Trade News

Opening and operating centers dedicated solely to buying used vehicles is helping Germain Motor Co. branch into new markets and acquire more cars and trucks during the inventory pinch that has beset dealers for more than a year.

Prior to the coronavirus pandemic, the Columbus, Ohio-based dealership group revisited its strategy for acquiring used vehicles. Company leaders saw potential in carving out a separate operation — one with employees dedicated to used-vehicle buying, not retail sales. The company's goal: attract consumers interested only in selling their vehicle for an instant cash offer, not going through a full trade-in process.

Germain opened its first buying centers in Ann Arbor, Mich., and Columbus in 2019. Amid the pandemic and the industry's ensuing supply constraints, it opened more. Used vehicles sourced from that growing channel are now a staple in Germain's retail inventory, company leaders say.

"It's turned out to be an unbelievable …

U.S. light-vehicle sales rose for the first time in more than a year last month, an indication that market conditions are improving — though not for every brand.

Industrywide, Ford said light-vehicle deliveries rose 4.8 percent in August, which would mark the first monthly year-over-year gain since summer 2021. LMC reported total light-vehicle sales rose 4 percent to 1.13 million.

The seven automakers that report monthly figures tallied 617,363 sales in August, down 1.8 percent from the same period a year earlier, according to the Automotive News Research & Data Center. Sales slipped at Toyota Motor North America and American Honda, but Ford Motor Co. and Hyundai Motor Group each posted double-digit gains.

The overall industry was aided by an additional selling day compared with August 2021, and companies that fared well also pointed to higher inventory levels resulting from production being less hampered by ongoing supply chai…

When customers buy a Bronco from Steve Olliges' Team Ford dealership in Las Vegas, they normally spend an additional $4,000 to $5,000 outfitting their off-roaders with light kits, tube doors and other accessories.

Olliges, who has sold about 700 Broncos since the SUV went on sale a little more than a year ago, said he can't recall another Ford vehicle that has given dealers such an opportunity to increase their profits — and he plans to take full advantage. In a few months, he'll open a 9,000-square-foot accessory shop called the Bronco Barn, which sits about a mile from his showroom and cost roughly $10 million to build.

"I definitely have Bronco fever," Olliges, who also plans to build a standalone Bronco showroom next to the barn, told Automotive News. "I feel I could make a living just being a Bronco dealership; it's that successful."

Other Ford dealers say their experience has been similarly lucrative. The Bronco has been on sale just over a year, …

President Joe Biden is planning to attend the Detroit auto show, his first visit to the the Motor City’s annual car spectacle since his days as vice president.

“I’ll be there,” he said Friday during a White House event after being invited by members of the Detroit Regional Partnership. “I’m a car guy, as you kind of noticed.”

Biden is the proud owner of a classic 1967 C2 Corvette Stingray.

The invitation came from Maureen Donohue Krauss, CEO of the Detroit Regional Partnership, who also asked Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.

The North American International Detroit Auto Show is scheduled to kick off on Sept. 14. Barack Obama was the last sitting president to attend.

“As my grandfather used to say, with the grace of God and the goodwill of my neighbors, I’ll see you at the auto show,” Biden said.

A look at the latest August sales results. VW either heads back to the bargaining table or faces a strike in Mexico. New research says “resistance is futile” when it comes to right-to-repair. Plus, a conversation about how EVs are changing the F&I business.

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Aurora Innovation Inc.'s chief executive officer recently laid out a range of options for the self-driving company to respond to worsening market conditions and partners pushing out timelines, including a possible sale to Apple Inc. or Microsoft Corp., according to a document seen by Bloomberg.

Chris Urmson, who co-founded Aurora after running Google's self-driving car project, also outlined cost cuts and floated measures including taking the company private, spinning off or selling assets and pursuing a small capital raise in a memo labeled "board discussion pre-read" dated Aug. 3. Urmson inadvertently sent this to staff and asked them on Aug. 9 not to open it, the document shows.

A representative for Aurora confirmed the authenticity of the memo and said the company is considering ways to stay competitive in a challenging marketplace.

"Given the current macro conditions, every company should be going through the exercise of evaluat…

If semiconductor shortages, recession risks and the once-a-century shift in propulsion weren't enough to keep auto executives up at night, here's one more sleep disruptor: Consumers are keen to buy an Apple car before one even exists.

Strategic Vision just released the results of an annual study that this year reached 200,000 new-vehicle owners. For the first time, the consulting firm included Apple among the more than 45 brands it surveyed consumers about. The findings: 26 percent said they would "definitely consider" buying a set of wheels from the iPhone maker, behind only Toyota and Honda. And 24 percent ticked the top box ("I love it") when asked their impression of the brand's quality, beating all others by a wide margin.

That's serious brand power and suggests there would be significant appetite for autos alongside all those phones, computers, watches and television boxes.

Whether Tim Cook will actually green-light a product f…

DETROIT — Buick will offer to buy out any of its U.S. dealers who do not want to make the investments necessary as the brand transitions to an all-electric lineup by the end of this decade.

A spokeswoman for the brand confirmed the plan to offer buyouts, which Duncan Aldred, vice president of global Buick and GMC, is outlining to dealers during a virtual meeting Friday. The Wall Street Journal first reported the buyout plan Friday, citing an interview with Aldred.

Buick had 1,963 U.S. dealerships at the start of 2022, according to Automotive News' Dealer Census. Only 13 of those were standalone stores — the majority have dual showrooms with GMC — so virtually all dealers who take a buyout likely would continue with other General Motors brands.

"Not everyone necessarily wants to make that journey, depending on where they're located or the level of expenditure that the transition will demand," Aldred told the Journal. "So if they want to exit the Buick fra…

Automakers, dealers and repair shops are increasingly deploying 3D scanning technology for a diversity of uses — everything from re-creating rare parts for discontinued vehicles to mapping entire assembly plants to restoring iconic structures.

Toyota is one of several automakers using 3D scanning and printing technology for projects large and small as it looks to introduce advanced manufacturing techniques to its plants.

"We believe that both 3D printing and 3D scanning will evolve beyond our imagination," said Stephen Brennan, Toyota Motor North America group vice president of vehicle production engineering.

3D scanning supports a wide variety of manufacturing and engineering processes at Toyota, Brennan said. Scanners are used to supplement measurements made by machines and to check the quality of parts vendors supply.

Toyota engineers rely on scanners to create digital twins of equipment — even entire manufacturing f…

CDK Global recently released a study about what an all-electric future will look like in the automotive industry. Part of the study examined what dealership service departments need to be doing to get ready for an influx of EVs in the shop.

Peter Kahn, senior director, market research and insights at CDK Global, spoke with News Editor Dan Shine about how service departments can prepare for EVs. Here are edited excerpts.

Q: What advantages does a dealership have when it comes to servicing EVs?

A: What brings them to dealerships is dealership knowledge — especially when it comes to complex repairs. If the customer believes this is going to be something that's a little more complex, they're going to go back to the dealership. Now, you add to that EVs, which there's a lot of technology on it, it's new — and so shoppers, I believe, are thinking, "I need to get this back to somebody who really understands it, who's been trained and wh…