Recent Supreme Court ruling declared many of Trump's tariffs illegal, impacting over $133 billion collected, including $8.6 billion from the auto industry. While this decision may lead to refunds, it leaves existing tariffs on vehicles and parts intact, causing ongoing price pressures. Industry experts discuss potential responses from automakers and suppliers, including lawsuits for refunds. The episode also highlights how automakers have adjusted pricing strategies amid these tariffs, with Canadian vehicles seeing significant price hikes, while South Korean vehicles have lowered prices to gain market share.
"...driving a Chrysler Pacifica or a Toyota RAV4. That does not constitute a national threat..."
The Chrysler Pacifica is a family minivan that has a lot of space and features to make driving with kids easier. It's designed to be comfortable and safe for families.
The Chrysler Pacifica is a minivan known for its spacious interior and family-friendly features. It offers a blend of comfort, technology, and safety, making it a popular choice among families.
"...or a Toyota RAV4. That does not constitute a national threat..."
The Toyota RAV4 is a small SUV that is known for being reliable and good on gas. It's a great option for people who need a versatile vehicle for different activities.
The Toyota RAV4 is a compact SUV that is well-regarded for its reliability, fuel efficiency, and versatility. It is a popular choice for those seeking a practical vehicle for both city and outdoor adventures.
"...notably Toyota paid $10 billion this year in tariffs. They didn't wanna get up there and get in front..."
Tariffs are extra fees that countries charge on products coming from other countries. This can make things like cars more expensive for buyers.
Tariffs are taxes imposed on imported goods, which can increase the cost of those goods for consumers. In the automotive industry, tariffs can lead to higher prices for vehicles and parts.
"...we have to raise prices because of these tariffs. So what they did, we believed was what we were told they were gonna do was bake them into the model year changeover."
The model year changeover is when car companies start selling new versions of their cars for the next year. This is when they might change how the cars look or what features they have.
The model year changeover refers to the time when car manufacturers release new models for the upcoming year. This often includes updates in design, features, and pricing.
"this drop is simply a move by Hyundai Kia. Just to mention, General Motors also was building"
Kia is another car company from South Korea that makes a range of vehicles. They are known for their stylish designs and good value for the price.
Kia is a South Korean automobile manufacturer and a subsidiary of Hyundai. It offers a variety of vehicles, known for their design, features, and value for money.
"this drop is simply a move by Hyundai Kia. Just to mention, General Motors also was building"
Hyundai is a car company from South Korea that makes many types of vehicles, including sedans and SUVs. They are known for being budget-friendly and offering good warranties.
Hyundai is a South Korean automotive manufacturer known for producing a wide range of vehicles, from compact cars to SUVs. The brand has gained popularity for its affordability and warranty offerings.
"this drop is simply a move by Hyundai Kia. Just to mention, General Motors also was building"
General Motors is a big car company in the United States that makes many different kinds of cars and trucks. They own brands like Chevrolet and Cadillac.
General Motors (GM) is an American multinational corporation that designs, manufactures, markets, and distributes vehicles and vehicle parts. GM owns several well-known brands, including Chevrolet, GMC, Cadillac, and Buick.
"Now, Greg, we just heard the data from Larry, and as he said, sticker prices have jumped nearly $4,000 for vehicles that have been assembled in Canada."
Sticker prices are the prices shown on new cars that tell you how much the car costs. It's the price the manufacturer suggests the dealer should sell it for.
Sticker prices refer to the manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP) displayed on the window of a new vehicle. It represents the price at which the manufacturer recommends the vehicle be sold.
"...and we might see transaction prices come back down to somewhere a little more normal, pre-tariff."
Transaction prices are the real prices that people pay when they buy a car, not just the price that the manufacturer suggests. These prices can change based on sales, deals, or how much people are willing to negotiate.
Transaction prices refer to the actual prices that consumers pay for vehicles, which can differ from the manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP) due to negotiations, discounts, or market conditions. Understanding transaction prices helps buyers gauge the true cost of a vehicle.
"...the other thing I can tell you is automakers up here are also adding to their destination fees. So the sticker prices still look reasonably affordable on some vehicles, but when you look at the destination fees, some of them have almost doubled in cost."
Destination fees are extra charges that car companies add to the price of a car to pay for shipping it to the dealership. These fees can sometimes be quite high and have been going up lately.
Destination fees are charges added by automakers to cover the cost of transporting a vehicle from the manufacturer to the dealership. These fees can vary significantly and have been increasing in recent years, sometimes nearly doubling, which affects the overall cost of purchasing a vehicle.
