Philipp Sayler von Amende, CCO – Get Your Car and CEO of CARWOW Germany, joins us in this episode.
Philipp grew up in the industry, as is parents had Renault, JLR and Volvo franchise dealerships. He has a great passion for the industry and has over 20 years’ experience in international markets.
With that wealth of knowledge, we discuss everything from customer service, used cars, EV values to AI.
Here are the highlights:
{11:18} We all have the same goals
{15:06} Challenge is in the detail
{19:00} Customer Service
{22:10} Used Cars
{26:37} Carwow’s Double Deal
{34:00} EV Valuations
{38:37} AI
About Symco Training:
Symco Training was founded in 2000 by Simon Bowkett and it was his belief that the business had to offer its clients something different. That difference was clear to Simon from his days in the dealership when he experienced many sales trainers who had all the answers, but were unable, unwilling or both to actually show the delegate how they could be implemented. It remains the ethos of the business today. You see, Symco only employ trainers that are committed to delivering not only in spiring and insightful training, but are equally as happy to demonstrate these skills and techniques with real customers in your own showroom. We believe in order for sales training to be effective and in Simon’s words ‘real world’, it needs to be tried and tested in the only place it matters the showroom floor. There is no room for theory when your goals are for your team to sell more cars, hours or parts and retain more profit. In dealerships around the world the focus applied by many of the sales executives is to try and sell a deal. Symco specialise in getting your teams to focus on selling themselves, the product and then supporting this with the deal.
To find out more visitwww.symcotraining.co.uk
Time, welcome to the Selling and the Motor Trade podcast in Association of Car Without. The online Car Changing Destination. Together we share tips and ideas on how to sell more cars, improve your service department, and generally put more profit into your department, dealership or dealer group. I'm your host, Simon Bowkett, or some of you might already know me as Skippy. First thing, I just want to say thank you for taking the time to listen to this podcast. Hi, welcome to another episode of Selling and the Motor Trade. Today I'm joined with Philip, Salavon Amendi. Now, I'm struggling to pronounce Philip's name correctly there. So from now on, if I say Philip, SBA, okay, it's like when I was speaking to John before from car Wow, I called him JV.
So Philip, welcome along to the podcast. How are you, sir? I'm good. Thank you for having me today. Thank you. Now, Philip is a group chief commercial officer for car Wow. But before we get into car Wow and what you're doing there, Philip, I'd like to know a little bit about your background to get to know you. Looking at your LinkedIn profile, I mean, it's diverse working for Porsche Global Sales to start with, some time in Singapore, bamboo bikes. And I really got talking about that. And then time of true car sales in the United States is quite a diverse career, I'm going to say, but can you tell me right back to the beginning, what drew you to the automotive space to start with?
The very beginning for me was actually, I had no choice. My parents are car dealers. So my very first job was in dealerships. And we just talked about this before the assignment. I started washing cars to the dealership before, you know, like getting into it. But that was my starting point in order. See, I love that so much because there's so many times you get the suppliers and so many times people say to us, we've a training company, well, you know, those you can do those who can't go and teach or they go and do something else. And it gets around the suppliers all the time. It's nice to speak to someone who absolutely comes from the car dealer world.
So what franchises did you start with with your parents? Back in the days and the nineties, my parents had Reynolds and the other franchise was back then, Chagra, Land Rover and Volvo. Wow. Okay. That sounds very good. So you started with your parents washing cars then and then went into Porsche Global Sales, is that right? Yeah, that was when I started studying, I really want to look behind the scenes of a manufacturer and being a car person. It's no better brand than Porsche to get into. Yeah, I have a soft spot for Porsche myself there. And speaking of Matt Watson, doesn't he love Porsche as well? Yeah, we'd be half quite some cheddar around Porsche here, that's.
We could go off on talking about the latest GT3 RS and everything. So we got to be careful on that one there. So do you remember the very first car you sold, Philip? Imagine if I sold, I actually don't remember to be honest. I remember the most profitable car I sold. You are definitely a dealer. You got to tell us that. Yeah, now I really started selling in at well, first I had to watch cars and I had to go to the workshop repair cars before I was actually allowed to sell. That was my dad was like very strict on that. You're going to know the background where we make money and then you can sell them, right?
