Ford’s Factory Revamp, GM Leans Into Autonomy, Teachers Using AI

Paul J Daly: 0:00 John, good morning. It is Tuesday, August 12. This is the automotive State of the Union. I'm Paul Jay Daly. This is combo Cyr today. We're talking about Ford, GM and teachers. Why not all three? I never have that much time left. At the end of an intro, I didn't know what to do with that. What did you do? I just felt like saying everything fast. I always feel like I'm dragging, and then I'm like, What do I do with this four seconds? And I just, I froze. Kyle Mountsier: 0:25 I wish the rest of like, life was like that. It's like, what do it then? I mean, the last 30 minutes of today, if that's, I don't know, oh Paul J Daly: 0:32 gosh, not even say, Well, if that's the first show intro anybody heard, they probably like, were like, I can't listen to this. About halfway through that, listen to this four Kyle Mountsier: 0:39 seconds. This guy's much caffeine, unbelievable, Paul J Daly: 0:43 yeah. Oh man. What a day, what a day. You're, you're, you're not at home today. Kyle Mountsier: 0:48 Oh, Canada. I'm in Michael Cirillo, his home country. It's, it's, it's, it's a whole different world up here. But it's hot. It's like Nashville weather, and it's gorgeous. We're hanging out with the tech team over it, over at auto genius, and having a lot of fun. So, Paul J Daly: 1:04 you know, no one goes in Toronto to get heat and humidity, by the Kyle Mountsier: 1:08 way. No, that was not the plan is, it's totally side kind of Paul J Daly: 1:12 feel good because you're, like, you're much closer to me than Nashville, right? Like, I know I could get in a car right now, and by lunchtime I could be where you are. I got my passport, I could do it. Oh, good. Not gonna do it. I'm fancy international passport card thing. Yeah, you know, whatever, right? This week we have a ASOTU edge webinar coming out with our friends at wide whale. This is such a fun topic. We're going to talk about the 2025 halftime report and the state of dealer reputation with our friend Matt Murray. I love halftime. I love football. It's middle of the year. We're gonna figure out what the reputation scores were first half of the year. Figure out who's up, who's down, how we can adjust going into the second half of the game. So you're gonna wanna be there, go to asotu.com, and sign up for the webinar. You know how they work, and these are just so much fun. They're fast, 2530 minutes. You're back to your day after learning a thing or two. So sign up. That's a next week. Kyle Mountsier: 2:09 So yeah, we've seen the sneak peek. Peek at some of the data. You're not going to want to miss. Paul J Daly: 2:13 Data is amazing. The data is amazing. We also have a new auto Collabs episode, one of our other long form podcasts. I get to sit down with Jamie butters. So many people know him as the editor of automotive news, but now he is with the Wall Street Journal. It's kind of been a lifelong dream of tour for Wall Street Journal. So he's there. I get to talk to him in the week in between the two jobs. So I think that's the time when everyone can say whatever they want. Last time, I knew you're allowed to say, yeah, so go to auto Collabs. Just search auto Collabs, and it'll be right there at the top of your screen where you go to our website, hit, podcast, whatever. But very fun conversation with Jamie butters, who I will forever be like has Bill Pullman vibes. Bill Pullman, he's the president in Independence Day. That's Jamie butters. He really is. And there goes my road caster. Can you hear me? Am I gone? Oh, no, I think we lost Kyle Mountsier: 3:04 Paul. Dude. We totally lost Paul. I was like, I know he's talking. I've seen him talking. Paul J Daly: 3:09 My road caster is possessed. Unknown: 3:11 There he is. He's back. Okay, all right. Well, let's Paul J Daly: 3:14 talk about some news before it goes again. Ford is going to invest $2 billion to transform its Louisville, Kentucky plant into high efficiency hub for an affordable, tech packed electric pickup aiming at right to rival low cost Chinese EVs when it eventually launches in 2027 the new process is cutting parts count by 20% using large, single piece aluminum castings. Parallel assembly lines are replacing traditional conveyors boosting efficiency by 15% they're using lighter shorter wiring harnesses, ergonomic workstations are improving build quality and reducing labor strain. Here's a quote from Doug field forest Ford's chief EV and digital systems officer. He says this is a bold and difficult undertaking to compete with the best in the world. Here's a comment from our friend, Cliff banks on LinkedIn, and this is fantastic. He does one tiny fact that is big news, in our opinion, came out of Ford's second earnings call. Ford reduced their per vehicle loss on EVs from $44,000 to $22,000 that's in half. Folks. Keep that up and the model e division will be profitable much faster than expected. So there you Kyle Mountsier: 4:23 go. That's pretty impressive. Like to cut the deficit in half in one quarter. Yeah, that's that's saying something. We still got a ways to go, because we still got the whole cost of a vehicle, the cost of you, the cost, yeah, profit from a profit, yeah, yeah, from, from a losing perspective. But this is, this is the case with any any good startup, you're going to lose money for a few years. That's what they've said for many years. The model is basically in startup mode. I love the fact that you said Louisville, like a true Louisville native. I Paul J Daly: 4:52 was going to point that out in mid century. Proud of you. I chose against it. Thank you for catching Kyle Mountsier: 4:58 that. And I love that the South gets. This starts to get, you know, the the efficiency, the EV, the innovative thing that Ford is doing, and kudos to them for really looking across the world and saying, Hey, look, we got to gain efficiency in our