Automotive News Daily Drive Feb 18, 2026

Feb. 18, 2026 | Reynolds & Reynolds CEO Chris Walsh; Automakers bet on humanoid robots

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Company

General Motors

General Motors is a big car company that makes many different types of vehicles, like trucks and cars.

Concept

full-size pickups

Full-size pickups are big trucks that can carry heavy loads and are often used for work or towing things like trailers.

Brand

Tesla

Tesla is a car company that makes electric cars and is known for its advanced technology, including self-driving features.

Brand

Mercedes

Mercedes is a well-known car brand from Germany that makes luxury cars and is famous for their quality and technology.

Brand

BMW

BMW is a popular German car brand that makes sporty and luxury cars, known for their driving performance.

Brand

Hyundai

Hyundai is a car company from South Korea that makes many types of vehicles, including affordable cars and electric models.

Car

Ford F150S

The Ford F-150 is a big truck that many people use for work or to carry things. It's very popular and has been one of the best-selling trucks in the U.S. for a long time.

Term

market comps

Market comps are similar cars that have been sold recently. They help you understand how much your car is worth compared to others like it.

Term

AI pricing recommendation is when computers use data to help car sellers decide how much to charge for their cars. It looks at things like how many cars are available and how much people are willing to pay.

LIVE

Welcome to Daily Drive. For Wednesday, February 18th, 2026, I'm

Kellan Walker in Las Vegas. Today on the show, GM invests more in

Oshawa after cutting hundreds of jobs.

Salantis shakes up its supply chain leadership, and Auto

Canada names a permanent CEO. Plus, Chris Walsh, president and

acting CEO of Reynolds and Reynolds joins the show, talk

about the next phase of retail AI tech.

Those high volume, low risk tasks that happen in a dealership

every single day, you know, that we can leverage AI to do a lot

of those things so people can focus on things that are, you

know, maybe more important and has a positive impact on

consumers.

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

the auto industry.

General Motors is investing an additional 63 million Canadian

dollars to upgrade its Oshawa assembly plant for next

generation full size pickups. The new funding adds to the

$280 million that it committed in 2023, paying for stamping

operations and sub assembly upgrades. But it's a mixed

message from GM. The automaker just cut the third shift at

Oshawa in January, eliminating about 700 jobs and 50,000

units of annual capacity. GM cited forecasted demand and trade

uncertainty. Meanwhile, the company plans to add roughly the

same capacity at its Fort Wayne, Indiana plant. Stalantis is

hiring GM veteran Marcelo Conti as North America purchasing

chief. Conti brings more than 30 years of automotive purchasing

experience to the automaker. He replaces Marlo Vitas, who's

moving to a global role overseeing the automakers $13 billion

US investment program. The move comes as Stalantis works to

repair strained supplier relationships and improve vehicle

quality under CEO Antonio Filosa. And Canada's only publicly

traded dealership group has a permanent leader. Auto Canada

named Samuel Cochran as new CEO effective immediately. He's been

serving as interim CEO since October and joined as CFO last

August. Cochran takes the helm as Auto Canada wraps up the sale of

its 17 store US division and refocuses on its 64 Canadian

dealerships and nearly three dozen collision centers. He says

there's significant work ahead to improve dealership

performance and return the network to consistent

profitability. And those are today's headlines. You can read

more about all those stories at auto news.com humanoid robots are

getting lots of hype early in 2026. Our own Lawrence I live has

been looking into how automakers are making a big bet on those

robots, not just using them in factories, but actually

manufacturing them. Lonnie, welcome back to daily drive.

It's great to be here.

So Lonnie, you write that automakers have an edge when it

comes to building humanoid robots. What is that edge and why

not just buy them from other companies?

Automakers have these big manufacturing plants, right? And

they need to, you know, build cars and keep capacity up to make

that economics work. And so you're looking at, you know, all

this installed capacity and then all this know how, right?

Automakers are making cars with cameras, with perception

systems, with software, with the kinds of sensors and things

that can translate into making robots. And so you think of it

as like an adjacent business, right? Here's another business

opportunity. Here's something that people say is going to be

like really hot in the future. And so why not move in that

direction? And you have kind of different tracks, you know,

Tesla wants to do it all by itself. They're already making

their own robo taxis. And they're going to use the same

software and some of the same supply chain, you know,

potentially to make humanoid robots, not just to work in

their factories, but to work in your home. I mean, that's the

that's the vision.