Yeah. And I was actually, during the end of high school, I was setting up my own company at the dealership. People didn't trust in the classifieds and I was broken. I was broken between users that were looking for cars and was using the dealership to say, Hi, bring your trust. I can give you a warranty with it. And I started buying back in the days that I've financed my entire university afterwards. I started buying price lists through the Chrysler bank and I broke them through and that they were so profitable. I made like eight and a half grand per car. Wow. For me, it was like, I find it's always days afterwards. And half grand per car at euros, I'm talking about when was that?
What sort of year in the? That was the late 90s early 90s. Wow. That's just it. You know, like it was good sourcing. Yeah, I got a good source. I got them and I remember the idea of the Chrysler dealership sat to me. You're crazy. I would buy those cars. They're very hard to sell. And I said, well, but to get them so cheap. And he was was absolutely obsessed that he had two, three demo cars that he's like, they're gonna break my profitability on those. And I said, well, you just got to sell 10 at a high profit. And then you can sell two at a loss. Well, you make a big profit. And he didn't believe me.
So I did it on the side and I made a lot of money. I see. I love that. I absolutely love that. That's what it's all about there. So then you co-founder and I have to ask about this. So, motor trade in your blood right from the beginning. Okay. Then you co-founded zero zero. Okay. And this, if I've got this right, this is bamboo bikes. Now, when I read that, I couldn't get my head around a bike made out of bamboo. You've got to explain that for me. Firstly, how do you get into that? Okay. And how does a bike work made out of bamboo? Yeah, it's a very different story because the retrofit for my life was auto, right?
It was auto and digital. Well, the two things that I started to dealership and then went through my experiences at the manufacturers in consulting in that later, Truka and Carwell. But there was a time after consulting for nearly three years, I joined the World Economic Forum and NGO, right? And I was, again, I was leading auto there. But I was exposed to all those, you know, like macro trends, what's happening in the world, how important is sustainability going to be, how important is it to also be socially active? And for me, it was like, and my hobby is bikes. I'm like, in three times, I'm biking a lot downhill as well as road biking. So for me, I was like, I saw this, you know, like this trend for sustainability and innovation.
And you know, like, can you, and there is, you know, like materials that are really superior to what do you have today? And I did research and I read about somebody, you know, like building, having a social project in Zambia. I said, I brought those things together and said, why not do that? And one of my best friends was Bey then at Adidas. And he was looking for a new venture. And I said, why don't we do this together? He did it full time. I did it as a hobby, honestly, like I did in the evenings. And he ran it. And so we flew down to Zambia and looked at the manufacturing of that. And it just fell in love with it.
And bamboo is an amazing material. It's sustainable. It is very light. It is flexible. And so they had a first prototype and we just worked at them to get it working. And we didn't ever scale it. That was, I think, the biggest challenge and the biggest learning as well. Something that is manufactured and handmade is really, really hard to scale. Also, the world challenges, because you're bringing bamboo into bike, you have to combine the joints, the carbon fiber or the other natural materials. And every bike is unique, which is amazing on the receiving input. It's really, really hard to manufacture and scale. But it was a hobby and inspired by new materials, sustainability, and the social project behind it.
And I did that for two years. He still keeps running it on the side, but not as sad. We couldn't ever scale it to a big business. But it was an incredible learning to get something off the ground. I never spent one pound or euro on marketing, but we had incredible PR. We were on TV, we were on radio, we won innovation awards. And that really was so satisfying to say, hey, you can't really make a difference. It created an amazing product. And everybody, I still ride this bike every day to work. Everybody that sees the immunity of that bike is asking, oh my God, what is this? Is this really good? Is this bamboo?
And it looks amazing. It rides amazingly. It's sustainable. And it's just, yeah, it was fun project, I would say. That is just so interesting. I'm not going to go about bikes or podcasts. There's the flexibility of the wood. Does that help in riding it? Because imagine that it makes it, it's not too flexible, but it can't be too flexible because otherwise it's, you know, like, it's, but it's also not too tough, right? And by combining the joints of carbon fiber, it gives it the stiffness you need. But when you run over, you know, like a stone or something, it gives a little bit of flex in it. So it has a perfect combination of flex, but also tough enough.
