Cardinal Signal Research
The rooftop-grain record of automotive retail.
A census, not a survey — built from what 28,000 dealer websites actually publish, continuously re-verified.
How the numbers are made
Every figure carries its denominator and its capture window.
We count what’s detectable on the dealer’s own website, state the coverage, and count the unknowns. The full method is public.
The library
Five ways to read the market.
- 01FlagshipAt launch
The State of Dealership Technology 2026
The full detection corpus — 20+ vendor categories across OEM, state, and group size.
- Cadence
- Annual
- Access
- Executive summary and charts free at launch · full report to the beta list
- 02Cross-section
Who Runs the Dealer Web: CMS Market Share by State
Website vendor-of-record at 90%+ coverage, by state, OEM, and group.
- Cadence
- Quarterly share-shift after the second detection scan
- Access
- National top-line and one state free · 50-state tables by email
- 03Scheduled
The Service Lane Stack: Scheduler Landscape 2026
Scheduler-of-record across 13,750+ rooftops, by OEM, state, and website co-install.
- Cadence
- Annual, with quarterly stat drops
- Access
- Findings free · benchmark tables by email
- 04Scheduled
The Consolidation Map: Who Owns America’s Dealerships
The ownership-group registry — membership, geography, and brand mix. Version one is a structural census.
- Cadence
- Semi-annual
- Access
- Top-100 and the concentration story free · state directory by email
- 05Scheduled
The Dealership Org Chart: A Census of Who Runs America’s Stores
The staff corpus — roughly 140,000 people, by role, department, and tier.
- Cadence
- Annual
- Access
- Findings free · role-by-region tables by email
The Signal Brief
One research note a month.
Three or four stats, one chart, and what’s coming next — founder-voiced. One-click unsubscribe, always.
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