Tag: MAP

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EFG Companies Electric Vehicles F&I

Are You Optimized for EV?

Eric Fifield Chief Sales Officer EFG Companies
Contributing Author:
Eric Fifield
Chief Sales Officer
EFG Companies

Electric vehicles (EVs) are gaining traction in retail automotive. According to Forbes, the U.S. passed 1 million total EVs sold in 2018. Looking forward, consumers expect to have more choices in EVs, as automakers announce expansions of their product offering.  2019 marks the first year the average battery range for all models is greater than 200 miles. While analysts do not believe 2019 will be an inflection point for EVs, they do expect costs to continue to drop. Lithium-ion battery prices have decreased an estimated 80% since 2010, and are expected to fall another 45% by 2021. As battery prices decline, vehicle prices should decrease, especially since battery costs currently compose nearly half the price of an EV.

In the F&I office and service drive, EVs pose a different challenge. Historically, warranty administrators underwrite the risk of mechanical breakdown in automobiles so that consumers don’t have to worry about those unanticipated financial shocks. Service contracts are priced based on the likelihood of each part failing times a projected cost to replace the part.  In other words, the price of the service contract implicitly includes an assumption around the probability that, say, a fuel injection pump might fail and what it would likely cost to replace it.

For traditional internal combustion engines (ICEs), administrators have decades of data on part failure specific for every vehicle model. Every time an OEM rolls out a new drive train, administrators reprice the risk in the coverage and begin building loss history. EVs are a different story, with far fewer mechanical parts and a tremendously expensive battery that can stop the vehicle in its tracks. Because ICEs are totally different technology from EVs, offering the same coverage on both really doesn’t make sense. Because of this, EFG Companies recently released a new Motorist Assistance Plan for Electric Vehicles (MAP® Electric Vehicle Protection) to exclusively cover the unique technology of EVs.

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F&I

Are You Appealing to Millennials?

Gabe-Aldrete-Blog-Headshot

 

Contributing Author: Gabe Aldrete, Vice President, Dealer Services, EFG Companies

When you hear the term “Millennials” paired with the term “car,” what comes to mind? Do you automatically think, “Millennials aren’t interested in cars?” For the past few years, it seemed like a new article was published every month stating that the reason Millennials weren’t buying cars was due to personal preference.

Today, economics has proven that assertion false. According to J.D. Power & Associates, Millennials (those born between 1980 and 2004) accounted for 27 percent of new car sales in the U.S. last year. Millennials have already surpassed Generation X to become the second-largest group of new car buyers after Baby Boomers, and each year, the influence of the Baby Boomer generation recedes and Millennial buying power increases.

It turns out, personal preference had very little to do with Millennials approaching the auto industry. Rather, it had all to do with the economy, the job market, and wage growth. Most of the Millennials with buying power today entered the job market during the economic upheaval in the Great Recession. Because of the lack of prospects, some returned to school, while others moved in with parents or got roommates and stuck it out in low-paying or part-time jobs that did not utilize their post-high school training or education.

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EFG Companies F&I Featured

EFG Breaks Tradition Again With The Mileage-Only VSC: MAP My Miles®

-50 percent of consumers surveyed want to customize their next VSC-

MAP_MY_MILES_LOGO_R_trnspEFG Companies, the innovator behind the award-winning Hyundai Assurance program, today announced the  launch of MAP My Miles®, the mileage-only vehicle service contract (VSC) that breaks industry tradition by enabling consumers to customize their VSC to their personal driving habits.

This new product provides dealerships the opportunity to give customers a VSC that’s a perfect fit for them, save time in the F&I office, and turn a sometimes cumbersome selling process into a relaxed conversation – increasing sales. For more information on EFG’s MAP My Miles VSC, visit http://bit.ly/MAPMYMILES

According to a recent EFG survey, 40 percent of consumers nationally said that the terms of the last VSC they purchased ended up being either too much or too little for what they needed. Restrictive coverage terms are often one of the hardest obstacles F&I managers face in selling F&I products. With MAP My Miles, dealers can tailor the product to a customer’s specific driving habits instead of having to accept a standard, traditional coverage level in defined increments which the industry has relied upon for so long.

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