You Drive Your EV Less Than You Think with John Murphy

Most people drive a lot less than they think — and that one insight could change how you shop for your next EV.

In this episode, Recurrent's Scott Case sits down with John Murphy of Holler Classic Group — one of Central Florida's largest dealer groups and one of the country's top Vinfast retailers — for a candid conversation about the realities of selling and owning electric vehicles in 2026.

What we cover:

The small-plane analogy that explains how badly buyers overestimate their daily driving

How real-world EV range routinely beats EPA estimates — and why dealers should say so louder

What happens when cheap 2022 EV leases start coming back to the lot

How Holler Classic built one of America's most successful Vinfast operations from scratch

The state-by-state mess of EV registration fees — and the surprising places that don't charge any

Links
→ Subscribe to EV Cents, our weekly newsletter for EV owners and shoppers: https://newsletter.recurrentauto.com/
→ Sell your EV with Recurrent and get offers from vetted buyers: https://www.recurrentauto.com/sell
→ Recurrent's research library: https://www.recurrentauto.com/research

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I think an EV exceeds expectations in a lot of ways because people just simply don't drive nearly as much as they think they do. And unlike that road trip to Nashville, the real world I have to fill up my vehicle, diesel or gas, right? That real world experience, you're doing that every few days, maybe every week. But with an EV, what are you doing nearly every day? Driving the 20 miles to work, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Welcome to EV Insider by Recurrent, where we make it easier to buy and sell electric cars by giving you access to leaders from across the industry. Let's get started.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

The most misunderstood thing a consumer has that comes through our doors is probably the accessibility of charging, and then equally the ability to service the car. Okay. I think those kind of go hand in hand. Well, I buy it, I can charge it at home, or I understand uh I have this kind of range, right? But what yeah, is there a breakdown? What happened? How do I get it serviced? Can I just take it anywhere? You know, and then equally everyone, if if they're not prepared, uh, meaning they've done their research and they know where their chargers, charging stations are at work and you know, around town, et cetera, um, that's that's probably the number one thing asked is okay, now now where do I go get it charged?

SPEAKER_02 1:11

So my my first EV uh was like four years ago or something like that. Um, the Volkswagen ID4. And it and at the time it came with three years of free charging on Electrify America. And I was like, wow, that's fantastic. You know, I did I only use that in three years. I used it twice. Like free, right? It was free. And I didn't use it twice because it was like every time I left home, it was full.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

I never needed it. Well, well, that's just it. And you know what again, we're a very process-driven organization, right? So when we do our continuous training, um, like we have Rock Ed, for example, having those conversations transition. So, first off, the conversations are absolutely drastically different than a traditional car buyer. Um, so when you're when you're in the EV space, you want to be have your sales team and your sales managers very prepared on how to answer these types of questions, right? But when we talk about, okay, what does it mean to own an EV? You know, one of the things that we like to put in our training is what do you do with your cell phone every night? Right? Plug it in. It just becomes habit. Well, when you park your car, um, especially if you're uh if we have a home charging um system put in or you're using a wall charger, whatever the case may be, you just plug your EVV or your EV in, right? And that just becomes second nature. So um the word tracks absolutely have to change, but where do I service my car and where do I get it charged? You know, those are two things that definitely have to bring the customer up to speed on more times than not.

SPEAKER_02 2:37

My biggest, uh, my biggest misconception that I've that I've been working for years now to to help people understand is EPA range. It's wrong in in some unexpected ways, I think. Like on the one hand, like the you know, it varies with temperature. Now in Florida, like you basically are always doing really well. Like, you know, if you get up in colder states, then in the winter, yeah, it it doesn't go as far and it comes back in the spring, you know. But uh and like as long as people understand that, that's really valuable. But the other thing that we've seen, so I mean, recurrents been tracking EVs on the road, getting and looking at what they're getting for real world driving for for five years now, and we see that in almost manufacturers, their EVs get like regularly exceed the EPA range when it comes to real world driving when they're new, and even after three years, most of them are still exceeding EPA when it comes to how people actually drive. I feel like manufacturers, dealerships are just underselling this point by a lot.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

That's a great point. I completely agree. Uh, we clearly see it in our used sales, right? And and what we're observing. I mean, and the type of product we're selling. I'll sell a Tesla in the 100 plus thousand mile range, and the that consumer will be just completely happy and they've already known how to test for the battery and all that good stuff. But you touched on something that's really important too, is with that educating the customer and also what are real and what's great is now, again, we're decades into this. Now that there's all this testing and all this real world data, experience, testimonials on these cars, that's super important for the buyer uh to understand in a very realistic way what they're gonna experience. But uh, one of the questions that's always valuable to ask the customer, especially when it comes to range or what kind of range am I gonna get, is really mapping out, you know, how much do you actually drive? I think so many consumers like that feeling of I fill my tank up and I know that I can get, you know, in Florida, I can get from here to to Nashville before I have to fill up again. Um, you know, that that that steadfast feeling and it's you know, I go, I swipe my credit card and I can get that reset. But in the real world, you touched on real world and exceeding expectations. I think an EV exceeds expectations in a lot of ways because people just simply don't drive nearly as much as they think they do. And unlike that road trip to Nashville, the real world, uh, I have to fill up my my vehicle, diesel or gas, right? That real world experience, you're doing that every few days, maybe every week, maybe every other week or every month if you're really lucky and you live close to work, right? But with an EV, what are you doing nearly every day? Driving, driving the 20 miles to work, yeah. Yeah, and charging it, right? So that that that recharge, the the tank of fuel now is you know dispersed over every more every evening when you go to bed, right? Um, so I think that that's important.

