Gareth Williams, MD of Hatfields Motor Group joins us again, in the second instalment of his two part interview.
With the changes in Jaguar in recent years, Gareth and his team have had to adapt, he elaborates on
their new focus and their aims for the future.
Also, as Hatfields now offer Omoda & Jeacoo, Gareth is well placed to discuss with us, the future of established brands compared to the offering from China.
Then finally, we look at electric vehicles and the opportunities they offer now and beyond.
Here are the highlights:
{00:47} Changes in Jaguar
{05:50} New Focus
{12:12} Chinese Brands
{21:09} Forward thinking
{24:13} Don’t say it, do it
{26:50} The opportunities electric vehicles offer
{39:36} You can’t have responsibility without authority
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 visit: www.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. So can I ask you, how do you go as a dealer group, cope with the demise of a brand? Now, demise, I don't know if that's the right word to talk about it, but you're the largest dedicated Jaguar Land Rover business in the country.
And when I'm dedicated, you're a Jaguar Land Rover. Some people may have had more Land Rover businesses, but you were dedicated. Then of course, Jaguar decided to cut the network from, I don't know the numbers, but 100 odds. I think it was. I believe they're cutting the network to around 20 dealerships. That's got to be tough. How do you deal with that? Well, firstly, nothing we could do about it. It was a decision made for us. So you just have to adapt. That is, again, Rodden, who was MD at the time of JLR, came and saw all the investors personally. So look, this is what's happening. Clearly for us, it was a big issue. We had five Jaguar dealers, four of which were soulless.
And in Holland particularly, we just built a new arch facility, so was arch facility that we told was closing. How long ago had you built it before it'd been open 18 months? That's got to hurt. Yeah. Yeah, expensive. Listen, expensive, but it is. It happened to us before. We were Mercedes Benz dealers. And, you know, oddly, my father would have done anything from Mercedes Benz, anything, because it was the foundation of our business. It was the first business that he'd bought working for Sutton's motor group. He bought Huddersfield, garage is back in 1978. And then we had three Mercedes Benz passenger car businesses, business and a Mercedes truck business in Manchester. And fundamentally, they made all the money in those days.
You know, we had Jaguar businesses, but they didn't really make a lot of money. They were good businesses. And of course, in the early 2000s, Mercedes Benz came along, totally rationalized. And we, in those days as well, businesses of our size, they weren't really seen as the future. You know, Trevor Finn had built Penn Dragon up to this, you know, the mighty being. And everybody, not everybody, but say these Benz particularly thought at the time that you needed to be big. And so Huddersfield got absorbed into Leeds, Pickering got crossed off the map. McElsfield went into Manchester, which Mercedes Benz wanted for themselves. And so we'd lost that and we just had to adapt. You know, my father was desperately unhappy.
And not the stuffing I would have been to be honest for a bit. But I'd never really been involved in Mercedes Benz. I'd always been involved in Jaguar. And so I taught Mercedes Benz compensation money and started to buy Jaguar businesses and then sort of various other things on the way. But yes, you're right. We were solely Jaguar Lambdre over, but you adapt, don't you? You just have to. And as I sit here today, yes, we will be one of the new Jaguar dealers in Liverpool. But as we sit today, there is no Jaguar business to speak of. But we've kept the vast majority of the people. And we've just adapted and we sell more use cars.
We are still championing use jaguars or something. A lot of those, but from Lambdre over businesses, we sell more Lambdre over cars. We sell more new Lambdre over cars now. And we try and keep all the service customers. So you just adapt to best you can. You will see how it develops. There's just a possibility that, you know, if the Lambdre over job continues to grow and the new product that comes and, you know, that actually we could be a business of the same size out of four rooftops, the same size as we were out of nine rooftops. Now, let's be honest, if you can make the same money out of four businesses that you had out of nine, would you take it?
