The Dodge Ram is a pickup truck. It’s built to carry cargo in the truck bed and can be used for towing, depending on the setup. It may be mentioned in news because it’s an important truck model for the company.
Stellantis is a big car company that owns multiple brands. The episode says its U.S. sales are improving mainly because one of its brands, Ram, is selling more trucks.
The Ram 1500 is a popular full-size pickup truck. The hosts mention it because its sales are doing well enough to help the larger company’s overall numbers.
The Jeep Grand Cherokee is a popular Jeep SUV. The segment lists it as one of the models whose sales were down, even while other models were improving.
The Porsche 911 is a sports car made by Porsche. It’s designed for fast driving and good handling, and it’s known for its unique rear-engine design. It might be mentioned in news because it’s a recognizable, performance-focused car.
The Chevrolet Tahoe is a large SUV made by Chevrolet. It’s the kind of vehicle people buy for family trips and towing, and here it’s mentioned as one of the big SUVs built at that factory.
The Chevrolet Suburban is a very large SUV from Chevrolet, often chosen for families because it has lots of room. In this story, it’s mentioned as one of the full-size SUVs made at the factory.
A direct-to-consumer sales model means the car company sells to you directly, not through a local dealership. Here, that’s the approach Scout is using, and dealers are suing to stop it.
Scout Motors is the company behind the Scout brand being sued in this story. The dealers association wants the company to stop selling directly to customers instead of through local dealerships.
The Auto Dealers Association is a group representing car dealerships. In this story, they’re suing to try to stop Scout from selling directly to customers.
Washington state is where this lawsuit is being filed. The rules for car dealerships can vary by state, so where the case is filed affects what the court can require.
Franchise dealers are the regular car dealerships that sell a brand’s cars under an official agreement. The argument here is that Scout’s direct sales bypass those dealers and hurt their business.
The segment says Scout is a “VW-backed brand,” meaning Volkswagen is involved behind the scenes. The lawsuit uses that connection to argue Scout is competing unfairly with regular dealerships.
Volkswagen Group is the big company behind the VW car brands. In this segment, it’s relevant because Scout is described as VW-backed, and the guest covers Volkswagen Group news.
Jack Wallsworth is the guest on the show. He covers Volkswagen Group and its brands, and he’s explaining what the lawsuit could mean for Scout and dealerships.
“EV-only sales” refers to a regulatory carve-out that allows direct sales rules to apply only to electric vehicles, not all vehicle types. The host says Washington has allowed EV-only sales for a long time, mainly due to Tesla’s influence.
Tesla is a car company. Here, it’s being credited with helping Washington allow certain EV sales to be handled directly to customers instead of through the usual dealership model.
Rivian is an electric vehicle brand. The host says Washington recently allowed Rivian to sell directly to customers, which is part of the broader dealer vs. direct-sales fight.
Lucid is an electric car company. The episode says Washington recently allowed Lucid to sell directly to customers, not just through traditional dealerships.
A “narrow exemption” is a small exception to the normal law. In this case, it’s meant to let certain car brands sell directly to customers even though the default system favors traditional dealerships.
Company
VW
“VW” just means Volkswagen. Here it’s part of the legal question about whether Scout is truly independent from Volkswagen.
This part is about an earlier court decision in California. It’s important because it suggests how judges may view whether Scout is connected to Volkswagen or truly independent.
An affiliate is a company that’s connected to another company in a legal or ownership way. In this case, the question is whether Scout is closely tied to Volkswagen—because that affects whether it can claim it’s truly independent from Volkswagen dealers.
The Ford Expedition is a large SUV made to fit more people, often including families. It’s meant for everyday driving but also for trips where you need lots of space. It may be mentioned when someone talks about needing room for many passengers.
Shelby is a well-known name in car performance. When the host lists Shelby alongside other brands, they’re basically saying the dealership works with higher-performance, more enthusiast-oriented vehicles.
