AAH #760 - Key Tech Aumovio is Bringing to Automakers

TOPIC: Aumovio PANEL: Aruna Anand, Aumovio NA; Nora Eckert, Reuters; Gary Vasilash, shinymetalboxes.net; John McElroy, Autoline.tv

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Out online after Hours is brought to you by bridge
Stone Tires Solutions for your journey.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
All right, thanks for joining us everybody on Auto Line
after hours. Garry Vasselash is in the house here with me,
back back from a wonderful river cruise in Europe, was it?

Speaker 3 (00:21):
And Holland and Belgium?

Speaker 1 (00:23):
Wow?

Speaker 3 (00:23):
And you know, but I couldn't break the automotive aspect
of this thing, and so I kept, you know, observing
all the vehicles so that I could see while I
was dodging bicycles in Amsterdam, and it was striking to me.

Speaker 4 (00:35):
I did not see one pickup truck.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
Not one. So if we go outside the studio right now,
we can't help but to see like multitudinous pickup trucks
and so so what what a different perspective one gets
to see what the rest of the world was driving,
or at least a part.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
Of the or at least in you know, Holland and Belgium. Right,
So hey, we we gotta let everybody no. We got
Nora Eckert from Reuter's joining us this afternoon as well.
And our special guest today is Aruna anand she is
the CEO of the North American operations of the newest
supplier in the industry that happens to be about thirty

(01:17):
years old. Not aaruna, but.

Speaker 5 (01:21):
So uh yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
So today was the day that Amovio did its IPO
in Germany. And Amovio is the spin off from Continental
and that's why I say it's the newest company that's
actually thirty years old. But aaruna. Exciting time, I mean,
And to be the CEO of the North American Operations

(01:47):
has got to be a lot of pressure, but a
lot of opportunity ahead too.

Speaker 6 (01:52):
Absolutely, today's a wonderful day for us to start a
new chapter with a newly formed Amovio. We have the
strong legacy of one hundred and fifty year old company
and we've always excelled in excellence and we have a

(02:12):
lot of innovation and so on that we have to offer, and.

Speaker 5 (02:16):
This provides an excellent opportunity.

Speaker 6 (02:18):
For us to We are well positioned to grow and
to have sustainable value creation. So that's very exciting, and
I also wanted to tell you, yes, it is a privilege.
It is very humbling to be leading the North American organization.

(02:39):
We are sixteen thousand people strong and if I look
at last year's result. We are a five billion dollar
company here in North America. So we are very excited.
We are very motivated to create value to our customers,
to our shareholders and as well to the employees of

(03:00):
a Movio.

Speaker 5 (03:01):
What a great day.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
So for those who are not familiar with the company,
I mean, what is it that you bring to the market.

Speaker 6 (03:07):
Ah, So, as John mentioned, we are not totally new.
So we've been Continental Automotive, and so we have an
excellent legacy of excellence and we have a strong pursuit
of innovation. And so with a Movio, we what are

(03:28):
we doing in a very high level to give you
driving experiences in the areas of safety, connected vehicles, autonomous
and exciting? How do you make your drive in all
of these? Our track record speaks for itself. And with

(03:51):
this legacy of excellence and this relentless pursuit of inner
that we have time and time again shown, we are
positioned especially well in these areas to contribute and provide
with our creativity, with our vision these ideas into actual actions,

(04:16):
and I can the course of our conversation, I can
give you some high end technologies that we had recently
showcased on IA on how all of what I say
now is put into action into realizable products.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
Let's talk about it and some of those technologies. A
one of the things that caught my eye is what
you're calling mirrorless head up to But mirror less, what's
that mean?

Speaker 6 (04:45):
That's so again, I'm incredibly proud of innovations that we
are bringing to front. So when you look at a
typical head up display, you need something a projection system
to project the image on to your.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
Windshield or why or put a little piece of glass.

Speaker 6 (05:07):
Normally, the mirror is used for that projection technique. And
the challenge here is the curvature of the windshield and
the angle in which it connects are also different across
different vehicles, and in order to do all of these strategies,
we spend quite a lot of time to package that
too in that space, and that becomes.

Speaker 5 (05:32):
A lot of effort.

Speaker 6 (05:33):
So now we imagine that you don't need a mirror,
and that means you're able to reduce your packaging size
to fifty percent of what you had, and not just that,
it's able to scale as well across multiple vehicles. We
use extensive software algorithms AI technology, and we have partnership
with a company called Epitome to be able to do

(05:56):
this and not just the size of packaging for convenience,
but the span of projection is also increased, the view
of projection is also increased, and the depth of the
image also. We are able to work and provide you
a seamless but better approach and a convenient approach, cost

(06:18):
effective approach. So that was one of the aspects that
was shown at the IA.

Speaker 3 (06:24):
Yeah, people I think under estimate the size of ye
head up display and it's giant that's stuck in the IP.

Speaker 6 (06:32):
Yeah, the size and the time it takes for development,
and because when you are building this, even the car
is in its state of infancy and a lot of
these curvatures are not defined at the start of the
project and the amount of experimentation that has to go
through to get this all right takes a lot of
effort and time which normally nobody has these days. And

(06:54):
this innovation that's why it's very unique and it's able
to help in all of these areas to get products
out faster by using technology that is available.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
Another technology that you guys are touting right now is
a night capable camera, yes, right, So is this for
night vision displays or what?

Speaker 5 (07:17):
Also, so this is another one.

Speaker 6 (07:19):
So again I told you we are in a movie
focusing on four distinct areas. One on safety, then making
the right safe as safe as possible, making autonomous, making
the drive as exciting while you do this, and all
all of these things have to be connected because we
always want to have a seamless experience moving from our

(07:41):
living room into our car.

Speaker 5 (07:42):
Right.

Speaker 6 (07:43):
So this one is in the area of advanced driver
assistance system. How can we have convenience? But at the
end of the day, a car is used to drive
from point A to point B in a safe manner.

Speaker 5 (07:57):
Otherwise there's no point to go to point B.

Speaker 2 (08:00):
So this.

Speaker 6 (08:02):
Camera is again an advancement of technology. And you can
see images very clearly when.

Speaker 5 (08:11):
It's pitched dark outside. If you see.

