Vehicle Ages Peak, Political Jabs Fly, and Gen Z Seeks Balance

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Welcome to Wednesday as we discuss the rising age of vehicles in the U.S., political attacks in Ohio's Senate race targeting a former car dealer, and how Gen Z workers' values align closely with those of their older colleagues. 

Show Notes with links:

• The average age of vehicles in the U.S. has climbed to a record 12.6 years, with the total number of vehicles in operation increasing to 286 million as of January 2024.
  • The average vehicle age rose by two months from the previous year, continuing a seven-year trend.
  • Only 88 million vehicles were 1 to 5 years old in January 2024, down from 90.3 million in 2023.
  • There are 110 million vehicles in the prime aftermarket service range, aged 6 to 14 years.
  • Factors driving the increase include better vehicle quality, high prices, COVID-19 impacts, and hesitancy to buy EVs.
  • Todd Campau of S&P Global Mobility noted, "Really, the main driver was the pandemic and the supply chain" .
    
    
    
• Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown's new ad targets Republican challenger Bernie Moreno's past as a car dealer, sparking backlash from auto dealers who support Moreno's campaign.
  • Brown's ad claims Moreno was untrustworthy as a car dealer and shouldn't be trusted as a senator.
  • Auto dealers argue Brown's comments insult the hardworking employees in the auto sales industry.
  • Tim Glockner of Glockner Chevrolet stated, "Sherrod Brown's comments are a slap in the face to hardworking Ohioans in the auto sales industry."
  • Moreno, endorsed by former President Trump, has become the Republican nominee in a highly competitive race.
  • "Thousands of Ohioans are employed in various capacities across the auto industry, and our senior senator chose to mock our jobs on the airwaves," said Joseph Chapman of Chapman Ford 
    
    
    
• Contrary to popular belief, Gen Z workers have many of the same aspirations and values as their older colleagues, focusing on decent salaries, meaningful work, and work-life balance.
  • A study by Seramount found that Gen Z workers value work-life balance and flexibility, with a desire to be in the office for the social interaction and learning…but maybe not everyday
  • Only 11% of Gen Z want to work remotely full-time, compared to 34% of older workers.
  • Financial stability is important across generations, with 51% of Gen Z and 47% of older workers prioritizing salary.
  • Gen Z workers also seek strong relationships with their supervisors and aim for leadership roles.
  • Jon Veasey-Deters of Seramount noted, "Gen Z is not that different from other generations. We're just the newest one" .

Hosts: Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier

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Episode Transcript

Paul J Daly (00:19):
Good morning. It's Wednesday already may 22. We
have some really appropriatethings to talk about. Today
we're gonna talk about vehicleages peeking political jabs
flying, because someone took acheap shot at auto dealers and
we're not happy about it. We'renot I'm not even close. We were
getting text messages early. Doyou see this? Did you see this?

Kyle Mountsier (00:39):
This is this right here is like, this is not
unbiased opinion, Wednesday.
Yes. So everybody knows. That's

Paul J Daly (00:49):
shown disclaimer,

Kyle Mountsier (00:50):
we have realizations today that are not
unbiased media coverage.

Paul J Daly (00:57):
No, no. And we can and we have the backup to prove
our position. By the way, by theway, Doug Classen. Thanks for
jumping in on the lightning only357 days. Tila soda. He did 358
yesterday. So we agree we'resuper excited. Speaking of
which, we already released thedates for a soda con 2025, throw

(01:17):
the graphic up may 12, through16th 2025. circled on your
calendar. Now make sure like noone books, anything in there. If
you're an industry partner, makesure you know where you are
going to be. And

Kyle Mountsier (01:32):
they're not allowed to have 20 groups are
actually

Paul J Daly (01:35):
we need we need more OEM representation next
year. If you are an OEM or ifyou are close with an OEM
relationship, drop the seedright now and be like next year,
you need to be here. We want toget their voice in the
conversation. We have verylimited that right? Obviously,
we're kind of like, a frontlinesup. Media Company. Right. So we
spent a lot of time there. Nextyear, we're gonna get to OEMs.

(01:57):
You know what? I want to getsome of the new entrants there
too. Like, we need to get Scoutthere. We need to I mean, Scout
is going to release a lot thisyear. So depending on what they
released and how we'll see howmaybe we'll try to get Ernie
Garcia this year. 2025. Thatcould be good. Yeah. Especially
if they continue to rebound. Theproblem is yeah, like, we just
gotta wait. And it could younever know.

