AutoVitals is joined by Brittany Schindler, Owner of Rod’s Japanese Auto Care and Rod’s Master Auto Tech, to discuss the future of BEVs and HEVs in the automotive aftermarket. Watch the recording to join our discussion on:
- How to determine which trends are all hype and which are grounded in reality
- Preparing your team and shop to increase HEV and BEV services
- Best practices to stay ahead of vehicle and technology trends
- and more!
Episode Transcript
*This transcript was generated with Artificial Intelligence. Errors may occur. If you identify an error, please contact us at [email protected]
Lauren Thunen (00:00):
So why don’t we get started? Thank you everyone who has joined. I see a lot of familiar names, so it’s good to see you all. My name’s Lauren. I manage the marketing and lead generation for AutoVitals. And then my favorite part of my job is I get to do this once a month. Brittany, would you introduce yourself? I don’t want to take any of your thunder.
Brittany Schindler (00:20):
Yes, I’m Brittany Schindler. I’m from Washington State. I own two shops up here, and I took them over from my dad. And gosh, I’ve been with AutoVitals for, it’s been a little over 10 years now, I think, which is crazy.
Lauren Thunen (00:35):
Yeah, I was just looking at that. And yeah, Rod’s Japanese signed up with us in 2013.
Brittany Schindler (00:43):
Oh dang. Okay. So I got, yeah, 11 years. Yeah.
Lauren Thunen (00:47):
Yeah. So it’s been a minute. And then you’ve been working in the shop for over 15 years now, you’d
Brittany Schindler (00:53):
Say? A little over 14 now. Over 14, so just got 14 years a few months ago.
Lauren Thunen (01:00):
Awesome. And then you are also an executive trainer for AutotechIQ. Do you do anything else outside of AutotechIQ?
Brittany Schindler (01:07):
I do. I also work for ATI, I am a sales trainer and a service advisor coach.
Lauren Thunen (01:16):
Awesome. Cool. Well, I’m very excited to have you. And today, you guys, everyone who’s know, probably knows we’re going to be talking about electric vehicles. So title of the webinar, is EV All Hype or Is the Revolution really coming? And the reason why I picked Brittany to be on is number one, as she said, she’s been with AutoVitals for a long time. We have a great relationship, always has so much knowledge to share, but also I thought you fit into a good category of shops that you’re not entirely EV or hybrid focused. You are emerging into servicing more EV vehicles and you’re also not in a major city. You’re not in San Diego or Orange County where you just see a Tesla every five cars it seems like. So I felt like your shop is a good choice. That fits more into what most folks that are on this webinar are seeing day in and day out and their shop.
Brittany Schindler (02:10):
Yeah, definitely. Yeah, you definitely don’t have to be in a big city or wherever to see these cars and to see these Teslas. They are beginning to branch out and get further out and everything like that.
Lauren Thunen (02:24):
Yeah. Awesome. Cool. Well, we’ll kick it off and I’m just going to set the scene a little bit, also just a few housekeeping things. If you do have a question or a comment, the best way for us to see it is if you just drop it in the q and a, which should be at the bottom kind of right hand side of your Zoom screen. So if you have any commentary, any questions, feel free to put it in the chat. We’ll try to answer it as we go through live, but we’ll definitely get to it at the end. And I just wanted to kick us off because when I talk to shops, either, what I experience is folks are either way more concerned about electrification than they need to be or way under concerns about electrification. There’s a sweet spot in the middle. So I’m just going to share a few stats to kick us off so we’re kind of all on the same page of what we will be focusing on. And then we’re just going to spend a ton of time chatting with you, Brittany, asking you questions about what your experience has been and how you’re managing it at your shops.
Brittany Schindler (03:23):
Sounds good.
