July registrations put EVs down 31% and hybrids up 86% as the credit window closed, and the OEMs are already pivoting toward hybrids and extended-range models. Meanwhile Volkswagen is selling more EVs than gas cars at home in Germany — a reminder that the US retreat is a policy story, not a technology one. For your lot: hybrid trade-ins are going to appraise hot and retail fast, while used EVs keep getting cheap to buy and slow to turn. If you do stock them, the service-readiness piece is worth a skim before the first repair order lands.

Higher borrowing costs are landing on shoppers who are already stretched at the grocery store, which is a polite way of saying your payment buyer just lost another hundred dollars of car. At the same time, first-half buy-sell transactions climbed even as store profits fell, with the best franchises fetching record prices — Walser just closed the largest deal in its history and Crossroads picked up Bartow Ford. Consolidators with cheap capital mean more competition for the same trade-ins and the same techs in your market. It also means somebody would probably like to know what your store is worth.

The dealer forums are full of the same question this week: which AI tool cleans up lot photography without making the car look like a rendering. The honest answer emerging in those threads is that background replacement sells, but anything that alters the vehicle itself is a chargeback waiting to happen. The bigger shift is on the buying side, where AI agents are starting to shop for customers before they ever call you. Cheap to test, expensive to ignore — start with the photos, since that's where your VDP already lives or dies.

Dealership cyberattacks are climbing, California is tightening the screws on operators who play loose, and a Ford service department managed to print a racial slur on a customer's oil change sticker. Two of those are systems problems and one is a hiring-and-culture problem, but all three end the same way — a customer with a phone and a lawyer. Worth a read if you've been meaning to look at who has admin access to your DMS and who's alone at the printer after close. A single bad screenshot travels farther than any ad you'll run this month.