Kyle Mountsier (02:21):
So much respect for the entrepreneurial nature
of Oh, my daughter's back theMiracle Mile that we had a
conversation yesterday, it waslike i The person was like, I
don't know how they couldservice that debt. But they
figured it out. You know, theysure did. They just figured it
out. They sure did. And you gotto give some kudos to their
training. We

Paul J Daly (02:39):
didn't cover the story. It's not I don't know why
but their trend, they convertedone of the ADESA auctions, they
bought into their like in housereconditioning. Like it's only
reconditioning Carvana cars andprocessing. All right, that's
not one of the stories fortoday, though. That's not what I
was doing this first one so wecan get to the second. The
average age of vehicles in theUS has climbed to a record all

(03:00):
time record of 12.6 years, withthe total number of vehicles in
operation increased to 286million as of January 2024. So
basically, it's up by two monthsfrom the previous year.
Continuing what is a seven yeartrend vehicles lasting longer
staying on the road only 8million vehicles are one to five
years old in January, down from90 point 3 million in 2023.

(03:24):
There are 110 million vehiclesin the prime aftermarket service
range which is six to 14 years.
When the stuff breaks and thepeople are willing to fix it.
factors driving the increaseinclude better vehicle quiet
quality, high prices of newvehicles COVID-19 impacts and
hesitancy to buy EVs is listedin there as well Tom Campo of
s&p Global Mobility noted themain driver of this is the pen

(03:46):
was the pandemic and supplychain issues.

Kyle Mountsier (03:51):
Yeah, we kind of knew this was coming you're just
going to have more cars on theroad because you have sidelined
buyers due to affordabilitysupply chain pandemic
accessibility to purchasing. Sowe knew this was coming, but
it's still actually justresearched. I knew we're
covering the story. Listen tothis, according to a 2020 report
from assurance 2022 report fromAssurant. So that's a couple

(04:14):
years old, the average age of aphone is three and a half years,
the average the average age ofan iPhone is 3.51. The average
age of an Android is 3.62. Sothere are some that are less. So
when you look at 286 millionvehicles in operation currently,

(04:35):
the opportunity here is to workon as an industry our trade
cycle management, own tradecycle management, get people
have you know, like think aboutthis. Right now. What's so you
got a 12.6 year, right? A 286divided by 12.6 I'm just doing
quick math, right? People, youknow like your maxar is 22

(04:59):
million we have Sorry, about 27million or 17 million typically,
right? If you want to get twomore vehicles sold, you reduce
the years that they're on theroad that they're on the road
and all the sudden you eat upmore of that 286 million cars on
the road.

Paul J Daly (05:19):
It's funny that you bring this up, because we talked
about Ernie Garcia. already.
Yes. When that was hisautomotive news. He's like,
Listen, if we make a car, a usedcar, particularly easier to buy
more enjoyable by people will doit more often, they won't avoid
it. Right? Because it's fix itbuy a new one. Like there is a
thing like people avoid it. He'slike, we can kind of control the

(05:41):
size of our own market. If wespeed up just the trade cycle
just a little bit, we canactually increase the entire
market. I was like it. I watchedthe whole room of car dealers,
it was that the auto news retailforum, I watched everybody be
like, because he was approachingit like a startup founder and
not like a car guy. And

Kyle Mountsier (05:59):
I always I always argue I'm like, you know,
you got the you've got thesedealers with 5070 100,000
Records in their DMS. Yeah.
Right? Like, why do you everhave to go acquire a new
customer every single year? Ifyour goal is to sell two or 300
or 800 a month doesn't matter ifyou have 100,000 people in your
DMS if you just increaseslightly, yeah, the retention

(06:23):
rate or the trade cyclemanagement, like you're set. I
know. Well, that takes anopportunity for

Paul J Daly (06:30):
our industry, man.
The hard part is the is theallure of just increasing the ad
budget. That's a that's a leveryou can pull with some dollars
and the other one just takes along term strategic execution
but the dealers you know thatare doing it. I'm doing it well.
Oh, boy, speaking of not doingit. Well, segue. Right we got
it. We got a video to show you.

