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Professional athletes are transforming from dealership spokespeople into dealership owners, leveraging their celebrity status and hometown connections into car sales.
The growing roster of current and former professional athletes includes stars from the MLB, NASCAR, the NFL, NBA and famous college coaches.
Pairing athletes with cars is a decades-old auto retailing strategy. But what once began with promotional deals has become a deliberate competitive advantage, with retailers using famous business partners to build brand identities and win local car shoppers. Some athletes are passive investors. Others are actively involved — attending management meetings and solving customer problems.
07/08/2026
In May, General Motors marked a rare milestone for a foreign automaker in China, selling more than 10,000 of its new Buick Electra E7 in the first month.
While the nameplate is all-American, everything else about the car is Chinese — it was developed entirely at the technical center GM runs with local partner SAIC.
GM plans to export the car to South Korea and use its China-built platform in the next iteration of the Cadillac Optiq, said a person with direct knowledge of the plans.
For years, global automakers used China as a low-cost manufacturing base to churn out cars developed at headquarters. Now, GM, Volkswagen Group and Renault are handing development to Chinese engineers, leveraging the country’s growing advantage in critical technologies such as electric powertrains and advanced software.
Read more: https://www.autonews.com/manufacturing/ane-china-innovates-legacy-automakers-0708/
07/08/2026
North America’s auto industry has avoided its worst-case trade scenario — the collapse of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement — but manufacturers and suppliers say the alternative still leaves the sector facing years of uncertainty.
Because the United States declined to renew the USMCA for another 16-year term, the trade pact will now be subject to annual reviews over the next decade unless Canada, the U.S. and Mexico unanimously agree to extend it sooner.
For an industry that makes multibillion-dollar investments with planning horizons measured in decades, that uncertainty is a significant concern.
“The worst-case scenario is [U.S. President Donald] Trump says, ‘We’re out,’ and he means it,” Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association President Flavio Volpe said. “That would be self-defeating, but he’s done other things.”
Read more: https://www.autonews.com/manufacturing/anc-usmca-annual-reviews-auto-industry-uncertainty/
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