An Independent Dealer Got Tired of Waiting for Wholesale to Catch Up to Retail
Travis Baldwin started detailing cars at his family's dealership when he was 13 years old. Decades later, he's still the guy who notices when something doesn't look right, only now it's an entire industry's wholesale process he's trying to clean up.
🚗 Anything Carvana Can Do, Dealers Can Do (Better)
🚙 Car Dealership Guy spoke with 40 sources about Carvana's Stellantis stores, and dealers pointed to national pricing, no document fees, and a sales model that promotes itself as an alternative to traditional dealerships. Service is another flashpoint, with some nearby dealers absorbing more warranty and recall work from Carvana customers.
A Truck the Size of a Mini Cooper Can Tow More Than a Cybertruck
Telo's compact MT1 electric pickup is about the length of a two-door Mini Cooper, but the startup says it can tow 8,000 pounds, more than a standard Cybertruck.
Some Customers Aren't Shopping on Price. Stop Selling to Them Like They Are.
❝ Ram is reviving the street-truck formula with a four-model Rumble Bee lineup, and dealers believe the buyers it attracts care far more about sound and speed than fuel economy or monthly payments. ❝
Are Dealers Actually Mad at Carvana, or at Themselves?
Car Dealership Guy spent weeks talking to 40 sources about Carvana's Stellantis stores, and the real question isn't whether Carvana is selling a lot of cars. It's whether they're doing it with exceptions no one else would get.
🚗 How Lithia Posted a Record Quarter While Margins Fell 11%
🚙 Think of a customer's ownership experience like a sponsored race car covered in logos. Insurance, finance, protection products, service, every one is a sticker, and every sticker is a company that gets a recurring touchpoint and a slice of that customer's lifetime value. The more of those your store owns instead of handing off to an outside lender or insurer, the more of that value stays with you.
LinkedIn Is Fighting AI Slop With More AI. Here's Why Your Content Still Needs to Sound Like You.
LinkedIn is adding an "AI slop" flag that lets users report low-quality, AI-generated posts, using AI to detect AI in an attempt to keep the platform's feed from drowning in it.
The More Stickers You Own on a Customer's Race Car, the More You Win
Lithia Motors posted record second-quarter revenue, but the megadealer is treating affordability like an operational problem to solve, not just a pricing headache to absorb.
New-Car Grosses Are Shrinking. Here's Kyle's Checklist for Making It Up Elsewhere.
❝ Average gross profit per unit softened across the largest public dealer groups in Q2, but the story isn't all bad. New-vehicle margins came under real pressure. Used vehicles picked up the slack. ❝
Wholesale Is Loosening. Wallets Are Tightening. Sales Are Still Climbing. Here's How That Adds Up.
Three data sets came out this week that look like they contradict each other. They don't. Put together, they tell one clear story about where the car business actually stands right now.
🚙 The 2027 Cadillac Lyriq configurator still lists Apple CarPlay and Android Auto as standard, three years after GM said it would phase both out to push customers onto its own platform. The subscription revenue and driver data GM wanted only exist if a customer chooses the vehicle first, and CarPlay turned out to be non-negotiable for exactly the buyers GM needed.
