Nov. 21, 2025 | Ford suppliers go to court over canceled EVs; Cox Automotive’s Skylar Chadwick

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Welcome to Daily Drive for Friday, November 21st, 2025. I'm Kellen Walker in Los Angeles, today on the show.

Orts suppliers go to court over a cancelled EV supply contract. China makes new demands to end the next-period chip crisis, and Stellantis looks to regain lost fleet share.

Plus, Cox Automotive's Skyler Chadwick talks about the findings from the company's new service industry study.

We should see customers drop off after five years. No, now it's actually at two years we're starting to see those customers deflect to those generic bear shops and those quick lanes.

Let's run through all the news you need to know to keep up in the auto industry.

A tier two supplier is suing next-tier over a cancelled Ford EV program.

Swabota Incorporated claims it spent $3 million on tooling and machinery for Ford's next-generation electric pickup before next-tier abruptly cancelled the agreement.

The lawsuit claims next-tier promise to cover those costs if the program didn't move forward.

It's the latest legal battle stemming from automakers overshot EV projections. Industry experts say smaller suppliers under a billion dollars in revenue are particularly vulnerable when programs cancel.

And more litigation is likely as automakers continue re-evaluating their EV strategies.

China says the Netherlands hasn't gone far enough to resolve a dispute over chip maker next-period that's disrupted global auto production.

Beijing's Ministry of Commerce is demanding the Dutch government fully revoke its seizure of the company, not just suspended.

While China recently exempted civilian chip exports and the Dutch suspended their takeover order, Beijing says there are still critical barriers in place.

They include a court ruling that stripped the Chinese owner of control.

More negotiations are expected as the standoff continues.

And Stellantis is making a major push to grow its US fleet business after years of sidelineing the segment.

The automaker's commercial division in Europe holds nearly 30% market share, but Stellantis captured just 12% of North American commercial fleet sales earlier this year.

Now Stellantis is diversifying beyond rental cars into higher margin government and commercial customers.

It hired Fleet Veteran Michael Ferreira to lead the effort and saw third quarter US fleet sales jump 22%.

The company is bundling its brands with upfitting services and connectivity tools and expects to accelerate market share gain in 2026.

In those are today's headlines, you could find more details on all those stories at autonews.com.

Joining me now here in LA is our own Jack Wallsworth who covers Volkswagen Group for us at Automotive News and is covering this week's Auto Show.

Jack, welcome back to Daily Drive.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

So Jack, what has been the highlights for you so far?

Sure, yeah, this year there wasn't a ton of debuts, but the ones that were were pretty interesting.

So I would say, you know, the big things were the Hyundai Crater concept and the Kia Tally Ride.

Those were the two big things on the press conference scheduled yesterday, both attracted big crowds.

You know, the Tally Ride, it's the first time that nameplate's been redesigned.

It's been super successful for Kia, so seeing it in person for the first time was cool.

They had an outfit in a few different trims, so you could kind of see all of the different offers.

They had one that was kind of like imagined for like off-roading with a bunch of off-roading and all that stuff.

Also at the stand, so that was neat.

And the Kia is also giving a hybrid powertrain for the first time.

As we all know, hybrids are very popular right now with U.S. shoppers,

just seeing that was was interesting.

And the non-hybrid Tally Ride now has a turbo 4 instead of a V6,

so another significant powertrain changed there.

You know, on the other side of the hall, it was one funny thing that Kia was on one side.

Hyundai was on the entire other side.

So a lot of walking yesterday, but on the other side of the hall was where Hyundai was

and they had their creator concepts.

Again, big crowd, a lot of interest.

I went back a few times just trying to get photos and there was people

all over the place for quite a while after.

You know, Hyundai really hasn't had a true off-road vehicle

and they haven't said if this is going to go in production or not,

but it looked pretty substantial and, you know,

again, seeing it up close in personal school.

And it's also neat that it was a concept.

You know, we don't see concept cars all the time at auto shows anymore.

And so kudos to Hyundai for bringing out a concept that can kind of make

making it feel like an old-time auto show from years past.

But those have been the big highlights.

On the non-new cars side, there was one interesting thing.

Volkswagen showed a restored microbus that had been damaged

in the, you know, really devastating palisades

fire earlier at the beginning of the year.

