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]

The first quarter of 2024 marked the first time since the second quarter of 2021 that AutoNation has shown an increase in new-vehicle sales and used-vehicle sales together in the same quarter. AutoNation CEO Michael Manley provided that news during the company’s first quarter 2024 earnings call on April 26. But used vehicles and the company’s AutoNation USA used-vehicle business were not a big focus of the earnings call, as AutoNation representatives spent more time discussing other areas such as its customer financial services business and inventory levels. The limited discussion that did take place on the company’s used-vehicle business was mostly ... [Read More]

Asbury Automotive Group in its first quarter pivoted its used-vehicle strategy, which had been focused on gross profit, to put more emphasis on volume, said David Hult, the company’s president and CEO. So when it came to sourcing used vehicles for retail sale in the quarter, Asbury doubled the percentage of vehicles it typically purchases outside of its own structure including trade-ins, from about 10% to 20%, said Hult, during the company’s quarterly earnings call for the three-month period ending March 31. Though the company makes less money on used vehicles it purchases for retail sale than those it takes on trade, the revised acquisition strategy ... [Read More]

Bigger isn’t always better. Sonic Automotive can attest to that. Last June, the company significantly downsized its EchoPark used-car operation, suspending operations of eight stores, 14 related delivery/buy centers and three Northwest Motorsport locations within the EchoPark segment. Now EchoPark is a success story, with ... [Read More]

Penske Automotive Group’s CarShop used-only retail stores saw sequentially improving sales and margins in the first quarter of 2024 as it recovered from somewhat dismal full-year 2023 used-vehicle results. “We’ve seen CarShop really make a big step forward in margin in the U.S. as we’ve been able to ... [Read More]