Penske Automotive Group had its best year in its history in 2018, said chairman Roger Penske, speaking with financial analysts in February to report the company’s fourth-quarter and full-year 2018 performance results. He noted that 2018 revenue from operations was up 6.5 percent to $22.8 billion, and fourth-quarter 2018 performance was driven by used-car and […] [Read More]

If you bought a used vehicle in Colorado from CarMax over the past year and a half, chances are it was a 4-wheel drive or all-wheel drive. That’s according to a recent sales data report from the retailer, which noted that 72.64 percent of its vehicle sales in that state were either 4WD or AWD. And if you […] [Read More]

After leading the company since 1997, Douglas May is retiring as chief executive officer of RVI Group. The retirement was effective Sunday.  RVI also announced that it will have co-CEOs to succeed May: Daniel Egan and Michael McGroarty. May will remain in an advisory capacity and continue as a member of RVI’s board of directors.   RVI noted […] [Read More]

Digital retail is the "wave of the future" and a key focus area for DealerSocket this year.  In this episode recorded at NADA Show 2019 earlier this year, chief executive Sejal Pietrzak and chief product officer Brad Perry talk about that focus, artificial intelligence/machine learning and more. Plus, Pietrzak, who is a youth basketball coach, talks […] [Read More]

Automotive lenders, dealers and technology companies not only look at the industry different today, but they also look at customers different. Today, they want to find ways for the customer to be even more educated than they were in the past — BEFORE the customer walks into a dealership. They are realizing that an educated […] [Read More]

Say your customer’s vehicle needs a significant repair like a new air conditioning compressor or timing belt replacement, but the client doesn’t immediately have the funds available to pay. A new Canadian fintech startup is deploying a solution to help both the customer stay on the road safety and the dealership service drive to remain […] [Read More]

Last Friday, NextGear Capital announced the passing of John Fuller, company founder and a pioneer in automotive dealer financing. The company described Fuller as a “true innovator” in the field of floor planning; a segment of the automotive industry that provides dealers with funding to purchase vehicle inventory. He founded the top two independent floor […] [Read More]

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau indicated that it took a deep look at what it called “unfair and deceptive practices” regarding rebates for certain ancillary products after examining the protocols executed by at least one captive finance company. CFPB officials recapped through its latest Supervisory Highlights that vehicle buyers sometimes also finance the purchase of […] [Read More]

Lithia Motors and Shift are getting into big data. The dealership group and e-commerce retailer said Wednesday they have started a national data-sharing partnership, the latest “milestone” in their work together that began in 2018. They are collaborating to mine lifecycle data sets from U.S. auto transactions. The thinking is, leveraging Lithia’s transactional data with […] [Read More]

A giveaway of a new 2018 Tesla Model 3 AWD was one of the highlights of an 18th-anniversary celebration and sale on March 13 for Dealers Auto Auction of Idaho. In other auction news, Copart added 44 acres to its Chicago South facility, located at 89 E. Sauk Trail, Chicago Heights, Ill. As a result […] [Read More]