TOGETHER WITH:
Howdy, Fam!
Is your store betting like GM or like VW?
GM's going wide, gas, hybrid, EV, luxury, budget, betting that breadth covers them no matter which way demand swings. VW's doing the opposite, cutting its lineup by half, betting that less is somehow more.
Only one of them is actually in financial trouble. You already know which.
Also in today's email:
The difference between a leader who's present and one who's just watching
What's already lining up to replace the Altima before it's even gone
A car that ratted out its own passengers to the cops
Keep Pushing Back,
—Chris with Paul, Kyle & Kristi
Reading time: 4 min and 39 sec
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GM and VW Are Betting on Completely Opposite Playbooks
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Same industry pressure, same rough timeline, two completely different bets.
GM is doubling down on breadth: six Chevy/Buick nameplates under $30,000, hybrid variants coming to most full-size trucks and SUVs, new sedans planned, all while EV ambitions quietly scale back to just one new model through 2030.
VW is doing the opposite: cutting its global lineup by up to 50%, complexity by 75%. Its profit margin has been cut in half since 2021, and the restructuring plan has already been rejected once by its own supervisory board.
That's our safety blanket.
One notable detail: reported cuts include the VW Jetta and Taos, both entry-level U.S. affordability plays. "It would seem odd to cut so much at the lower end," said AutoPacific's Ed Kim.
If you're a GM store, that breadth is your actual pitch, there's a lane for nearly every buyer who walks in. If you're VW Group, get specific with your OEM rep now about which models on that list actually hit your allocation before you plan next year's floor plan.
Are Your VDPs Earning the Click?
In a market where shoppers are stretching every dollar, your listings need to answer every question before it’s asked.
93% of car buyers use auto marketplaces in their path to purchase — and when budgets are tight, a complete listing is often what separates a click from a pass. How you merchandise your vehicles influences every stage, from AI-powered search to the moment they pick up the phone.
Our merchandising guide gives you the tactics to make every VDP work harder and turn more views into qualified leads.
Micromanagement vs. Leadership Presence
Farley's walkabouts are worth echoing in your organization. Not to catch your team in the act, but to stay present in the ongoing conversation of how work gets done.
That distinction is everything. Micromanagement shows up unannounced, looking for a mistake. Presence shows up regularly, asks real questions, and leaves without needing to prove a point. One erodes trust. The other builds it, walk by walk.
Farley's rotation earns that trust because it changes over time. Early walks checked culture and safety, whether people felt safe enough to say quality mattered more than output. Later walks dug into engineering and supply chain design, once those fundamentals held.
The dealership version follows the same arc, and it isn't a vague platitude. It's a specific, repeatable rotation:
Half a day detailing cars
half a day in service
a full day writing tickets
a complete customer walkthrough
Time in the BDC.
Vague intentions produce vague change and a team that feels watched. A specific rotation produces a leader who's simply there, and a team that stops performing for an audience because the audience never left.
Nissan Is Finally Killing the Altima.
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Two discontinued sedans, three generations of decline, and a full field of replacements already in motion.
After years of decline, Nissan's axing the Altima to give the redesigned Sentra room to grow, joining the already-discontinued Versa and Maxima on the way out.
The internet's already placing bets on what fills the gap. Kia's K4 and K5 topped the predictions, with Hyundai's Elantra close behind, and a surprising number of votes for whatever used Tesla Model 3 buyers can find under $15,000.
Worth watching if you're anywhere near that trade-in flow. The used-Altima customer isn't disappearing. They're just about to become someone else's conquest sale.
China's EVs Are Younger Than Your Phone.
The average EV there is younger than the average smartphone here, and that's not an accident.
The average EV in China is just 1.8 years old, with 90% replaced within five years.
That's not carelessness. It's a faster trade cycle becoming the actual profit engine of an entire market.
More transactions per customer, not fewer, as vehicles keep behaving like tech products instead of mechanical ones. Worth building your own lease structures around that assumption now, before it becomes the standard instead of the exception.
🏎 Cars
🔋 Hyundai opened a $5 billion EV battery plant in Georgia, closing in on Chevy for the #2 EV brand spot in the U.S., trailing by just over 1,300 units in the first half of the year.
🎮 A Waymo caught two San Mateo teens shooting an Orbeez gel gun out the window mid-ride, quietly disabled itself, and had police waiting when they arrived. The car ratted them out better than any parent could.
🏛️ Washington state dealers are suing Scout Motors, arguing its direct-to-consumer sales model violates state franchise law. A real one to watch if your state has similar dealer protections on the books.
🔍 A rare 1966 Buick Wildcat GS listing mysteriously vanished the moment someone asked the seller about it. The internet's still trying to figure out what happened to it.
🐐 Everything Else
🗣️ Siri's iOS 27 overhaul shows real improvement in contextual awareness, but none of it matters for your dealership until third-party apps actually build the integration. Worth watching, not acting on yet.
🥜 A Rotterdam museum covered its floor in over 800 pounds of peanut butter as a tribute to a late Dutch artist famous for edible installations, reportedly enough for 15,000 sandwiches.
📱 A Maryland man robbed a Verizon store, then called police to report his own car stolen minutes later. Officers noticed the blood on his glasses matched the store's window. Karma works fast.
🎨 A South Korean bank manager allegedly replaced a large sum of stolen vault cash with play money printed with cartoon animals. Somehow nobody checked for weeks.
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1935: The world's first parking meter was installed in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, forever changing how cities charge drivers for the privilege of leaving their car somewhere.
1955: Stirling Moss won his first British Grand Prix at Aintree, edging out his own teammate and rival, Juan Manuel Fangio.
1969: Apollo 11 launched from Kennedy Space Center, sending the first astronauts on a mission to land on the Moon.