Absolutely. But also the reduction in your headcount wasn't huge. I was so impressed about how well that you and your management team were. I don't know if placing other people is the right word because these are people. But your headcount was minuscule compared to what it could be. Yeah, no, absolutely. But I'm not just very glib to say it's all about the people. But we had some really good people who knew what to do, who we'd invested in. They'd invested in those. We'd invested in them. It would be lunacy. You know, other than those who geographically couldn't come with us. But you think, you know, Shrewsbury retained all of those people. So we've lost the brand, but we've actually employed, we have more people working in Shrewsbury today as a Land Rover dealership than we did when it was dual-franchised.
Liverpool the same. We've taken a number of people from the Sheffield and Wakefield business and put them into all. And obviously then we've taken a motor in JQ in Hull as well, which has given us another brand. So that's absorbed some people. So, you know, in truth, the headcount was lost, but we didn't want to lose those skills. I mean, it made no sense. And they wanted to stay working for us. Now in Fenceton, some people are now doing longer journeys, but they've kept their service, they've kept their, you know, their way of living as well, and their standard of living. And it worked for us. And while ever we can keep employing those people and keep them gainfully employed, we will.
One of the other things we've done though as well is which has increased our headcount is we've separated new cars and use cars completely. So we don't have anybody selling both anymore. What we do, that's not true. Pickering is not big enough to have two separations, but in Hull and in Liverpool in Shrewsbury, we have dedicated new and used teams, which means more people in each team. So that's another way that really we've kept the headcount. And we haven't done it to keep the people just to keep the people. It works. We believe the focus on selling new and selling used, you know, because we look back historically. And as always, you know, when the used car job is great, the new car job suffers and the other way around.
And we recognize that we just couldn't afford that anymore. Yeah, you know, literally it was about affordability. So we invested in more people. So we have more managers and we have more sales executives. But, you know, touch what does I sit here today? It's working and our property is stabilized in the smaller, smaller business. But I think our turnover will be very similar. Yeah, we're just adapting. Adaptive. Yeah, I just I know the conversations we had about the focus at Shrewsbury and keeping people focused on new or used. It really it is working. It definitely is working. It can also ice them. So Jaguar for people who don't know maybe in other countries, listen to this, but bus and drive people in the UK listen this and we'll know that Jaguar has said they're stopped selling cars for I think it's over 12 months.
They called it a what did they call it? They needed a a gap a pause just to reset the brand. Can you just go to what do you do as an investor when you're going to be joking, you're going forward, but you've got nothing to sell for 12 months. You got car to service, of course. You wait and make do. You just go on. Honestly, I understand and I'm fully supportive of that. I've been very fortunate from the very early days to see the new Jaguar product and the three cars that are coming and they are so different and they are in a such a different place in the market from the existing Jaguar brand that they had to be a gap.
They simply had to be you couldn't possibly continue one to the other. There had to be a pause and there has to be a total reset. We have to acknowledge that 90% of our Jaguar customers will be lost to us. It's just the nature of the beast. It wasn't. It was one of those strange things. It worked well for a small number of dealers. I would have said that Jaguar worked particularly well for the network and of course it didn't work at all for Jaguar Land Rover. They just couldn't make any money out of it. We loved it and we made plenty of money for us but we were the exception, not the rule. It had to change and we understand that.
What we all know is that when Jaguar does come back to the market, it will come back with such a unique product that honestly, I know people have seen it now. We've had the update. You've seen all three in the flesh yet and they are honestly, they are strikingly different from anything. They're not for everybody and obviously they are electric and they are expensive and you say those two things today in the marketplace and you think you'd be mad but that will inevitably change. It will inevitably change. The electric car is not going away. Difficult as an investor and I speak to any investors today waiting for Jaguar to come is a waiting game and we all hope and I know it will be worth it ultimately because that car will find its feet and the volume of people who buy it, I really have no idea but I know there will be some people who buy it because I looked and thought, it's just one of those things.
