TrueCar

Affinity sales saved the day for TrueCar

12:01 am U.S. ET | May 6, 2013
TrueCar Inc. owes its survival to the 1,500 associations, including USAA and AAA, that give their members an opportunity to buy vehicles through the online auto-shopping service, TrueCar CEO Scott Painter said last week.... Read More »

 

DAVID BARKHOLZ

Why TrueCar's Painter can chill out at Davos this week

3:41 pm U.S. ET | Jan. 22, 2013
TrueCar CEO Scott Painter is scheduled to present Thursday at the prestigious World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, without the dark cloud that accompanied his visit last year.... Read More »

 

DAVID BARKHOLZ

TrueCar 2.0 says shoppers will like revamped format

12:01 am U.S. ET | Jan. 21, 2013
The remainder of 2013 should answer the question whether car shoppers accept the rebooted TrueCar as readily as dealers have David Barkholz is a reporter for Automotive News.... Read More »

 

AUTOMOTIVE NEWS WORLD CONGRESS

When products are similar, sales process becomes crucial

12:01 am U.S. ET | Jan. 21, 2013
A fast, seamless and transparent car-buying experience increasingly will determine a brand's sales success, panelists from Google, Hyundai and TrueCar told the Automotive News World Congress.... Read More »

 

No-dicker stickers win backers in Internet era

12:01 am U.S. ET | Dec. 17, 2012
Consumers now have unprecedented Internet access to vehicle prices, so some dealers are turning to an old retail concept: no-dicker selling. "Your customers already really know about the car's price," says Alison Spitzer, the 32-year-old vice president of operations for her family's 108-year-old Cleveland auto retail group, Spitzer Management. "Why put a price on the Web that you're just going to have to spend an hour and a half negotiating down from?"... Read More »

 

Dec. sales teeter on fiscal cliff

12:01 am U.S. ET | Nov. 19, 2012
Industrywide, the last 10 days before New Year's Eve are usually some of the best for car sales. But dealers are bracing for the possibility that a protracted fight in Washington over tax increases and spending cuts could keep some consumers out of showrooms this holiday season.... Read More »

 

CRASH & LEARN

Perennial optimist Scott Painter says a rebuilt, dealer-friendly TrueCar has survived its brush with disaster and is on the mend

12:01 am U.S. ET | Oct. 15, 2012
Scott Painter, the hard-charging founder of TrueCar Inc., can look back now at the crazy events of last December with amused detachment. But at the time the crisis that embroiled TrueCar was anything but amusing.... Read More »

 

Chevy marketing chief defends Volt spiffs

4:23 pm U.S. ET | Sept. 26, 2012
Chevrolet's marketing boss has defended General Motors' recent use of incentives to help lift sales of the Chevrolet Volt, saying GM needs more people to experience the car's plug-in hybrid technology.... Read More »

 

The Wild West of online

12:01 am U.S. ET | Sept. 17, 2012
States are struggling with rules for selling and advertising cars online. For example, one state law puts an auto dealer at risk when somebody else takes his dealership's ad, alters the information then posts it on a different Web site. The process is known as scraping. As one dealer puts it, retail auto marketing online is still "the Wild West."... Read More »

 

FINAL ASSEMBLY

In swankiest ZIPs, middle-class rides prevail

12:01 am U.S. ET | Aug. 13, 2012
In America's swankiest neighborhoods -- say Beverly Hills or the more posh parts of Manhattan -- you figure to see a regular parade of Bentleys, Lamborghinis, Ferraris and maybe the occasional Porsche 911. Well, it's not necessarily so.... Read More »

 

AOL, Yahoo pick new lead partners

12:01 am U.S. ET | July 23, 2012
More dealers will get a shot at vehicle leads generated by Yahoo Autos and AOL Autos now that the giant search engine and media companies have moved away from TrueCar Inc. to alternative shopping services.... Read More »

 

LARRY P. VELLEQUETTE

Dealers can’t count on locals for used-car sales anymore

11:31 am U.S. ET | July 17, 2012
The Internet has done many things for auto dealers and made more than a few changes to the way they do business. But while new-car pricing and lead-generation sites like TrueCar.com dominate the headlines, the Internet’s bigger threat to dealers’ bottom lines may be on the other side of the lot.... Read More »

 

EDITORIAL

Yahoo!-TrueCar deal never made sense

12:01 am U.S. ET | July 16, 2012
The dismantling of the exclusive online partnership between mass-market Internet portal Yahoo! and TrueCar.com isn't surprising. The deal made little sense from the beginning.... Read More »

 

How TrueCar's Yahoo! deal failed

12:01 am U.S. ET | July 9, 2012
In the burgeoning world of automotive lead generators, Scott Painter was going to break out from the pack. The serial entrepreneur placed a huge bet late last year when he agreed to pay $50 million a year to Internet portal Yahoo! for his TrueCar.com to become the exclusive automotive partner of Yahoo! Autos. The deal was supposed to channel 10 million unique visitors per month to TrueCar.com from the pages of Yahoo! Autos.... Read More »

 

TrueCar, Yahoo end exclusive partnership

3:55 pm U.S. ET | July 5, 2012
TrueCar, an online car-shopping service, has ended after just six months its exclusive relationship with search engine Yahoo to send auto shoppers to auto dealerships. Yahoo Autos plans to keep TrueCar and sign other sales-lead generators, Yahoo confirmed in a statement. Under TrueCar's original deal with Yahoo, TrueCar agreed to pay Yahoo a huge sum -- $50 million per year for three years -- to be Yahoo's exclusive auto-shopping partner.... Read More »

 

Deep discounts? Not us, TrueCar now says

12:01 am U.S. ET | June 25, 2012
TrueCar, which made a splash -- and alienated dealers and regulators -- late last year by holding out the promise of below-invoice prices, has dumped its deep-discount stance.... Read More »

 

VEHICLE TECHNOLOGY -- THE CHANGING CAR

Fuel economy can sell new cars. Used cars? Not so much

12:01 am U.S. ET | June 11, 2012
Automakers expect to excite new-vehicle buyers with big gains in fuel economy over the next few years. But when those highly efficient vehicles are sold as used, mpg may not matter so much.... Read More »

 

Mercedes increases lead over BMW in U.S. luxury-sales race

June 4, 2012 06:01 CET
Mercedes increased its lead over rival BMW in the U.S. luxury-vehicle sales race for the year, as deliveries in May rose 19 percent to 22,515. Sales of BMW-brand cars increased 7.3 percent to 22,168 and Lexus, the No. 3 seller, jumped 74 percent to 21,463.... Read More »