Auto Woes
Snotnose writes:
Hope you didn't want to buy a car in the near future
Car dealership software-as-a-service provider CDK Global was hit by a massive cyberattack causing the company to shut down its systems and leaving clients unable to operate their business normally.
CDK Global provides clients in the auto industry a SaaS platform that handles all aspects of a car dealership's operation, including CRM, financing, payroll, support and service, inventory, and back office operations.
Brad Holton, CEO of Proton Dealership IT, a cybersecurity and IT services firm for car dealerships, told BleepingComputer that the attack caused CDK to take its two data centers offline at approximately 2 AM last night.
Employees at multiple car dealerships have also told BleepingComputer that CDK has not shared much information other than to send an email warning that they suffered a cyber incident.
Anyone wanna take bets they're running Microsoft stuff?
Why Americans aren't buying more EVs
Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
Clint and Rachel Wells had reasons to consider buying an electric vehicle when it came to replacing one of their cars. But they had even more reasons to stick with petrol.
The couple live in Normal, Illinois, which has enjoyed an economic boost from the electric vehicle assembly plant opened there by upstart electric-car maker Rivian. EVs are a step forward from using dead dinosaurs" to power cars, Clint Wells says, and he wants to support that.
But the couple decided to get what was affordable"-in their case, a petrol-engined Honda Accord costing $19,000 after trade-in.
An EV priced at $25,000 would have been tempting, but only five new electric models costing less than $40,000 have come on to the US market in 2024. The hometown champion's focus on luxury vehicles-its cheapest model is currently the $69,000 R1T-made it a non-starter.
It's just not accessible to us at this point in our life," Rachel Wells says.
The Wells are among the millions of Americans opting to continue buying combustion-engine cars over electric vehicles, despite [the] President's ambitious target of having EVs make up half of all new cars sold in the US by 2030. Last year, the proportion was 9.5 percent.
High sticker prices for cars on the forecourt, and high interest rates that are pushing up monthly lease payments, have combined with concerns over driving range and charging infrastructure to chill buyers' enthusiasm-even among those who consider themselves green.
While EV technology is still improving and the popularity of electric cars is still increasing, sales growth has slowed. Many carmakers are rethinking manufacturing plans, cutting the numbers of EVs they had planned to produce for the US market in favor of combustion-engined and hybrid cars.
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.