Lauren Thunen (03:24):
Cool. Alright. So first thing we’re just going to look at, again, getting everybody on the same page is this is the share of cars that are a electric in the US by state. Now this map is from 2022. All of the data’s taken from the US Department of Energy about the most reliable source on this you can get. Obviously it’s not perfect, and I picked 2022 because there’s not a ton of good graphs for 2024 and it really hasn’t changed that much in the past two years. So you’ll see California leading the way with about 3.5% of all vehicles on the road being electric. And then you can see the vast majority of the country is somewhere between the 1%, half percent. And then we’re getting into, again, more on the west coast, a couple on the east coast that are in the 2.5%. So we’re not talking right now about a massive share of the market, but still again, some good market penetration in some states here.
(04:30):
If we move into projected sales. So we’re right here on this graph in 2024 is you can see we’re starting to hit a turning point in terms of 2023. The graph is just, it’s up into the right and we can anticipate that this will continue. Obviously I can’t see into the future, there could be things that dramatically change this, but again, most sources are saying that by 2030 the market share is going to hit about 30% when we’re talking about new sales. Also, keep in mind this also is including plugin hybrids, so there’s a bunch of different classifications. So this is looking at battery powered EVs, Tesla being the most popular right now, and then plugin hybrids, you see Prius has a plugin, hybrid, et cetera, et cetera.
(05:20):
And then again, just distilling all of the news that everyone sees and whatever you’re reading from whatever sources is some of the key threats and why we as an industry are anxious about electrification is that they don’t have an ICE, right? So that’s about 150 parts that will become obsolete in these battery powered vehicles. Also, they typically have lower wear and tear, so there’s not as much opportunity for the replacement of the parts that they do have. And I’m sure Brittany, you’re going to talk about this, there’s a lack of necessary training because it is a different system that you’re repairing. You need to be fully trained, there’s different safety concerns, et cetera, et cetera. But on the flip side, we also want to talk about the opportunities because as the sales increase, one of the key things that most reports are focusing on is battery powered vehicles are extremely heavy and they really wear and tear on their tires.
(06:27):
So it’s about 20% more wear and tear. And I’m guessing if you own A BEV, you don’t want to be going to the dealership every single time you need to set a tires. And then additionally, there are still a car, right? There’s going to be new components that are introduced specifically around battery, remanufacturing, the emo, et cetera, that are still going to need to be replaced in service, right? It’s a car, it’s still going to break, still going to need someone to fix it. And again, folks are not going to want to go to the dealership every single time. And again, I know Brittany, this is one of your key philosophies is just the importance of staying ahead of the curve. Everyone that’s on this call for the most part, I’m sure you are looking to stay ahead of the curve. So that’s something that we’re going to spend a lot of time talking about is we shouldn’t wait until there are 50% of the vehicles on the road to start making a change. It’s easier usually to make an incremental change and then go from there.
Brittany Schindler (07:25):
Totally agreed.
Lauren Thunen (07:26):
Anything you wanted to add before we just get into the question side of things?
Brittany Schindler (07:32):
No, let’s see what we got for questions.
Lauren Thunen (07:34):
Okay, perfect. So just to kick us off, I just want to get your approach when you’re reading about the government incentives, media buzz from both sides, how are you kind of determining in your shop which trends to act on, and then which trends and what things you’re hearing to approach cautiously and see how they play out?
Brittany Schindler (07:59):
Mostly just awareness of our area, especially too do we see lots of these cars? And then also are our customers asking about these cars when they’re thinking about getting a new one or a used one? And then we also have, it’s really helpful for me, this is not going to work for everybody, but we have Prius loaner cars and a Nissan Leaf, and we have a Tesla here all the time, so people just tend to ask us questions about those and then that gets the ball rolling whether they’re interested in it or not, or they know someone who has one, et cetera. So I don’t typically go off of news or what the government is trying to make happen. It’s mostly just been awareness of what our customers are doing and what they’re interested in. Like you said too, our city is maybe a hundred thousand people, and I’m just on the outside of it. However, we definitely see our fair share of both hybrids and EVs. And again, I am in Washington state, so as you saw on Lauren’s map too, we do have a little bit more than the Midwest looks like they have. So yeah.