And yeah, no, it rides really nicely. Wow. Okay. So then if I've got this right, measurement consultant with Arthur D. Little, and then leadership roles with True Car. So can I ask in those early years there, maybe with True Car there, what are some of the biggest lessons you learned from those early years? Yeah, I think I saw this consulting because I think consulting is probably the best school on earth to, you know, like, think strategically, structure things through, you know, like, get your processes in order. But at the same time, also, you know, like that pivoting you constantly have to do like high up look at a strategy. What's a big picture, right? Well, I'll be going, what do we have to do?
But then also breaking that down into a very clear roadmap on, you know, like these other steps we're taking to get that. So I think that my pilot measurement consultant gave me the best school in the basics, right? How do you know, like really be organized, but also go up and down in your thinking constantly. And then True Car for me, honestly, was my first exposure to a marketplace. How do you run a marketplace? How do you, you know, like balance the customer focus? Yes, marketplace always starts with the customer. But then when you scale it, and I just point when they IPO'd, you're going to balance that, right? You cannot be customer only. You're like, who's your customer, right?
People buying a car, people actually, you know, like using you to sell their cars a dealers. And I think it's got to be an absolute balance between the two. You got to attract the customers to the platform, but you're going to have a really, really good product for your partners to work with you and to be, you know, you have also profitable business for them. And for me, that was a perfect combination. It was an early really, really good school to get into that. And from a leadership point of view, I met one of my, I'd say now, you know, like, he's a coach, he's a friend, a child's project, the guy who ran Vaymo afterwards.
And for me, it was really, he taught me so much in a way, you know, like, how are you being bold, like, think really, really big and have a American positive attitude to everything, right? Like, absolutely optimistic about everything. Like, you could come out of the crisis meeting and he'd be smiling and grinning and saying, listen, we learned so much, let's now attack. And that being German coming from a dealership, I was always worried. Everything was like, oh my God, it's not going to work. It's difficult. And that really taught me my time in American and channel, but especially the through car and and Sean, too, really, how do you break through barriers? How do you really think big and innovate, but scale a marketplace that is not easy, right?
It's a tough undertaking as well. When you talk about the two different, the dealer and the consumer, I suppose there's three really, isn't it? You sit right in the middle between the consumer. I'm talking carway now, but if the consumer is the dealer, but then of course the OEM. And that's got to be such a difficult juggling act because all three, I suppose the ultimate goal is we want the same thing. We want happy customers in a car. So the ultimate goal for all three is the same, but there's different pressures there, aren't there? Because the dealer wants to make as much as they can. The OEM probably doesn't care about profitability in the individual deal.
Okay, they probably want units I'm taking. I'm guessing that would be what they want. That's got to be a different job. How do you balance that? The three different parties? 100% is those three parties. I think when we started, or also in the US, was slightly different, you may be a steeler customer. In Europe, especially over the last couple of years, OEM is changing their tactics or strategies on some of them working a traditional dealer model, others work in agency and others work in full direct sales. So you've got to juggle the three. I think though, over the, maybe all want to achieve the same thing. We want to get customers into cars. The only difference is that for us as a marketplace, it doesn't matter what brand it is or what model it is.
We want the best car, the right car for the user, or the end user wants to get into. So we're neutral in the space. Well, yes, the manufacturer and a dealer have the same interest. They want to get them in their car. Right. And they want to get volume, but they also want to get profitability for the dealer, which the OEM cares less about. For them, it's mainly a volume gain. But listen, I think it is listening, what is the main driver behind each of them? And then aligning them to say we have a common goal, right? And how can we make this happen? What's working best and what we've learned over the last couple of years is when you get the manufacturer and the dealer's aligned for co-funds or similar, right, where you say, hey, you have the same goal.
