🚗 New York City Sues CarGurus Over How It Displays Dealer Prices
🚙 The push for honest pricing has reached the listing sites. New York City’s Department of Consumer and Worker Protection has filed a lawsuit against CarGurus, alleging its deal ratings and AI chatbot presented misleading prices that hid dealer fees, according to Automotive News.
🚙 Analysts say Penske’s move looks like a unique case rather than the start of a trend among public dealer groups. Without quarterly earnings pressure, the company can make longer-term decisions, and Stephens analyst Jeff Lick has noted it could simplify an eventual leadership transition. Roger Penske is 89.
🚙 Fresh product brings shoppers back to the showroom. When it doesn’t show up, dealers are the ones left explaining why. Volvo is the latest example: its new EX60 electric crossover is so far behind schedule that US dealers may not see meaningful inventory until the second half of 2027, according to Automotive News.
🚗 Credit Is Getting Easier to Get, and Loans Are Getting Longer
🚙 Auto credit access rose for a fifth straight month in September, reaching its highest level since April 2015, according to the Dealertrack Credit Availability Index. But the way lenders are loosening tells the real story: loans are stretching longer, down payments are shrinking, and more borrowers are carrying negative equity.
🚗 Affordability Is Moving Car Demand, Not Killing It
🚙 Car shoppers haven’t disappeared. They’ve just changed where they’re shopping. That’s the core finding from Cox Automotive Chief Economist Jeremy Robb, who says pressure on household budgets is reshaping which vehicles people buy and who can still afford them.
🚙 After losing a six-figure loyalty bonus, Mercedes-Benz of Temecula launched a mobile service van in December 2025 and texted every customer it hadn’t seen in over a year. In September, it booked 37 mobile appointments, its best month yet, and 70% of mobile customers hadn’t visited in at least a year.
🚗 Toyota Is Closing In on GM, and Hybrids Are the Reason
🚙 GM has been America's best-selling automaker every year since 1931, except for 2021. That streak is looking less certain. GM's lead over Toyota has shrunk to fewer than 130,000 vehicles through September, and fewer than 37,000 separated them in the third quarter.
🚙 The market gave used buyers a little relief, the car-loan tax break got narrower, the FTC shifted tactics, and even headlight rules are getting a rethink.
🚗 Car Loans Hit Record Lengths as Monthly Payments Keep Climbing
🚙 More buyers are stretching their loans to make a new car fit the budget, and payments are still going up. A record 25.5% of financed new-vehicle purchases in Q3 had terms of 84 months or longer, up from 21.8% a year earlier, according to Edmunds.
🚙 If a shopper at a California dealership asks what a car costs this week, the first answer now has to be the total price. The California CARS Act took effect October 1, 2026, imposing substantial new disclosure obligations on new car dealers and creating new rights for used car purchasers.
🚙 All three Detroit automakers slipped, while Honda, Hyundai, and Kia grew. But the headline Cox expected didn't happen: Ford held off Hyundai Motor Group by about 3,500 vehicles.
🚗 Q3 Sales Preview: Hybrids Are Set to Push Detroit's Share to a Record Low
🚙 The Detroit 3 have few hybrids to offer. Ford sells hybrid versions of the Maverick and F-150, GM has almost none for mainstream buyers, and Stellantis is just now rolling out its first in the new Jeep Cherokee.
🚗 Dealers Are Moving Fast on AI, With Guardrails Built In
🚙 Himanshu Khandelwal of AlixPartners suggests three: assign an employee to approve AI recommendations on pricing or repair diagnoses before they reach customers, audit AI outputs regularly, and know exactly who's accountable when the tool gets something wrong.
🚗 Ford Is Giving Work Truck Buyers a Certified Used Option
🚙 Used truck values are softening. Black Book says full-size pickups posted another week of wholesale declines above 1%, with diesel-equipped heavy-duty trucks under particular pressure from fuel prices. Ford is also modeling the program on its retail CPO effort, which is on pace for 450,000 sales this year.
🚗 The Fuel Economy Rules Are Final, and the Target Moved Slightly
🚙 Weaker standards give automakers more room to build pickups and SUVs, which carry bigger margins than smaller cars, though GM says it still plans to keep making EVs. All of this lands with gas at $4.49 a gallon, 43% higher than a year ago.
🚗 The Fuel Economy Rules Are Getting Rewritten Today
🚙 The department's own estimates show average new-vehicle costs dropping by $930, while fuel consumption rises by about 100 billion gallons and fuel spending by $185 billion through 2050.
🚙 Toyota’s robot math, Nissan’s hybrid launch, VW’s EV orders, a stalled China ban, rising loan rates, appraisal blind spots, and one very green Range Rover.
🚗 OEMs Losing Ground and Rising Loan Rates Make it Hard to Win Back
🚙 Meanwhile, financing is getting more expensive too. Treasury yields hit 20-year highs this week, and auto loan rates follow them closely. A jump from 6.35% to 8.35% on a $43,000 loan adds roughly $41 a month and over $2,900 in total interest.
🚙 Sens. Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan Democrat, and Bernie Moreno, an Ohio Republican, are pushing for unanimous Senate approval this week of a bill that would permanently ban Chinese vehicle sales and manufacturing in the US. It already has 51 Senate co-sponsors and more than 100 in the House.
🚗 VW's EV Orders Just Passed Gas Cars in Germany, and People Aren't Sure What to Make of It
🚙 VW still has real problems, 100,000 planned job cuts, a struggling China business. But its first-generation EVs struggled to sell. This generation is sold out. That's a fast turn, worth remembering next time a customer says they're "just not an EV person," at least not yet.
