Americans Are Keeping Their Cars Longer Than Ever — and Remaking the Auto Industry
Timothy Mason drives a pair of Honda Accords: One is a 2010 model with fewer than 40,000 miles that he uses for his daily commute in Massachusetts to his accounting job, the other a 2001 V-6 with more than 280,000 miles he uses for tough winter driving. “Where’s the financial sense in a new car?” Mason, 41, says. “Better fuel mileage, maybe, but is it going to save me $800 plus per month?” Mason is on the extreme side of something happening across the country: America’s cars are older than ever.Some drivers are squeezing more miles out of their vehicles and eschewing new rides because of sticker shock, high interest rates and economic jitters. Others are hanging on to aging wheels simply because they can. Thanks to advancements in engineering, materials and safety technology, today’s cars last longer than vehicles of generations past. According to The Wall Street Journal, the average vehicle on U.S. roads is about 13 years old, a historic high and a 10 percent jump from a decade ago. While cars have steadily grown older over the last 15 years, the trend picked up after the Covid pandemic, when shuttered factories and supply-chain snarls drove up prices. Click here for the full story.
1st-Quarter Dealership Buy-Sells Soar with California Leading States, Chevrolet Most-Traded Brand
First-quarter dealership buy-sell transactions jumped 32 percent year over year, and California was the most active state by the number of stores sold, according to preliminary first-quarter 2026 Automotive News data. The 95 first-quarter deals also showed publicly held retailers sold more stores than they bought, while Chevrolet changed hands more than any other brand.Here are key takeaways from confirmed first-quarter deals. The number of dealerships and franchises involved in the transactions also rose in the first quarter compared with the same 2025 quarter. The 95 deals involved 133 dealerships representing 189 franchises. There were also several multistore deals in the first quarter. The top two buyers by store count were Jeff Wyler Automotive Family Inc., of Milford, Ohio, and MileOne Autogroup, of Towson, Md., each buying six stores. There is high demand for Chevrolet franchises, dealers told Kerrigan Advisors in its 2025 Kerrigan Dealer Survey released in January. “Chevrolet has the highest expectation of increase in value of the domestics as well, above Ford, and so they are the leading domestic in the buy-sell market from what we see,” said Erin Kerrigan, managing director of Kerrigan Advisors. Click here for the full story.
AI Is Now the Front Line of FTC Compliance for Dealers
Devin Daly, co-founder and CEO of Impel, says the FTC’s pricing transparency push is far from over, and dealers who assumed regulatory pressure lifted with the 2025 rule vacatur are now facing a new round of scrutiny. Daly joins us on today’s episode of CBT News’ Inside Automotive to break down what has changed, where dealers are getting tripped up and how AI is reshaping compliance from the inside out. When the Fifth Circuit vacated the FTC’s Combating Auto Retail Scams rule in January 2025, many dealers interpreted it as a sign the regulatory fight was over. However, according to Daly, that reading was wrong. In March 2026, the FTC sent warning letters to 97 dealer groups nationwide, requiring that advertised prices reflect the full, all-in cost to the consumer. After that, the industry’s response was swift. In June 2026, Cox Automotive paused its good and great price badges on vehicle listings, a move Daly states indicates a broader reevaluation of how pricing information is displayed throughout the retail ecosystem. Daly says one of the most common blind spots for dealers is the assumption that FTC compliance lives only in marketing materials and website ad copy. Click here for the full story.
Why Toyota RAV4s Are Suddenly the Most Coveted Used Cars in America
Most cars lose value the moment they leave a dealer’s lot. The RAV4 hybrid gains it. Used, late-model versions of the RAV4 hybrid often list for more than their original sticker prices, even with thousands of miles on their odometers. In some cases, they cost more than a new 2026 model fresh from the Toyota Motor Corp. factory, reports Bloomberg. The price inversion seems to defy a natural law of used-car economics. But it illustrates some of the most powerful forces driving the U.S. auto market this year. The Iran war sent gas prices surging, with the national average for regular well above $4 per gallon. Some car buyers have responded by snapping up used electric vehicles, which often sell at a steep discount from their original price. Others who are either unwilling or unable to go fully electric have turned to hybrids, which pair an electric motor with a gas-burning engine. Long considered a niche product in the U.S., they’re now highly coveted. And for the moment at least, there aren’t enough new hybrid RAV4s to go around. Click here for the full story.
Bank of America’s Weekly Rates Market Update
BofA Global Rates Research note that U.S. data continues to surprise to the upside, reinforcing a reflation backdrop where resilient consumption, firm labor markets, and elevated input costs slow the pace of disinflation and keep inflation risks skewed higher.The Fed’s reaction function is becoming incrementally more hawkish, as persistent inflation and stronger activity challenge the willingness to “look through” supply-driven shocks and instead push policymakers toward maintaining restrictive policy for longer. BofA Global Rates Research takeaway is that this dynamic supports a higher-for-longer front-end and a flatter curve bias, as markets increasingly price a Fed focused on inflation containment and reassess the level of neutral rates in a more resilient macro regime. Click here for the full report.
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