The Man Behind Ford’s Revamp, Mitsubishi Gallery Store, ChatGPT 4o’s Comeback

Paul J Daly: 0:01 Good morning. This is what day is. It's Friday. It's Friday. It is Friday the 15th. This is the automotive State of the Union. I'm Paul Jay Daly, Collabs here we're talking about four dv, ramp up, Mitsubishi, opening a gallery and chat GPT, remembering that people like to be supported. Kyle Mountsier: 0:20 We got some hometown vibes. What do you mean today? We got some hometown Did you notice that? No, the second story. Oh, I didn't notice that yet. You missed it, yeah. Well, you don't talk for you, I guess. Yeah, exactly. I guess it's very like, do we Paul J Daly: 0:38 get to talk about the Eagles today? I That's all I wake up thinking about now. Oh my gosh, it would let me tell Kyle Mountsier: 0:46 Oh yeah, it's about to be. Oh, it's over. We're gonna have to talk about the boundary Monday, Paul J Daly: 0:51 not about to be. We're here say Kwan is playing this weekend. It's happening. Kyle Mountsier: 0:56 Just tell everybody, if you're listening, just don't worry about Mondays. The first three minutes, Paul's gonna talk about eagles, Paul J Daly: 1:02 not, not exclusively. I'll also talk about the teams we beat. No, don't, don't judge me. I grew up there. I have no choice. Kyle Mountsier: 1:10 He'll say, you, you might heard some, some explicit is around, around Dallas, Paul J Daly: 1:16 yeah, you won't need to figure out who won or who lost. You can just tell by my general countenance what happened over the weekend. But look, we are about to enter the third Friday, Saturday, Sunday, of a five Saturday, Sunday, come on Monday month. That means we got three left, three full Kyle Mountsier: 1:34 weekends left. It's like hump day in the month. You know? What a great month? Okay, it's already it's a great month. Paul J Daly: 1:41 We do have an upcoming ASOTU Edge webinar coming up next week with our friends at widewell. We're going to be talking about, appropriately, the 2025, halftime report, state of dealer, reputation with Matt Murray. Go to asotu.com just sign up for this webinar, because the data is great. We've already seen a little bit of it. And going to be talking about reputation, who's up, who's down? What you can do in the second half of the year to either fix some problems or maybe gain some market share, is the more fun way to look at it. In my There you go, gain some market share. So go sign up for that. Make sure you're all set. So next week, you don't have to think about it, worry about it. You'll just get the reminder, and you'll just drop in on the live stream or get the recording, and it'll be all good. All right, let's talk about some news. Let's go meet the man behind Ford's push for affordable, affordable EVs. His name is Doug field. He's their EV chief, and channeling his inner Elon Musk by learning leaning on hardcore engineering hard. That's Elon's thing, hardcore, right? Yeah, radical manufacturing changes and first principles. His career basically spans some of the most ambitious mobility projects of the last 20 years. Segway, that was a major deal when that came out right Tesla's model three, and Apple's secretive car program, was it Project Titan. So yes, he's been around. He's applying these first principles thinking by cutting battery size, battery weight, battery weight, I'm sorry, battery size, body weight and part count by 20% while keeping Mustang like acceleration. We haven't told him what we think about the name Mustang in an EV, but that's fine. Basically, he says physics isn't proprietary, meaning that the best part is no part like very Elon Musk, right? Let's think about physics. Very much. Think about how to not include things in this car instead of how we can include more. And he's admitting that century old company being Ford changing that isn't easy. He said, doing something new at an established company requires overcoming inertia. I came in with slightly unrealistic expectations of how quickly things could be changed. But that's an industry thing, not just a Ford thing. So, oh yeah, that was good, man. He's strong. Kyle Mountsier: 3:50 That cuts. I mean, here's the thing, kudos to Ford for bringing in a guy like this, someone that is been on the cutting edge of new technology, of specifically hardware as it matches software. Obviously, being a part of Tesla, being a part of Apple, this, this is always the pain, though, right when, when someone innovative, someone forward thinking, that's been a part of these programs, that is on the cutting edge, going to a bit of a legacy system, and trying out how to fit, you know, figuring out how to move a big ship quickly is a hard thing. You see that across the industry when it comes to retail, when you