Top 100 Used Dealers, Tesla Delays Affordability, Sam’s Club Scan and Go

Shoot us a Text.

Episode #1025: Today we’re talking about how the Top 100 used-car dealers are adapting to a tougher wholesale market, why Tesla is hitting pause on its most affordable Model Y plans yet and what Sam’s Club is doing with checkout.

Show Notes with links:

• The Automotive News Top 100 U.S. Used-Car Dealership Groups list is out—and the big takeaway isn’t just who’s up or down, but how they’re adapting to survive. As competition at auctions grows fiercer, retailers are shifting hard into alternative sourcing strategies.
  • Krause Auto Group posted the biggest leap on the list, jumping 25 spots to No. 67 with a 39% sales increase.
  • Holman (up 24 spots), DARCARS (up 20), and Swickard Auto Group (up 17) also made significant moves, with strategies ranging from better internal competition to expanded certification and F&I offerings.
  • Van Horn Automotive Group, based in Plymouth, Wis., cracked the Top 100 for the first time at No. 69. Roughly half of its monthly used purchases come from auctions; the rest are sourced through service lanes and direct outreach.
  • “We’ve had to readapt... because it’s just not that easy to go to the auction and get 100 cars,” said Brian Wieland, used-car director at Van Horn.
  • Groups represented at ASOTU CON - 98 Holler-Classic, 87 CMA, 71 Russ Darrow, 67 Krause, 48 Rohrman, 28 RML Automotive, 21 Ourisman, 20 Walser, 16 Holman

• Tesla's long-anticipated push into affordable EV territory is hitting a speed bump. The automaker has delayed the launch of a stripped-down Model Y, codenamed E41, intended to bolster waning sales and broaden its customer base.
  • Production of the lower-cost Model Y in the U.S. is now expected in late 2025 or early 2026, missing earlier targets for this year.
  • Tesla plans to build 250,000 units of the model in the U.S. in 2026.
  • The E41 is designed to cost 20% less to produce than the refreshed Model Y, which currently starts around $49,000.
  • The delay underscores mounting pressure from aging models, increased global tariffs, and reputational challenges linked to Elon Musk’s political activity.

• Sam’s Club is betting on the future of checkout by putting it into customer’s hands and phones. As part of a major remodel of all 600 locations, the retailer is ditching both traditional and self-checkout lanes in favor of a fully app-powered experience.
  • Every store will adopt the Scan & Go app, eliminating traditional checkout entirely.
  • AI tech will verify purchases, removing the need for receipt checks at exits.
  • One-third of members already use the app, with usage up 50% over three years.
  • Digitally engaged customers shop three times as frequently as those are are not, and spend three times as much

Join Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier every morning for the Automotive State of the Union podcast as they connect the dots across car dealerships, retail trends, emerging tech like AI, and cultural shifts—bringing clarity, speed, and people-first insight to automotive leaders navigating a rapidly changing industry.

Get the Daily Push Back email at https://www.asotu.com/

JOIN the conversation on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/company/asotu/

Episode Transcript

Paul J Daly (00:01):
Good morning, Monday, April 21 this is the
automotive State of the Union onPaul J Daly is Kyle Mountsier
Today we're talking about thetop 100 used car dealers. Tesla
delaying its affordable car andSam's Club getting rid of
cashiers along with the oldfurniture. See, you buy
renovation

Kyle Mountsier (00:19):
and the whole thing, that Sam's Club's trying,
they're trying to beat Costco,but they ain't got dollar hot
dogs. You know I'm saying, I

Paul J Daly (00:26):
mean, I know it's kind of the opposite of Costco.
It might lose the opposite. Imean, have you ever been to a
BJs?

Kyle Mountsier (00:33):
No, but we have one, and my wife went, and she
was like, man,

Paul J Daly (00:38):
like, Yeah, is it like Costco is target, Sam's
Club is Walmart, and BJs is,like, Dollar General. Like, how
does that work?

Kyle Mountsier (00:46):
I mean, no, no, I would, I would go Publix.
Well, no grocery

Paul J Daly (00:52):
store, it's heavy warehouse story. It's been a
long time, but BJs, I feel like,was one of the OGs.