Speaker 6 (08:15):
If you're crossing the street with the deer and so
on and so forth, you're able to see it. Again,
it's working on image perception algorithms with AI that we
are able to do this again a seamless. So it
is used for convenience, it's used for safety, It is
used to advance collision warning systems. So these are add

(08:39):
on things on top of what we have. We have
an overall system for advanced safety that we had promoted
called the self. It's about software and system solutions for
level two to level four. How do you scale that
which becomes a very important factor. And on top you
add all these add ons that can increment the safety

(09:02):
of the car and making the ride a most pleasurable one.
So that was on the area of advanced driver assistance.
And obviously you need a lot of compute power and
all of that to be able to do that. So
that brings us to the connected area where we talk
about zone controllers, vehicle architecture in general, how do you
do high performance computers and how much computational power it

(09:24):
needs to have and so on. So that was another highlight.
And then of course let's not forget the safety aspects
of things here. We had green Caliber basically, which is
hydraulic less and it's very efficient, it's lightweight, and that

(09:45):
is able to be used for electric vehicles and the
idea of this is it's going to increase your range
because the residual drag is now radiuced, so that's a possibility.
And then another technology that we showcase was as well.
The corner module. What this module is is now relatively

(10:05):
a small box. It combines in it driving, breaking, suspension,
all of that steering all in one module. So you
can have four corner modules and when you're doing software
defined vehicles, you can drive it each independently and so on,
and that gives you a lot more flexibility. And again

(10:26):
packaging is less and so on and so forth. So
these were at least highlights of some of the things
that we had highlighted a couple of weeks ago with
the IA.

Speaker 4 (10:36):
NOR I ask a question, because John and I are
going to step up.

Speaker 7 (10:40):
Well, you know, I'm going to get into the bigger
debate debate about what customers actually care about, but that
we might be leading.

Speaker 2 (10:47):
No, no, no, get because that's where I wanted to go.

Speaker 7 (10:51):
Yeah, So I think, and this was a topic at
some of the conferences we were recently, is you know,
like the customer doesn't really care if it's an architecture
or naturally they don't know what this means. What do
you think customers are willing to pay for and how
do you keep that in mind?

Speaker 6 (11:07):
I mean, that's a very important question one need to
answer an also interesting question for which you don't have
concrete evidence of what one might like and what one
might not like. But if I were to look at it,
there are few things that price is always very important, right,
So the question also, I can also put it relatively.

(11:30):
If you want to go to Best Buy and buy
a laptop, I have, say a fifteen hundred lap dollar
laptop that does everything I wanted to do. But then
I have a five thousand dollars laptop that will be
useful for me two years down the road, three years,
I can put all function, speeches, whatever. So what do

(11:51):
I want to invest on the five thousand dollars or
fifteen hundred dollars. Some of us are like, no, I
better do the five fifteen hundred and let's see how
things emerge, and then if I need a new laptop,
I'll buy it then, and some not. Then the question
is what triggers that movement. So multiple things come into play.
First of all, the price point itself. So in order

(12:14):
to have all these functions and features, you need to
have the hardware that is capable of doing that.

Speaker 5 (12:20):
So you need to hardware protect basically.

Speaker 6 (12:23):
So you can add functions and software as days progress
and the question becomes how much hardware is sufficient? How
do anybody know one year from now these are things
that really evolve and not evolve and so on and
so forth once And that is a very important aspect

(12:44):
because you have to be able to scale that as well.
And if you put too much hardware to future protect,
your price point is going to go very, very high.
And if you put two less then you're out of
the game. So that's the challenge that we all need
to grapple with. So that's on the hardware side of things.
Then you look at software and differentiating functions, which is

(13:06):
where your question was. I again, we can only have
indicators on what would be a potential, so I would
always start on multiple levels. In general, you say something
that makes better quality, that saves lives, you tend to
want to buy it because you want to save a

(13:27):
car for your family. And then when you're defining these functions,
one need to ask what is the problem I'm trying
to solve. A function by itself is no good because
it's nice, But am I going to invest in buying that?
But if it's able to solve a given problem, or
if it's able to increase quality or the way I
communicate with my car to make my life better, or

(13:50):
if it's going to save lives for my family, I'm
more prone to investing in that. And if there's enough
hardware to support those speeches, then it's good for the
industry and good for all of us, and we're in
a position to monetize. So those are the challenges why
these things are not as easy as it seems.

Speaker 3 (14:12):
You're mentioning hardware that would protect future for going forward.
So historically the auto industry has used chips that are not,
let's say, at the cutting edge.

Speaker 4 (14:29):
So how do you manage to do that?

Speaker 3 (14:32):
I mean, is it a matter of getting more technology
in terms of the chips in the smaller sizes, or.

Speaker 4 (14:41):
You know, it's all of it back to the old time.

Speaker 5 (14:45):
I mean, we are looking at complete transformation. That's why.

Speaker 6 (14:49):
So when we're all talking about software defined vehicles, and
if you look at the current state where we are,
not all cars are in this same state, but where
we are coming from to where we are going, it's
a sea of change because today the way or until

(15:09):
the recent past, the way we use to do things
are quite different because you have purpose built hardware each
only doing what it's supposed to do. A door module
just took care of the doors. You would have a
seat module that takes care just for a seat. Then
you have hundreds of these that are spread across in
the vehicle and linked to that, you have a development cycle.

(15:33):
You're given a spec and the hardware is purpose built
and the software, the functions that go in those modules
are purpose built for that. And there's no possibility to
put more functions and so on within that module because
it's just purpose built for that. And also your development
cycle just ends when you going to launch mode. You're

(15:54):
not talking about that anymore. We are saying, you know what,
do we really need hundreds of mardules in the vehicle.
It's adding a lot of complexity. And you have done
a lot in your show in terms of how the
architecture is working, and so you upen thinking of few
modules which are i call it high performance, high compute

(16:15):
modules that are in the vehicle, and then you have
the zone controllers that are taking care of those particular zones.
So then you need as well if you want to
put all the software in all of that, and you
want to use AI and you want to use image
when I say, you know what, I want to learn
what is coming, and I want to have a learning
system that means your hardware has to be capable and

(16:38):
ready to be doing that. So then you go into
fewer boxes which are much more powerful. So the entire
structure of what we had to where we are going
has evolved pretty rapidly. But then it is a fun
time to be despite all of these challenges. And the

(16:59):
reason is the whole life cycle does not end at
all because if you're building, no more purpose build, but
you're making these as a foundational block. Many want to
do concept study what hardware and how should I do
with the architecture, So you're starting upfront and then you're
having enough hardware in the system. So when what it

(17:22):
allows you is to use any number of functions, you're
not purpose building to one supplier. That means anybody that
has those differentiating functions are able to contribute, and that
is a.

Speaker 5 (17:35):
Good place to be.

Speaker 6 (17:35):
Maybe in some cases the oms think, yes, this is
my function I want to develop on my own and
I have the foundation of my hardware, and then maybe
there are other suppliers that are not even in the
automotive industry but coming from other industries that want to integrate.

Speaker 5 (17:50):
Wonderful.