Black Widow is a name people associate with special car builds and performance/appearance packages. The host is using it to show the dealership carries or works with more customized, enthusiast brands.
Brand
Harley trucks
This sounds like trucks that are themed around Harley-Davidson style. The point in the segment is that the dealership isn’t just selling regular cars—it’s offering themed, personality-driven builds.
“Blowers” here means a supercharger. It forces extra air into the engine so it can make more power. People add it when they want a stronger, faster car.
A lift kit raises the car higher off the ground. It usually helps fit bigger tires and gives more clearance for rough roads or off-roading, and it also changes the look.
The Ford Mustang is a popular performance car that a lot of people modify. Here, they’re talking about customizing Mustangs with upgrades like superchargers and other parts to make them faster or more unique.
RTR is a brand that makes Mustang-focused performance and appearance upgrades. The dealership is saying they carry RTR so customers can get a more customized Mustang.
A supercharger forces extra air into the engine. More air helps the engine make more power, which is why performance shops add it to build faster cars.
LIVE
Welcome to Daily Drive for Wednesday, July 8th, 2026.
I'm Jake Nier in Detroit, in for Kellan Walker.
Today on the show, Ram is carrying Stellantis on its back, at least for now, a shooting
at a GM truck plant in Texas, and Washington state dealers take scout motors to court over
its sales model.
Plus, NASCAR champion Joey Logano checks back in with us at Automotive News about what he's
learning inside the car business.
I love learning about how that is all done, but even from the number standpoint, looking
at the financial reports, that's really enjoyable for me too, to learn what makes a dealership
work.
Let's run through all the news you need to know to keep up in the auto industry.
Stellantis is on pace to snap a seven-year streak of declining U.S. sales, and it has
Ram to thank.
Ram 1500 sales climbed 27% in the second quarter, helping the automaker post its fourth consecutive
quarterly U.S. gain and a 6% rise in first-half deliveries.
But the rest of the portfolio struggled.
Jeep Grand Cherokee, Compass, Wrangler, Gladiator, and Dodge Durango all slipped.
The Wrangler even lost ground to the Ford Bronco for the first time since their rivalry
relaunched in 2021.
A shooting at GM's Arlington Assembly Plant in Texas has left one employee in critical
condition.
Arlington police say the 24-year-old victim was found in the factory parking lot early
Monday morning, apparently shot multiple times.
Police arrested 26-year-old suspect Larry Hines after he called 911 himself.
Investigators say the shooting followed a verbal argument between the two men.
A GM spokesperson confirmed both men are employees at the plant, which builds full-size SUVs,
including the Chevrolet Tahoe and Suburban, GMC Yukon, and Cadillac Escalade.
And Washington State's Auto Dealers Association is suing Scout Motors to block its direct-to-consumer
sales model.
It argues the VW-backed brand is illegally competing with franchise dealers.
Similar lawsuits are already underway in California, Florida, and Virginia.
Here to talk about what it all means for Scout and VW dealers in the Pacific Northwest
and everywhere else is our own Jack Wallsworth, who covers Volkswagen Group and its brands
for automotive news, including Scout.
Jack, welcome back to Daily Drive.
Hey, Jack, good to be here.
You know, it's one of those situations where, you know, you being in Seattle, nice coincidence
in some ways that you're right in the center of the action here.
Yeah, for sure.
Ironically, I was at a cars and coffee event back in May where Scout was at, which was
mentioned in the lawsuits.
So, you know, I wasn't necessarily expecting the lawsuit to happen, but I had some art
to go with the story.
But yeah, definitely a little bit closer home-type story for me compared to the other
lawsuits that we've been writing about.
Yep.
So, is there anything that makes this Washington lawsuit different from those ones that I mentioned
already that were filed in other states?
So, I would say, kind of, it's a little nuanced.
The main argument, I would say, is generally the same with the Washington lawsuit compared
with the other ones.