Lauren Thunen (09:14):
Yeah, I mean that’s interesting is just having a Prius or a Tesla in your shops parking lot is going to start a conversation with your customers. And also I know you have a great relationship with your customers where they’re already coming to you as a trusted advisor, and so having some knowledge about what should they be purchasing next is super helpful because it’s going to set you up for success as well. Awesome. That makes sense. And then, so as you said, you got your Tesla, your dad’s Tesla in the back. How have you started to make the transition of servicing hybrids and EVs? What did that process look like in your shop? I know that’s a big question.
Brittany Schindler (09:52):
Yes. And ours is going to be a little bit different than other people than what I’m going to suggest to do. So we started seven or eight years ago, my dad was buying wrecked Priuses or Priuses from auction PRIs that had issues. And we would get ’em here at the shop and we’d tear ’em down and we’d dissect ’em and really teach ourselves how to do it because there wasn’t a ton back then to classes and things like that. There’s way more now, which I highly suggest getting into. There’s so many classes that are available. There’s online classes, there’s usually classes somewhere in your area or at a big conferences that they have. But that’s how we did it. We got into Priuses and we actually rebuild hybrid batteries in-house right now. We have equipment to do that. And then we got into the Tesla part too.
(10:45):
We saw there was an influx of Teslas around here, so we were like, we need to get into Tesla too. My dad did buy one, but that didn’t really help us exactly get into it. But we were in forums and Facebook groups of Tesla owners, and when you’re in a Tesla owner Facebook group, you get to see tons of common issues on these cars. We became a Tesla certified to buy parts, and we’re the only ones around here to be able to do that. And I’m not sure why, because it does not require you to have any type of certification to be able to order Tesla parts on their website. Just so you guys know. It is a little bit of a process and you have to take pictures of your shops and things like that. And it’s been years since I’ve done it, so I don’t know exactly what they require nowadays, but you can get authorized to buy Tesla parts, go into forums and or Facebook groups, see what the common issues are. I can also tell you what are the common issues that we see, but that’s some ways you can get knowledge and I mean, as we all know, YouTube has damn near everything on cars. You can learn more about it online from other people too for free.
Lauren Thunen (12:06):
Yeah. Yeah. Awesome suggestion. So it looks like we do have one Q and a. It is John asking, since EVs do not have an ICE, will AutoVitals create EV specific DVI that we can customize? I’m going to answer that live. I believe that we already have some shops that are doing that. And so I will look in, John, I’ll send you a message after to see if they’ve put them in the publicly available library that we have because we have folks like Electron Automotive that is primarily only servicing EVs and hybrids. But I will reach back out to you. If not, make sure you guys, if you’re on this call and you’re using AutoVitals, talk to your customer success advisor because they’ll be able to see all the inspection sheets that we have loaded in the back and going to ask if another shop is using something, if you could borrow it and put it on your shop.
Brittany Schindler (12:55):
Yeah, I do have one that I can share too that we have one specifically an inspection made for just EVs, really.
Lauren Thunen (13:03):
There you go. And then are you doing any other bvs right now, or is it besides Tesla or are you pretty much focusing on Tesla and then any of the hybrids plugins that come into your shop?
Brittany Schindler (13:13):
We’ll do any of ’em. We’ll do all of ’em. So the thing is, is that customers also have to understand too is we’re not going to be perfect. And we can tell them that we haven’t seen that car a whole lot yet, but no one has even the dealer. So you just have to be super upfront about it and do some research of what it needs. But most of these things that we see in these fully electric vehicles is control arms, coolant, air filters, struts, tires, there’s gear oils in the motors, the drive motors, and there’s filters. It still has all those things that I know all of you that work on regular cars are fully capable of doing any of those things, alignments the tires. Like Lauren said, they’re not cheap and they want to get the most miles out of ’em. So keeping ’em aligned perfectly is important too. And you can easily do, I have a 2012 Hunter Hawkeye Elite alignment rack, and I can do an alignment on a Tesla with that still. And then you could also buy the Tesla pass through and it’s just a plug into the Tesla and then it’s through the laptop and you have to buy Tesla scan tool on your laptop, but you can do it by day, and I think you can do it by month and year too. No one says you can’t buy that. You can.