They had contacted the owner.

They got in touch with her.

They did a full-on restoration.

So they revealed that car yesterday at the show.

And that was neat.

I mean, it wasn't a new and it's not something they're selling.

It was just something they did for this one person,

but it was it was a cool moment as well.

So those are my my theory big ones.

So we both got to check out Hyundai's new crater concept yesterday at the show.

And you write on autonews.com that it suggests

Hyundai may be wandering deep off road.

What do you make of it?

I mean, it's interesting.

They have an XRT trim, which is offered on several other models.

And on the concept, XRT was all over the car.

So it was kind of interesting.

Like, is this maybe signaling future design

used for those models?

Or is it a new model entirely?

We've seen a lot of automakers do more off-roady trims,

off-roady packages.

Some models have been introduced.

The Ford Bronco is probably the biggest example of this.

I think Jeep for a long time kind of had that space to themselves.

The Bronco, they're still competitors.

But I think that kind of showed the market could expand a little bit.

So we'll see if it'll find a follow suit.

It wouldn't surprise me.

The Hyundai's been really aggressive with their product expansion.

They've kind of really widened it a lot over the last few years.

And it's typically when they show a concept car

that's pretty good indicator of what is to come.

So I would imagine, or I would be shocked

if we see a production version down there.

I mean, and it has a pretty good name, crater.

I mean, I'm kind of surprised.

No one has picked that yet here in 2025.

So it definitely seems to have a couple of good ingredients going for it.

So perfect.

Jack, thank you so much for joining me anytime.

You can hear more of our conversations from the LA Auto Show

on our weekend drive edition of the show.

I'll be talking with our own Jerry Hirsch

and Larry Velliquette about the show,

as well as Akyotoio's decision to go full

MAGA in Japan this week.

That's available Saturday morning coming up.

More customers are choosing independent shops

instead of sticking with dealership service drives.

We'll hear more about it from Cox Auto Motives Skylar Chadwick next on Daily Drive.

Educating consumers about EVs can be a big lift for dealers.

Michael Barrabe is a former Department of Energy official

and the new CEO of CalStart.

He joins us this week on the Automotive News shift podcast

to talk about how CalStart is helping retailers

reach more customers and move EVs off their lots.

As technology been evolving, it's been more about the technology.

Now it's just we've got to be, how do you make it simple for consumers?

I'm Molly Boygon and I'm Hannah Lutz.

Barrabe also talks about how private companies can work

with the public sector to get more stability

around clean energy policies.

And as always, we bring you the latest news

from the world of automotive technology and innovation.

That's available Sunday morning on shift wherever you get your podcasts.

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Welcome back to Daily Drive.

I'm Kellen Walker.

dealership service departments continue

to struggle to retain customers' long-term.

That's according to Cox Automotive's

latest service industry study.

Skyler Chadwick is Director of Product Consulting

for Sales at Cox.

He spoke with Automotive News,

Senior Retail Editor, Dan Shine.

Skyler, thanks so much for joining me

on the Fixed-Ops Friday edition of Daily Drive.

Yeah, totally.

I'm excited to be here with you today, for sure.

So Cox Automotive is just released.

It's Cox Automotive Service Industry Study

and not a lot of good news for if you're in the dealership service

department business.

Not a lot of good things for dealerships going on here.

Some highlights, but some troubling things as well.

What were your kind of your main takeaways

that you take from this study?

You know, there's probably three big trends that I would say

that when we look at this study as dealerships

and what we should be looking at as our processes

and our goals going into next year,

what's really, really kind of struggling to me

is the intensifying of competition.

It is really out there.

Back in 2023, we had a 33% drop from 2018.

Now it's 29%.

So what that means is that general repair shops are up.

And so what that means is that the piece of the pie

that dealerships are so used to having in the service lane

and that those dealerships is being taken away

by the actual general repair shops.

Those are your quick lanes,

your fast-loop kind of services.

And the other thing too is like loyalty

is having a struggle too as well, right?

So convenience is trumping dealership loyalty

as we see customers deflect from going to the dealership

and going to these general repairs.

That loyalty is their dealerships are struggling

to find that loyalty and continue to carry that loyalty

into their actual ecosystem

and continue that on forward too as well.