Now, there's a wide range of strategies here. Tesla is going

all in and converting a factory to build robots, while

Mercedes and BMW are partnering with startups and Chinese

automakers to deploy thousands of robots already. What does that

tell us about where this technology actually is right

now?

That's a great question, because, you know, there's

skeptics too, that we talked to in the story of saying, you

know, this is kind of really science fiction at this point,

you know, some of the estimates that we saw about, for

example, humanoid robots being larger than the current

auto industry is in 2050. So I think, you know, there's a

lot of, you know, hedging your bets. Tesla's all in the

Chinese, it looks like they see this as a very logical thing.

They have robots out there dancing and doing karate and

kind of already doing some basic things that you can imagine

them, you know, moving really quickly into space like they

did with EVs. And then you see, you know, more traditional

automakers, you know, kind of getting a foot in, partnering

with startups, just doing some testing, and kind of in the

middle of like, let's say the Tesla and China on one side, and

then like Mercedes and BMW just kind of partnering, doing

some testing, you kind of have Hyundai in the middle, you

know, which owns Boston robotics. And so they already

have robots, working robots and kind of, you know, transforming

those into industrial robots and Hyundai's factories, and then

also maybe moving into the consumer robot industry.

Perfect. Lonnie Eiliff. Always insightful. Thank you so much

for joining me. Thanks guys. Coming up, Reynolds and Reynolds

CEO Chris Walsh talks about the company's record year and how

their unified data layer is powering the next generation of

AI tools for dealers. That's next on Daily Drive.

Are you a dealer creating a workplace culture your employees

are proud to be part of? Applications are now open for the

2026 Automotive News Best Dealerships to Work For Program.

This isn't just an award. It's a chance to get real insight

into what's working at your dealership and where you can

improve. And we've expanded the categories this year,

recognizing everything from technician experience and

leadership development to AI enablement and employee

retention. The registration deadline is April 17th. Find

out more and apply at AutoNews.com.

Welcome back to Daily Drive. I'm Kellan Walker. Reynolds and

Reynolds had a record year in 2025. At this year's NADA show

in Las Vegas, they saw more dealer traffic at their booth

than any year in the past seven. Automotive News Retail

Tech reporter Mark Homer spoke with Chris Walsh, president

and acting CEO of Reynolds and Reynolds, about what's

driving that success and where AI is headed next.

Chris, thanks for joining us. We're ledger here and I'm

wondering how the show's been so far. Well, first of all,

thanks for having me, Mark. I appreciate it. It's good to

see you again. The show's been fantastic. The traffic has

been, you know, sky high. It's probably our yesterday for

sure. We went back and looked at, you know, seven years

and we had more people at our booth yesterday than we ever

had in the previous seven years. So did you count? Like, do

you know it's more than 500 or a thousand? It's more than

500. It's close to a thousand. Really? Yeah. After the first

day. Yeah, for the first day. That's phenomenal. Yeah. I want

to talk to you about technology. Sure. And I noticed in

particular you were at a tech event yesterday. Yeah. Tell me

about that. You're talking about the Steve Greenfield event?

Exactly. I'm basically to look at startups and evaluate

which they're, I mean, what brought you there? Well, our

M&A team was going and I knew they were going. So I wanted

to go. The short answer is I learned when I go there. You

know, we've got relationships with FM Capital and TD

Cowan. So we know those people and so, you know, and we

meet and we meet with them and every time we meet with them,

I feel like I walk away smarter. They, you know, they really

know a lot about the industry. What's going on? They're

pretty embedded in the industry. They know about

companies. They know about new companies. They certainly know

about companies that are, you know, for sale or going to

sale. But really what I learned is the way they look at the

market, you know, and the way they look at the industry and

they have a unique perspective. You know, they're not a

technology company. You know, so I just feel like I learn a

lot when I go there. So that's really why I went. Did you

make connections? What did you take away? Well, I mean, the

shark-take thing was actually really cool. So one of them

was Ryan Austin, who was with Goobagoo. We bought Goobagoo

quite a few years ago. So we got to know Ryan. So I got to

see Ryan talk about his new company and what they're doing.

