The Problem With The EV Market [The Breakdown Podcast Ep #1]

Join EV experts Dennis and Chip for a new podcast in which they talk about the real experience of purchasing, owning, and servicing EVs, the current EV market, and how changes in the market can affect you. This podcast, created in partnership with Amber, aims to bring you the latest EV news, expert analysis, and pro-tips to ensure you’re always in the know with your EV.

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Transcript:

Dennis: Alright, this is brand new. We are trying a brand new podcast and we're going to be calling it the breakdown with Chip and Dennis.

We're going to talk about deals, repairing electric vehicles, hybrid vehicles, plugins, and get into the weeds, you know. You guys know me, potentially. My name is Dennis, I love talking about Tesla deals, and my friend Chip, who I've known for a long time, is actually on the ground fixing hybrids/electric vehicles and selling them.

So, Chip, do you want to talk a little about yourself?

Chip: Yeah, if you haven't seen me on YouTube or any of the social medias, my name is Chip Jeppy, I own Hybrid and Electric Car Sales in beautiful Franklin, Tennessee. We do sales and service of all hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and electric cars, and specifically Tesla. We're one of the few shops in the Southeast doing specific service outside of the dealership, [...] got some exciting things to share with everybody about what we're seeing, like Dennis said, on the ground.

[...] I got firsthand experience selling the cars and fixing them so I think we got some really interesting content to put out for you guys and I look forward to it and I really appreciate, Dennis, you having me on and us putting this together and I think you guys will have some weekly content here that's worth listening to.

Dennis: Love it, and of course we got to give a big shout out to our friends at Amber partnering with us on this podcast. If you don't know who Amber is: don't pay for high electric vehicle repair costs, get a warranty on your Tesla vehicle that's month-to-month that can cover all the different repairs.

We'll talk about that more about that later but today we wanted to talk about what's the problem with the electric vehicle market and in each podcast, hopefully weekly, we're going to have four different segments.

The first one's going to be [...] what happened this week, [...] any news, or potential things that we can respond to. We're going to give you a pro-tip of the week where both me and Chip are going to talk about what type of advice we can give you. And number three is maybe, [...] if we get any sort of questions from you, we will talk about it and address it. And then, four, if you make it to the end, we're going to call it “The Discharge,” where we give our hot take on what's going on with the market right now and some things that we can give feedback.

So, the first thing, is let's talk about the problem about the EV Market. Seems like Tesla could be losing share but EV sales are still up. There's a lot of competition and there's a lot of, potentially, Tesla owners trading in their EV’s at the moment. Chip, what are you seeing on the ground?

Chip: Well, I'll address the later part first about people wanting to trade in and sell their Teslas. Firsthand, I've definitely gotten some calls from customers that have purchased in the last year or two politically motivated to sell their car. No one actually went through with it. Once they got the trade values, you know, if you bought two years ago it might be a little tough to actually walk away from it and if you took the tax credit it could hurt a little bit more.

But at the same time, I think it's just more of a mental thing than people actually going through with it. You read a lot of posts online. I don't know if anybody's transacted, but there's definitely some drive there and I'll tell you, they're not getting away from electric cars. It's just getting away from Tesla. Every single one of them who wanted to sell was actually more interested in trading for another brand. So, “hey, what about that Chevy Bolt? What about that Nissan Ariya?”

So, it's more - not hating the segment - but just against Elon, and I think that's what we saw a lot of.

Dennis: That's pretty cool! That shows that EV owners are still loyal to electric vehicles and it makes sense, right, because they probably invested so much into, like, a wall charger at their house.

But, I guess, to give the viewers context, what market are you in?

Chip: So, I'm in Nashville, which is the Southeast, so a little bit slower to adopt the electric car and, no doubt, we knew that when we were getting into it. It's a pretty well-off area, the county that we're in, but we service all of Middle Tennessee, so there's a wide range of income.

But I think the biggest driver, at least at my business, is people taking a look at their budgets and looking for a way to save money regardless of however you're doing it. People are looking at their budgets, they're tired of paying for gas, and if they have a really inefficient vehicle then they can have some real savings. And that seems to be the biggest driver, out of anything, that brings people to my lot.

