CES Wrap-Up with Steve Greenfield, Solving Snowy Self-Driving, Mach-E Outsells Mustang

Paul J Daly  0:01  
What's up? Everybody? January 14, wow, we're one month away from Valentine's Day. Kyle, whoa, you benchmark your first quarter today, right now, banning Russian car hardware Google's empathetic AI in a car we'll see and Target. Target is reinventing its whole production set a system so that can meet trendy demands. Yeah, that's that sounds like a really hard thing to do,

Kyle Mountsier  0:27  
yeah? I think it makes some sense. Yeah, it does. I just wouldn't call it target trendy. You know, that's a whole rewrite, really. I don't know.

Paul J Daly  0:35  
Guess what? We'll find out. That's me. We'll find out. Oh, look, we're nine days away to nada. Nine days follow, so everybody's getting their plans together. We're gonna be covering the show, very large crew, multiple crews, actually, this year covering the show. We're actually partnering with nada on their live stage. This year, we have a booth, so we're gonna have a place that the ASOTU community can come and just hang, meet one another, etc. And we're having a party, and we're having a party,

Kyle Mountsier  1:02  
we are having a party. You can actually go to nada parties.com right now. You can find our party. You can get on the wait list. I think there's like almost 100 people on the wait list, or something crazy, but we're gonna be calling every single person that got a ticket to make sure that they are coming first, and then we're gonna back fill that list. And not just that, but like you might want to stand outside the door. We got a bouncer the whole nine yards we might be doing, like the in and out. One goes in, one goes out, type thing. So it's gonna be a lot of fun. Plus, you can find, I think, over 40 other parties happening over two days on nada, nada parties com, actually over four days, Wednesday through Saturday, so you can kind of build your schedule, right there.

Paul J Daly  1:44  
Few breakfast events, more more parties are going to be added today. So if you've already been to the site, go back today, because there's a lot more parties on there. Tell your friends about the site. It's so much fun. Thanks to our friends at clairvoy for helping us get the site going, keeping it up and all that. So we can offer this free to you service. It's the center point. Did we tell you that we got Brian benstock to be the bouncer?

Unknown Speaker  2:07  
He would be a perfect darkviators,

Paul J Daly  2:09  
a little little clear earpiece in there. Nobody would mess with Ben stock. Hey, a little bit of fun we're having. Maybe it's I'm having over here. I've never worn a green shirt to work in my life, but it doesn't love people more than you love car show. Oh, they did it. What's it say on the bottom? Really the thickest accent sounds more like goo birds, goo birds, goo birds. And then you say, and also with you is the appropriate response. But, but actually, here we go. We made a limited run of these. I'm sorry if you're not an Eagles fan, if you hate the Eagles fans, but a lot of people like it, and I posted it on LinkedIn, and we have, actually, we have a few left. So if for the Eagles fan in your life, or if you're an Eagles fan and you love automotive, you can pick up your love people more than you love cars, go birds, limited edition, unbelievable, five left. We at least have one in every size right now on the store. So you can go to shop.asotu.com and you can just search kelly green. And this sucker is gonna put a little bit of late, late Christmas party. And let me tell you. So, I mean, we probably shipped, you know, 3030, plus of these shirts yesterday. It was so much fun. And if you get one, I'll tell you, if you order one today, I'm gonna throw in a bunch of extra stuff in your bag. Wow myself, they're already made. I'm gonna pack it. I'm gonna write you a note, and I'm gonna give you a whole grab bag full of other ASOTU Swag. So,

Kyle Mountsier  3:35  
man, it's almost, it's almost worth getting the kelly green, even if you hate the Eagles, just for the extra grab bag stuff. It

Paul J Daly  3:43  
that you're absolutely right. I I'm telling you, that's

Speaker 1  3:47  
a tricky way to get swagged up for nada fam, it is. But, I mean, one of the things that you're gonna get, actually, what's happening is Paul is getting the order, and then he's running it against the publicly available list of Eagles fans

Paul J Daly  4:04  
totally sell out. But I'll tell you what, if you buy the shirt I'm gonna, I will actually throw in a pair of shoelaces, which are all the

Unknown Speaker  4:11  
rage. Oh, and they're green.

