Every story we’ve told

What Gets Lost Between Recon and Retail (And What It’s Costing Your Dealership)

The Hidden Cost of Disconnected Dealership Conversations

Why GM's next hybrids should be the Yukon and Escalade

The three-row hybrids are a start. Full-size SUVs are where the cost-of-ownership story gets big.

Binance's $6.3 billion breach started with one engineer's laptop

The biggest heist in crypto history is a lesson in who can reach your customer data.

GM's $220 million privacy settlement puts car data on the delivery checklist

Customers are starting to ask what their cars know about them. Can your team answer?

🚗 Group 1 is selling up to $675M in "poorer-performing" stores

Group 1 sells stores to pay for its Hennessy deal, and Lithia's AI asks the service questions busy advisors skip.

Why AI Car Shoppers Still Want a Person at the End of the Deal

Only a small slice of shoppers are deep AI users today, but adoption is moving faster than any technology before it. Even if every buyer showed up with an agent tomorrow, the core truth of the car business holds. People want to buy something that makes them feel something. The AI is how they shrink the distance to it.

Carvana’s record quarter runs on plumbing its customers never see

Carvana explained its push into new cars with a list of back-office systems. In their shareholder letter, CEO Ernie Garcia and CFO Mark Jenkins said most of what it takes to sell a new category of vehicle was already in place: a nationwide customer base, national merchandising, personalized financing, digital checkout, customer support, fulfillment, and title and registration workflows.

Ford’s 55-day F-150 supply is a margin strategy dealers should want to keep

Lean supply has a cost too. Ford’s U.S. sales were down 8.6% through the third quarter, though Ford attributes that mainly to phasing out the Escape and lower EV and hybrid sales rather than trucks. Running lean still requires sharper ordering and allocation from dealers. A customer who can’t find the trim they want on your lot can find it two stores away.

Lithia’s AI service agents ask the questions busy advisors skip

DeBoer said Lithia is “getting around 10% to 11% additional pre-sales on every AI,” and guessed the number was “close to zero” before. Keep two caveats in mind: the baseline is his estimate, and the figure measures add-on pre-sales, not total service revenue.

🚗 That $400 payment is $450 now

🚙 Ford is keeping F-150s scarce on purpose, and the Fed may not be done raising rates.

Harley-Davidson’s LiveWire Brings In a Restructuring Officer as Losses Pass $300 Million

LiveWire has lost more than $300 million since the spinoff, and its shares are down 62% this year. Harley still owns almost 90% of the company but said last year it would invest no more. Its newest model, the S4 Honcho, starts at $5,000.