Will cut 10% worldwide and 20% in Germany ISO fewer large showrooms in ‘mature’ markets’

Agency model major changes means fixed pricing and OEM owned inventory

OEM executes the financial transaction

Take Away: Although legislation and lawmaking are significantly different in the US, studying this situation is beneficial for US Dealers as we navigate and shape the developing ‘normal’

Opened the first of its 130 Russian stores in 2007

Will continue to pay its 2000 employees (partners) for six months

Other companies considering divesting or pulling out altogether include Marriott, Burger King, and Yum Brands (Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut)

Take Away: Business changes and decisions need to be made, but you can always choose to take care of your people 

Just last month forecasted 20-25% revenue growth and says they are still growing YoY, but did not disclose specifics

"Like many companies, we continue to face rising inflation and interest rates, supply chain shortages and labor disruptions, platform policy changes, the impact of the war in Ukraine, and more," 

Take Away: Short term marketers only deploy direct response. Time and data shows that those who keep a steady diet of brand-first marketing in the mix gain market share. This includes Auto! 

New gradient to express vibrancy

New font ‘Instagram Sans’ is a mix of pixel perfect and hand drawn to communicate Insta’s heritage

Marketing to look “content - foreward” to celebrate creativity, simplicity and self-expression

Business responds to culture. Art and Entertainment is where Culture is typically first “defined”

Every industry will be affected (even the DMV)

Similar adoption curve as all tech, esp Web 2

It’s all about community. Web2 was about having an audience, Web3 is about cultivating community

Take Away: Web3 isn’t going to solve Retail Auto’s problems today, but remember when you thought it was ridiculous to put a vehicle listing online instead of the paper?

German automaker Mercedes-Benz said Thursday that it has auctioned an extremely rare car from its company collection for a roaring 135 million euros ($143 million).

300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupé: This icon of automotive history is an absolute rarity – one of just two prototypes built at the time.

Following in the innovative footsteps of the car’s creator, Mercedes hopes the fund will support young people being able to learn about and research environmental science and decarbonization.

Take Away: Think of unique ways you can use your people and material resources to equip learning & charitable contributions within your community. Get outside the box of simply a dollar and activate your resources.

Utilizing its FLEX drivers (think Uber/ Lyft style), drivers will pick up packages to be delivered directly to customers within a 10 mile radius from individual stores in the mall instead of local Amazon delivery centers

Pays Mom and Pop shops to be a sort of post office to stage deliveries in an effort to cut down on delivery times

Take Away: Revitalization of antiquated building uses is prevalent in retail. Thinking of your brick and mortar with a new perspective will keep you ahead of the OEM drive toward an agency model and away from franchise.

Technology by Qubis

Delivering rental cars

Chase cars for vehicle drop off

Retrieving vehicles from storage lots

Take Away: You may not have an army of driverless cars in your area sometime soon, but preparing for potential business opportunities is a best practice.

Drive with Jim Farley

Guests include: ​​Tom Brady, Dax Shepard, Harley Davidson CEO Jochen Zeitz, YouTuber Emelia Hartford, The Duke of Richmond and Patrice Banks.

“Spotify is footing the bill for putting the show together, and it's sponsored by customer-relationship software giant Salesforce.”

“Auto executives are stepping further into the spotlight to build and burnish their personal brand, and ideally boost their company's share price.”

Take Away: Never underestimate the power of personal brand on a company brand. Think about your dealership and how the brand of those in the store can impact profitability.

Glenview Trust CIO Bill Stone wrote. “For the first time in the post-Covid period, retailers have been stuck with some excess inventories. Costs due to inflation are also taking their toll on their earnings.”

“The S&P 500 fell 0.6% on Thursday and is now about 19% below a record closing high set in early January. This would be the first bear market — defined by many on Wall Street as a 20% drop from a high — since the pandemic decline of March 2020.”

Futures may have gotten a boost after China overnight cut a key benchmark rate for mortgages as Covid shutdowns hit the economy.