Paul J Daly  4:15  
You'll be you'll be jamming All right, I think what do we do for a living? We talk about auto mode. We

Speaker 1  4:20  
talk about what's going on in the auto industry. We should do that today. Do that.

Paul J Daly  4:23  
Listen to this. Us. Government has finalized. They proposed it a while ago, but they've now finalized a sweeping ban on the use of Chinese and Russian made hardware and software in any internet connected vehicle as a boost to national security and to protect consumer privacy. The Commerce Department will be banning Chinese and Russian connectivity hardware in 2030 models, hardware in 2030 and beyond. Are we back to 2030 we're back to 2030 I

Kyle Mountsier  4:49  
think we are every it's that five year cycle thing is coming up now. But

Paul J Daly  4:54  
the software ban will start in 2027 alerting all Chinese. And Russian, Russian people, if they have male intent, if they do, not saying they do, but if they do, you got to get all your stuff installed by 2027, I mean, that's,

Kyle Mountsier  5:09  
that's what it's like. Okay, so they're like, cool. We got three to five more years to get everything we need. I mean, I get it from, like, a national security risk, and we've had contentious relationships with these two governments and their and their like potential for, like, wiretapping and getting data privacy. It's a big bunch of privacy type stuff. So, you know, I understand the approach. It's still just really kind of hilarious to me that it's like, I'm two years I'm gonna five years. I

Paul J Daly  5:41  
hurry up, yeah,

Unknown Speaker  5:46  
I pull it off. It's coming off.

Paul J Daly  5:50  
Speaking of, speaking of things that we're not quite sure are gonna make it. This is a great show. This is a great show. Start with the go bird shirt, and then it's all downhill. From there, all downhill. Google Cloud has unveiled its automotive AI agent platform, debuting the new in the new Mercedes CLA the advanced system promises seamless conversational interactions tailored for drivers with enhanced natural language processing, the next gen M, bucks, M, B, u, x, yeah. Mercedes Ben, user experience, virtual assistant. Has four personality traits, natural, predictive, personal, empathetic, I think they should have added sarcastic and at and can ask clarifying questions to improve responses, powered by Google's Gemini and vertex AI, real time Google Maps updates, Restaurant Reviews recommendations. Can handy multi turn dialog. Older models with the voice assistant may receive updates incorporating chat GPT and Bing, but without the full conversational features. Here's Sundar Pichai Google CEO says it is just the beginning of how agentic capabilities can transform the automotive industry.

Kyle Mountsier  7:00  
So I have a couple, two, two main comments on this is, I'm not sure if the Gen pop now maybe the Mercedes buyer, because you get a little bit more of a business person, potentially that is already utilizing AI on a daily basis. But like if my wife jumped in this car and needed to talk to her car to get anything done, like, nothing against my wife, but she's just not naturally using that's why I said natural language AI tools all day. So even just approaching something like this, I think for Gen pop right now is tough, you know, obviously, you know, the first movers and people in it are going to be, are going to be on it. Here's the other one that's interesting to me. Google, I don't really want to go that way. Empathetic user. I understand how you feel. Oh, and I really want to see your point on this. However, it would be best for your future personality to turn the other way in order like this. Just really, I

Paul J Daly  7:59  
think, well, just to your point about saying that, you know, like, if your wife, and the way she would try to talk to a computer would be kind of like a low, a low, I don't know, low barrier to entry. In a sense, this could be a really great way to develop the technology. Like, what do people how would they ask, right? Well, the feedback

Speaker 1  8:18  
loop, I think, is a lot quicker when you get AI into Gen pop, people that aren't, like, used to training themselves on how to query, and so it definitely increases the training capacity of these models.