But a lot of it is just, you know, kind of networking and

seeing people that I hadn't seen in a while and, you know,

getting their perspective on how things are going and what's

new and sometimes getting their perspective on us and what

we're doing. You know, I just feel like, you know, it's good

to, it's good to hear that. Excellent. Now, everybody's

still talking about AI. Where do you see things going

heading into 2026? Well, you know, for us, the important

thing that we did a few years ago was to build Spark, which

is our unified data layer. So that's what, that's the data

that the AI tools are all pulling from. And, you know,

we're in a unique position that, you know, we literally have

decades and decades of data that we can gather insights

from. So we have this, you know, this tremendous data,

which we collected unified and put into Spark's, you know.

So right now, what you're seeing is things like using AI

to respond to things. So asking it questions and it'll

give you an answer. So you might say, hey, tell me how many

F-150s I have in inventory right now and it'll give you

an answer. So instead of going to run a report, it'll do

that. Or you may take that a little bit further and say,

you know, what should my inventory mix be of F-150s?

And it'll tell you what they think, you know, it'll do.

We're using it to price out used cars, you know.

So when you're going to sell a car, you know, it knows what

the market comps are out there. So it gives you advice on

how to price the vehicle. So, and it's not just telling you

what it thinks you should do. It's also telling you why it

thinks what it thinks. You know, so it's based on this data.

This is why I think what I think it always gives the person

the opportunity to disagree and say, no, I think I can sell

this car for a grand more than that. So I'm going to price

a thousand dollars higher than what AI is recommending.

So I think it's doing that. I said, you ask it something,

it tells you. Now I think it's going to be, it's going to

move into, like, to use the F-150 example.

So, you know, what does my Ford inventory look like?

Well, you have, you know, 217 Ford's on the lot right now.

You're a little high on F-150s. So now it's giving you

an insight into it. And the next step will be,

it's not even going to, you don't have to ask it anything.

You're going to come in, you might log into your 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 that it has, I think that's where

all this is, is kind of going to, you know, now.

It's been said that data is increasingly

important because without good data,

AI doesn't work well. So

you guys are a few years into your data layer.

That was something positive to anticipate

early. I mean, how successful has that switch been?

Well, it's been, it's usually successful. And, you know,

it also brings in data from, you know, we've got

acquisitions that we've made, right? So we can now bring in, you know,

acquisition or data from like, you know, think about TSD,

you know, and the data they have around courtesy and loaner vehicles

and managing those assets. That data can go

into Spark AutoVision, you know, and all the used

vehicle data that we have. So, you know, we feel

very strongly that we did the right things. We did

all the hard work before, you know, because that's the

foundational work that needs to happen in order to make the

AI tools do what it's, what you just mentioned is true, like

it may do something wrong, or it just may, you know,

it just may not do the right thing. Sure.

Now, since I've been covering you for a few years now,

I've followed very closely that you very selectively

made acquisitions that address,

you know, a future technique, whether it was cybersecurity

or data or something else. Right. So

in 2026, are you still looking for more

select acquisitions like that? I mean, we're always,

you know, open to an acquisition as something comes along

that we think is a really good strategic fit.

I think we'll be relatively quiet on the

acquisition front this year. But, you know, it's hard to say,

you know, something comes up. It's like, okay, this, this is a strategic fit

for us. It plugs a hole for our customers. It does something

for the industry, whatever it happens to be, that it might be,

you know, a good fit for us. Excellent. So

what have you noticed about this year's conference?

