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DEALERS
By The Industry, For The Industry
YEE is over but the insights and encouragements shared in the show are still unfolding. We want to hear from you!
Tell us what you thought about the stream. Tell us what your "word for 2023" will be. Let us know which host was best dressed. Anything you want to share we want to hear.
We love our work of bringing you content that equips, connects, and encourages, but all the world's posting, writing, and live streaming would fall flat if we never took the time to listen.
So hit reply and send us your thoughts.
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AUTOMOTIVE
December New Car Retail Sales Dip
Data shows a 2.8% decline in new-vehicle retail sales in December but a 5.3% year-over-year increase in total new sales.
The average monthly payment for a new vehicle was up $47 vs. a year ago at $718.
Despite a 1% drop in global sales from 2021 to 2022 and ongoing recession chatter, projections for 2023 show a 6% increase.
Telling it like it is - Maybe by 2024, we will have enough data about 2023 to make a more confident guess.
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AUTOMOTIVE
Lucid Raises $1.5B In New Investments
Luxury EV brand Lucid is back and sitting on a fresh new pile of cash. Not long ago, the company had some worries about its continued existence. A new round of investments and more than 56M shares of common stock sold brought in over $1.5B into the company's "general corporate purpose" budget.
Which, in this instance, means "building cars to sell."
The largest portion of the money, $915M, came from the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund, maintaining the fund's position as majority owner with a nearly 62% stake.
Following a period of stock value loss in 2022, news of the fresh investment bumped the company's value by 5%.
Pushback Proverb - Ya gotta spend money to make money, but it is best to have money before you spend it.
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TOGETHER WITH ORBEE
Under One Roof at YEE
ASOTU just hosted our 2022 Year End Extravaganza and had the chance to catch up with Orbee's own Peter Fong and their dealer client, Santosh Viswanathan. They enjoyed a chat about the holidays, the importance of data, and the frustration of decentralized services.
Santosh shared the impact of Orbee's method of delivering only rich and actionable first-party data - No more buying thousands of leads that lead nowhere.
Through Orbee's consolidation, Santosh's business uses data directly in marketing efforts "under one roof" - Eliminating duplication, decreasing costs, and increasing relevance.
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QUICK HITS
- YouTube prepares to pay $2.5B a year for NFL’s Sunday Ticket.
- 3D-printed homes are for sale in Arizona.
- Gamers sue Microsoft over the Activision merger.
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AUTOMOTIVE
Buick’s EV Goes Live In China
Buick's first all-electric model in the US is set to debut in 2024.
The GM brand's new SUVs are going for the premium market in China currently. The Electra E5 is the first of a series to launch and includes:
- The Ultium power platform.
- An all-new Virtual Cockpit System.
- Super Cruise driver-assist tech.
In the US, Buick dealers will invest between $300K and $400K if they want to sell EVs. Dealers can take a buyout or upgrade to charging, service, and training.
Everybody’s inner Star Wars fan - “Virtual Cockpit better be a whole lot cooler than buttons on the dashboard…”
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TECHNOLOGY
Twitter Updates
Ok, so for some of us, Twitter has always been confusing (Who reads from bottom to top??). Lately, the whirlwind of headlines has only further convoluted the spirit of confusion on display in the one place on the internet where folks like @PoopSkeleton55 can directly reply to people like the president of the United States of America.
Now that that long and semi-disturbing sentence is out of the way, let's look at it right now.
Elon Musk will step down as CEO of the social media site following a public poll that resulted in 57% of its 17M responders voting for the option. He says he will step down as soon as a suitable ("foolish enough") replacement is found.
Meanwhile, Mastodon, a direct rival to Twitter, has grown to 2.5M users in just a few weeks. The app is ranked 8th in the Google Play Store's social network section and 11th in Apple's.
People (who are responsible for the best and worst ideas ever) have suggested some options for a new CEO over the company. Snoop Dogg essentially volunteered for the job and has the mob's favor. Snoop Tweeted, "Should I run Twitter," and 81% of 3.3M poll respondents told him to go for it.
Telling it like it is - We never know what Elon will do next, but we do know a portion of the population will call it brilliant, a portion of the population will call it pointless, and a small portion of the population will change jobs.
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