Nissan Shocks, Leaders that Rock, High-Income Flock

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It’s Tuesday and we’re talking about Nissan’s strategic shift in U.S. EV production, the recognition of Hendrick and Zeigler Auto Groups as best-run companies, and Walmart’s unexpected appeal to higher-income shoppers. 

Nissan is revising its U.S. electric vehicle production strategy, putting a $500 million investment in its Mississippi factory on hold. The company plans to adjust its EV lineup and production schedule to better align with customer demand.

• As a result, the company is halting production plans for its next-gen EV sedans, delaying a $500M investment in Mississippi.
• In a memo to suppliers dated May 17th, Nissan wrote "Please stop all development activities related to [the EV sedan] project until further notice.” in order to  "enhance product competitiveness."
• Nissan plans to introduce a fifth EV model at the Canton plant, a compact crossover codenamed PZL1.
• Now the plan is to have two crossover models that will precede the sedans in the EV lineup.
• Jérémie Papin, Nissan Americas Chairperson said "What matters is making sure that we launch the vehicles that the customer wants, at the time the customer wants it."

This week, two large dealer groups were recognized with prestigious awards for their outstanding performance and leadership as Zeigler Auto Group and Hendrick Automotive Group were selected for Glassdoor’s inaugural list of Best-Led Companies.

• The 50 businesses on the 2024 list were chosen based on CEO approval, senior management ratings, and leadership sentiment.
• Hendrick ranked 13th and Zeigler ranked 30th on the list.
• Zeigler Auto Group has a 4.7-star rating on Glassdoor, with 96% of employees recommending the company to a friend.
• Aaron Zeigler, Zeigler Auto Group CEO: "We are fortunate to have a good group of strong leaders who are innovative and hard-working."
• Hendrick Automotive Group employs nearly 11,000 employees and has a 4.3-star rating on Glassdoor, with 84% of employees recommending the company.
• Christian Sutherland-Wong, Glassdoor CEO: "This award showcases those shining examples of companies where senior leadership is putting work-life and people first."

Walmart's recent financial results show a significant rise in purchases from higher-income shoppers, contributing to the retail giant's sales gains in the first quarter of 2024.

• Walmart CFO John David Rainey reported higher engagement across all income cohorts, with upper-income households contributing the most to sales gains.
• Walmart stratifies customers into three income categories: below $50,000, $50,000-$100,000, and above $100,000, each making up roughly a third of its customer base.
• John Furner, Walmart US CEO, highlighted the focus on value, flexibility, and convenience as key factors appealing across all income segments.
• CEO Doug McMillon emphasized that Walmart is not specifically targeting wealthier customers, but rather providing value that appeals to a broad spectrum of shoppers.

Hosts: Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier

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Episode Transcript

Paul J Daly (00:18):
Oh man, I thought I hit the button. Did I hit the
button? I hit the button. Thereyou go. It's Tuesday, May 21.
We're gonna roll with it. Man,my hat was backwards before I
even started today. We have alot to talk about Nissan
shocking leaders that areamazing. And high income people
really? What do they call itcustomers? Customers flocking to
Walmart's gonna blow me what'syour thoughts? I mean, that's

(00:40):
kind of like it's not new newsthat Walmart has a fluent
customers. But the reason why isvery valid conversation for us
in automotive. I think I know, Iknow, how's the how's this show
to kind of hangover feels prettygood. Feels

Kyle Mountsier (00:55):
great. On my end, I'll tell you this. I mean,
you and I were texting thismorning. It's still messages
coming in, whether it beLinkedIn cannot keep text
messages or emails about, likethe acts and every message isn't
just great job. It's this is howI was impacted by XYZ.

(01:16):
Absolutely. And that's what'sencouraging to me is like, oh,
no, that there's it's more thanjust a feeling like the feeling.
Yeah. enabled the action.
Action.

Paul J Daly (01:26):
Right. And that's what we're saying. Yep. Go and
do. Adrienne. Good morning, son.
cylinders. Hey, what's up Dylan?
Right in the car on the way towork or whatever school get it
done.

Kyle Mountsier (01:39):
You know, yeah, I don't know if you saw this
yesterday. But we we announced2025 at the event last week. And
then yesterday, soft announcedit during the morning show, if
you listen to the show. And thenon our YouTube channel, we kind
of put up like a graphic thatwas about 2025. And I think I

(02:02):
don't know if we still have thatgraphic. If we do. You can see
it. And on our YouTube channel.
Someone was like, I love the2025 logo. And I was looking at
it and I was like, is that the2025 logo? We thought we might
be. We'll see. Yeah, we'll seehow that goes. But I feel like
we're we're already priming thepump. You know what I mean?