Speaker 6 (17:51):
So you have diversified that and allowed for integration of
all of that. And then what happens if you have
that much hardware You have to maintain them right, so
then these functions will evolve. You will maybe adapt, upgrade
and so on, so you have a maintenance face. So
your job is not done at production. And if you're

(18:13):
building bringing so many different suppliers, you need a platform
to integrate. Who's going to integrate all of them and
making sure that everybody can work on this setup seamlessly.
And if everyone needs that hardware, how do you get it?
You want to do virtualization. You want to make sure
you have a virtual hardware that you can work your
stuff in and have an integration platform that you can integrate.

Speaker 5 (18:36):
So the opportunities are plentiful.

Speaker 6 (18:39):
So it's really an exciting time to be, but as
well as challenging time to be.

Speaker 2 (18:44):
I must say run the auto makers say they want
to go to software to find vehicles and zonal centralized
computing because they say they want to write all the software.
Are they doing that? Is there room for suppliers like
a movie to still write software? What kind of messages
are you getting from the OEMs.

Speaker 5 (19:04):
So at the end of the day, we are into
value creation.

Speaker 6 (19:10):
So I want to make sure our OEMs are successful
because my belief is as an extension a move, your
succeeds if my OEMs are successful. Clear what is very
clear with this whole concept is we don't have time.
If you look at the other side of the world,

(19:30):
the eastern side of the world, things are happening at
a much, much, much faster pace, sometimes more than i'd like.
The nine nine six concept sounds very interesting, but I
don't know if I want to do nine ninety six here, right,
So we have to be very efficient. Timeliness becomes an issue.
So it's totally possible for an OEM to do everything

(19:51):
in house, but that's where you have to understand what
is differentiating and what's not. There is no value add
for an OEM to do non differentiating functions because it's
not going to differentiate in any way. And here a
movie gets to do those things that are not differentiating.
I'm more than happy to do non differentiating stuff.

Speaker 5 (20:13):
And maybe there are one or the other functions.

Speaker 6 (20:15):
For example, we have a particular function called ultra wide
band access system where just with your phone, you don't
even need your key phon to enter, and your car
recognizes you.

Speaker 5 (20:27):
You're only you, very uniquely.

Speaker 6 (20:30):
So if I have such kind of differentiating functions, maybe
the OEMs would say, you know what, I want just
that function from you, not everything. Maybe for this I
want somebody else to integrate.

Speaker 5 (20:40):
So I think it.

Speaker 6 (20:42):
They are starting to open up to say, okay, this
is the collaboration model that we need, and we are
working now collaboratively. We are some portions of the hardware
that are not interesting or the modules themselves.

Speaker 5 (20:56):
We are able to do it.

Speaker 6 (20:58):
And the question and the intro sting point is how
fast is a company like Amovio willing to adapt with
changing times. I can't expect that always I'm going to
be giving hardware and everything that goes as a turnkey.
I have to find where the value add and value
creation happens in this whole process. So I start from
the beginning. I'm able to do concept face. I'm able

(21:21):
to do the whole box and give the box so
they can put their functions in. And if that's not desired,
I can just give the hardware and allow for anybody
to do their stuff I can make a virtualization model
where the OEMs can develop their software and functions and
features without having a real hardware in time for their development.

(21:44):
Or I can do a bill to print if they
want to design, they want to do it all, we
are more than glad to do a bill to print.
We are more than happy to offer services and this
integration platform. When you have now many players, it becomes
very important to have a system level deep understanding which
we bring to the table, so that integration proves very

(22:05):
important and as well you would see now we are
interacting more and more with phones and so on.

Speaker 5 (22:14):
They have their own level of.

Speaker 6 (22:16):
Standards and a move you was the first and very
few suppliers that have expert level know how on how
to integrate it technologies phone technologies into the vehicles seamlessly
and making it work and have certification to do that.
So we are willing and able to do that. Some

(22:37):
OEMs have their own cloud services and for those OEMs
that don't have that, we are willing to do that.
So you have to understand and value create that whole
process and afterwards.

Speaker 5 (22:51):
Also the maintenance phase. We are more than happy.

Speaker 6 (22:53):
So we are not very picky on what we want
and we have modeled ourselves to be very edged child flexible,
looking at customer demands and answering to the voice of
the customer.

Speaker 5 (23:04):
And you might.

Speaker 6 (23:05):
Also know, completely totally different from passenger cars. We also
are doing now level four system with Aurora on truck
where it's not typical selling or buying model. It's based
on mileage driven. So we are exploring every avenue and
showing that yes, we are a company that takes the

(23:28):
interest of the customer in mind and we want to
be agile and responsive to the needs.

Speaker 3 (23:34):
Tell Us, tell us more about this collaboration with Aurora,
because this is the year of autonomy that John is said.

Speaker 2 (23:39):
In Yeah, I keep saying twenty twenty five is the
year of autonomy. Gary continues to challenge me on that left.

Speaker 6 (23:49):
So we are working with Aurora on automated driving for trucks.
It's a level four system and Continental then and Amovio
now is fully responsible to provide the backup, complete, full system,
stack backup solution for Aurora, and not just that, all

(24:13):
the elements that make up the cameras, the radars, the
telematic modules that are talking all of that with a
high performance module that hosts.

Speaker 5 (24:21):
All of this is handled.

Speaker 6 (24:24):
By a Movio And what is happening now is this
whole system is being tested and Aurora is testing them
on the roads driver less for some time. I don't
know how many miles they've covered. I know it was
already a lot, but you need to do all of
that and that's what is happening and not just that

(24:45):
continental then and Amvio now is launching this in our
new ground Fels location. We're manufacturing these things with the
Nvidia four X chips in the US location, New Brown
Felts and this is expect to launch middle to end

(25:05):
of twenty twenty seven into series production.

Speaker 3 (25:08):
So this is basically a package that Amoviio is providing
that is installed on the big rigs, Yes, and.

Speaker 6 (25:16):
With the whole system of cameras, radars, telematic units and
then also maintenance of that for the lifetime. So it's
again very exciting, but a lot of work in that
area because we are the first ones to enter and
so you know, when you go into something, there's a

(25:36):
lot of complications as well technical topics that one have
to deal and we are very excited and we have
excellent collaboration as well with Aura, and this is something
we are eagerly looking forward to again a white spot
where we found a good solution.

Speaker 2 (25:51):
We're getting down to the end of the segment, so
this will be a little quick. But what's your sense
of where autonomy is going? Because there's some some people
are now saying some experts in the field, forget about robotaxes.
That's not going to be the business. It's going to
be personal autonomous vehicles. Where do you think it's going
to go?

