Business
Why the largest U.S. auto dealer isn’t interested in Chinese cars — for now
Nio cars are seen displayed at Nio House, at the Chinese electric vehicle (EV) maker’s manufacturing hub in Hefei, Anhui province, China April 2, 2025.
Florence Lo | Reuters
DETROIT — The largest U.S. auto dealer isn’t interested in selling vehicles from China-based brands domestically right now, its CEO said Wednesday.
But it’s not necessarily because of politics, logistics or potential consumer backlash, according to Lithia Motors CEO Bryan DeBoer. His company already has at least 10 stores selling vehicles from three Chinese companies in the United Kingdom.
DeBoer, who has grown Lithia exponentially in recent years, said the potential cost, return-on-investment and needed infrastructure, largely due to franchise rules in the U.S., are the biggest hindrances right now.
“We’re quite excited that we’ve got that opportunity in the United Kingdom, but there’s a big fundamental difference,” DeBoer told investors Wednesday, citing “dueling of franchises” practices in the U.K. that allow Lithia to offer brands from different companies in the same showroom if they’re deemed competitors.
DeBoer said the dealer can be allowed to put vehicles from a company such as China’s Chery Automobile, which is growing in Europe, into an existing showroom in the UK, and it would cost less than $100,000.
That’s not the case for the U.S., where franchised dealer laws are strict, vary by state and companies can have more influence in, if not rules against, such decisions.
His comments come as Chinese automotive brands are increasingly exporting and expanding outside of their home market.
Global market share for Chinese brands has jumped nearly 70% in five years, and many experts see a threat to U.S. automakers, including the anticipated entrance of Chinese brands into America. There have been China-produced vehicles on sale in the U.S. from brands such as Buick and Volvo, but none are from Chinese brands such as BYD, Nio or others.
In the U.S., Lithia would need to establish new retail locations and service operations to support sales of Chinese brands, which would mean having to make completely new investments. He noted that roughly 50% to 60% of the company’s profits come from service and parts.
“I think we would probably not be early adopters when it comes to the United States or possibly even Canada, primarily because we’re usually not in a dual franchise situation,” he said.
China’s most recent announced expansion is to Canada, a relatively small vehicle market that removed 100% tariffs on imported vehicles from China amid a trade dispute with the Trump administration.
But DeBoer said the Oregon-based company isn’t completely shutting the door, as Chinese brands continue to grow globally.
“We do have building relationships with a number of Chinese brands,” he said. “We’ll keep our minds open and look at what the opportunities that present us in the future.”
DeBoer comments occurred on the company’s call to discuss its fourth-quarter and year-end earnings, which included annual increases of 4% in revenue and 3.1% in gross profit.
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Sam Altman announces Peter Steinberger, creator of OpenClaw, will join OpenAI to advance personal agents. OpenClaw will remain open source.
Peter Steinberger Joins OpenAI as Personal AI Agents Become Core Focus
OpenAI founder Sam Altman has announced that Peter Steinberger, the creator of OpenClaw, will be joining the AI research firm to drive the “next generation of personal agents”. Altman called Steinberger a ‘genius with a lot of amazing ideas about the future of very smart agents interacting with each other to do very useful things for people’.
Altman in the X post said that the company is expecting to make personal agents core to their product offerings.
OpenClaw aka Moltbot- the open-source autonomous AI bots that can perform various tasks on a local device while also connecting with a language model – has gone viral recently. Earlier, it was known as Clawdbot.
OpenClaw is designed to perform real-world tasks on behalf of users, such as managing calendars, messaging, browsing and other actions that go beyond simple chatbot responses.
Altman said that OpenAI will continue to support OpenClaw as an open source project. ” The future is going to be extremely multi-agent and it’s important to us to support open source as part of that,” Altman added.
Peter Steinberger is joining OpenAI to drive the next generation of personal agents. He is a genius with a lot of amazing ideas about the future of very smart agents interacting with each other to do very useful things for people. We expect this will quickly become core to our…— Sam Altman (@sama) February 15, 2026
Screenshots of AI bots interacting to each other have gone viral recently on social platform, attracting eyeballs and raising doubts over the dystopian future.
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February 16, 2026, 08:24 IST
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The maker of Imperial Leather and Sanctuary Spa has said reaching shoppers on platforms like TikTok Shop was as important as Tesco, as the 142-year-old business vies to compete with a rising cohort of social media-savvy brands.
PZ Cussons – the consumer goods giant that was founded in 1884 and is behind a swathe of beauty, hygiene and baby products – said it had been investing more into innovation and building its brands.
Chief executive Jonathan Myers said the business has to “battle every day to win every purchase”.
“There’s hardly a store in the country that sells a washing and bathing product that doesn’t sell a PZ Cussons product,” he told the Press Association.
But he said the company had been trying to be at the forefront of online shopping trends that many newer brands are tapping into.
“If you look at the way that most of the insurgent brands are arriving, it’s through social media, and that blurs into e-commerce platforms, for example TikTok Shop,” he said.
“It’s about making sure that we’re present, that we’re growing fast, and that we’re stealing our share of purchases there, just as we would a Tesco Express down the street.”
TikTok Shop, the e-commerce arm of the video-sharing social media platform where users can buy and sell products, has grown rapidly over recent years.
Major retailers like Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury’s are now selling products on the marketplace alongside thousands of smaller businesses and brands.
TikTok Shop recently said it had become the fourth-largest beauty retailer in the UK, according to data from NielsenIQ, while beauty sales on the platform soared by 60% year-on-year in 2025 fuelled by trends such as Korean skincare.
Meanwhile, PZ Cussons’ Mr Myers highlighted the business’s activity in Indonesia – where it has been experimenting with new sales tactics, including a live-streaming channel from its factory.
He said: “We run three shifts of live-streamers who are driving demand for our brands that is then fulfilled through marketplaces like TikTok Shop, and delivered on the back of a moped.”
TikTok sales in Indonesia have increased more than 600%, where PZ Cussons currently operates a TikTok Shop.
The chief executive said he could “definitely see the rise of quick commerce” in urban areas of the UK, accelerated by the “blurring” of social media and shopping channels.
Mr Myers stressed that there was no room for “complacency”, adding: “Competition is good because it keeps us on our toes.”
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