Blogs

The last few days have been busy for ICDP as we prepare for our spring members meeting in Berlin this week. At this point in the year we are wrapping up a number of research streams before launching out with the new programme activity starting in April. The spring meeting is therefore a ‘best of the best’ recap and an ...

Before Christmas we saw headlines from around the world as Tesla cut prices dramatically in order to stimulate sales before the year end. This achieved the desired result for Tesla of getting close to their previously declared shipment target for the quarter, but also attracted negative headlines from customers who had recently purchased at the original price and from those ...

It may be a well-worn cliche – but the car sales business is still sometimes seen as ‘a man’s world’. However, with International Women’s Day just around the corner on March 8, Snows Motor Group is keen to demonstrate that doesn’t have to be the case. Snows Motor Group, based in Southampton, Hampshire, operates more than 50 franchised car and ...

In February issue of Motor Trader now online we look at Stellantis and its plans for its brands. Stellantis met with dealers at an investor conference held at the NEC, Birmingham. It detailed strategies for the brands to simplify the business , introduce new aftersales and commercial vehicle strategies and push ahead with plans for agency. The group is furthest ...

The title of my blog is not intended to suggest that there is anything about Chinese cars that you need to brace yourself for in terms of the driving or ownership experience. On the contrary the quality and general competitiveness of cars coming from the major Chinese manufacturers now appear to be on a par with European volume brands. Many ...

I do try to keep the topics of my blogs varied, covering the whole spectrum of ICDP research and the various conversations that I have around not only sales but also aftersales and other related areas such as mobility.  However, there is so much going on at the moment in respect of changes to franchise dealer agreements, restructuring of dealer ...

Following on from the news a couple weeks ago that the second largest dealer group in the US, Lithia Motors, was in discussions to acquire the UK group Jardine Motors, statutory filings revealed that TDR Capital, directly and through subsidiaries, had acquired over 3% of #4 UK dealer group Vertu. This sits alongside their interests of over 20% in #3 ...

As a child I went to Sunday School and recall to this day being told the cautionary tale from the Bible of the foolish man who built his house on the sand. The other half of the tale said that the wise man would build his house on rock.  In later life I actually owned a house that was built ...

We all know that the Tesla roadster which Elon Musk fired into space in 2018 will at some point come back through the atmosphere and crash and burn.  However that is estimated to happen in millions of years whereas investors and the automotive industry at large are much more interested in what’s going to happen to Tesla as a company ...

Despite the claims of many industry commentators, we are some way off seeing artificial intelligence (AI) power 95% of customer interactions in retail by 2025. All that said, I believe there is a specific role for AI to play in our industry; it’s one I’ve seen first hand at carwow as it’s when humans and machines work together, combining and ...