So why do you manufacture? Don't you support the dealer? If you know, like paying some of the leads that they get from car while? And when they do that and they lean in, that's when it really works best for both of them. Because they say, hey, we have a common interest, and the manufacturer actually is supporting us to work with a platform like car while to help us scale our volumes. And that way, they're absolutely aligning the interest rather than hey, one wants the one and the other one needs more of the profitability because they are taking a share of the costs away from them. Yeah. I want to love to be able to listen to this podcast.
I feel that their senior managers, their investors, their, like your parents, I suppose, and also we have OEMs listen to it. Now, you bought true cars strategy to Europe, if I've got that right. There must be some challenges there starting from scratch or mush. You've done it with the bikes, okay, buy yourself and put your own funding into it. But taking true car, that's going to be a challenge launching that. And can you talk me through some of the challenges and what you learned from there? And then I want to talk about how you did that, I suppose, with car while in Germany. Yeah, I think, listen, it took on evolution in Europe a support.
We never did, right? I met the founder and CEO back in the days, early, early on, like two years before, actually 22, we were always talking about the potential of Europe because car buying is fundamentally the same. It's the same challenge if you are in the US, in China or in Europe, right? It fundamentally at a high level, psychologically, it works the same. The challenges in the detail, every market is different, right? You go to the UK, it has its differences of massive dealer groups and, you know, like, which is not as, I would say, I don't have the same amount of dealers around as you have in the US or in Germany. You have, you know, like the UK in Germany being way more of a built-to-order market or traditionally, yes, that is changing now as well.
But when we go back those 10 years now, that was the case. Well, you know, like, you look at the US, it's a pure built stock market, there is no orders. You go to Spain, it's very similar, it's only a stock market. And then you go even further down, you know, like finance options are different across the markets, legal systems are different across the markets. The emissions are, you know, like regulatory rules around how your show emissions are different. So for me, though, doing it at at a true kind of looking at the different markets in Europe, and I was focusing on the UK, Germany and France initially, I learned a lot about, you know, like, what does it take to launch in those markets in a way?
Where do you need to, where can you go in and, you know, like you use your technology and your platform as a starting point, but where do you need to localize? And honestly, this is where I met James Hint, because, you know, I was in the UK, I was talking to deal with big deal groups, I was talking to James back then, I think it was eight people like how well they were just starting. And I learned a lot about, you know, how car was doing it and what their sweet spot is in the market. And that for me was, I would say the basis to them, you know, like do what I did at car while.
But true kind of a launch for a reason, they had the IPO and they had so many different priorities that in the end, I took after building the European go to market, I was running the OEM media business, because they put it on hold, they said we cannot do all those investments at the same time, which though left me to, you know, I was always obsessed to launch this in Europe to toy car while later on and launch Germany. So then into car, so there were eight employees right from beginning, you've been there right from the beginning then, okay, and you started, have I got this right car while Germany, you launched that in 2016, I've got the right, okay, I've got to ask the question then, you start car where, what do your parents think?
They're car dealers, okay, what conversation happened there around the Christmas dinner table? See, I think every chop change I have, my parents thought I'm crazy, like, why don't you come back to the dealership and work for us? They get, it's still my dad asking me five years ago, I think again, like why don't you come back? No, I mean, the first, the first reaction is like, are you crazy? You're joining those guys, like, you're going to build a race to the bottom, I said, no, listen, listen, even you get up, the race to the bottom, I got that, I mean, the race to the bottom, that was, you know, like, every worker in your car, they came into the market, that was the thing, oh, it's going to be a race to the bottom, and I said, no, listen, there was a customer proposition, but there was also dealer proposition, not doing you, you know, like, to get into the digital age, I'm helping you to reach those customers that are shopping online, and price is an element, but price is an element offline, and price is an element everywhere, we know that a car buying, price is always the number one thing a customer has in mind, but there was way more to that, and I remember the first time I pitched it to my brother, he's like, hell no, I'm not joining, and then how's he, and he joined, and he became the most successful over dealer on the platform in Germany, and he sold at times 30% of his cars through a car, wow, and he's like, oh my god, this is working, because he could excel his reach of his location, he was certainly not selling only, in, you know, like a 30 mile radius, but 100 mile radius, and he's like, oh, I'm getting customers, I would not have gotten otherwise, and they found me a car, so he absolutely loved it, and so he has been leaning in more and more, and I think that was the journey that he took on, but the first reaction was, you were crazy.