Now we say the other thing too is like

we're not looking at service lane.

Inventory is a gold mine, right?

I think we think about the service lane

as just a way for consumers

to bring the vehicles in for the dealership.

We got to start thinking about that differently.

And what's interesting to me is in this study,

33% of consumers are interested

in getting a trade evaluation on their vehicle.

And so as dealerships,

we started to start looking at how we actually equity mind

as these vehicles get older,

what does that do to our customer base and so forth?

And we're actually seeing that actual range

where customers are getting those service recommendations,

those high bill recommendations

as vehicles are getting older.

We're seeing consumers in that 33% range would say,

hey, if you gave me a $3,000 bill today,

I'm going to consider maybe looking at getting a new

vehicle or into used vehicle, whatever they may be.

And so that's kind of a standing point too.

So those are my big three takeaways.

Is that intensifying competition is there?

Convenience, how do we look at that?

How do we battle that as a dealerships?

And then obviously, how do we bring that sales

service strategy going forward?

Interesting about the trade ins as well, news.

You see more and more dealerships kind of trying to get away

from the auctions and they want to try

and source their own vehicles there.

And the service department is a great place for you.

You talk about, I think my first car,

I had it for a while and I was kind of thinking,

I should get a new car.

Then I got the clutch went out and I was like,

you know what, time for a new car.

It's all they brought to the dealership.

I said, I don't want to pay for a new clutch.

And they say, here is a new car.

Here's a new car and bought a new car from them.

So I think there's valid what you say is

that there's good opportunities there

for dealerships in their service department

if they really put a good effort into it.

Yeah, I think about it.

I think the best auction I always tell dealerships

is the auction in your dealership today

and that you're service lane.

And think about that too is some of these customers

actually have service contracts on the car.

And so those are some of the best cars to buy

because we know that car has been well maintained.

And so buying cars that you actually know

and you know the history of that vehicle

that can really help kind of boost that conversation

and start thinking about, hey, maybe we need to start looking

at how we help our customers.

Who are our customers in that 33% range

of customers that are looking to trade those vehicles in

who actually have buying signals

or actively searching for a new car

as their vehicle is getting older

and they don't want to see.

We're starting to see that change

where we're starting to see where customers are saying

and you may not want to repair this.

I actually may want to replace.

Yeah.

And I'm also struck by, like you said,

there's just more and more options

for car owners out there to take

where to take your car to get repair and to get to maintain.

What do you think dealerships need to do

to kind of make that case

that the dealership is the place for them?

You know, again, I think people in their minds

think dealerships more because it would be more expensive

than the chain down the street

or the shade tree guy

or, you know, the neighborhood mechanic.

And so I think that's, you know,

it's hard for dealerships to find against that.

What do they need to do better?

Do you think to kind of bring those people in

and make the case for them?

Yeah.

I think the biggest thing dealerships need to do

is they need to go re-look at their tools

that they're using.

And I would start with schedule.

I don't know how many times Dan and I

that I actually get on a call

with a dealership principal or GM

and I always ask them a question,

have you ever scheduled your card

at your dealership before?

Have you ever made a service appointment?

A lot of times I get the answers.

No, no, like I just drive in the service lane

and here's my keys and I ask them

to give me an oil change.

And so what we're starting to see is that actual scheduling

is probably one of the biggest deflectors

for consumers to go out to these general repairs

because think about our Dan.

We don't go to Amazon.

We don't see pricing upfront, right?

And I had this about a month ago

when I truck actually needed some services.

I actually tested this actually.

Instead of just like, hey,

let me go back to my actual dealership

that I actually do service with.

I wanted to see how many of the Ford OEM dealerships

actually could tell me what it was going to cost

to get an oil change on my truck.

And out of those four, only one could tell me

that what the price was going to cost me

to get an oil change.

And so we've got to build transparency and trust

from day one, right?

If the customer can't find what they're looking for,

they're going to deflect.

The other thing is, how much time is it,

are we waiting for customers to come in for services?

Is it, are we pushing customers up two, three weeks?

And that's really deflecting then.