So, like you said, I think those people who bought a Tesla, they saw the value, they got the savings, they don't want to lose that savings and the lack of maintenance. So, they want to stick with the EV segment. It's just, you know, everything else that's going on.

Dennis: And the crazy thing is on our channel, when we talk about Tesla deals, I literally have not seen a drop off at all. Like, the views are still good, people are still placing orders. I do feel like there's a different demographic, a different owner, coming to the space that's shopping for Tesla vehicles and electric vehicles that may have peaked more curiosity. Are you kind of seeing the same thing?

Chip: Oh yeah, I mean, in the past 60 days the client base - I keep things very neutral, [...] I try to keep the politics out of it, but you can tell by the people that are coming in. I've been selling cars my whole life and there's a shift. And a lot more people are vocal about why they're there now. Like, “oh I'm Team MAGA” or whatever “and I want to support this” and “I want to buy this.” And that's, you know, they're very up-front about it and me, as a business owner, I'm fine, I don't care what your affiliation is, I just want to sell you a car at the end of the day.

But, yeah, it has switched for sure.

Dennis: Yeah, what's interesting is [...] Tesla's been running 0% financing on the Model 3, specifically. They've got a new Model Y out, but all the other models, like the S, the X, the Y, have 5.84%.

But, I do feel like the - how people are paying for these, like there's low lease payments as well, is also changing. I think people aren't balking at the 5.84%. I mean, they love the 0% on Model 3, but are you seeing [...] a difference in the change of how they're paying for these vehicles because of the different buyer set as well?

Chip: I've always been predominantly, like, 80% cash, 20% finance. We are seeing more people coming to the market for financing. I think people have gotten used to the higher rates now and it's just a matter of “do I want to commit to going EV or not?” And I think interest rate has little to do with it, at least on my side. I know on the new-car side, 0% is a big incentive considering the price of it, you know. The interest savings is a lot more on a $40,000 car than on [...] a $20,000 car.

Dennis: Yeah, and I'm curious [...] because I usually talk about new, of course. It's, like, 80% new, maybe, like, 20% on [...] crazy depreciation on Model 3s because some of those prices get to, like, $10 to $15,000 when you see the headlines and stuff.

Are you seeing more competition at the auction or even more inventory? Or is it kind of the same?

Chip: I would say in the last 6 months prices have really stabilized. I'm paying the same amount. I did the research last night - I'm paying the same amount for a 2018 Long Range Model 3 today that I did six months ago.

So, prices, a 50,000 mile - I run MMR - so, 2018 Long Range All-Wheel Drive, 50,000 miles. MMR from 6 months ago was $20,011. Today it's $20,500. So, there's been virtually no movement in MMR over -  you know, the car is 6 months older, so it should fall off farther than that but every time I'm going back to the lease lanes, the Tesla lanes, prices are still strong. It's the same guys, same dealerships, that are in the segment [...] looking for the good inventory. Definitely still demand there, and I think the tax credit's driving that now.

Kind of touching on what you were just talking about, the new car side, I'd be interested to see the sales numbers broken down lease versus purchase for the other brands against Tesla. You know, they're saying they're gaining market share, but how are they gaining the market share? Is it through more leasing? Or is it just in general people are just buying more of them?

But, I think the leasing part has a big factor to do with it. I could be wrong because the data wasn't there in any of the articles, but I think those killer lease payments are really driving people. We saw a lot of that about a year ago on the Wrangler 4xe. You know how cheap they got and everybody ran and got one. It wasn't that great of a car; if you talk to the owners, not a lot of people are happy with that car, but the killer payment is what drove a lot of it and I think we're seeing that with a lot of the other brands. You kind of alluded to that earlier.

Dennis: Yeah, I want to say Tesla leasing is only, like, 10% of their whole entire portfolio. They've really tried to figure out the leasing situation; that's why they added lease buyouts pretty recently.