Well, it's a little bit different with some of the lawsuits.
So in the case of the Florida and Virginia lawsuits, those, I should say, the Florida
one was a group of Volkswagen and Audi dealers filed the lawsuit.
The Virginia one was brought by a pair of East Coast Volkswagen dealerships.
The Washington lawsuit is like the California one, in which it's the Washington State Dealer
Association that filed the lawsuit.
So it's not an individual Volkswagen store or a group of stores.
It's the State Dealer Association, kind of, filing it on behalf of everybody.
And in this lawsuit, the Washington State Dealer Association was clear that this was
for, you know, all franchise, new vehicle franchise dealerships in the state, not just
Volkswagen, Audi, Porsche stores, things like that.
So that's slightly different.
And I guess the other thing that's different is, you know, circumstance or timing.
So, you know, listeners that live in the Northwest know that EV-only sales have been allowed
here in Washington, mainly because of Tesla for a long time.
Tesla has long had to carve out here in Washington's date.
But then recently, Rivian and Lucid also gained the ability to sell direct to consumer here
in Washington.
That was fairly recently, it was earlier this year.
And that was after Rivian had kind of threatened to fund a valid initiative in support of direct
sales.
And basically, you know, there was some dealer support for this law where it would kind of
provide like what was called a narrow exemption by the Washington State Dealer Association
to allow, you know, some brands to sell direct.
But certainly they do not want to extend that exemption to Scout as we're kind of seeing
with this lawsuit.
So, as we've talked about on the show before, Scout says it's independent from VW.
Do we have a sense now that these lawsuits have been out there for a little bit, how
the courts are treating that argument so far?
Yeah, that's a great question.
Like the only really like clue we've seen or, you know, hint of what could happen or maybe
not.
But the only thing we've really seen was back in March, there was a ruling in the California
lawsuit.
Basically, the judge in that lawsuit said that the California New Cardiola Association
properly alleged that Scout is Volkswagen Group of America's affiliate and that Scout
is competing with Volkswagen franchise dealerships in the sale of new vehicles.
Outside of that, you know, at least I'm not aware of other things that have kind of pointed
to an answer or maybe a clue as to what's to come.
But I kind of feel like with these lawsuits, you know, they've all kind of been filed at
different times.
The timelines are a little bit staggered.
You know, if we see, you know, one lawsuit goes a certain way in answering that question
of Scout's independence, maybe we would see quicker answers and other lawsuits.
But until then, I expect we'll hear dealers cry foul over Scout's connections of Volkswagen
Group and then Scout say that they're also independent.
So I think, you know, kind of to be determined, but we will see and hopefully soon.
And we know you'll be all over it, Jack.
Thank you so much for following this story and your reporting and thanks for joining
us today on Daily Drive.
Yep.
Anytime.
Thanks, Jack.
Back in January, our own Michael Martinez sat down with Joey Logano to talk about why
a NASCAR champion would want to buy into a dealership in the first place.
That conversation covered the origin story, Logano's years as a customer, his relationship
with operating partner Stacy Cowan, the case for getting in when he did.
Now a few months into the journey, Logano talks about how much more complex the business
turned out to be up close and where he thinks he can add something to the business.
Our own Paige Hodder sat down with Logano and Cowan, who she reached at their store.
Joey, since you've gotten into auto retail, I guess, like since you've like officially
joined the business, have there been any like surprises or challenges, anything unexpected?
It's way more complex than I thought it was.
Right from the outside looking in, you see obviously car sales, use cars, new cars, okay,
you know, parts and service, okay, how complex can that be?
Boy, oh boy, it's more than I thought.
For sure.
I got a great coach that's taught me a lot, you know, just going through all of it, right?
The operational side, I love learning about how that is all done, but even from the number
standpoint, looking at the financial reports, that's really enjoyable for me too, to learn
what makes a dealership work.