(06:52):
Because Ohio Senator SherrodBrown's new ad is targeting
Republican challenger and cardealer Bernie Moreno. Basically,
he uses his past as a car dealerto be the reason you wouldn't
vote for him. Sparking backlashfrom a lot of auto dealers who
support Marino's campaign andbacklash of these two guys right

(07:15):
here. And the few 1000 people wehave behind us that understand
the truth of the industry. Let'swatch the ad and then we'll
break it down. Right now. Hi,I'm Bernie Moreno as

Unknown (07:25):
a car salesman, Bernie Moreno would say anything to
sell a car.
We offer excellent salesguarantees 52 car washes a year
as an amazing vehicle. Well,that isn't believable. And now
that he's running for Senate,Bernie Moreno hasn't changed.
Not one bit. You couldn't trusthim as a car dealer is really
cool carwash, kid. So why wouldyou trust Him as your senator

(07:46):
nobody else can offer you learnmore and truth about moreno.com?
I'm sure Brown and I approvethis message here guys. Okay, so
listen.

Paul J Daly (07:57):
When I heard this story, oh, what do you want the
leather Paul? The carwash kidscouldn't possibly be cool.
Nobody

Kyle Mountsier (08:03):
wants 52 free car washes a year.

Paul J Daly (08:06):
I was so I was like girding my loins when I was
about to watch the commercialbecause I didn't know anything
about their advertising. And Iwas expecting to see like cowboy
hats, like kicking doors in andI was like, first of all, I'm so
happy. These are like reallygood ads anyway. They're well
shot. He's saying things thatare like broken, you know, like,

(08:27):
and okay, so basically, he'smaking the claim that because
he's a car because he's a cardealer. Therefore, that's it. We
learned about this in logicclass because he's a car dealer,
therefore, he cannot be trusted.
Therefore, all car dealers areuntrustworthy. You know, it's
just very insulting Tim Glocknerof Glockner Chevrolet was said
his comments are a slap in theface to so many hard working
Ohioans in the auto salesindustry. You know, and we can

(08:51):
we can talk about it some more,but I did have to go look, I was
like, let me go look at thetrusted professions and ethics
data. And, and Mr. Brown SherrodBrown. He's a career politician.
Right. Like that's that's whathe's done in his career. And
they're like, way less trustedthan car dealers. Which is I

(09:14):
think so ironic.

Kyle Mountsier (09:18):
So interesting.
Yeah. I mean, you know, I'm whatI'm interested in and and I you
know, I can't We can't go lookback and look because I think he
like recently sold it back in2020 to I think I saw sold the
last store so I'm not sure like,what the history of you know,
like, how did the reviews andhow was the profitability? I

(09:43):
guarantee you if that was I saidit was pretty strong.

Paul J Daly (09:47):
I guarantee you if it was an issue that the the
opposing political campaignwould have used that but the
best they could come up with itlike this carwash kits really
awesome. Oh my gosh, what?

Kyle Mountsier (09:58):
Oh, he's got to be Bentley

Paul J Daly (10:00):
in the background talking about how great the
leather is the leather is notgreat. I mean, you know, this is
a super sore spot for us. Wewould love to get Bernie Marino
on the show. So if you know Himor know somebody who knows him,
please reach out to him andpoint him in this direction.
Because we would love and Ireally wish we had time to do
this shoot a more than carsepisode in Ohio. Right? But

(10:24):
however, this is exactly thething the reason one of the
reasons that preemptively wecreate created the more than
cars Docu series, you can go tomore than cars.tv watch any of
the episodes. And this is thetruth that we know about the
industry. And this is also Ithink one of the truths that can
move auto industry up the ethics

Kyle Mountsier (10:42):
like we're gonna move up Yeah, I mean it's it's
literally our core passion, wegot a text this morning from
tagged Pooja, I was like this isat the center of what also do is
all about is rewriting thecultural perception of auto and
why the vast majority, the vastmajority of dealers do not
operate in a way that isunbecoming of the culture. And,

(11:05):
and that story just has to betold. And that story has to be
righted and put right in inconsumers minds, because we ask
the question all the time, allthe time, Paul, we go to these
man on the street. And thereason we asked How was your
last vehicle purchase? Did youenjoy it? How was it buying a
car? And the overwhelmingmajority is? Oh, yeah, I loved
it. I would do it again. I loveddoing what we're like, what was