SPEAKER_02 5:32

I just think that this is a like a weird analogy, but bear with me for a second. Have you ever been on a small plane, like when there's maybe a winter storm going on, and they and as you board the plane, they ask you how much you weigh? Does that does that happen to you? Right. And everybody adds like a hundred pounds, right? Because they're like, I want to make sure there's plenty of room for error, you know, here. No. It's the same thing. When you ask somebody how far do you drive every day? Everybody in and they're thinking about an EV, they add 50 miles, you know. It's like just do that, I just want to pad it. We actually've had some dealers that they've changed that question. They say, How long is your commute? How many, how, how, how, how much driving time is there? Because people don't think to pad that, yeah. And so they're like, Oh yeah, like my commute's 20 minutes. Well, well, gosh, that must be like what, 12, 15 miles? Yeah, that's about right, you know. And so they just it gets them out of that little like framing that where they're used to sort of like they're ready to pad it by a lot, you know.

SPEAKER_01 6:27

So yeah, it's that's a great point. And again, I I just have to emphasize you're not throwing a tank every couple of days or a couple of weeks. Totally. Yeah, you are topping that charge uh nearly every day for most consumers that are that are gonna get an EV. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:41

All right. So one of the big things that's gonna happen this year, and probably has already been happening for you guys, is people that leased an EV with a huge rebate incentive a couple of years ago, or now their lease is coming up, and um, they're coming back in the store and they had, you know, a$200 a month payment, something like that, that they're probably not gonna be able to get again. You know, how are you guys handling those folks that have come in so far? And and like, and you know, what what do they end up doing?

SPEAKER_01 7:12

We have a lot of people that bought during COVID at crazy price times that come into our dealers every day, today included. And you look at their equity position in their car that is now a used vehicle, or a used vehicle turned into a second time, third time, fourth time used vehicle, and those uh positions are are pretty tough to overcome, right? So uh it's I'm gonna just harp on that process, that honesty, uh, and that overcommunication to that customer. Again, I think the manufacturers on the new car side uh supporting this with what they're doing internally um is gonna be vital. And on the use side, let's stay with this trend and be realistic of what these things are worth used, what EVs are worth used. Uh, and that is on the again, rough side of the book, right? As inexpensively as we can, um, and and we'll be able to get through it. Does that answer your question? It does, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:04

Yeah, no, it's it's I what I heard is is we as an industry have been through things like this before, and you can have difficult conversations, and there's probably a good way to do that, and probably not so good way to do that. And um, yeah, but there's there's options, so absolutely. Um, okay, speaking of tough conversations, uh, you guys are one of a handful of VinFast dealerships in the country. Whatever you're allowed to talk about publicly, like what's next for for that for that uh for that dealership, what's next for this the brand in the US?

SPEAKER_01 8:35

What's what's next to that brand? We sure would like a lot more uh VinFast uh to be able to sell, right? Um, we're at the behest of how much supply is out there if we're able to then keep that supply. And again, we like to service uh as many of them as we can. And and we are gonna stare down the barrel and face the reality of the least turn-ins happening too. In fact, we started that strategy conversation here recently as well. But with that being said, uh, we do think that they will uh continue to look for ways to support us and provide uh more options, more vehicles, more model and product line. And if they do, we will be a wanting and willing partner uh to make sure that we uh we make a lot of happy VinFast drivers and customers.

SPEAKER_02 9:18

Yeah, it sounds like you guys are sort of like a like a one-man army or one dealership army to make VinFast like to make VinFast in Florida like Subaru isn't where I live in Washington State. It's just like this crazy, weird concentration of VinFast, and it all comes back to Hollow Classics, sounds like.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

Absolutely. And and again, hats off to his name is Robert Marquez. Robert will take a picture on his way to work of a VinFast and then another VinFast will go behind it and you'll say two VinFasts on the way to work. Uh, but we're there to support it. I again, I think it's really how we launch the brand. And again, the manufacturer absolutely has to support us uh as well and ensure that that that uh location and all uh locations have the product, the tech support, uh, and the tech support that they need. That's a that's a big thing as well. As we know, you know, a misconception with EV is not maintaining the car, perhaps or maintening it less, which is true, but the cars still need software updates and product updates and um their tires rotated and brakes and all that good stuff. And and uh we sure feel like we have the support uh there, but we definitely could use more inventory. Um, and uh sitting here in Florida and out on the West Coast where they sell a lot of them out of San Francisco, uh albeit where they're uh clicking online too. Um, you know, some of the some of the best buyers out there are in this office. Uh we're clicking there too. We just have to click like 10 or 15 less times because I I have to get on a truck and get it out here. But uh we'll try to keep keep them fed as best as we can.

SPEAKER_02 10:42

All right. Um, it was awesome to talk to you, John. Uh, I appreciate the time. And um, yeah, I'll look forward to seeing how the rest of the year goes for you guys.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you, Scott. Thanks for having me. Uh we'll hope to join the conversation again soon and sell a lot more E Bs.

SPEAKER_00 10:58

Thanks for joining this episode of Eevee Insider. Be sure to like, comment, and subscribe. And we will see you next time.