You look at a car and you think, I could sell that. I looked at it and I thought, I could sell that. It's a relatively rarefied atmosphere, isn't it? 120,000 or whatever the car ends up being and all electric but again, I think that will change. One of the reasons why this pause is not an issue is that if you bumped everything a year or two down the road for big expensive electric car, that has to make more sense, doesn't it? For whatever anybody thinks you know today, it's just not going to find favor. It's funny, in the industry, I heard many people say, whatever you make in Land Rover, you lose on Jaguar and that's what the industry used to say.
And before I was working with you guys, I turned up thinking that but you bought the trend. You definitely made money out of Jaguar. We were Jaguar people first who took Land Rover and Jaguar was just in our blood. Craig, who well, myself, director, he was brought up on Jaguar, I was brought up on Jaguar and so that was just a passion and a love. It wasn't, we weren't unique, there were a number of people who made decent money out of Jaguar, mostly family business, smaller groups to be fair. But we weren't alone in making money to Jaguar. There were times when people made money out of Jaguar, they really were, the dealer network. It was really towards the end when the cost of arch facilities became a real issue.
That's when you had to focus on Land Rover because Land Rover needed to really work to pay the bills and that's really why Jaguar lost it in the end. I mean, it clearly never worked for JLR, but from a network perspective, you had to work Land Rover so hard and Land Rover was and still is the most profitable brand. If you built Land Rover right, you really can make a lot of money. It's a great brand for that when it works, not like anything else. So I think that was really that what saw Jaguar ultimately, that putting them together, like anything, if you're soulless, you're going to be a dancer, aren't you? Yeah. Talking about the different franchises, so 2019, there were 44 franchises represented in the UK and 2025, I believe the number 63, we used to save a long time, the Chinese are coming, the Chinese company.
I think it's fair to say the Chinese are here. They definitely aren't hatfields. What impact do you think that's going to have on the traditional manufacturers? Well, they're disrupted certainly, but my experience with a motor JQ is that they're not disrupting with anything that's new. They're just disrupting with, I don't know, a different a different product, good price, great warranty, and I suppose they're only doing what the Koreans did 20 years ago or more, aren't they? I was a Hyundai dealer very early on when Hyundai took it back from the RAC. I remember meeting the Koreans at the time and this lasting impression that was true, which is you just knew that whatever it was going to take, they were going to do it.
And they did, you knew it. Yeah. Yeah. They did. And now you look at Hyundai and they've got 200,000 units and it's taken them a long time to prefer the Chinese their expectation is that they will get there much, much quicker. I think they will. Well, I think they will. Yes, everything's quicker now, isn't it? But the product's fantastic. And I guess for the traditional people, they're just going to have to accept a smaller share of the game. I do worry about forward and Fox, I don't know the percentages, but you're a Ford dealer. It did what sort of market share did they have 30 years ago? Voxel, what market share did they have? It's got to really hurt the tradition.
Ford had thought had 20, 26, 27% when I started with Ford and then British Leyland, Voxel, how did British Leyland have about 15? Voxel, 12. Anyway, between the three, Ford, Voxel, British Leyland, they had more than 50% those three. So very different. But I guess if you look at, you've seen Stellant, you've seen Stellant's results today. You can almost see, can't you, where the pressure is going to come and who is going to get nibbled away at? And whether they stay in a reduced capacity, whether more multi-franchising just becomes acceptable and understood and acknowledged. I mean, you have to say, don't you? And I say, I'm not, I'm old, but you have to say, if you look forward and you saw four or five brands on the same site, sharing the same space as that used to be shared by one, you would think that's going to be messy and not great for those brands.
You think, you think now, maybe, of course, that everybody just accepts that as the norm and says, yeah, listen, you've got those four or five brands are all together. You can wander onto a site, you can pick and choose between them. They're all owned by the same operator. And that manufacturer is happy to sit alongside one another. Clearly, part of the agency we're talking about is that complete openness and understanding that somebody else would be alongside you and could be alongside you. And so what, you know, and that's a change in mentality. But while every, it's a franchise model, you're always going to want that uniqueness of brands. I think it's going to be hard.
