🚗 No Clear Coordinates

Welcome to Saturday, Friend!

ASOTU CON is taking on the feel of a well-set table, where every seat matters and every voice adds something worth hearing.

New speakers keep pulling up chairs, and the conversation is already forming.

There’s still a seat with your name on it.

Come join us.

Keep Pushing Back,
—Paul, Kyle, Chris & Kristi

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On Monday, we got straight to the tension everyone’s feeling: affordability. Prices are still high, even as some brands experiment with “less for the same” strategies. Meanwhile, BYD is showing the world what true cost disruption looks like, just not in the U.S. Add in Stellantis balancing strong gas sales with shaky EV demand, and the question is clear: who’s actually going to close the gap for customers?

On Tuesday, dealers showed up looking for answers from the FTC and got a whole lotta nothing. Questions around pricing, fees, and compliance are still hanging in the air. At the same time, Honda openly acknowledged how far behind China has pulled ahead on speed and cost, while new ideas like weight-based vehicle fees hint that ownership costs may be getting more complex, not less.

On Wednesday, the story didn’t change, and that was the story. No new FTC clarity, more pressure from China’s product strength, and a clear shift in buyer behavior. Used cars are stepping into the spotlight as the go-to option, hybrids are gaining ground, and shoppers are thinking harder about total cost.

On Thursday, we looked at the growing gap between headlines and reality. Tariffs are still pushing costs up, even as news cycles hint at relief. Customers are picking up on the optimism, but the math hasn’t caught up yet. That puts dealers in a tough but important spot: helping people make sense of what’s actually happening, not just what they’re hearing.

On Friday, we brought it all together with one core idea: clarity wins. Between FTC pressure, shifting pricing expectations, and global competition heating up, customers are trying to figure out what’s real. The dealers who explain price, value, and timing in plain terms are the ones who earn the conversation and keep it.

In this week’s episode of Auto Collabs, we spoke with Misty Tippets from Podium about a growing issue dealers can’t ignore: most dealership tech stacks were never built for what AI requires.

The era of bolt-on solutions is fading fast, and the gap between modern capability and legacy systems is getting harder to hide. The conversation points to a bigger shift, where success depends less on adding tools and more on rebuilding the foundation, especially in areas like fixed ops where consistency and experience drive long-term growth.

Everyone’s talking about pricing. Very few are talking about what it actually takes to compete right now.

At the NY Auto Forum, Tom Castriota gets into what dealers are dealing with on the ground. FTC enforcement is pushing clearer pricing, and most dealers are ready for it. The bigger issue is affordability. Fewer vehicles customers can realistically buy, older trades, and payments that don’t work for a large part of the market.

This is a straight look at where things stand and what’s shaping the road ahead.

Catch the full interview before you make your next pricing or inventory decision.

Every card swipe in your service lane has a cost attached to it. Most dealers haven’t actually mapped it out.

We pushed this one to April 22 to make room for more teams to join. Randy Modos and Don Andres are going to walk through how dealers are reducing processing costs, structuring surcharge programs correctly, and cleaning up payment workflows without slowing down the customer experience.

You’ll leave knowing exactly where to look and what to adjust.

Save your spot for April 22.

Yesterday evening, four brave astronauts landed back on Earth after going farther into space than any humans ever have.

NASA’s Artemis II crew flew around the Moon and splashed down safely in the Pacific after a 10-day mission.

The trip came with several history-making firsts. Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen reached about 252,756 miles from Earth, setting a new distance record for human spaceflight. Koch became the first woman to fly around the Moon and return, Glover the first person of color, and Hansen the first non-American to make the trip and come home.

It was also a big week for the heart. During the mission, the crew named a lunar crater “Carroll” after Wiseman’s late wife. Mission control got misty. So did the rest of us.

For anyone in the business of mobility, this was a pretty good reminder that the category has no ceiling. Dream big.