Welcome to Saturday, Friend!
We’ve covered a lot of ground this week, and it’s all reminding me of that Henry Ford quote:
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can't--you're right.”
Each story contains something like opportunity and something like warning. It’s always what we make of information that matters. Which facts we pick up and which we let float on by.
Especially for anybody in leadership, stewarding your worldview well has a cascading effect on the whole team's confidence.
So, believe you can. And then go do it.
Keep Pushing Back,
—Paul, Kyle, Chris & Kristi
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ICYMI
Monday — Two-thirds of trade-in customers are walking in with record positive equity averaging $13,330, and most stores are only checking their CRM for people they personally sold a car to. We also covered hybrids overtaking EVs nationally two ways at once (California registrations, Hyundai/Kia sales records), Tesla's China restructuring being more about a SpaceX merger than EV competition, and GM confirming its own in-vehicle AI assistant.
Tuesday — Leasing is recovering but the deals aren't as good, pushing more buyers into 84-month loans they may not need; the fix is a quick gut-check on whether the vehicle and customer intent actually support that term. We also broke down Toyota's AI avatar of its chairman getting caught misstating facts (a good prompt to audit your own dealership's AI chat disclosure), and Rivian's R2 launch working even as its cash runway stays tight.
Wednesday — GM is quietly walking back its plan to kill Apple CarPlay, since the subscription revenue it wanted only exists if customers choose the vehicle first. We also covered why consumer sentiment being "up but not thriving" means reading the room before the price conversation, Toyota's $6 billion buyback as a real confidence signal, and a live look back at an ASOTU CON acquisition panel that still holds up months later.
Thursday — Lithia posted record Q2 revenue even as new-vehicle margins fell 11%, by owning more "stickers" on a customer's ownership experience, insurance, finance, service, instead of handing them to outside lenders. We also covered the checklist for making up compressed new-car grosses elsewhere, and three data points (wholesale, savings rate, July sales) that all describe the same stretched customer.
Friday — Forty dealers went on record with frustrations about Carvana's Stellantis stores, and most of what they're upset about turns out to be replicable with better pricing discipline, not a real regulatory exception. We also covered the customer type most stores undersell (the one buying on experience, not payment), a Mini Cooper-sized truck that outtows a Cybertruck, and Ford finally naming its $28K electric pickup, Fathom.
Auto Collabs
An Independent Dealer Got Tired of Waiting for Wholesale to Catch Up to Retail
Third-generation independent dealer, Travis Baldwin, joined Auto Collabs to talk about a problem that's bothered him for years: retail buyers get vehicle history reports and price transparency, but wholesale never caught up. A vehicle can run through auction five times with the same undisclosed issue, and nobody downstream knows.
At Baldwin's own six-location Indiana store, roughly 10% of acquired vehicles, 350 to 400 cars a year, end up in arbitration.
He built a fix rather than wait for one, and the conversation goes deeper into interstate title-timing headaches, why his service team poaches techs from franchise stores, and why AI output is only as good as the specific detail you feed it.
Read the full breakdown, or listen to the full episode, for the rest of the conversation.
The Dealer Playbook
There's a 98% opportunity most dealers aren't touching. This episode breaks down where it's hiding, and why your ad budget isn't the way to get it.
For over 20 years in automotive retail, this guest has managed dealer websites since before "AI" meant anything more than conditional logic dressed up for a trade show floor. Now he's built a platform that turns the expertise already walking around your store into content that shows up in search and on social, without adding work to anyone's day.
This conversation breaks down a number most dealers have never seen: paid clicks only capture between 1.8% and 4.9% of total clicks after a search, according to SparkToro, Datos, and Semrush. That means the other 95 to 98% is organic traffic sitting unclaimed while dealers pour budget into a fight for the smaller slice.
You'll walk away with:
The real math behind why chasing paid keywords is a losing bet, and where that budget should be going instead
Why your best service writers and product specialists already have the content your store needs, and how to capture it without adding another task to their plate
How a $150 AI note taker can turn a normal customer conversation into usable content, without touching customer data or creating compliance risk
What a recent AI-generated vehicle description mistake (placeholder text like "insert transmission here" going live untouched) reveals about the real cost of unchecked automation
What recent FTC guidance means for every team member already posting on social, whether the store realizes it or not
This isn't about hiring an agency to produce more filler. It's about recognizing the expertise your team already has and getting it in front of the people already searching for it.
If this hit home, subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next on the Dealer Playbook.
The 14-Year-Old Out-Creating Your Content
He also can't legally have a job in most states. What he can do is run @CarDealershipKid on Instagram, with 1,400+ followers since February 2024, and partner with 15 dealerships across three states, all in exchange for mentorship instead of pay.
His dad took him to his first auto show at age 3, before passing away when Peter was 7, and the love stuck. One dealer told Automotive News he'd hire Peter on the spot if he were old enough; "there'd be no training as far as product knowledge."
A 14-year-old with no budget, no job, and no car of his own is out-hustling plenty of dealership social pages. So here's the challenge: pull up your store's last month of posts. Would they impress anyone half as much as Peter's do?
1885: Louis Pasteur's rabies vaccine was used on a human for the first time, saving the life of 9-year-old Joseph Meister.
1914: Cleveland, Ohio, unveiled the world's first electric traffic light, designed by Lester Wire.
1969: The Beatles crossed Abbey Road six times so photographer Iain Macmillan could snap the shot that became one of the most iconic album covers in history.
Thanks for reading, Friend!