Lauren Thunen (14:38):
Yeah. Yeah. I feel like a big theme from what you’re saying is don’t limit yourself just by the perception that these things are going to be harder than they are is just start and through trial and error that it’s likely going to be an easier transition to make. And we talk about this all the time with technology, it’s usually an easier transition than you make it out to be in your head. And that kind of rings true for all of life as well. Yes. Awesome. And so like you said, just to go back, there’s tons of training classes available if you are a NAPA auto care center. I know NAPA is doing a really big push in 2024 and 2025 to get more EV certified technicians. So if you are a NAPA Auto Care center, go check that out in the member portal. They have tons of resources there as well. If you’re not, I’m sure your 20 group or any of the other organizations that you’re involved with can also point you in the right direction. Yeah. And Russell Hilliard saying, Hey, how’s it going? Russ EV, safety certification from a SE? Yes, absolutely.
Brittany Schindler (15:42):
Agreed.
Lauren Thunen (15:44):
I Oh, one more. No, I just pressed the wrong button. That was my bad. Alright, perfect. And then, yeah, feel free to throw in the Q and a where you’re located and if you’re seeing hybrids and Teslas coming through your shop as well, it’s good for everyone to see what you’re experiencing in your location. And then how long would you say in terms of educating your customers that they could bring EVs and hybrids into your shop? Was that a hard process to get folks comfortable with bringing their EVs in or are most of the folks that are bringing in their cars, they’ve been with you guys for 10 years and they just know and trust you?
Brittany Schindler (16:26):
Most people don’t like the dealer and they either have to bring it to the dealer or they try to bring it to Tesla. And from where I’m located, Tesla is an hour away or they can go to Canada, which is also an hour away too. And Tesla’s also usually, typically out three to six months. So they don’t really have the time to wait that long, especially if they need something, especially the extremely common issue of control arm problems with Tesla and there’s updated parts in world pack cells, ’em just so you know. But no, I mean I’ve always been taught, and I’ve always taught my advisors to do key hunting is what we used to call it, but obviously we can’t see a Tesla card on their keys, but we do say, Hey, what are the kind of cars do you have? Especially because our shop’s name is Rod’s, Japanese Autocare, but we do work on other domestic vehicles too, so we always want to make sure that people know that.
(17:27):
So that’s just become part of what we say to our customers. Hey, what other kind of cars do you guys have at home? Oh, you can have 25 off when you bring that car in too. We also do work on those. So we learn that they also have those, and then we have it posted on our Facebook and on our Google page that we do specialize in them and that we can buy them. So you definitely got to show the public and your customers too that that is something that you guys work on or that you’re trying to get better at. And again, it’s always great to be transparent. That’s why we all use AutoVitals too, is to be extremely transparent with what we do. So being transparent about your knowledge and just your wisdom I guess, of any hybrids or EVs, you just tell your customer upfront, be like, Hey, I don’t know everything about this car, but I want to figure it out for you. And just be upfront about the costs and how the process is going to go and make sure that you, of course, make sure you look at the safety stuff first before you go touching orange wires too.
Lauren Thunen (18:35):
Yeah, yeah. Great call out. So how have you approached the training specifically around safety with your staff? I was actually on one of your webinars for Autotech IQ and you guys were talking about if you make a mistake, it’s typically a much larger mistake in terms of the safety repercussions. How do you approach those conversations with your team and get them bought in to make sure they’re doing that as well?