But, in terms of the article saying EV sales were up, I think it's more of these other legacy automotive manufacturers just realizing that they need to really subsidize electric vehicles like $200 to $300 a month to actually sell them. And so, it's not really a good signal, and you can probably [...] agree with this, that it's not a good signal that people are actually buying electric vehicles. They're just buying it because it's a slick deal at the end of the day.

Chip: I think that might be part of it and then the savings, you know, the value proposition on the end of it: that it’s going to save you gas, on fuel cost, it's going to save you on maintenance cost. So, yeah, cost has a big factor to do with it.

Dennis: [...] So, what do you think about, I guess, [...] the competition in the space? Like, have you seen some of [...] the Chinese EVs, like some of those videos that are in, or like, what's some general thoughts on [...] the problem of the electric vehicle market?

Chip: So, when I first opened - I'll just share my personal experience - when I first opened my store, I envisioned it as a place where you could come and drive all of the brands. You could drive the Ford, the Hyundai, the Kia, the Tesla, and then you would pick which car was best for you. I had this notion that each car would kind of fit [each] person differently.

Well, the reality was everybody bought a Tesla. They came in, they drove all my inventory, but they kept buying Tesla. Now, this was three years ago and I shifted my inventory to carry more Tesla and less of the other stuff because it wasn't until those other cars were thousands and thousands of dollars cheaper than an equivalent Tesla - like, a ‘21 Tesla versus a ‘21 whatever.

That other car would have to be $5,000 to $10,000 less to get somebody motivated to buy it over the Tesla and I think you're seeing that now that these legacy manufacturers, in my opinion, will not be able to sell their cars at the prices that they want to sell them for. They're going to have to be a discount when compared to Tesla because Tesla is the dominant factor in all of this. They're all just trying to be them.

Dennis: Gotcha, so you’re saying Tesla was definitely more premium and these prices have to be way lower like -

Chip: If it's a better car, in my opinion, even if it's a better car. There's some better cars than Tesla out there, but I still think they need to be cheaper than Tesla in order to sell them in any sort of volume.

Dennis: Is it easier to get financing on a Tesla versus some of the other brands, like a Chevy Bolt?

Chip: Not necessarily. I mean, it just has to do with the loan - the value. You know, it would be hard to get it if the dealer was overpriced, but if you're shopping at a dealership that has fair pricing, it's in line with book values, it shouldn't be any more difficult to get financing.

There are some banks that won't finance electric cars, we've learned that.

Dennis: Oh, interesting, yeah. Which is it, [...] credit unions? Or just [...] big banks?

Chip: There was one big bank that came in to us and they signed us up and they were only doing electric cars, hybrids, and plug-in hybrids. So, it was really in line with my business model and I was really interested in it.

Then, six months later, they came down - they're like “we're not doing electric cars anymore, we're only doing hybrids and plug-in hybrids.” And I was like, “okay,” and we didn't do a lot of business with them.

It was just an interesting shift. And then they got acquired and now they're [...] no longer around but I think they just used that kind of EV pop to get dealers signed up. It seemed like it was just set up for acquisition but they were definitely restricting.

And, who's the other one, I think it's Exter or Exer, or there's one other bank that won't do electric cars. Don't hold me to that but there are some of them out there that just don't do EVs, period.

Dennis: That's pretty interesting. The other thing I've also heard - well I know - is that when you buy a used car, it's going to be a way higher financing rate. That's why I try and push people to actually do the math to figure out: okay, if they're financing a new one at 5% or even 0%, and a used one is 8% to 9% - is that what you're about to say?

Chip:  Yeah, I just did a deal yesterday: 6.74% on a ‘22 Model Y. I mean, good credit, no money down, financing thirty grand, 6.74% for 60 months. This payment was right around $640.

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Dennis: Oh, then that's not too bad. Also, that's interesting; so, on a used car you could potentially put 0% down.

Chip: Zero down, yeah. This client, just yesterday, bought a ‘22 Model Y, 30,000 miles. We had it advertised for $29,900, which is well in line with the market, maybe a little bit under. And we financed it all the way. I think it was $32,400 out the door with his trade - he had a trade. And yeah, 6.74%, 60 months, $640 a month.

