GM is paying $220 million to 36 states over allegedly selling driver data to insurers, and the settlement doesn't stop at the automaker — it reportedly carries new privacy assessments and dealership training requirements. Meanwhile Cox is investigating a cybersecurity incident at VinSolutions, and a security expert is warning that AI has sped up attacks to the point where "my IT guy handles it" is no longer an answer. You don't have to be a franchise store to be holding thousands of customer records in a CRM you didn't build and can't audit. Worth a read, and worth asking your vendor what, exactly, they collect and who they share it with.

Honda is incentivizing its dealers to put light miles on new cars as loaners and then retail them as Certified Pre-Owned — a direct play at buyers who've been priced out of new. At the same time, Hyundai and Toyota are trading blows in a $199 lease fight that's even sharper in some regions. Translation: the franchise side is attacking your payment shopper from above with near-new metal and from below with subsidized leases. Know what a one-year-old Accord or CR-V is really worth before you bid one, because Honda is about to make more of them.

The Fed held rates steady, so nothing about your floorplan or your customers' approval rates gets easier this month. Hyundai and Kia both posted higher Q3 operating profit but softened their outlooks, and Audi is angling for tariff relief tied to its Georgia plant — a reminder that new-car pricing is still being negotiated in Washington, not on a showroom floor. There's also live chatter about whether pump prices fall on supply or on the midterm calendar. Cheap gas keeps truck and SUV demand warm into winter; expensive money keeps your deal structure tight either way.

VW just suspended development of the electric Golf and said out loud that it can't make money selling EVs, even while leading Europe at 26% share. On the other side of the ledger, GM is reportedly hybridizing the Traverse, Acadia and Enclave, and a 2027 Rogue Hybrid pulled 49 mpg in LA traffic. Meanwhile a 2019 Bolt just crossed 470,000 miles — the single best comeback you have when a customer says used EVs are a battery grenade. Stock hybrids with confidence; price used EVs like the volatile asset they still are.