The focus, the focus on brands. Yeah. Yeah, but how do you focus on four or five brands? It can't. It's so difficult. It can't. It can't. And so what you end up doing is you end up focusing on the thing that's good for you at the time. And if you happen to be poor, then you will just get nothing. You'll be the fledgling dying at the back of the nest, won't you? Yeah. That's the reality. And so I don't know. So I do fear for some of the brands, I have to say, or the argument is that they're still soulless, but there's 50 odd light we said at the beginning, there are 50 Brennodelers and not the 100 maybe.
And maybe that's how it works. But there's no question that the Chinese brands are here, the product strong. And if the customers like it, what are you going to do? The one thing I do know is I don't think that the established manufacturers can afford to make cars as cheaply as the Chinese. So if it comes to a price war, not EV vehicle. Yeah, EV is the Chinese are winning that war. But what's interesting with the motor and Jacob, when I first got talking to them and making an assumption, I'd have a look and see what the product was, but assuming that this was all going to be just an electric event that they still see, you know, a real place for internal combustion engine cut.
And they hit it. And yes, we're selling them and, you know, people are buying them. So, you know, so again, that's the point of making is nothing radical and new. They're just coming with some old fashioned great retail propositions, really strong warranty proposition and encouraging people to take a chance. And at this moment in time, it looks like the, you know, the buying public of Britain is very much prepared to take that chance and dive into what is in it, essence, a new brand. The other thing we go look at is the tariffs that Mr. Trump might be talking about on Chinese cars. Europe, they're talking about the tariffs. You're, no, no, UK is not part of Europe.
But actually, what will these Chinese manufacturers look at the UK, the Australian markets thinking, okay, I think that's going to really affect how much how many of these other brands are going to want to come into the UK market. I think we're going to continue to see the growth of the Chinese brands in the UK. And, and I guess I say here, I don't know, but you would, you would, if you're a betting man, you would say, and the continued demise of some of that European stuff. Because it just won't, I can't really see what its appeal is going to be. Because it's not going to be prime. It's certainly not going to be quality.
Because the quality of the product we've seen is absolutely spot on. So it can only be brand perception, candid. And then ultimately, you say, well, actually, if you get over the brand perception that Renault or Citroen or whatever, it may be, is a better brand and a motor and JQ, that won't, that won't sustain for long, I'm certain. So, rationalization then manufacturers, you know, you see, as you see it on the retail side, do you suddenly see manufacturers joining forces? That's it again, you know, that's the right, the only way we survive is together. I don't know. I don't know. It's a peculiar time. It is a peculiar time in the industry with agency and a lesser change.
So much change. Since I've been in the industry, the change that's happened, or happening in the last five years is, is massive. Have you ever been out to Shanghai, the motor show out there and seen anything? I've not done it myself. It's one of those things. No, I went to Korea with Hyundai, which is very interesting, but I have been to China, but I've not been out to Shanghai and seen what's happening out there. I went to China years ago. I haven't been recently, but, but no, I know obviously people who have, who, you know, talk of it, no, almost like a space age. Yeah, yeah, I'd be interested to see that, but it's, but also the bombarded with the amount of brands coming through there.
But definitely interesting space to see what's happening there. Well, they aren't all the time that the market can't take them. So because it's, you know, it's not that sophisticated in truth. But three or four will end up coming in sticking, won't they? But the others will fall by the wayside. But the first three or four that get volume and take hold, they will definitely, you know, they'll definitely stick. Even after pockets to buy the market to start with, where the Koreans, I think it was a slower burn. Well, it was. But I think these guys, you look at BYD and their growth is phenomenal, what they've done in such a short space of time and others.
