Automotive News Daily Drive Feb 17, 2026

Feb. 17, 2026 | Jesse Jackson's auto legacy; Elektrobit CEO Maria Anhalt

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Car

Chevrolet Trailblazer

The Chevrolet Trailblazer is a compact SUV that offers a stylish look and plenty of room for passengers and cargo.

Car

Chevrolet Trax

The Chevrolet Trax is a small SUV designed for city driving, known for being easy to park and fuel-efficient.

Car

Buick Envista

The Buick Invista is a small SUV that focuses on comfort and tech features, making it appealing for everyday use.

Car

Buick Encore GX

The Buick Encore GX is a small SUV that provides a comfortable ride and lots of features, making it a good choice for families.

Term

Software-defined vehicles are cars that use software to manage their features. This means they can be updated over the internet, similar to how your phone gets updates, making them more versatile and modern.

Term

over-the-air updates

Over-the-air updates are like software updates for your phone, but for cars. They let manufacturers improve the car's software without needing to take it to a shop.

Term

updateability

Updateability means how easily a car can get new features or fixes through software updates, just like apps on your phone.

Term

OEM

OEM means the original maker of the car. If something goes wrong, you go back to them for repairs or updates.

LIVE

Welcome to Daily Drive.

For Tuesday, February 17, 2026, I'm Kellan Walker in Las Vegas, today on the show.

Ford CEO Jim Farley reportedly discussed U.S.-China car-making joint ventures with Trump officials.

GM targets full capacity at South Korean plants despite tariff threats.

And we remember civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, who died today at age 84.

Plus, Maria Anhalt, CEO of Electro-Bit, joins us to discuss how software-defined vehicles

will transform the ownership experience.

You will be able to navigate and have the experience in the car personalized to your

own needs and the car can learn with you.

Let's run through all the news you need to know to keep up in the auto industry.

It looks like Ford is exploring partnerships with Chinese automakers to navigate potential competition.

According to Bloomberg News, CEO Jim Farley reportedly discussed a framework with Trump

cabinet members last month in that framework Chinese automakers could build cars in America

through joint ventures with U.S. companies holding controlling stakes and both partners

sharing profits and technology.

People familiar with the situation said the idea got a cold reception from officials,

including trade representative Jameson Greer, transportation secretary Sean Duffy,

and EPA administrator Lee Zeldin.

They felt it would face opposition due to economic and national security concerns.

Meanwhile, General Motors told the administration it opposes Chinese entry entirely.

Speaking of GM, the Detroit automaker is targeting full capacity at its South Korean plants this

year to meet U.S. demand for the Chevrolet Trax and Trailblazer crossovers.

It plans to build 500,000 vehicles despite tariff headwinds.

The push also supplies their platform mates, the Buick Encore GX and Invista.

President Trump has threatened to raise duties on Korean-made vehicles from 15% to 25%.

A GM spokesperson confirmed the automaker aims to operate its plants at full capacity

to meet strong global demand.

The plan tests GM's commitment to using South Korea as a low-cost export base to North America.

And civil rights leader Jesse Jackson has died at age 84.

Jackson was known for pressing the auto industry to hire African Americans,

create and protect jobs in urban areas, and support black-owned dealerships and suppliers.

In 1998, his Rainbow Push Coalition opened a Detroit office to advocate for minority dealerships

and suppliers.

In 2008, with Detroit's Big 3 struggling during the financial crisis,

Jackson organized rallies calling for federal assistance to preserve millions of jobs.

He disclosed in 2017 that he had Parkinson's disease.

According to a statement, he died today surrounded by his family.

Our own Vince Mon Jr. has been covering Jackson's automotive advocacy work,

and he joins me now to talk about it.

Vince, welcome back to Daily Drive.

Thank you.

So Vince, what was Jackson's most significant impact on the auto industry?

Well, his impact was immense.

So for him, having black workers on the factory floor wasn't enough.

You know, he fought for, you know, black representation in the C-sweets,

you know, in the executive offices.

