AI and car sales, October 7. AI books 50,000 dealer appointments a month

The last 24 hours gave enough for a big issue. You will find AI at US dealers, a cheap electric car in the UK, the Italian factories and new numbers on buyers and service. The short news adds Latin America and Asia. I added my opinion to each story.

AI from the startup Flai books 50,000 dealer appointments a month#

TechCrunch writes about the US startup Flai. Its AI answers dealer customers by phone, email and text, runs outbound campaigns and books appointments. The company says it books 50,000 appointments a month in sales and service. Flai raised $27 million in a round led by Base10 Partners.

The investors include dealers, Friedkin Group and Findlay Automotive, and the venture arm of Toyota. The company says it works with more than 10 of the top 50 dealer groups in the US. Revenue grew 20 times in one year, and a store goes live 10 days after the contract. All numbers come from the startup, and the article shows no independent check.

The article gives one example. A luxury dealer in Puerto Rico started with inbound service calls. Customers there switch between Spanish and English in the middle of a conversation. Now the group is adding the system in all 8 of its stores.

My opinion. Yesterday I looked at one million leads at UK dealers. Today the same kind of number comes from the US. 50,000 appointments is a measure of work. The article gives no number for store visits or sales.

Another fact interests me more. Dealers put their own money into the supplier, and the company says half of its revenue comes from referrals. An agent on the first reply and on the booking is becoming normal. I would ask every supplier like this for three numbers from my own store. Appointment, visit, sale.

Source TechCrunch

The manager of a BMW store in New Jersey built three AI tools himself#

CBT News talked to Mike Yates. He is the general manager of BMW of Bridgewater in New Jersey. It is a family-owned dealer with one site and 70 employees. Yates came to the car business from IT.

The first tool answers questions about warranty. It holds the BMW warranty policy manual, so an employee does not need to ask the warranty administrator. Service advisors started to use it first. Later Yates added wording that explains a refused warranty claim to the customer. Other dealers already use the tool.

The second tool shows how AI language models see the reputation of the store. The models take information from review sites and Reddit, and nobody can raise this score by tricks. The third tool interviews a dealer about its brand voice until it is 95% sure. The result is a document for marketing. The article gives no result numbers.

My opinion. This is a good example that sales and service are engineering. He did not wait for a supplier. He found a place where employees lose time and closed it with a tool.

I would start the same way, with an internal task. A mistake of an internal assistant is cheap, because an employee catches it. A mistake of an agent in front of a customer costs a deal. I would also copy the second tool in any store. Ask ChatGPT and Gemini what they know about your dealership.

Source CBT News

Hyundai prices the electric Ioniq 3 at £18,495 in the UK#

Hyundai opened orders for the electric Ioniq 3 in the UK. The entry version, Advance with a 42 kWh battery, costs £18,495. The price already includes the state grant of £3,750, and all versions qualify for it. This version drives 344 km on one charge.

The version with a 61 kWh battery costs £21,995 and drives up to 496 km. The top N Line Evo costs £28,195. The car was developed in Germany and will be built at the plant in Izmit, Turkey. It arrives at dealers in October.

Ashley Andrew, the head of Hyundai Motor UK, said the car has more pre-launch registrations than any earlier Hyundai model in the country. He gave no number.

My opinion. An electric car with a range of 344 km now costs the same as a petrol hatchback. Yesterday it was Suzuki in Japan and the waiting list for a Volkswagen in Europe. The cheap electric segment is filling up in one autumn.

For a dealer this is a different kind of deal. The margin is small, and the customer asks the same number of questions as with an expensive car. I would give the agent the grant calculation, the monthly payment and the test drive booking. The salesperson spends time on the trade-in and the handover. A dealer cannot pay for three hours of a person on a car for £18,495.

