Transcript 0:00 [upbeat music] Wednesday already, January 16th. We're getting ready to be in Washington, DC tomorrow. But first- Whoa... 0:06 we're gonna talk about Stellantis having a new COO, Hyundai that drives sideways, and a typo on a Porsche 911. Everywhere I go. Sounds like a- People really wanna know... 0:15 a fun smattering of topics for a Wednesday morning It's a great little smattering. It's a great little smattering Sometimes the stories are heavy, sometimes they're light. Today is kinda, like, right in between. 0:24 Right in the middle. It's good. Man, I wanna tell you that, uh- We have so much going on... we do. [laughs] We have so much going on. It's my... Was that my inside voice that just came outside? 0:32 [laughs] Felt like you just spoke my thoughts. Um, what we do have going on is we are in DC tomorrow morning, bright and early, for the Public Policy Auto Show. We're super excited. 0:43 Our friends at Mosaic helped us make it happen. They will be there also on site. We'll be live streaming and recording a lot of content, um, at, uh, the Washington area. New, new car dealers, Public Policy Show. 0:54 Again, it's, like, right down the street from Pennsylvania Avenue. Maybe we'll swing by and, uh, like, wave hi to all of our friends- We will... at the, the regulatory commissions. 1:02 [laughs] But there will be representatives, uh, lawmakers there. Perhaps, I've heard, maybe the Speaker of the House is gonna be there. We'll see. All right. Gonna see some- Coming up... 1:10 uh, reveals from Rolls-Royce and Aston Martin, two cars that Kyle and I each have one of. And, um- [laughs] And, uh, you know- I'm excited... 1:17 we're gonna do our usually thing, talking to dealers and, and, uh, just bringing a new, new, uh, energy to the show and bringing that energy to you. 1:23 Because my guess is, Kyle, that approximately 4% of our audience knows that there's a Public Policy Auto Show going on. I would... 4% might be a little high. [laughs] I mean, if you take us, if you include us. 1:37 If you include us, it's one in a- And everybody on our team that knows we're going, yeah. Right. That's exactly it. So we're excited. We'll do that. So just, uh, tune into our regular channels, uh, The Morning Show. 1:46 If you don't listen to the audio podcasts, go on, like, Spotify or Apple Music and search out the Automotive Troublemaker, download that so you get those. Smash that sub button. Come on now. Absolutely. 1:55 Smash that sub button. Absolutely. And, um, also, probably where the most of the content will be posted is our LinkedIn channel. 2:00 So go to LinkedIn, our LinkedIn page, search A-S-O-T-U, and join the, you know, 7,000, 8,000 people there that are, are pretty engaged. And it's a lot of fun over there. Lot of fun. All right. 2:10 I think we gotta talk about news. We gotta get into it. All right. Let's go. All right, so Stellantis. We've been talking about Stellantis a little bit, especially when it comes to not going to auto shows. 2:19 Uh, they've announced a major shift in their North American operations, replacing COO Mark Stewart with Carlos Zar- uh, ooh, Zarlenga. Zarlenga. Zarlenga. There you go. Yeah. 2:29 Uh, the, he's the current president of the Mexico unit, so they're, they're calling in, calling in a left-hander from South America's coming up. 2:35 Zarlenga has a decade of global auto experience, including a role as president of GM South America. He's set to take over on February 1st. So, um, obviously, very challenging year, um, US market. 2:47 Despite all the other ar- automakers doing good, Stellantis managed to post a 1.2% decline in sales even as it, you know, hasn't really even released any EVs yet. 2:57 I don't know if [laughs] that's good or bad at this point. It used to be bad. Maybe it's good now. Um- Maybe it is good now... 3:02 uh, Carlos Tavares, the current CEO of Stellantis, he praised Zarlenga's leadership skills, and he said, "He's the best leader to drive change in our business model toward electri- electrification in the region." 3:12 So- It's interesting that that's the quote. Like, oh, he's gonna lead the electrification push we're coming to. Yeah... right? I don't know if that's the right, if that's the right move. 3:20 Like, I know that that's the quote that probably has to happen. Mm-hmm. I don't know if that's actually what's gonna happen. Here's the thing, though. 