Things are changing at CarMax. With retail used-vehicle sales and gross profit down 3.1% year-over-year for the quarter ending May 31 – the first quarter of the company’s 2025 fiscal year – CarMax’s emphasis has turned to making the most of what it brings in through cost reduction. “What we’re focused on is ... [Read More]

Understanding the perspective from the other side of a business transaction — or even the other side of an organization’s operations — can be quite valuable, especially in an industry weaving as many moving parts and niche silos as wholesale automotive. Stephanie Compton, who is vice president of asset remarketing for Exeter Finance, has built an award-winning career on the consignor side of the business, including being named by Cherokee Media Group as the 2023 National Remarketing Executive of the Year and a 2020 Women in Remarketing honoree. But she has also walked a mile (or several miles, on sale days) in the shoes of folks who would now call her a customer: the auto auction ... [Read More]

The heartland is in a sweet spot for electric vehicle adoption in some ways, but EV ownership is low in most states in the middle of the U.S. Price is one issue, said panelists at the “What’s it going to take to drive EV adoption in the heartland?” session at the Electrify Expo Industry Day conference in Long Beach in southern California in late May. But other factors play a role, and dealers need to ... [Read More]

NAPA Auto Parts sees potential in electric vehicle repair and is preparing its branded stores and its independent partners to capitalize on a potentially huge market for aftermarket parts. “There is a big opportunity for NAPA to get into the electrification space,” Donovan Ringo, NAPA’s senior manager, emerging markets, told Auto Remarketing on the sidelines of the Electrify Expo Industry Day conference in Southern California in late May. NAPA considers EVs, ADAS, and vehicle connectivity emerging technology for ... [Read More]

The road to broader consumer acceptance of vehicle electrification is fraught with slowdowns, challenges and bumps in the road. Still, wider-spread acceptance of EVs is on the horizon and dealers — both franchise and independent — with support from automakers and/or industry partners such as Cox Automotive, are critical in helping that journey go more smoothly. That’s according to Cox Automotive executives, who highlighted key findings in the company’s “2024 Cox Automotive Path to EV Adoption Study ” during a panel discussion here, May 9. “We’re on this electrification journey.” ... [Read More]

During a May 9 forum with industry media in Detroit, Cox Automotive held a panel discussion on how it is using artificial intelligence to assist its wholesale customers with more accurate vehicle inspections and condition reports and marketing opportunities. Participating in Cox Automotive’s AI panel discussion was Marianne Johnson, chief product officer at Cox Automotive, who said machine learning has been around for 20 years and predictive algorithms based on historical data is not new, either. But over the last two or three years, technology has evolved into ... [Read More]

Like they have in recent earnings reports, ACV Auctions leaders during the company’s first quarter 2024 earnings call on May 9 continued focusing the discussion on the topics of growth, innovation and scale. The company calls those topics its three “pillars” of strategy to maximize long-term shareholder value. Company leaders focused a great deal of their first quarter earnings call comments on ... [Read More]

AccuTrade has hit the accelerator. Cars Commerce’s “instant appraisal engine” took a leap forward in the first quarter of 2024, CEO Alex Vetter said during the company’s recent earnings call, growing to just under 1,000 accounts and generating more than 622,000 appraisals in that span. And that growth was a key piece in Cars Commerce’s successful Q1, which ended March 31. Overall, the company reported ... [Read More]

Carvana is bolstering its inspection and reconditioning capacity and in its first quarter delivered its best financial results ever, company executives said during its quarterly earning call. CEO Ernie Garcia said Carvana’s inspection and reconditioning infrastructure in its first quarter that ended March 31, had the capacity to handle 1.3 million vehicles per year, which is over triple its current volume, and the ability to expand that reconditioning capacity to ... [Read More]

CarGurus’ CarOffer digital wholesale platform continued to operate at a loss in the first quarter of 2024 though it did improve sequentially. The entire company’s net income surged, however. The CEO emphasized ongoing efforts to rebuild the wholesale business and integrate it into CarGurus’ other product offerings. “We are proud of the progress and improvement […] [Read More]