Independent dealers converge on Washington this week for NIADA's 12th annual fly-in, pushing right to repair, catalytic converter theft prevention, and CFPB and FCRA reform — the unglamorous stuff that shows up in your recon bills and your credit-pull workflow. Same week, the administration signed off on softer CAFE targets, cutting the 2031 fleet number to 34.5 mpg and easing pressure on automakers to build small and efficient. Read the fly-in agenda even if you're not going; those four issues are the ones that touch a small lot's P&L most directly. And note the irony: Washington is loosening efficiency rules right as buyers start caring about mpg again.

Gas has climbed enough that a 30-mpg Mazda3 now costs about what a 19-mpg Mustang GT cost to feed back in February — and on the used side, the sub-$20,000 aisle has thinned out to a handful of survivors like a $17,629 2021 Corolla. That's a demand shift and a supply squeeze arriving at the same time, which is how you end up bidding against everyone at the sale for the same boring commuter car. Watch your V8 trade-ins reprice downward faster than you'd like, and get aggressive on clean compacts and subcompact crossovers before your competition reads the same fuel report.

Volkswagen is throwing $12,500 at leftover 2025 ID.4s and $6,000 at 2026s, GMC is effectively handing out interest-free money on 2026 Sierras ahead of the Gen-6 V8, and VW is simultaneously killing the ID.5 and renaming the ID.4 the ID. Tiguan. Meanwhile Ford paused F-150 production at Dearborn on supply-chain trouble. Translation for your lot: heavy new-car cash caves in used EV residuals and squeezes late-model half-tons on price, while a truck plant going dark quietly props up the used pickup you already own. Price the EVs to move now and don't be shy holding gross on clean trucks.

A rate move works out to roughly 19 cents a day on a floored car — noise. It's the days themselves that eat you, and the same blind spot shows up in logistics, where transport, PDI, and shuttle costs get scattered across departments until nobody owns the total. Add the two together and you've got a real per-unit number that never hits your acquisition spreadsheet. Pull 30 days of transport invoices, divide by units sold, and see whether your "cheap" out-of-state buys actually are.