Automotive News Canada - September 2020 - 2

CVMA'S NEW CEO: WHAT DRIVES BRIAN KINGSTON/P17

SEPTEMBER 2020 | VOL. 4, NO. 9 | AUTOMOTIVENEWS.CA FOR BREAKING NEWS AND DIGITAL EDITION

&
M
A
EVOLUTION

Are current image programs obsolete?
By STEPHANIE WALLCRAFT
TORONTO CORRESPONDENT

Buying closer to home
Groups team up for new stores
*
Will technology gap force
single points to merge?
*
*

SPECIAL REPORT/P22-P23

THE CANADIAN AUTOMOBILE
Dealers Association (CADA) wants
automakers to consider putting
image programs on hold as retailers claw their way back from the
financial fallout of COVID-19.
CADA Chief Executive Tim

Inventory
scramble
WINNIPEG CORRESPONDENT

DEALERS ACROSS CANADA
are scrambling to meet a surprising surge in demand for
vehicles as new-car assembly
lines across North America
continue to ramp up and used
vehicles remain in short
supply.

Winnipeg dealer Dan
Murray: "If a carrier is
offloading five or six
vehicles, we're delivering
four of them the next day."

SIGNS CANADA
IS
LAGGING
AS A TECHNOLOGY
POWERHOUSE

FILE PHOTO

The pandemic is pushing transit riders
into vehicle ownership, and dealerships
are adapting and profiting.
Sell a used car now and a new one later?
Streamlining intake for greater margins
* Addressing inventory pressures
*
*

P14/15

Fall sales could be frosty
Economic factors
loom large after
a stronger-thanexpected summer

market fueled by
pent-up demand
and government
programs that
have more than
replaced lost
wages, economists say.
But as the fall
sets in, the surge
could sputter,
with "traditional factors, such

By GREG LAYSON

D I G I TA L A N D M O B I L E E D I T O R

SEE DEALERS PAGE 20

P13

SEE REUSS PAGE 20

Reuss: Car
dealers need
a break.

USED CARS

"If you drive through a
dealer's lot today, you're
going to see a lot of asphalt
- 2020 has been a very challenging year for product,"
said Dan Murray, dealer principal at Murray Chevrolet
in Winnipeg and one of four
principal shareholders of the
Murray Automotive Group,
with dealerships across
Canada.
The shortages "are pretty
much across our entire lineup" but are especially acute
on full-size trucks, he said.
After assembly plants
shut down for two months in
spring, most are now operating at or near pre-pandemic levels, said Sam Fiorani,
an analyst at AutoForecast
Solutions.
Factors such as model-year
changeovers are also hampering production, while the pandemic has pinched dealers'
ability to restock lots in other
ways, he said.
In its September COVID19 market update, Canadian
Black Book (CBB) said the
pandemic also halted lease
returns and trade-ins and limited the number of repossessions as customers who lost
their jobs were granted time

P H O T O V I A D A N M U R R AY

Reuss said dealers' investment
priorities are currently focused
on online purchasing and digital communication platforms to

accommodate changing consumer behaviour, all while trying to
navigate difficult and uncertain
financial times.
"We're in such a state of flux as
we wait to see what consumer attitudes will be coming out the other
side of this pandemic that perhaps
all image programs or other dic-

NEW LIFE FROM

'If you drive through a dealer's lot today,
you're going to see a lot of asphalt'

By KELLY TAYLOR

Dealers are questioning
the need to spend big
money on big buildings
in light of the pandemic

NEW-VEHICLE SALES
staged an "unbelievable
rebound" this summer in a

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Young:
Unemployment will
impact
auto sales.
FILE PHOTO

as unemployment, weighing on
auto sales and less of these very
enthusiastic purchasing patterns that we're seeing over the
summer," said Rebekah Young,
Scotiabank Economics director of fiscal and provincial economics.
While sales fell nine per
cent in August compared with
the same period last year, some

SEE SALES PAGE 25

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Automotive News Canada - September 2020

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