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Hey everyone,
As we head into the new year, a few solid roles just hit the CDG Job Board — especially on the fixed ops side.
We’ve got a Lead Automotive Technician opening near the North Carolina coast
A growing Service Department adding bays and volume in Texas
And a Service Drive Manager role in Dallas focused on customer experience and flow
If you’re thinking about your next move in 2026 (or know someone who is), these are worth a look.
— CDG
First time reading the CDG Newsletter?
Welcome to The Weekly, a roundup of the top five auto industry headlines of the week.
UAW’s top ranks get rocked after federal monitor report
Earlier this week, the UAW’s leadership turmoil deepened after a federal monitor found that top aides to President Shawn Fain retaliated against the union’s secretary-treasurer, forcing her removal and later reinstatement.
The report led to the resignation of Fain’s chief of staff and disciplinary action against other senior officials, with internal text messages showing the move was deliberate, not procedural.
And while Fain avoided direct punishment, the findings raise fresh questions about stability and decision-making at the top of the union.
Zooming out: Continued leadership distractions inside the UAW could bleed into future bargaining, production planning, and labor dynamics that dealers will ultimately feel on the ground.
Why this Hyundai store sends a video follow-up to every single internet lead
At Hyundai of Cool Springs, general manager Patrick Robertson didn’t add new tech to fix cold internet leads. He actually started using what the store already had.
For context, when he arrived, the dealership had video software sitting idle, with just seven videos sent in ten months.
Knowing that, he decided every internet lead would get a quick, name-specific video within five minutes, sent by a salesperson on the floor who actually reads the customer’s question.
As a result: About 75% of leads get a video response, with nearly 90% of those videos watched by shoppers, and more of those conversations turn into showroom visits and deals.
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San Francisco power outage exposes Waymo robotaxi limits in real‐world gridlock
When traffic lights went dark across roughly 30% of San Francisco, Waymo robotaxis did what they’re programmed to do and treated intersections like four-way stops.
However, with rain, human drivers behaving unpredictably, and dozens of dark intersections at once, many vehicles hesitated, froze mid-turn, or blocked lanes, worsening gridlock.
That left Waymo to ultimately pause service and pull cars off the road.
Bottom line: No one was hurt, but the outage exposed a gap between controlled autonomy demos and messy real-world edge cases, yet another reminder that “hands-off” driving still has a long way to go.
U.S. new car sales poised to dip slightly in 2026 — forecast
After a surprisingly strong year, the new-car market looks like it’s finally losing a little momentum.
According to Cox Automotive, 2025 will finish as the best sales year since 2019, but cracks are already showing in Q4.
December sales are expected to fall year over year, and 2026 is shaping up as a modest step back, with SAAR projected at 15.8 million.
Slower economic growth, softer job creation, and the expiration of EV tax incentives are all taking some air out of demand, even as the biggest OEMs continue to pull more share.
Big picture: As things cool and volume normalizes, execution on inventory, incentives, and deal structure is what’s going to separate the stores that hold their ground from the ones that feel the slowdown first.
Arkansas dealer Christian Crain is fixing weak video MPI execution
At Crain Automotive’s 22 Arkansas stores, video MPIs weren’t failing because advisors didn’t understand them.
They just weren’t doing them consistently. So VP of Ops Christian Crain changed the incentive.
Now, video MPI completion is baked directly into advisor pay, and missing the benchmark means leaving gross on the table.
Crain’s POV: If it’s not in the pay plan, it’s optional. And when customers can see the issue on video, trust goes up, and approvals follow.