Speaker 6 (26:11):
So as a MOVIEO, again, I have to take care
of all the white spots, and I also have to
see add value. We do service robotaxis where if there
is a need, if it's personal car, we do. I
told you about the self system that we have shown

(26:31):
in at Ia, automatic parking, automated driving where it's not
just automated driving for the sake of it, but it's
also understanding how a normal driver would behave and react
and so it's not so automated that it's because sometimes
what happens if you're driving and you change signal, do
you want to just stop right there or do you

(26:53):
want to seamlessly go like.

Speaker 5 (26:54):
A normal human would do?

Speaker 6 (26:56):
So how do you humanize some of those, so we
are doing that as well as a fallback system to
offer when you go into automated driving.

Speaker 5 (27:05):
You definitely need a.

Speaker 6 (27:06):
Fallback system that would take care if the primary system
were to fail or not react the time that it's allowed.

Speaker 5 (27:14):
So we are in all areas.

Speaker 6 (27:16):
Because our products are pretty much agnostic to where you
want to use. We are there to help and innovate
where possible.

Speaker 2 (27:26):
That's a great way to do it because whichever way
the market goes, you can just go with it exactly.

Speaker 5 (27:31):
That's the idea to always do value creation.

Speaker 2 (27:35):
Aruna Anon, thanks so much for coming on out of
line after hours. It's great to have the CEO of
the North American operations of the newest not quite new
supplier Tier one in the industry.

Speaker 5 (27:47):
Thank you, Thank you so much. Grey, it's a pleasure.

Speaker 6 (27:49):
Thank you for giving me an opportunity to be part
of the show and an opportunity to introduce a movie
to the world. Thank you so much much.

Speaker 5 (27:59):
Appreciate We're good.

Speaker 2 (28:01):
We're going to take a quick commercial break. We're going
to come back and talk about some of the news
that's happened in the last week.

Speaker 7 (28:10):
Making the life full of memories, one road trick at
a time.

Speaker 4 (28:14):
That's what really matters.

Speaker 5 (28:16):
Rich down weather Peak tires with the seventy thousand mile
womened warranty.

Speaker 3 (28:23):
There we go.

Speaker 5 (28:23):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (28:26):
Very good. Thanks again, Thank you, Thanks mary Ah.

Speaker 5 (28:31):
Nice to see you.

Speaker 7 (28:33):
Well.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
Talk about the news of the week. You created some
news today and Reuter's there's my job. Yeah, yeah, Nora,
talk about this thing about how car prices have really
not gone up much because of the terrorists, but you're
suggesting that may not last.

Speaker 7 (28:52):
Yeah, I hate to bring the bad news today, but
like I'm sure you've talked to a lot of these
people back in March who were sort of rushing out
to dealerships to try to grab a car before tariffs
hit those prices, and those people might be right. Although
like five months late, we haven't really seen MSRPs increase
that significantly. We had some data from cocks that showed

(29:13):
they were actually just in line with historical averages. So
these automakers have been eating billions and billions of added
TEARFF costs over the last few months, and that's not
going to last because they're settling in at the reality
that these tariffs are here to stay and you know,
GM has five billion engrossed hair of costs FORD three

(29:35):
and gross and of course they're going to offset you know,
some of that. Have to say that so the automakers
don't call. But yeah, I mean that's so much for
them to absorb, and they have to pass on some
of that to consumers. There's only so much that dealers
or suppliers or the automaker itself can eat.

Speaker 2 (29:51):
But in your story you showed, Okay, MSRPs have not
gone up because none of the automakers want to get
in President Trump's crosshairs. Yeah, he'll go ape on them.
But as you pointed out, destination charges are going out.

Speaker 7 (30:05):
Yeah, that was a sneaky little like metric that we found.
So that was Edmonds. They found that destination fees increased
eight and a half percent, which was uncharacteristically large year
over year. I think typically they were around three or
four percent if I remember off top of head, So
that was a huge jump. So yeah, the price to
transport the vehicle mysteriously shot up, you know, a substantial amount,

(30:27):
so that automakers have been finding ways to hide these fees.

Speaker 3 (30:31):
But that's basically on the sticker though, I mean the
destination it is, but it's it's that's not the MSRP.

Speaker 2 (30:39):
They always quote it's yet and then they'll and now
in some cases it's significantly over two thousand dollars, yes,
for the destination charge. Yeah. So look, I've been preaching
this for years. It should be illegal for any car
company to post a price without including the destination charges.
You cannot buy any of those vehicles without that price.

(31:01):
So to me, this is just sleight of hand and
not right. But going back to this, and they're reducing
their incentives too, right, So I mean we're seeing the
cost of cars go up even if the MSRP is
not changing.

Speaker 7 (31:15):
Yeah, and we got some I've been talking to dealers
about that, and we didn't include a lot of that
in the story because it was really varied. It depended
on the dealer I was talking to, and the data
wasn't quite as clear there that we found. But yeah,
the dealers are saying that it's hurting. You know, they're
hurting as well. But yeah, we're going to see some
probably more dramatic price increases unfortunately. I mean we've seen

(31:36):
some on more of the luxury models, and of course
Forward increase their Mexico produced models I think three months
ago now. So yeah, there's been some slight some slight
news there, but we're probably going to be seeing more
unfortunately for the consumer. And then the big question is
how much more can they tolerate because they're already paying

(31:58):
historically high prices and they've been paying that for several years.
So unless you're buying an EV right now, which is
the best deals ever, you're kind of yeah, in a
bad for a short period of time, like one more week.

Speaker 2 (32:09):
Yeah, the deals will continue because once the insatives go away,
and if all these dealers have inventory, you're right, they're
still going to want to get rid of it.

Speaker 7 (32:18):
Yeah, that's a good point. Actually, I hadn't thought of that.
So you think it's going to be a pretty good
EV market for.

Speaker 2 (32:22):
The rest, well, you know the sure you're not going
to be able to get seventy five hundred dollars, Yeah,
but you're still going to be able to get a
good deal because these dealers don't want to be stuck
with these cars on their lots. Yeah.

Speaker 7 (32:34):
Yeah, Okay, maybe I should start shopping.

Speaker 5 (32:37):
I don't.

Speaker 7 (32:37):
I have an apartment though, so that's my issue. I
don't have a charger on site.

Speaker 3 (32:41):
Well, you know you're mentioning Cox and so Jonathan Smoke,
their chief economists, recently said, you know, consumer sentiment plays
a huge role in people's willingness to go out and buy.
And you know, the University of Michigan consumer sentiment numbers
for September are not good. I mean they're at fifty

(33:01):
five point four. That's down from fifty eight point two
in August. But the real kicker is if you go
back to September of twenty twenty four, it was seventy
point one, So there's been a twenty one percent decline
see consumer sentiment.

Speaker 2 (33:18):
I'll tell you, over the course of my career, I
have found that the u of m consumer sentiment is
a great leading edge indicator of car sales, and if
it's going down, that doesn't bode well for car sales.

