2020: 14,433  2019: 3,389  2018: 1,298  (2021 numbers not available yet)

Up 425+% from 2019 and 1100% from 2018

“On one day in April in Houston, AutoNation Toyota Gulf Freeway had 66 vehicles waiting to have their catalytic converters replaced after thieves stole them. Two of those vehicles were back for a second time after being targeted again.”

Contain a few grams of precious metals, Rhodium 1,660, Palladium 2,200, Platinum 990/oz

One Tundra was down for 167 days

Can sell for $250-1500 depending on the model

Legislation requiring vin stamping is being proposed to eliminate the black market

Franchised dealerships, avg gross profit per retail new vehicle doubled > $6,771 

Avg gross profit per used vehicle also went up

Total F&I gross profit per retail vehicle $2,495, an all-time quarterly record.

Echo Park revenue up to $625.3M but high expenses led to a loss of $34.9M

One acquisition in the Q1, Sun Chevrolet in Chittenango, N.Y., its first franchised dealership in the state.

Revenue up 7%, product sales flat

Big hit from its 18% stake in Rivian which has lost 65% of its value so far this year

Ad sales grew 25%, AWS sales rose 37%

CEO Andy Jassy said, “The pandemic and subsequent war in Ukraine have brought unusual growth and challenges,”

Amazon expess operating income for current quarter to be between -$1B and +$3B

“Video meetings dampen brainstorming because we are so hyper-focused on the face in that box that we don’t let our eyes and minds wander as much, a new study found. Staring isn’t good for creativity. While it’s rude to stare at someone in real life, it’s expected when on a video call, researchers said.”

The study in the journal, Nature observed 745 pairs of engineers from different countries brainstormed creative ideas around items like a frisbee or bubble wrap

In person generated an average of 17% more ideas

The difference maker wasn’t the separation as much as it was the constant eye contact in virtual meetings

The study began before the pandemic

One suggestion is to turn off the camera when brainstorming

Popularity in the US credited largely to Netflix series “Drive to Survive”

Race weekend tickets were initially sold for prices starting close to $1,000, with single-day tickets beginning near $600.

SeatGeek was seeing an average price of $2,414 for the race. Tickets reached as high as $33,704 on the resale platform, as of Wednesday.

Event organizers estimated the event will bring an annual economic impact of $400 million to Miami Gardens, including 35,000 hotel bookings and 4,000 new jobs.

Broward County, just north of Miami Gardens, is expecting $50 million in economic activity.

Red’s v Padres game, 26 yr old dad feeding his 11 month old baby

Never took the bottle out. Baby’s name “Shepherd Kingsley”

Pre production began on Sept 21, 2021 (Just over 7 months ago)

Executive Chairman, Bill Ford, “Today we celebrate the Model T moment for the 21st Century at the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center.” “The stunning anticipation for F-150 Lightning is a credit to the work of our Ford engineers and designers, and the UAW team members who are building these trucks with pride.”

200k Pre orders, Ford plans on fulfilling 150k this year

Fidelity is the US's largest retirement-plan provider, but this move toward the mainstream for crypto will need the endorsement of employers to be complete, which remains to be seen. 

Under the plan, Fidelity would let savers allocate as much as 20% of their nest eggs to bitcoin, though that threshold could be lowered by plan sponsors.

Vanguard Group, a major competitor of Fidelity’s, says it “has no plans to offer a cryptocurrency option within its 401(k) plans,” according to a spokeswoman. On its site, the company says, “since cryptocurrencies are highly speculative in their current state, Vanguard believes their long-term investment case is weak.”

Overheard —  “If I retire right now I can live on my savings for 30 years, now 10 years, now 41 years, now 3 years” 

Pontiac’s origins date back to the Oakland Motor Car, which was founded in 1907 in Pontiac, Michigan, by Edward Murphy, a horse-drawn carriage manufacturer. In 1909, Oakland became part of General Motors, a conglomerate formed the previous year by another former buggy company executive, William Durant. The first Pontiac model made its debut as part of the Oakland line in the 1920s. The car, which featured a six-cylinder engine, proved so popular that the Oakland name was eventually dropped and Pontiac became its own GM division by the early 1930s.

The New York Times: “More than any other G.M. brand, Pontiac stood for performance, speed and sex appeal.” Pontiacs were featured in such movies as 1977’s “Smokey and the Bandit,” in which actor Burt Reynolds drove a black Pontiac Trans Am, and the 1980s hit TV show “Knight Rider,” which starred a Pontiac Trans Am as KITT, a talking c

“According to a news release distributed on Wednesday, the lawsuit against Vroom, which also sells vehicles to Texas consumers under the name Texas Direct Auto, alleges that company has misrepresented and failed to disclose significant delays in transferring clear title and obtaining vehicle registrations, “burdening thousands of consumers.””

