TOGETHER WITH

We're almost to the NADA show, Fam!

ICYMI, we’ve been gathering resources for the show and want you to have whatever would be helpful.

Check out this collection of info, maps, scheduling content, etc, and the custom AI prompts we built to make them work for you.

Of course, if you’re set on the work days but need some help planning the nights, we have NADAParties.com to help you find your people at the many fantastic parties going on next week.

Finally, it would be a big miss if we didn’t invite you to keep up with events on the ground in our morning livestreams and daily posting on LinkedIn and ASOTU.be.

It’s sure to be a good time, and if you’re making the trip or staying home this year, we want to help you catch all the important moments.

See you in vegas, and…

Keep Pushing Back
-Chris with Paul, Kyle & Kristi

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Making Autonomy Make Sense

At the DC Auto Show during Public Policy Day 2026, Paul and Kyle sit down with Saferide founder Will Bright to talk about what drivers actually want from autonomy: safer, less stressful trips in the cars they already own.

Will explains how Saferide works with dealers to retrofit everyday vehicles, where Level 2 is having real impact, and why easing driver fatigue matters just as much as preventing crashes.

This is a clear look at where autonomy fits today—watch the full episode now.

THE NEWS

The year-end reporting season is putting a bright spotlight on the winners of 2025, and the common thread is adaptability.

The market finished last year around 16.3 million U.S. sales, the best result since 2019, but still short of the prior decade’s peak. Affordability remains the ceiling, with average monthly payments pushing into the high $700s late in the year, and that pressure is already shaping expectations for 2026.

Toyota is the cleanest “year-end story” in the stack.

Globally, Toyota held the No. 1 crown again with record volume, powered by strength in the U.S. and Japan and a hybrid-heavy mix. In the U.S., Toyota also leaned into a product portfolio that spans the practical to the aspirational: entry points under $30,000 on one end, and a small performance halo on the other.

The punchline is strategic electrification without betting everything on BEV timing. Hybrids did the heavy lifting in 2025, and Toyota benefited as incentives shifted and shoppers stayed cost-conscious.

That same “profit and politics” balancing act shows up in Detroit.

GM’s year-end results impressed Wall Street, and the company is signaling confidence with a bigger dividend, a new buyback, and upbeat guidance.

GM’s advantage is cash and flexibility: it can invest in U.S. capacity to reduce tariff exposure while leaning on high-demand trucks and SUVs to keep margins healthy.

Not every year-end storyline is a victory lap.

Carvana’s stock took a hit after a short-seller report accused the retailer of overstating earnings and leaning more heavily on related parties than disclosed. Carvana disputes the claims, but it is a reminder that in a high-rate world, the market is unforgiving when transparency or funding structures get questioned.

For dealers, it is worth watching as a temperature check on used-car sentiment.

Now for the bridge: the year-end numbers are increasingly funding a new arms race, and it is not only EVs.

Hyundai’s tariff pain dragged down quarterly profit, but investor enthusiasm jumped on a different phrase: humanoid robots. Hyundai is talking about deploying Boston Dynamics’ Atlas in manufacturing and scaling capability over the next few years.

Tesla is taking that idea to the extreme.

Hyundai is framing robots as factory leverage. Tesla is framing them as a business-model pivot.

Alongside its year-end revenue decline and softer vehicle deliveries, Tesla is explicitly reallocating resources away from legacy models toward “physical AI,” including robotaxis and Optimus.

Reuters puts the headline number at north of $20 billion aimed at Cybercab, robotics, batteries, and upstream materials, with factory space being repurposed for robots.

So what do you do with this today? Treat 2025’s winners as a playbook: lean into hybrid messaging, watch affordability like a hawk, and keep your core mix tight. Then start prepping for 2026’s pivot by tracking which automakers are investing in automation and robotics, because that is where cost, capacity, and repair complexity will shift first. In the near term, that means planning inventory around proven demand, staying disciplined on pricing and reconditioning, and keeping an eye on how fast autonomy and factory robotics start showing up in actual production.

AROUND THE ASOTU-VERSE

Dealer Conferences and Industry Events (2026)

Quick Hits

  • 🤖 AI: Microsoft is still investing heavily in AI.

  • 🛒 Retail: Amazon seems to be retreating pretty hard from it’s physical retail locations.

  • 🇺🇸 Policy: US tourism is expected to take a hit if a policy requiring visitor social media information is implemented.

  • 💰 Economy: Fed says the economy is not being limited by the current rate, so they are in no hurry to change it.

  • 👽 Weird: Rage Bait was the Oxford Dictionary word of the year for 2025. Honestly, I think they nailed it.

Today in History: January 30

  • 1862 – American Civil War: The first American ironclad warship, the USS Monitor, is launched. 🚢

  • 1920 – Japanese carmaker Mazda is founded, initially as a cork-producing company. 🍾

  • 1982 – Richard Skrenta writes the first PC virus code, which is 400 lines long and disguised as an Apple boot program called "Elk Cloner". 🦠

Thanks for reading Friend. Enjoy the weekend, rest well, and we will see you next week in Vegas!

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