Take Away: With consumer sentiment waning, interest rates rising, and markets continuing to turn down, a consistent and complete used car inventory strategy is a must for any operator. Now is not the time to be sitting on bloat aged inventory.

ESG = Environmental, social, and governance and has been a growingly popular investment for those who want to (or appear to want to) keep ESG issues at the forefront of the investment strategy

“Low carbon emissions plan, labor complaints, and compliance investigations” were cited as reasons for being left off the list while Oil company Exxon Mobile was placed in the top 10, as well as Amazon despite its substantial labor disputes, and JP Morgan which is the largest lender to the fossil fuel industry.

Meanwhile, Musk stated “Tesla has done more for the environment than any company ever.”

Delinquencies on subprime car loans and leases hit an all-time high in February. Numbers go back to 2007

Pandemic stimulus is running dry in households affected most by inflation

Still overall high credit environment

% of subprime loans is trending back up  15.7% Q1 2022 - 15.4% 2021 - 18.9% 2020

According to TransUnion, the avg balance of new auto loans reached $28,415 in the first quarter, up 15.2%, or $3,751, vs. a year ago. Including both new and used combined, the average monthly auto payment was $556, up 13% from last year

Payments over the minimum on car loans was higher than normal in Q1

Designed by San Francisco-based Studio O+A with LEVER Architecture, the space is graphics heavy and focuses on flexible reconfiguration. Basically bleachers stay put, everything else moves

Lines and textures allude to the brand in the absence of the actual, iconic three-lined logo

Collaboration is at the core of the return to work strategy

Fed Chair Jerome Powell said he will back interest rate increases until prices start falling back toward a healthy level.

Powell said he will back interest rate increases until prices start falling back toward a healthy level.

“If that involves moving past broadly understood levels of neutral we won’t hesitate to do that,” the central bank leader told The Wall Street Journal in a live streamed interview.

“You’d still have a strong labor market if unemployment were to move up a few ticks. I would say there are a number of plausible paths to have a soft as I said softish landing. Our job isn’t to handicap the odds, it’s to try to achieve that,” he said.

“Illinois Secretary of State Police temporarily blocked Carvana's dealer license on May 10 because the company failed to properly transfer titles for vehicles it sold and misused issuing out-of-state temporary registration permits, said Henry Haupt, an Illinois Secretary of State spokesman.”

There is no information on when the license may be reinstated

"Carvana has compliantly operated as a licensed dealer and good corporate citizen in the State of Illinois for several years, and we strongly disagree with the State’s characterization of both the facts and the law leading to this action," a Carvana spokesperson said in a statement. "We are actively working with the State to resolve this issue, and they have agreed that we will continue delivering already purchased vehicles. We look forward to resolving this issue with minimal disruption to customers."

Last year the company received a 180 day suspension in North Carolina and nearly averted a similar situation in Florida

70% are new to the brand

68% are Gen X or Gen Y

30% are from the Western US

The company had 250,000 interested, yet uncommitted, "hand raisers," but will not begin deliveries until later in the summer.

TAKE AWAY: When building marketing campaigns, audience strategies may need to be adjusted as market share opportunities when product realignment occurs. Be the authority and early adopters will follow.

The majority of respondents prefer to rely on dealerships for financing (60%), delivery (85%) and repairs and services (79%). Almost half of the respondents (45%) prefer to have dealership staff educate them about various models.

“What we found, pretty overwhelmingly, is that consumers prefer to buy their vehicles from dealerships,” K.C. Boyce, vice president of Escalent, tells Wards. “They want to do test drives, to touch and feel and see vehicles. When we look at the macro picture, the idea that (car buying) is going to move entirely online is fundamentally flawed.”

“A hack effective on the Tesla Model 3 and Y cars would allow a thief to unlock a vehicle, start it and speed away, according to Sultan Qasim Khan, principal security consultant at the Manchester, UK-based security firm NCC Group”

Hack was made known to Tesla, no response at this time

Similar hacks exist for any smart lock using BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) tech to make the device think the owner is in proximity

Hardware costs about $50

number of transactions declined 8.2% 

average amount spent per transaction rose 11.4%

“The retailer was a major beneficiary during much of the pandemic. At one point during the last two years, Home Depot posted four straight quarters of comparable sales growth above 20% as the public-health crisis’s social disruptions left people spending more time in their houses.”