It really is. Listen, if you are a traditional manufacturer, you're looking over your shoulder, aren't you, and saying thinking, what can I do? I think one of the issues potentially is that the answer, what can I do is not a lot. But having said that, you're always forward thinking. Okay. When I first met you and your sales director, so I did my salesperson's research, I mentioned before, I like to find out about the company and qualify. And I can't remember if it was you or Craig who said this, but I said, you guys are really punching above your weight. Can I ask, why are we here? Okay, you're doing a really good job. And you or Craig said, let's fix the roof while the sun is shining.
Yeah, I've seen firsthand that you've always invested in the future. I know that now. Where's that forward thinking mindset come from? Is it your father? Has it always been there? Is that something inbuilt? No, to me, it comes from a very fortunate place of being profitable. So you can afford to make the right decisions at the right time, fix the roof while the sun shining. Yes, that is a saying that we have, and it's absolutely right. But most importantly, it's always about having a slightly competitive edge for us. And when we met you and we wanted to have a change of direction in our training profile, it was also about attracting people. We talked earlier about people who've been in the job one time.
To attract people, if they know that there is an established training structure, because we've both been in the industry long time, how many people have come and gone in this industry, stayed with it less than 18 months, because they weren't trade properly. There was no induction. There's your desk, there's it. Off you go, track on. We were absolutely adamant that we had to stop the churn of people, because we had the same churn of people. 20% of our staff would churn regularly. I mean, 400 people, 800 people in so many, 25% in one year we got to. 100 people came and went. And we had to stop that. We looked at what was the reason.
And of course, that three, six, nine month churn was huge. Just the people who, now, was it our fault? Was it their fault that they misunderstand with the industry? A lot of people, certainly from a sales perspective, think it's about the gift of the gap. They have no understanding of the depth and the intricacy of the processes we employ. But generally speaking, we wanted to try and cement people in and stay, because that constant churn is so expensive. And that's really what it was. So as I say, it's, yes, it's a philosophy, but you need to have some financial strength to be able to invest. Not that it's particularly expensive. It's affordable, but nevertheless, it just is about investing that relatively small amount of money in each individual that makes them think whether they love or hate us or the business, at least they think, well, our mates will see this through.
And then once we get to the end of the training program, largely speaking, most people are then cemented in. And that's really where it comes from. So what advice do you have, Gareth, for managers, listen to this? So people, listeners might be a after sales manager, a service manager, and they want to progress within their own organization. What advice do you have? Because you have people in your business all the time want to progress. What advice do you have that manager? Maybe someone else's organization wants to progress? Talk less, listen more. The things that I was taught, you've got two of these in one of these. So listen, listen. And I don't know, you're judged by your deeds, not your words.
So if you're going to do it, if you say you're going to do it, do it. Make sure you do it. That's something that we drill into people in our business all the time. Don't say you're going to do it. And people often say to me, particularly the Jaguar, when people used to, friends and colleagues and investors, would look at our Jaguar performance and say, how do you make, how do you do that out of Jaguar? And I used to say to them, you know, all the things that you say you're going to do? Yeah, we actually do them. Just do it. I'm not, I'm not, I'm not smart asking anybody here. I'm really not.
Because, you know, as I sit here today, talking to you, unfortunately, we'll be happening in one of my businesses. Somebody would have said they do something. I'll ring you back before 10 and they won't have. But we just try and make sure that we limit those things. And I think for anybody wanting to progress in any industry, my business, your business, any industry, you know, if you, if you are good to your word, then you will get on, won't you? You just will, you know, pick up the phone. That's a hard call. Yeah, it's not going to get any easier. It doesn't get any easier if you leave it till the afternoon. If you said 10 o'clock, swallow hard, pick up the phone deal.
Yeah. You know, and that's the best advice I would give anybody. Deeds, not words. So true. I get so many people saying, Simon, I want to progress in this business on my salesperson. I want to be a business manager, a transaction manager, what I do and they're, they're sweet talking to the manager. And it's like, just get on and make sure the job you're doing at the moment is the best you can do. Okay, your action speaks so much louder than words. Don't try to suck up. And if you do that, you will get noticed. Definitely. Don't spend your time sucking up to people or anything like that. It's, it's not as invested. That's not what you're looking for.