I'm sure everyone listening to this that's in this world understands that, but boy, it
is far more complex than I ever expected.
So you know, I feel like right now I'm trying to be a sponge the best I can.
We're just learning and taking it all in and then obviously adding, you know, my two
cents where I can and where I think things can be even better.
So it's been a, I've enjoyed the heck out of it, if I'm being honest, I've had a lot
of fun.
I wish I can be here more than I am, right?
Like the fact that I'm still racing cars right now, so I still have my day job that I have
to commit to, but you know, I try to get here, you know, usually once a week and spend some
time here and be able to, you know, meet the team, meet, have everybody does things, learn
as much as I can, because it is something that I want to be more involved in someday
when that day comes.
So it's definitely a fun industry.
I like cars, obviously it's like in my blood that I just love cars, Ford's got great products,
awesome, really cool products, practical products too, because I use them all.
So I think just kind of a natural relationship, natural opportunity, and I guess I'm just
taking it all in.
Since you guys have been working together, maybe this is just encompassed, you know,
how not even just like the official partnership, but your working relationship, are there any
like, I guess, strong memories or great moments where you're like, this is why I love like
the car business or this is just like a moment that really stood out that was like cool or
special or anything like that.
Undercover Joey.
How about that?
Number one, for sure, whenever human as a immigrant, they went undercover to a full one of my
salesman, who's actually a manager now, but that was just one of those moments that was
just amazing to me.
Like this is why I do this, you know, we forget that there are some fun times that we can have
instead of it just being business, business, business, business.
And there have been definitely some great memories.
We did a commercial, I guess a little social commercial where Joe was actually doing donuts
around me.
And I was like, this is what I got in this business for, you know, we forget all the
fun times and things that we can actually do.
And that's what's brought it back to life for me.
And it's just gave me a whole new lease on the whole dealership.
I have a lot of fun with that stuff as well.
But what I mean, I purely enjoy, you know, Stacy is the type of person that you can just
call the BS with, right, and say, Hey, and be a friend.
But also, you know, he's, I don't know if he ever sleeps, so I call him at all different
hours of the day.
And he's always answering, but we can always just kind of go through what's going on, right?
My schedules hectic as can be.
So I'm always kind of in different places and different parts of the country and stuff.
But even when I'm not here, I can call Stacy and be like, Hey, you know, what's going on
here or this and that?
And we can run through ideas and run through, you know, different things that are happening
within the business, different fire drills, whatever there may be, and being involved
in all that.
So I've enjoyed that.
You know, I have a partner that's willing to take that time to educate me, but also
involve me.
It'd be just as easy for Stacy to just kind of be, Hey, you know, you're the name on
the building.
You're just a, you know, a partner in the dealership, but, you know, let me do it all.
He's been very open with every facet of the business and is open to the ideas that I may
bring to the table with those.
And the honesty is what matters to me because he'll tell me when it's a bad idea.
And I'm like, I'm good with that too.
Just tell me the truth.
That's all I want people to do is tell me the truth and what that is.
So it's been a really good working relationship, but also a friendship as well.
And that's right.
And we do talk a lot, but what's funny is he is like a sponge.
He retains this information that I tell him.
We don't actually ever go back over it and it's on interviews like this and I actually
hear to where he says something and I'm like, Oh, he did listen to me.
He did hear it.
He did enjoy that because he's so busy and he goes all the time.
You know, we do just, we do discuss probably an hour or two a week, you know, we're on
the phones or, you know, going over the business, but it's not like we recap on things.
So that's why I enjoy interviews like this.
So I can actually hear him saying that he heard something or listened to it and he
loved that idea.
So I guess looking forward a little bit.
Do you guys have any plans or thoughts about the future and, you know, your involvement
in auto retail?
The plan is that how do we, like I said earlier, how do we make Joe Ligato's hundreds of Ford
different and better than the others?
And how do we stand out and right?
