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| Utah dealer Stephen Wade takes the helm at NADA In his first speech as chairman of the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA), Utah auto dealer Stephen Wade said that he is looking forward to working with manufacturers, regulators and Congress to ensure that the nation's economic recovery continues as vehicle sales rebound this year. Wade, a multi-franchise dealer from St. George, Utah, took the helm of NADA at the association's annual Convention & Expo in San Francisco. The convention, which began Saturday and ends today, is expected to draw about 18,000 total attendees. As the association's vice-chairman in 2010, Wade had a front-row seat for the many legislative and regulatory battles that NADA and its grass-roots network waged on behalf of dealers. Those successes, including NADA's fight to keep dealer-assisted financing affordable and available for consumers, have poised dealers to thrive in 2011, Wade said, as sales pick up and consumers who have put off new-vehicle purchases head back to dealerships. And even though NADA succeeded last year in protecting dealer-assisted financing from the new "burdensome and unnecessary" rules of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Wade says auto loans are still very much under attack. Still, dealers face a flurry of new challenges in 2011, Wade said, such as facing the possibility of a new program to raise the fleet-average fuel economy standard to as high as 62 mpg by 2025, a plan Wade called "a stretch." write your comments about the article :: © 2011 Exhibition News :: home page |