President Trump expresses interest in introducing Japanese kei cars to the U.S. market, highlighting their compact appeal despite safety concerns. Meanwhile, Toyota revives the Lexus LFA as an all-electric supercar, while dealer enthusiasm for service and parts declines. Vernon Davis, a service consultant, discusses his new book on implementing mobile service at dealerships, emphasizing its importance for customer retention and convenience. The episode explores the challenges and opportunities in the automotive service sector, particularly the shift towards mobile solutions to meet evolving consumer demands.
President Donald Trump wants Asian kei cars to be built and sold in the U.S. Toyota leaps back into supercars. Plus, service and parts consultant Vernon Davis talks about his new book about how to implement mobile service at a dealership.
"President Trump says he wants to bring Japanese K-cars to the US after seeing the pint‑sized vehicles during his recent trip to Japan."
K-cars are small, budget-friendly cars from Japan that many people use for everyday driving. They’re known for being cheap to buy and run.
K-cars refers to compact Japanese cars, typically under 1,500 cc, that are popular in Japan for their affordability and efficiency. Models like the Honda Civic or Toyota Corolla fall into this category.
"Trump was speaking at the Oval Office this week as he announced his proposed rollback of Biden‑era fuel economy standards."
Fuel economy standards are rules that say cars must use a certain amount of gas for each mile they travel. They help keep fuel costs and pollution down.
Fuel economy standards are government regulations that set minimum efficiency targets for vehicles, aiming to reduce fuel consumption and emissions.
"The ultra‑compact vehicles are popular in Asia, but don't meet current federal safety standards."
Ultra‑compact cars are tiny vehicles that fit easily in city traffic and use very little gas. They’re popular in some countries but may not meet safety rules in others.
Ultra‑compact vehicles are cars even smaller than typical compact models, often under 1,000 cc, designed for tight city streets and fuel efficiency. They’re common in Asia but face regulatory hurdles elsewhere.
"It's reviving the Lexus LFA as an all-electric supercar, and launching its GR performance brand around 2027 with a 641 horsepower gasoline-powered GT."
GR is a special line of Toyota cars that are built to be very fast and good on racetracks.
Toyota's GR (Gazoo Racing) brand focuses on high-performance, track-oriented vehicles.
"It's reviving the Lexus LFA as an all-electric supercar, and launching its GR performance brand around 2027 with a 641 horsepower gasoline-powered GT."
This means the car runs only on electricity, not gasoline, but it can still go very fast like a sports car.
An all-electric supercar is a high-performance vehicle powered solely by electric motors, offering extreme speed and zero tailpipe emissions.
"It's reviving the Lexus LFA as an all-electric supercar, and launching its GR performance brand around 2027 with a 641 horsepower gasoline-powered GT."
Lexus makes fancy, expensive cars that are more luxurious than regular Toyota models.
Lexus is Toyota's luxury vehicle division, producing high-end cars and SUVs.
"Timing suggests it could debut Toyota's long-awaited solid-state battery technology..."
These batteries can store more power and charge faster than regular car batteries, making electric cars go farther and safer.
Solid-state batteries use a solid electrolyte instead of liquid, offering higher energy density, faster charging, and improved safety over traditional lithium-ion batteries.
"And we're about to hear your interview with service and parts consultant, Vernon Davis, about how to implement mobile service at a dealership."
Mobile service means a mechanic comes to your house or workplace to fix your car instead of you driving it to a garage.
Mobile service refers to automotive repair or maintenance performed at the customer’s location rather than in a fixed shop, often using mobile units equipped with tools and parts.
"Not just for Rivian, but I'd say for the automotive industry in general."
Rivian makes electric cars like trucks and SUVs that are built for outdoor adventures. They’re a newer company compared to older car makers.
Rivian is an American electric vehicle manufacturer known for its pickup trucks and SUVs, focusing on adventure-oriented designs.
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Toyota leaves back into supercars and dealers lose enthusiasm for the service and parts business. Plus, we're here from Vernon Davis, a service and parts consultant who authored a new book on how to implement mobile service at a dealership.
I had a number of dealerships that went from one unit to seven. It's a great opportunity for everybody to get involved.
Let's run through all the news you need to know to keep up in the auto industry.
President Trump says he wants to bring Japanese K-cars to the US after seeing the pint-sized vehicles during his recent trip to Japan.
It's very small, they're really cute, and I said, how would that do in this country? Everyone seems to think good, but you're not allowed to build them.
And I've authorized the secretary to immediately approve the production of those cars.
Trump was speaking at the Oval Office this week as he announced his proposed rollback of Biden-era fuel economy standards.
The ultra-compact vehicles are popular in Asia, but don't meet current federal safety standards.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy admits, quote, are they going to work on the freeways? Probably not.
