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Are dealers' good times coming to an end?

Dealers fear the optimal economic conditions that propelled them to three straight years of robust profits are further eroding.

And though demand for both new and used vehicles is strong, we are seeing and hearing more about how the dynamics of said demand have changed. Thanks to inflation and higher interest rates, cash-strapped buyers are no longer willing and able to entertain paying as much for a used vehicle as a new vehicle.

Franchised dealers are seeing evidence of that. Their concerns about this evolved sales environment take center stage in our print issue this week.

Automotive News conducted its 2023 Dealer Outlook Survey in January. A large majority of the 264 dealers and dealer managers who participated in it — 70 percent of respondents — said higher interest rates are their top worry. A potential recession and vehicle affordability tied for the next most-concerning factor, with about 42 perc…

SAN FRANCISCO -- The board chair of Tesla Inc. defended CEO Elon Musk in a securities fraud trial on Friday, telling jurors that she would have quit as a director if she had thought Musk lied by tweeting in 2018 that he had "funding secured" to take Tesla private.

Tesla Chair Robyn Denholm is a defendant in the lawsuit alongside Musk, Tesla and other directors. Investors allege they lost billions of dollars because of Musk's Aug. 7, 2018, tweets that he had "funding secured" and "investor support confirmed" to take Tesla private at $420 per share, which was a premium of about 23 percent to the prior day's close.

Tesla's stock initially surged and then fell as it became clear that the buyout would not happen.

At the time of the tweets, Denholm led Tesla's audit committee, which oversees company controls meant to ensure compliance with securities law.

She took the stand for around 30 minutes on Friday, saying that she would have quit if she had tho…

The Kodiak Robotics CEO and co-founder discusses economic headwinds facing the autonomous-driving industry, how his company is positioned to avoid them and the timeline for deploying driverless trucks in commercial service.

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Lithia Motors Inc. appears a step closer to entering the United Kingdom, which would be the auto retailer's second international market and a continuation of its geographic diversification, according to a recent report.

Sky News on Jan. 23, citing sources, said Lithia is "within weeks of finalizing a deal to buy" Jardine Motors Group for around $371.4 million. Sky News reported that the deal remains under discussion.

Lithia CEO Bryan DeBoer told Automotive News in Dallas last week that the company doesn't comment on acquisitions until a deal is complete.

However, DeBoer said Lithia has been looking for the right partner in the U.K. and in Western Europe for nearly half a decade.

"We hope to be there in the next few quarters or so," he told Automotive News.

Jardine Motors, part of conglomerate Jardine Matheson Holdings, is Europe's 23rd-largest dealership group by annual revenue, according to the Automotive New…

Supply constraints that have suppressed vehicle inventories for two years appear to be easing, meaning dealerships soon may have more vehicles on the ground. More choices will mean heightened competition, so some dealerships introducing newer employees to the fundamentals of selling.

At industry confabs over the past five years or so, we've heard powertrain experts proclaim that the internal combustion engine isn't dead yet.

General Motors affirmed that outlook this month with plans to invest nearly $1 billion in four engine plants that will produce the automaker's sixth-generation small-block V-8. Some electric vehicle components will also be made at those plants.

GM, for now, says it is also sticking with the quiet, smooth-running 3.0-liter inline turbodiesel engine that is optional in its big pickups and SUVs.

You might think this investment at the dawn of the modern electric era — when buyers are finally warming up to EVs, range is improving and prices are falling — would be a foolish way to spend hundreds of millions of dollars. You would be wrong.

Big pickups and SUVs are still more practical (and profitable) with a gasoline or diesel engine than with an electric powertrain.

Example: A 2023 Chevrolet Silverado wi…

Dealers are increasingly worried about the economy and the possibility of recession even as improving inventory levels have them more optimistic about the new-vehicle business in 2023. 

Dealership executives who answered Automotive News’ 2023 Dealer Outlook Survey say economic conditions that took root in the last year have caused their concerns about maintaining profits to grow. Several now believe rising interest rates and a potential recession, on top of intensifying vehicle affordability challenges, could ultimately disrupt their business this year.

“We’re in an affordability crisis,” said Patrick DiCesare, dealer principal of Eastside Volkswagen in Willoughby Hills, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland. 

Eastside Volkswagen’s customers are largely driven by budget and payments and have historically gravitated to the leasing market, DiCesare told Automotive News. But with some lease payments up 50 percent for the same product compared with years pa…

Ana Gasteyer, the "Saturday Night Live" alum whose current TV role is the CEO of fictional Detroit automaker Payne Motors, says she'd love to arrange a guest appearance for her real-life counterpart at General Motors, Mary Barra.

"I keep pitching that we find a storyline to actually have her on the show," Gasteyer told the Detroit Free Press.

Like Barra, Gasteyer's character in NBC's "American Auto" is a female CEO with a tendancy to wear leather jackets. The show's second season premiered last week with Gasteyer's Katherine Hastings embroiled in a crisis surrounding defective vehicles, much like the ignition switch recalls that consumed Barra's first months atop GM in 2014.

But that's where the similarities end, Gasteyer said. Hastings is an industry outsider who didn't even have a driver's license when hired, in contrast to Barra's lifelong devotion to the auto business.

"Mary is obviously enormously competent, enormously knowledgeable, worked h…

Detroit's most infamous abandoned auto plant is finally coming down after more than 60 years of being ravaged by scrappers and the elements.

The city last week said it has started demolishing a second portion of the 40-acre Packard Plant, at a cost of $1.2 million.

"Every day the Packard Plant sits here in this state is a day this neighborhood cannot move forward," Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said in a statement. "We are just going to keep going until this eyesore is gone once and for all."

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer last year approved $12 million in funding to tear down the 3.5-million-square-foot plant, where Packard production ended in 1956. Although portions of the sprawling complex remained in use over the years since, the site came to symbolize Detroit's decline.

A Spanish developer bought a large portion of the plant in 2013, with grandiose plans to renovate it into office, retail and industrial space. But that …