Bozard Ford Just Put 47 Vans on the Road, and Somehow That's Not Even the Impressive Part
Bozard now runs 47 mobile service units, and according to COO/GM Ed Roberts, they're servicing more vehicles outside the dealership every month than a lot of stores manage to service inside theirs. That's not a typo. That's a whole second dealership's worth of service volume, just, you know, driving around.
Stellantis Dealers Are Sitting on a Service Opportunity Carvana Just Handed Them
Carvana's expansion into new-car sales rattled Stellantis dealers when it first broke. The follow-up conversation landed somewhere more useful: every one of those out-of-market sales is a customer nobody's claimed yet.
Dealers Are Losing an 83% Market They Don't Even Realize They're Losing
Franchised dealers capture roughly 20-25% of maintenance and service business nationally. The other 75-80% is going somewhere else, and Rhett Ricart thinks most dealers aren't treating that gap like the opportunity it actually is.
Mark Miller Subaru Built Its Own Carvana. It Just Kept the Dealership Attached.
Mark Miller Subaru launched Promise Path this weekend, a fully digital purchase journey built by GM Chris Hudson and his team on top of the dealership's existing one-price "Promise Price" model. The pitch, printed right on the site: keep the dealership, skip the salesperson.
Ford Just Handed Apple the Keys to Its Next EV Platform's Brain
Ford is deepening its partnership with Apple, using Apple Maps data to support both its next-generation EV platform and future BlueCruise development, another sign automakers are growing more comfortable relying on big tech for critical software, mapping, and AI capabilities.
Polestar Says It Was Blindsided. Its Own Dealer Says That's Not the Whole Story.
Polestar says it was blindsided by the U.S. government's decision to effectively push it out of the market, especially after Commerce officials reportedly indicated the company was on track for approval. Commerce told Polestar in 2025 it was preparing to recommend approval, and in April a senior official said it was reasonable to expect Polestar would follow Volvo if Volvo got the green light.
Update: Trump Just Threatened to Double Canada's Auto Tariff to 50%
President Trump said Monday the U.S. will raise tariffs on Canadian cars, trucks, and auto parts to 50%, effective Jan. 1, 2027, following the collapse of trade talks last Friday. The current auto tariff sits at 25% and applies only to non-U.S. content. Auto parts, previously untariffed, would be newly covered under the threat.
Auto Credit Is the Loosest It's Been in 11 Years. So Is the Delinquency Rate.
Auto lenders are opening the door wider than they have in over a decade, at the exact moment a near-record share of auto debt is sitting 90+ days past due. Both things are true at once, and nobody's fully explained the gap yet.
Toyota Is Closing In on GM's Century-Long Reign. The Two Are Betting on Opposite Playbooks.
GM's lead over Toyota has shrunk to just over 100,000 vehicles through July, with both automakers sitting around 1.5 million units sold this year. The gap isn't the interesting part. What each company is doing to defend or close it is.
Dealers Did 96% of New-Car Sales Last Year. NADA Wants 100%.
NADA President Mike Stanton joined the show to lay out the association's priorities heading into the back half of the year, and nearly every one of them traces back to a single number: dealers accounted for 96% of new-car sales last year, and NADA's goal is to close that last gap entirely.
Carvana Priced Itself Above the Market. Buyers Showed Up Anyway.
Carvana's new-car stores are routinely pricing vehicles above nearby franchised competitors, and customers are buying them faster anyway. That's not a pricing story. That's a value story.
Group 1 Is Betting on One Name. The Real Test Is Whether Anyone Knows What It Stands For.
Group 1 Automotive is leaning harder into a "cluster strategy," building dense dealership footprints in key metros while consolidating dozens of legacy dealership names under one brand.
A Dealer Is Testing What an Automaker Owes You When the Government Shows It the Door
A New Jersey dealer group is suing Polestar for $25 million, arguing the EV maker is using a federal sales ban as an escape hatch from its franchise obligations, and setting up a much bigger fight with its U.S. retailers in the process.
China Ran the Same Playbook as the U.S. Nobody Noticed Until It Was Over
China's automakers have a problem most dealers can relate to: plenty of product, not enough buyers. With domestic sales sliding for 10 straight months, Chinese brands are increasingly looking overseas for growth.
Sonic's Real Edge Isn't Price. It's Where the Cars Are Coming From.
Sonic Automotive is betting that a little less gross can lead to a lot more cars sold in the back half of 2026, leaning hard into used at both EchoPark and its franchised stores as affordability pushes shoppers toward friendlier price tags.
A Sub-$30K EV With 321 Miles of Range Says Something About Where Residuals Are Headed
Kia's new 2027 EV3 starts below $30,000 while offering up to 321 miles of range, giving Kia dealers an EV that could reach well beyond the traditional early-adopter crowd.
Tesla Just Showed Every Automaker What Focus Actually Looks Like
As rivals retreat and the overall EV market keeps shrinking, Tesla just grabbed 61.5% of June's EV registrations, and the more interesting story might be what's happening to everyone else around it.
Dealers Have Never Lost Money in 50 Years. AI Might Be the Reason That Streak Gets Even Better.
Our own Michael Cirillo sat in the room this week at Reynolds and Reynolds' Amplify 2026, where Automotive Ventures' Steve Greenfield opened a keynote panel with a fifty-year chart that made the whole room go quiet: the average American dealer has not lost money in any year over the last five decades.
The Lease Return Wave Is Coming Back. Get Ahead of It Before Auction Does.
Pandemic-era shortages broke the familiar lease-return cycle for years. Now Penske Automotive says it's finally refilling, and the dealers paying attention are about to get two wins for the price of one.
Ford's Reputation Problem Isn't the Trucks. It's the Price Tag.
Ford showed dealers a $25,000 crossover and a sub-$40,000 four-door Mustang at a private Las Vegas meeting, and the timing says a lot about where the brand thinks it needs to fight next.
EV Lessees Are Getting a Reality Check at Renewal, and Hybrids Are Winning the Rebound
EV leases were once the ultimate "why not" deal. Now that those leases are maturing, returning customers are discovering a very different market, and a lot of them are landing on hybrids instead.
VW Has 4% of the U.S. Market. A Pickup Truck Is How Every Underdog Brand Tries to Fix That.
Volkswagen is overhauling its U.S. strategy with new leadership and, in a very on-the-nose move for a German automaker, a plan to build an American pickup truck.
Would You Buy a Car Fully Online? That Question Is Lying to You.
A new Urban Science and Harris Poll survey of over 3,000 buyers and 252 dealers found shoppers are researching longer, cross-shopping harder, and putting price ahead of brand loyalty. But the most interesting number in the survey might be the one measuring the wrong thing entirely.