A lot of that's going to be, we want to make sure that we're, you know, to me is some core
values need to be in that, right?
We need to be honest with our, our customers.
We want the experience to be fun and enjoyable.
I want it to be a place where people want to go, not you have to go when you're, you
need to get something fixed on your car or you have to go buy a new car.
Like we want it to be a place that's like you want to come to Joe Ligato's hundreds
and four. That's where you want to be.
It's cool place. It's a fun place and it's open for everybody, right?
Whether you're a performance person that likes, you know, fast cars or you need the
the cruiser for your family, right?
Or you need an expedition to put them all in.
I got five kids. I know how that is as well.
So I think that's what, you know, is, is important to me is making it a, you know,
a class A type place.
There's a lot of plans, nothing that we can announce yet, but a lot of things in the
in the work that we have in place that are is going to be game changing for sure.
But we got to get to that point.
I think some of the fun stuff for me too, you know, I love the customizing cars part
of it. And that's something that, you know, already this dealership was doing great
already, right? Like when you think of the brands of Shelby, Hennessy, Black Widow,
I'm sure I'm missing a few of them here. We had a few Harley trucks.
Like there's, there's some really cool stuff that they're already doing, but they
already put on top of that.
The, the outfit department here is pretty awesome where, you know, they're putting
blowers on Mustangs and trucks and lift kits and tires and wheels and all the
cool stuff, right? To like really customize your vehicle.
That's where I'm like, heck, yeah, that's awesome.
And whether that's building them to sell them or building them special for a
customer or people coming in wanting to get their, their cars done, like we want
to be known as a dealership that can do that as well.
So I think that's a, to me, the funnest part, that's like the passion behind
what I do is I like fast cars.
I like unique cars, things that are different.
So it's neat to have an avenue to really grow that side too.
No, that is the fun side is actually being able to do that.
I've done that for a while and he just brings a whole new level to it.
And as he says, you know, we sell Shelby, Hennessy, RTR, Black Widow, you know,
Fox. So we've always had, you know, these trucks and cars that were
outfitted and, you know, like he said, with super chargers and lift kits.
And it's just, that is the fun side of it to me and always has been.
So I'm glad that he, he enjoys that just as much as I do, if not more.
NASCAR champion Joey Logano and Huntersville Ford operating partner
Stacy Cowan spoke with our own Page Hotter.
That's daily drive for today. I'm Jake Nier.
Thanks to our own Jack Wallsworth, Vince Bond, Jr. and Lindsey Van Holy for
their reporting for today's podcast.
You can get the latest news on Scout Motors direct to consumer legal battles,
Stalantis's sales recovery and everything happening in the auto industry at autonews.com.
Come back tomorrow for a conversation with Shell Berg, CEO of Borton Volvo in
Minnesota, who says the Trump administration's move to bar poll
star from the U.S. raises questions that go well beyond one brand.
My level of trust in my government in terms of predictability and acting as
a rational actor is substantially diminished from what it has been in earlier
decades.
We'd love to hear from you.
Let us know what you think of the show and the topics we covered today.
Send us an email at dailydrive at autonews.com or leave us a voicemail at
313-444-2774.
And if you enjoy the podcast, remember to like, leave a review and subscribe so
you never miss an episode.
About this episode
Ram’s sales momentum is keeping Stellantis afloat, with the Ram 1500 up 27% in Q2 and the brand helping drive a fourth straight quarterly U.S. gain—while Jeep and Dodge models continue to slip. A shooting at GM’s Arlington Assembly Plant in Texas leaves one employee critically injured and results in an arrest. In Washington state, the Auto Dealers Association sues Scout Motors to stop its direct-to-consumer model, arguing it unlawfully competes with franchise dealers; the episode compares this case to earlier lawsuits and discusses how courts may treat Scout’s claimed independence from VW. NASCAR champ Joey Logano also shares how dealership ownership has surprised him with its complexity and the value of learning from his operating partner.
