Trade News

The American automotive industry has a big problem. A bigger than big problem. One that is significantly impacting dealership operations, customer retention and profitability. And if not resolved, the heartburn will only grow. Though dealers are aware of it, most struggle to address it.

It's the shortage of automotive technicians and the dilemma dealers face in fixing it.

Long a major pain point, it's escalating into an outright obstacle to future success. Like never before, dealers are straining to find and retain technicians to properly care for their customers and simultaneously generate profit. It seems most dealers are continuing to look into their rearview mirror to past solutions that have become mostly ineffective.

There's a national shortage of nearly 800,000 technicians, and it's expected to grow to 900,000 by 2026. In some markets, more than 30 percent of dealership service bays go unused because of the worker shortage.…

Dodge is about to put its stamp on electric performance, with a battery-powered Charger arriving in 2024.

But that doesn't mean the brand is giving up on internal combustion. In fact, it's finding new uses for powerful gasoline engines.

Stellantis began rolling out its Hurricane twin-turbo inline-six engine in the Jeep Wagoneer line of luxury SUVs for the 2023 model year.

Dodge put a spotlight on the Hurricane by putting it in a Challenger Drag Pak during the Roadkill Nights muscle car event in the Detroit area in August and testing it out on the drag strip. The engine is capable of up to 550 hp.

When asked whether Dodge plans to use the Hurricane engine in production, CEO Tim Kuniskis said, "We have plans to put it in some other cars that we'll probably announce shortly." He said the brand could share more product news later in the year.

Electric crossover: A five-passenger electric crossover is expected in early 2026.

Durango: T…

The end of every month at Sam Pack's Five Star Chevrolet in Carrollton, Texas, is marked by the "tick, tick, tick" of a spinning prize wheel. And, if the top-performing employee is lucky, General Manager Alan Brown will announce the biggest amount: "Five hundred dollars!"

The game is the center of the staff's regular "pep rallies," celebrations that have revived the store's camaraderie and competition. On the last Friday of every month, the staff gathers to recognize the top employees in each department, review the previous month's performance and hear the targets for the next month.

Brown began the pep rallies in January 2020 as a core part of his strategy to turn around a store that was losing money and known in the Dallas suburb as an undesirable place to work. The store, which sells about 2,000 new and used vehicles a year, has since grown 840 percent in true net profit and now has "very little turnover," he said.

"People g…

When they ask you in 10 years, "What was the look and feel of new cars back in 2023?" don't be a downer. Don't tell them that the Detroit auto show was so lacking in inspiration that most automakers couldn't muster the enthusiasm to participate in the biggest show in America.

They won't understand.

Tell them this: The cool waning days of summer in Detroit provided a brilliant mirror of what consumers were thinking. That after three exhausting years of pandemic disruption, deprivation and anxiety, the auto market was suddenly awash in brighter colors. Blues were inexplicably deep and electric. Reds were an unearthly ruby, and splashes of green, gray and orange were being lathered onto bodies like thick lacquers of olden days.

Tell them one color was not enough, that carmakers were shifting fast to two-tone coatings, with flashy black cladding and trim popping like glossy glass.

Tell them that in 2023, designers had f…

DETROIT — After Hurricane Idalia pummeled Florida in August, about 300 flood-damaged Teslas were sold during an insurance auction.

Within days, two burned to the ground, said Dalan Zartman, COO of Energy Security Agency, a Piqua, Ohio, company that trains first responders to combat EV fires.

Those developments underscored what Zartman and others on a panel last week at The Battery Show said is the most pressing issue with EV safety: Fire departments, emergency responders, insurance companies, consumers and others are ill-equipped to handle EV fires.

Safety was top of mind at the show, which attracted nearly 800 exhibitors to the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi, northwest of Detroit. Almost every row on the convention floor showcased thermal management products.

Each panelist highlighted different areas in need of attention, but there were common denominators: Just about every entity involved in handling or caring for lithium ion batteries…

A former finance and insurance manager has sued an Indiana dealership, alleging wrongful termination, retaliation and sex discrimination.

Mary Zipp's lawsuit, filed in federal court in Indiana on Sept. 5, seeks damages from John Jones Chevrolet-Buick of Corydon for alleged mental anguish and lost wages and benefits.

The discrimination and harassment were severe and pervasive, Zipp's suit alleges, creating "an intimidating, hostile, offensive and abusive working environment."

