Stellantis Just Told a Journalist It Can't Beat China. It's Joining Instead.
Dunne, longtime China auto analyst and author of the upcoming book Car Wars, joined the show to trace how Stellantis went from manufacturing Jeeps in China to quietly becoming dependent on a Chinese partner for its own global lineup.
Reynolds and Reynolds Is Building an AI Agent That Refuses to Guess
Everyone wants to believe AI can just figure out messy data on its own. AJ McGowan, VP of Research and Development at Reynolds and Reynolds, says that belief is exactly what stops most AI projects from ever reaching 100%. He joined Auto Collabs to break down Ray, Reynolds' proprietary AI agent, and three ideas worth stealing before your own dealership bets big on AI.
🚗 Across Dealerships, One Group of Employees Is Most at Risk
🚙 Eighty percent of dealership employees say they're satisfied at work. That number collapses to 64% for anyone with one to three years on the job, exactly the stretch where a dealership can least afford to lose someone: after the training investment, before the loyalty sets in.
An Alabama Dealership Just Made Youth Sports Cost Less Than a Tank of Gas
$150 for football. $110 for baseball, basketball, soccer. One dealership in Albertville, Alabama looked at those numbers and said: not anymore. Now it's $25, flat, for every sport, every kid, no exceptions.
Dealership Workers Are Happy. The One-to-Three-Year Crowd Isn't Buying It Yet.
Eighty percent of dealership employees say they're satisfied at work. That number collapses to 64% for anyone with one to three years on the job, and that gap is where CDK's 2026 Workplace Study says the real retention story is hiding.
🚗 47 Vans on the Road, and That's Not Even the Impressive Part
🚙 Bozard rebuilt its BDC from 32 screens down to 9, and COO/GM Ed Roberts still thinks that's twice what's necessary. The flashy number gets the headline. The duplicate data entry nobody wanted to audit is usually where the real money's hiding.
The Leadership Trick Ed Roberts Uses Before He Ever Asks for a Hard Change
Here's a leadership metaphor simple enough to actually remember on a Tuesday, and sturdy enough to still be true on a Friday when everything's on fire. Ed Roberts calls it deposits and withdrawals, and once you hear it, you'll start seeing it everywhere.
Bozard Ford Just Put 47 Vans on the Road, and Somehow That's Not Even the Impressive Part
Bozard now runs 47 mobile service units, and according to COO/GM Ed Roberts, they're servicing more vehicles outside the dealership every month than a lot of stores manage to service inside theirs. That's not a typo. That's a whole second dealership's worth of service volume, just, you know, driving around.
🚗 Are Dealer-Quoted Monthly Payments the Next FTC Compliance Risk?
🚙 The FTC already sent warning letters to 97 dealerships in March, with a group potentially on the hook for close to $80 million in fines. Now there's a new gap on the radar, and this one's built into how nearly every store quotes a payment.
Ohio's Auto Dealers Association Figured Out How to Get 4,000 People to a Concert for Charity
Most dealer associations wait for a problem before a dealer picks up the phone. Ohio's approach is the opposite: build the relationship before there's ever a fire to put out. Zach Doran, president of the Ohio Auto Dealers Association, joined Auto Collabs to share how that philosophy actually plays out, and it breaks down into three moves worth stealing.
AI Search Traffic Converts Better Than Anything Else. OpenAI's Ad Business Might Ruin That.
OpenAI just hit $1 billion in annualized ad revenue in under 200 days. The more interesting number isn't OpenAI's, it's the one showing up in dealer data: AI-referred traffic is converting at rates regular web traffic has never touched.