He was happy with it. He had a car allowance of $650 a month, so his goal was to be under that so his car allowance could take care of it. And he traded in a ‘17 Lexus GX 460. So, there you go.

Had, you know, what's that, 13 miles per gallon? I had one of those; they chew through the gas, and he had 150,000 miles on that car since 2017, so he's a driver and he just saw the savings, he's like, “you know, my car allowance is going to pay for the Tesla, I won't have anything out of pocket, it'll be great.” And there you go.

Dennis: That's interesting. Are you seeing - I guess, if you were to [...] look at the pie chart of your owners or people that buy from you, [...] what percentage of it is returning owners and what percentage is brand new to the space? And [...] currently, what's that look like?

Because I did a poll on the channel the other day and I got, like, 1300 votes on it. And I asked [...] “is this your first Tesla or is it your second?” And 60% of the people voted saying that “this is my first Tesla.” And so, this goes back to [...] the current market -  that people are just coming into this brand new.

Chip: Still, 80% of my business is first-time EV owners. You know, my store is kind of set up to “come get an education,” so first-time buyers naturally gravitate towards my operation. But, we're about 80% new, 20% are repeats. We get a lot of clients who buy one and then they're back a couple months later trading in the wife's car to go full electric, you know. They were a little hesitant to do it at first, but after they get comfortable with the range and the charging, they're ready to cut gas completely out.

And that's how I got into it many years ago, is I was commuting a long distance and just trying to save money and traded in and then a couple months later I sold my wife's car, got her one, and the rest is history. Kind of snowballed into what we're doing now.

So I get it - I see people taking the same steps that I went through all those years ago: looking at my budget, how much can I save, and gas prices right now are on the way up. One of the metrics that we follow is once gas gets above $3 a gallon, the phone starts ringing a lot more. So, that seems to be the tipping point is $3 a gallon on regular; we notice that people start inquiring more.

Dennis: They start to do the calculations and everything.

Chip: Yeah, that $100 fill up really gets people thinking.

Dennis: I love it. Any other comments on - what do you think [...] the problem with the electric vehicle market is right now?

Chip: I don't know, I mean, I'm not an industry expert like that as far as the new car side goes. You know, used it's just availability, getting the right inventory. [...] I don't know what would fix it. [..] That's a hard question. What do you think?

Dennis: I definitely think we need more chargers. If we can get more level two chargers everywhere, like at your house, of course, that makes the most sense. But, like, shopping centers, schools, work. Because, you know, people talk about range and trying to charge up as fast as possible, but if you could level two charge everywhere you went, then you don't necessarily need, like, a level three, unless of course - road trips, you have to do it.

But, I think that's the way to adoption. And, of course, pricing. It needs to be a no-brainer deal for people and we're kind of there but still people are scared of it. But, it is interesting to see the changing buyer right now with everything that's happening.

Chip: You know, you bring up the charging point and I just want to hit on that. Here in the South there's still a lot of opportunity for charge stations. There's a place called Clarksville, Tennessee and [...] I sell so many electric cars in Clarksville and they do not have a supercharger.

I think it's the number two spot for Tesla to put a supercharger in. I guess they have a voting system on their website where you can put in for it and that's, like, one of the highest ranked ones.

And there's a lot of places down here in the South. I'm like - God, you know, there's not a Tesla dealership in Alabama or Kentucky, like there's not a Tesla dealership or service facility in Kentucky or Alabama. There are tons of Teslas in those markets and they have to come here to the middle of Tennessee because this is the only one.

You have one in Memphis and Knoxville, so we have three here in Tennessee, but none in Mississippi, none in Louisiana is my understanding. I mean, it's really kind of a ghost town down here for service.

Dennis: Do you think that's because [...] the law’s where they can't have [...] a dealership in that area?

Chip: Oh, I didn't think about that. Maybe, maybe. I don't know. Maybe they just didn't see enough demand for it. I really thought there would be one in, like, Huntsville, Alabama. They got NASA down there, you have a lot of stuff going on down there that I would think makes sense because we get a lot of people driving the hour up to us, you know, because there's nothing down there, no one taking advantage of the market.

