Peter Kelly
Analyst · CJS Securities.
Yes. Thanks, Bob. Our experience to this point has been very good with EVs, and we're still early days. So I don't know that I've got enough data to say this is clearly locked in, and this is all done and dusted, but it gives me a lot of confidence for what we're seeing. So what are we seeing with EVs right now? First of all, we're seeing our overall conversion rate on EVs from commercial sellers is to all intents and purposes, the same as our overall conversion rate for ICE. It's actually a couple of percentage points lower, but immaterial. The conversion rate on both types of vehicles today in our portfolio is in the upper 60s or 70%, okay? But we're seeing EVs because of the lower equity, and this is something we've talked about generally for vehicles, but because they have lower equity, they're flowing deeper in the funnel. So we're actually converting the EVs more, not at the grounding dealer level, more at the nongrounding and open sale level, which obviously has a nice revenue mix impact for us. So again, I'm not saying I would lock in on either of those things as the way it's going to be forever, but it's the way it is today, and I feel really good about that as we're going into sort of a higher volume season here over the next 3, 4, 5, 6 quarters with these types of vehicles. I'll also say that having talked to our commercial sellers, they recognize that they are going to be underwater vis-a-vis the residual value. In most cases, I think they've accounted for that ahead of time because this was something that was foreseen. They also recognize these vehicles probably aren't appreciating in value. So they really need to liquidate them as quickly as they can. And ultimately, they and their dealer base have to find a price point at which these cars are going to move back into the retail channel as used EVs. And I think that -- so they're very, I think, practical about it, like I don't want these cars accumulating in some parking lots somewhere thinking they're going to go up in value. That's not going to happen. I better sell them today and OPENLANE is a great partner to help me do that. So we're sort of working very collaborative with our sellers to achieve those outcomes, and I feel really good about where we're at so far.