bring in a new operator, bring in a new executive that's trying to move the ship, maybe of a team that's been doing things the same way. I think there's there's two things for me in this story, like, hey Ford's probably going to find some advances quicker than some of the other legacy automakers, because they're bringing in people like this. But the other thing, if you're a retail dealer or you're an industry partner, and you're looking at this story going, Hey, there's someone that's coming in from the from the bleeding edge of technology, saying it's hard to move. Don't get yourself caught up as a company. That feels like that Paul J Daly: 5:01 any man. I mean, every industry, the more established they are, the harder it is to turn so automotive has been around right like, definitely, there's the disadvantages of the new technology, because you have all of this, all of these other things I want to be called. I mean, some of it could be considered legacy baggage, but a lot of it is just like other operations, other verticals, other things that are running, that are, you know, feeding the furnace to do the new development. So I'm excited to see, see what he's going to do for it's been talking so much about his low cost TVs, this new, smaller truck, you know, the the improvement in, I guess, can we call it an improvement in profitability? We can't. We can say a reduction in the amount of money they're losing per they're losing, yes, yeah, that's that sounds like a real spin. We've improved profitability by 50% it's like, well, I guess, yeah, no, we just heard that. They've cut the loss per EV from 44,000 to $22,000 in a quarter. Big deal. So, I mean, that's the path to zero. Once they get the zero, it's gonna be a big party over there Ford big old parties, I know, speaking of big old parties, segway kind of I guess was a weak segue. Mitsubishi will open its first US gallery dealership in Antioch, Tennessee by quarter 120, 26 blending a luxury style retail experience with mass market appeal as part of its it's called the momentum 2030, growth plan located in Century farms, mixed use development. The store is going to be designed for browsing with a no pressure, open format showroom more common in luxury brands. Sounds like a Tesla store instead of traditional lot packed with vehicles. The gallery is going to store inventory off site at a partner dealer, city auto, Mitsubishi, and then bring in vehicles for customers as it progresses toward a purchase. So basically, they're going to be trained brand specialists from the partner dealer. Going to be staffing the store to walk people through from discovery through final paperwork, focusing on experience rather than volume. CEO Mark Chaffin says Mitsubishi is, quote, underrepresented in the US, aiming to grow from 1/3 to over half of new car markets by 2030 and he also said the gallery dealership program is key to introducing customers to our vehicles in a welcome, welcoming surprise and delight kind Kyle Mountsier: 7:16 of way. Yeah, here's the thing. Couple a few things. One Antioch is, like, maybe 20 minutes from me, this specific place, I know exactly where it's at. We frequent it. Century Farms is this beautiful, like, very planned development. There's re there's retail and food and food and beverage, and then, like, a bunch of apartment homes and also condos right there a very, like, mixed use, like walkability type place, and it's full of, like, mid to high end stores that that, like people love to just go and be around this area. It's Suburban. And I know this team at City Auto, and they're very forward thinking. They actually started as a used car operation that was kind of like car Max esque, but for a local area, and then have moved into franchise sales. And so the city auto, Mitsubishi, like, they've got a great team over there. They think progressively, I know some consultants that have worked with them on their BDC operations. And so they really, they think about, like, how do we promote team? Dude, it sounds like you're very optimistic on this whole experience. I'm super optimistic about it. And you and I have been arguing for, like, this more pop up shop mentality. And I think seeding something inside. There's no other automaker that's gone inside the century farms, mixed use development, I think that they're going to get a lot of visibility. And Mitsubishi has been changing their game when it comes to their products. So I think that people are going to be excited about something like this coming. Kudos to Mitsubishi for thinking outside Paul J Daly: 8:50 the box here. I wonder. So this sounds to me that the OEM is paying for the space, Yep, yeah, and it's a partnership, and the dealership is staffing it. Yep. I wonder if