Car Sales

Global Car Sales To Fall, Spooked By Russian Invasion, China’s Shutdown

By Michael J. Moody 14 hours ago

Global car sales were supposed to rally this year as manufacturers dragged themselves out of the coronavirus mire, but a combination of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China’s renewed medical emergency shutdown and key component shortages mean a more than 5% contraction is likely, according to a report from Germany’s Center for Automotive Research (CAR

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The report said it’s not all bad news for manufacturers. Underlying demand is still strong, and component shortages mean a lack of new vehicles are reaching buyers and prices are strong, generating what amounts to windfall profits. Second-hand vehicles are also in demand. You can forget radar cruise control or plug-in hybrids; availability is the most important feature.

CAR said global sales in 2022 will fall to 67.6 million from last

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Car dealerships continue to engage in illegal malpractice with fees, dealer says

By Michael J. Moody 14 hours ago

BROWARD COUNTY, Fla. – Consumers should not be charged any dealer fees when buying out a car lease. That has been the focus of two recent Local 10 News investigations.

Despite a federal law in place and consumers trying to fight back, complaints continue to come in. State lawmakers said the practice has to stop.

“I would like to see the consumer not get screwed,” said state Rep. Dan Daley, of District 97.

The practice continues. Attorney Joshua Feygin is representing some of the victims in a demand for arbitration against 25 different dealerships.

“It is mind-boggling how much dealerships disregard what they are allowed to do and what the law requires. Almost every consumer that has reached out to me has a claim,” Feygin said.

There is federal law, the Consumer Leasing Act, that states all fees charged on the back end must be disclosed in the contract at

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New Car Sales Tumble By Over 20% In EU But Some Automakers Came Out On Top

By Michael J. Moody 2 days ago

New car registrations slumped by over 20 per cent across the European Union in April in what was one of the worst months since the height of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

Data from European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA) reveals that 684,506 new vehicles were sold in the European Union last month compared to the 862,443 units sold in April 2021. When including sales from the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) such as Iceland, Norway, and Switzerland, plus adding the United Kingdom into the mix, total sales peaked at 830,447 through April. That was a 20.2 per cent decline from the 1,040,027 vehicles sold in the same month last year across the region.

Read Also: Dealers Are Now Willing To Sell Used Cars With 200,000 Miles Themselves

From January-April, 2,930,366 new vehicles have been sold across the EU. That too is a significant fall of 14.4 per cent from the

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The Incredible Shrinking Car Dealership

By Michael J. Moody 2 days ago

Few people love car dealerships. They’re stressful and sprawling, and it’s hard to shake the feeling that someone is getting a raw deal. But as the auto industry increasingly goes electric and moves online, companies like Honda are rethinking every aspect of the purchase process—including the spaces in which it happens.

Honda announced today that it’s rolling out a new dealership design, one that takes up less square footage and is modular and flexible; what was once showroom space, for example, can be transformed into offices for employees. It’ll also have electric vehicle chargers, as the company aims to sell half a million EVs in the US by 2030. “Our dealers are looking at ways to modernize and digitalize their business,” Mamadou Diallo, the vice president of auto sales at American Honda, told reporters last week. Recent experiences, he says, have taught the automaker that selling cars “will not require

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