TOGETHER WITH

Howdy, Fam!

I grabbed some news today from OEMs, Dealers, and other trusted sources. The story seems to be that part of 2026 will be sorting the pieces of 2025’s misses into piles of useful material for new efforts.

Consumers, automakers, and dealers are all feeling some form of it.

So, let’s learn all we can, but keep in mind: none of this information is about the future; it’s a picture of the past, developed in the present, to help us triangulate the future. 🤯

Enjoy your day, Fam!

Keep Pushing Back
-Chris with Paul, Kyle & Kristi

_{Was this email forwarded to you? Subscribe here!
Reading time: 3 min}

Before your team’s first contact. Before a text, email, call, or mailer ever leaves the store.

Our friends at HeyGreenlight make every incoming lead bring receipts:

Then Wingman turns that intel into a lead-specific playbook: what to say, when to say it, and how to say it to book the appointment. It’s a teleprompter-style assist that helps newer or underperforming reps sound like your best people, without generic, pushy outreach. Powered by LANE (Lead Augmentation Nurture Engine).

Say “Hey” today.

Credit is available but riskier. OEMs still want growth. Tariffs and affordability keep tightening the box. The edge goes to disciplined operators.

Cox’s January update is the most dealer-relevant item today. The Dealertrack Credit Availability Index held at 100.0, but the underlying mix is shifting.

Approval rates fell to 71.8% (down 110 bps vs. December). Subprime share rose to 15.7%. The big flag is negative equity: 56.3% of borrowers, up 220 bps month over month and 470 bps year over year. Longer terms keep creeping up too, with 72+ month loans at 28.0%.

Translation: more buyers can still get a yes, but they’re stretching harder and showing up with more trade baggage. This is a year where structure, trade accuracy, and LTV discipline protect both approvals and gross.

Automakers showed up at NADA talking growth targets, some aggressive. Analysts are more conservative. Automotive News cites S&P Global Mobility forecasting 15.8M U.S. sales in 2026, down 2.5%, with affordability and a softer EV market as headwinds.

If the market is flat, “growth” becomes share-taking, and that pressure rolls downhill. Expect more volume asks, more program stair-steps, and more tension between store economics and factory goals. This connects directly to the credit picture: stretched payments make “just sell more” a harder sell on the showroom floor.

Reuters reports Nissan cut its forecast for a full-year operating loss to 60B yen (from 275B) and posted a surprise Q3 profit. But it still expects a 650B yen net loss for the fiscal year as restructuring continues. Nissan says collaboration talks with Honda remain active, with North America a focal point.

Dealer read: the trend is better than feared, but this is not a clean growth story yet. It’s a rebuild year, which usually means uneven execution and heavy internal focus.

Toyota’s first three-row EV for the U.S. takes a deliberately practical approach: up to 320 miles (AWD with the larger battery), built in Kentucky, and a NACS port with Tesla Supercharger access. Two trims, no confusing branding.

Dealer angle: this is Toyota trying to make an EV feel like a normal family purchase. In a constraint year, reducing customer homework is a selling strategy.

CNBC quotes Lithia CEO Bryan DeBoer saying the company isn’t interested in selling Chinese brands in the U.S. “right now,” mainly because franchise rules and required infrastructure make the investment heavy. Lithia can do it more cheaply in the U.K.; the U.S. would require building the full retail and service footprint.

Short version: even if Chinese brands expand, the retail path here is slower and more capital-intensive than the headlines suggest.

ASOTU CON 2026 is almost here, so we’re revisiting some of last year’s content to see how it holds up.

This keynote from Erikka Tiffani Wells still hits all the right buttons!

Check it out.

That’s all I’ve got for you today, Friend.

Psych! Have a meme.