TOGETHER WITH:
Howdy, Fam!
*Join us this morning on the Automotive State of the Union for a mid year check-in with Brian Benstock!
We're gonna be honest, this whole issue started because one dealer group said something out loud we've all been dancing around for years: "I think of us as a data company that sells cars." Let’s check it out.
Also in today's email:
What your next ad campaign should say instead of a payment
Keep Pushing Back,
—Chris with Paul, Kyle & Kristi
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Ken Garff Says Data Infrastructure Isn't Optional
A 70-store dealer group rebuilt its data backbone and immediately clawed back 400 hours of employee time a month.
Ken Garff Automotive Group replaced a decades-old on-premise reporting system with a cloud-based platform built on Snowflake and Domo, connecting sales, service, finance, and third-party data into one place across more than 4 billion records.
I think of us as a data company that sells cars.
You don't need 70 rooftops to ask the question they already answered: could your current systems actually support the AI tools everyone's talking about, or would they choke the moment you tried?
🎙️ Want the full conversation?
Listen to today's Automotive State of the Union episode for the complete discussion, additional context, and the conversations that shaped our perspective.
Make After-Hours Your Most Profitable Shift
There's a shift your dealership has never staffed, and it's worth over $30K a month.
That's the average after-hours revenue for top-performing dealers on Mia.
Summer is one of the busiest car-buying stretches of the year, and plenty of that shopping happens after close.
When a customer calls at 9 PM needing a service appointment, Mia picks up and books it in the conversation. Same goes for booking a test drive for the night-shift nurse car shopping on her 2am lunch break.
With Mia covering the phones 24/7/365, missed calls disappear from your reports and booked appointments take their place.
Book a demo to hear Mia in action.
China Isn't Just Where Cars Get Built Anymore. It's Automakers' Escape Hatch.
Detroit used to export its engineering to China. Now the flow runs the other way, and the results are already showing up in the numbers.
GM's China-only Buick Electra E7 topped 10,000 sales in its first month, designed entirely by GM's China engineering team. The platform underneath it may power a future Cadillac.
📊 The Shift, By the Numbers
German automakers now conduct roughly 1/3 of their R&D in China, up from 12% two years ago
GM's China-developed Xiao Yao platform is headed for the next Cadillac Optiq
Mercedes' Q2 China deliveries fell 30% year-over-year, even as U.S. sales rose 10%
That last stat isn't a coincidence sitting next to the first two. As Chinese domestic brands intensify their own competition, the automakers still leaning on legacy Western-developed platforms in that market are the ones losing ground fastest.
The fastest route to new technology increasingly runs through China first.
Ram's Surge Is Pulling Stellantis Out of a Seven-Year Slide.
Ram is doing the heavy lifting for an automaker that badly needed a win.
Ram 1500 sales climbed 27% in Q2, helping Stellantis post its fourth straight quarterly U.S. gain even as Jeep's Wrangler, Grand Cherokee, and Compass all slipped.
One Texas dealer's finance team found the lever that's actually moving metal right now.
You bring a vehicle that's $90,000 to a little bit more of an affordable price range, which is going to incentivize a lot of people to jump into these higher trim vehicles.
Discounts of up to $20,000 on loaded Ram 1500 trims aren't just moving inventory. They're pulling shoppers into trims they'd otherwise never consider, which is a pricing lesson worth testing against your own high-trim inventory, not just your volume sellers.
🎤 Your Next Ad Shouldn't Lead With the Payment. Even the Platforms Are Starting to Agree.
We sat down with Owen Moon, CEO of Dealer Stream, and walked away with a genuinely useful reframe on what streaming advertising is actually for.
Streaming and connected TV put dealership ads in front of viewers watching prestige shows like Yellowstone and Landman, the same rooms once reserved for Fortune 500 and pharma spend. But Moon says the old price-and-payment playbook is already losing its welcome there.
"We're moving beyond price and payment. The number four reason somebody was loyal was because of price or financial. It's got to be more than that."
Some streaming publishers are now actively rejecting low-quality, AI-generated price-injection ads outright, favoring content that fits alongside their premium brand slate instead.
Where The Rubber Meets The Road
This isn't a sales problem. It's a storytelling problem, and the platforms are starting to enforce the fix themselves.
What's replacing the discount pitch: local footage, real employees, and community ties, the sales rep who goes to church with a customer, the finance manager whose kid plays on the same baseball team. That's a connection no paid search ad can manufacture, and it's exactly the kind of story your own team already has, whether or not a streaming budget is behind it yet.
🚘 At The Store
Rivian's stock fell 18% after the company announced a 75-million-share offering to raise roughly $1.5 billion, even after pre-releasing Q2 revenue guidance above analyst estimates. The market cared more about dilution than the number that usually matters.
BYD launched its first pickup in the UK, the Shark, starting around $63,000 with more electric-only range than the Ford Ranger PHEV. A Chinese-built truck out-EVing an American nameplate, on European soil, for luxury-SUV money.
New Jersey's new robotaxi law requires lidar, which Tesla's self-driving system doesn't use. A rare case where state regulation, not price, might be the real moat.
🌀 Well, That's Odd
A woman weighed two sealed French's Mustard bottles from Walmart and found one noticeably lighter. Somewhere, a quality control manager is sweating.
Cosmic bombardment apparently melted Earth's first crust way earlier than scientists expected. Rough first day on the job, Earth.
The 2026 All Pakistan Open Bullock Cart Race is exactly what it sounds like, and the finish-line photo alone is worth the click.
🧠 Big Brain Energy
Meta rolled out a new AI image-creation model called Muse. The AI naming department remains delightfully unbothered by trademark lawyers.
Nintendo is shutting down Mario Kart Tour this September. A moment of silence for everyone's phone battery.
The US-Belgium World Cup match just set a new U.S. viewership record. Soccer's having a moment, whether the doubters like it or not.
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1868: The 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution was officially ratified, granting full citizenship and equal civil and legal rights to African Americans.
1962: Andy Warhol's iconic "Campbell's Soup Cans" made their public debut at the Ferus Gallery in Los Angeles.
1982: Disney released Tron, a landmark film that pioneered the extensive use of computer-generated imagery (CGI) and digital visual effects.