(11:27):
the favorite? What was yourfavorite part? And they like
eight out of 10 times, say thesalesperson or salesperson and
salesperson, you can immediatelyask them a question. What do you
think about car dealers, andthey revert their their opinion
and our feeling and so it's nota personal interaction issue.
It's a cultural, like stigmathat needs to be erased. Nathan,

(11:48):
our

Paul J Daly (11:48):
producer just put in a note here to give a little
background. Marino'sdistinguished career as a car
dealer owner began in Clevelandoh five with the purchase of one
small underperforming Mercedesdealership on the west side in
just one year. The dealershipearned the coveted Best of the
Best award for Mercedes and wenton to win it for the next 10
consecutive years. Something noother Mercedes dealer has

(12:09):
accomplished even still to thisdate. He went from a single
dealership to impressivecollection of luxury dealerships
across several states, and wouldbecome the largest luxury volume
dealer in the Midwest. So takethat. Wow. So this is a
conversation we want to continueand Zig like you said Kyle is
literally literally why we dowhat we do. All right speaking,

(12:31):
understanding why you do whatyou do in

Kyle Mountsier (12:33):
a big way? No, we've had a lot of contrarian
conversations about thisparticular topic. And contrary
to popular belief, a new studyshows that Gen Z workers may
have many of the sameaspirations and values as their
older colleagues focusing ondecent salaries, meaningful work

(12:53):
and work life balance. A studyby Sarah MT found that Gen Z
workers value work life balanceand flexibility with a desire to
be listen to this in the officefor the social interaction and
learning. But we have it everyday. Only 11% of Gen Z want to
work remotely full time comparedto 34% of older work that
they're probably talking aboutas millennials. You know, I'm

(13:15):
saying financial stability isobviously important across the
generations with 51% of Gen Z,desiring that and 40% 47% of
older workers prioritizingsalary related sense with their
with their careers. And and theyalso want they and they desire

(13:36):
leadership, they want strongrelationships with leadership.
The John vz, debtors ofParamount noted, Gen Z is not
different from othergenerations. We're just the
newest one.

Paul J Daly (13:50):
I've said this many times. I mean, I have I have Gen
Z kids, all this being 17 aboutto turn 18 and August. And I he
and his friends and mydaughter's 15 and 12 year old so
three Gen Zers 12 year old isnot alpha right there. She's Gen
Z barely. There is I feel a lotmore similarities to the Gen Z,

(14:13):
the Gen Z demographic just inthe way they approach things.
And I know you and I are just alittle slightly different. Kyle
you and I like as far as like,how we came up. But there is
this desire to like be in themix be in the grind, right? It's
not. It's not the stigma. Theysay that COVID In this article,
it says that COVID actually hurtthem quite a bit because they

(14:37):
wanted to be out now this overdesire to like be around people
like that's, honestly that'swhat it's like when you just get
started, right? Like I want tobe in there. I want to be in the
mix. Yeah,

Kyle Mountsier (14:47):
exactly. Like, you know, you look back and a
lot of Gen Zers. Were comingthrough college and coming
through like the entry into theworkplace for the last five
years because I think Gen Z goesup to like 26 or 27 Now What is
the number is the HA,

Paul J Daly (15:02):
I guess? Gen Z is almost 30 MG is

Kyle Mountsier (15:05):
in the workplace, right? And so you
look at that and like they camethrough a time where they just
didn't get the interpersonalinteraction so they didn't get
the care and leadership ofmentorship in person so much. We
see this this is hard for us,like our organization is
completely remote all except forlike, two people are together.
And I like it, you know, thereare special things about it,

(15:28):
because there's a different paceand a different ability and
different time zones that we canwork in as an organization. But
it's also difficult, because wedon't get that like rubbing
shoulders interaction on a dayto day basis. And so, you know,
I think I think that just pointsto like these, this, this crew
is ready to go and so don'tlike, I think we're gonna I'm

(15:49):
gonna say this probably till Itill I die is don't discount the
next generation. We've seen overand over and over the narrative
being discounting the nextgeneration and the next
generation constantly having tofight back against that
narrative. What if we can movethe script and encourage the
next generation into success

Paul J Daly (16:10):
snaps on that?
snaps on that old man Gen Z isgoing to crush the auto
industry. We know we hung outwith some of them at Northwood
students were crashing into yourcrush. Listen, go out there and
prove everybody and the stigmawrong