Kyle Mountsier (00:58):
No, I've heard that BJs is, is higher than
Sam's Club. These days, we

Paul J Daly (01:03):
don't have a Sam's Club anymore in Syracuse because
it did close. Now it's a ministorage so that'll tell you
something. BJ, can we talk abouthow many storage units are in
the US? That's got a littleconversation. Yeah, we have mini
ones. They're attached to ourhouses called garage, where we
keep that crap. That's all youneed. People, all right, we call
them how it is. We're okay, likea day, more than three weeks

(01:26):
away from ASOTU CON 2025, it'sgonna be unbelievable, watching
the tickets come in, watchingthe social media posts of people
posting their license plates.
They're going to be there. Wegot some other things brewing,
like I heard this littlepickleball event brewing. What?
Yeah, yeah. I didn't even tellyou about that. Come on now.
Yeah, there's a littlepickleball thing of brewing. But
if you go to ASOTU con.com rightnow and click on agenda and then

(01:46):
detailed agenda by stage, you'regoing to see a whole flurry of
topics that you need to knowabout, or you want to know
about, because they're areas,all different areas to improve
your business, to handle thesituations as it's coming at
you, whether it's tariffs orpeople issues. You know, we've
been talking a lot how peopleissues are going to affect your
bottom line much more than atariff will, and that's legit.

(02:08):
We're talking people, we'retalking sales, acquisitions,
health insurance. We're going topound health insurance costs and
how you can take care of peoplebetter. There all kinds of
stuff. Kyle, you and I decidedwe were going to pick one
session today, one thing that weare interested in. And
naturally, I was like, I want topick this one, which one was
yours? And you're like, Well,that was gonna be it. That was

(02:29):
gonna be it. So what are youexcited about? I'm excited about
day one, Studio One. This is230, to three, SEO to Geo, which
is generative engineoptimization, optimization with
Nick askew and John su calad.
This is what's happening rightnow. Is that when you're

(02:50):
searching, even if you'researching on Google, or if
you're a lot of people moving tochat, GBT, or searching some
level of AI tool, it is what isgenerated in the answer, where
is it getting the informationthat is giving you that first
answer and response, even ifyou're still using Google, what
do you need to do to yourcontent and your website to make
sure you show up in that? Notthe traditional route where you

(03:12):
just want to show up in thefirst page of search results.
That's actually becoming alittle outdated. So cutting edge
technology. I'm not going to

Kyle Mountsier (03:20):
talk about mine, because this was an interesting
thing. I think this is likewe're already getting into the
news here today. But last week,GPT announced that the that all
of your history is available toGPT. And then they announced, oh

Paul J Daly (03:38):
three, oh the memory, the memory of memory.
Everything full memory. It canremember it and reference in
future conversations you havewith it.

Kyle Mountsier (03:46):
When you think about Geo, it's actually
audience segmentation at itsfinest. And I posted on LinkedIn
today about how we are basicallycreating our own echo chamber.
But this is the adverse to thatsomewhat. If you go to 03 and
ask it a question. Instead oflike, what are restaurants near

(04:06):
me? You say, What arerestaurants near me that I would
like, Ooh, it takes you and putsyou in a deeper autumn audience
segment like, Oh, I like steakand and mushrooms. Okay, so now
the targeting to get me actuallyrequires the depth of your

(04:28):
content to be much morestructured, instead of just like
being a restaurant. It's like noa restaurant for people that
like steak and mushrooms. Itsounds like it sounds like brand
at its finest, doing the

Paul J Daly (04:42):
grind of the brand, work and building out not gonna
win, not like garbage, throwaway content like, you know,
random stuff that might gettraffic, but not relevant
traffic, but things that talkabout who you are posting on
social media has to do withthis. I just asked GPT what
restaurants are near me that youthink I'd like. Let's see. That
comes up with its search in theweb right now, I think I know

(05:04):
what it's probably gonna say.
You

Kyle Mountsier (05:07):
seem to like burgers.

