Top Secret Announcement

Monthly Dealership Highlight

Niello Acura

Congrats to Niello Acura for making our monthly dealership highlight. They are part of the Niello Auto Group, all of whom came onto the DIP platform, so a big shout out to them too. We always love helping dealerships in our own backyard in Sacramento, CA. Everyone at Niello was a pleasure to work with and really entrusted us with taking the reins. Head over to their website and see how nice their photos look. We are glad to see them doing the work and getting it done. Thank you, Niello Acura and all the Niello dealerships, for entrusting us!

?Niello Acura?

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AUGUST ISSUE HIGHLIGHTS

Tell Everyone You Know

Never Let Go

The Sauce

Started From the Bottom

Don't Call It a Comeback

Highway Horns

Top Announcement

New DIP Web Series - Guest Search

We want you to be a guest on our new web series.

Dealer Image Pro? is creating a new web series based on the successful Netflix show, Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee - cause we like cars and coffee too! We are aiming to have our first episode launch in mid-October and need guests.

Are you the General Manager of a franchise auto dealership?

Do you like talking about current trends in the automotive industry?

Do you want to be a guest on our show? Then give us a shout cause we would love to have you!

Come ride shotgun with our CEO, Peter Duffy, while we pick up a coffee (our treat) in your favorite new model from your lot (your treat.)

The conversation will be mainly industry-related, but unrelated rants and quirky antics are definitely welcomed, if not encouraged.

The final result is a produced webisode featuring you and your dealership. You’ll have access to the content to share with your friends in the industry and your social media channels.

If interested, reach out to Peter directly at?[email protected]?to schedule your spot on our new web series, General Managers In Cars Getting Coffee?.

ICE

911 - The Last Stand

The 911 will be the last gas-powered Porsche.

Like every other automaker, Porsche will be transitioning to electric vehicles by the 2030s, with plans to make every vehicle in the brand's lineup an EV, except for the legendary 911. A Porsche exec vows to produce the 911 as long as possible with a combustion engine.

This is part of why Porsche has committed to investing in e-fuels and its production. Porsche plans to continue selling gas-powered niche luxury vehicles and has pushed for an e-fuel exemption to all the EV mandates on the horizon. However, e-fuels are going for as much as $12.90 per liter! That's almost $50 per gallon for us in the States. What does this all mean? The 911 will likely remain a low-production specialty model that only gets enjoyed by a select group of people.

Technology

This Magic Gasoline Will Save Us

Are e-fuels the next big thing or just a drop in the bucket?

E-fuels have recently become the center of a debate over stricter emission regulations. Some states and manufacturers have put goals in place to reach zero emissions from new cars by 2035 - effectively banning gas and diesel engines. However, some have argued that other zero-emission technologies should be considered instead of relying on electrification - enter e-fuels.

E-fuels are synthetic alternatives to fossil fuels and are made from Hydrogen and CO2. They can be used in traditional combustion engines and distributed using networks that already exist.

Most car companies are betting on a shift to electric vehicles rather than e-fuels. Porsche, however, is still investing heavily in this new technology and helped open the first-ever commercial e-fuel plant in Chile back in 2021.

E-fuels are expensive, though. It could be because of the current short supply, which will improve with increased production. The actual process is also very complex and energy intensive. A study came out last year that found an electric vehicle could travel five to six times further than an e-fueled car using the same amount of renewable energy. Long story short, it will be interesting to see how e-fuels will integrate in our zero-emission future, but as mentioned in our previous article, seems like it will stay a niche alternative to ICE die-hards, like Porsche.

EVs

U.S. Expands EV Footprint

U.S. will soon be a global EV manufacturing leader.

As if we needed more proof that EV manufacturing was here to stay - more and more major automakers are announcing plans to build electric vehicle battery plants in the U.S. These companies include Hyundai, BMW, Ford, GM, Stellantis, and Vietnam's EV automaker, VinFast, to name a few.

The majority of these future plants are being built in Georgia, Kentucky, and Michigan, with a slated completion in 2030. Each of those three states will be able to manufacture between 97 and 136-gigawatt hours worth of EV batteries per year. In total, the U.S. is projecting that this amount of EV battery manufacturing will be enough to support the production of between 10 and 13 million all-electric vehicles per year, putting the U.S. in a position to be a global EV competitor. Woo!!

Now, our biggest problem will be to build the workforce needed to make these factories hum.

Future Transportation

Big Blimp Boom

Blimps are making a comeback, but not for what you'd think.

Blimps have never been extremely popular, especially after the 1937 Hindenburg disaster. But, they are making a comeback and getting a rebrand: Lighter-Than-Air vehicles or LTAs. Modern companies are swearing that the technology is much safer now and could play a huge role in transportation to cut down further on carbon emissions.

Right now, these companies, such as LTA Research and French company Flying Whales (haha), are not focused on transporting people but rather making big item deliveries to cargo ships and military bases. Other similar companies are looking to use these blimps as floating cell towers, beaming down broadband signals in less-covered areas.

These companies still have a long way to go before this "big blimp boom" actually happens, as well as get people past the safety concerns as most will still think of the Hindenburg burning in flames.

Viral

Look Ma' No Hands

Toyota programs the first autonomous car that can drift for you.

Researchers from the University of Texas and the Toyota Research Institute taught a Toyota Supra how to drift in a manner of three minutes... for science, of course.

The point of the research was to develop a more efficient model for calculating the limits of traction in a tire. We don't believe that story, but it's a good one. We imagine that everyone’s faces lit up when the only?totally sensible?way to test how well their models worked was to take a car to the very edge of a tire's adhesion capabilities by drifting it.?

Using a modified Toyota Supra, the system gathered just three minutes of data from the driver manually drifting the car. Once the model received all the data it needed, the car was able to start drifting on its own, giving us a video of the first autonomous drift in the world. There is someone in the driver's seat, but the software is controlling everything from the throttle to the steering wheel. Science is amazing.