Yeah, see, what I love, when you look at the data, okay, it's, people aren't buying just because it's the lowest price car, they can find there, people are buying because of a location and service and how quick, and we train lots of salespeople, that's what we do as a training company, and it's speed of the response, the quality of the response, because, you know what, people, especially when we're going into an agency world, okay, it's the same price on new car everywhere there, and you would say, well, hold on, why would car well be around in an agency world, it's fixed price anyway, but of course, some of the biggest investors are Mercedes-Benz going down the agency model, Volvo, agency model there, because they understand it's not just the rest of the bottom, it's how, how well you engage with that customer there, I just sort of been really interesting to see how your own parents here and brother thinking you're mad there, because that's, that's what I thought right at the beginning, in fact, I said to JV on the podcast, we had clients say, why are you working with the devil?
Car well, what are you doing? Okay, it's like, guys, no, no, no, I've been to their offices, it's absolutely the data, absolutely blow my mind to what they're actually achieving there. I can tell you, like from the gaco and still today, the number one factor to be successful digital service, is that person you talk to, how when you come into the door, and I, I kept saying this early days, it's like, imagine a customer walking into your showroom, they're not walking into your showroom, they're contacting you through a platform like car well, why would you treat them any differently? And actually, it's even, even worse, you have to treat them even better because they have five other doors open, and they don't have to travel there.
And, and it is all about the number one, a conversion driver, is that person, is that salesperson that you actually have on the phone that is answering your messages, that is getting you, you know, like, that is your contact point, and that is your chance to win, as a dealer, that is your chance to win, and you should do everything to win that. Yeah, yeah, so, so true. What's the biggest misunderstanding about car well? Okay, and again, when it launched, it was the race, the bottom, whatever, what do you think is still the biggest misunderstanding? I think it's, as you said, the biggest misunderstanding from dealers is still as a race to the bottom as only about price, which is not, right?
It's price, it's location, it's service, the best, the most important. If you now think of it even further, like the second most important thing is they still think, you know, like we're only a new car platform. And we do new cars, but you can also source cars from from from Kamaa. This, JV talked about this in your last podcast at length, you know, like how big this part of the business has become for us and how important this is also for for dealers, as we know, and we have now moved into use cars as well. And, you know, like we've become a car changing destination for customers, but that also means for a dealer, oh my god, I have one place to go where I can advertise my new cars, I can advertise my use cars and I can source cars, and we now start building the connections between those.
And that is not understood yet. When I source cars, I can immediately list them on car well for a use car and sell them again. And it's one destination rather than, you know, like working the three different suppliers. So new cars, new cars, are they still the main attraction for car well, or is it use cars now? Because if you're entering the use car space for advertising, can you really make an impact in that space? What gives you the confidence that can be a success when, let's be honest, lots of other people have tried to fail, tried and failed there. Yeah, I think the biggest difference is we already have the uses. We had 200 million visitors across the Kamaa group platform last year.
And 200 million. And two thirds of those are also interested in use cars. So I think the biggest difference to anyone else that has tried that is built supply and they fail to get customers. We start the other way around. We have millions and millions of customers on the platform. Yes, the main attraction is they come through our phenomenal content. They come because they know us through YouTube, where we have more than 10 million subscribers of Matt Watson, and they read our reviews and they come in that way. But two thirds of them today are considering a use car. So actually, we'd be stupid not offering use cars, right? Because if you're offering them new cars, we need limiting the choice to give our customers to come to the platform.
And I think that's fundamentally the number one difference today. We already have the customers. You still have the giants like AutoTrader. Okay. They are the giants out there. I know you've got the customers there. Are people still going to go to AutoTrader first? Okay. Or dealers really going to advertise through car well. And are you confident you've got enough customers to give the deal of the eyes on the bonnet, the eyes on that car? 100%. I think on straight, it won't go away. Right? What straight? It will always be down. They have a big brand. They have been around for a long time. And people go there when they look for a used car. But the thing is there is those 200 billion that we're talking about that come to car while on our side to look for a new car.