Paul J Daly (05:09):
I think it's just gonna generate an image of a
pizza.
It's got noble cell seller,which is a small, like, kind of
really hip, new fine diningconcept thing. Okay, nice. A
place called Eden, where I'venever been to its farm to table
past abilities, which is pasta,dinosaur, barbecue, it's not

(05:33):
that good. It's it's not thatgood. Do that everybody wants
to, yeah, I don't, granted, Idon't talk about my food a lot.
I mean, no, like, I can see whyit picked this stuff based on
what I talk about, like businessand like, for sure, the
entrepreneurship and like it. Idon't know if it knows. I guess
it knows how old I am, maybe,maybe not. Think it thinks I'm a

(05:53):
little younger than I am. That'snice of it. What places can I go
to before 830 right? Yeah,right. Also that,

Unknown (06:01):
also that, I think, I think

Paul J Daly (06:02):
there's news to talk about today, but also all
that to say we are unpacking thethings that are going to give
you insights that when you getto your dealership, or you can
call or text or take pictures ofthe slides and disperse them to
your teams, guess what yourbusiness is actually going to
get better. That's what asosucon is all about. And doing that
with people who are also want tosee you succeed. And the people
who you can ask, what are youdoing about this? And that's

(06:24):
really where the growth comes.
So go to ASOTU CON com, get yourtickets, bring a team member or
two, and if you need any help todo that, just DM me or Kyle.
We'll make sure you can getthere as fast as possible, as
easy as possible. Theautomotive, top Automotive News,
top 100 US used car dealershipGroups list is out. The big
takeaway isn't just who's up ordown, but how they are adapting

(06:44):
to survive. As competition atauctions grows fiercer,
retailers are shifting hard intoalternative sourcing strategies.
By the way, we're going to talkabout a lot of those out of soda
con. Here are the top three.
Lithia sold, 411,000 usedvehicles. Auto nation was number
two. Penske was number three. SoLithia, auto nation, Penske,

(07:07):
however, if we did include usedcar retailers, Carvana and
Carmax, Carmax would have beennumber one at 770,000 Carvana
would have been number two at416,000 so Carvana, I mean,
Carmax 770, Carvana, 416 Lithia,411 granted, they don't sell new
cars. They don't right now, it'sa different thing, but we just

(07:28):
thought it relevant to put thatin there. Cross Auto Group
posted the biggest leap on thelist, jumping 25 spots. They've
been come on to number 67 with a39% sales increase. Holman, our
friends there, up 24 spots. Darkcars up 20 spots. And swickard
Auto Group up 17 spots. Alsomade significant moves with
strategies ranging from betterinternal competition interesting

(07:52):
to expanded certification and Fand I offerings. Van Horn auto
group based based in Plymouth,Wisconsin, crack the top 100 for
the first time at number 69 theycame in smoking roughly half of
its monthly news purchases comefrom auctions. So interesting
there. Here's a quote from but

Kyle Mountsier (08:10):
only half. But only half. The rest are only 50%
of their inventory is auctions.
That's a strong move right at adealership on it,

Paul J Daly (08:20):
number 69 on the list. Who is it? Brian Wyland,
used car director Van Horn saidwe've had to readapt, because
it's not just the easy to go toit's not just that easy to go to
the auction and get 100 cars.
Can't do that easy anymore. Soand just, I think it's worth
mentioning, of this list. Somany of them are already going

(08:41):
to be represented and havepeople at a Soto con. So if you
want to get better at used carbusiness, we're talking um
number 98 holler, classic, CMAat 87 Russ, Darrow, uh, cross
group, roarman, RML, automotiveoarsman, Walzer, Holman, are all
going to be on the floor,walking around, talking at a
soda con. Can't miss

Kyle Mountsier (09:01):
that. No used car. Big deal right now. I mean,
used cars is a huge deal. We'vegot, like, four or five
conversations. We got podcastconversations and stuff on the
main stage all about used cars,all about sourcing, acquisition,
retailing, reconditioning, evenmoving through the fixed stop
side of the business andfiguring out how to do that. You
know when, especially when wehave the prospect of potentially

