Trade News

Airstream stores could be the start of a diversification wave for Lithia Motors

For the last few years, Lithia Motors has been on a dealership acquisition spree across the country, buying single stores and swallowing large groups whole.

But earlier this month, the fast-growing auto retailer made an acquisition that looked different from all the others: It bought six Airstream stores in the Pacific Northwest from Airstream Adventures.

"[It's a] very small focus for the company relative to what we're doing and no real initiative to grow that business other than to really get a feel for what some of these other mobility verticals could look like," said Lithia CEO Bryan DeBoer on the company's third-quarter earnings call last week.

This is not the only example of the company stretching beyond automobile retail. Last year, following its entrance into Canada, Lithia bought a Harley-Davidson store in Toronto. On the company's earnings call for the thir…

The electrification director at nonprofit thinktank Energy Innovation charts the path forward for understanding how the far-reaching IRA affects electric vehicles, charging infrastructure, raw material production and U.S. power grid.

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An armed robbery of a U.S. postal carrier helped police begin to unravel a crime ring that has stolen numerous muscle cars and other expensive vehicles from auto plants and dealerships in the Detroit area.

When officers caught the man suspected of robbing the postal worker outside Cleveland, they found three high-priced stolen vehicles at his home — a Ram 1500 TRX, a Land Rover Range Rover and a Dodge with a Hellcat engine, The Associated Press reported last week.

That led to federal indictments in June against four Ohio men on charges of conspiracy and interstate transport of stolen vehicles.

One of the men told the FBI that he and another defendant communicated through Instagram with people in the Detroit area about obtaining stolen vehicles, prosecutors said. They said thieves also sold the vehicles, originally worth $50,000 to $100,000, for $3,500 to $15,000 to buyers in Chicago, Indianapolis and cities near East Coast shipping ports.

Investig…

The forecast for lost 2022 factory production resulting from microchip shortages has softened by a small amount, according to the latest estimate from AutoForecast Solutions. But AFS predicts the year will still end with factories worldwide having eliminated 4.26 million vehicles from their plans this year because of inadequate chip supplies.

That is modestly lower than the 4.39 million year-end total AFS forecast one week ago.

The slight improvement illustrates the situation at the moment, after almost two years of the supply crisis. Automakers say the chip situation seems to be getting better but is still troubling as it approaches its third year.

The estimate of 4.26 million lost vehicles for the year would be a significant improvement over the 10.5 million lost last year. But the current figure does not reflect other supply chain troubles that manufacturers are coping with, such as shipping delays and international supply interruptions, said Sam Fio…

A golfer is suing an Arkansas Ford dealership that he said owes him a free F-150 for making a hole-in-one.

Austin Clagett posed for photos holding his ball in front of the $53,595 pickup after his hole-in-one shot Oct. 8 at Morrilton Country Club.

But Jay Hodge Ford of Morrilton said it had never agreed to give the truck away in the "Tournament of a Century" event. The country club had specifically advertised it as a prize in Facebook posts tagging the dealership.

"Hole-in-one on #10 gets you the keys to this F-150," the club wrote with a photo of a F-150 4x4 SuperCrew. "Thanks to Jay Hodge Ford of Morrilton!"

The dealership, which was known as Magie Ford until a change of ownership in August, said on its Facebook page that it provided the truck "for display/advertising purposes only" because it didn't have enough lead time to obtain insurance for a giveaway. "Without our knowledge," the store wrote, "Morrilton Country Club promoted that this new…

Here are highlights from the latest episodes of 'Daily Drive', Automotive News' weekday podcast, Oct. 17-20, hosted by Jamie Butters with Kellen Walker.

"On an average, we probably receive about 100, 125 now, leads that I can say are from social media."--Eric Barbosa, managing partner of Henson Brand Dealerships in Texas, on the benefits dealers are seeing from new retail technology and digital strategies

"I believe you need three pieces of technology to get [intelligent speed assistance] right. You need a map. You need an electronic horizon that reads the data from the map that is ahead of the vehicle. And then you need a camera that can also look out for speed limit signs."--Philip Hubertus, HERE Technologies' director of product management, on intelligent speed assistance, which is now mandatory for all new vehicles sold in the European Union

"I have great confidence that, indeed, this environment is going to put a solid floor under vehicle values. An…

I'm a compliance lawyer for car dealers. It ain't sexy, but as they say, it pays the bills.