Speaker 7 (33:31):
But isn't there a mismatch between And there's been some
reporting on this, not from me, but isn't there a
pretty stark mismatch between the sentiment and behavior right now?
It's like that whole Tale of two economies.

Speaker 2 (33:41):
That's a good point. No, that's a great yeah.

Speaker 7 (33:43):
What consumers feel and what they actually do not that
that's going to be continue forever. Of course, it's going
to catch up. But that's been so interesting to observe, Like, yeah,
you hear so much doom and gloom and then people
are out spending money as they normally would be included.

Speaker 1 (33:56):
But all right, so.

Speaker 3 (34:01):
I got a quiz for you, and it will be
thematic for another part of for the other part of
the show.

Speaker 4 (34:08):
So history for a job.

Speaker 3 (34:10):
History, No, no, you can chime in, all right. On
September eighteenth, two thousand and six, Ford bought something from
BMW for eleven million dollars. Really, okay, this is September eighteenth,
today's eighteenth.

Speaker 2 (34:30):
Yeah, two thousand and six. So Alan Malali is CEO.
We're going headstrong into what's going to become the Great Recession,
even though that wasn't quite apparent at the time. And
eleven million bucks, I mean that that that kind of
money falls off the table when you're counting the profits, right,
I mean that's not a lot of money.

Speaker 7 (34:51):
For some people.

Speaker 2 (34:55):
There, are you something? I have no clue.

Speaker 4 (34:57):
They acquired the rights to the overname.

Speaker 3 (35:01):
Now you're gonna go wait wait wait, wait wait wait wait.
They they already owned they already owned land Rover. They bought
it in two thousand for a cool one point eight billion,
and they bought Jaguar in nineteen eighty nine for two
point eight billion, but they never bought the name Rover,
so they had to buy that from BMW. So they

(35:27):
ended up selling Jaguar land Rover for two point three
billion dollars.

Speaker 4 (35:31):
Which was a big, big, big loss.

Speaker 3 (35:34):
Speaking of Jaguar land Rover, something's going on there that
they're not very happy with.

Speaker 2 (35:40):
Yeah, you want to chime in on that.

Speaker 7 (35:41):
Well, I mean I haven't been covering it, but this
this you've read it.

Speaker 2 (35:45):
I mean, we're right, we're not covering, but we're reading
what's going on.

Speaker 7 (35:47):
Yeah, it's basically like operations have been shut down for how.

Speaker 2 (35:50):
Long are three weeks? And growing cyber.

Speaker 7 (35:53):
Attical from a cyber attack? Right, like the first thing?
And you have please like enlighten me on how common
this is. But my mind, I mean idly went to
CDK like that's the most immediate example for me being
greener on the beat. But yeah, are there examples of
this sort of thing happening that the significant of a
shutdown in the past.

Speaker 2 (36:11):
Not that I'm aware of what was the supplier that
was hit a couple of years ago.

Speaker 4 (36:16):
It was just before the CDK situation.

Speaker 7 (36:18):
Oh gotcha.

Speaker 3 (36:23):
Yeah, but yeah, I mean, so so here they are,
you know there. It's estimated that they may be losing
fifty million pounds a.

Speaker 4 (36:33):
Week, which wow, British.

Speaker 3 (36:37):
Yeah, I mean for people to say weight loss program,
I mean it's huge.

Speaker 2 (36:44):
Well, you know, look, they haven't said anything about demand
for a ransom. Undoubtedly there is, and based on what
I read, there's other companies outside of the industry in
the UK they're getting hit by ransomware. So it looks
to me like JLR management has decided the hell with
paying the ransom. We're going to go through and do

(37:04):
forensic audits on our computers. We're going to find this
malware and take it out. And JLR has said that
they expect this to get cleaned up kind of soon,
although they didn't put a date on it. What was
it the Financial Times or the London Times? Who was
at Sean They came out and they're reporting that this
might go on till November. JLR denies that, but I mean,

(37:29):
this is a wake up call to the entire auto industry.
You know, we've done a lot of shows about how
do you cyberhart in the car? Well, geez, it starts
with cyber hardening the car company.

Speaker 5 (37:38):
Right, Yeah.

Speaker 7 (37:39):
I have a colleague who works out of our ant
Arbor office with US who cover cybersecurity for Reuters, and
you know, he gets reports about this happening for automakers
all the time. It's just on a smaller scale, and
so he'll have copies of data that's been sort of
you know, held ransom. And usually it's nothing that we
would really care about. I'm sure other other product people would,

(38:01):
but yeah, at this scale, it seems to suggest a
real weakness. I'm sure that like the Big Three dedicates
so much time and resource to to this, you know.

Speaker 2 (38:13):
The other thing they do. But you know, in interviews
I've done with cyber experts, they have said, look, you
cannot stop a determined hacker, particularly if it's a bad
state actor. I'd like another country, right, yeah.

Speaker 3 (38:29):
You know, but what strikes me about this as being
particularly vexing is, Okay, JLR is owned by Tata. Tata
owns Tata Technologies, which is one of the leading IT
companies on the planet. Okay, so I got to figure
they got some pretty smart people there that are working
on this thing. And then to your point, John, this,
you know, this whole question of okay, how do you

(38:53):
harden a car if you can't harden the company? So
what does this do to p Bull's interest in cars
that are say autonomous? I mean, are they you know,
connected connected?

Speaker 4 (39:08):
Yeah?

Speaker 7 (39:08):
Yeah, instantly like those I know, Scout is not an
unconnected vehicle, but instantly those are. Sorry, Slate not Scout.
I know Slate is not disconnected, but those crank windows
sound pretty attractive when.

Speaker 2 (39:22):
You're never going to be able to vehicle that yeah, connected.

Speaker 7 (39:25):
I think the window is probably like the most benign
thing that could be hacked. That would just be annoying.
But yeah, yeah, right, like we had. We had a
story a few weeks ago about STILLANTIS backing off their
Level three program, and the overwhelming response I got was
I wouldn't I wouldn't have driven that system anyway. I
just get not because it's STILLANTIS. But people are just

(39:45):
nervous about it. And these are you know, these are
not people who work in the auto industry, so they're
not as you know, well versed on.

Speaker 2 (39:51):
But they're people who buy cars, right.

Speaker 7 (39:53):
Right, I know, there are people that matter. Yeah, so
I don't know, just like I don't know what you
encounter in your data. But that's the overwhelming response I
get from.

Speaker 2 (40:03):
No people are are are are definitely worried about it.
Yeah there, And look, there's movies about, you know, the
bad guys taken over autonomous vehicles and smashing them together
and stuff like that. So it's even if people haven't
imagined it themselves, there's plenty of entertainment out there suggesting
this is all bad.

