Nick Rogers

[Nick Rogers @nick_x]

The $200 suppressor tax went to $0 on Jan 1. Five months later: 845,000 applications and 6.3 million cans on the registry. The only thing "fringe" about suppressors was the tax stamp. Remove the friction and the real market shows up.

[Nick Rogers @nick_x]

Raw agave has crashed from ~30 pesos a pound to 2-5 — three of every four mature plants will rot unharvested. Yet good añejo keeps climbing past $100. You were never paying for the agave. You're paying for the years in the barrel. Patience is the moat.

[Nick Rogers @nick_x]

@InsideEVs 25% share means a used-EV wave is locked in for the back half of the decade, and those cars age into my lanes. Whoever figures out EV parts reuse and pack handling first owns the next cycle; right now, most yards still treat a salvage EV like a mystery box.

[Nick Rogers @nick_x]

The tell here is that the fix will probably be a software push, not a part. Recalls are turning into downloads great for owners, tricky for salvage: a car's compliance state can change after it's totaled, and valuing something whose "defect" is patchable over the air is a new kind of guesswork.

[Nick Rogers @nick_x]

Nine-year cycles are a quiet win for recyclers; the wider a model's production run, the more years of cars one salvage unit can supply parts to. The catch is "fresh via software": the body interchanges for a decade, but the electronics are only as alive as the update server behind them.

[Nick Rogers @nick_x]

@BrianMasck @SawyerMerritt @Tesla FSD has more than one setting. You can be on a conservative setting that abides by all speed limits and laws.

[Nick Rogers @nick_x]

The "too aggressive" framing misreads how the system works. FSD isn't one setting; it runs selectable driving profiles that adapt to the driver and the road, and it reads and holds posted speed limits directly. It's more consistent about the limit than the average driver who treats it as optional. That's the safety case, not the risk.

[Nick Rogers @nick_x]

@GuyDealership The K-shape hits salvage from both ends. The squeezed-out households total sooner than a $4K repair on a $9K car is an easy write-off, and those cars fill the lanes. Meanwhile, the luxury tier keeps crashing sensor-packed bumpers nobody discounts. Two markets.

[Nick Rogers @nick_x]

Rhodium is back to $8,150/oz — the level where stealing a catalytic converter pays again. Theft nearly tripled in St. Paul; the federal PART Act has died in Congress three times. Every legit converter core on a yard's shelf just got more valuable — and more of a target.

[Nick Rogers @nick_x]

Farm equipment is right-to-repair's clearest test case: one manufacturer, one dealer network, no aftermarket to fall back on. Cars still have the fallback of an entire recycled-OEM supply chain, which is exactly why repair access rules matter there too. Parts access means nothing without the data access to install them.

[Nick Rogers @nick_x]

@ErnestWongBWM @compoundpapi Worth watching from the ground: land is Copart's moat, and they historically buy it ahead of volume. Pulling back while repairable volumes shrink and share moves between the two big lanes reads less like belt-tightening and more like a view on where total-loss volume is headed.

[Nick Rogers @nick_x]

Strikes read like labor stories until the parts pipeline hiccups. Extended production halts show up months later as backordered collision parts, and every backordered fender pushes another borderline claim toward a total. Recycled OEM is the quiet shock absorber when factories stop.

[Nick Rogers @nick_x]

@Carscoop The under-$40K third is doing all the work in that stat. Every buyer priced out of the average is either shopping used or keeping a 10-year-old car alive, and both roads run through recycled parts. Sticker prices near $50K are the best demand forecast my industry gets.

[Nick Rogers @nick_x]

The detail that matters for anyone who fixes cars: vehicles and parts are reportedly carved out after the whole fight was framed around autos. Parts pricing has become a bargaining chip, and the USMCA cover on collision parts is suddenly negotiable. That's the story under the headline.

[Nick Rogers @nick_x]

50% tariffs on most Canadian goods — announced over a fight about cars, with cars and parts carved out. The carve-out is the tell: parts pricing is now a bargaining chip, and the USMCA cover every repair estimate leans on can be pulled with one signature. 30-day fuse.

[Nick Rogers @nick_x]

Phones first, vehicles eventually once regulators decide replaceability matters; design follows. Every salvage EV is priced off one question: can the pack come out clean and prove what it is? Rules like this push the whole industry toward serviceable packs, and dismantlers are ready for it.

[Nick Rogers @nick_x]

@muskonomy Norway is also the preview of what an all-EV salvage stream looks like. Once the fleet flips, the question of a totaled car's value starts and ends with the pack test-and-grade capability becoming the whole business, and the rest of the car is brackets and glass.

[Nick Rogers @nick_x]

High ROIC and no debt is the easy half of the thesis. The half that needs watching from inside the industry: salvage volume moves in blocks when a carrier switches contracts, and this is the first stretch in years where share has actually moved between the two big lanes. Liquidity is the moat; carrier relationships are the drawbridge.

[Nick Rogers @nick_x]

@GuyDealership The downstream version of this stat: when one of those cars gets totaled, the ACV check doesn't come close to clearing the loan. Gap coverage turns into the most important line on the policy nobody reads, and the salvage lanes are full of cars that still owe money.

[Nick Rogers @nick_x]

@TESLA_winston That 3-4 day window is the machine working as designed: tow, title assignment, check-in, imaging, listing. The part most people never see: a month after the hammer falls, half that car is already back on the road in other people's vehicles.