Paul J Daly (02:24):
It is? Yeah, I see what you're, uh huh. Okay,
thanks, crowd, crowdsource logoDev, we'll take that listed. If
you said you've sent a messageor mentioned, either of us on
LinkedIn, or Facebook orwhatever, and we haven't
responded to it, it's justbecause we haven't gotten to it.
We haven't gotten to it. Butit's pretty amazing. Thank you
again. The point is that we canhit the ground running Monday,

(02:47):
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,Friday, and continue on this
journey to be inspired aboutwhat we do to serve our
communities, our customers, ourpeople, watch them develop and
grow by being the best operationbest and most operationally
sound practitioners in theindustry. We can only do that if
we understand what's going onaround us. If we leverage all

(03:07):
the information, we have therelationships we have to do that
so you're in the right place.
And today we're going to talkabout a little bit of news to
help give us some broadperspectives. Sometimes you need
to be

Kyle Mountsier (03:16):
in my allied alright, what I'm doing, Paul,
how's it doing?

Paul J Daly (03:20):
Well, Nissan's having a little fun. They're
revisiting their US electricvehicle production strategy,
putting a $500 millioninvestment in a Mississippi
factory on hold. company plansto adjust its Evie lineup and
production schedule to betteralign with customer demand. As a
result, they're haltingproduction plans for its next
gen Evie sedans delaying thisinvestment in Mississippi in a

(03:42):
memo to suppliers dated May 17.
Nissan wrote please stop alldevelopment activities related
to the Evie sedan project untilfurther notice in order to
enhance product competitiveness.
We can introduce a fifth Eviemodel at the Canton plant, which
is a compact crossover named thePz L one, come on with the names

(04:04):
already people disease andnumbers and all that. Now the
plan is to have two crossovermodels that will precede evey
sedans. So they were launchingcouple Evie sedans they're
saying actually it's going to betwo Evie crossovers now. A
Jeremy Pepin, Nissan America'schairperson said What matters is
making sure that we launched thevehicles that the customer wants

(04:27):
at the time the customer wantsit. That sounds like pretty
sound business advice.

Kyle Mountsier (04:31):
Can I get snaps for that on a Tuesday morning?
Well, first of all, going intothe Eevee market with an SUV
makes a ton of sense becausethat's where the most people are
going in the going in trucksmodel Y right? model Y can
competing with the thing thateverybody's looking for is
obviously the clear and easyroute to go. But this is like

(04:54):
the dominoes just keep falling.
It's almost weekly now it's likeah I remember that one time boss
when we were like does go all inskirt, you know, head back to
the drawing board. This is justanother domino falling in the
race to quote what the customerwants. You know, we were on
stage with Mike Stanton lastweek. And Mike is has constantly

(05:15):
and I got to interview him in apodcast constantly said hey
look, the dealers, industrypartners OEMs nobody is against
heading toward EVs or hybrids orwhatever next drive train is out
there or powertrain is outthere. But what everybody does

(05:37):
want is what the customer wantsand what the customer is asking
for and they'll tell the generalpop the general pop will tell
the manufacturers when they wantit and how they want it. And so
watching manufacturers start totake that approach back means
there's a good chance they werelistening to consumer and
they're probably listening totheir dealers to speaking

Paul J Daly (06:00):
of listening segue.
This week, two large dealershipgroups were recognized with a
prestigious award for their lovethis outstanding performance and
leadership. As the Ziggler AutoGroup and Hendrick automotive
group were selected for glassdoors and inaugural list of best
led companies. I'm so excitedthat dealers are showing up high

(06:25):
on this list. It's the firsttime they've ever released it
the 50 businesses on the 2024lists were chosen based on the
factors of CEO approval, seniormanagement ratings and
leadership sentiment. Hendrickranked 13th and Ziggler ranked
30th. On the list, Ziegler grouphad given us a 4.7 star rating
on Glassdoor that's not easy todo on Glassdoor. I think 96% is

(06:50):
tough to do, anywhere, anywhere,anything, right and on Glassdoor
is like Oh, where couldanonymous employees tell it they
want you think that could gosideways note 96% of them said
we love this organization andthe leadership 96% said they
would recommend working at thecompany to a friend Aaron

(07:11):
Ziggler. Their CEO said We arefortunate to have a good group
of strong leaders who areinnovative and hardworking. We
happen to be good friends withSam dark, the CEO of the
company, a follow him onLinkedIn. He's always talking
about leadership and serving hispeople. The Hendrick Auto Group
employs nearly 11,000 employeeshas a 4.3 star rating on

(07:31):
Glassdoor. It's really great.
With 84% people recommending thecompany, Christian Sutherland,
one Glassdoor CEO said the awardshowcases those shining examples
of companies where seniorleadership is putting work life
and people first thing Yes,that's car dealerships, folks.

