Stephane Ferri is head of strategic development at Flexdrive, a car subscription services provider and a joint venture between Cox Automotive and ARI. But his background includes a dozen years at Asbury Automotive Group. So, when it comes to the vehicle subscription space in which Flexdrive operates, “I'm always going to think of it as a […] [Read More]

“That’s gold, Jerry! Gold!” Kenny Bania’s evaluation of Jerry Seinfeld’s witty “Ovaltine” humor is an apt one, but you know what’s worth even more?  The cars the latter comedian drives on his current TV show. The crew at Black Book, which also tracks collector-car values in addition to its reporting on the mainstream used-car market, analyzed […] [Read More]

Google “October surprise”, and the top results will all reference the political aspect.  For example, from Wikipedia: “… a news event deliberatively created or timed or sometimes occurring spontaneously to influence the outcome of an election …”.  From Kavanaugh, to caravans, to Khashoggi, to pipe bomb parcels, this October had more than its share.  But, […] [Read More]

Skeptics of the vehicle subscription model may, in fact, be right to pose questions about how the segment is addressing some very important concerns. Many of those questions came to light during a keynote presentation from auto industry consultant Maryann Keller at the Automotive Intelligence Summit in July, and later recapped in Part I and Part II […] [Read More]

Ally Financial has jumped into NASCAR, partnering with Hendrick Motorsports and linking up with one of the sport’s most recognizable and successful figures. Ally will be the primary sponsor of Jimmie Johnson’s No. 48 Chevrolet Camaro ZL1 team for the entire 2019 and 2020 seasons. Johnson has won seven NASCAR Cup Series championships, tied with […] [Read More]

With the industry still sifting through units impacted by Hurricanes Florence and Michael, Carfax shared new information on Thursday, highlighting how many vehicles damaged by flooding remain operation. Compared to this point last year after Hurricanes Harvey and Irma hit the U.S., Carfax reported 478,000 flooded vehicles on the road; a figure that represents a 47-percent […] [Read More]

The brisk air and color-changing leaves may say otherwise, but October is looking a lot like September. Edmunds is predicting 3.3 million used-car sales this month, which is the same figure reached in September, based on its data set. The resulting used-car SAAR for the month is projected at 39.6 million – also on track […] [Read More]

The Germain Automotive Group has increased front-end gross per car by $300 since beta testing a new inventory management concept from Dale Pollak and the vAuto team at Cox Automotive. This new philosophy — and the data product behind it, called Profit Time — looks at inventory aging in a unique way, Pollack told nearly 200 […] [Read More]

As it turns out, dealers are more likely than the shoppers buying their cars to believe personal vehicle ownership will decrease drastically in the next five years. But does this mean that dealers are worried about the impact this will have on their business? Not necessarily. According to a study by Cox Automotive, the overwhelming majority […] [Read More]

It’s been more than a month since Hurricane Florence soaked the Carolinas and other locations in the Southeast. On Monday, Jumpstart Automotive Media uncovered more than a half dozen metrics and other trends through its post-Florence shopping analysis, pinpointing what types of vehicles are being considered and researched along the Southeastern coastal region of the […] [Read More]