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Stores up and down the 2022 Best Dealerships To Work For list have established ways to reward their employees for their hard work and build camaraderie in the process.

Hungry? Some opt for a food-based approach. Store leaders bring in food trucks to supply lunch or buy supplies for on-site picnics or barbecues.

"I'll roll out the flat top and cook breakfast for the dealership, call in food trucks to celebrate an achieved goal or set up an off-site event," said Nate Riesen, general manager of Lexus of Madison in Middleton, Wis.

Rewards can get more elaborate from there. Some store leaders plan off-site events, giving employees time to bond beyond the work environment.

BMW North Scottsdale in Phoenix, for instance, hosts workers at sporting events so they can accommodate more people, said Steven Khouri, the dealership's general manager. Jaguar-Land Rover North Dade in North Miami, Fla., offers free tickets to games and…

Nearly half of this year's Automotive News list of the 100 Best Dealerships To Work For is dominated by a single company: Penske Automotive Group Inc.

The nation's third-largest new-vehicle retailer has long had a strong standing in the annual ranking, which has honored top dealerships across the country for 11 straight years. Best Companies Group selects the winners based on surveys of U.S. dealership employees.

In 2021, 35 Penske dealerships made the list. This year, that figured swelled by 11 to 46 — a record for the number of stores by one company ever on the annual list.

Margaret Lane, Penske's talent and development officer, said the retailer over the past five years has increased its focus on expanding the number of its dealerships making the list.

Penske's store general managers are "naturally competitive" but also have adopted a long-term view that goes beyond doing well on a one-time survey, Lane said.

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Tim Boylan enjoys the best of both worlds.

As general manager of a small dealership — Acura Turnersville in Turnersville, N.J. — he is on a first-name basis with each of his 34 employees.

Yet his store also benefits from the expertise of its corporate owner, Penske Automotive Group.

With a state-of-the-art facility, motivated employees and little turnover, Acura Turnersville was the top small store on the 2022 Automotive News' list of the 100 Best Dealerships To Work For. Acura Turnersville also was the overall winner in 2018.

"We put our human capital above everything else," Boylan said. "I truly believe that if you treat employees well, the store will succeed and you will get more out of your employees."

The store's employee turnover rate tells the tale. This year, the store has lost only one worker — a porter who pursued career opportunities after getting a college degree. The store's managers have been there an average of 13 years. The…

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DETROIT — Ford Motor Co. on Wednesday posted a third-quarter loss of $827 million that it largely blames on newly revealed plans to shut down Argo AI, a self-driving vehicle development company the automaker had invested in heavily.

CEO Jim Farley said the company now believes mass deployment of fully self-driving vehicles is "a long way off," while CFO John Lawler added it could be “five-plus years away.”

Ford's adjusted earnings before interest and taxes fell 40 percent from the same period a year ago, to $1.8 billion. That's slightly higher than the $1.4 billion to $1.7 billion range it projected last month along with a warning that inflation had significantly increased supplier costs.

The automaker's adjusted profit margin fell by almost half, to 4.6 percent, while revenue rose 10 percent, to $39.4 billion.

Lawler told journalists that Ford’s Q3 results “could have been better” but that the automaker was encouraged by its $3.8 billion operati…

Tesla Inc. is under criminal investigation in the United States over claims that the company's electric vehicles can drive themselves, three people familiar with the matter said.

The U.S. Department of Justice launched the previously undisclosed probe last year following more than a dozen crashes, some fatal, involving Tesla's driver assistance system Autopilot, which was activated during the accidents, the people said.

As early as 2016, Tesla's marketing materials have touted Autopilot's capabilities. On a conference call that year, CEO Elon Musk described it as "probably better" than a human driver.

Last week, Musk said on another call Tesla would soon release an upgraded version of "Full Self-Driving" software allowing customers to travel "to your work, your friend's house, to the grocery store without you touching the wheel."

A video on the company's website says: "The person in the driver's seat is only there for legal reasons. He is not doin…

Self-driving startup Argo AI will shut down operations and its employees and parts will be absorbed by its main backers, Ford Motor Co. and Volkswagen Group, TechCrunch reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Argo employees were told that some of them would receive offers from the two automakers, TechCrunch said, adding that it was not clear how many employees would go to Ford, Volkswagen, or lose their jobs.

Argo AI declined to comment.

Ford did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment, but in its third-quarter report said Argo AI "had been unable to attract new investors."

Ford said it recorded a $2.7 billion non-cash, pretax impairment on its investment in Argo AI, which led to it taking a $827 million net loss for the thrid quarter.

Argo AI in July said it had laid off about 150 employees as it made adjustments to its business plans. It still had over 2,000 employees globally after the job cuts. Read more

Penske’s earnings slip despite record revenue in Q3. Mercedes is the latest automaker to quit Russia. Stellantis CEO Carlos Tavares calls Europe’s emissions standards a diversion. Plus, a conversation with the CEO of Research Frontiers, which patented the cutting-edge glass technology used in the Cadillac Celestiq’s four-quadrant roof.

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Employee turnover at U.S. dealerships in 2021 dropped to its lowest level in at least a decade as average annual compensation for dealership employees soared — appearing to top the $100,000 mark for the first time.

Average industry turnover was 34 percent in 2021 — the lowest level in the 11-year history of the National Automobile Dealers Association's annual Dealership Workforce Study, the dealer trade association shared with Automotive News. It fell from 2020's figure of 46 percent, which is where the annual turnover number had been hovering for several years.

Meanwhile, average weekly earnings at dealerships that participated in the study increased 27 percent in 2021, NADA said on its website. The association publicly releases only a handful of highlights, not the full study.

Automotive News used the percentage increase figure and data from last year's study covering 2020 to calculate estimated average annual earnings for dealership employees in 202…

Polestar's U.S. dealers expected the Swedish electric vehicle maker's first crossover model to arrive in their hip, urban stores early next year. But now they find they will be without the high-volume Polestar 3 for the better part of a year.

U.S. deliveries of the midsize crossover will begin in the fourth quarter of 2023, several months later than some retailers had anticipated.

That could prove problematic for the young brand as it claws its way into the competitive U.S. auto market.

Polestar, which sells a sedan model, delivered an estimated 6,400 units of the Polestar 2 in the first nine months of 2022, according to Automotive News Research & Data Center.

"It's disappointing not to have your franchise car," Mathew Haiken, CEO of Polestar Short Hills in New Jersey, told Automotive News. "We hoped to go from a startup to an established competitive franchise next year with a volume SUV."

The U.S. is expected to be the largest single …

Four out of five dealerships in a new survey have lost a vehicle to identity fraud in the past year and a similar proportion said they'd encountered at least one fraudulent loan application, according to research by eLEND Solutions.

A third-quarter poll by eLEND of more than 700 dealerships — nearly all of which were franchised — revealed 79 percent had an identity fraud-related loss in the past year. Sixty percent lost at least three vehicles because of identity fraud.

A similar proportion of dealers, 80 percent, said they encountered at least one fraudulent loan application in the past year. Of that group, about one-third estimated the rate of fraud is as high as 1 in every 100 applications. Another 24 percent said they saw fraud in 1 out of every 150 prospective borrowers.

eLEND CEO Pete MacInnis, whose company sells driver's license validation technology, said feedback from dealer customers revealed an uptick in fraud: " 'Oh my God, we caught anothe…