3:26 We've been running these stories, like Stellantis not at auto shows, Stellantis not running the Super Bowl, Stellantis not- At CES... not at EVs. Mm-hmm. Like, they're just not at CES. 3:35 They're not following some of the patterns, and I wonder if that's actually impacting them more than anybody maybe would've even thought of the impact on that- Sales... the announcement. Go, go figure. Yeah. 3:46 I mean, we try to reconcile those two things. We were just saying a couple days ago how the, the auto show organizers are like, "Hey, anything you can do to get the OEMs to know that we actually have buyers- Right... 3:57 at these stores," right? We saw, um, where was it? Where the, the state of s- Was it Louisiana? Where the state of s- Or was it Texas? It was Texas. Charlie Gilchrist. Texas, yep. Yep. 4:05 He was saying, "Hey, the dealers, the Stellantis dealers are stepping up to make sure- Are staying because they know that there's value there, right... 4:10 and dealers don't tend to say there are buyers here if there aren't buyers here. Yep. And so, like, does that have something to do with- Who knows? Who knows? Does that have something to do with the sales decline? 4:19 I think we can put one and one together and get that. But, I mean, maybe all of their uncertainty, maybe that's why this leadership change, right? Yep. 4:27 So, I mean, obviously everybody wants to see Stellantis win, and, you know, it's good for the industry when OEMs- It's good for the industry... are strong because a lot of dealers- They have this massive day supply. 4:36 They pumped a ton of inventory in- i- into dealers, right? Started to, started to be one of the first to, to have bold and, and large incentives. 4:44 Like, it's just not the way that the, that the people that are buying the most vehicles in en masse are, are buying. And so the sales decline, it kinda makes sense to me. 4:53 I'm hopeful that, um, that a change in leadership can potentially turn some stuff around. Yeah, and if you're listening, Carlos, uh, why don't you head out to the auto show? There you go. Come on. 5:03 Come back to the auto shows. Dealers want you. We welcome you with open arms. And if you wanna come to ASOTU CON, our event in May, just reach out. We'd gladly have you there. 5:10 We will have you, put you on stage, let you show everybody what's up, and, uh, build some energy around the brand. Speaking of building energy around a brand. Stop. Yeah. Segue. Time. [upbeat music] All right. 5:22 This is from, uh, we covered this in our daily email yesterday, and it was so fun, we wanted to put it in the show today. Um, if you don't get the email, by the way, it's every morning in your inbox. Yeah. 5:31 A few minutes, it'll bring you up to speed on automotive news, give you a little pop culture, a little retail, have you laugh a little bit. Um, and join everybody else. 5:38 We got thousands of people on that email list open it every single day, asotu.com. So this is from that email yesterday. 5:44 Uh, most great features have limitless applications, [laughs] and Hyundai's IONIQ 5, right, their EV, they just released a new iteration, has a new steering feature that has, uh, seemingly a limited number of applications, but I can think of a few. 5:57 It's called the E-Corner system. It turns the wheels of the EV completely sideways, allowing it to, something we all wanted to do, spin in place. [laughs] Perform a semi-drift maneuver-... 6:09 parallel park by itself- No, that's good... or maybe, or maybe most importantly, escape a tight parallel parking situation. 6:16 So basically, it's a steer-by-wire system, meaning all four wheels can turn completely perpendicular from where they are. Um, they did say they had to add cameras and sensors to make sure it's safe, but this is the best. 6:28 This is so good. The system is not designed for high-speed driving, and has only been tested up to 50 miles an hour. [laughs] So, like, you- Oh- The going sideways part. Going sideways. 6:43 Well, I mean, why would you wanna go more than 50 going sideways? No, I'm just saying, can you imagine? Why, I, I couldn't even think of an application in the beginning- I would only wanna go 30 going sideways... 6:51 that required more than crawl speed. [laughs] But 50 miles an hour going sideways has to be wild. [laughs] Like, just the testing on that. You, imagine you're sitting here, right? 7:01 And you look out your window, and you see a car looking at you. It's like- Headlights looking at you like it's in a full power slide, just like, zoom. [laughs] I want one. The semi-drift maneuver is what I wanna do. 7:12 I wanna, like, pop it, turn those wheels- You just slide those back wheels- Woo... but you're not sliding, you have full grip. You know, the, the, I was reading the specs on the Kia, uh, what's the, the EV9? Yeah. 7:22 And it did say something about being able to p- like, wheels can, like, whatever feature it said, it was this feature. Yes. Yeah. Where you could, like, parallel park it. The parallel park is amazing. 