Dennis: Right, and also some people think [...] the problem with the electric vehicle market is range. And I guess I'm not used to it because we're - you know, I'm in California - [...] we don't drive long distances like people do in the South, Texas, Tennessee.

Like, it's very common. There's a culture where people will get in their big SUVs and drive 12, 18 hours to go see family. Do you think range is actually an issue with electric vehicles?

Chip: Yeah, you know, living in D.C. and then living here in the South, they definitely drive more down here and take longer trips. And that is the one question that comes up every single time when talking about that one trip to Florida every year or going to see Mom down south.

I mean, no doubt. And any EV is tough to pack full of a family of four with luggage and go on a trip for her. [...] Unless you got a Suburban or a Tahoe, you're not really doing it in any vehicle [...] unless you got a minivan.

So, it's the same thing. It comes up. Charging networks are getting better, you know. I tell everybody: “download the PlugShare app or get on one of those planning services, input the type of car you're thinking about buying, and seeing what that trip looks like.” You know, that'll give you some insight on whether it can be done.

But, I tell everybody, “buy the car for 95% of your use, not that one trip a year.” You're going to save so much, you're going to have so much enjoyment with that 95% of use. That one trip, you can rent a car or figure out a different situation.

Dennis: Yeah, and it was crazy, like, of course, you know, some of the domestics are coming out with massive SUVs like the Cadillac IQ, the Hummer - did you see the post the other day where you could buy like a 2023/2024 Hummer EV for, like, 60k. [...] The depreciation of those is insane.

Chip: We looked at one to lease it, but no third row. I need a third row, I got three kids. [...] I was all about leasing the Hummer and [...] I'm not sure if you saw: the battery sizes on the Silverado is 350 kilowatts.

I had a dentist across the street and he has a Lightning. And he was like, “well, let me look at the Silverado.” He's like, “it goes 400 miles.”

I was like, “it does?” And I was like, “what size battery is in it?”

And so we look it up. I was like, “it's three and a half Model S's.” It's crazy to me. And that battery, I think, is like, 8,000 pounds or something. It's a massive battery.

I don't know if it's 8,000, but it's very, very, very, heavy. So, we'll see if that works out.

Dennis: I can't imagine [...] the cost of that and then the repair cost, which kind of leads to like, the other - you know, people talk about repair cost for batteries. And you've had tons of experience with that, right? Like, actually swapping the batteries out and putting them into Tesla vehicles.

Do you think that's still a problem? [...] I remember the headlines before where [...] a Tesla Model 3 battery was like, $20,000 or $30,000 of the cost of the car and I get comments all the time like, “oh, just wait until the battery goes out and then you're going to pay for another car.”

What’s your experience so far with that?

Chip: So, Model 3, if we got to swap your battery, it's right around $8,000 right now. Model S, if we got to swap your battery, we're going to upgrade you to a 100 kilowatt pack and it's going to be $13,000.

That's where the prices are right now. Those are used packs out of total losses. If I can repair your older Model S or Model X pack, I will, but replacement is usually the way to go on those older ones with the upgrade.

But, there's really no demand for that service honestly. It's very, very few people are calling me. I've done quite a few of them, but nowhere near where I'm going to be building a business around Tesla battery swaps. I really, you know, the shops that are doing it frequently - I just don't see the demand. My phone doesn't ring. My phone rings for every other service - literally every other service - but battery replacements.

We do a ton of work, we're very, very busy, but we just don't see it. My research led me to believe that the failure rates were much higher than they actually were, to the point where I went and got trained on fixing batteries, I invested in a bunch of equipment for fixing these batteries, and it's not really - the ROI is not there. Maybe in the future, right, you know, 5-10 years from now and the cost will come way down, but right now, I'm not seeing it in any sort of volume.

Dennis: Yeah, [...] I love it, thank you for that insight.

So, this next section, if you're watching or you're listening, we're going to have [...] a pro tip of the week. So, we're going to try and give you, the viewers, something - some sort of advice - whether it's on the service/repair side or even [...] the new car purchase side.