Paul J Daly  8:30  
I mean, look, there's nothing voice commands and are just the worst. They're terrible. It's not worth it. Like, and then they shut off the navigation. They shut off the navigation capabilities. We were like, I don't know my road rage is escalating because I'm like, no, and then you have to wait for it to repeat the whole thing. It's terrible. So I could see I'm looking forward to conversation with my car and asking it to text people asking, Hey, what restaurant did I go to? Hey, what is this? What is that I like the empathetic, I still think sarcastic mode. I mean, we're gonna have to wait for Elon Musk to put sarcastic Oh,

Kyle Mountsier  9:03  
Elon Musk is throwing Yeah. I mean, it's gonna be gorgeous. Of

Paul J Daly  9:07  
course you want to change your mind. Of course you do. You can never shake up your mind. I love it like, Oh, great. We have another relationship. You hated that restaurant. Get over it. Well, if you like bad food, let's send you right there. Speaking of Jen pop stop, hey, real segue. Real

Kyle Mountsier  9:26  
segue. So target is speeding up its production processes, slashing timelines from just 27 weeks to just eight in order to try and keep up with consumer demands and trends driven by digital giants like Shane and temu. Their new model responds to rapidly shifting social media trends, aiming to match the fast fashion trend of a quick go to market strategy, for example, target recently pivoted from decorative bows to Cherry themed holiday apparel responding to consumer demand in time for the season. Innovations are cutting the supply chain and. Designed down to allow target to cut production development cycles by nearly 70% Rick Gomez, their Chief Commercial Officer, said the next chapter in retail is going to be about innovation, newness and creativity. Seems like they are leaning on our culture's inability to be patient. Well,

Paul J Daly  10:18  
okay, first of all, I can't even imagine what it takes to take a an organization this size of a target, to go from 27

Kyle Mountsier  10:26  
weeks to eight weeks. It's quite impressive, like that's a process management like on it.

Paul J Daly  10:32  
It really is. And I think like paying attention to online shopping trends and then having to go through the whole supply chain, pick a product, get it to market. But it makes sense, because six months is an eternity in a trend, right? If something starts trending six months later, it's it's leaving, right? And that would historically be just the time all the supplies show up, all the stock shows up, and then you're gonna have to blow it out. I think this highlights a broader trend that everyone can learn from, including any retailer, including car dealers, is that trends matter in retail period. They do. That's where the consumer attention is. We often talk about the internet as being a river that you want to build a boat on top of throw trends right in there. A trend is something you don't necessarily have to start it, but if you do embrace it, you're going to see some incremental growth in a demographic, especially if the trend is one of your key demographics. So I don't know, I think, I think Target has to do something like this and try. I wouldn't be surprised if they launched like a sub brand in target to try to stay a little more in touch, right? It would be like Amazon open, you know, the sheen competitor, yep. So we'll see what happens. But I think it's great that Target's paying attention to this. And I think ever, yeah,

Kyle Mountsier  11:40  
this is hard in auto from a product perspective, but possible. It's impossible from a product a social media perspective, a trends in shopping behavior, a trends in online UX UI. These are things that you can keep on top of, and kind of like, allow the customer to shop as they want to, or engage with you on social or engage in the community like others are engaging. I actually saw a lot of us know John Frederick. He was posted yesterday on social media, and he had, like, the an Instagram photo of one of the local restaurants near him, and like, just looked at the organization and the structure of the way that a restaurant. And so many restaurants are kind of going to organizing their their social media profiles and like, hey, look, you can get on board with these types of these types of trends, and make sure that you're standing up in digital presences, things that you can adjust to move quickly. Hey, that's good advice. Well,

Paul J Daly  12:37  
look, that's, that's a Tuesday show for you. We hope you go to nada parties.com, and join us. We hope you go to shop.asotu.com, and search the word Kelly so you can buy one of these shirts that we'll give you a bunch of free stuff. You

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