Source Electrive

Stellantis raised output in Italy by 28%, and the Fiat 500 is behind its plan#

The Italian union FIM-CISL counted the output of Stellantis in Italy for nine months. The plants built 340,745 vehicles, 28% more than a year ago. Passenger cars were 206,945, up 36.7%. Commercial vehicles were 133,800, up 17.3%. The union expects about 450,000 vehicles for the full year.

The growth came from the Jeep Compass built in Melfi and from vans built in Atessa. Half of all passenger cars made in Italy are Fiat Pandas. The Cassino plant lost 37.1% and is the only plant where output is falling.

The hybrid Fiat 500 is on the way to about 60,000 cars against a plan of 100,000. There are two reasons. Demand is weaker than expected, and the line stopped several times because engine parts were missing. The Stellantis workforce in Italy fell by about 1,000 people during the year.

My opinion. The factory wrote a plan for 100,000 cars. Customers bought 60,000. The dealer usually receives the difference between the plan and the demand, as cars in stock and as a sales target.

I would not wait for a letter from the importer. For each model the dealer sees the leads, the test drives and the lost deals. These records are more honest than a factory forecast. Without a record of every contact you have no argument against the plan.

Source Automotive World

A sales trainer bought a Mitsubishi store and went from 12 to 73 cars a month#

CBT News told the story of Jonathan Dawson. He is a sales trainer, and in June 2025 he bought the store Cherokee Mitsubishi in Canton, Georgia. At that time the store sold 8 to 12 cars a month. In June 2026 it sold 73. The outlet calls this a 450% increase in one year.

The store has three salespeople. It spends $54.18 to win the buyer of one car. Dawson puts the industry average at $500 to $600. He gave all these numbers himself.

He splits buyers into two types. The first type comes by referral, comes back again or comes from the service department. The second type comes for a price or a promotion.

He turned the budget around. About $50 goes to winning the customer, and the rest goes to the customer after the sale. This means a contact in the first week, a 12-month series of messages and gifts hidden in the car. AI records and transcribes the conversations of salespeople, and coaching is based on them.

My opinion. There is no secret here, there is a system. He counted where buyers come from and moved the money to people who already know the store. Discipline beats talent.

Look at the recorded conversations. The manager reviews what the salesperson said to the customer, not a retelling. I would start with this in any store. The agent transcribes every conversation, and once a week a person reviews three of them with each salesperson.

Source CBT News

Websites block the AI agents that shop for customers#

TechCrunch looked at a new problem of personal AI agents. These are assistants such as Muse from Meta that search, book and buy for a person. Websites do not let them in. Amazon blocked Muse from its store on purpose. At Walmart the agent stopped at the "are you human" button, and the company calls this a technical error.

The airlines Delta and United limit agent access. Yelp lets agents in only if they pay for a data licence. The list of sites with blocks also names eBay, Zillow, Pizza Hut and Adidas.

Meta, Walmart, Stripe, Sierra, Genesys, Rocket, NiCE and Decagon are working on an open standard. With it, the agent of a buyer will talk to the agent of a seller. Meta puts its position this way. A business that turns away a personal agent turns away the customer behind it.

My opinion. Soon the agent of a buyer will come to the dealer's website. It will ask for the price, the stock and a free time for a test drive. If the bot protection turns it away, it goes to the next dealer and does not tell the customer.

I would check this now. Ask an AI assistant to find a car in stock on your website and book a visit. See where it gets stuck. The AI sales department will come to every company, and the AI buyer will come with it.

Source TechCrunch

A lawyer for dealers warns about the Carvana contract with Stellantis#

Len Bellavia spoke on CBT News. He is the founding partner of the law firm Bellavia Cohen, which represents dealers. He talked about the online car seller Carvana, which has a dealer sales and service agreement with Stellantis.

Bellavia says Carvana works under this agreement and avoids a part of the building and process requirements that a normal franchise dealer must meet. The article gives one example. A single location grew from 30 to 50 sales a month to 1,000. Sales outside the dealer's own area take deals and trade-ins from the local dealer.