And so, I'll go first. I think I want to really [...] stress to people what type of savings you can actually get with 0% on [...] a Model 3. It does end very soon, and maybe it'll come back, but that could be $6,000 to $7,000 if you're going, like, 60 to 72 months versus buying a vehicle at like 5.84%. And so, really take a look at that.

But also, the flip side to that is if you take a loan out at 5.84% but pay it off very quickly you're not going to pay that much interest either. So, really do the math. There's tons of calculators on the channel and of course we talk about it a ton on our YouTube channel so definitely take a look at that. But, I really wanted to talk about that as my pro tip of the week.

Chip: Alright, yes, so, my pro tip of the week has to do with [...] general service. We're going to talk about - you need to swap your gearbox fluid on your Teslas and all of your other electric cars.

I just want to talk: we do a lot of transmission fluid flushes, gearbox oil changes, and I think it's something that doesn't get talked about enough on a lot of the Teslas. You do have your Drive Unit back there and there is gearbox oil in there that needs to be changed before 80,000 miles.

We say 10 years or 100,000 miles, but we've been encouraging people to change it much earlier because we've been seeing the fluid coming out and it's not looking that great. So, pro tip, go get your car - your Drive Unit - serviced with the fluid flush.

Dennis: That's so funny that you bring that up because we just bought the brand new Model Y and we drove it from Austin into Los Angeles, and as we were going through, I want to say, like, New Mexico, or El Paso, temperatures dropped from, I don't know, 70 to 80 degrees down to, like, almost 25 degrees and there was an error message that came on my screen. It said “check or inspect gearbox fluid.”

Chip: Oh, I've never seen that message but that would mean it's, like, low or overheating.

Dennis: Yeah, and so [...] I quickly Googled it with Tesla and it said [...] when temperatures get really cold, it's common. Like, New York and other places like that, it could cause an alert.

It went away, which was good, but [...] at what mileage would you say you're supposed to inspect and change that?

Chip: We say 60,000 miles. Like I said, you can go up to 100,000 miles on it, but most of the cars that we're selling are less than 80,000 miles, so we're trying to get it done before 80. So, it's kind of a long/wide interval. I'll have to look up exactly what it is, but I can tell you no one's getting it done, so we just want to encourage people to think about it.

It's not in the maintenance menu - you know, the new maintenance menu they launched on the Teslas - it's not in there, so it has to be something that you go to get done on your own.

Dennis: Yeah, well, you probably have to go to [...] a Tesla store but yeah, [...] that's so funny because we [...] talk about how [...] Teslas have really low maintenance or you don't do fluid changes or anything. I mean, I tell people: “just get your brakes changed, you don't do oil changes or anything because it doesn't have one.”

But, you're saying that there actually is fluid change you have to inspect and check before 100,000 miles.

Chip: Yeah, we say coolant at 10 years or 100,000 miles and we say the gearbox before 10 years or 100,000 miles. And we're trying to figure out what the real gearbox oil interval needs to be, because the manufacturers will tell you one thing, but then we'll do a fluid analysis and we'll find “oh, this should have probably been changed much earlier in its life.”

If you want to prolong the life of your car, at the end of the day, you don't have to do any of this, right? But, some of us want to have the cars go.

Yeah, Tesla says every 100,000 miles.

Dennis: Okay, that makes sense. What's the highest mileage Tesla and what was [...] the condition it was in?

Chip: I have two Uber drivers here in Nashville that have Model 3 Long Ranges. One is a 2018 two-wheel drive, another one's a 2018 Dual Motor. The Dual Motor has 369,000 miles on it, the two-wheel drive just crossed over 300.

And we've rebuilt the suspension, wheels, tires, motor mounts on the two-wheel drive. I've done quite a few motor mounts, [...] gearbox, Drive Unit, Motor mounts, they break and that pops back there. But that's it, you know, original drive units, original battery.

We've swapped coolant, we've done the gearbox oil changes. We did a set of brakes, you know. Don't do too many brakes, but did a set of brakes on it. That's about it, they're still running good.

At this point, the guy is just like, “I want to just see how far it goes before it dies,” cuz it's paid for itself like, four times over with all the money he's made Ubering, you know, driving all those people from Nashville to the airport and back.

