Trade News

What started out in 2016 as a security technology that scanned vehicles for weapons and explosives at international border checkpoints has been transformed into what some in the auto industry are calling "game-changing" technology for dealers and manufacturers.

Companies such as General Motors, Volvo, Toyota, Hyundai and CarMax — plus investors not affiliated with the auto industry — are lining up to invest in UVeye because they see the benefit for their business.

CEO Amir Hever, who developed the technology and co-founded the company, originally sought to supply the security industry with an alternative to mirrors on long handles used to inspect vehicle undercarriages for explosives. He created a camera-based, high-speed system equipped with artificial intelligence and machine-learning technologies.

At the checkpoints, the founders noticed that as more vehicles were scanned, the more the technology detected wear and tear on under…

After working to develop digital retailing at Ford Motor Co., longtime automaker executive Matt VanDyke is now looking to accelerate online sales throughout the broader auto industry.

In June, VanDyke left Ford after 14 years, primarily in marketing roles, to become president of Shift Digital.

VanDyke, who was CEO of the FordDirect joint venture with franchised dealers, said the time was right to make the jump to the digital marketing vendor based in Birmingham, Mich., outside Detroit. He said that in addition to his marketing efforts, he had worked to advance Ford's digital retailing going back a decade.

That was before the pandemic accelerated the use of technology for both brands and dealerships. Now, VanDyke said, he has a chance to work on a bigger scale with more dealerships and brands and make progress on a "really unique opportunity" to improve the customer experience.

VanDyke, 50, spoke with Staff Reporter Li…

UAW convention unusually full of messy surprises

Something noteworthy happened at the UAW convention last month: surprises.

And while they weren't all great, the fact that they happened at all during what has for decades been a giant rubber-stamp party shows that the Detroit-based union is now at least pointed in the right direction — even if the road ahead looks bumpy and full of curves.

Perhaps the biggest surprise came when delegates agreed to adopt a runoff process for elected officers to ensure that any potential victor must capture a majority of votes for the office they seek — as we had suggested in February when a federal judge ordered the union to change its constitution and election system. In doing so, delegates eschewed a proposal that would have adopted so-called ranked choice balloting in favor of the more costly runoff process.

We continue to believe that head-to-head runoffs of the top two vote-getters for each office will ensure…

Here are highlights from the latest episodes of 'Daily Drive', Automotive News' weekday podcast, August 1-4, hosted by Jamie Butters with Kellen Walker.

"It was sort of the establishment flexing its power and showing them, 'Hey, we still have plenty of influence here.' --Michael Martinez, Automotive News reporter, on the UAW constitutional convention reversing course on strike pay after anti-establishment delegates had gotten it increased

"We are a symbol of the American dream, and that comes through in who's attracted to this brand."--Melissa Grady, Cadillac chief marketing officer, on the brand's place in society as it pivots to an all-EV lineup

"Overall sales were disappointing yet again; we just didn't have the inventory to sell. But Ford was the bright spot. … I think the lesson is: If you have vehicles, you will sell them. But not everybody does."--Michelle Krebs, executive analyst at Cox Automotive, on July light-vehicle sales in the U.S.

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Do women prefer dealing with other women in the service drive?

An overwhelming majority say it doesn't matter, according to a DealerRater survey conducted for Fixed Ops Journal in late June.

When asked whether they would prefer a female service adviser when bringing their vehicle to a dealership for service, Seven out of 10 women responded that they had no preference. That same ratio applied for female mass-market and luxury customers.

Overall, 14 percent of female customers said they would not prefer a female service adviser. The same percentage of mass-market customers responded no, while that number was bumped slightly higher, to 15 percent, for female luxury consumers.

Seven percent of overall and mass-market female customers responded they would prefer a female service adviser. Six percent of female luxury customers said yes.

As the technician shortage grinds on, more and more dealers are partnering with local entities to fill their own pipelines. The latest: South Florida's Warren Henry Auto Group.

The company, which sells domestic brands as well as luxury imports such as Jaguar, Land Rover, Audi, Bugatti and Lamborghini, has established a service technician apprenticeship program with Miami Dade College. As many as 20 students per semester can be enrolled.

Students accepted into the program get free tuition, health insurance and books. The two-year program, which began this summer, consists of classroom learning followed by real-world experience at a Warren Henry Jaguar-Land Rover store. There, apprentices are paired with mentors while they learn how to work in the service department. They also get a paycheck.

After completing the program, apprentices earn a certificate and are offered a job at one of Warren Henry's six locations. Currently, the group h…

We're hearing a lot about the number of unfilled jobs in the automotive profession. But as a high school vocational teacher — collision repair, specifically — I see a major issue.

There's a gap between the high school exit door and the dealership entry door. In other words, kids come out of a high school program, and there's no continuity on how to enter the work force.

I know that sounds bad, like the high school doesn't prepare them. But I'm talking about, how do you land a job and advance? How do you get to that end game? It's all situational, and it's all attitudinal. A kid coming into the profession has to prove their worth, so to speak. There's no written plan.

My program is very structured. The body shop business wants a student who is trained and has a strong work ethic. I get 16-, 17- and 18-year-olds in my program. And even an 18-year-old can still be working on building a strong work ethic.

They leave a prog…

When Whitney Yates-Woods took over her family's dealership last year, she noted a disconnect: Many of her customers were women, but most staffers were men.

Yates wanted to be sure all her customers felt comfortable and represented in her store.

"I want quality people, but I think we need to have a more equal playing field," said Yates-Woods, dealer principal at Yates Buick-GMC in Goodyear, Ariz. "It's good for customers to be able to talk to both male and female, not walk into the store and see just a bunch of male salesmen and feel intimidated."

Yates-Woods began recruiting women through social media last year and has hired at least 15 female employees in the past 18 months. Of the 14 managers at Yates Buick-GMC, five are women. Two were recently promoted to leadership roles.

The idea to rely more on social media for hiring came from a woman who already worked for Yates-Woods and wouldn't have become a service adviser if she hadn't responded to…

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. — These are challenging times for companies all over the auto industry. But for economists and analysts employed in the dark science of forecasting, the times are just nuts.

"It's gotten much harder to forecast what's going to happen," sighed Jeff Schuster, president of global forecasting for the international firm LMC Automotive. "There's just too much uncertainty out there."

Schuster's sentiment echoed through an industry gathering here this week for the Center for Automotive Research's annual Management Briefing Seminars. Despite the exhilarating outlook for the decade to come, with a tidal wave of electric vehicles and brilliant new technologies in safety and manufacturing, many in the industry are struggling with a lack of clarity in the here and now.

The reasons?

Consumer curiosity and interest in electric vehicles is clearly growing. But automakers simply don't know how many EVs they will be able to sell in the next seve…

After losing nearly $1 billion in the first half of 2022, Carvana Co. will do more to cut expenses in the coming months, including possibly further reducing employee counts at the online used-vehicle retailer.

That direction from company leaders comes after Carvana already worked on cost-cutting in its second quarter, notably announcing in May that it would eliminate 2,500 jobs. Cost reductions are a move financial analysts have been urging for the challenged retailer, especially after its cash burn-heavy first quarter.

Carvana CEO Ernie Garcia said the retailer in the most recent quarter "shifted our priorities for the first time in company history to favor efficiency and cash flow in recognition of the changes to the market and the economic landscape, as well as to enable us to quickly adjust to changes in our industry that had caused our expenses to be out of balance with sales volumes."

Carvana's back-to-back quarterly net losses in the first half o…