You're looking for results. You're looking for what you're getting to do there. Dependability. I love that. Absolutely dependability. Okay. So let's talk electric vehicles now because, well, JLAs going to be pure electric. Okay. It's going to be, it's where we're going at the moment is some people are saying they're on social media. It's a dead duck. Donald Trump's in now. We're all going to go back to diesel cars. I think we both believe that's not going to happen. The manufacturers are going down this path. Okay. The range is actually coming there. What impact is this going to have on the business model after sales, for example? Well, I'll ask the sale. It's going, well, is it going to decimate up to sales?
I suppose it is ultimately. But I've said to everybody for many years now that although EV is a worry, what it does represent is the biggest potential windfall that the industries have since everybody went to diesel from petrol. How do you mean, because everybody, because everybody has got to buy a new car? Absolutely. Everybody. All right, up to 2050. But every single person today has got to buy a new car. All of them, those have got electric. So it's going to happen. And yes, timing is an issue. But I don't think the politics is changing. I really don't until I know again, talking to the JLRC, and they've got people talking within government. The current government and their green agenda is here to stay.
They think it's vitally important to keep young people engaged. And they think that's what the youth want. And that they think that logically, it's going to happen. So I don't think the politics will change. The one thing that they have to do, and it is all about affordability. And I do understand it is, we need something like a scrappy scheme that's going to get everybody over the line. You need that big, that first chunk of money that's going to be put down as a deposit, because people can afford the payments, because the payment payments now, what we've had with the down tab is the big lump of money to put down on an EV. That will then, when we start to see volume, residual value will greatly improve.
That will make them more affordable. And it will just become, you know, a natural churn. It really will. It's absolutely inevitable. And the other thing is that, and I only speak from a JLRC perspective, that I've seen the JLRC range of cars that are coming. And they are absolutely fantastic. I'm not saying that just because I'm a JLRC dealer, I'm really not. They are the most beautiful things. And you look and think, I am definitely going to sell those. They're both expensive. But again, it doesn't really matter, because the price will settle, and the puts it will settle, and you'll just start to see more and more investment in charging. You'll see more and more EVs come to the market, whether it's with the Chinese or everybody else.
Those cars will come eventually to the market, and they'll start to grow. And diesel will go big on completely. You've seen it now. The diesel reduction is there continually. And it's all right. It's been replaced with petrol. But once the politics, once there's affordability within politics to deal with the EV issue, and everybody knows it's there, they need a stimulus, don't they? We've got to have a stimulus that says, right, now is the time for the bulk of the British people to buy an electric vehicle. And when that happens, it will just flow. We know all the products there. Everybody's got the product ready. The only reason it's not coming to market today is because nobody wants to buy it today.
And you'd end up discounting it to such a point that you'd ruin it forever. So all the cars are there. I just think it's a matter of time. But from a retailer, so from retailer, that windfall, huge number of people changing the cars, wanting to change the cars naturally. Quite what we do with the part exchanges that are then unappealing is another matter, isn't it? But that's why. So it needs crap, or something like that. But those cars are still in the market till 2050. So it's not the end of the world. And there'll always be people who simply cannot afford an electric vehicle. So there'll be a home for those. I'm not overly concerned.
More may end up with the scrap yard than I'm currently doing. But the business model, you know, is a difficult one. I'm just building a new facility in Liverpool for Jaguar Land Rover with, you know, 20 odd, 24, I think we'll probably end up 24 workshop bays. It's got a need today. I probably need more today, for being honest. But it's not what I need for too many tomorrow's, is it? You know, I'm not going to need 24 workshop bays for electric cars. I'm just not now. I may need more space for batteries out and things of that nature. But, you know, the space may be right. But I'm not going to have the number of technicians.