Bloomberg intelligence analyst Tatsuo Yoshida says Japanese car makers don't sell K-cars in the US because, quote, pricing and costs don't match.
While President Trump wants to bring Japan's smallest cars to America, Toyota is bringing back one of its most legendary models.
It's reviving the Lexus LFA as an all-electric supercar, and launching its GR performance brand around 2027 with a 641 horsepower gasoline-powered GT.
Chairman Akio Toyota unveiled the sports cars at Toyota's woven city complex near Mount Fuji.
All three share in all aluminum frame, the auto makers first. The electric LFA concept is a spiritual successor to the original $375,000 LFA from 2010.
Timing suggests it could debut Toyota's long-awaited solid-state battery technology.
The GR GT features a twin-turbo V8 with an electric motor, generating at least 641 horsepower and a top speed of nearly 200 mph, and fixed operations has always been a bright spot for dealers.
But that might be changing. Dealers gave their current service in parts business a score of 61 in Cox Automotive's latest dealer sentiment index.
That's down from 66 last quarter, and it's the lowest mark in over a year.
Joining me now to talk about this is Automotive News Senior Retail Editor Dan Shine. Dan, welcome back to Daily Drive.
Okay, great to be with you.
So, sir, what's behind this sinking enthusiasm about FixOps?
Well, I guess first, I would say the scores are still in the positive area, in this Cox index, anything above 50 is known as positive or improving.
So, FixOps is still in the 60s. The thing is that it's always been kind of a steady, reliable metric in this index.
And I would always kind of try and carve out a little service and part story of my own when the index came out.
And the folks at Cox said, oh, it's the same old FixOps. It's great. Everyone's happy.
It's barely moves, and it just stays up in the mid to upper 60s.
And this is the first time that it really kind of, in recent memory, is gone down.
And I was like, whoa, okay, that's really interesting.
And what's more interesting, too, is that when they were asked, what do you like about your current?
How do you view current FixOps? They went down like you said.
And then future opportunity, what do you see for the next three months?
And it went down to the lowest number Cox has ever recorded when they've introduced this question, I think, back in 2021.
So I think there's some pessimism with service departments.
I think it has a lot to do with, you know, the economy has to do with pricing.
And I think people are either, you know, they don't have as much money to spend on things.
And so they're not getting their car repair, they're putting things off.
If they have to get something done, they're opting for.
So, you know, the independent garage is the chain auto repair places that they think gives them lower price than they would get at a dealership.
You brought up pricing and Cox's parts pricing is now rising faster than inflation.
And there are signs tariffs are being passed through.
Are dealers pricing customers out of their service base?
And if so, where are they going instead?
So I don't know if they're, I mean, in some ways, I think again, we had the tariffs on the prices, part pricing.
And so, I think, you know, dealerships kind of ate some of that price increase.
And now, kind of like, you know, for manufacturers who in the sticker price, you see a new vehicles.
A lot of manufacturers are now kind of passing that cost on to the consumer.
And I think that's happening a little bit in certain service departments as well.
And so you were seeing, you know, parts that maybe were a certain amount a year ago are now more expensive.
Because of tariffs.
So I think, you know, people again are price shopping more than ever.
Because again, economies bad people don't have as much money spendable income.
You know, they got groceries, health care, all those kind of things.
So they're looking where can I get a new break job or kind of get my muffler replaced.
And it's not going to cost me as much.
And so they're opting for the cheapest price.
And that's typically they think, you know, independent repair facilities.
And we're about to hear your interview with service and parts consultant, Vernon Davis,
about how to implement mobile service at a dealership.
Set that up for us.
And what were your takeaways from that conversation?
Yeah, so.
And again, we're talking about, you know, customers coming to the dealership or not coming to the dealership for, you know, for service work.
A lot of the smart, I think a lot of the smart dealers out there see mobile service as a way to retain customers.
It's, you know, coming right to your door, coming to your office to change a tire to rotate your tires through a break job.
Those kind of, you know, maintenance and repairs.
And so, but a lot of dealerships aren't doing it because there's the others cost involved.
We got an outfit, a van or two vans.
You got to find more technicians, which can be difficult because there's a shortage of technicians.
You got to find more people to put on the van.
Then you got to schedule a van and someone got to be kind of in charge of scheduling the van and make sure it's all, you know, being a tanker.
So there's a lot to it.
So I think a lot of dealerships like, oh, I'm not going to bother.
I'm, you know, I'm just going to do what I've always been doing.
But I think the smart dealers are looking at mobile service as a way to, you know, for customer service, you know, the old tired phrase, beat the customer where they are.
Customers want convenience.
And this is convenience.