He wanted people to have a voice and be at the table.

He also believed that, you know, minorities shouldn't be limited to being consumers.

He wanted what he called two-way trade and mutual relationships.

And so, you know, don't just sell cars to minorities, you know,

also bring them into the offices, you know, make them executives,

make sure they are in the companies, you know, making decisions as well.

Whereas, as he used to say all the time, you know, to me, you know, two-way trade.

So that was a really, really huge impact that he had.

And how did automakers typically respond to Jackson's pressure campaigns

around minority hiring and supplier opportunities?

Well, over the years, he had a really, really strong relationship with automakers.

Over the years, they've had their annual Global Automotive Summit in Detroit,

where they bring together automakers and dealers.

And they have just, you know, thought-provoking discussions about the industry

and how to move it forward.

And automakers were always there as major sponsors and having, you know,

CEOs come to the event to do interviews with Jackson on stage.

And so, their relationship was awesome over the years.

And I know it will continue in the future with Rainbow Push,

even after, you know, the Reverend is gone.

Perfect. Vince Bon Jr., thank you so much for joining me.

Thank you.

Coming up, ElectroBit's CEO, Maria Anhalt,

talks about how software-defined vehicles will change the ownership experience

and why the industry needs to accelerate development timelines.

That's next on Daily Drive.

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Welcome back to Daily Drive.

I'm Kellan Walker.

Software-defined vehicles promise to keep cars feeling fresh through over-the-air updates.

But they could also change how long people hold on to their vehicles.

On the latest episode of the Automotive News Shift Podcast,

our own Molly Boygon spoke with Maria Anhalt, CEO of ElectroBit.

Here's a piece of their conversation from CES 2026 here in Las Vegas.

So at CES 2026, ElectroBit announced EBSivion, a virtual environment that in part

is meant to accelerate the pace of development.

Why do you think it's important for the auto industry to speed up development timelines?

It's really important because if you look at what is happening in the automotive industry today,

we are so squeezed between economical, technological, organizational pressure

for getting everything much quicker at a better cost.

So everything that we can do to speed up the development, to reduce the cost,

to enable people to run faster is a goodie.

It's a good thing for the customers.

And for us, while we're doing Sivion, it is a new product offering as part of our

service engineering offering for the digital life experience, which is mostly infotainment

and cockpits. It's a service, differentiated piece.

Now, if we release something that has software modules and it's being reusable,

then automatically we reduce the cost.

Then the risk is lower, then people can develop it much faster.

Do you expect that with software-defined vehicles enabling new vehicle functionalities

and capabilities via over-the-air updates, that that will change the vehicle ownership cycle?

In other words, do you think that people will hold onto their vehicles for longer or

given this faster pace of development, like consumer electronics,

people will be attracted to the newer generations of vehicles?

Okay, that's a good one. So, see what software-defined vehicle is doing

is nothing specifically for the length of the cycle.

What it is doing is to enrich the value of the vehicle.

So, if we look at the traditional development, then there is a depreciation of the cost.

The longer you own the car, then features get outfly, the car is not current any longer.

With the software-defined approach, then you can update the functionality frequently so that

the car is more current, so that the value states up.

So, it's nothing with the longevity of the life cycle.

It's rather keeping the value of the car current and having more state-of-the-art technology.

But to your question, can STV prolong the lifetime?

Yes or no? It can do both.

So, if we do it very, very well, then customers may be so jazzed,

I love my car, I love how it behaves, I can always download new features, then I'll keep it.

No, no, no need to spend more time.

So, you're extending this.

But it could be also done in a way where the updateability does not work well.

Just to give you an example, I have a colleague of mine, in effect, Moritz.

So, he drives like a high-end car and two years ago, he had a feature in his car with the cross-control.

So, this car did not stop at the red light.

So, he went back to the OEM and complained, and they could not update it, they could not

upgrade it. So, what they had to do is get back the car and replace the entire car.