And I'm not going to have the number of service visits, because the wear and tear items on those cars just aren't there. So the business model will change completely. But again, everybody knows that and understands it all. Manufacturers are modeling well into, you know, the end of this decade and looking at what they perceive to be the hours available for each workshop. And I'm sure they'll share that with their partners as developments go on. You know, clearly it's a conversation that we've had with jail on network development, because we're putting, you know, we'll end up with 13 to 14 million when it's done. Which is a huge chunk of money to put into a single dealership.
But again, you know, we had to be open and practical about what we see going forward and what we build. So we built it probably slightly smaller than we need today from a workshop perspective, but understanding that we just change our working practices and shifts and things of that nature to get over that short-term hump before it settles down. But, you know, we still see it as a profitable business, even though the model will change. Yeah, it will change definitely. And for me, it's second time EV customers. Someone goes EV once. High 90% of those people stick with electric vehicles. And of course, that's, I don't think the government helps when they'll turn around and push back and say we're going to go for 2030, then 2035, but not take the targets off the OEMs.
I think the 28% target, they need a joint up message, I believe. But we're not going to change the politicians. We're not going to change the government. They can't just pressure the manufacturers into pushing. They've got to create some pull, haven't they? And they're going to stop that. But of course, the problem is, I mean, we're long if we're being exacerbated by the increase in defense spending. We're getting deep into it now. But the increase in defense spending is just going to mean, unfortunately, the EV retail pull money is going to go down the order of priorities, I'm afraid. But at some point, that is the only way that it can possibly happen. If the marketplace isn't incentivized to buy EV, then they're just going to stay in their internal combustion engine cars, aren't they?
And how far away are we from getting the parity with ice vehicle, internal combustion engine to electric? I still think we're away off that at this stage. At the current rate, two or three years, at least, that needs to accelerate, doesn't it? Yes. To accelerate. And again, I think it will. And we just need a really positive message. Well, we need certainty, we need certainty on 2030, we need some relaxation on the pressure on the manufacturers, we need some retail pull. The other problem, of course, is energy prices as well. I think people are looking at that and thinking, actually, is it any cheaper to put electric in my car than it is to put fancy?
Reality, if you charge home significantly, if you have to charge away from home, but actually, how many times? The average customer is only three times a year after think about charging away from home. If you charge from home, it's almost a no-brainer. But anyway, I think it's coming. Nothing stopping it. The train has already left and the money that's invested in the products has to be realized in the marketplace, in the manufacturing they can't afford to turn around. No, a lot better than I will. Is it true that the OEMs are still losing money on most EV vehicles they're making? Are they still going on their brains? Because the subsidies, of course, they're going to push into the market.
Even if you take a slight reduction in retail price, those cars can be profitable. But as you know, the thing with making a car profitable also is each volume. So once we get a volume of EVs, then they will be better. But undoubtedly, an electric vehicle is much more expensive to make than an internal combustion engine car. So it has to be sold at a higher price for manufacturers. So there's a lot of moving parts that all need to come together. But I do think it's inevitable. It will be forced one way or the other. And let's hope it's forced profitably. Well, we're talking about change here in the motor trade. And so much changes happen over the last five years.
So can I ask you, in the industry, since you've been in the industry, is there any moment you particularly really pray out of that the changes that you've had to go through within Hatfield's? Well, I referenced it before. When we lost Mercedes-Benz, that was a huge change for us. And then buying more Jaguar businesses, that really... I suppose looking back, that was the point at which I took over the business as well. As I said, my father had always been very much Mercedes-Benz man. And when we lost the Mercedes-Benz business, I wouldn't say became disinterested, because he'd been a Jaguar and threw him through like me as well. But that gave me the opportunity to put my own stamp on it.
