The much anticipated in-person return to the CADA Summit 2023 was enthusiastically embraced by a sold-out crowd of appreciative dealers and CADA members, with another large group taking part through the live stream. Also broadcast in French closed captioning for the first time, this year the event was more accessible than ever to the dealer community across Canada.
Highlights of the Summit were many. We will touch on a few here and for a more complete rundown of the day, please read the March issue of Canadian auto dealer magazine.
After the opening remarks, a series of speakers tackled the economy and the outlook for consumers—and dealers in the months ahead. Thomas Feltmate, Director & Senior Economist, TD Bank Group, said there was “disinflationary pressure” that is mostly affecting goods, but on the service side of the economy, “we are seeing a lot more stickiness.”
Feltmate said the “labour market right now is incredibly tight,” and that is triggering a lot of wage growth.
In terms of a forecast, he said: “We are sticking to this notion of a soft landing. There is nothing that is flashing recession just yet.”
Bob Armstrong, from the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport, spoke about the supply chain. His information was in-depth, and provided an overview of the myriad different forces that affect how and when a car makes it onto a dealership lot. Trucking, railways and the marine industry all play a major role, and all of these can be affected by politics, natural and weather disasters and global events. He then explained how the auto industry is attempting to make the supply chain more resilient to outside forces.
Well-known automotive consultant Glenn Mercer presented on the dealership of the future. He took a close look at all the trends and disruptions that dealers have faced in recent years and re-examined which of those threats were real, and which were overhyped. Mercer, who does a lot of research for NADA south of the border, presented information for dealers that gave them a clearer perspective on the emerging issues they needed to focus on.
Norwegian auto dealer Sverre Helno was one of the most anticipated speakers. Head of Norway’s largest dealer group Møller Bil, he spoke about Norway’s transition to electric vehicles. It was a fascinating insight into the challenges as well as the opportunities that Norway has experienced in the last ten years, going from zero, to their present state of selling over 80 per cent electric vehicles.
Helno talked about how government incentives and other support is what sparked consumer EV purchases, how the dealership model is changing for electric vehicles, with dealers acting more as agents during the sales process, which is mostly online. However there is still a place for dealers, and there are opportunities that the transition presents. At the end of the day, Helno stressed the biggest asset dealerships have is their people. “The best people always win,” he said.
Helno shared the lessons he had learned along the way, and encouraged dealers to have an open mind about new business opportunities like getting involved in home charging: a business that took off in Norway and created the country’s first billionaire.
Several dealers we talked with after the event said they wished Helno had more time to present as they were eagerly listening to his experiences making the transition, with many snapping photos on their phones of some of his slides with key takeaways for dealers.
Niel Hiscox moderated a lively dealer panel, consisting of, Rein Knol, Dealer Principal, Performance Auto Group, Michael Wyant, Chief Operating Officer, Wyant Group, Bert Hickman, President & CEO, Hickman Automotive Group, and Mathieu Pothier, Dealer Principal, Acura Trois-Rivières. They talked about the challenges in their markets, and made points about how they have built a customer-focused culture in their stores, how they empower their team members throughout the dealership, and why listening from the bottom up is key to creating a great work environment that makes customers happy.
CADA’s President and CEO Tim Reuss was joined for a panel discussion by his North American dealer association colleagues, Mike Stanton from NADA, and Guillermo Rosales Zarate, Executive President, Asociación Mexicana de Distribuidores de Automores, to chat about the state of the industry, and commonalities among the North American countries.
The leaders tackled the key issues facing dealers today, such as electrification, changing business models, and the growing pressure by some OEMs to move to an agency model in some jurisdictions. For his part, Stanton was pretty clearly opposed to the model. “At NADA we are not big fans of the agency model, we are big fans of the entrepreneurial spirit of dealers who put their neck on the line in their communities. You aren’t going to get that with an agent,” said Stanton. “We are not going to get run over because there is a new drivetrain out there.”
Flavio Volpe, President and CEO of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association (APMA) gave a guided tour of Project Arrow, an EV that has been designed, engineered and built with the help of more than 40 selected partners from Canadian suppliers and post-secondary institutions. Volpe used the success and the interest in this project to ask a very serious question: what would it take to launch a real Canadian car company? What is stopping us?
To close out the program, Jason Stein took the stage with Legendary British F1 driver Johnny Herbert to record an episode of his popular Cars & Culture with Jason Stein podcast that was broadcast on SiriusXM. Herbert shared behind the scenes stories of life on the F1 circuit.
TD Auto Finance is the exclusive sponsor of the CADA Summit, and has been since the event’s inception a dozen years ago.
