🚗 Affordability Is Tightening, and Dealers Feel It

You heard it here first, Fam!

Come join us on LinkedIn and let us know what else Maryland has going for it these days.

Or come see for yourself in May at ASOTU CON 2026.

Keep Pushing Back,
- Chris with Paul, Kyle & Kristi

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March is on pace to be the strongest U.S. sales month of 2026 so far, with total new-vehicle sales projected at 1.37 million and a 16.0 million SAAR. At first glance, the year-over-year drop looks rough. It is not that simple.

Last March was inflated by a tariff-driven rush to buy, so 2026 comps are noisy. Strip out that pull-ahead effect, and demand looks steadier than the headline decline suggests. Cox Automotive’s updated 2026 forecast and J.D. Power’s March outlook both point to a market that is still moving, just with less room for error.

The real pressure point is affordability. Prices remain high, monthly payments keep climbing, and more buyers are stretching terms just to make the math work. Interest rates have eased a bit, and used values are still helping on trade, but the deal still lives or dies by the payment.

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China’s dealer body says 56% of dealerships lost money in 2025, up from 42% a year earlier, as the price war crushed front-end margins. At the same time, the leaderboard is shifting:

Volkswagen retook the top sales spot to start 2026, Toyota gained ground, and BYD fell to fourth as EV subsidies faded and a new 5% tax on electrified vehicles cooled demand.

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MG says it will bring a semi-solid-state battery EV to Europe by the end of 2026. The appeal is familiar but important: better range, faster charging, stronger cold-weather performance, and longer battery life. That makes this less of a lab story and more of a product story.

Did you catch the latest from AutoIndustry.ai?

This week, the conversation centered on Washington’s push for a single national AI framework.

The goal is simple: one rulebook instead of 50. That means less state-by-state confusion, but more federal direction on how AI gets built, deployed, and governed. At the same time, investment keeps ramping, infrastructure is expanding, and the government is starting to step in while the foundation is still being laid.

Under the surface, a few key threads stand out:

We also got a practical layer: what operators should actually do now. That includes cleaning up data, tightening financial workflows, auditing how your store shows up in AI tools, and pushing vendors to explain how they are handling all of this.

Put it together and it feels familiar. More momentum. More pressure. More responsibility.

If you want this level of clarity every week, sign up for the AutoIndustry.ai email. It hits Tuesday mornings and is worth your time.

Amazon is stepping onto the lot, just not the way most people expected.

Amazon Autos is bringing a familiar shopping experience into the car-buying journey, letting customers browse your inventory, structure their deal, and show up ready to pick up.

They’re joining us at ASOTU CON to talk about what this actually looks like for dealers right now, how it fits into the real world of operations, and where it’s already gaining traction.

If you’ve been wondering how this plays out beyond the headlines, this is your chance to see it up close.

Grab your ticket and make sure Amazon Autos is on your list.