Overall satisfaction slipped from 82% last year to 80%, but 91% of employees say they’re motivated and 73% said they’re proud of their job.

Work-life balance became a much bigger stress factor, rising from 21% to 32%, while difficult customers were cited by 48% of Gen Z employees.

Benefits are becoming a bigger retention issue: 43% called them inadequate, up from 32%, and 95% of employees considering leaving the industry said benefits were a factor.

64% of employees say they have no plans to leave auto retail, but Gen Z has the highest likelihood of leaving at 47%.

Despite that flight risk, Gen Z is also the generation most likely to recommend a career in the industry.

Ford plans to begin taking orders early next year, with the Fathom built on a new assembly line in Louisville using fewer components and an overhauled manufacturing process to keep costs down.

For scale, Tesla sold about 357,000 Model Ys and more than 190,000 Model 3s in the U.S. last year; GM sold nearly 170,000 EVs in 2025, but spread across three brands.

EVs were 5.7% of U.S. sales in August, down from 10.3% a year earlier, while overall EV sales fell 48% year over year, according to Motor Intelligence.

Ford says the Fathom’s roughly $30,000 price, passenger space exceeding a Toyota RAV4, Apple Maps integration and BlueCruise are designed to appeal beyond current EV buyers.

Ford executive Andrew Frick said, “Our total addressable market is much bigger than just the EV under $40,000.”

The previous cost was $150 for football and cheerleading and $110 for soccer, basketball, softball, baseball and T-ball.

The $25 registration begins this fall with no residency limits or eligibility restrictions, and the dealership intends the Drive to Play program to continue beyond the upcoming year.

The program started after Sand Mountain Park & Amphitheater asked area businesses about ways to lower sports costs; dealer principal Taylor Bentley Conner agreed to fund the investment needed.

Conner said, “Our family has been blessed by this community for nearly 40 years, and this is simply one way we can meaningfully give back. Youth sports teach lessons that extend far beyond the game — they build confidence, character, teamwork and lifelong friendships. If together we can help more children experience everything youth sports have to offer, then we’ll know we’ve made a real difference.”

Bozard now has 47 mobile service units on the road, servicing more vehicles outside the dealership each month than Roberts says many dealers service inside their stores.

The store moved its mobile service tech stack to Curbee, giving customers an Uber-like experience where they can see who’s coming, how far away they are, and get more visibility into the appointment.

Roberts says change management starts long before a change: leaders need to make regular “deposits” of trust with employees so they have credibility when they eventually need to make a “withdrawal” and ask the team to follow.

His efficiency test is simple: look for duplicate work and multiple data entries. The store’s BDC once operated across 32 screens; changes this year have reduced that to nine, and Roberts still thinks that’s about twice as many as necessary.

Roberts on technology’s role: “It enhances what we do. It doesn't replace anything that we do. It just enhances what we do.”

Salespeople who raise a red flag and help stop a deal still receive their $125 base commission; Cherokee Mitsubishi rejects roughly three to five questionable deals a month.

The stakes are growing: Point Predictive estimated the auto finance industry faced $10.4 billion in fraud risk in 2025, up 13% year over year and 79% from 2015.

Dealer principal Jonathan Dawson said the store commonly encounters suspected straw buyers and customer documents that appear phony.

Pay-plan consultants Scott Woodward and Kevin Cohan said they had never encountered another plan that specifically pays employees for reporting suspected fraud; penalties and commission clawbacks after chargebacks are more common.

Dawson: “I’m not going to penalize you for being honest or catching something that could have hurt the store.”

The 2026 study surveyed over 68K owners of new 2026-model-year vehicles after 90 days, covering 40 technologies across convenience, connectivity, driver assistance, EVs, and smart vehicle features.

Smart ignition delivered the highest overall satisfaction with just 2.4 problems per 100 vehicles, while smart climate control also scored well with relatively few complaints.

Passenger screens struggled with adoption: 35% of owners who had one said they had never used it, while just 6% said they used it every time they drove.

More advanced didn’t automatically mean more satisfying: conventional hands-on Level 2 driver-assistance systems scored better for execution and overall experience than Level 2+ hands-free systems.

JD Power’s Doron Hikry: “The technology customers value most is often the technology they barely notice because it simply works.”

ChatGPT Ads reached the $1 billion annualized run-rate mark in less than 200 days, with tens of thousands of advertisers now using the platform.

OpenAI shared early performance examples: one ecommerce advertiser reportedly generated 3x ROAS over 28 days, while a technology partner said more than 80% of ad-driven ChatGPT traffic came from new customers.

Meanwhile, The Information reports OpenAI has purchased tens of thousands of Mac minis and Mac Studios for reinforcement learning and training computer-use agents.

The Macs are reportedly being used as dedicated machines without displays or keyboards, taking advantage of Apple silicon’s unified memory and ability to run sustained, isolated computer environments.

