
The one fascinating thing abouta vehicle fleet of 286 Sales
are pretty stable, similar towhere they were last year
probably, and so you're going tosee more of them.
The one fascinating thing abouta vehicle fleet of 286 plus
(22:07):
million is how long it takeschange to happen, and I think
we're dealing with that with EVs.
For the aftermarket, though,what concerns me, what I see as
an opportunity, let's say,rather than a concern, is there
could be a future where there'sseveral million EVs, several
million ICE, several millionhybrid.
(22:38):
When you start to think aboutpart proliferation, I think
that's where the aftermarket.
You know, we've talked aboutpart proliferation since I've
been in this industry, and Ithink we need to go to the next
level on being efficient,because now you're talking about
four or five powertrains thatyou could be having to know how
to service, having to carryparts, for there will be,
hopefully there will be, someconsistency across some of the
part types, but these are verydifferent propulsion types when
(23:01):
you get into plug-in hybrid,hybrid, electric, diesel, gas
and maybe hydrogen we talked alittle bit about that earlier
today, you and I.
If hydrogen comes in, that'syet another one, and our shops
are going to be asked tomaintain all of them.
So for me, that's what I'mlooking at when I look forward
(23:21):
is what does that mean to theindustry and how do we mitigate
that from being a challenge tobeing an opportunity?
Mike Chung (23:29):
Fascinating and you touched on something interesting
there.
Hydrogen Seems like a promisingtechnology, but it could be an
infrastructure issue as well inthe uh the maintenance and
repair ramifications.
Todd Campau (23:44):
but tell us a little bit about your thoughts
regarding infrastructure,whether for battery, electric,
for hydrogen or otherwise sothey all kind of have a similar
challenge, outside of, obviously, gas and diesel, which we've
been doing again a hundred years.
Um, I think the infrastructureis, any way you slice it, it's.
(24:06):
It's not an easy picture, rightCause if you need to build
hydrogen, you want to buildgreen hydrogen, and that takes
time and a lot of money.
If you want to build a EVinfrastructure, that's also a
lot of money, a lot of time anda lot of power generation.
That we don't have right now ona grid that is already not
(24:29):
necessarily been modernizedenough as it is.
Let's say, it was not that longago.
I remember when the EasternSeaboard had a brownout in
probably 2007 or 2008.
Mike Chung (24:44):
Sounds about right.
Todd Campau (24:47):
If we put millions more EVs on, does that start to
happen more frequently?
That's a serious considerationfor EVs, but we know hydrogen is
also not easy and not cheapright now.
So I've been interested towatch the policy over the past
year or so, even with theinflation reduction act is
probably the most recent one, uh, in that it was more agnostic
(25:09):
than maybe it was even reportedon, because it basically had
carve outs for hydrogen, forelectric, for e-fuels basically
anything that was zero or nearzero emissions fuels basically
anything that was zero or nearzero emissions.
So I think we may see a lot ofpaths run down to try to make
our fleet greener.
All of them have that drawback,though, of how do you
(25:32):
distribute the power, how do youstore the power and how do you
change over a fleet of 288million vehicles or 86 million
vehicles.
One of the guys I like to followon LinkedIn is Arne Franz.
He's the CEO of Amala, and Ithink even before I was on that
bandwagon, he was on thebandwagon of the fact that it's
(25:58):
going to take diversity inpropulsion types to get the
fleet to a position of beinggreen as fast as possible, and I
think he's totally right.
So we need to continueexploring new fuels.
We need to wrestle withhydrogen power generation and
vehicles.
We need some electric vehiclesfor some use cases.
Especially here in the US We'vegot a lot of different use
cases.
Electric vehicle doesn't workfor all of them right now use
(26:22):
cases.
Mike Chung (26:22):
Sure, electric vehicle doesn't work for all of
them right now.
As you're talking, it made methink of some of the stats that
you come to in stagepresentations like Apex, and
having to do with the CAFEstandard.
Right, and not to necessarilyget into a lot of political
discussion, but you mentionedpolicy and tell us your thoughts
regarding the cafe standard,perhaps the efficiency of just
(26:46):
setting a standard and lettingthe market come to its own
solution.
Todd Campau (26:50):
Yeah, I'm actually a big proponent of that.
I do think there's a rolegovernment needs to play because
there are levers the governmentcan pull to try to help
problems like infrastructure beaddressed more rapidly.
But I think it has to beagnostic because otherwise need
(27:36):
to let.