And very often they end up buying a used car. And so we have a really credible, huge audience that is ready to buy used cars. And we've seen that. And we've grown the eyeballs on used cars last year over 100%. And that is continuing that growth. And as we also invest in more into used cars, and we have more supply, there is more consideration, there's more conversion, and there's more people looking at it. But also the cost of living crisis simply leads to the fact that they're considering both. But they come through the new car angle to the platform, which is actually amazing because you got a really high value customer. It's customers that are ready to spend more.
They buy value cars. They normally are much better in finance because they don't get rejected. They come from the top. And it leads me back to my Porsche analogy. I keep always saying, right? When I started in the 90s, it was like, how could you have launched the 996 after the box? The right the the the the the headlights. And it was always like, there was some ones in the lifetime that meet that mistake where they, you know, like they went at the bottom of the market first and then at the high end. You always come from the high end and go down. And this is how I view it, the Falcons, so they come through the new car, but they end up buying a used car.
And and and it's such an attractive audience to tap into for for dealers that, you know, like you don't want to lose out. Yeah. Okay, so cost of advertising. And if I speak to our dealer partners and the people listen this, they know that auto trader is, can I go on the necessary evil? Okay, the prices keep going up all the time, but I need to be on auto trader. Otherwise, I just don't get the inquiries through and it keeps going up there. Can I ask the high cost in advertising? How's car well going to approach the pricing? How's that going to differ? What what value are you going to aim to offer the dealer that maybe the auto traders can't do?
Yeah, I think the what I've talked a little bit earlier is how we connect the different products together, right? Cost of advertising digitally is continuously going up in any channel, right? And what the the big advantage is that we can, you know, like combine our offering between new use and sourcing. And we have just now we're just launching as we move faster and we're putting massive investments into use cars. We've launched a double deal for our dealer. So I said, if you source on car well, you can advertise for those cars, you source, you can advertise for free. And because, you know, like you buy them through our sourcing platform and we can immediately put them live on our use car.
If you give us all your stock, those that you buy through us, you get for free. So there's a huge benefit because you don't have to pay for those costs. And I think this is this is this is one big one, but it's a massive differentiator out there. And at the same time also, you know, like our core business is sourcing in the new car business. So we don't lift off the use covers as an auto trader and we don't need to make all the profit from that. So it is the combination of bringing the three businesses together that in some, it's going to be cheaper for a dealer. Yeah, we've got more and more dealers using the likes of motorways, of course, yourself, for sourcing the cars now, because of course, they can touch the car.
They can see the car. You go to BCA auctions. Okay, you can't do anything. Yes, it's gone through we buying a car and the dealer is, you know, what's it like because they can't drive it. Of course, dealers tell me they love the idea with car well. Okay, they can actually touch the bonnet, drive the car, make sure it's right before they actually do it. Okay, so I actually love the idea. They can straight away get their car advertised when they buy it. And that's the double deal. Source the car through car well, get advertised straight away. That's going to be really strong. And longer term, though, there is even more, right? We can be able to have tested this.
It's not out there yet, but this is the product developments we are putting in in the coming months. You sorted bitsterly on car well, and you can you can list it immediately because you have all the pictures, we have all the history, we have all the details about the car already. On average, it takes what 20, 25 days from sourcing a car and you have it on your court to advertise? Imagine, like we bring that time down because we can advertise it immediately. The stock to bring that time, but you actually you sell it before you actually have it on your forecourt. Yeah, massively bring down your financing costs, you're massively bring down your costs and you improve your margins.
And that is in the end where devious will be bidding working the car well because to say again, we connect the different pieces together. Yeah, what that does is the the stock turns go to be sensational. So you've already got feedback from dealers using this at the moment, you're trialing it. And what's their feedback like? Dealers have started working the bus and use are absolutely thrilled. They love it, right? Because we give them the eyeballs and it is working really, really well for them. Okay. So what's the roadmap for car well over the next 12 months then? So I use car, continue down the use car option? Yeah, I think there's lots and lots to do, right?