What is new, if anything? Well,

traffic is, you know, the main thing that I've noticed about

the conference, you know, it's just so much higher. If you remember last year,

you know, we had, you know, the weather, you know, had a dramatic

impact on the conference. And all of us. I think

there's, there's a lot more vendors here, I think, than I remember

being here. And I haven't, I haven't asked what the count is,

but I'm pretty confident there's a lot more vendors

here than there really maybe ever has been. So that's been

something I've noticed. When you're here in your capacity, do you though

and just, do you take a stroll and do you talk to vendors

that you haven't talked to before? Yeah, not as much as I would like

to, but I do, I try to do it. You know, it's such a

fascinating place to walk around. And there's, you know, companies

that are just brand new and doing really interesting, you know, things

that no one else has, sometimes no one else has even thought of, you know,

doing. So, you know, that's interesting. So, and this

is just a lot of cool tech here. You are

president and acting CEO. Are you still, or at least

you were as of last year in terms of the CEO

part? Is that going to become permanent?

Not a question for me to answer, you know, but

I feel like I'm doing the job, you know, so

I look at, I am acting like the CEO and I am doing

the things that I feel that need to be done to make this company

successful and to keep it moving forward and to do

things that help our customers be successful.

At the end of the day, that's the reason that we exist

is to help our customers, you know, be successful and

help them deal with what's coming next. So,

if they decide they want to, you know, take the acting away,

that that's their decision, I'd be glad to do it. Sure. They want me, if they want

to keep it there for a while, that's also fun. Fair enough.

Now, in terms of something new, I'm wondering

what have you seen in terms of tech here that seems

new to you? Well, I think, you know, you're talking about

within rentals or just in general? In general, just walking around

and if that applies to rentals, both. Yeah, I haven't

walked around much, so I haven't seen a lot of tech.

I know that I can provide much insight there.

You know, we've got, you know, a lot of tech in our village. I mean, we've got

I think we have the largest booth. This is our

60th year exhibiting at NAD. I think we're the one. Has it been that long?

Exhibitor. That was not here for all 60 of them.

About those, sometimes it feels like it. Sure. But, you know,

we feel like we've got a pretty comprehensive and robust

sweeter solutions to help retailers be more successful

if you look at the entire rentals village. So, certainly

the DMS things that we do, but even outside of that, you know,

a lot of the point solutions that we offer. Yeah, we've talked about

we've talked about data being a thing. I know that cybersecurity

is an important part of what you're doing as well.

What is coming that's new beyond that? What do you say in terms of

in terms of tech that might be useful? Well, I think, you know,

you'll continue to see the evolution of AI that I talked about

and, you know, really kind of how do we augment

what people do in a dealership that, you know, maybe

they don't need to be doing and do it better. Sure.

Which in the end translates into a better, you know, consumer experience.

So think about like those high volume, low risk

tasks that happen in a dealership every single day.

You know, that we can leverage AI to do a lot of those things.

Sure. So people can focus on things that are, you know, maybe

more important and has a positive impact, you know, on

consumers. Think about, think about yourself. Okay. So let's

just say you're laying on the couch 10 o'clock at night.

You're looking for cars and you find a vehicle that you like

and you submit a lead. Well, 99 out of 100 times

what happens when you submit that lead at 10 o'clock at night

is absolutely nothing happens. So the next day

maybe somebody responds to you, but what's happened

to you the next day? You know, life has happened. You know, you've woken up

and you've gone on to, you know, work or people have kids

and getting them to school and jobs and all these things have happened.

Sure. Now the opportunity to, you know, have an impact

on you has kind of been lost, right? So where

you could meet them in the moment, in that case, are you sitting

on the couch submitting their lead and react to you

then and try to get you to convert and take the next step,

which would, you know, certainly be to come into the dealership to look at the vehicle.

So I think AI can really have a positive impact

there on the consumer experience.

That's Daily Drive for today. I'm Kellan Walker.

Thanks to Automotive News executive producer Jake Neer,

as well as our own Lawrence Isliff for his reporting for today's podcast.

We also had reporting from David Kennedy of our

sibling publication, Automotive News Canada

and Kurt Nagel of Crane's Detroit business.

You can get the latest news on AI and dealerships,

humanoid robots and everything happening in the auto industry

at AutoNews.com. Come back tomorrow

for a conversation with Techie on CEO Jay Vijayan.

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18:18

Feb. 18, 2026 | Reynolds & Reynolds CEO Chris Walsh; Automakers bet on humanoid robots

General Motors

full-size pickups

Tesla

Mercedes

BMW

Hyundai

Ford F150S

market comps

AI pricing recommendation

About this episode

Original notes