The way I say it is let smartpeople be smart and do what they
.
Just tell them what you wantand let them.
The government does have ahistory of setting aspirational
standards and then moving thegoalposts when it's clear we're
not going to meet them.
You know the 54 and a half mileper gallon.
Trump did kill that when he wasone of the first things he did
(27:58):
when he came into office in 2016.
The goal was to be a 54 and ahalf by I believe it was 2025
and he killed that, for that'sthe new vehicle corporate annual
fuel economy standard and hekilled that at that point and I
was like it kind of was a mercykilling because we weren't going
to make it, the manufacturerswere not going to get there.
(28:20):
But that's kind of the role ofgovernment too.
Like I think if they'reenabling all technologies to
green our fleet, then that'sgreat, and if they're setting
aspirational goals, that's fine,but realism does end up, you
know, winning the day in the end.
When, when it's clear we're notgoing to make something, uh, we
(28:42):
adjust.
So I think that they're playinga good role.
I don't always agree with allthe ways they do it, and that's
fine, but there's definitely arole for them to play and, um,
you know, setting aspirationaltargets.
Mike Chung (28:55):
Right, and I think I like the idea of not
necessarily getting tunneledinto one mandated solution,
because I think sometimes youget unintended consequences or
you learn the limits of aparticulars or cobalt, graphite
and so forth for batteries, andthen that becomes quite
(29:24):
complicated from a sourcingperspective and a policy
perspective Right.
Todd Campau (29:29):
Yeah, and again referencing back to episode
three of auto care on air, Ithink the conversation was great
around the fact that, also whenit comes to lithium, a great
majority of the lithiumcurrently being mined is
controlled by China, and soyou're right, I try not to make
it a political discussion, butgeopolitics does come into play,
(29:52):
I mean, and so that'sdefinitely consideration too
when you're talking aboutneeding lots and lots of
material that maybe a governmentthat you don't trust as much as
you would hope has majorcontrol of Right.
Mark Bogdanski (30:07):
Hi, I'm Mark Bogdanski, vice President of
Trade Shows and CommunityEngagement at the Auto Care
Association, and I'm thrilled toinvite you to join me in Las
Vegas at Apex, the Aftermarket'spremiere show, this November
5th to the 7th.
I guarantee you will have anamazing week full of unmatched
networking opportunities, accessto unparalleled educational
(30:28):
sessions, including our enhancedEV stage, our new ADOS and
sustainability stages, and ourAftermarket shop training.
You'll also see a show floorwith over 2,700 companies
featuring the latest products,services and experiences.
This truly is the aftermarket'shomecoming and you do not want
to miss it.
Register now at apexshowcom andI hope to see you there.
Mike Chung (30:53):
And shifting gears here a little bit.
One of the other stats we watchis average each vehicle's
scrappage rate, and I don't knowhow much you're able to comment
on trends that you're seeing ineither of these avenues, but
can you comment on what you mayexpect to see with regard to
average age of vehicles in theyears to come?
Todd Campau (31:14):
So I think average age is.
I do expect it's going to keepclimbing but it's going to slow
down again at a slower rate thanit has over the past few years.
I do think we're going to seesome softer new vehicle sales
years still for probably thenext four or five, maybe more,
and that always contributes toaverage age growth.
(31:35):
But really, for me, the storyin the average age it's an
interesting metric that cuts,catches people its attention,
but it really is.
When you dive into thedistribution of vehicles, um,
and just the fact that vehiclesare being in active service
longer, um, we're pushing.
(31:55):
We're not quite there, but 16plus year old vehicles are
pushing towards 100 hundredmillion, like when you think
about that, that's a lot ofvehicles that are over 16 out of
the 286 million.
It's like 85 to 90.
It's a lot and we expect it tocontinue to grow a little bit
through the rest of the 2020s,but it could reach pretty close
to a hundred million by 2030.
Mike Chung (32:17):
Incredible Because some of the trends presentations
I gave that four to 11 yearsweet spot, if you will those
have grown robustly from a fiveyear CAGR standpoint over the
past few years.
So we've been enjoying, if youwill, this sort of golden period
where that sweet spot four to11 years has been growing
robustly and the zero to threeyears has shrunk a little bit,
(32:41):
partly due to pandemic related.
So it'll be interesting to seethat the vehicles move from age
bracket to age bracket,absolutely.
Todd Campau (32:50):
It really is.