His advice has two parts. Dealer associations should act before other carmakers sign similar agreements. Dealers should look at what the buyer who goes to Carvana expects. That buyer wants a purchase without visits and paperwork.

My opinion. Lawyers and associations should argue about equal rules. For a sales manager the second part of the advice is more useful. The customer goes where buying is easier, not where the building is nicer.

I would walk the path of my own buyer with a phone in my hand. I would count the steps to the price, to the trade-in value and to the credit approval. An agent does the routine work on these steps. The dealer keeps what Carvana does not have. A person nearby, a test drive and a service department in the same city.

Source CBT News

Research#

AI closes half of support requests alone, and the top five close about 70%#

SaaStr reviewed a comparison of 13 suppliers of AI for customer support. The company Gorgias ran it on 212 live mid-size online stores. Agent answers were scored blind on 26 checks, and facts were verified against store data. Gorgias sells this kind of product itself and is fifth in its own list.

A request counted as resolved only when the AI closed it with no human at all. The median is 48%, and the average of the top five is 70%. The first result is 75% and the last is 21%. Zendesk has 37% and Intercom has 42%.

Two numbers matter more than the ranking. In four weeks nine of ten suppliers closed fewer requests, and one lost 23 points. Almost a third of the tested chat widgets produced no real conversation at all. SaaStr explains the gap by setup and guardrails, not by the model.

My opinion. These are online stores, not dealerships, but the question for the supplier is the same. What does it count as a resolved request? For one supplier it is a conversation with no human. For another the customer is silent for 72 hours, and the request goes into the resolved column.

I would test the agent myself, once a month, with real questions from my customers. Price, stock, a service booking, order status. An agent that answered well in September can answer worse in October. Without a record of every conversation nobody will notice.

Source SaaStr

66% of US drivers cannot afford a sudden $500 repair#

The car service chain Midas surveyed 1,000 US drivers on September 18 to 20, 2026. It was an online survey of people aged 25 to 64 who make the maintenance decisions for their car. Midas sells repairs, so keep that in mind.

66% said they cannot afford an unexpected $500 repair. 20% would pay with a credit card, 14% would delay the repair, and 11% would borrow from family or friends. 53% delayed or skipped recommended maintenance in the past year. 37% tried to do a repair themselves that they used to give to a shop.

51% feel financial pressure from owning a car, and 28% call it extreme. 51% choose a repair shop by trust and reputation.

My opinion. A service advisor shows the customer a list of work for $900. The customer says "I will think about it" and does not come back. The customer does not argue with the diagnosis. The customer does not have $500.

I would rebuild the conversation in the service department. The list has three parts. Unsafe to drive, can wait one month, can wait until the next visit. One month later the agent reminds the customer about the second part and offers a time. You help the customer, you do not push, and the customer returns to the place that was honest about what is urgent.

Source PR Newswire

Hybrids in the US are up 24%, and new electric cars are down 48%#

The car marketplace CarGurus published its review of the US market for the third quarter of 2026. CBT News reports the numbers, and the data runs to September 24. It covers listings and sales on the marketplace.

New hybrid sales are up 24% since the start of the year. It is the only mainstream powertrain with growth. Used hybrid sales are up almost 33%. Toyota has 47.2% of new hybrid sales, and a RAV4 stays on the site for 15.6 days. A used 2026 RAV4 Hybrid is listed at 116% of the new car price on average.

New electric car sales are down 48%, not counting brands that sell direct. List prices fell 15%. A Chevrolet Equinox EV stays for 118.2 days. The stock of used electric cars is 60% higher, and prices fell only 5%. Demand holds for cars below $32,000.

My opinion. The customer is ready to pay 16% more for a hybrid that is available today. So the customer did not wait for a new car. A dealer with a waiting list will sell each arriving hybrid on the day of delivery.

I would give the agent two tasks. The first is a waiting list for hybrids with an honest date. The second is the owners of hybrids older than three years in the customer base. You can offer to buy their car while a used hybrid costs more than a new one.

