Cyberattacks are so common these days that it’s hard to care when you hear about another one if it doesn’t impact you directly, but the massive attack on dealerships this week is a huge deal as it could cripple thousands of dealerships on one of the biggest selling weekends of the year. And that’s to say nothing of the data concerns.
As if things weren’t already a bummer, a supplier that’s supposed to help Ford ship its NACS adapters to Mach-E and F-150 Lightning owners has hit a snag and it’s slowing everything down. That’s not as big of an issue for hybrid owners, who don’t have to plug in, and new projections show that there will be more and more of them going forward.
And finally, the R35 GT-R will soon be no more, but at least we have the memories.
We Don’t Really Know How Bad The CDK Global Cyberattack Is Going To Get
Last Friday, giant dealer back-end services company CDK Global put out a blog post underlining how important the start of the summer is to the roughly 15,000 dealers it serves.
Whether you consider summer starting on Memorial Day, the last day of school, or the official start on June 20, it starts at dealerships much sooner. Millions of families are planning their vacations, and according to experts at The Vacationer, nearly 80% of people say they’re planning a road trip this summer. Memorial Day road travel was the busiest in 20 years according to AAA.
For dealers, this presents increased opportunities for vehicle sales, service and, of course, revenue.
The issue for dealers who use CDK Global’s dealership management system (DMS) tools is that they might not be able to do sales or service right now. As previously reported, CDK Global shut down all its services on Wednesday due to a “cyber incident.” This meant that dealers, depending on how many of CDK Global’s services they use, were restricted from using any digital tools to sell cars, track sales, schedule service, and possibly even answer the phone.
CDK Global said the issue was handled quickly, but then said a second attack forced them to shut down on Wednesday night and many of their systems have been down ever since.
According to Automotive News, this is likely to continue through the weekend at least:
CDK’s shutdown threatens to disrupt thousands of new-vehicle transactions taking place each day across the North American auto retail segment right in the heart of summer sales promotions and the industry’s intense push to avoid inventory buildups on dealer lots. Moreover, the cyberattack has raised alarms about security in the DMS business after other cyberattacks have disrupted operations at casinos, financial institutions and hospitals.
Dealers are finding creative ways around this, including relying on automakers for additional help closing deals and doing everything using paper.
Why is this such a big deal? First, it’s an issue of scale. Last year the industry was worth about $1.2 trillion to the U.S. economy and this is one of the busiest weekends of the year. Almost 2 million people work for auto dealers in the United States and this is hitting about half of dealerships (plus probably more truck dealers). If hourly employees can’t work or get paid that’s going to have an impact on their lives and the economy at large, depending on how long this lasts.
Second, and scarier, is that CDK Global hasn’t, so far as I’ve seen, fully explained the scope of the attack. A car dealer generally needs a huge amount of data in order to sell a car, especially for financing a car. How much of that data is at risk?
The unknowns in this story are as scary as the knowns right now.
If You Haven’t Gotten A Ford/NACS Adapter You Might Have To Wait A Bit Longer
When Ford announced it was switching over to the Tesla/NACS charging standard it created a stampede of automakers saying they’d do the same. Earlier this year Ford started rolling out an adaptor to make its existing vehicles work on Tesla superchargers, but that’s now hit a snag.
“The supply is constrained,” said Ford spokesman Marty Gunsberg. “Sales are up and customers continue to reserve their complimentary adapter. We keep getting reservations.”
Ford customers waiting for their adapter have received emails saying shipment dates are delayed.
This is not an issue of Ford underestimating demand, Gunsberg said. “We’re not overwhelmed. This is what we anticipated. While we’re shipping weekly, reservations continue to come in.”
Ford isn’t saying which supplier is slowing them down.
How Many Hybrids And EVs Will There Be In 2030?
S&P Global Mobility has revised its forecast for the powertrain mix in the United States and, yup, there are projected to be a bunch of hybrids in our future. Looking at that chart above you can see EVs continuing to grow, with mild/full hybrids filling up a lot of space, as well as more range-extended EVs.
As we edge closer to 2030, BEVs and hybrids are likely to steer the future of transportation in North America. Despite more rapid electrification in other regions, North America’s production trails slightly, at just between 9% and 10% for BEVs and fuel cell vehicles. However, projections suggest a significant leap, with 44% of vehicles forecasted to be BEVs or fuel cell models by the decade’s end.
Bring back the i3? Clearly, BMW should bring back the i3.
Remembering The R35 Nissan GT-R
The R35 Nissan GT-R is no more after this year, which is sad, though the car has been on sale almost the entire time I’ve been in this biz so maybe it’s the car’s time (but not mine).
Nissan reached out to a bunch of auto journalists to remember Godzilla, including MotorWeek‘s John Davis and MotorTrend‘s Frank Markus. You can read all the remembrances here. Here’s mine:
I debuted in the automotive world in 2007, right around the same time as the Nissan GT-R, though the R35 did it to far more fanfare and acclaim. It’s almost impossible to convey in words how much the R35 dominated the attention of car fans back in the early blog era. It wasn’t a car, it was the car. If we were having a slow news day, we always knew that publishing anything with a GT-R in it was a guaranteed hit.
How could it not be? The GT-R had concept car looks, stats to rival the best supercars of the day and was initially offered at a surprisingly achievable price. In spite of writing about it from the beginning, I didn’t get a chance to put real miles on one until years later. Somehow, after years of hype, the R35 Nissan GT-R managed to exceed my impossibly lofty expectations.
So long, GT-R! I can’t wait to meet the next one.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
Today was going to be Janis Joplin doing “Summertime” but I’ll save that for next week, because this is what I’m actually listening to today. Bonus points if you can name the singer here.
The Big Question
When was the last time you had an interaction with a dealership? If you work for a dealer, what are the vibes?
Top photo: CDK Global
I wonder if CDK is a WVMAH (Windows Vertical Market Amateur Hour) shop.
Probably not. Their website is in AWS.
My last interaction with a dealership was for service. It went fine.
It will be the last time at that dealer, though, as they have been bought back (I guess?) by the group that opened that location. Hall sold its dealership back to Victory (neither are super-powerhouses). Having worked for Victory, I will now drive 30 miles and across two cities to get my work done at Loyalty group, where I know the techs, as I used to work with them.