Sonic Automotive, Inc. (NYSE:SAH) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

Steve Wittman: And this is, Steve. I want to add one more point. I think we all believe that it’s going to be an 18 to 24 months to get back to what we used to see pre-COVID. But we all believe, and I think everyone understands that that used market will come back and we see that. And as Jeff mentioned, our growth plan will be disciplined and we’ll open when the market dictates the time to open new stores.

Joe Enderlin: Yeah, that is all for us. Thank you guys, for the color.

A – David Smith: Thank you.

Jeff Dyke: Thank you.

Operator: Our next question comes from the line of Rajat Gupta with JPMorgan. Please proceed with your question.

Jeff Dyke: You may be on mute.

Rajat Gupta : Sorry, Can you hear me, okay?

Jeff Dyke: Yes, we can hear you now.

Rajat Gupta : Great. Sorry, about that. I just have a follow up on EchoPark. Can you give us a sense of, how you plan to navigate some of the shortages around the later modeled used vehicles. You did talk about trying to increase our mix in some of the older vehicles. But, how do you navigate that challenge when it comes to just training your salespeople, changing the reconditioning practices, et cetera, because it feels like you would need to meaningfully take share in that cohort of the older vehicle like greater than five greater six-year-old vehicle to meet some of these targets including getting to profitability? And I have a follow-up. Thanks.

Tim Keen: Yes. This is Tim Keen. We made that move to higher mileage and longer year, probably starting at the beginning of the year. That’s one of the reasons we’ve been able to grow the volume with the shortage in one to five- and one to three-year-old cars. And we’ve perfected selling those different models. So we’ll continue to take share where we can.

Jeff Dyke: And this is Jeff. It’s 15% to 20% of our overall volume, right now. I think that it’s going to stay in that range. It might get to 25%, but I don’t think it’s going to be any more than that because as the prices begin to drop our EchoPark model is one to five-year-old cars under 50,000 miles and selling those cars at a great price in the marketplace where you can buy the car and buy a warranty for basically the same price or less than you can buy it at our competitors, which drives the real high volume and our ability to market that lower price. So, we certainly — it adds complexity. It’s a good question, because it does add complexity. But I think Tim and the team have done an amazing job teaching the team. We’ve got the experience on the franchise side, because just the 30% of our business on the franchise side.

So we’ve been able to leverage our experience on the franchise side into EchoPark and take advantage of that and Tim Keen and team are the best in the country at it. So that’s something that we’ll continue to leverage as we move forward. But I want to make sure that everybody understands not more than 25% of the total mix. I think we’ll be lucky if we get there.

Rajat Gupta : Got it. Got it. That’s helpful. A follow-up was just on parking services. You have a lot of California exposure, which obviously has greater electric vehicle adoption. You had some really good growth in your service business overall. I’m curious if you could share any insights on how the service activity has been on some of the earlier electric vehicles that you’re servicing? Like one of the rental car companies Hertz this morning made a comment that they’re having to spend twice as much to service to repair damaged electric vehicle versus an equivalent ICE vehicle. Curious if you are seeing something like that as well. Any more insight you could share would be helpful. Thanks.