It wasn’t long ago that the new-vehicle supply was so dire that rental-car companies were becoming buyers in the wholesale market rather than sellers. But with the mid-pandemic new-car production issues largely squared away, rental car volume in the wholesale market has bounced back the last three years. Though unlikely their numbers will reach pre-pandemic levels ... [Read More]

Don't let the improvement in off-lease volumes in the wholesale vehicle market fool you.  At least take these gains with a grain of salt.  Numbers in this segment are expected to take a hit in the second half of 2024 and are not likely to return to pre-pandemic levels any time soon.  Here's how the numbers shake out:  Looking at year-to-date auction check-ins at Manheim locations through the first half of the year, lease check-ins have climbed 94% year-over-year, but trail 2019 levels by 58%, data from Cox Automotive shows.  Industry-wide, the number of off-lease units ... [Read More]

Dealertrack regularly watches what conditions are like for consumers to obtain auto financing; a landscape that’s been tightening in recent months. What about the credit environment for finance companies to get the resources they need to book originations? Especially in the non-prime and subprime spaces? While perhaps an interest rate reprieve is arriving sometime this year, Kyle Birch, who is president of North America operations at GM Financial, described the rough sledding the industry is experiencing ... [Read More]

It’s possible the outage at CDK Global didn’t just limit the actual sales of used vehicles in June. The crisis may have affected the reporting of the pre-owned vehicle sales that did happen. In fact, Cox Automotive found that “reporting was more disrupted than actual sales,” but noted that July will likely make up for June’s disruption in the used-car market. And even with disruption, dealers increased ... [Read More]

A little inside baseball here (or football, rather): One of the best training grounds for journalism, and not just sports reporters, is to cover high school football for a newspaper — or at least the version of the latter that existed through the 2000s. It requires precise and constant notetaking, especially if you are recording […] [Read More]

The theme of Cox Automotive’s 2024 midyear review is… wait for it … No, I mean, that’s the theme: Wait for it. Uncertainty is the name of the game right now in the automotive market, according to chief economist Jonathan Smoke and Cox’s team of analysts, as consumers wait for any number of things — including ... [Read More]

Electric vehicles have become extremely polarized along political lines, said participants on “The Charged EV Debate in the 2024 Election” panel during Industry Day at the Electrify Expo in May. To overcome that polarization, EV marketing should focus strongly on ... [Read More]

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]