Brittany Schindler (19:01):
It’s funny. We joke around all the time at work, we’re always joking and playing around, but when it comes to safety stuff, it is a very serious conversation here at the shop. And not only do we talk about safety, I give a copy of whatever we talk about to everybody and we all sign it, which is extremely important. I feel like. And I mean, my guys know that there’s a limit, a time limit on the orange gloves that you have in your shop, there is a time limit just so you know or use, they do go bad and your texts should say, I’m not going to use those gloves anymore because they’re not good because someone else did that time in research. Someone who specializes in that kind of thing knows what they’re doing, and of course, we’re dealing with extremely high voltage. So it is crucial and critical to rather be safe than sorry, of course.
(19:58):
So we learn a lot about what the orange wire is and if any new technician is going to start doing what we do here at a shop, like rebuilding the hybrid batteries and things like that, they have to know everything first and they get babysat and watch a hawk before they really get into a good routine then to prevent complacency, because that can be an issue too with safety. People are like, oh, I’ve done this a million times, I’m just going to do it earlier quick, and then something bad can happen. We all know that that’s possible. So we revisit the safety steps often as well to make sure that this is a very serious thing. We definitely need to make sure that we’re safe.
Lauren Thunen (20:41):
Yeah, that’s a really good call out. The two things that really stood out is trust the on things, and if you need to get new equipment, make the upfront investment because it will save you a lot of money and stress down the line. So bite the bullet early and then too, yeah, you can never have too much training. I know personally, whenever I play sports competitively, whenever I’ve gotten hurt, it’s never doing something new. It’s always doing the same thing that I’ve done a million times because I’m like, yeah, I know how to do this. It’s totally fine. And then that’s when you get lax about it, something bad happens and you end up in the er. So really good. And I like that you make them sign it. I think that just having that contract not only over word, but just the physical act of signing something, it always makes it seem more serious and it’s something to remember and it’s an act that you remember as well.
Brittany Schindler (21:38):
Yes.
Lauren Thunen (21:40):
Alright. Michael asked, how do you educate customers that their Teslas actually need regular maintenance on the vehicle?
Brittany Schindler (21:51):
I mean, I tell them what it is and they can go Google it themselves, but yeah, their drive motors absolutely have gear oil in them, but if we bring ’em in for like, Hey, just bring it in for an inspection, then I’ll take a picture of those things on AutoVitals and show them that, Hey, here’s where we drain it and here’s where we refill it. Here’s the external filter that we can replace on your drive motor. Oh, look, here’s a cooling system. We just take pictures of these things for them. The cabin filters, they’re this big, they’re huge, huge filters. I mean, I use odd bottles to help educate the customers and to get them to come in to do it and to learn about it. Say, if I don’t do an inspection to try to tell them, it’s just I try my best to educate them in whatever way possible. Am I calling them? Am I putting it on Facebook or am I putting it on my Google page and showing pictures and be like, oh my gosh, I guess my car still does have brake fluid and coolant and F filter and struts and tires and brakes and ball joints and all these things. I think we recently did $12,000 on a Tesla on one ticket. We did the strut. She was over a hundred thousand miles finally, and we did the struts that were completely blown out by the way.
(23:09):
We did control arms and then all the fluids, like I said too, and yes, yeah, they have fluids. We just got to show them that it does. I know when they pop open either the FR or the trunk, there’s nothing for them to see, but they can also Google things and make sure.
Lauren Thunen (23:29):
Yeah, yeah, great answer. And too, having the content on your website that supports it, if you are going to service Teslas, making sure you have a vehicle page for Teslas, and that’s where you can put a lot of the information as well. So if they’re considering going to your shop, one of the most important things is you can have good information on your website because that’s going to make someone feel comfortable before they even get into your shop that you know what you’re talking about. And also a great way to get the word out for folks that might not know that you service electric vehicles or hybrids is make sure you’re running that on your website. If it’s big in your area, you can even run Google ads with those specific search terms, you name it. But that’s a good way to get the word out as well. Other, if you have any other questions, throw them in the chat. And then I did have a question when training your staff, so you talked about a lot of babysitting. How long would you say it takes you to feel comfortable that they can go work? Let’s just specifically talk about the hybrid batteries on that, their own, and then how are you making up for, I know a lot of people are strapped for technicians right now, making up that lost time while you’re training them and prioritizing that amongst you just need to get the workout.