So how are we leveraging our scheduling tool

to really look at the white space that we have

to make sure that we're actually making sure

that we're making contact with that customer,

that customer actually schedules that appointment,

actually gets through that they know the price

and they know exactly what they're going to see

when they actually show up to the dealership

and create that trust and transparency.

So to me, personally, it really has got to start

with scheduler and making sure that if we do have a BDC

that our BDC people are armed with the right tools,

all right, they can tell the customer

what it's going to cost to get those picks

without having to waste a dealership's time

and spending 10, 12 minutes on a call

to see what breaks are going to cost me, right?

There, we have tools that are out there today

that can kind of have we streamline that

and make sure that we get the right answers

to the customers immediately as possible.

I was with a group of service managers

and service directors down in Florida

for a meeting of just this past week

and one of the things they really talked about

and the hammer home is menu pricing.

The here's the menu, here's what's going to cost you.

Oh, you need new breaks?

Here's what it is, you know, up front.

And then also a lot of them had, you know, financing for it.

Okay, you know, all this is going to be a break

child's going to be 900 bucks,

but over three months, you can pay it out over three months

or over six months, whatever it might be.

And that really helped sell a lot of maintenance

and repairs just because consumers weren't

didn't have that sticker shock of a big repair bill.

They could kind of cut it out.

So I think things like that too, I think to your point,

make it more palatable for a customer to go to a dealership

and feel good about the service they receive.

Yeah, and I think another big piece

that we're starting to see in the industry

is mobile service and also service pick and delivery.

No, I'm not saying that's an every single market

but there are markets that are really training to that.

And it really goes back to that convenience factor

and really helping the customer feel convenient.

I don't know how many times I've caught,

they came and picked up one of my vehicles,

I have a service, it's super nice

and it's really convenient for me

that I can do other things and get things done.

And not really have to worry about those things.

So we're starting to see that come back.

We're seeing some Williams get behind that too as well.

But really honestly, dealers retention has declined, right?

And I think that is a huge factor.

We're actually starting to see those customers deflect

at that two-year mark in our study, right?

72% of those customers were back in 2023.

Now it's 54% in 2025.

It's quite a drop, yeah, a shot drop.

A major drop and so we're starting to see

that we should see customers drop off after five years.

No, now it's actually at two years

we're starting to see those customers deflect

to those gender repairs, shops and those quick lanes,

tire services and things like that.

And so we really have got to make sure

that we really are providing the right market research

that we actually do some research in our customers

because like I always tell people, right?

At Toyota customers, not the same as Alexis customers.

So we got to make sure that we were really doing

our due diligence as dealerships

and make sure that we're meeting

our actual customer satisfaction.

Scott, that's a great information, good analysis.

I really appreciate it through your time.

Thanks so much.

Yeah, thanks so much for having me today.

That's daily drive for today, I'm Kellen Walker.

Thanks to automotive news, executive producer Jake Nier

as well as our own Jack Wallsworth,

John John and Vince Bon Jr. for their reporting

for today's podcast.

We also had reporting from Kurt Nagel

of our sibling publication, Crane's Detroit Business.

You can get the latest news on service and parts,

supply chains and everything happening

in the auto industry at autonews.com.

Come back over the weekend for our weekend drive edition

of the show.

I talk with our own Larry Belliquette and Jerry Hirsch

about their impressions of this year's LA Auto Show,

as well as Akio Toyota's surprising tribute

to Donald Trump in Japan this week.

There are a lot of things that I don't understand

why this happened, mostly primarily because it abandoned

decades of careful, cautious presentation by Toyota

to be apolitical.

We'd love to hear from you,

let us know what you think of the show

on the topics we cover today.

Send us an email at dailydriveatautonews.com

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Nov. 21, 2025 | Ford suppliers go to court over canceled EVs; Cox Automotive’s Skylar Chadwick

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dealership cybersecurity

dealership IT management

Stellantis

electric vehicle

Cox Automotive

Ford

Swabota Incorporated

chip crisis

US fleet business

commercial division

fleet sales

connectivity tools

upfitting services

Hyundai Crater concept

Kia Tally Ride

hybrid powertrain

turbo

Hyundai Creator concept

Volkswagen microbus

restoration

XRT trim

off-roady trims/packages

Jeep

concept car

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