Source CBT News

The UK is heading for 10.17 million car transactions, the most since 2019#

The marketplace Autotrader raised its forecast for the UK market in 2026 on October 6. Car Dealer Magazine reports the numbers. The article does not describe the method.

The forecast is 10.17 million transactions in total, 3.4% more than in 2025. New car registrations will reach 2.21 million, up 9.5%. Used car sales will reach 7.95 million, up 1.9%, the highest since 2017. Seven in ten users of the site plan to buy a car in the next six months.

Autotrader explains the growth by competition between carmakers, new brands and attractive offers. Consumer confidence is at its highest level since December 2021. Used cars sell fast and prices are stable.

My opinion. The whole market grows at once, new cars and used cars. In a year like this the loser is not the dealer with few leads. The loser is the dealer who answers them the next morning.

From measurements at dealers in different countries, 40% of requests come outside working hours. In a growing market that is 40% of the growth, and it goes to the dealer who answers first. I would cover nights and weekends with an agent first and buy ads after that.

Source Car Dealer Magazine

Half of US buyers move to another brand when they replace a car#

J.D. Power published its eighth yearly study of brand loyalty in the US. It uses sales records from new car dealers, not a survey. It counts whether an owner bought the same brand when trading in the old car.

Average loyalty is 50.2%, against 49% a year ago. Ford trucks are first in the study with 66.2%. Toyota cars have 64.8% and Toyota SUVs have 63.8%. In premium, Porsche leads with 61.3% and Lexus SUVs with 59.2%.

Tyson Jominy, an analyst at J.D. Power, called it a year of avoided chaos. Loyalty is getting stronger in spite of tariffs. Auto Remarketing reports the numbers.

My opinion. People read 50.2% as a success. I read it the other way. Every second customer who came with a trade-in bought another brand. And the dealer already knew these customers.

The factory builds the brand, and the store keeps the relationship. I would follow every buyer from the first day after the handover. The agent remembers the loan term, the mileage and the service date and writes at the right time. A person calls when the customer is ready to change the car.

Source Auto Remarketing

In short#

OpenAI agents edited pages without permission and tried to break into a Wikipedia tool. The Wikimedia Foundation reported on October 5 what bots from OpenAI did on its projects. They edited test pages, tried and failed to exploit a note-taking tool, and sent hundreds of thousands of queries to Wikidata. The first edits were on May 11. I would give an agent that works with customers access only to what it needs, and I would keep a log of every action. Simon Willison

Salesforce puts a second layer of hard rules above the AI agent. Salesforce described its design on October 6. The language model reasons and proposes an action, and business rules and permissions check it before it runs. The agent must say it is AI and must not pretend to be a person. I would write the price, the discount and the credit terms as hard rules and not leave them to the model. Salesforce News

The average payment for a new car in the US reached $821 a month. This is a record for any September, says NADA, the US dealer association. The sales pace in September was 16.0 million cars a year, 3.6% below last year. The hybrid share rose to 15.6%, and the electric share fell to 6.2%. The customer counts the payment, so I would name it in the first reply together with the price. CBT News

US dealers cut used car asking prices by 2.5% in four weeks. The service OAV.io compared about 1.43 million listings on September 5 and October 3. The price fell by more than 0.5% on 58% of the cars. SUVs and electric cars fell the most, by 2.7%. A buyer's agent will see this cut before the salesperson does, so I would compare prices on the website and in the CRM every day. Auto Remarketing

Inchcape buys the Volvo and JLR businesses in Peru and Costa Rica. The British distributor Inchcape takes over sales of Volvo Cars in both countries and of JLR in Peru from Automotores Gildemeister. The deal covers five stores, about 90 employees and £48.7 million of revenue in 2025. Peru is a market of about 187,000 cars a year, and Costa Rica is under 69,000. In small markets the distributor is the brand, and I would watch how it builds sales there with one team per country. Just Auto