In a filing this year with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the dealership said it fired Zipp for a "documented pattern of tardiness, as well as absences" and failure to meet the store's attendance expectations.

The store hired Zipp in October 2020; she was its only F&I employee.

She received three disciplinary reports for lack of punctuality, and "in the months following her final warning, missed two days without notice an…

The Tesla Model 3 is the first electric vehicle to break into the top 10 leased models in the U.S., following a period of strong growth, according to a report from Experian.

The Model 3 ranked seventh on the list, representing 1.79 percent of leased new vehicles in the second quarter. One in 4 of the roughly 42,000 new retail Model 3s to hit the road last quarter, according to Experian, was leased — up about 14 points from the same time a year earlier, Melinda Zabritski, Experian's senior director of automotive financial solutions, told Automotive News.

Typically, the top leased vehicles list is made up of high-volume cars and trucks, Zabritski said. The Ford F-150, Honda CR-V and Nissan Rogue were the top three leased vehicles of the quarter, representing 2.52 percent (F-150), 2.48 percent (CR-V) and 2.26 percent (Rogue) of leased new vehicles. The quarterly combined retail sales and lease volumes of Model 3s rose dramatically from the 28,000…

The Honda brand is in the midst of a swift recovery from a pandemic and chip shortage-related sales slump and is on track to close 2023 with sales of 1.2 million vehicles now projected.

"We expected at this point to be up around 25 percent, so we are growing past that," Lance Woelfer, Honda brand's sales chief, told Automotive News.

Last year, with microchip shortages still causing widespread production interruptions, Honda sold 881,201 vehicles. In 2019, the last full pre-pandemic year, the brand sold 1.5 million.

But through the first eight months of this year, Honda volume is up 30 percent with sales of 757,375 vehicles, according to the Automotive News Research & Data Center. And it closed August up 56 percent compared with August a year ago, well ahead of the industry's estimated growth of 17 percent.

It is enjoying a tailwind of having redesigned key models in its portfolio for 2023, including the Accord sed…

Tesla Inc. could benefit from an extended UAW strike against the Detroit automakers since the Texas-based EV brand has ample production capacity to further bolster its dominant market share in the event of vehicle shortages from General Motors, Ford Motor Co. and Stellantis, analysts said Friday.

"We speculate that a prolonged strike would benefit Tesla most due to its production capabilities and opportunity to build on its leading market share position," said Baird Equity Research.

Tesla has about 60 percent of the EV market, according to analysts, and is drawing the lion's share of consumers switching from gasoline vehicles. In the U.S., Tesla operates assembly plants in California and Texas.

Nearly 13,000 hourly workers at three large assembly plants went on strike early Friday against Ford, GM and Chrysler parent Stellantis. The targeted walkout affects gasoline vehicles including one plug-in hybrid, the Jeep Wrangler 4xe.

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From supply chain challenges to historically high auto prices, the pandemic had a significant impact on the auto market — which continues to rapidly evolve. With vehicle values now expected to come down, lenders should be prepared to monitor the market as it contends with high originating loan-to-value (LTV) ratios and consumers facing affordability challenges.

A newly released TransUnion study explores this anticipated change based on the impact equity positions and depreciation have had on loan performance in recent years. Read our market brief to learn: 

The correlation between vehicle depreciation and delinquencies Which borrowers are most affected by rising LTVs How vehicle values are likely to look moving forward What you can do to successfully optimize each phase of the vehicle financing lifecycle

Ford Motor Co. on Tuesday said it has hired a new chief marketing officer and moved two members of the Ford family into new roles.

The automaker said Lisa Materazzo, who was the top marketing executive at Toyota Motor North America, has been named CMO, effective immediately. She will report to CEO Jim Farley and lead advanced product planning and all marketing activities across the Ford Blue, Model e and Ford Pro business units.

Materazzo, who had been with Toyota for 20 years, also will oversee Ford Performance and Lincoln.

"I grew up in a family of auto enthusiasts and have dedicated my career to automotive. I'm a huge motorsports enthusiast. My idea of a vacation is going to F1 races around the world," Materazzo said in a statement.

"I feel incredibly blessed to be joining this iconic company at a time when it's making bold bets on the future — from the three new divisions of the company to the audacious performance and motorsports plan. I am…