Auto Dealer Monthly, June 2017

8 auto dealer today June 2017 O n t h e P o i n t PHOTO GETTYIMAGES COM ANDRESR additional 12 million latemodel low mileage off lease cars will be dumped into the market Of course we can expect that to further destroy usedcar values The prevailing wisdom among those who are suddenly waking up is that used car prices will drop dramatically The excess of cheap quality units will have an adverse effect on new car sales as well This will inevitably cause the manufacturers to raise incentives even higher until the walls finally come tumblin down This glut is going to hit our already oversaturated industry like a tsunami Its the little guys who will suffer the most the small independent family owned dealerships Look for the big players the publicly owned dealerships to scoop up huge numbers of these destressed units and aggressively market them against new cars Currently in the United States there are 253 million cars registered to just slightly more than 200 million licensed drivers The average age of cars on the road is more than 11 years Weve sold around 176 million new cars annually for the last six years while 40 to 50 million used cars have changed hands each year Even the manufacturers are now admitting this is not sustainable The Trillion Dollar Hoax In researching this months article whatever direction I turned I hit a brick wall In three of four sources I usually rely upon trends and events were all about one subject autonomous vehicles Its as if suddenly the only newsworthy thing in our industry is whos doing what with self driving cars what vendors and technology companies have teamed up with which manufacturer and what technological advancements theyre predicting for the future New York Gov Andrew Cuomo just announced his state is now allowing autonomous cars to be tested on public streets Its as if there is no page to turn or no place to click anywhere in our business that isnt all about the autonomous car frenzy So once again I have to ask the question Why are so many people throwing billions of dollars at autonomous cars There is no public mandate or outcry for self driving cars As a matter of fact every survey Ive seen says the public is afraid of them Most people by a wide margin do not want autonomous cars and probably would not buy them unless they were forced to Thats when it struck me I realized exactly what this is all about I read an article that talked about how we are going to have to educate the public and sell people on the autonomous car concept In other words the autonomous car advocates are not operating under the illusion that the public wants these cars They know they are going to have to sell us on why we need them The manufacturers have run out of customers and they know it North America is saturated with cars These guys and gals have officially run out of tricks But what if they could make every car in the world obsolete What if they could begin replacing and retiring the 253 million units on the road in this country alone Phase One Start telling people theyre doing it all in the name of public safety Phase Two Convince some politician probably from California to put forward legislation requiring that every one of those dangerous obsolete manually operated cars be outlawed and scrapped Sound a little too far fetched Give it 10 years and remember who predicted it Why do you think Google and Apple and all of the technology companies are aboard You cant turn a page or click a link without reading about a new partnership of tech and manufacturing If notice I didnt say when this comes to pass there will be trillions of dollars of new infrastructure required to support it There is going to be a huge burden on the taxpayers to build smart roads with smart traffic signals to communicate with the autonomous cars and control traffic and destinations The tech companies are looking beyond the cars to building the support technology required to manage a huge fleet of millions of these cars on the roads all at once Hell just a few Teslas on autopilot already killed and injured their drivers Now picture coordinating millions of these cars all at the same time What the manufacturers and the tech companies know for a fact is that autonomous and operator driven cars cannot coexist on the highways So the secret plot is to eventually make traditional cars obsolete and then illegal That 700 horsepower Dodge Challenger Hellcat will be a museum piece if these clowns have their way Its sort of like when these crooked companies say they are doing something to enhance the customer experience when in reality it is a smokescreen to siphon more money out of the business When I hear a vendor or a manufacturer start talking about customer experience I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that somebody is about to get screwed and its probably the dealer The same See you in 10 years Ziegler fears extended loan terms are keeping customers in new cars for too long contributing to an oversaturated market