Welcome to Saturday, Friend!
Long week, lots to catch up on.
Every now and then you meet somebody who lives in such a way that their very conversation feels like permission to abandon some of your own hesitations and fetters. Amirite?
Our conversation with Don Hall this week was one of those moments.
One of those where the distinction between polite and kind is a main character.
Be kind, friends, even when it means you can’t waste time on being polite.
Keep Pushing Back,
—Paul, Kyle, Chris & Kristi
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ICYMI
Monday — A new survey found only about a quarter of buyers are "open" to buying a car fully online, and that's a hypothetical, not a real behavior shift. We also covered the AI habit quietly eroding executive judgment, a 14-year-old outproducing dealership social media, and an independent dealer who built his own fix for wholesale's transparency gap.
Tuesday — EV lease payments nearly doubled between last summer and this one, and that gap is walking onto sales floors as a real conversation dealers need a talk track for. We also broke down VW's plan to fix its 4% U.S. market share and why rapid industry change is actually this business's home turf, not its weak spot.
Wednesday — Ford showed dealers a $25,000 crossover and a sub-$40,000 four-door Mustang, and an analyst's blunt grade drop explained exactly why the brand needed this: nobody can afford their trucks anymore. We also covered Rivian's R2 launch working even as cash burn stays tight, and Nissan's AI cameras protecting factory workers instead of policing them.
Thursday — Automotive Ventures opened a keynote with a fifty-year chart: the average dealer has never lost money, and three dealers showed three different bets on whether AI pushes that streak permanently higher. We also covered live insight from NAMAD on why the sale is the opening handshake on an 84-month relationship, not the finish line.
Friday — A viral TikTok called dealerships unnecessary middlemen, and Paul and Kyle's answer wasn't a simple defense, some of the criticism actually held up. We also covered a dealership mistake so badly handled a customer spent a night in jail, and Toyota's RAV4 topping NAMAD's growth-consumer awards while Ford's F-Series stayed the market's overall leader.
Auto Collabs
Don Hall has spent decades fighting for car dealers. That doesn’t mean he’s afraid to tell one when he’s wrong.
The president of the Virginia Automobile Dealers Association joins Paul, Kyle, and Michael for a conversation that goes well beyond legislation and association work. Don explains why dealers should care about the organizations representing them, what lawmakers often misunderstand about dealership economics, and why advocacy ultimately comes down to something familiar to anyone who has ever sold a car: understanding people.
But Don is just as willing to challenge the industry he represents. He shares the shocking story of a dealership mistake that ended with a customer spending a night in jail, reflects on the hard-driving retail mentality he once embraced himself, and argues that automotive has to eradicate the behaviors that keep reinforcing its worst reputation.
The conversation also gets personal. Don talks about entering the Marine Corps as a troubled 17-year-old and how it changed his life, his refusal to “sit on the bleachers and watch,” and why, after more than four decades around the car business, he’s still pushing people to get involved.
It’s vintage Auto Collabs: blunt opinions, some Diet Mountain Dew energy, and a bigger question underneath it all—what happens when you care enough about an industry to tell it the truth?
The Dealer Playbook
Being a top car seller today doesn’t guarantee you’ll stay there. Andrea knew she could sell. The question was how to create more demand without waiting on the store.
Andrea has consistently ranked among Cadillac’s top sales professionals. But even with strong numbers, she understood something every dealer should be thinking about: the same activities producing results right now may eventually hit a ceiling.
So she asked herself a simple question: What’s the next move?
Her answer was to get in front of more customers before they ever walked into the dealership.
Every dealership is under pressure to push AI further into the buyer journey: chat, text, follow-up, even the first reply to a lead. But there’s a difference between using AI to work smarter and leaning on it in the moments a shopper needs to feel heard. Get that balance wrong, and no amount of automation makes up for it.
That’s why Ted Rubin is sitting down with our very own Michael Cirillo to talk through exactly where that line sits. Michael has spent his career helping dealers win the modern, tech-driven buyer journey. Ted has spent his building systems and companies that keep real human conversations at the center of it all. In this talk they team up to give dealers a simple framework for deciding what to automate, what stays human, and what needs both.
Save your spot.
Throwback: Kicking Gas Features Arnold Schwarzenegger
Remember that time The Governator tried to get folks to give up on EVs?
ASOTU remembers.
What do you think?
Have Arnold’s claims held up? Age like wine? Age like milk?
Or, should commercials higlight product quality more than trying to take on broad market thinking?
1939 – The Wizard of Oz premieres at Grauman's Chinese Theater in Los Angeles, California.
1969 – The Woodstock Music & Art Fair opens in Bethel, New York, featuring some of the top rock musicians of the era.
1998 – Apple introduces the iMac computer.