I, we had a recall on our car and my wife and I were kind of, OK, who's going to go sit at the dealership for the next, you know, two hours.
And it's, you know, it was a 40-minute drive away.
And then they call us, well, we can come to your driveway and do that.
I was there 10 minutes and he was gone.
I said, this is fantastic.
So, so Vernon's written a book about, you know, it's kind of some how-to tips guide to implementing mobile service at your dealership.
And I just think it's one of these things that I think car dealerships used to be in the, you know, the glass prepared business.
They used to be in these kind of things that they decided tires and they decided, nah, this is two small potatoes for us.
We're going to do some men now.
You've got discount tire.
You've got all these other, you know, huge tire facilities.
And you've got people come replace your windshields now, other than your dealership.
And so now this is, you know, nothing in danger of being another segment that dealerships are going to fumble away to independence.
Because there is a lot of small, there are a lot of companies that are independence that are growing their mobile repair service business.
And if dealerships, I think, you know, don't get on board.
That's another part of the business that is going to be going away to competitors.
Perfect. Dan Shine, thank you so much for joining me.
You're welcome.
And those are today's headlines.
You can find more details on all those stories at autonews.com.
Coming up, we're a conversation with consultant and author Vernon Davis.
That's next on Daily Drive.
Rivian built its brand around adventure.
Off road escapes and beach camping.
But CEO RJ Scarrange sees a more robotic future built on self-driving systems as critical to gaining market share from slower moving rivals.
The next few years are going to look entirely different than the last few years.
Not just for Rivian, but I'd say for the automotive industry in general.
On the next episode of shift, part one of our exclusive interview with Rivian CEO, RJ Scarrange.
He talks with our own Lawrence I live about his vision for software-defined architectures, autonomy and the launch of the company's first mass market vehicle in 2026.
That's available Sunday on the automotive news shift podcast.
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Welcome back to Daily Drive. I'm Kellen Walker.
Vernon Davis is a service and parts consultant who authored a new book on how to implement mobile service at a dealership.
He talks with automotive news senior retail editor Dan Shine about why it's important to bring maintenance and repairs to a customer's home or office.
Vernon, thanks so much for joining me on the fixed stops Friday edition of Daily Drive.
Well, thank you. I greatly appreciate the opportunity. Thank you for having me. I greatly appreciate it.
So you've just written your third book. You're like the Stephen King of the fixed ops industry.
I got your third book out called Ignite Drive Thrive Lead proving strategies for mobile service success in every market.
Yes, tell me what motivated you to to write about this topic and I guess, you know, kind of a little, you know, how to book.
Well, I absolutely love mobile service.
I was part of a mobile service program and part of that for I was part of that for almost five years.
And I absolutely loved what I did, but I was forward thinking and going, there's going to be a lot of OEMs.
All the OEMs are going to want to get into this once they see the success, the particular OEM I was working with was experiencing.
And every time I would talk to customers or potential customers, just every day people and I tell them with that, what I do, they're like, that's really a thing.
I'm like, yeah, that's really a thing.
And I saw the right and on the wall.
And the reason the biggest reason why I'm not just I, myself and my collaborator William Brocksterman or Bill Brocksterman, we call him Brock's.
We wrote the book is to help these other OEMs in my impulse that are going to be moving in that direction of mobile service.
You know, you're hearing a lot more about mobile service.
Tell me how you think important that is for mom and pops and dealership service departments.
When you talk about customer retention, how, how important is mobile service going to be going forward for dealership service departments?
Well, I wouldn't say it's important. I'll say it's paramount.
It is a must have because in this in this world that we live in everything these days, everybody's looking for the easy button.
And the guy that can provide the easy button for getting general maintenance recalls these are some minor repairs done at their home or office.
Those are going to be the guys that's going to be eating everybody else's pie that not doing it.
It's growing faster than then you can imagine.
Let's just say the company that I was with previously outwashed.
I was there when we hit 10,000 RO's and then this year they went over four million RO's.
And that's just servicing, you know, their name tags now.
And some competitive makes now imagine if Chevrolet GM got into that or still answers who is getting into that.
They could see the same results because neighbors talk, people talk, fleet companies talk.
And so the sentiment behind it is why haven't we did this sooner.
Volvo did try to do it back in the day, but now we have more technology.
We can do more things in the field and it's the prime time for it.
What is the barrier? I guess I'll start with an automaker.
What is the barrier of the thinking at an automaker that they say we don't want to do this.
We're not going to invest in this or do they think it's this is on the dealership to figure this out.
This is not our problem mindset.
Playing a simple mindset.
You must want to do this and you must want to support this in every way form of fashion from the OEM all the way down to the mobile service technician.
If they're not wanting to get into this, then they're not thinking about their clients and like you say retention.