The purchases are not replacing Nvidia-scale training clusters; the reported use case is narrower, focused on agents that need to interact repeatedly with operating systems and software.

Carvana now owns seven Stellantis stores, with locations in Arizona and Texas already ranking among the automaker’s highest-volume stores.

In July, an Arizona Carvana store sold 29 vehicles into a Pennsylvania market more than 2,000 miles away, compared with 24 sales from the local Dealer.

One Dealer said a sales manager called a Carvana store posing as a customer with a check-engine light and was told to take the vehicle to an independent mechanic.

Dealers worry remote buyers will eventually show up at local stores for warranty, recall, and repair work without an existing relationship.

Stellantis Dealer Council Chair Sean Hogan said, “We need to ensure that [customers] have the ability to get their car serviced after the sale at a convenient location for them.”

Nissan and Honda will standardize electronic control units, vehicle architecture, middleware, and vehicle-control software.

The goal is to share development costs, engineering resources, and scale as both companies try to close the technology gap with Tesla and Chinese automakers.

The technology is now expected in vehicles beginning in fiscal 2029, about two years later than originally envisioned.

The partnership has also explored sharing EV components, batteries, and parts procurement.

The companies said the collaboration is driven by “the need to strengthen competitiveness through faster development cycles and more efficient investment.”

Robots surpassed human records in the 100-meter sprint and high jump, showing major improvements in whole-body control since last year’s games.

The limitations were just as visible. Some sprinting robots couldn’t stop after the finish line, crashing into barriers, breaking apart, or even catching fire.

More practical events tested laundry, room cleaning, hotel service, library shelving, firefighting, and basic hand dexterity. Only three of 12 teams completed the full firefighting challenge.

Many competitors still relied on human operators, while more autonomous robots often depended on cloud computing rather than processing everything onboard.

Purdue researcher Dipam Patel put the challenge in perspective: “You can simulate something like 100,000 scenarios for hammering a nail, but that’s just one task from millions of tasks in the world.”

Ford recently surprised Ricart with its Lifetime Achievement Award in Las Vegas, with Jim Farley, Andrew Frick, other Ford leaders, and—unexpectedly—Ricart’s entire family there for the moment. Ricart said seeing his family come on stage brought tears to his eyes.

Ricart now serves as executive chairman, while his son and other family members handle the day-to-day operation of the business. That gives him what he calls an “80,000-foot” perspective, stepping in on major decisions like buying or selling stores while spending a little more time with his six grandchildren.

From that vantage point, he believes dealers need to watch Chinese vehicles, direct sales, and right-to-repair. At the same time, he says dealers have adapted extremely well to the digital customer, pointing out that shoppers now arrive far better informed and ready to buy.

Ricart remains a strong believer in the franchise dealer model, arguing that COVID proved its value when dealers kept customers and essential vehicles moving. Looking forward, he sees fixed operations as one of dealers’ biggest opportunities, especially as independents continue capturing a huge share of maintenance and repair business.

His advice heading toward year-end is to focus on what dealers can actually influence: inventory mix where possible, customer relationships, and especially service. “In our companies, that’s our big focus right now.”

Their new Promise Path is intentionally built around a Carvana-like experience: choose a vehicle, see upfront pricing, value a trade, arrange financing, complete documents, and schedule delivery without interacting with a salesperson.

The website leads with “keep the dealership, skip the salesperson.” Customers who want assistance can bring a human into the process at any point, including using the 24/7 AI concierge appropriately named “No Sell Nell.”

The experience currently requires 13 integrations, including Roadster and internally developed technology. About 40 transactions were run through the system before launch.

Hudson says they’re working toward becoming “the UberEats of the franchised auto dealership.”

Walmart’s network now spans 20 states, with most locations offering 8 to 16 stalls and chargers capable of delivering up to 400 kW.

The retailer wants thousands of Walmart and Sam’s Club locations equipped with charging by 2030, leveraging a footprint that puts a store within 10 miles of roughly 90% of Americans.

Charging is integrated into the Walmart app, while Walmart+ members receive discounted rates—tying EV charging directly into its existing loyalty ecosystem.

Walmart’s Adam Happel said, “We’re proud to reach 100 sites, but our focus remains on building a network customers can count on every time they charge with us.”

The purchase could include more than 175,000 employee records, employment contracts, tax records, crew scheduling and time-card data, emails and even Microsoft Teams records.

The union representing 5,500 former Spirit flight attendants has objected, arguing that Google’s promises around removing personally identifiable information don’t adequately protect former workers.

The union also argues that even anonymized information could potentially be re-identified by AI when combined with other datasets.

A bankruptcy court is expected to decide on the sale in early September.

The current 25% auto tariff would jump to 50%, while previously untariffed Canadian auto parts would also be included.

The risk cuts both ways: U.S. and Canadian manufacturing is deeply integrated, with parts often crossing the border multiple times before a vehicle is completed.