Brittany Schindler (24:53):
Totally. So when you talk about when these shops constantly talk about, I don’t have time or I need to get this workout right away, I don’t have time to train someone, you’re not thinking about the long-term in my opinion. I think we need to focus on what is going to be best for us for the long-term. And you’re talking about I need to get these cars out as quick as I can. I totally understand that and we should be really easy to do business with and want to get these customers cars back. But ultimately, what is your long-term goal of your business and your shop? Do you want to train people properly to do things the right way and spend time doing it? And then you tell the customer, Hey, this is a bit of a training day today, so we are a little bit backed up.
(25:36):
Just be transparent with everything that you do. You can even tell customers if you need to. If you get to that point, Hey, there is a shortage of technicians out in the world. We’re trying our best to make sure that we train them properly. I would hate to train them in a fast-paced environment where they don’t fully grasp what we’re teaching them, and then we just throw ’em out there to go work on your car later and hope that they do a good job when I didn’t thoroughly train them. So you can explain those things to your customers if you need to, but you should think about it yourself as a manager or an owner that what is your long-term goals with your business? I feel like you should definitely be investing in your team. And when you’re doing these trainings, write it down. What are your SOP steps to train a new hire?
(26:22):
And then I promise you’re going to get better and faster every time you hire someone new, the first guy that you train is probably going to be a lot slower than the next guy, and then the next guy and the next guy. You’re just going to get better at training them more efficiently and get them everybody. Of course, some people learn quicker than others, but it also matters about how you teach them. So if you can focus on how good you teach and where’s the right step to what’s the first step and second step and third step, what are the most important things to really get the ball rolling for that technician is also really important on our part. So yeah, that’s what I’d say to that.
Lauren Thunen (27:00):
Yeah. Yeah, no, great. And if you don’t haven’t set your goals for 2025, it definitely recommends either getting with your AutoVitals customer success advisor, if you use us, if use a business coach with your 20 group, that is one of the, just across the board if you want EV to be a part of the plan or not, it’s just to know where you’re going in the next year, next five years, because it’s really hard to grow if you’re just going day by day. And I know a lot of shops too, when you get busy, it’s more like hour by hour, minute by minute. And when we talked to Shane, if you were on the last episode, Shane Edwards, he’s the manager and soon to be owner of I 70, he really called out that when your customers, and I thought this was great advice is bad news early is actually good news.
(27:50):
So instead of waiting to see if you can get through the vehicle, all your vehicles in the day, just tell your customer, like Brittany suggested upfront, if you are doing a training day, I know when I go even to a restaurant and the servers, this is my first day on the job, I’m being trained. I’m always so much nicer to them because I’m like, yeah, I remember what it was like on my first day on the job. Your customers will be empathetic with you if you give them the opportunity to, but if you wait to tell them and it’s five 30 and you’re going to have to keep the car overnight, then usually folks are a little less empathetic about delays. Totally. Let’s see. We got one more question from Jason. Are you seeing an increase in ADAS calibrations in the EV or hybrid EV space?
Brittany Schindler (28:38):
No, we are not. We rarely see the need for a DDoS stuff. We actually decided to not invest in any ADOS equipment as far as the alignments and calibration like that. There’s some things we can do with the mirrors or something like that, but no, we do not. And all of the cars are going to cameras now. Tesla has instead of the ADOS system, so I think there’s only a 10 run of cars that did a DDoS and only some of them. So I don’t know about your guys’ shops. You may see it way more than me, but I rarely see the need for an ADO s machine or equipment.
