General Motors appointed a new director of national accounts for fleet and commercial operations to replace Bill Gibson, who announced his retirement last month. Assuming the role as of  Wednesday was Jeff Haag, who most recently was the fleet account executive in GM’s North Central Region, having been responsible for Minnesota, Iowa and the Dakotas. […] [Read More]

An investment analyst asked Copart chief executive officer Jay Adair Thursday whether the company’s vast amount of ongoing technology and infrastructure changes should be viewed as ways to improve efficiencies or secure market-share gains. Adair didn’t hesitate to say the reason was to boost both. In a conference call to discuss the company’s third-quarter performance […] [Read More]

Interstate National Dealer Services revealed Tuesday the company has successfully completed a strategic alignment with Hyundai Motor America to administer the Hyundai Assurance Trade-In Value Guarantee, the newest addition to the Assurance suite of programs. Officials recounted that the new Hyundai Assurance program is meant to eliminate concern about depreciation by giving Hyundai owners a […] [Read More]

Although the chatter throughout the used-vehicle market has centered on concerns of whether the so-called bubble will soon burst, Black Book’s Ricky Beggs stressed that while he appreciates the trepidation some dealers may have, there are mitigating supply and demand dynamics that should relieve some of the fear. In other words, used-car demand should stay […] [Read More]

Canadian wholesale prices during April were stronger than what is typical for the season, meaning that despite the fact that values were down sequentially, the ADESA Canada Used Vehicle Price Index improved marginally over the previous month. Specifically, ADESA’s data — powered by ALG Canada — indicated that the index jumped about 0.3 points in […] [Read More]

Given today’s high used-vehicle prices and the uncertainty about where the market might be, in say, 30, 60 or 90 days from now, many dealers have been cautious about wholesale purchases, Black Book’s Ricky Beggs pointed out this week.   But he doesn’t believe high prices should necessarily keep dealers from buying what they need. [Read More]

OPENLANE and AutoUpLinkUSA/AULtec expanded their relationship Tuesday with a new pilot program for aged inventory. It’s all in an effort to integrate their wholesale vehicle management solutions toward faster sales for a wider audience of dealers. Officials explained AULtec, a sister company to AutoUpLinkUSA, will now be using OPENLANE for a pilot program to automatically […] [Read More]

SmartAuction recently named a new leader after Mark Newman left to pursue another opportunity. Taking on the role of vice president of SmartAuction in May is Steve Kapusta.   In this role, he now oversees the SmartAuction team within Ally Auto Remarketing.   SmartAuction is Ally Financial’s leading online remarketing site with more than 13,500 […] [Read More]

There has only been one week in the past year where Black Book has made more wholesale value adjustments per day than it did last week, managing editor Ricky Beggs said in his latest report released Monday. Specifically, there were close to 2,100 changes in wholesale pricing made each day last week, according to the […] [Read More]

Auto Remarketing learned Friday that BB&T Corp. has named a 2010 Auction of the Year. Taking these top honors is Manheim Tennessee Auto Auction. Manheim Tennessee was recognized for providing top sales results, sales percentage and expenses relative to liquidation for both BB&T and its affiliate, Regional Acceptance. Customer service, facility management and operational effectiveness […] [Read More]