The excitement, enthusiasm and optimism was impossible to miss as the NADA Show officially opened Friday. Attendees were absolutely giddy to be back in person. People smiled, shook hands and even hugged.
Dom Perignon should be this bubbly.
Fueling this feeling is the fact that business is good for the auto industry despite the challenges of the past two years. And there is a cautious buzz about the coming electric vehicle revolution.
As Kerrigan Advisors Managing Director Erin Kerrigan said at a vehicle finance conference preceding the show: "Simply put, it is a really good time to be a car dealer."
But at the Automotive News Retail Forum on Thursday, Inder Dosanjh, CEO of California Automotive Retailing Group, cautioned everyone to pump the brakes.
"We all know what happened last year was not real. What's gonna happen this year is not real," he told the audience. "It's all gonna settle down."
It's important, Dosanjh said, to "keep everybody sober."
That might be a little difficult this week. In Las Vegas. It's like telling a kid visiting Hershey, Pa., to not eat any chocolate while there.
Anders Gustafsson, CEO of Volvo Car USA, speaking after Dosanjh, echoed the importance of sobriety. He mentioned potential speed bumps on the road ahead, such as the war in Ukraine.
Neither man wanted to be a buzzkill.
They just want their peers to practice restraint so that no one — like in The Hangover — wakes up with a crying baby in the closet and a tiger in the bathroom.
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