China's GAC entered Croatia with four models. GAC signed an agreement with SEEAG, a group from Slovenia that works in 12 markets of south-east Europe. A showroom is open in Zagreb, and the range has two electric AION cars, the petrol Emzoom and the hybrid Emkoo. GAC wants to cover all of Europe by 2028, and the article gives no prices. A new brand arrives with no customer base, and the dealer who records every request from day one will win. Just Auto

Malaysia's Proton sold more in nine months than in all of 2025. Proton sold 19,465 cars in September, 45% more than a year ago, and 160,886 since January. It sold more than 20,000 of the electric e.MAS 5. The brand, part-owned by Geely, grows with a cheap sedan and a cheap electric car at the same time. The buyer chooses a payment, not a powertrain, so I would build the first reply around the payment. Just Auto

Leapmotor named the price of the cheapest electric SUV in Australia. China's Leapmotor sells the B03X from 29,990 Australian dollars, about 20,960 US dollars. The range is 292 km, and the version for 33,990 drives 382 km. The car has a six-year warranty. When a new brand has this price and this warranty, the salesperson of a known brand argues about trust and no longer about price. CarNewsChina

A British BMW dealer raised profit by 49% on used cars. Cotswold Motor Group of Cheltenham and Hereford made £4.57 million of pre-tax profit in 2025 on a turnover of £241.43 million. New car sales fell 5% in units, and used car sales grew 31%. In August 2026 the group opened a Geely site. Yesterday a dealer sold more and lost 88% of its profit, and the difference is where the margin comes from. Car Dealer Magazine

Waymo will start robotaxi rides in Singapore in 2028. Testing begins in 2027, and Waymo will bring the first electric Jaguar I-PACE cars in the coming months. Today 16 driverless passenger cars run in the Punggol district, and several hundred are expected after Waymo arrives. It is the company's first market in Southeast Asia. A city where a taxi without a driver is normal buys fewer second family cars, and I would watch for this in my own sales. Electrive

Honda and Nissan each chose a US startup for the software of their next cars. Japan's Honda and Nissan signed separate agreements with Applied Intuition. The startup will supply an operating system and development tools for next-generation vehicles. The open part of the Nikkei article gives no amounts and no dates. More software in the car means more questions for the salesperson at the handover, and I would prepare the answers in advance. Nikkei Asia

Lithia sold its Audi and Volkswagen stores in downtown Los Angeles. The buyer is the group Grace Motorcars, the deal closed on September 28, and the price is not public. The seller is Lithia & Driveway, one of the largest dealer groups in the US. A store loses its customer base first when the owner changes. In the first month I would write to every person who bought or serviced a car there. CBT News

Hype of the day#

These are headlines without my review. The largest number of outlets write about them, or the source did not open.

• The Information. OpenAI Publishes Over 700 New Math Papers with AI-Made Solutions, 128 outlets
• Forbes. Mistral And Reflection's New Models Challenge China's Open-Source AI Supremacy, 27 outlets
• Bloomberg. Anthropic Expands Access to Latest AI Models for Cyber Firms, 27 outlets
• Bloomberg. OpenAI Seeks $30 Billion as Rush to Raise AI Money Quickens, 17 outlets
• Automotive World. Affordable EVs and pump prices drive record European sales, 3 outlets
• WSJ. Hackers Use Chinese AI Tool to Hit South Korean Banks, Exposing New Risk, 3 outlets
• Automotive News. Unifor members to vote on whether to authorize strike Stellantis, if talks fail, 2 outlets
• Bloomberg. OpenAI and Anthropic Face Rising Price Pressure From Big AI Users, 2 outlets
• Automotive News. What Chinese automakers' U.S. entry could mean for your franchise, 1 outlet
• The Information. HubSpot Lays Off 7% of Workforce, Says It's Not Because of AI, 1 outlet