Speaker 3 (40:23):
It wouldn't be very entertaining if it happened to you.
So there in lives problem. So, speaking of Stilantis, big
news came out of Auburn Hills.

Speaker 2 (40:30):
Yeah, they're canceling their electric pickup truck, which is I
I you know, I don't know if people outside of
the industry, all of you who are in the industry watching,
you know, once you've tooled up a truck and as
ready to go to cancel, it is a massive write
off that you've got to take. I mean it, there's
got to be a couple of billion dollars that you know,

(40:52):
you just flush that money down the drain. That's going
to hurt their earnings and It also makes me wonder.
They say they're going to come out their extended range EV,
but I wonder. And I only say that because I
think the biggest product development failure I've seen in my
career are gm Ford and Stilantis doing electric pickups. And

(41:14):
I say that because they claim they know they're in
their their customers so well, and they really know the
pickup buyer well. Pickup buyers are the most conservative of
any buyer in the market. They want nothing to do
with electric pickups. You know who's buying the electric pickups.
It's not people coming out of their ice F one fifty,

(41:37):
Silverados or Rams. It's other people who have never owned
a pickup before that are coming into the market. And
so is their demand for an e REV. I'm bullsh
on e revs, but I just wonder if pickup buyers
are going to say, yes, I will pay a premium
to have to plug it in, even though I can
use gasoline. So let me go back to something you

(41:57):
just said though.

Speaker 3 (41:58):
Okay, they spent a lot of money on developing the
electric truck that they have now canceled.

Speaker 4 (42:07):
Okay, so.

Speaker 3 (42:10):
Would they lose more money if they brought it to production?

Speaker 7 (42:15):
It's like the three Row that Ford canceled, Right, that's
the argument. That was a massive rite off, not to
mention all the supplier fall out and everything, But at
what point do you just say it's not worth it?
But yeah, that's the answer, right, because they would have
brought it if that weren't the case.

Speaker 2 (42:29):
Yeah, you would lose more money if you started building it. Yeah,
because if you're losing money on everyone, the more you make,
the more you lose. I mean, it's easy just cut
your losses and walk away from it, but it's going
to be financially painful. It's going to show up on
the books.

Speaker 7 (42:46):
Well, I don't know about you guys, just on that point,
because I wrote that story for Reuters on Friday, and
you know, it was a pretty quick story. It wasn't
a huge surprise, but I got so many texts over
the weekend from sources at you know, the other two
Detroit automakers being like, oh god, this is it's just
really alarming. And of course, like the top execs would

(43:07):
have probably seen this coming, but some of the other
people are thinking, what happens to the next gen lightning
that's already been delayed on teen times you know what
happens to the EV pickups for GM. It's yeah, it's
like a huge question because those are still in play.

Speaker 3 (43:21):
But anyway, yeah, well, speaking of Ford, you know, they
they announce they're cutting a thousand jobs at their Colone,
Germany plant where they're making the Electric Explorer, which I
saw in real life this this past week, which it
looks great.

Speaker 4 (43:37):
I mean, it looks looks fantastic.

Speaker 3 (43:38):
But you know, the thing that I wonder about is
is that Okay, you know, Europe in terms of acceptance
of evs.

Speaker 4 (43:46):
Is far advanced compared to what it is in the United.

Speaker 2 (43:50):
But it's not good. But well know what I'm saying. Okay,
so you know what's the US We're bouncing around what
seven to eight percent market right Europe's in the four
to fifteen percent or higher. It had been over twenty
percent and it is slipped down. And so you know,
you do see EV sales continuing to grow, but hybrids

(44:12):
are growing much faster. People are still looking at peehebs again,
and the European market right now is not structured for
fifteen sixteen percent share a market for evs. It's they
were expecting it to be at a much higher rate now,
So yes, you're right, they're way ahead of the US.
But it's not a good situation.

Speaker 3 (44:31):
So, I mean, the thing that I wonder about is
is that you know, come twenty thirty, you know there
still is on the EV EU books, you know, the
need for massive CO two reduction, which means they're going
to need a lot of electric vehicles being sold. And
I wonder if Ford is doing this, and Ford is

(44:52):
in the first half of this year, it was in
fourteenth place in EV sales in Europe. Oh really, well,
they they had sales of thirty hundred and thirty nine.
Volkswagen was number one with one hundred thousand more vehicles
than that. My question is will Ford be able to
exist in Europe if this EV mandate in twenty thirty

(45:16):
and then in twenty thirty five, you know that's one
hundred percent EV unless rules change.

Speaker 4 (45:22):
I mean, it doesn't bode well for that company.

Speaker 7 (45:25):
Yeah, this was a huge conversation around the EU trade
deal because and this is more a discussion of if
Ford is going to export vehicles there as well. But
like there's a question if those customers even want those
vehicles EV or not. But yeah, like That's a massive
conversation we've been having, just you know, at Reuter's and
beyond with our industry colleagues, is do, yeah, do GM

(45:49):
or Ford even have a place in that region, you know,
kind of outside the US in general, that's the bigger question.
And of course they say that they do, and you
know that they've got some very some very popular passion
products over there. But yeah, like in an actual like
marketplace sense, I don't know. Yeah, and also under pressure

(46:13):
to downsize too as losses mount in the US. I
can't see the board being like, great, okay, you sold,
You're in fourteenth place. That's great, that's totally sustainable.

Speaker 2 (46:24):
I see several things in this. This is not good
news for for it because the Explorer is kind of
a new product, right they're already admitting it's not selling. Well, yeah,
we've got to cut head count here. This is also
why the European auto makers under a ACEEA, the Constructors

(46:45):
Organization and KLEPPA which is the organization for suppliers, are
screaming bloody murder that they need instant relief on the
CO two regulations right now. And this talk of banning
ice spot twenty thirty five in Europe they want that
wiped out, they don't, they want that gone. And who's

(47:06):
the woman who's the head of the EU vander Layan Earth,
lavander lay In. She has already come out and said, look,
we're going to fast track this. You know, we're going
to come to some resolution very very quickly on it.
Because what the German industry is in the process of
shedding fifty thousand automotive manufacturing jobs before the decades out.

(47:30):
That's just Germany. You know, let's talk about France, Italy,
uk and whatnot, Spain and Portugal, and so the European
industry is in deep trouble, really financially, and I think
that they're going to get relief in some way, shape
or form, maybe they postpone things or something, but it's

(47:56):
going to come to a head before this year's over.

Speaker 3 (47:58):
Well, I mean, I think the question comes back to
sort of what we were talking about, is that, Okay,
these companies have made significant investment in electrification, and if
it's not paying off, you know, how do they go forward.

