You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Jason Kelly on Bloomberg Radio. All Right, the driver's seat a familiar place to Cheryl Miller. She knows a lot about cars as the president and chief executive officer of Auto Nation. Joining me on the phone from Charleston, South Carolina. I have to say, if I was jealous of Taylor Riggs being in San Francisco, I'm much more jealous of Cheryl Miller being in one of my favorite cities in
America or the world, Charleston. Cheryl, how are you. I'm doing great, and it's a great thing in Charleston. I know it always is, isn't it. I mean, it's just it really is one of America's great cities. I know you don't just listen Rainy the New York this morning. I know we're the worst this time of year. So what are you seeing in the car business right now? Being strong custer and demand. So we reported all time
record quarterly and full year earnings per share today. Fourth quarter was up in the quarter year of a year, and then the annual was up fifteen. So we're seeing low unemployment for our customers. Three interest rate cuts and a lot of strength. So as we look at compared to two thousand nine, we think total industry sales between new and used will be at a similar level, and
that's a really solid level. So we're feeling good well and investors, we should point out, clearly happy as well, pushing the stock up six point three uh percent, So talk to us about you know, inventory and and and customer demand as you go sort of a level deeper, absolutely, So inventory is in great shape. We've reduced our new vehicle inventory by eleven thousand units year over year, so we're around the fifty two days supply, which is a really healthy supply. So we love the positioning as we
go into the spring selling season. And what we've seen from a customer perspective is customers continuing to migrate from new to nearly new. And why is that. Over the last five years, we've seen average prices for new go up about fifteen percent, so a five thousand dollar increase from two thousand fourteen to today in new vehicle prices.
There's still healthy new demand, so we're seeing new retail being down about two to three percent, so it's still a pretty healthy retail news Star, but we are seeing customers love the affordability of used, so that migration is something we anticipated years ago. We built the automation brand
towards that, and we're seeing success in the numbers. If you look at the fourth quarter use vehicle profitability up alright, So play that affordability question out for me, because if you are a manufacturer of a car, how much does that worry you this sort of trend and transition. There's some great products coming from the manufacturer, so just to be clear, particularly an electric and as you know, they're
investing a lot in electric. So we've got the new portion of Icon coming out that's would be in our stores this quarter that's going to be spectacular, already sold out and back ordered for the next six months, and it's really an outstanding vehicle. So they've been investing in electric. It's not just Porscha, but you see the major premium luxury manufacturers coming out with product. They've got good production in terms of trucks and SUVs, cuvs, and that's what
the customer demand is right now. There's a reasonable level of Awfully's vehicles, so they're also playing in the certified pre owned space. So we feel like the manufacturers they're going to have to continue to invest in electric. The payback is further out for electric. But they've done a good job of production. So one thing that we're not seeing is we're not seeing O. E M stuffing inventory
on us. That's really great place to be. Well, let's talk a little bit more about e v s if we can, because you know, you mentioned some brands other than the one that we are obsessed with talking about, which is Tesla. You know you mentioned the Taikon. That's something we've talked with Klaus Selmer a lot on this
program actually about what they're doing. We saw their big Super Bowl ad, the heist, that was all the very sighting and and as you say, you know, they're really pushing that forward in the in the demand seems to be there. Where are we more broadly in terms of big manufacturers embracing evs and maybe more importantly actually getting them out to customers. Yeah, so in the next two years you'll be seeing those come out. So you see
Audi out with product, you're going to see BMW. I was just at summit with BMW and saw some of the new product coming out, and then behind that you're going to have Mercedes Bend, so they're actually going to be coming out on the roads, and I think that's the difference rather than just being in the pipeline. You're actually going to see those coming in place. That's actually great for automation because we love servicing complex vehicles, so
we like hybrid servicing, we like electric servicing. We even service autonomous with Weymo. So you're actually going to see those vehicles on the road with manufacturers that can produce at scale, and so we think that's pretty exciting for customers. And we do think the Ticon as an outstanding car and that's going to be a legitimate competitor for Tesla. I drove one recently and super fast. You have to be a little careful when you when you hit the pedal on that one. Well, and I have to say
I got to sit in one. I didn't get to dry, but I got to sit in one here at Bloomberg when they were unveiling it, and uh, it feels like a pretty sweet ride inside. Only about a minute left here. Cheryl, you mentioned Weymo. You know you are a chief ARCHITECTI of that deal. Remind us what that is and where it goes from here. So Weymo is really a way that we have one ft in the future. So about three years ago now in Phoenix, we started a partnership saying I wonder what this is going to look like
over over the next several years. So I'm pleased to say three years later, we continue to have a great servicing relationship with Weymo. So we got to see what it was like to service autonomous vehicles early in their life cycle, and now that they have many more miles on the road, were able to see the evolution of what service looks like in autonomous In addition to that, we started doing parts delivery with Weymo out in Phoenix,
so a continued expansion of that partnership. We want to make sure we're running the business for today, but also that we're leaning into the future with things like our partnership with Weymo and also our investment in room. All right, Cheryl Miller, thank you so much. Come see us here in New York City, maybe when the weather is a little bit nicer, when we can get you out at Charleston. The president and CEO of Auto Nation, Johnny Men on the phone from down there in Charleston uh A nice
report for uh ITS investors today. Auto Nation stock up six point three p