Lauren Thunen (29:23):
Interesting. Yeah, I’ve heard I was just out with the shops in Southern California. You were there at the A-S-C-C-A and that was a big topic was the ados. So yeah, and I think like Brittany mentioned too, is just going based off what you’re actually seeing in your shop and what your customers are actually asking for is typically the best measure of what you should be focusing your time and attention on is what your existing customers are demanding. So if you haven’t had any issue thus far, probably is probably safe. Well, stepping again just a little bit back from Evie, I wanted to get your perspective on how do you approach just technological advancements in the next year, five years to stay? You’ve been ahead of the curve for so long, but what do you do to keep your shop ahead of the curve?
Brittany Schindler (30:18):
Luckily, I’m part of ATI, which does a lot of research for US shops that are a part of their program and they teach us a lot of things that are up and coming. But I mean, of course there’s news articles, there’s social media that people are talking about. We are going to get into some accessories and things like that because we see the direction like you showed on that graph, right? There’s going to be even more and more hybrids and EVs and there’s going to be less ignition systems and other things that we’re going to lose out on. So for us, what we thought about doing is doing accessories because all these cars are pretty basic and they’re the same. So a lot of people like to do their door handles changing the colors of those, which is kind of simple to do. They like to change their door latches, which is weird, but they do. They like it. There’s lots of random things that customers like to do that we’ve thought about getting into as accessories. So just because there’s going to be a lack of other components on these vehicles that are going to go away, but we’re not super heavy into that yet. But yeah, mostly social media I guess. And then some news and following trends and some of the biggest trends that we follow is that we get the data from a TI that does all the research for us, which I’m very thankful for.
Lauren Thunen (31:56):
Yeah, yeah. Again, use the resources at your disposal. You definitely don’t have to reinvent the wheel in terms of figuring out where the industry’s going, figuring out where the economy is going. There are people much brighter than myself at least, that are helping us figure that out. So that’s interesting about the accessories. I wouldn’t have guessed those you’re going to say, but hey, anything to increase the value to your customers as well. If that’s what they’re asking for, then it’s a good direction to go.
Brittany Schindler (32:33):
And that was one of the things too, that in the Facebook owner group, the Tesla owner group, the actual motorists, that’s what they’re wanting and that’s what they want these things on their car and they don’t know how to do it or they don’t want to mess it up or whatever. So that was just something that we saw a need for that we’re going to be like, okay, maybe we should prepare for that.
Lauren Thunen (32:56):
Yeah, yeah, integrate. If you weren’t here at the very start, if you haven’t already joined, if you’re looking to be a Tesla shop, join the Facebook groups and just hear from folks and probably folks in your area as well, what they’re struggling with on their Teslas. That’ll give you a good grasp of the services that you can start to offer. Okay. We have about 10 minutes left, so if anyone has any additional questions for Brittany, please throw them in the chat. One of the last things I wanted to show was just one more slide of just overall general outlook for the market in the next six years, I guess let’s call it five, we’re almost in 2025 is the US automotive aftermarket is expected to grow by 4% through the next five years. So it varies a little bit. It starts at 4.5% is what most sources are projecting through 2027 and then falls off a little bit.
(33:58):
It grew about 5% in the past couple of years, so that is very good news. Every major source is suggesting that we are just going to become more and more important part of the economy, as you guys already know, literally one of the most important parts of the US economy specifically. And then additionally, I liked this little chart from Grand view research about the aftermarket industry as a whole and that the pace of market growth is accelerating. That’s very good to see. And that also the degree of innovation is very high compared to some of the other industries that I was taking a look at. As you guys know, the impact of regulations is also high. So something definitely to keep an eye out, but in every source, bevs are going to be a part of the growth over the next five years. They will not make up the majority of the vehicles in the next five to 10 years.
(34:56):
As you know, going back, they’re at what, 3% even in California. So it’s not like every other car walking into your shop in the next 10 years is going to be electric, but it’s better to start now and being able to service your customers than wait until they’re making up 50, 75% of growth. So it’s just something to remember is although it’s not going to be the majority, they will continue to become a more important part. And it also sends a great message to your customers that you are a forward-looking shop if you’re already doing digital inspections, if you’re already taking those next steps, they know that they can trust you with whatever vehicle they purchase for their next 20, 30 years. Great. So Brittany, just to end us off if we don’t have any more questions, if you could give one piece of advice to a shop that’s looking to expand their hybrid and EV services, what would that one piece of advice be?