He's doing pretty good.

Dennis: That's awesome. How much would you say he's - so this is two Uber drivers that like, service with you?

Chip: Yeah, two separate guys and they didn't know about each other. I was like, “you got to meet the other guy.” Like, I'm trying to get them there both at the same time because they're both essentially trying to do the same thing and they're black on black. I think they do Uber Black too.

I don't know, how much could you save on 300,000 miles of fuel savings? You know, 30, 10,000 gallons of fuel? So, $40,000?

Dennis: I was gonna ask [...], how much have they spent with you in total with [...] all these repairs over 300?

Chip: Oh, less than a couple thousand bucks. You know, the motor mounts are like, $1,200. The suspension rebuild was a little over $1,000. [...] It's not killer, these parts are not very expensive, and we're not doing, like, you know, changing the whole Drive Unit or batteries or anything. All the ancillary parts are affordable and there's a lot of aftermarket available that we like and we use. We don't always use the OEM stuff.

Dennis: Yeah, [...] you probably save a ton by going aftermarket versus OEM.

Chip: Yeah, you know, Moog is a a good, known supplier of quality suspension parts and they make for the entire Tesla lineup and we buy a lot of their stuff. I'm really happy with it so far.

Dennis: I love it, sweet.

So, this next section, usually we'll try and take questions from you that are watching, but of course, this first one, because it's so early, we don't have any questions. But, I'm going to put a link down below in the description so you can submit a video or a written question so that we can answer.

And this last part, thank you all for making it to the end. We're going to call it “The Discharge,” where we're going to give our hot take and gripes about the current electric vehicle market on every single episode.

So, I'll go first on this one. My gripe, or my discharge, is how Tesla is really switching to this Launch Series/Foundation Series markup type of situation. I mean, I get it, they're learning that their buyers, their owners are very loyal and they can kind of charge - they're kind of basically taking [...] what the dealership model is and packing everything with warranties or the features on top of that to raise the price, raise the revenues.

But, certainly, you know, it's unfortunate that they have to force people into buying Full-Self  Driving or Acceleration Boost and not just let those products speak for themselves.

So, that's my gripe, is the Launch Series on the Model Y. And I would hope that they would quickly move to the non-launch and just sell the regular non-launch very soon, but that's my gripe on the - or my discharge for today.

Chip: Alright, my discharge and gripe is on OEM parts pricing. Since we do a lot of service, we buy a lot of the same parts over and over again, and the price fluctuations have gotten kind of crazy in the past, I would say, 12 months.

We do a lot of transmission rebuilds and we have a kit that we buy and 12 months ago that kit cost was about $1,600. Just at the beginning of the month, the cost is now $2,300, so it's gone up nearly 50%, almost 60%, just in a short period of time.

There's another part that we buy: EGR valves. they've gone from $400 up to $1,400 from that manufacturer. I'm not going to call them out, but parts pricing is getting kind of crazy. I don't know if it has to do with the tariffs coming on or manufacturers or just the dealerships marking them up, but I checked OEM pricing and it continues to rise on the OEM side.

So, that's it, [...] I wish parts pricing would come down, help our consumers be able to service their cars a little bit cheaper, and not force us to aftermarket, because I do like the OEM stuff. I'm a big believer in that, but all it's going to do is drive other aftermarkets to come into the space.

So, that's my gripe for this week.

Dennis: Have you had to raise prices because of everything that's happening?

Chip: I have, I have. I got to keep - I keep my margins the same. So, if the parts price goes up, the job goes up by the parts price increase. [...] I haven't raised labor rates since I've been open - I may be due for one, but I'm trying to be fair, build my clientele. And right now, the customers seem to be happy with the way we're doing and they understand, you know, things continue to rise.

Dennis: Yeah, everything's rising these days, so it's kind of just name of the game for every - whatever you're trying to purchase.

Perfect, well, thank you all for watching. Definitely hit that subscribe. On our next episode, episode two - well, hey, we want to take any sort of feedback you have, any comments, or questions. We'll also leave a comment form on how we can do better and add more value.

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