(07:52):
That's it. I just want to comeout before ASOTU CON, I'm just

Kyle Mountsier (07:55):
gonna like the fact that Sam dark, you know,
like you listen to theirpodcast, it's not about how to
sell a car. It's how to be abetter person. Right? And you
see that across zoo AutomotiveGroup, and then Hendrick
Automotive Group. I'm justcalling it, Ryan ever since that
cat is so good at gettingreviews everywhere. He's
probably got a review strategyfor Glassdoor as well and they

(08:19):
just activating their employeesin the right way. But in order
to activate your employees inthe right way, they have to love
working for you. Oh, or you'renot trying to activate them at
all. That's right, or you're nottrying to activate them. The
only way they love working withyou is if you put dinging people
first.

Paul J Daly (08:34):
That's right.
That's right. Speaking at one Idon't know I was gonna say
people first not really, I don'tknow what as well. I went to
Walmart last night, by the way.
I went in and everybody I wentin and everything. And as I was
driving, I was like, you know,we really got to figure out this
online order pickup thing.
Actually, I needed pool chlorinefor my saltwater pool because we
had a little bit of algae issue.
But Walmart will result in their

Kyle Mountsier (08:57):
financial results that shows a significant
rise in purchases from highincome shoppers, contributing to
the retail giant sales gains inthe first quarter of 2024. CFO
John David Rainey reportedhigher engagement across all
income cohorts, with upperincome households contributing
to the most sales gains.
Basically, they, they look attheir customers in three

(09:18):
category buckets under $50,000of income 50 to 100, and then
above 100. And what'sinteresting is each of those
categories make up about a thirdof their customer base. John
Ferner, Walmart's us CEOhighlighted the focus on value
flexibility and convenience askey factors appealing across all
income segments. They, they'renot specifically targeting

(09:42):
wealthier shoppers, butproviding a value that appeals
to a broad spectrum of stoppers.
They've launched recently aprivate label line, better
goods, higher quality stuff, andthen even some Chef inspired
food at affordable prices. SoWalmart going after the Super

(10:02):
center for all peoples? Yeah,actually

Paul J Daly (10:05):
I think better goods is the name of the line.
One of the things that if youclick on the morning brew
article, it's worth a read, Ithink if you're in retail talks
about the value of convenience,and how that the ease of
shopping specifically when itcomes to services delivered at
your home, not having toinconvenience yourself and waste
your time is why they believethey are attracting the higher

(10:27):
level of income earners. Becausethe time over money factor, I
think it's something we all canpay attention to in the stores.
We talked about it it's not it'snot a secret, right, like people
value their time, right itpeople say it all the time. It's
an adage, it's a whatever, whatdo they call those things. But
reality, like the people whofocus on that, the consumers

(10:48):
notice, and especially thehigher the higher level income
you get, likely, the more theynoticed, and the more they care.
One

Kyle Mountsier (10:55):
thing that's interesting that, you know,
doesn't get a lot of publicity,but they they seep their way
into every point of culture isthey have very similar similar
value propositions of Amazonactually, from like, they're the
type of shopping you can getdone the range of variety of
products online, as well asshipping pickup and delivery.

(11:21):
You know, things that evenespecially like on the grocery
side of things, Amazon has notperspective perfected but you
get with similar membershiplevels at Walmart. And so when
you look at that, plus the instore shopping experience, plus
the wide range of of productsacross food and common household
goods and clothing, you get acompetitor that's in the market,

(11:43):
both in the E commerce and inthe in store shopping sides of
stuff, right or

Paul J Daly (11:47):
take a comments people work at Walmart to people
who work at Walmart. Let me tellyou about my experience. Last
night I walked in. The cartswere all over the place and I
needed somebody to sit somewhereto sit my little four year old
we went in, grab what we needreally quick. We needed pool
chlorine, and it wasstrategically placed with all
the pool stuff, which was rightnext close to the front. They
know everyone's buying pullstuff right now in upstate New

(12:07):
York, right? Because it just gotabove like 42 degrees out here.
So we're getting in the polls.
Now, but but when I went tocheck out they have mostly self
service checkout lanes, now theyhave the little community one
where you can get in the lineand you go through, they have
the two people standing there.
And then they have a lot oflanes, which is just like a
standard lane. Only like 4% ofthe green lights that show you

(12:30):
the lane is open. We're workingbut they were people in like 70%
of the lanes it was just kind ofoperationally a mess. Yeah, you
know, and explain that. It'slike, man, it's like that.
That's my perception going in.
And it's like few just a fewlittle

Kyle Mountsier (12:45):
like carrying things and totally changed which
made

Paul J Daly (12:48):
me not want to go in there again. But they were
open and they did have fullcoloring so much

Kyle Mountsier (12:52):
higher. Publix, you know.

Paul J Daly (12:56):
I think you'll probably just buy. Yeah. We're
just having fun today. Let methink a little bit more broadly
about what you do, why you doit, how you treat the people
you're working with how to treatthe people you're serving. Think
about those things and go dosomething