Speaker 7 (48:15):
In any market? That's the thing, Like, of course it's
not paying off here right now, but even in markets
where it is taking off, it's not paying off, Like,
shouldn't that be the yeah, the starkest sign that something's wrong,
And of course in China, it's definitely not paying off.

Speaker 2 (48:32):
Yeah, Yeah, that's the other thing that you know that
there's cracks appearing in the Chinese industry, don't look I mean,
you know, we look at all their exports, we look
at how their EV sales are growing, especially in Europe
for example. But Reuter's had a big story on this
Nora that there's a lot of signs that the Chinese

(48:53):
industry is headed for some trouble here.

Speaker 7 (48:56):
Right, Yeah, my colleagues have been just dominating the story
in Asia. It's been really amazing to watch. I can't
claim any credit for it, but I've been following with interest,
and yeah, like they really called the moment that you
guys have also talked about this involution that's happening in
China where there's been so much government pressure to meet
certain metrics that consumers haven't kept up with, which I

(49:17):
mean might sound familiar to some people in the US,
but to a different extent. And these automakers are I mean,
there's a lot of them, and they're not making money
on evs especially, so yeah, this has been really punishing
for them, and there's been some like very interesting creative workarounds,
if you want to call it, where there's entities that
dealers will sort of offload vehicles too to record a sale,

(49:40):
or the automakers will to record a sale so that say, hey,
you know, we made our numbers, but then you've just
got lots of vacant vehicles sitting collecting dust. And yeah,
it's it's really interesting. But of course, like their market is,
you have to say, it's still so much more advanced
and we can't be like, Okay, the China threat it's
totally gone. Yeah, yeah, that's not the case. But it's

(50:01):
interesting to observe like there might be Yeah, you said
some small cracks.

Speaker 2 (50:06):
Well, you know, some people and I don't know if
it was Reuters or not, have raised the specter of
the Chinese auto industry may go through what the real
estate industry right through in China, which is total collapse.
And I don't think we're going to see that in China.
But you know, some stats from what your colleagues dug
up at Reuter's, seventy percent of all car dealers in

(50:29):
China lose money. Yes, seventy percent.

Speaker 7 (50:32):
Can you imagine here like that would not fly?

Speaker 5 (50:35):
Right?

Speaker 2 (50:36):
Yeah, So yeah, there's this gamesmanship of selling new cars
as used, you know, so that they can book the sale.
And then your colleagues dug up that there are independent
retailers that are buying up this inventory and they said
they're selling Audis for fifty percent off and they said

(50:56):
twenty sixths and then Chevy Malibus that normally sell for
about twenty six thousand dollars ten thousand dollars off the price.
So this doesn't bode well. And the other thing too, Byd.
You know, we've been singing the praises a BYD look
at this company, and we've been benchmarking. I've been talking

(51:17):
all about this stuff. Sales down, profits down, stock down sharply, sharply.
They're going to fall a million units short of what
they thought that they were going to sell this year.
So I agree. We can't all say, okay, kick back,
it's all good. China's out of the picture, but they're
headed for some tough time.

Speaker 3 (51:35):
Yeah, you got to think about this, John, I mean, okay,
five years ago, we never talked about China in terms
of being anything in the auto industry, right.

Speaker 2 (51:48):
Yeah, and nobody did, right yeah.

Speaker 3 (51:50):
And so you know, the government comes out with a
maiden twenty twenty five program and got you know, the
ten industries that it's going to dominate, and autos one
of them. And here we are talking. You know, it
is twenty twenty five. They achieved it, and you know,
maybe it's not working out the way they want. But

(52:11):
I think that you know, as you say, Noura, I mean,
it isn't over. And the Chinese government will certainly do
what it takes to maintain its champions in the auto
industry as well as other industries.

Speaker 4 (52:25):
And so I mean it doesn't bode.

Speaker 3 (52:27):
Well for you know, European companies, Korean companies, Japanese companies,
and certainly not American companies.

Speaker 7 (52:36):
You know, what I was thinking about this week was
one of my first trips when I was back at
the Wall Street Journal, was Nada in Las Vegas and
talk about a.

Speaker 4 (52:45):
Wealthy dealers association.

Speaker 7 (52:46):
Yeah, dealer association, And first time in Vegas. I did
not picture it would be for a car dealer association meeting,
but that's what I went there for. And one of
the dealers, or it was it was someone from that world.
I don't think it was a dealer, but they said
you need to keep an eye on BYD And this
was I think March of twenty twenty two, and I
remember talking to my US team at the time and like, oh,

(53:07):
I haven't heard anything about BID in so long. I
was thinking about that this week because now it's all
we hear about, right, So, I mean that was three years.
I haven't been on the beat that long, so it's crazy. So, yeah,
you don't want to bet against them, I think.

Speaker 2 (53:22):
But speaking of the Chinese, I don't know if you
guys have followed this, but this week the Canadians floated
the idea that they may allow Chinese evs into Canada.
You know right now they've got one hundred percent tariffs
and you know they, you know, thinking together with the
United States, will keep the Chinese out. What do you
make of this.

Speaker 7 (53:41):
It's going to be hard when US shoppers see I
don't know how much they'll cost there, but say it's
like a twenty thousand dollars EV available in Canada and
you know we're close. So you see that right across
the border, and oh I have to.

Speaker 3 (53:54):
Pay fan yeah river with binocular Yeah.

Speaker 7 (53:57):
It looks pretty good. Yeah, that's yeah. I think about
that more from a US market because it's going to
at some point customers are not going to care and
they're going to want the cheapest. No.

Speaker 2 (54:07):
No, I know people in California who are seeing Chinese
evs from Mexico coming in people going shopping or whatever
like that, So they're getting exposed to these brands.

Speaker 7 (54:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (54:18):
Well, speaking of speaking of Mexico, our friend wrote Warren
Brown had a piece this week where he was talking
about the possibility of Mexico putting a fifty percent tariff
on vehicles from China, India, and South Korea in New Mexico.
And he points out, and I quote, General Motors to
Mexico imports seven percent of their overall sales vayum from

(54:41):
the three countries most.

Speaker 4 (54:42):
Affected by the proposed tariffs.

Speaker 3 (54:44):
Their China sourcing was a competitive advantage. It will now
become a competitive albatross. So you know, as you're saying, nouro,
I mean, it's just like, is the US auto industry
going to be literally the US auto andutry?

Speaker 7 (55:00):
Yeah, And I don't know, I'm curious what you guys
think of that. If you can sort of subsist off
of our truck buying hunger for that long because it's
kind of what we're doing right now. But I don't know,
like long term, I don't know if that's going to
be long term.