Canada has already announced retaliatory tariffs on roughly $20 billion of U.S. goods beginning September 8, while Canadian imports of U.S. vehicles are reportedly down 22%.

Automakers are already feeling tariff pressure. New-vehicle prices were up about $1,315 year over year in Q1, while manufacturers including Toyota have absorbed billions in added costs.

Honda Executive VP Noriya Kaihara put a sharper point on the pricing risk: “We are trying to absorb the cost by ourselves or together with our suppliers... but we may have to [raise prices].”

The two-week pilot will run about 12–15 flights per day, moving parts around the Jack Demmer Ford campus.

If successful, the program could expand to a 12-mile radius connecting the Wayne and Dearborn dealerships, plus remote repair locations.

The drones can carry up to 7.5 pounds, so they won’t replace traditional delivery vehicles, but they could be ideal for smaller critical parts.

The initiative is backed by a $740,000 state mobility grant and could eventually reach around 20 drone deliveries per day.

Parts manager Mark Hatfield said, “When a critical part is delayed, a vehicle can sit in a service bay longer.”

Ford will use Apple’s MapKit for Automotive on its Universal Electric Vehicle Platform for mapping, search, turn-by-turn directions and EV routing.

Ford’s Latitude AI team will use Apple map data to develop future BlueCruise capabilities, while Ford keeps control of branding and interface.

Other examples of the OEM/tech crossover include how Google powers infotainment and AI assistants, Nvidia supplies autonomous-driving and AI tech, and Amazon is providing BMW’s next-generation voice-assistant architecture.

AlixPartners’ Soumya Sen: “The brand is still belonging to the automaker, but the brain is coming from big tech.”

Polestar says Commerce officials told the company in 2025 they were preparing to recommend approval of its application.

In April, a senior Commerce official reportedly told Polestar management it was reasonable to expect approval if Volvo received the green light. Volvo was approved in May; Polestar was denied in June.

Polestar offered safeguards including restrictions on data storage and access, independent cybersecurity assessments, audits and reporting requirements.

Volvo and Polestar share majority owner Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, and the Polestar 3 and Volvo EX90 share nearly identical hardware, software and production in South Carolina.

Polestar’s Peter Wexler said the company is trying to “understand the underlying basis for the denial.”

The Goodyear Motor City Garage opened during the Woodward Dream Cruise and includes tire sales, installation, oil changes, alignments, brakes, batteries and inspections.

The concept was inspired by destination retail like Starbucks Reserve Roastery and Nike House of Innovation, with Goodyear aiming to make routine vehicle service feel more like an experience and 4-5 more destination stores planned.

Goodyear now offers mobile installation in 28 U.S. markets, bringing tire and basic service work directly to homes and workplaces.

Goodyear CEO Mark Stewart discussed the launch on the Autotown podcast (hosted by friend of the show Jamie Butters), calling Detroit the natural choice because it is “the center of car culture.”

Dealertrack’s credit availability index rose to 105 in July, up 6.9% year over year and near its loosest level in 11 years.

Approval rates held at 74%, while lenders competed harder on pricing.

At the same time, 5.5% of auto debt was 90+ days delinquent in Q2, just under the record 5.6% set in Q1. Loan write-offs, though, stayed at just 0.2%.

Subprime’s share of auto loans rose to 16.4%, up from 13.7% last year, with dealers reporting that some subprime lenders are getting more aggressive.

Friendship Cars’ Adam McCoy said, “The [banks] going after it. It’s a competition right now. It’s good for us.”

Amazon bought Zoox for $1.2 billion in 2020. Today the fleet is around 100 vehicles, but has logged more than 3 million driverless miles and carried nearly 1 million riders.

The NHTSA recently approved Zoox to operate up to 5,000 vehicles over the next two years.

The approval still comes with limits: no operation in heavy rain, snow, large amounts of leaves, or on roads above 45 mph.

Zoox is known for their iconic vehicle that looks like a toaster on wheels and says building from the ground up lets it design around the rider experience instead of retrofitting a traditional car.

Zoox CEO Aicha Evans said, “It takes a lot of imagination, belief, resilience and tenacity to do this when you’re going against conventional wisdom.”

ABI Research estimates AI-driven in-cabin experiences could grow from about 5 million vehicles today to 70 million by 2035.

The challenge is making the experience fast and seamless enough that drivers don’t give up and reach for their phones, especially while voice remains the safest primary interface.

Some examples: booking a restaurant, ordering flowers, handling productivity tasks, or completing other requests through a natural voice conversation.

For automakers, the bigger risk is dependency. Once an AI request leaves the vehicle, the experience depends on connectivity, latency, mobile networks, cloud infrastructure, and third-party services.

Cubic3’s Steven Cochrane said, “No one can possibly own the whole ecosystem across what’s in the vehicle, in the network and in the cloud.”