processes if we're going to R and D develop and and build vehicles to complete compete, not just in the US, but on a global scale. Paul J Daly: 5:20 That's right. Hey, don't sleep on Ford. Don't sleep on him. Speaking of sleeping on it, oh, they're waking up on it. We thought they were sleeping on it after shutting down its cruise, RoboTaxi unit GM is reigniting its autonomous ambitions, this time targeting personal use driverless cars instead of fleet services. The New Program Starts With hands free eyes free driving, while eyes free driving, that's a big deal while a human is in the vehicle, progressing toward fully driverless capability. Sterling Anderson, former Tesla auto pilot chief, is building a team by hiring new talent and inviting former cruise employees back. We remember when they let go. GM is deploying LIDAR equipped human driven test vehicles to log data and train simulation models that guide development on GM q2 earnings call, CEO Mary Barra named autonomous tech expanding the domestic supply chain and battery innovation as quote our clear priorities. Kyle Mountsier: 6:17 I think if you're not getting into autonomous vehicle now. I mean, everybody thought that it was coming in 2018 but if you're not getting into it now, then you're totally missing the boat. The rest of the world is thinking about that. And when you look at what Tesla's built from just a knowledge base of the roads and traffic there, these automakers are so far behind. And so even the training required to get to hands, free eyes, free driving in the vehicles, in the data systems, in the understanding of the roads, how they work, how humans move in and about them, they've got to be dialing that in. It's cool that it's so interesting. I mean, I think we covered back when Sterling Anderson was brought on from from the Tesla auto pilot side of stuff, but, but kudos to GM for kind of seeing the foresight on that and leveraging someone that knows a little little bit about what's going on. I'm still, I'm bullish on it, like ever since I got into Waymo. I'm full bullish on, let's go autonomous vehicle. Paul J Daly: 7:16 Yeah, I've never been in I've haven't been in Waymo, but I also haven't been in a truly self driving car experience, right where you're in a car and like, you know, I my my Ford, and you like, Lightning has blue, blue cruise, but that's like on the highway. It's very limited. I know Tesla Autopilot is much more robust and much more, much more capable, but I do think when people get used to this and feel more comfortable, it is going to be something they want in their car, yeah, on a regular so, very good. I like to see people coming back, right? Kyle Mountsier: 7:47 One of these days we'll be able to use the lay flat front seat that we've that we've always been leaving dreaming of using, you know, that's never going to work. Speaking of dreaming of using stuff segway, more and more people using it. Only three years after chat GPT public debut, many K through 12 educators are moving from banning generative AI to using it as a tool for critical thinking, creativity and tailored instruction. Study says about 60% of teachers now use AI for lesson planning, grading and parent communication, saving an average of 5.9 hours weekly early bands led students to hide AI use now, some districts are actually forming committees to guide ethical adoption. Teachers are also using AI for individualized lessons, translation, accessibility and real world project design. There's still a lot of concerns remaining around bias, privacy, over reliance on the AI, but advocates are saying that, obviously there's, there's a bit of outweighed advantage to using it. A direct School University professor said educators are starting to realize that AI isn't going away, and that it's better to teach their students how to use it, rather than to leave them to their own devices. I Paul J Daly: 8:59 mean, this is a curve we see a lot of the time, especially when it comes to education, we see the kids getting ahead of the tech, being the first adopters, using it to work the system, and then the system realizing it's not going away, and saying, we better figure out how to actually leverage and then, I mean, in GPT case, it's whether it's K through 12, whether it's college, very quickly, like I can see you going like This. The teacher is, like, what are these kids using? What that writes their paper for them? Oh, they can't do that. Hey, wait a minute. I can use this to make assignments. They grade the papers. Hey, students use that right? Then all of a sudden you realize, like, no, actually, this makes everybody's life a lot easier. Let's figure out how to, you know, get it in the rail so we can actually have people learn things and listen all I have to say to every dealer, listening, every industry partner, listening, if the kindergarten through 12th grade teachers configure I use languages in their business. Quote, un, fam, you are behind. If you are not, get on that. By the way. We have an email called Auto industry.ai. I hit him with it. You can subscribe to and we try to keep you up to date and contextualize for automotive in what AI you can should be using and what other people are using as well. There you go. It's really great. Think we did a show. It's really great. Kyle Mountsier: 10:13 It really is. I was like, when I read it every week, I'm like, Man, this is good stuff. You got a prompt in there. You can go try it Paul J Daly: 10:20 out. That's fun. Who doesn't love sound of the week? Copy it, paste it. See what it does for you. Yeah, love it all right. Listen, wrong one that's the one stop. Just stop whatever you're doing out there today. Leverage the tech. Pay attention to the people. Go out there and serve somebody. Listen. Pay attention to those people. And everything else will figure out how to get done. It will we'll see you tomorrow. Unknown: 10:56 You.