TOGETHER WITH:
Howdy, Fam!
Six weeks from today, we're heading west.
On Nov. 18, ASOTU CON West takes over Plug's new headquarters in West LA for one full day with some of the sharpest people in this industry. Jack Hollis, who helped lead Toyota North America. Vic Keller, who spent years at Berkshire Hathaway. Steve Greenfield and Ed Roberts on building a stronger profitability stack. Alex Lawrence on making EVs work at the dealership.
We'll dig into the stuff keeping operators up at night: Voice AI that actually works, mobile service, EVs, leadership, and making more money in a tougher market.
It's fly in, fly out, and capped at 200 seats, so the room will be full of people who are dialed in. Then we'll wrap it all up with a happy hour at The Motoring Club.
Come hang out with us. Grab your seat at asotuconwest.com.
In today's email...
Car loans hit record lengths as monthly payments keep climbing
Hyundai and Tesla are taking very different roads to a robot future
Ford wins a key franchise-law appeal, California closes the "Montana LLC" loophole, and Gen Alpha wants less AI
Keep Pushing Back,
—Chris with Paul, Kyle & Kristi
First-time reader? Subscribe Here!
Car Loans Hit Record Lengths as Monthly Payments Keep Climbing
More buyers are stretching their loans to make a new car fit the budget, and payments are still going up. A record 25.5% of financed new-vehicle purchases in Q3 had terms of 84 months or longer, up from 21.8% a year earlier, according to Edmunds.
Here's what Q3 financing looked like:
Average monthly payment: a record $787, up from $756
Average amount financed: a record $44,664, up from $42,744
Payments of $1,000 or more: a record 21.2% of buyers, up from 19.1%
Average interest paid over a loan: a record $9,938, up from $9,442
Trade-ins with negative equity: nearly 30% in Q2
The average APR held at 7%, but relief isn't coming soon. NADA Chief Economist Patrick Manzi expects borrowing costs to rise in Q4, since most auto loans track the five- and 10-year Treasury notes.
What 84-month car loans mean for dealers and buyers
"If you need 84 months just to make the payment fit, that's a potential warning light that the vehicle is out of your budget."
The brands that won the third quarter were the ones offering affordable, efficient options, like a well-equipped Elantra hybrid around $30,000. That's exactly what a stretched buyer needs.
When a deal only works at 84 months, show the customer another path: a lower trim, a quality used unit, or a bigger down payment. The customer who isn't buried in negative equity comes back sooner.
TODAY’S THE DAY
Join us TODAY at 2:00pm EDT for a look at how Del Grande Dealer Group built an acquisition process that actually stuck across 16 stores.
Scott Pettitt, VP of Sales at Del Grande Dealer Group, joins AutoHub GM Dan Gaughan to break down how the group turned service-drive and showroom opportunities into a repeatable source of used inventory.
See what changed, what the team had to get right, and how they made the process work across multiple rooftops.
(Can’t make it? Register anyway and we’ll send you the video.)
Hyundai and Tesla Are Taking Very Different Roads to a Robot Future
On Tuesday's show, we looked at two automakers with the same robot-filled vision and opposite plans to get there. Tesla stopped building its full-size sedan and SUV to make room for a humanoid robot line, and its long-delayed Roadster slipped again. Hyundai, meanwhile, plans more than 100 new or refreshed vehicles by 2030 while building robotaxis for Waymo and preparing to produce 30,000 Boston Dynamics robots a year.
How Hyundai plans to fund robotics with today's cars
"The strategy is simple to say and hard to do: maximize the profit of the car business today through product efficiency and localization, then fund the future." José Muñoz, Hyundai Motor CEO
For Hyundai dealers, the near-term payoff is fresh product. A steady refresh cadence keeps shoppers coming back to the showroom.
Ford wins a key right-of-first-refusal appeal.
A Maryland appeals court overturned a $5.8 million judgment against Ford, ruling that a 2009 state law limiting manufacturers' right of first refusal couldn't override the right Ford already held under its 2001 agreement with Hunt Ford in La Plata.
Ford had used that right in 2019 to block Charles Winegardner's purchase of the store and assign it to another buyer.
Winegardner plans to appeal to Maryland's Supreme Court, and his attorney warned the decision "will have broad impact upon all kinds of dealer regulatory laws."
California closes the "Montana LLC" loophole.
A day after we covered the CARS Act, California's second big car law of the week is already in effect. SB 1406 took effect immediately on Sept. 30, treating a shell company as a California resident if any owner lives in the state, and making owners personally liable for unpaid taxes, interest, and penalties on vehicles bought through it.
Enthusiasts definitely have opinions: a single Reddit thread on the change drew more than 1,600 upvotes and a long debate over how the state will enforce it.
Gen Alpha wants value, real experiences, and less AI.
At Shoptalk Fall in Nashville, a teen panel told retailers they prefer shopping in person, love thrifting, and are wary of AI in marketing. "I'm a teenager. My money's limited. I don't want to give it to AI," said 15-year-old Jewell Hamilton. The oldest of them will be shopping for their first cars soon.
🔧 Quick Turns
Used values keep sliding. Wholesale prices fell 0.73% last week, with minivans down 2.4% and full-size crossovers posting their steepest drops since December 2023. Buyers are paying up for clean, well-equipped units and discounting the rest.
Lucid's Q3 deliveries fell 6.7% to 3,806, its first quarter since cutting its Arizona plant from two shifts to one.
Mitsubishi's new Eclipse Sportback EV starts at $37,745, about $8,000 more than its twin, the Nissan Leaf.
🎸 Not Car Stuff
Retailers are cooling on self-checkout. Only 36% of 340 surveyed retailers plan to invest in it this year, down seven points, making it the only retail tech to lose interest.
Paramount closed its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, creating a combined company called Skydance with nearly $70 billion in revenue, more than 200 million streaming subscribers, and brands including HBO, CBS, and CNN.
Henry Rollins is opening a free punk and hardcore exhibit in Nashville, featuring decades of posters and photos from Black Flag, the Damned, the Cramps, and more. It runs Nov. 6 and 7 only, then it all comes down.
1913: Ford begins using a moving assembly line at its Highland Park plant, cutting Model T build times dramatically.
1916: Georgia Tech beats Cumberland College 222-0, the most lopsided score in college football history.
1982: "Cats" opens on Broadway.
