Dealer news: 2 M&A moves in North Carolina; NADA assists dealers’ vehicle donations | Auto Remarketing Auto Remarketing Zainal Abidin, 05/12/2025 Holman has closed its acquisition of North Carolina-based Leith Automotive Group, a deal Holman says nearly doubles its automotive retail business.The companies announced an agreement for the transaction in January.The purchase, which Holman says is the largest in the company’s 100-year history, includes 13 new-car franchises and an auction center — the first in Holman’s portfolio — in the Raleigh area and Aberdeen, NCIn addition to its other enterprises, Holman now operates 58 dealerships representing 34 brands, with almost 4,500 auto retail employees in nine states. Business North Carolina reported Leith Automotive has annual revenues of more than $1 billion.“In our centennial year, we’re excited about the opportunities to strengthen and grow our automotive retail footprint, which began in 1924 with a single dealership,” Holman CEO Chris Conroy said. “This acquisition represents the culmination of extensive strategy, hard work and vision to put our employee partners and our business in a position to win for the next 100 years.”The newly acquired dealerships will keep the Leith name, and their staff will be retained, Holman said.“Like Holman, Leith has placed the highest priority on delivering excellent customer service by building a strong network of employee… Continue Reading
Automakers struggle with Europe’s EV charging issues Zainal Abidin, 12/11/2025 The comments Sander and de Meo made last week at events in Brussels — where the European Commission has set a target to eliminate emissions from new vehicles sold just over a decade from now — speak to anxieties that have flown under the radar relative to the race to lower costs and increase battery range. These are among the more nuanced complications that the industry and regulators have little time to resolve.The EU should take inspiration from the region’s efforts to develop a European standard for mobile phone telecommunications, which led to the creation of the Global System for Mobile Communication, or GSM, de Meo said.“In Europe, we invented the GSM standard, and this thing was copied everywhere,” he said.Regulators do not necessarily see a role for themselves in this process. Klaus Müller, president of Germany’s Bundesnetzagentur, who oversees the country’s electricity and telecommunications markets, believes that setting a common EV charging standard in the EU is not a job for the bloc’s 27 regulators, but one “for the car producers and their self-governing bodies.”“It’s more practical to rely on industry standardization,” he said in an interview this week.One automaker that hasn’t complained about… Continue Reading