(09:24):
shrinking new car inventories,you got to get your used cars up
to figure out how to kind of canstill compete. And here's what I
think I still don't understandwhy we don't have a public or a
mid to large size group startingto think about how you actually
beat a car max or Carvana atscale. I just think, like
someone's got to be poised tofigure that out and and we got

(09:47):
to do it in the on the franchiseretail side. There's no reason
why we can't. Got a comment

Paul J Daly (09:51):
from LinkedIn, how do you guys see the Tesla
continuing to drop used saleprices? How do we see that? And
how long is going to happen? Soglad you asked. Oh, because. It,
yeah, because, speaking ofTesla, stop segway, maybe,
before we go into this, weanswer that question. Go ahead,
Kyle, what were you going to

Kyle Mountsier (10:08):
say? Well, no, yeah, if you've watched
specifically on their used cars,right? And Jimmy Douglas has
been talking about this a littlebit, you know, owner of plug,
how they have been taking theirCertified Used Cars and
continually drop prices to tryand incentivize demand. It is
interesting and like, that's athat that's definitely a point

(10:31):
of like, watch out if you'rebuying these used EVs. Look at
market, market trends right now.
You might want to be in plug,even if you're not buying them
often, just to understand wherethe pricing is, because there is
a difference in the regular usedcar market. I We talked to
someone last week where theywere going to the auction, and
Carmax and Carvana were seeingvehicles bringing three to

(10:53):
$5,000 over MRR. And so you'vegot this like different market
where EVs are bringing less andstarting to price down, and the
market is generally going upover the last week and a half.
So just watch out when you're

Paul J Daly (11:08):
looking at this conversation with my friend on
Sunday, right? It's EasterSunday, your church, and you
know, you're the car guy. Sothey also ask, Hey, my wife
would trade in her can'tremember if it's an equinox or
ref or whatever it is. I waslike, he's looking for the
cheapest option. I said,Honestly, the cheapest option
right now is the trade in thatused car, which is worth more
than the typical value. Andthen, and then, like a used

(11:32):
Tesla is probably going to bethe cheapest trade out. You
know, it's just it is right now.
It really is. So we got to getto a dealer. Gotta get there's
plenty of them. I know that'swhat I'm saying like, and
they're cheap, cheaper thanusual. Well, speaking of Tesla,
their long anticipated push intoaffordable EV territory, hit a
speed bump. The automakersdelayed the launch of their

(11:54):
stripped down model Y, code nameE, 41 intended to bolster
warning signs and broaden itscustomer base. That's what they
were trying to do. But theproduction of this model is now
expected in late 2025 or early26 missing the targets they said
they were going to be jumping inon this like, I think, first
half of this year, they plan tobuild 250,000 units of the model
in the US in 2026 onceproduction is fully ramped the E

(12:17):
21 is designed to cost 20% lessto produce than the refreshed
model Y, which currently startsat 49,000 the delay underscores
mounting pressure from agingmodels back to the used car
conversation. They're holdingall this inventory and obviously
one of the big challenges ElonMusk's political activity.
They're also preparing a nofrills version of the model
three, as part of a broaderpivot toward budget friendly

(12:39):
offerings after shelving theirpromised $25,000 EV platform to
prioritize Robo taxi developmentinstead. I mean, lord knows what
they're going to do next. Look,

Kyle Mountsier (12:51):
they absolutely should prioritize Robo taxi.
They're seeing success. You'reeven Waymo is seeing success
here. Why not go after somethingthat you think is going to be
the future of the industry,especially when you see, you
know, well, like othermanufacturers, yeah, and they
can own the revenue verticals.
They on all the verticals. Istill think, you know, 35
$39,000 model Y would be superattractive, and a $25,000 model

(13:15):
three would be super attractive.
But, yeah, Tesla, Tesla, it'sweird because Tesla's in
trouble, but at the same timethey have all US manufacturing
capacity, and so yeah, they willbe, they will not have to be
impacted by tariff. So it may belike a really quick switch if
pricing, you know, drives up intariff impacted vehicles. I

