Used EV Supply Just Overtook Gas Cars for the First Time Since February
Used EV sales climbed more than 10% year over year in July, and for the first time in six months, buyers looking for a used EV actually had more to choose from than buyers shopping used gas vehicles.
BMW Just Found the Line Between a Connected Car and a Connected Billboard
BMW put a Spider-Man promotion on dashboard screens in more than 70 countries for two weeks. Owners who paid premium prices for premium vehicles did not receive it as a nice surprise.
Toyota Is Closing In on GM's Century-Long Reign. The Two Are Betting on Opposite Playbooks.
GM's lead over Toyota has shrunk to just over 100,000 vehicles through July, with both automakers sitting around 1.5 million units sold this year. The gap isn't the interesting part. What each company is doing to defend or close it is.
🚙 Stanton told a story about a senator in Wyoming who cut him off mid-thank-you to hear directly from the dealers who actually hire and generate revenue in his state. It's the same logic behind NADA's September Washington Conference: state associations set the meetings, NADA supplies the talking points, and dealers bring the thing lawmakers actually showed up to hear.
Credit Just Got Easier to Access. That's Not Entirely Good News.
Auto credit availability hit its highest level since December 2015 in July. Read past the headline number, and the same report shows longer loan terms, rising negative equity, and falling real wages, three signs that easier approvals are covering for a buyer who's more stretched, not less.
NADA Is Renting Out an Entire Universal Theme Park for Its Orlando Welcome Reception
The NADA Show is heading back to Orlando for the first time in 13 years, and the exhibit floor already sold out with a waiting list before registration even fully opened. The welcome reception detail is the one worth sitting with: attendees get the run of Universal's brand-new Epic Universe.
Dealers Did 96% of New-Car Sales Last Year. NADA Wants 100%.
NADA President Mike Stanton joined the show to lay out the association's priorities heading into the back half of the year, and nearly every one of them traces back to a single number: dealers accounted for 96% of new-car sales last year, and NADA's goal is to close that last gap entirely.
Teenagers Are Already Smarter Than ChatGPT's Guardrails
OpenAI rolled out ChatGPT for Teens this week, built to help students learn without simply doing the work for them. It took one reporter three messages to get it to write a full essay anyway.
Tesla is reportedly preparing to put its purpose-built Cybercab into public service in Austin as soon as this month. The steering-wheel-free robotaxi is central to Elon Musk's autonomous future. Whether the technology underneath it is ready for that role is still very much an open question.
Carvana Priced Itself Above the Market. Buyers Showed Up Anyway.
Carvana's new-car stores are routinely pricing vehicles above nearby franchised competitors, and customers are buying them faster anyway. That's not a pricing story. That's a value story.
