Motor Trader The award-winning and longest running UK magazine for car retailing professionals. Your first stop for News, Jobs and Reports for the motor industry.
This month we look at two key topics, the emerging and established Chinese brands and the way agency is adapting in the market. We catch up with Pendragon CEO Bill Berman who talks about his confidence in the Chinese giant BYD and its technology. “We are fully committed and fully invested. It is going to be exciting,” he told Motor Trader.
Also, this month we check out some Chinese brands that may make their way to the UK, including Nio, the Tesla-rivalling, battery-swap station innovator, Zeekr a premium EV brand, and HiPhi, which belongs to Chinese technology and mobility company Human Horizons.
This issue looks at agency and the way the model is morphing as carmakers adapt to meet the demands of the marketplace. A few years ago ICDP looked at how factory-owned retail groups performed compared to other dealers and found with two exceptions their performance was lower than the network average. It concluded that there was “little evidence” to suggest that manufacturers understand retail better than retailers.
As many of you know this year Motor Trader will hold the first Retailing EXPO 2023, which will look at the future changes taking place in the market, cyber security, EV retailing, the increasing focus on the environment and Carbon Zero. This event takes place on 17 October at the home of motor racing Silverstone. Industry-leading speakers include Microsoft, Waylands Automotive and many more.
Finally, I would like to congratulate all the winners of the Independent Dealer Awards, which were held in Birmingham in July. This is the fifth year of the awards and the standard is improving year by year. Open competition means dealers have to improve their performance or risk losing out to their independent rivals and franchised dealers, too, who are putting more resources into their used car businesses.