(13:39):
think

Paul J Daly (13:39):
that same LinkedIn user, sorry your name is not
coming through. On on, on thestream here, I want to purchase
a s plaid. Tesla. How long do Iwait to pull the trigger before
crisis pricing increases? Idon't think we can tell you
that. I

Unknown (13:52):
wouldn't, I wouldn't have a clue, but we'll find out.
We probably know. Some peopleask Jimmy Douglas. Jimmy
Douglas, literally. Search themon LinkedIn. Jimmy Douglas, Alex
Lawrence, John Foley. Foley,those are your guys. Those are
definitely your guys. Speakingof your guys, segway, if you
like, cashiers

Paul J Daly (14:10):
say goodbye. Sam's

Kyle Mountsier (14:12):
Club is betting on the future of checkout by
putting it into customers handsand phones as a part of a major
remodel of all 600 locations theretailer is ditching both
traditional and self checkoutlanes in favor of fully app
powered experience. Every singlestore will adopt the scan and go
app, eliminating traditionalcheckout entirely. AI tech will

(14:35):
verify the purchases, removingthe need for receipt checks at
exits that little fancy, youknow, you know, check one check
one thing off, 1/3 this is quitecrazy. 1/3 of members already
use the app, with usage up 50%over three years, meaning they
have a really driven adoption.
There digitally engagedcustomers shop three times as
frequently as those that are notand spend two. Get this three

(14:59):
times as much. Whoa. EVP, DianaMarshall said connection is at
the heart of every shoppingjourney. Experience will be a
key differentiator to Sam'sClub, going forward, in a quote
that makes no sense to me, Well,okay, yeah,

Paul J Daly (15:14):
experience of the app experience. Brian Ortega
chime in on the live stream theapp is great. That was my next
question, because, like, for anapp, for this, you're strong.
First I've used it, your Wi Fihas to be great number one.
Yeah, right. You have great WiFi. You have a strong app.
Because there's a part of havingthe app open, like, in I've
never shopped with an app, soI'm just total I'm probably the

(15:37):
best, like, nay Sayer righthere. But like, I want to have
my phone available for otherthings, but I guess if I don't
have to check out, it's a reallyfair trade off. What do you do?
You go through and you scan itwith your

Kyle Mountsier (15:48):
scan it as you put it in your, in your, in your
basket, right? And so there'snone of that, like double in and
out and you just as soon as youscan it, and then you walk out,
you're done. I mean, it pays onthe app. You're good. That's

Paul J Daly (15:59):
That's pretty amazing. I mean, I love hearing
Brian benstock Has this bitwhere he talks about grocery
shopping.

Unknown (16:04):
It's like, you go around, you put all the stuff in
your cart, and then you getthere, you take it all out of
your cart, and then it goes downthe belt. They put it all back,
and then

Kyle Mountsier (16:12):
you take it back out of your car one more time.
It's a straight mess. So, like,

Paul J Daly (16:17):
look. And they say that their their user base is,
you know, Gen Z is starting tomake up a big, big swath for
sure, user base. And so it's,it's, I mean, there's so many
implications of this, over 600stores, how many cashiers do
they have? A lot, right? Andwhat, I think there's a, there's
a really great opportunity todeploy some people throughout
the store to literally make theexperience better. Like, if you

(16:39):
don't have to pay cashiers.
Wouldn't it be amazing to havesomeone that's helping you load
your bags into your car?

Kyle Mountsier (16:45):
Man, right? A little crew full public on them.
It's on. I think

Paul J Daly (16:49):
that will make a major difference. And you just
look out for like the folks whomight have trouble, some older
folks, some moms with kids. Youknow what I mean, doing the
thing. I'll tell you what thatwould that would definitely make
some people call

Kyle Mountsier (16:59):
your boys, because we got some consulting
hours, we can put in call. Youknow,

Paul J Daly (17:04):
we're down. We love stuff like that. Whatever it is,
it is Monday. We know you have alot to do, but you should really
go over to ASOTU, codd.com lookat a few sessions, figure out
the ones are going to make youthe more more successful, and
then go there. Be with us inthree weeks. We'll see you
tomorrow. Come on.