The Tech Gap - October 8, 2026

Tyreese: Good morning. I'm Tyreese, and this is the Mobile Oil Change Podcast. Look, I saw something Tuesday that I have not been able to stop thinking about. Nine teams of high school and technical college students are heading to Las Vegas this November to tear down and rebuild a V eight engine, on a timer, in front of a live crowd. That is the actual news story. And it tells you everything about where this industry is right now.

Tyreese: So I started digging. This is the second annual A P E X student competition. A P E X is the Automotive Aftermarket Product Expo, the big trade-only show for the aftermarket, happening in Las Vegas this fall. The competition itself is Wednesday, November fourth. Teams race in timed rounds to fully disassemble and reassemble a small block V eight engine. Preliminaries start at ten in the morning and one in the afternoon, and the four fastest teams go to the final at four o'clock, Las Vegas time. There is no cost to watch.

Tyreese: Last year there were three teams. This year there are nine, from seven schools. That is triple the number of teams. First place prizes are valued at more than five thousand dollars this year, up from two thousand last year. The engines are supplied by Duralast, which is AutoZone's private label brand. Milwaukee Tool and Carlyle are sponsoring the prizes. And here is a detail I love. Jack Stow, an A S E certified master technician who teaches in North Kansas City, coached last year's winning team, and this year he is bringing an all-female team and they are coming to win.

Tyreese: Now watch this. Last year the event drew a crowd hundreds of people deep, so this year they added stadium-style seating and big-screen TVs. I'm sitting here thinking, why would a trade show put teenagers rebuilding an engine on a stage with stadium seating? Because it works. The spectacle draws the crowd. That is marketing for the skilled trades, and it is working.

Tyreese: But here is the part nobody is saying out loud. The reason this competition exists is in the press release itself. The United States produced less than half of the two hundred forty-one thousand eight hundred forty-two automotive technicians it needed last year, according to the TechForce Foundation. They project the country will be short one point two million auto techs over the next five years. And a piece from mid-September broke it down even further. Ten U S sectors that depend on skilled technicians will need about two hundred forty-one thousand new workers every year through twenty twenty-nine. The technical schools and community colleges are producing about one hundred one thousand a year. That leaves a gap of roughly one hundred forty thousand technicians every single year. TechForce estimates the lost wage-based economic output at about seven point four two billion dollars a year. So the stage, the stadium seating, the five thousand dollar prizes, it is all recruiting theater. And honestly, good. It is about time.

Tyreese: Here's the thing. About three weeks ago, General Motors CEO Mary Barra said the country has what she called a societal problem with how it views skilled trades. She said hands-on careers deserve more respect, and that this work might be quote, a little more A I-proof than some others, unquote. She said a technician can make eighty to ninety thousand dollars a year, and potentially higher. And Ford CEO Jim Farley said last November that Ford could not fill some five thousand openings for mechanics even while offering a hundred twenty thousand dollars a year.

Tyreese: Now, about a week ago, I read a breakdown of mechanic pay by state, built on U S Bureau of Labor Statistics data, and it stopped me cold. The best-paid ten percent of technicians nationally make more than thirty-nine dollars an hour. The bottom ten percent make sixteen dollars and sixty-six cents an hour. The top is more than double the bottom. So when people say there is a tech shortage, part of what they mean is there is a shortage of techs willing to work for sixteen dollars an hour.

Tyreese: And this is where it gets interesting. That same piece asked shop owners why they cannot find technicians. The top answer was low compensation, at twenty-four percent. Then they asked the techs themselves. Sixty-seven percent of the techs said low pay is the main reason for the shortage. Think about what just happened. The owners know it. The techs know it. Everyone knows it. So when a shop tells you they cannot find anybody, the question is not whether the talent exists. The question is whether the shop is paying like it exists.

Tyreese: Okay, so what does any of this mean for a mobile oil change operator? This is the part I want you to hear. Every other segment of this industry is starving for master technicians. Dealerships, independent shops, collision centers. But an oil change route is the easiest on-ramp in the entire automotive world. You do not need a master tech to change oil. You need a reliable person, a clear checklist, and good training. We have done this a hundred times. You can take somebody green, train them properly, and have them productive in weeks, not years. A fixed-location shop needs two or three techs just to cover its bays. A van needs one person and a phone. Our labor model is simpler than everyone else's. That is our edge.

Tyreese: But here is the flip side. If you are not building your own pipeline, you are fighting every dealership and chain in your market for the same shrinking pool of experienced techs, and you will lose that fight. Ford could not hire at a hundred twenty thousand dollars a year. You are not going to outpay Ford. Nah. That doesn't make sense. So you build. Go to the high schools. Go to the tech programs. Offer paid training, not unpaid shadowing. Be transparent about pay, because the data says the techs know exactly what the gap is. Turn your vans into the first rung of the career ladder, and then make it a ladder people actually want to climb.

Tyreese: And the bigger idea, the thing I keep coming back to, is that engine on the stage in Las Vegas. The industry finally figured out that the trades need marketing like a sport, not like a help-wanted ad. Kids are racing to rebuild a V eight in front of hundreds of people with big-screen TVs, and sponsors are paying five thousand dollars in prizes to be part of it. That is not desperation. That is the industry waking up.

Tyreese: And Barra's line is the one I am going to leave you with. This work is more A I-proof than the desk jobs. Nobody is sending a chatbot to a driveway in Philadelphia to drain oil in January. The wrench is not getting automated away. The only question is who is going to hold it. So build the pipeline. Train people up. And do it before the big chains figure out that mobile is the best recruiting funnel in the industry, because they will. Boom.

Tyreese: I'm Tyreese. This is the Mobile Oil Change Podcast. I'll see you tomorrow.