"The next steps might not be unanimous, but maybe they can be consensus"

06/18/20 • 20 min

On a special edition of Unscheduled Maintenance, CARS CEO Alex Vetter reclaims the host mic to sit down with U.S. Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Flint, who represents Michigan’s fifth district.
In this episode, the congressman highlights some of the strong bipartisan wins that have emerged in response to COVID-19, what discussions are happening in Washington about public transportation safety and how future government assistance may help ease supply chain challenges. Alex and Congressman Kildee provide listeners a crucial look inside the government conversations that are impacting our industry, so this is an episode you won't want to miss.

Previous Episode

"In a lot of ways this is the opposite of what we saw in 08 and 09"

And the big new car winner of 2020 is... subcompacts? While much is still to be seen, buying behavior has definetely seen some interesting shifts this year. And Cars.com Executive Editor Joe Wiesenfelder has been keeping a close pulse on both the consumer and dealer impacts. Joe joins the pod to talk about how the current lease and incentive deals varys greatly from what he saw in 2008, how gas prices will influence both vehicle sales and trade-ins, and why major metro commuters moving away from public transportation may not cause the future highway gridlock some are predicting.

Next Episode

"You can't be reliant on historical data, because this year is a rule breaker"

What do you get when the first half of your sales year consists of two record breaking high months and two pandemic induced low ones? A very messy set of projection models for the second half of the year! Luckily, CARS Senior Marketing Data Strategist David Greene is here to help us make sense of it all. David sits down with us this week to talk about the impending impact of the lease returns, why crossover shoppers might start considering wagons, and what Google search query findings can tell us about consumer intent moving forward.