TOGETHER WITH:
Howdy, Fam!
Could what just hit Volvo happen to your brand next?
Volvo's China sales fell 35% in a single quarter. BMW's fell 30% in the same three months. Same pressure, and it's not staying in China, Chinese-made vehicles are already flooding into the UK faster than anyone predicted.
If you carry a European premium brand, this is worth watching closely. It rarely stays contained to one region for long.
Also in today's email:
The $3,000 offer worth pulling your CRM for before August 3
What the used market and the EV market are both quietly telling you at the same time
A pigeon, a $1.5 trillion invoice, and the Rolling Stones tying the Beatles
Keep Pushing Back,
—Chris with Paul, Kyle & Kristi
Reading time: 4 mins
First-time reader? Subscribe Here!
Volvo's China Collapse Is Part of a Bigger Story
Volvo's China sales just fell 35% in a single quarter. BMW's fell 30% the same quarter. Meanwhile, Chinese-made vehicles are flooding into the UK faster than almost anyone predicted. Same global shift, playing out in both directions at once.
Volvo's Q2 operating margin collapsed to 1.1% from 1.6%, driven almost entirely by a 35% sales drop in China, worse than the company, or the rest of the industry, expected. Shares fell 8% on the news, Volvo's worst trading day since February.
📊 The Squeeze, By the Numbers
Volvo China sales: down 35% in Q2
BMW China sales: down 30% in the same quarter, plus a June profit warning
Chinese vehicle imports to the UK: from 384 units in 2015 to over 285,000 last year
It's the total market, it's the premium market, and now very noticeably in gas cars as well.
The Same Pressure, Working in Two Directions
Volvo and BMW aren't losing to a temporary rough patch. They're losing to domestic Chinese brands that have gotten genuinely better, genuinely faster, at genuinely lower prices, in their own home market.
That same competitiveness is now flowing outward. UK buyers are increasingly choosing Chinese-made vehicles like BYD and Geely, not out of novelty, but because the fit, finish, and price are winning real comparisons against legacy brands. A Chinese-built BYD Seal U undercuts a German-built VW Tiguan plug-in hybrid by nearly £10,000 in the same market.
The Chinese are coming into Europe with really attractive cars at really attractive prices with technology that sort of blows away what they can buy from a European manufacturer.
What This Means for Your Store
This is a global story right now, not a U.S. showroom story yet. But it's worth watching closely if you carry a European premium brand: the same pricing and technology pressure squeezing Volvo and BMW in China is the exact pressure already reshaping European markets. It tends not to stay contained to one region for long.
You're Building the Same Audience at Least Three Times
Your team builds a prospecting audience in the CRM. Another in your email platform. And again for whoever's running your ads.
Each one uses a different definition of "active shopper with no engagement in the last 30 days," so none of them align.
The groups getting this right define the audience once, then send it everywhere it's needed.
Foureyes Connect lets you use plain-language criteria -- no SQL, no developers -- to easily create a segment you build once and push to whatever email platform, ad partners, and AI tools you're already using.
Toyota Is Paying $3,000 for Your Customer's Old EV. Here's Exactly How to Use It.
Toyota is offering $3,000 in conquest cash toward a new bZ electric SUV for anyone trading in a 2020-2023 competitor EV, Tesla Model Y or 3, Hyundai Ioniq 5, Ford Mustang Mach-E, VW ID.4, Kia EV6, or Nissan Leaf.
✅ Who Actually Qualifies
Owns a 2020-2023 model year competitor EV (see list above)
Currently available in California, with similar offers running in other regions
Deal runs through August 3, worth confirming the exact end date in your market
The bZ itself gives the pitch real substance: 314-mile range on the upgraded trim, native NACS port for Tesla Supercharger access without an adapter, and 10-80% DC fast charging in about 30 minutes. Starting price is $34,900, among the more affordable EVs on the market.
With prices starting at just $34,900, it's among the most affordable EVs in the US.
🎯 Some Action:
Pull your service and sales records for any 2020-2023 competitor EV owners in your CRM, Tesla, Hyundai, Ford, VW, Kia, Nissan, and reach out directly with this offer before August 3. This is a genuinely time-boxed, dollar-specific incentive built for exactly this kind of targeted outreach.
The Used Market Cooled Slightly. EVs Warmed Up Slightly. Here's Both.
Used vehicles
Supply crept up to 2.14 million units in June, days' supply rose to 47, and retail sales pace softened nearly 2% from May. Average listing price held near $27,027, up 6% year-over-year. Vehicles under $15,000 remain scarce, just 33 days' supply, well below the market average.
New EVs
Registrations fell just 0.7% in May, the smallest decline in eight months. Tesla drove the rebound hard, up 27% to a 55.2% share of the segment, its highest in years. Hybrids continue outpacing pure EVs in consumer preference, and Mobility Global still expects only "very slow growth" in EV share through the early 2030s.
Read together: used inventory is loosening just as credit access hits its best level since 2015, and EV demand is stabilizing but still leaning hard on Tesla and hybrids to do the heavy lifting. Neither market is booming. Both are quietly getting less fragile than they were six months ago.
🚘 Cars
Zoox pulled its robotaxis off Las Vegas streets after they failed to detect smoke during a fire, a real miss for a safety system built specifically to catch situations like that.
Manual transmissions are nearly extinct in Britain. Automatics now make up 92% of new car orders, with stick-shift market share dropping below 1%.
💰 Not Cars
MIT researchers built a working 3D-printed bridge, proof that greener, faster construction methods are viable at real-world scale, not just in a lab.
A billing glitch briefly hit some AWS customers with invoices as high as $1.5 trillion. Amazon says it's fixing it, presumably before anyone tries to actually pay.
Oakland firefighters gave a struggling pigeon oxygen after a car fire, and the department is now delightfully internet famous for it.
The Rolling Stones tied the Beatles for the most UK No. 1 albums in history, 15 apiece, a 60-year gap that's somehow still closing.
1919: Sir Edmund Hillary, who would later become the first person to summit Mount Everest alongside Tenzing Norgay, was born in Auckland, New Zealand.
1940: Billboard Magazine published its first-ever music chart, the beginning of what eventually became the modern Hot 100.
1969: Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the Moon, with Armstrong's "one small step" line becoming one of the most quoted phrases in history.