Also states Vroom failed to disclose vehicle history, condition, and financing terms

Received over 5000 complains from the BBB

54.20 per share, a 38% premium

Jan. 31: Musk starts building his stake 

“Worried about de facto bias in the Twitter algorithm having a major effect on public; Twitter algorithm should be open source,” Musk tweeted on March 24.

“Free speech is essential to a functioning democracy. Do you believe Twitter rigorously adheres to this principle?” Musk asked his Twitter followers in a poll posted on March 25.

“Is a new platform needed?” Musk asked in a tweet on March 26. “Am giving serious thought to this.”

April 4: Musk’s stake becomes public, and he’s invited to join Twitter’s board

April 5: Musk becomes an active investor -Musk refiled the disclosure of his stake to classify himself as an active investor, making the change only after indicating that he would accept a seat on the social media company’s board.

April 9: Musk rejects the board seat

April 10: Twitter makes the news public

April 11: Speculation abounds: Musk files an amended disclosure with the SEC. He can now purchase as many shares as he wants.

April 14: Musk makes his “best and final” offer to buy the whole company ​​$54.20 a share, a 54% premium

April 15: Twitter adopts ‘poison pill’ to ward off Musk takeover

April 16: ‘Twitter’s board owns almost no shares’

April 19:  Musk retains Morgan Stanley to consider leveraged buyout

April 21: Musk lines up $46.5 billion in funding as he talks about a tender offer

April 24: The board holds discussions with Musk

April 25: Musk will buy Twitter for his original offer of $54.20 per share

Musk will take the company private. Musk said he will prioritize free speech on the site, open-source its algorithms, eliminate spam and add new features

Deal will likely take 6 months to close

Musk has taken shots by Jeff Bezos asking if China just gained a place in the tow

Street purchases up 2x

Cost/sale on the rise

New vehicle supply under 25 days

Over 271M Repair Orders written

1,055,400 Dealership Employees (avg 63) (pg 17)

2019 $9.25B , 2020 $7.48B, 2021 $8.19B  (pg 15)

Avg per unit: 2019 $640, 2020 $582, 2021 $602

Toyota is leaning toward virtual workspace environments, catering to younger employees

Nissan is focusing on virtual vehicle launches and consumer experiences

Lithia CEO Bryan DeBoer, during last week's first-quarter earnings call, believes seven manufacturers recently pulled vehicles from ADESA. Automotive News confirmed that Toyota Financial Services chose to end its relationship with ADESA effective April 1, a spokesman said.

Erine Garcia acknowledged "small handful of both buyers and sellers" have chosen to leave

Adding the ADESA sites would nearly double the volume of vehicles Carvana can process to as many as 2 million vehicles a year, the company said

Deal is scheduled to close in May

Only 10,000 daily users 150k subs

Netflix 221M subs, Disney+ 129M

Move comes as Warner and Discover merge. New CEO, David Zaslav, who wasn’t pumped about the project said he will be working to merge all the companies streaming services into one (HBO Max, Discovery)

Toyota is still on top

EVs sales continue to increase

Only four brands delivered year-over-year sales gains: BMW, Genesis, Mini, and Tesla

Ford’s F-Series is still king

Fiat sold only 340 vehicles in Q1

Luxury brands grabbed more share in Q1

Tesla is still the dominant player in the EV market

Small vehicles are more popular than mid-sized, but the large are the most popular models

In luxury, new is important

Three segments account for 49% of US auto sales: Compact SUVs, Full-Size Pickups, Mid-Size SUVs

The entire block went dark between 8 and 9 pm to conserve 23.4 billion joules of energy

That amount would only power 1.5 seconds of Bitcoin network operations and only 6 transactions…however, on Algorand, that amount would power 350 million transactions and 2 weeks of network operations

This is due to the manner in which the company authenticates transactions

The tech was developed by MIT professor Silvio Micali

Q1 net income more than doubled, up 119%

Overall revenue up 54% to 6.7B, a Q1 record

New and used sales up 23%

Avg gross profit per unit on new vehicles more than doubled to $6,179 

Avg F&I also increased

Avg cost of new $47,146 (+16%); used $30,323 (+32%) WAS 22,971

Revenue up 56% YoY to 3.49B

Net loss of $506M. Last year was $82M (over 600% more loss)

“In a letter to shareholders, Carvana CEO Ernie Garcia and CFO Mark Jenkins called the quarter "challenging."