And these days with car prices being the way that they are, people are keeping their vehicles longer.
The average is 11 years that people are keeping their vehicles.
If they're keeping those vehicles 11 years, who's going to service them?
Do you want them to come back when they do finally decide to buy a car or truck?
Well, we got to be able to push the easy button for that line again.
Yeah.
And if I'm a fixed ops director somewhere thinking about this, I hear this is the, you know, like you say paramount to my success.
What are the things that I need to know? What are the kind of the first steps or things I should be prepared for as I embark on this?
No. After you decide to put together your vehicle, whether you do it DIY or if you purchase it fully stocked, there are four people that need to be, well, I'll take that back.
There's a more than four. You have to be willing to have that commitment and have the right people in place.
You need a court, mobile service coordinator. You need to take an issue.
You need a parts department person that's dedicated to and you need leadership to be dedicated to this because if there's no buy-in from leadership from top down, you will fail.
If you don't fail, your results will be mediocre at best.
The more that's the more buy-in that you have from your team from top down, the more successful your program will be and not treated as if it's a novelty.
It's not a novelty. It's a need.
How do you create that buy-in from your technicians, from the folks you're going to put on this van and send out into the streets of the neighborhoods and surrounding areas of your dealership?
How do you get them to buy-in? What's your argument with them?
To get that buy-in, the leadership has to be bought-in because, quite frankly, if the GM doesn't care why should the technician care?
When you bring this product to them and say, this is the future. This is what we're going to do. This is how we're going to grow our business.
This is how you're going to grow in your position and your training and financially.
That's a big one right there. It's the financial part of it.
But when you can show people how they can grow with this along with the dealership and how that program can go from one unit to two units to three units.
Those people who are your first ones in are going to end up being the leadership for that mobile service program.
Your technician becomes the former manager for mobile service technicians and the mobile service coordinator becomes the mobile service manager.
You have to be able to show them that there is potential growth here.
Which there is. I had a number of dealerships that went from one unit to seven.
It's a great opportunity for everybody that's involved.
The people that you've put on these vans to go out and meet customers on their driveways and their office parking lot.
What kind of folks are you looking forward to do that? Is it have to be a little bit different than maybe the wrench turner that's in the bay?
Well, I'm glad you asked that because you're right.
Your mobile service technician is the face of your dealership, your retail.
Whether you're a mine pile or whether you're a Lexus dealer. They are the face.
So therefore they do need to be what we like to refer to as a unicorn.
They got to be able to walk, talk, chew, bow, gum, greet people and do the services that are required.
We all have somebody in the shop that could fix anything. He usually his name is Carl and he works in the back of the shop.
And he could fix anything. He could do it. He could rebuild the transmission blindfolded in the dark.
But Carl has a questionable body.
And he likes to wear a ball cap that says pull my finger.
Now is that the guy that you want to send out to be customer facing? Think about that.
Is that the face that you want to represent your Ford Lincoln Lexus Mercedes dealership?
So yes, that is important aesthetics. What does it look like? What does it feel like?
Does it look like a professional situation?
Do we look like we used to be shade and tree mechanics?
And now we're wearing a Mercedes uniform.
And then your mobile service coordinator has to wear a multiple hats.
And has to be able to not just sell themselves, but the product over the phone.
Everybody can't do that. Everybody's not worth it. Everybody's not capable of doing that.
So having somebody with an entrepreneurial spirit that wants to be this program, that wants to own this program is also very important.
Well it's interesting. I've learned that service matter service departments are good book readers.
They love to read books. It's not two days with Mori.
It's leadership books. It's books like yours. It kind of looks how to books that to better themselves.
So I'm thinking this will be a great success for you.
And I really appreciate you being on the show and best of luck.
Well, I thank you and I'm going to ask you to be on the lookout for my follow up book to ignite.
Dignite drive drive lead, which you can get on my website. They go by the same name.
But the follow up book to this is about leadership and it's called leadership on wheels.
So that should be coming out in the January.
All right. You're a busy man. Thank you Vernon.
Thank you.
That's daily drive for today. I'm Kellen Walker.
Thanks to automotive news executive producer Jake Near.
As well as a wrong Larry Velliquette and Hans Grimow for their reporting for today's podcast.
You can get the latest news on service and parts, manufacturing and everything happening in the auto industry at autonews.com.
Come back over the weekend for our weekend drive edition of the show.
Our own Larry Velliquette and Mike Martinez talk about the biggest news stories from the past week.
Including Stellantis's hiring spree in North America and President Trump's plan to roll back emission standards.
The auto makers, obviously any regulation that goes away, they're going to be happy about.
And it seems to be that they think this will allow them to change what they build.
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