You know, that's one of thethings I talked earlier about,
the fact that this really is avehicle census, and so you
follow those bubbles, kind oflike you do on a census.
You follow those bubbles of lowsales years and high sales
years and you watch the impactover time.
And then my hope is thatorganizations in this space
(33:12):
especially are taking advantageof that and understanding the
ways to adjust their mixes basedon those changes over time.
But I do think you know we'vebeen saying the sweet spot is
that four to 11 range.
There's either, I think,potential for either a secondary
sweet spot or just a longersweet spot, but the key is the
(33:33):
mix is not always going to bethe same.
Mike Chung (33:34):
Right, yeah, and, as you're saying, perhaps
lengthening that four to 11,because if well over a third of
our vehicles are going to be 16plus and people are relying on
them for day-to-daytransportation, that could be a
considerable boon, if you will,for the aftermarket and
especially as vehicle qualityincreases over time and driving
(33:57):
patterns have perhaps changedfrom household to household,
those could be things to watchfor.
Todd Campau (34:01):
Well, yeah, when you think about quality changes
over time, the vehicles that arenow pushing past 16, 18, 20 are
those early 2000 vehicles, andif I were to point to a time
where overall quality wasprobably starting to increase,
that's probably when it wasstarting to increase the most.
You know, the nineties were notnecessarily a decade where all
(34:23):
the manufacturers were doingwell on quality, but I think the
early 2000s as a whole theywere starting to get that
quality picture together a lotbetter than they had
historically, and so I thinkwe're seeing some of that.
But then there's also, I thinkthere's a huge socioeconomic
portion to this too, as vehicleprices continue to increase,
(34:43):
residual value continues to stayhigh and vehicles are
maintaining value a lot longerbecause there are households
that have to keep those vehicleson the road and we're going to
see opportunities to keeprepairing those over time.
Mike Chung (35:00):
Right.
And when we consider theeconomic climate, whether it's
disposable income gains beingcountered by inflation, vehicle
insurance increasingsignificantly over the past
several years, price of gasolinehas a mind of its own, and then
cost of vehicle and especiallyif you're a distressed consumer
(35:24):
with lower credit, your loanrate is going to be considerably
higher.
We do see data for that andinterest rates are fairly high
right now.
That and interest rates arefairly high right now.
So what you're saying makessense in terms of people holding
on their vehicles longer,maintaining them longer, average
age pushing up residual value,staying high.
Todd Campau (35:43):
Yeah, and I think the one other factor I think
you've summarized it really well, but the one other factor is
alternative propulsion.
Mike Chung (35:53):
Tell me more.
Todd Campau (35:53):
I think there's also a cohort of people that may
want to get into electricvehicles, but they just haven't
believed yet in the technology.
You know that the market'sready yet.
We do surveys each year andthat's one of the things that
we're tracking is do you thinkthe market's ready, are you
willing to buy an EV?
Yet?
And the metrics kind of it'scome down the past few years,
(36:15):
but it's still relatively youknow it's it's above half the
population definitelyconsidering buying an ev.
But I think a lot of thoseconsumers right now are like oh,
you know, they're hearing thenews cycle now and they're like
I don't want to buy.
I'd like to buy an ev, but Idon't feel comfortable buying it
now, but I'm not going to buyanything else, I'm going to wait
and see, sure.
(36:36):
And so I think you have thatfactor too of wait and see.
And now you're hearingobviously there's more noise
around hydrogen, plug-in hybrids, hybrids, lots of things that
are creating that curiosity asto where the what the future is
going to look like, and so Ithink some consumers are staying
(37:00):
on the sideline.
But again, going back to thisbeing a census of all the
vehicles on the road for all thehouseholds in the US, north
America.
We could expand it to Canada,mexico too, if we wanted to.
There's a ripple effect If thatfirst owner that typically is
buying a new car keeps theirvehicle that's one less used
vehicle for the used vehiclebuyer not to buy, and it, you
know, in a vehicle populationwhere vehicles probably are held
(37:25):
by four or five peoplethroughout the vehicle's
lifetime, we're elongating thatperiod too.
And so, you know, I think it iskind of a perfect storm right
now.
And this goes back to youraverage age questioning, and I
think that is driving averageage up as well.
All the factors you mentioned,um, one of the questions and
this is just a freebie, I toldyou we'd go off script at least
(37:46):
once, um, but one of the thingsthat, um, I often get asked is
do you think average age has?