Speaker 2 (55:14):
It's not good. But you know, for another decade they
can easily live lofer profits of just the US market. Yeah,
but you know, if if all they do is decide, okay,
we'll stick in you know, the US and maybe we'll
export a few little things here and there, you know,
ten years down the road, they are hopelessly behind in technology.

(55:38):
And at some point you're going to get a new
administration that goes you know, all you guys do is
make really expensive cars. We got to have cars that
are affordable for working class people, and so we're going
to open the doors and that'll be the end of it,
right at the end of the industry.

Speaker 3 (55:54):
Well, I mean going back to to you know what
Warren goes on to saces US plants do not produce
low cost SUV's either. A popular segment in Mexico, gm
US customers purchase high volume tracks and Trailblazers models produced
in South Korea. Their Mexican produced equinox is twice the
price of the imported tracks, limiting potential for increasing volume locally.

(56:16):
So this goes to the point of, okay, back to
the pricing, it's going to increase in how to consumers
absorb that.

Speaker 2 (56:27):
They don't they go buy a used car like they're
doing right now, or so many of them are doing.

Speaker 7 (56:32):
Yeah we're slate, We'll see.

Speaker 2 (56:34):
Yeah, yeah or slate. So one more story that I
want to end on because I think this is actually
pretty positive and I think it's actually very significant in
the industry. Portia announced this week while developing the Cayenne
EV that they skipped the prototype stage and went straight
or going straight to production. So, you know, automakers like

(56:56):
to design a car, they get the clay, they do
all this stuff, then they build prototypes that they have
to drive all over the world under all kinds of
test conditions. Porscha said it normally develops one hundred and
twenty prototypes. You know, if you go back like two
decades ago, they would build not to Sporsche other automakers

(57:16):
for five hundred prototypes, you know, and they have to
crash them, physically crash them and all that, not all
of them. But I find this pretty significant that Porsche
is relying on digital twins and artificial intelligence to skip
that all together. Because what they're saying right now, and
Aruna was getting to that too, is that the testing

(57:39):
starts when the vehicle is still in the design stage.
So I don't know if you guys have any thoughts
on that, but to me this is this is like
Boeing skipping prototypes and going straight to the Triple seven,
you know, ready for production through all the simulation stuff.

Speaker 3 (58:00):
Still had to do FAA certification in order to make
this this go. So the question then becomes whether you know,
doing it software in the loop testing, if that is
indeed sufficient in order to create a vehicle that travels
in excess of one hundred and forty miles an hour

(58:21):
and ways two and a half tons. I'm guessing that's
with the Cayenne and least ways.

Speaker 4 (58:30):
Remains to be seen, I think.

Speaker 3 (58:31):
I mean in terms of cost savings, yeah, yeah, I mean,
but time is money, so correct, that's right, So you know,
but at the end of the day, is it worth
doing that for such an important vehicle in the Porsche lineup?

Speaker 4 (58:48):
Because if you look at Porsche sales numbers.

Speaker 3 (58:51):
They're not good well, they're not good overall, but I
mean the sports cars that we all think about when
we think about Porsches, the SUVs are like all car
care companies, it seems that's where they're making their dough.
I don't know, what do you think?

Speaker 5 (59:05):
Yeah, I do.

Speaker 7 (59:07):
Maybe this won't even register with customers, but do you
think there'll be some purists who think like you've lost
something in that process too, like the essence soul? Yeah,
the soul this is I mean, probably not, but that's
where my mind went to. It's like writing with AI
versus writing the human, you know, like something lost in
the process.

Speaker 2 (59:26):
Yeah, no, no, that's a great point because what Portia
did say is that they tested this virtually in the
digital world, from everyday driving in traffic to doing the
Nurburgreen race track at the limit, all digitally, from testing
the car in Death Valley all the way to north

(59:47):
of the Arctic Circle. But they did say that after
they did all that digital and they said the correlation
was actually very good. But they said the final tuning
was done by their engineers who do all the synthesis
to make sure everything is just perfect. So even though
their correlation is good, you know, to your point, Gary,
they are they are finally, you know, coming down to

(01:00:11):
human beings to finish all that stuff. But unless they're
watching the show, I think most Portsia enthusiasts will be
oblivious to the fact that Porsia is doing this. Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:00:23):
Yeah, And will it cost a lot of jobs? Do
you think or no?

Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
No, I don't think so. I think it's uh, well,
look if you built prototypes, if you had that business, you're.

Speaker 3 (01:00:34):
Not gonna have a lot if your job is to
go to the Arctic Circle and drive it exactly right,
All right, we got another one we gotta because is
the year of autonomy, and Zeukes launched its autonomous vehicles
in Las Vegas, right, So further evidence that you're right
and I'm wrong.

Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
Well, you know what, what's the definition?

Speaker 7 (01:00:56):
I mean?

Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
Because autonomous cars have been around for a while. I'm
just saying we're reaching a critical mass right now where
we're seeing autonomous vehicles pop up in various US cities,
various Chinese cities in the Middle East as well, and
I'm saying this is the we're at the inflection point
where it's now going to really hit critical mass.

Speaker 3 (01:01:17):
So so going back to Nora, attending the na DA
in Las Vegas, and my experience when I've taken a
cab in Las Vegas over the years is that the
people that are in there before.

Speaker 4 (01:01:27):
Me like, yeah, just going to get exactly right.

Speaker 3 (01:01:32):
You know in the cabin, he's not sitting back there.
So I wondered to myself, you know, it's like okay,
So so here you have.

Speaker 4 (01:01:41):
This autonomous vehicle.

Speaker 3 (01:01:42):
You are driving up and down the strip, and if
somebody has had too much of a good time may
leave something behind. Apparently apparently they have cameras in an
AI system that determines whether something has been left on
a seat, and if it pass then takes the vehicle
back to the deepot to get cleaned.

Speaker 7 (01:02:03):
They've thought of everything. Joanne Mauler was telling us about
this and like how she was driving I think it
was in a waymo and they hit just a bad
pothole and they like pulled the car aside. They checked
to make sure it was okay, and then they brought
her back on and they said she said it was
thirty seconds. And it's just so fascinating how these vehicles
deal with those little yeah one offs. I hadn't my mind.

(01:02:24):
I have to confess. Did immediately go to oh did
someone leave a present? But of course they've thought of that, Yeah,
especially in Vegas.

Speaker 2 (01:02:34):
Yea, what happens in Vegas States stays in the zooks. Yeah,
it's in the zoos. Yeah, okay, we that We're going
to wrap it up, Nora, thanks so much for coming
on the show.

Speaker 1 (01:02:44):
Really good.

Speaker 2 (01:02:44):
We'll continue reading all your stories and Reuters, so thank you.
Keep it up, and Gary, well, we'll keep doing this too.
We will, And I want to thank all of you
for having tuned in.

Speaker 1 (01:02:56):
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