Chadi talked a lot about the lab podcast and what we do on sourcing. There is a lot of innovation happening there and coming. But we talk about my area, which is like the marketplace site where it's all about new car and use car selling at least thing as well. The big, big investment is in use. And there's a lot to do, right? To improve the experience for customers, but also for dealers to build them dashboards to give them visibility on how they're working. And then I'll start working on those innovations, double deal and then direct advertising, their source cars, the bus. But it is absolutely accelerating that use car proposition for customers, but also for dealers.
Yeah, love it. Love it. So listen, if there's one message you could leave with the dealers, listen to the podcast, what would it be? I think it's that be open, be open minded and try, right? This is always coming from the dean of world is always like, ah, often as a hesitation, let's see how those things are going and then no, embrace change. You know, like try a new platform like Carvo and use cars, see how it goes because it's an incredible deal. It's an incredible audience we have to offer and a good alternative in addition to what they do with the big player in the market. Yeah, listen, your passion for the industry is it's still there, right?
Then can they have you still become so enthusiastic about it? What gets you up in the morning? In the morning, two to three coffee caffeine and my love for cars. I think I do, I do love the auto industry and I do love what we can do with technologies, the digital and it won't stop, right? There's always new things. There's always better ways to improve, you know, like how we can advertise cars, how we can get better products for our end customers, but how we can also, you know, get better tools out there and can use our data at Carvo to help deal us out more. Yeah, yeah, I was speaking to JV about the data because you have so much data on actually when inquiries come through to dealers, what people are actually saying, what communication that ends up in a deal, okay?
Not just gut feel, not just, oh, I think this will work, that'll work. You have so much data that absolutely works and I just love the idea of looking at all that data and teaching our partners, this is what works guys. This is what actually, it's not the rest of the bottom, it's not just money, it's the service, it's how you do it. And it's, I'm going to say use cars is you're not known for that at all. So it's going to be interesting to watch that space there. And when you first say use cars, every part of me is thinking auto trader or the equivalent in Germany and Spain, how are you going to take those on there?
But you have the customers and that's what we want as dealers, we want the customer, you have them, don't you? So it really does join all the dots together. Absolutely, that's it, right? We have a customer and as you said, we have the data, we know what customers want, right? It costs all makes and models and across all dealers. And this is, I think, again, as a marketplace, we know exactly what works, what doesn't work and we help dealers to improve and to help them, to improve their processes, improve how they work on the deals and what answers work, what don't work, as you say, is one example. We've also piloted in one of our markets as well, how can you use AI to do that, right?
To do a pre-qualification, it's incredible what you get from that, right? And it's just like using all that data and helping dealers in that space, really getting into a brand new audience that haven't tapped into so far. Yeah, well, this is what I've got here at EVs and I'm talking about the UK market. I don't know about Germany and Spain there, but used EVs. If I look at auto trader now, 6% of the cars, electric vehicles on auto trader. Now, that makes sense because the push has really just been the last three or four years. So those cars are going to start coming through now, it's going to be bigger and bigger. Used electric vehicles, the price of them, was dropped off a cliff.
We know that was driven probably 18 months ago when Tesla significantly dropped the price on it. Used car dealers, listen to this, there's some nervousness about getting into the used EV market. They're going to have to get their head around use EVs, aren't they? So can I ask you, do you see used EV prices still dropping off a cliff, sliding there? Do you think they're going to reach the bottom and it's going to start leveling out when more and more electric vehicles come through? They're going to have to, right? Absolutely. I think this is a typical evolution you see the new technologies, right? The early adopters go in, they take a higher risk, they're ready to pay a higher price.
We add this pivotal moment where we move from an early adopter market to a mass market and it becomes a mass market. There's more data out there, there's residuals will stabilize and as the pricing stabilizes on you, that is where the pricing on use will stabilize. I think as a dealer, there's dealers out there that especially we talk stock sourcing, they're smart, right? They say, hey, where's the opportunities now? Which cars am I sourcing that I can make in Marchin on? But definitely as EVs are growing on the new car side, there will be a used car market because there's user can't afford the new EV, but they want to go into an EV and they look for the opportunity.