7:31 Like, it would, drivers tests in the future- [laughs]... not needed. It's like SmartPak. Like, what do you need? Like- I got SmartPak. "Hey, go ahead and just, you know, parallel park it." 7:42 Like, what does the driver instructor, the, you know, the new, like, 16-year-old kid goes, "Doop." [laughs] Yeah, he's like, "You ha- well, you didn't say how." Right? Yeah. You didn't say how. He didn't say how. 7:51 Look, I love the innovation that's coming in. Obviously, this is possible because of the fact that the EV motor is attached to the wheel. Exactly. Right? 7:59 So it can actually stay on the wheel and drive it, and go 50 miles an hour or more. Um, and I think, like, this came out at CES. 8:05 I think things like that just push us more in the direction of the vehicle being a piece of technology- Mm-hmm... instead of a vehicle, right? 'Cause vehicles just aren't really, like, side to side. 8:14 We don't move that way. Yeah, I mean, think about this. 8:15 But when you think of tech- The next vehicle is, the next iteration, is just gonna be, you know those massive tires that are on, like, some RV car, uh, like RC cars, where the car can just flip over and be fine? 8:27 [laughs] Like, that's where we're headed towards next. And the little, the cockpit just, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom. It just flips. Yeah. [laughs] Right? Yeah. I don't know. But I mean, kudos to Hyundai. 8:33 I think that this is a great iteration. 8:35 Because of the EV platform, I think it'll be much more, um, implementable than, like, you know, some of the crazier things when they had, like, the four-wheel steer on the pickup truck. 8:43 And you're like, it was always kind of complicated. Right. A lot of stuff breaks. Um, so yeah. I mean, gets us excited. Yeah. Yeah, new cars- I love it... new things, but sometimes in new cars, you make mistakes. 8:54 I don't know. It was bad. Just being when I make mistakes. Yeah, it was a bad one, so we're gonna put it there. Segway time. [upbeat music] I try to just- You, like, set up- I was-... the segue with a Segway setup? 9:02 It was really funny. It, it's a double, it was like a, it was like a inception segue. 9:07 [laughs] So, uh, of course, uh, a Porsche Club of America member, uh, in Houston spotted a quite humorous typo, the one we've all made. We ca- we all have to admit this. 9:17 In the Porsche 911s driver display, where brake pads, B-R-A-K-E, are misspelled as break pads. Like taking a break. B-R-E-A-K. Like, I'm gonna break this. [laughs] Oh, and there's a screenshot of it, right? 9:35 Break pads worn. Wow. Just so bad. Change break. Well- Yeah... the crazy part is, it- They get it right first. That... [laughs] They, they actually get it right twice. It says, "Brake wear," spelled correctly. 9:46 "Brake pads worn," spelled correctly. "Change break," B-R-E-A-K, "pads. Driving permitted." Okay. So it is, like- Well, at least it's digital... they built it twice, and then missed it on the third one. God, it's weird. 9:58 The crazy thing is, this vehicle is 115 grand. Like, guys, even ChatGPT would've got this one right. [laughs] You know? Even ChatGPT. 10:09 So, like, they don't know if the, the typo is exclusive to just this model, but I mean, once you know, you know. I'm the kind of person, and you are too, like, once you know something's a little off, it bothers you. 10:20 Yeah. I wonder if this model car, and fortunately, it is in the digital display, right? This isn't a physical button or a physical, back in the day, you have the little old am- incandescent bulb that would just show up. 10:29 Yep. So I mean, it's probably fixed within an over-the-air update, I'm guessing. 10:33 But I mean, it just goes to show you, man, like, even the highest attention to detail, it makes me feel better, because I miss stuff like this all the time. You misspell all the time. 10:41 Like, e- even Porsche can do it on $115,000 vehicle. Everything's gonna be fine. It's a great little Jalopnik, uh, article, and you know, they'll fix it soon. Yeah. I'm sure. Yeah, they will. Yeah, they will. 10:53 [upbeat music] Well, look, by the way, uh, you have a lot of opportunity to go out there and make positive change today. Serve some people, provide hope to some people, and have a lot of fun, right? 11:02 Whatever you do, make sure it's about a little bit more than cars. We'll see you tomorrow. Yeah. [upbeat music] And lead the way. Oh, just... And lead the way. And lead the way. 11:21 Oh, 11:32 just...