Brittany Schindler (35:59):
Don’t be scared. You can tell your customers. I mean, you can do most of the things on their car that their car will need. You can do the brakes, you can do the tires, you can do the struts, the shocks, you could change the gear, you could change the coolant, you could change the air filter again, you could change all these things. Your shop knows how to do those things. It’s not something crazy looking underneath their car. The control arms are very extremely simple. The cooling system, it’s the same as other hybrids as well. And even just regular cars, really big gear oil is drain and refill. So you can tell your customers you could do most of these things and then you’re going to get more familiar with them when they’re coming into your shop and you’re going to be able to look at them up on your lift.
(36:42):
And then if you see something weird, you can go do research on it and teach yourself, especially if you might see it again. And then that car comes in, that same make and model comes in a different time. You’re like, oh, I know about these cars. You just have knowledge. You’ve actually seen it in your shop, so you can tell customers that you’ve had it in there. I would definitely say just don’t be scared. This is clearly the way that the industry is headed in. And it wasn’t as fast, I don’t think as thought it was going to be, but it is on its way clearly from those statistics that Lauren showed and the graphs, the trends. So get into it. Tell your customers, yes, be very transparent. We know we don’t know everything about them, but there is still a ton of things that we can do on those cars and make sure that your car is safe for you on the road. So again, your customers don’t like the dealers. A lot of people don’t. Tesla, I think everywhere is out a few months, so get it in, get into your shop. Also, I would say Teslas too. Some of their control arms are under warranty, so you can check with them on that too. But a lot of them aren’t. And again, worldpac is a really good source for Tesla parts.
Lauren Thunen (38:04):
Awesome. And I don’t drive a Tesla, I drive a hybrid, but I recently had to get a new one because someone ran into my car, but not the point of the story. But my local shop also, one of the ways that they use AutoVitals, Miramar Automotive down in San Diego, how they kind of got me back in. I have a couple things that are under warranty is I just said, bring in your car. We’ll do a full inspection before it gets out of warranty so that you know the true state of your vehicle. And that’s a great thing to do, especially with a car that you’re not as familiar with. They obviously are very familiar with my Prius, but with the Teslas, it’s like, Hey, I understand. We know the dealer’s out three to six months with Tesla. Bring your car in. We’ll give you a full state of if there’s anything that needs to be done right now or if you do have things under warranty, we can show you exactly what it is because I haven’t seen a dealership that’s doing inspections the level of, I know that the shops on this call are right, and customers really appreciate that level of detail because they’re not trustful of dealer’s recommendations, at least no one I’ve met.
(39:14):
Yeah. Cool. Well, we’ll give one more minute for any last questions and if not, thanks everyone for joining. Brittany, thank you so much. I look up to you so much, and I really appreciate you taking the time to share your knowledge. I know this is something that you’ve years and years and years of work and effort and time and money, so I really appreciate you coming on here and sharing with our other shop owners for free, and I know it’s very valuable, so thank you.
Brittany Schindler (39:45):
You’re welcome.
Lauren Thunen (39:46):
And we will have Brittany on in the new year again very soon because we’re going to be running a special webinar with AutotechIQ. So if you’re not familiar with AutotechIQ, give it a quick Google search. You can find their Facebook group as well if you just search AutotechIQ and Facebook. And we’re going to be talking about some new reporting that we have coming out with them and what they’re doing to help coach shops. So very exciting. That’s coming in the new year out on your emails, Facebook, social, because Brittany will be back on very soon.
Brittany Schindler (40:20):
Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.
Lauren Thunen (40:22):
Cool. All right, well thanks everyone, and I hope everyone has a great rest of your day. Bye.
Brittany Schindler (40:28):
Thank you.