But I think the biggest drop in residuals is what we've already seen. Okay. So it is starting to level out now. Because I hear some people saying, hold on, electric vehicles might just be like a mobile phone. And what they mean by that is because new technology is growing so fast, the range is just increasing all the time there. Is it going to be a situation because people want the 800 kilometer range now, okay? Or the 400 kilometer range car is nowhere any good. Is it going to continue when the new cars are getting better and better? Well, I think it's always a question on why a little residuals settle, right? We have this still back 30 years ago, we have this combustion engine.
Every new model was better quality, right? They didn't rust anymore. And they suddenly, you know, like you engine, but a fuel economy, et cetera, et cetera. So we had this in the combustion world as well. It's just that we reached a technology maturity on those where, you know, residuals were very stable around certain ranges. And I think, again, you go into new technology, yes, you have more cooperation at the beginning, especially as those come out. But the question still is, batteries are not getting worse. If you look at the battery health after three years, after four years, it's not like mobile phones have fallen off a cliff, right? It's actually they're really, really good. And so I think it's a matter of stabilization moving into a mass market where you have enough data and you have enough trust in a market where, hey, no, there is a decent market and it's stabilizing you.
How much further down can it go, right? Nice. Yeah, because new cars, we're not, it's no longer early adopters. They've gone through that new car. People are listening this year, 28% of the cars have to be electric in the UK there. People who buy electric first time round second time around, what is it 94% of people buy electric again? So people love them when they get into them. So that will flow into the use car market. Absolutely. It's definitely going to do that. While I've got you as well, I've got someone who uncents technology and the motor trade. AI, I've just come back from the NADA conference and every, you've been out there, I'm sure.
I love to go and see what's new and what's happening and super impressive tech on the new DMS provider in the States that's coming to Europe and doing great, great things with AI. Are we as car salespeople? Are we going to be the dinosaurs? You see these chatbots can take the inquiries, they know what the customer's looking for. And I want you to look into the future 10 years down the track, 20 years down the track, your brother, your parents, are they still going to employ car salespeople in a dealership? Or will they just employ AI? What's the future going to be? The future is going to be unique both. We're human beings and buying a car is a very, very, very complex purchase.
It's not getting easier for EVs and lots of new technologies. People trust people. And I fundamentally believe AI will transform how we sell cars. And I think everything you just said, and as that we tried it, the inquiry handling, they can't do the front part. They can answer the easy questions. They're probably better than a salesperson on what's their technology, what's that new feature, what is this? They can do that better. But they cannot, they cannot transfer the knowledge about the driving experience and all the different options they have on finance and what's better depending on their circumstance. They cannot go into that. And it is selling a very, very emotional thing as car buying is a very, very emotional process.
And I think there will be elements that will be taken by AI and will make sales people take some of the hassle off that as well. Some of the things that are actually not the enjoyable bit. But we still love to buy from people. And I think it won't go away. It will change, but it won't go away. Yeah, I think you're right. There's three sales in any sale. You go, so yourself first, the product second, and then the deal. And you're right. Asking some AI, what specifications this got, the 992.2 GTS. Is the turbo really going to have turbo lag or not? AI will know that information inside out back to front because it gets the data, gets the information.
But actually, it can't build that trust and rapport. It can't say, hey, look, I've been working at this Porsche dealership for the last 18 years. Okay. On that trust, because people, it's still a big old chunk of money and cars are a passion. So I'm glad to hear someone's in this digital space and the motor train space that we're going to be here in 20 years time. Yeah. I really enjoyed this conversation. Philip, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. How do people find you? What's his way to people find you? Reach out on LinkedIn. LinkedIn is the best place, yes. Perfect. And people listen to this and start getting your head around car wear and the used car proposition there.
The double deal, that sounds absolute brilliant. It's not launched yet. I understand. It's not launched yet, but it will be launching officially as a thing. But we also we already offered to do this. Yes, brilliant. Thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it. Thank you, Simon. That just leads me to say that all details of this episode and other episodes on the selling in the motor trade can be found on our website simcotraining.co.uk. Go there to get a copy of our book, Words That Sell Cars. Go there to sign up to a free trial of our sales fitness online sales training program. Easiest way to get hold of me is Simon Bowkett through LinkedIn.
Thank you.