CEO Ernie Garcia (letter to shareholders) "Q1, I would say — it looked like the industry environment was deteriorating throughout," Garcia said during a Wednesday earnings call with investors and analysts. "Disentangling how much of that was affordability, how much of that was just general consumer confidence or interest rates, is very, very hard." 

“In January 2022, in recognition of Carvana selling its 1 millionth vehicle in Q4, CEO Ernie Garcia committed to giving current employees 23 shares of his personal stock once they reach their two-year employment anniversary, a gift worth over $100 million at the announcement’s stock price.” 

The company reported a monster $16.8 billion in automotive revenues, up more than 87% YoY. The company reported $18.76 billion in total revenue, more than a billion over what analysts expected.

total profit of more than $5.46 billion, +132% YoY 

total vehicle production was up 69% (lol, you can’t be serious.) 291,189 Model 3 and Model Y vehicles were built in the quarter

expects to reach volume production of a new 'robotaxi' vehicle without a steering wheel or pedals by 2024

Q1 net loss of subscribers when investors expected a gain -2M +)

35% of Americans cut out a monthly subscription in the past six months

2 years old

2018 $339.4M in sales. Projected 1.63B in sales by 2025

As early as in 17th century Japan, we find references to cold brew coffee. When French troops fought in Algeria in 1840, they used cold brew coffee to combat the heat. American Civil War soldiers tasted a similar brew too. After a brief period of disappearance, cold brew stormed back into the limelight recently.

Many chains like Starbucks, Duch Bros, and Dunkin offering specials

Annual fundraiser will sell the much sought after Z06 to someone who donates 50k

Eric Hall with the store told us they have already had 27 customers pledging contributions, with the resulting $1.3M distributed to the company's 13 charity partners

Send us your positive Dealer stories to ASOTU.com/positivity

“The show featured a 250,000-square-foot indoor EV test track, where show goers could test drive a range of EVs from Chevrolet, Kia, Nissan, Volkswagen, Volvo, INDI EV and VinFast.”

“Preliminary numbers suggest a strong opening weekend amongst the general public. Show organizers expect a million visitors by the time the auto show wraps on April 24”

“General Motors decided that Buick, GMC and Cadillac would all sit out the New York Auto Show. That meant that EVs like the Hummer EV and Cadillac Lyriq were nowhere to be found. Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi passed on the event as well. Tesla passed. Porsche passed. Honda passed. Mazda passed. Jaguar Land Rover passed”

Could be 2.5B per year (recent MLB deal was 85M)

May include Sunday Ticket, streaming rights, 49% stake in NFL Media

Intended to drive Apple + subs

NFL also contemplating its own $5/ mo streaming service to watch out of market games

WWDC scheduled for June

“top executives said last week they are ready to bring out a fleet of electric vehicles, aiming to sell 200,000 of them globally this year — doubling the number it delivered last year.

Tesla took BMW’s top spot in the luxury segment 

Jan / Feb 2022, Tesla - 71,250 new-vehicle registrations in the U.S. to BMW’ s 54,210 registrations

The focus will be "on a very strong and fast ramp-up of electric vehicles," BMW Group sales chief Pieter Nota told journalists last week at a press event here. Tesla "had a unique selling point for quite some time. That's over," Nota said.

BMW Group said it expects at least one out of every two vehicles sold to be fully electric by 2030

Unlike competitors, BMW isn’t abandoning its ICE vehicles and will move forward with a blended approach to stay flexible and resilient

An administration official said Monday afternoon that the ruling “means CDC’s public transportation masking order is not in effect at this time,” and that the TSA would cease enforcing it. 

Does this mean that no masks on the trip to Digital Dealer?

Could it really happen? 

What could it mean for the Dealer and consumer

There are now 3 tiers of CPO in the “HondaTrue” program

How does this give a pre owned edge over Carvana/Carmax sales?

What will this do to aftermarket warranty sales?

Jet Blue is reducing flights to keep up even after hiring over 3000 workers

“In an effort to make sure it has enough flight attendants working, JetBlue is offering a $1,000 bonus to flight attendants who don’t call out of work through May 31 and an extra $100 per trip for flight attendants who pick up open trips on days off, according to a memo to crew.”

“Southwest raised starting wages to at least $17 an hour and no longer requires that most airport workers have a high-school diploma. Some 15% to 20% of new hires don’t show up on their first day for some roles, said Greg Muccio, the airline’s senior director of talent acquisition. “We were sort of shocked by it. We’ve just had to adjust,” he said.”

“The operations staffing will be on a razor’s edge,” said Tim Donohue, co-founder of Aerology, a startup that works to predict flight disruptions. “The razor’s edge barely works when things go as scheduled.”