there's anybody changing hands there, it will follow this. We'll follow it. I think it's gonna work. I think Mitsubishi is kind of like that challenger brand that's like, okay, you know what I mean, looking for some market share. And you know, display is so important to how retail functions. You know what I mean, you put a less expensive watch in a super nice box, and all of a sudden the watch feels better. Yep, you know? And so I think when you put a Mitsubishi in a nice area, it's going to present in the best way possible. And I think people, their perceptions, they're already in a happy mindset and a shopping in a retail mindset. I think this is going to be a win, if the the dealership can deliver on experience. I think it's going to be success. You know what? I'm going to reach out to city auto. We're going to be there do it. We're going to be there whenever. Great idea if we like you and me. Yeah, okay, we're gonna do it. I'm on my way. On my way. Let's go. Speaking of let's go. Segue Kyle Mountsier: 9:55 open. AI is responding to a bunch of backlash over chat. GPT. GS, fives, cooler tone, so they've brought back GPT 404. Plus subscribers promising to make GPT five warmer over time. CEO Sam Altman said many Mischa. GPT four rows, overly agreeable. Yes. Man style, for some it was the only real encouragement they'd ever received. They said GPT five introduces cynic, robot listener and nerd personalities with each with adjustable tone. So they've kind of like taken that grok ideology of like, Hey, we're going to give you these personalities that you can that you can have the four Oh style earlier was criticized as being su to sycophanty, and, you know, making a lot of like gushing energy around, like the prompts or the responses, or things like that. Altman says some use the four Oh, life changing. Saying, Please, can I have it back? I've never had anyone in my life be supportive of Paul J Daly: 11:08 Paul. We got problems. We got other problems. Yeah, yeah. So here's, I know exactly. Everybody who's used GPT 4.0 knows what they understand. You're like, I want some pizza for lunch. It's like, what an amazing idea it is unusual to find someone as committed to nutrition as you are, right? It's like, that's how it kind of operated, and to the point where it makes you actually feel like your ideas are good, but they're not good, right? So I actually appreciated, appreciate GPT five cooler tone. It's more to the gut. It's just straight up. And maybe because we're business people, maybe because, like, we have emotional support systems. So actually, every time I watch GPT typing out a response that's, like, encouraging my thought, or, you know, supporting me, I'm like, Come on, get just get to that point not to do that, but, but I can understand why other people would want the other thing, right, because they're using it in a regular my wife uses GPT, and she really does enjoy, I think the the Yeah, oh, great, that's a great idea. Let's work through that. Yeah, exactly. And it is definitely much more personal. I think the business users, users have no problem with this. I think the casual users, you know, miss it. May miss it more, but I definitely think the new users would want to, they need to be onboarded in the in the nice, cushy way. I think you're gonna get Kyle Mountsier: 12:26 a lot you're right onboarding of like, like get maybe there's like this transition from like, you get onboarded into something, and then you get the more resilient, resolved, uh, persona. Be interesting to see. I Paul J Daly: 12:39 know. But whatever it is, I know you know our position on chat, GPT and AI tools in general. You if you're not using them, need to start using them today. And if you are using them today, use it for something new today. Because the people who are adopt this technology first are going to be the ones that grab market share, have more efficient systems and frequent, frankly, like attract more like younger workforce folks who want to come work for you, that's right, because they're hearing everywhere that AI is crushing jobs. They're hearing everywhere that maybe their skill set will be obsolete. And if you're a company who's like, you know what, we use AI a lot, come on in and and come on in, you're going to be the best at using it because you work here, which one of career growth we did get 1400 applicants for our last open positions done. Just saying, Kyle Mountsier: 13:26 just saying, Look, plenty of people Paul J Daly: 13:28 weekend time, third weekend of five weekends, go out there and make it happen. And take a little something that you learned this week, apply it over the weekend. Let us know how it worked, and we'll maybe even share it on the show. We'll see you tomorrow. You