Is it always just going to goup?
It's gone up forever, seemingly.
Will it continue to always goup?
And I think the answer isprobably no.
Uh, I can't put my finger onwhen it's going to happen,
because obviously I think weneed to get into a place where
(38:10):
there's more clarity about whatthe future of the vehicle
population looks like, but Ithink at that time, I think
there's a lot of people on thesidelines.
If interest rates come down,you know.
If EV infrastructure grows, youknow.
If something comes out of leftfield like solid state, you know
that's the big news.
If solid state comes andeverybody wants EVs, then I
(38:31):
think we could see the plateauof average age actually start to
come down.
I think there's potential forit, but right now we're in the
perfect storm of not seeingdecrease.
We'd almost need the perfectclarity, so to speak, to see it.
Mike Chung (38:48):
I think so are there any other indicators, as we
kind of start wrapping things uphere, that you're kind of
keeping an eye on as youconsider consumer trends, the
vehicle census, trends thatperhaps our listeners might be
interested in hearing?
Todd Campau (39:05):
I think we've been trying to think through a lot
more about the overall pictureof vehicles For this channel.
We've been telling for yearswhat are the vehicles, how old
are they, what are theircharacteristics?
We have introduced VehicleMiles Traveled product which
we've talked about in the pastas well, you and I where we're
(39:28):
trying to give visibility intowhere the odometers are on the
vehicles as a statisticalindicator of not only age in
years, but age in use and alsohow frequently vehicles are
being driven.
So an annual mileage numberthat's just the tip of the
iceberg we want to begin to getinto.
How are vehicles failing?
(39:48):
When are they failing?
Where are they failing?
So that you can then extend itinto being more predictive about
opportunities that are going tocome in the vehicle fleet, and
part of that is beginning tolook more at the technology
coming onto the vehicle too.
So we're not only telling youthat it's a 2015 F-150, but we
can tell you if it's got lanekeeping and blind spot
(40:11):
monitoring and ABS and it hadthe 20 inch wheels instead of
the 18s and it's driving thismany miles and those typically
fail at this rate for wheel ends.
We think that's a place that isreally valuable, and so really
we're.
That's kind of the path we'reundergoing right now.
We've have a legacy product ofvio that is really strong about
(40:35):
the census of the vehicle fleet,but how can we begin to help
our customers in this channel?
Mike Chung (40:43):
take that and make it actionable at the part level
so when you say these arefailure rates for x model, x
make and model in here we'retalking historical data, or are
you also talking aboutpredictive what can happen in
the future?
Todd Campau (40:58):
so there are obvious, and then obviously
there are a few products in inthe space um as well that are
doing some of this.
But but really, when we thinkabout a lot of these things, we
think about how we cantriangulate, predicting what's
going to happen, and I'm surethere could be some contributing
factor of what's happened inthe past.
There always is.
That's how you build a futureforecast is looking back and
(41:21):
understanding the past and thencombining it with other
attributes.
Obviously, we also you know wedo the channel forecast through
another part of S&P Global, andthey have a lot of economic data
and that also contributes tobehavior.
So when you can stitch all thepieces together and start to
(41:45):
build a picture of what youthink is going to happen, based
on a confluence of all thefactors that you have available
to you, that's where we wouldlike to get that's fascinating
and so, as you move towards thatproduct, just thinking from a
data quality, uh perspective,just maybe really reiterate for
us some of those things thatyou'll be looking out for yeah,
(42:05):
I think really, um, the dataquality again.
Obviously we love it when we canidentify a very specific
individual vehicle and then tieall the data sets across that
individual vehicle.
But, um, I think it's acombination of that love, that
very high level of data qualityand cleansing and people
(42:29):
monitoring that and also findingsources and partners that are
doing that themselves that youcan quickly integrate.
But then also, I mean, when youget into forecasts, having a
quality foundation is critical.
But some of what people look toour organization for as well is
we have a huge bunch of peoplethat know this industry from
(42:52):
before a vehicle is built to,the vehicle is leaves the fleet
via scrappage or whatever, andso part of it becomes.
How do you quantify and applythat knowledge, that
institutional knowledge that wehave in all these analysts, to
that data and then createsomething?
And so I think data quality onthe foundational data, the
(43:15):
actual data, is critical.
But then when you get intoleveraging machine learning we
haven't even talked aboutartificial intelligence or
anything like that, butleveraging machine learning and
data science then you can.