And speaking of paying the bills, the Federal Trade Commission recently proposed a massive new set of regulations for car dealers. Every time the agency does this, lawyers like me make money, and lots of it. Dealers have to shell out big bucks to lawyers and compliance companies whenever the FTC makes new rules, largely because these rules are basically indecipherable to anyone other than lawyers who specialize in this area.

I have spent a lot of time analyzing and distilling complicated regulations, providing regulatory compliance advice to dealers for nearly 30 years. So I think I am qualified to say that the only ones who will benefit from these new regulations are lawyers like me and some dishonest dealers.

The FTC claims that adoption of these rules will direct business away from dishonest dealers and save consumers billions of dollars'…

Ouster Inc. has unveiled a series of digital lidar sensors that use a new chip and provide double the range of the previous generation.

The San Francisco company said its REV7 sensors have a maximum range of more than 400 yards, allowing detection of objects up to a quarter-mile away.

The distance is achieved by use of the company's new proprietary L3 chip that's capable of calculating approximately 10 trillion photons per second.

"We doubled the range of all our products just by swapping the chip," Ouster CEO Angus Pacala told Automotive News.

This puts the REV7 sensor on par with the lidar sensor of autonomous-vehicle developer Argo AI, which also has range of approximately 400 yards. But it's below the range of AEye's lidar that detected vehicles at more than a half-mile away in an independent test.

Backward compatibility

In addition to improved range, Ouster lidar sensors' backward compatibility makes them unique and competitive,…

The second generation of Kia's Niro EV, which tops off the automaker's trio of electrified compact crossovers that also includes plug-in hybrid and gasoline-electric hybrid powertrains, goes on sale this month in all 50 states.

The Korean automaker slashed $200 off the price for buyers that opt into the higher of two trims, called the Wave.

For 2023, Kia simplified the lineup from three trims to two. The more expensive Niro EV Wave will cost $45,745, including a $1,295 destination fee. By comparison, the first-generation Nio's top trim, the Niro EV EX Premium, was priced at $45,945.

The entry trim, called the Wind, is priced at $40,745. It sits between the previous generation's base Niro EV S ($40,385) and mid-level Niro EV EX ($41,285).

The lack of a price increase, given many automakers are hiking EV MSRP's, will help keep the Niro EV competitive against domestically built EVs that now qualify for the $7,500 federal tax credit. The Niro EV is …

Donnie Wetsel believes that aggressively selling tire and wheel services boosts profits and prevents customers from drifting away to independent shops, not only for new tires and alignments, but also for the oil changes and other maintenance and repair services that his technicians should be doing.

When Wetsel, 36, took over as service director at Onion Creek Volkswagen in Austin, Texas, in January, he made it a priority to straighten out the store's sales of alignments and replacement tires.

The dealership invested around $75,000 in three Hunter Quick Check machines that read alignment specs as the customer drives into the service lane.

The results are posted instantly on a screen the customer can see and on a printed color handout showing wheel alignment in a red-yellow-green format.

But the service advisers at Onion Creek Volkswagen were not putting a priority on explaining the results to their customers. So to fix that, Wetsel devised sales …

Honda will use its forthcoming CR-V Hybrid to hold onto EV-minded buyers until its Prologue electric crossover arrives at U.S. dealerships in 2024.

Shoppers for the hybrid compact crossover, which goes on sale this fall in two well-equipped trims, the Sport and Sport Touring, will be able to opt into a two-year lease that will let them easily swap into a Prologue electric vehicle when it reaches dealership lots.

While final details have not been worked out, "there will be some sort of benefit to purchasers of the Prologue from having taken the lease, whether it's a financial incentive or something else," said Gary Robinson, American Honda's assistant vice president of product planning.

Robinson said the CR-V serves as a steppingstone to other Honda crossovers. "About 60 percent of CR-V buyers are repeat Honda customers," he said. "They're buyers who continue to stay in the brand."

Honda predicts that half of all CR-V buy…