And we bought whole and we bought Shrewsbury. And we expanded our Jaguar portfolio. And from a business that truthfully, the day that Mercedes-Benz came to see us and said, you're out. We probably didn't have a business that day. It's true. We told. We had Vauxhall in work, we had fun little bits and bobs, but Mercedes-Benz was the absolute beating heart of it. And in a relatively short time, we turned that around. And we made Jaguar our principal focus. And we made some money out of it. And all our best people who had been in Mercedes-Benz, and there were bones about it. That's where our best people were. We just moved them and we put them into our Jaguar businesses.
And I say, then we bought businesses, we bought and inherited some really good people who were motivated. And yeah, and that was the change. And a bit like we are now, adapt again. Suddenly Jaguar's gone. Right. What do we do? Okay. It's the Apollo 13. That wasn't everything on the table. Right. How do we make this into something that's going to work? And we did. And we all just said, right, this is what we're set to. We're going to sell that many more use cars. We're going to sell that many more new cars. We're going to maintain our sold hours despite the loss of the brand. And as we sit here today, that seems that they, what we're doing.
And it's just about determination and desire. And if you've got that throughout your workforce, which we have, I mean, literally throughout my entire workforce, I'm absolutely blessed with that. Everybody, you know, who works for that feels understands the message. And they work hard. Yeah. Tell you what, you've got 400 people work hard. Does not make a difference. It's culture gas. When you walk into your business, you've got that right culture. It's something you can't measure or calculate, but you walk in there and it's there. And it's, you know, you go into a restaurant, don't you know if you're going to have a good meal or not before you even see the menu sometimes? And that's what you're having.
Yeah. Well, but it's not flukes. I mean, it's just, it's absolutely, you know, all managers, you know, and individual people understanding their accountability. But if you go back to, if you give them the responsibility, like one of the great lessons my father told me, you know, you can't have responsibility without authority or the other way around. They have to go together. And if you go to give people responsibility, you have to give them the authority. Because you can't just expect them to have the responsibility and no authority because that doesn't go anywhere. So we empower people. And if you feel as though you're in control of your job, and you can determine the outcome, then you work hard.
And particularly if the rewards are directly linked to the effort that you put in. And that's the other thing that we try to do. Absolutely, every single person who works for me is bonest on customer satisfaction. If counts are countenance, you know, that's, that's how it works. And so it means that you will pick up the phone, even if you're not in your own department and I'm not saying it happens every single time, but I'm talking culturally, you know, that's important. You know, nobody's looking at a phone ring and saying, Oh, that's not for me. It doesn't matter. They'll still pick it up and say, how can I help you? And that's something not Robert's talking about many, many years ago.
That was his strat line, St. Helens Ford. How can we help you? And that's something that we have today. You know, that's the first question. How can I help you? And you know, that's so it begins. Yeah, if I really enjoyed this conversation now in wrapping up again, this podcast is all about sharing tips and ideas on how to some more cars make more money and motor trade. So I want to leave with the last question. What's the best piece of advice you've ever received in your career? Something that you'd like to pass on to someone listening to this episode? Anything that stands out? A hesitate to say, but again, my father, he was a great one for sayings and some that are repeats of one, some that aren't that he did.
He taught me many things, but years ago, he said to me something which stuck with me and he mentioned it a few times. And he said, listen, you can deal with idiots. But you can't deal with liars. And he was really talking about me. He wasn't talking about other people. It was a lesson for me to say, look, you can be daft and that but if you tell the truth, actually, you'll always be able to deal with somebody. And it works both ways. I think sometimes he was telling me about other people, but I realized he actually was talking about me. And that's something that I hope that you see when you come into our businesses and anybody listening to this, it works for me, knows it.
We have just absolutely dogged about telling the truth to customers, to manufacturers, to whoever it may be. We're just telling the truth and then deal with that. And that doesn't half uncomplicate your life. Good advice, great advice. Gaff, thank you very much for your time. I really appreciate it. You're very welcome. Thank you. That just leaves 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.