So, see, if we don't do it right, make it possible to update and upgrade it,

then you're automatically shortened the life cycle.

Right, and that's Moritz Newkirkner, an electro-bit colleague.

And that would be a tough experience for a dealership to have him come in and say,

there's something wrong with this car.

So, I wonder about the, as you said, the industry sees this development cycle, timeline,

acceleration as very important to save money, to offer features to consumers,

to keep the vehicles feeling fresh. I also feel sometimes in my life outside of covering the

auto industry, people don't even really know how to navigate some of the newer features of their

cars. Do you think that the industry is making all of these changes and sort of rolling all of these

innovations out to meet the present moment or to sort of basically prepare for future demand?

It's the latter, prepare for future demand, and also depends on regional differences. If you talk

to, even in China, for example, in Shanghai, so people love a lot of things and juggle and operate

and configure, so the cockpit looks very different than if you're in the US and what people expect

to do. But independent of that, if we look now in usage of AI, predictive analytics, speak to the car,

use your voice, use gen AI, then you can do a lot of things with this out-of-the-box technology,

not even having to configure something and deal with the technology. So, automatically, you will

be able to navigate and have the experience in the car personalized to your own needs,

and the car can lure in with you. So, I think at this point, it's a little bit of a race to

provide some of these features that have been in development and in the pipeline. People are

always talking about really natural, responsive voice assistants. They're talking about vehicle

personalization. They're talking about other digital cockpit offerings, subscriptions, and I

wonder if so many industry players are working on setting the table for those things at the same

time, if they'll truly be differentiating or where differentiation will come from once those

features are standard. It is extensibility. You can add so many features. So, see, I spent,

before I moved to automotive, I spent 20 years in a high tech, I worked for HP. So, many, many years

back, we wondered what is the e-service. Now, the internet came and all these different industries

came in that displays. We have Uber in the taxi industry, we have Airbnb in the hotel industry,

and I'm quite sure that we will look into services and extending functionality based in the mobility

that we cannot even imagine today. So, you can do the things that are like predictive maintenance,

and then you can have the car self-drive back and replace the, you can use the vehicle for

anything else, not just to move from A to B. For example, so I live in Germany and I work and I

hated to order something and then how to get it delivered. So, what is possible in technology

today, nobody enable it, use your trunk as a box where your goods can be delivered, just open it

up, you can use it for that. You can buy a vehicle that includes everything, all of the

functionality, but you don't pay for this. So, once you need the technology, you subscribe,

it's enabled, you pay only for that, and I'm going to skiing to Austria, I pay for the

automotive driver assistance, I drive the highway or self-drive, return bags and the feedback,

go back. So, there are many things that you can imagine that you can do

based on the technology and use the vehicle for anything else than mobility.

Our own Molly Boygon spoke with ElectroBit CEO Maria Anhold at CES 2026 here in Las Vegas.

You can hear the full conversation on the Automotive News Shift Podcast.

That's Daily Drive for today. I'm Kellan Walker. Thanks to Automotive News executive producer

Jake Nier as well as our own Hans Grimel and Vince Bonjr for their reporting for today's podcast.

You can get the latest news on software-defined vehicles, the prospect of Chinese automakers

entering the U.S. and everything happening in the auto industry at AutoNews.com.

Come back tomorrow for a conversation with Reynolds and Reynolds president and acting

CEO Chris Walsh about the company's record year and how their unified data layer is powering

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computer first thing in the morning and it might say, hey, Mark, you know, one thing you might want

to look at today and it's going to give you, you know, an insight based on the data. So,

I think that's where all this is kind of going to, you know, now. We'd love to hear from you.

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0:00

15:17

Feb. 17, 2026 | Jesse Jackson's auto legacy; Elektrobit CEO Maria Anhalt

Chevrolet Trailblazer

Chevrolet Trax

Buick Envista

Buick Encore GX

software-defined vehicles

over-the-air updates

updateability

OEM

About this episode

Original notes