The trend decision seems to be ‘get bigger or sell out’

“Dealership consolidator Gregg Ciocca, who wants to double his store count to 50 within five years, says acquisition opportunities are "coming fast and furious" in today's robust buy-sell market. Ciocca, CEO of Ciocca Dealerships in Quakertown, Pa., which last year acquired the country's highest-volume Chevrolet Corvette dealership, has signed multiple dealership purchase agreements that he expects will close this year.

Top states: Texas, California, New York, Colorado and Florida 

All stores have been closed since March and it has continued to pay its 60,000 employees

Will cost the company 1.4-1.6 Billion

It has been doing business there for over 30 years

We talked about it last Friday and seemed to surprise a VW rep in the elevator

“On Friday, May 13, VW of America sales and marketing head Andrew Savvas sent a letter to the brand's 650 dealers, confirming that Scout will be an independent brand within VW Group and that they will have no claim on its products.”

Net losses widened to $757.1 million

Revenue lower than expected $964.3 million vs. $972.9 million expected.

Cash and equivalents for the quarter were down 22% year-over-year.

HOWEVER, less than 1% churn

Total revenue increased by 66.9% to $186.7 million.

same-store sales increased 15.9%.

Net income increased to $16.5 million from $5.6 million in the previous period. 

37 new Planet Fitness stores opened Q1.

$249/mo per rooftop

Setup similar to dealer Digital Retailing tools

50-70% of deposits taken on the tool complete purchase

Bitcoin 69k in November to 25,332 yesterday.  Currently hovering around 30k

Eth 4,867 to 1,701. Currently just over 2k

Decentraland .80 to 5.91 to .71 all in 6 months

Brian Armstrong, Coinbase founder, has lost 82% of his wealth. Down to 2.2B

TAKE AWAY: All those millennials who are in crypto aren’t as flippant with their dollars as they were last month. Affordability issues are broadening. 

On a call with investors, CEO Bob Chapek discussed making ESPN exclusively a streaming property, noting that Disney would only do so “when it’s going to be good for our shareholders.” 

“When we do, we will be able to fully go into an ESPN DTC model,” said Chapek. “It will be the ultimate fan offering that will appeal to superfans of sports.”

He also noted the power of sports as Disney rolls out an ad-supported streaming offering.

TAKE AWAY: Attention is the most valuable asset in marketing, entertainment, and Automotive

“Workers at Leoni's Ukraine factories, fearful that their jobs might permanently be lost, petitioned to come back to work, drawing up a plan on how to revive operations.”

On a Q1 earnings call, CEO Aldo Kamper told shareholders, “We can fully service customer demand out of our Ukraine facilities, which is fantastic news, “We hadn't expected that when the war broke out.” 

7,000 employees in Ukraine, out of a total global workforce of 101,000

TAKE AWAY: This is what a combined and compelling mission can accomplish. 

People willing to hire

People willing to consult

People caring about people

Take Away: Matter how big or small the organization is, losing sight of the people that make it up is simply not an option. Take time for your people today.

“The Japanese automaker said it expects materials costs to more than double from 1.45 trillion yen, or about $11.1 billion, in its fiscal year that started in April.”

Toyota on Tuesday said it would suspend operations on 14 lines at eight domestic factories for up to six days in May due to lockdowns occurring in China.

Take Away: We continue to stress: control what you can. Whether supply chain, or Covid, or inflation, be ready to adjust and pivot but make sure you have your finger on the pulse of what you know best about your business.

“The ultimate vision is to offer millions of customers in the U.S. the ability to use a flying car,” says Patrick Hessel, AeroMobil CEO.

Hessel, who was named Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2015, says the main challenge of engineering a flying car is the weight due to the automotive technology inside the vehicle.

Take Away: It may not be the next EV, but you can be sure people that you encounter will have questions. Let’s make sure our industry can answer questions for ALL transportation needs.