So in my past I have a computerscience background, so in my
past I have a computer sciencebackground.
(43:41):
It's almost like you tune theprocess, knowing that you don't
have every answer at that point,but building a quality
foundation of quality data thatis at the lowest level possible,
then collecting those analysts,insights and making them
actionable to a machine.
And making them actionable to amachine and then directing the
machine with expertise frompeople that know the business,
you come out the other end with,I think, a quality product that
(44:03):
you can stand behind, becauseone of the nice things about
being a forecaster is thatyou're expected to be wrong,
like you're not gonna get 100%right every time, but if you can
build a methodology that peoplecan be confident in and my
personal philosophy has alwaysbeen being very upfront with the
assumptions that we make, howwe apply them and, obviously,
(44:26):
the risk profile that'sassociated with those
assumptions Um and that's whateverybody in this industry does
anyways when they make theirforecasts is they've got to say
we believe this is going tohappen or that's going to happen
, and then we got to quantify it.
And so I think quality iscritical when it comes to
managing your core data, butthen having the flexibility to
(44:51):
build scenarios is equally asimportant.
It's just important to letpeople know where that line is
of factual data versus forecastdata, and how?
How you arrive at the answersyou arrive at.
Mike Chung (45:09):
Really helpful.
So two last questions.
One is kind of advice for thefuture generations.
As you think about recentcollege graduates and they're
entering an analytical field orthe automotive field, what types
of things might you guide themon?
Todd Campau (45:26):
I think it's critical to be curious.
I've always encouraged peoplethat are coming up behind me
younger people in automotive andother places is to be curious,
to challenge the status quo.
Not just to challenge thestatus quo, but one of the
(45:46):
things I hated when I came onearly is anytime somebody said,
well, that's just the way, we'vealways done it.
And I'm like, why, ask thatquestion, why?
And they may be able to pointback to something where like,
okay, that makes a lot of sense,but that you might just find
that they made a assumption 20years ago that they're still
(46:07):
choosing to live by and the dataand the technology is passed by
them and there's many betterways they could do that.
And so I encourage curiosity tothe next generation, I think,
and I also would say I thinkartificial intelligence is
getting all.
It's soaking up all the cycleson news right now, whether it's
(46:29):
chat, gpt, just artificialintelligence.
I think the one thing that Iwould encourage everyone with
artificial intelligence is toremember it's only going to be
as smart as what you pointed at,so it's not going to be a
silver bullet, that richfoundational data that I was
mentioning earlier that we thinkis critically important to
(46:51):
everything we do.
If you're pointing it at asource like that, then you're
going to get be able to get alot out of artificial
intelligence.
But if you're just going in andasking it to do something based
on whatever it can find on theinternet, it could be a garbage
in garbage out situation.
And so I encourage people notto be afraid of artificial
(47:12):
intelligence but to have theright context around it and find
ways to leverage it inday-to-day tasks, in processes
you know, in products they'rebuilding out even intelligence
up to be successful, and thattakes at least for now, that
(47:34):
still takes a smart individualto leverage that tool in their
tool belt.
So those probably be the twothings is be curious and look at
the tools that are available toyou and use them, but always
run it through pastoral sanitychip.
Mike Chung (47:54):
Really helpful advice.
So my last question to you isthis, and as we're closing up
fall leadership days here,really glad you could come and
participate.
Um, what was the best meal thatyou had here while you're in
town?
Todd Campau (48:06):
Wow, that's a good question.
I don't know we we did.
We just did Chick-fil-A.
That's always a good time.
I think we went to a speakeasyand then an Irish pub on the
first night down I think it wasJames Joyce, maybe down on the
(48:27):
inner Harbor, and I'm a I'm ashepherd pie fan, so I had some
really good shepherd's pie there.
Mike Chung (48:32):
Okay, good, and it's .
It's encouraging to hear thatyou still remember it after
several places of having somegood beverages.
So, todd, always a pleasure tosee you.
Thanks so much for sharing yourinsights and your knowledge
here on this podcast.
Thanks for tuning in to anotherepisode of Auto Care On Air.
Make sure to subscribe to ourpodcast so that you never miss
an episode.
Don't forget to leave us arating and review.
(48:54):
It helps others discover ourshow.
Auto Care On Air is proud to bea production of the Auto Care
Association, dedicated toadvancing the auto care industry
and supporting professionalslike you.
To learn more about theassociation and its initiatives,
visit autocareorg.
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