"...that involves the UAW president, Walter Ruther and a Ford Motor Company manager..."
The UAW stands for United Auto Workers, which is a group that represents people who work in car factories and helps them with their rights and working conditions.
The UAW, or United Auto Workers, is a labor union representing workers in the automobile industry. It plays a significant role in negotiating labor contracts and advocating for workers' rights.
"...that involves the UAW president, Walter Ruther and a Ford Motor Company manager who is allegedly Henry Ford II, having a conversation."
Ford Motor Company is a well-known car manufacturer in the United States, famous for making cars like the Ford Mustang and trucks like the Ford F-150.
Ford Motor Company is an American multinational automaker founded by Henry Ford on June 16, 1903. It is known for revolutionizing the automobile industry with assembly line production techniques.
"...saying, the first dark factory, which means all production done by humanoid robots,..."
A dark factory is a factory that uses robots to do all the work without any people inside. This helps make things faster and cheaper to produce.
A dark factory is a manufacturing facility that operates without human presence, relying entirely on automation and robotics for production. This concept allows for increased efficiency and reduced labor costs.
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Welcome to this weekend drive edition of Daily Drive
for the third week in February, 2026.
I'm Kellan Walker in Las Vegas.
We're breaking down some of the biggest stories
in the auto industry from the past week.
Looking forward to what's in store in the days ahead.
Joining me today are Larry Veliquette,
who covers Toyota, Mazda and Subaru for us
at Automotive News.
Larry Legend, thanks for joining us.
Thank you, Kell.
Great to be here.
And Greg Lason, digital and mobile editor
of our sibling publication, Automotive News Canada
and host of the Automotive News Canada podcast.
Greg, it's great to have you back.
Good to be back.
All right guys, so let's start with the big news
from this week, the US Supreme Court struck down
many of President Trump's tariffs,
ruling they were issued illegally
under a 1977 emergency powers law.
Larry, this is a six to three decision
that affects reciprocal tariffs
and duties on Canadian, Mexican and Chinese goods.
But tariffs on vehicles, auto parts, steel, aluminum
and copper remain in place.
Walk us through what just happened here.
So, Kell, what happened is that these US Supreme Court
ruled six to three to say that Donald Trump
did not have the ability to enact these emergency tariffs
under what's known as the IEPA, IEPA tariffs.
Notably, this was the same ruling
that the Supreme Court upheld a ruling
mentioned six months or that was made six months ago
that these tariffs were illegal.
And a majority of the Supreme Court said yes.
But in that ruling, when six months ago,
they stayed the decision pending this outcome.
So the tariffs have continued to be collected
during the last six months.
And now what's happened here,
and this is extremely complicated,
but let's just stick with the auto industry part, right?
Because it's gonna be a mess, no matter what.
Because we're talking about now the government
has to refund this money
because it was collected unconstitutionally.
Right now, the estimate of what's been collected
under this emergency powers law is about $133 billion,
including at least $8.6 billion
that was collected in the auto industry.
And that will have to be refunded at some point.
We think the decision didn't actually deal with it
with how to refund it.
It simply said that these were illegal.
So right now, we are hours when we're recording this,
we're hours into this decision.
It's gonna take some time for everybody to digest this.
Already though, we are seeing some reactions
from the federal government,
the Trump administration saying
that they'll just redo these tariffs under different laws.
What is notable though is that most for the auto industry,
most of the ruling, most of the tariffs
paid by the auto industry
are what are called section 232 tariffs.
Those tariffs remain in place.
So the tariffs that are driving up prices
in dealerships across the country
and really creating havoc with our trading partners,
those are unaffected by this ruling.
Now, Greg, from a Canadian perspective,
what does this ruling mean?
The court didn't say whether refunds are owed
or how they be distributed.
What are you hearing?
I mean, more than anything for Canadians as a whole
and even in the auto industry,
this is more of a moral victory.
It feels good because Donald Trump has been ruled against
and remember, as Larry said,
most of what this ruling covers
are tariffs and duties outside of the auto industry.
But what it does is it gives a little bit of hope
to the industry and to Canadians
that the 232 tariffs might be next.
Although if you listen to all the experts,
Donald Trump has a little more leeway
and a little more authority over those 232 tariffs.
And so those will probably remain in place.
And so just as the prices remain high in the United States,
they're gonna remain high over here.
Some of the tariffs that have been collected
under the IWEPA, maybe there's a refund coming,
but as Larry said, we're still a few hours into this.
We don't really know who's getting back what
or if they even have to be reimbursed at this point.
But in the immediate term, there's a lot of positivity.
There are a lot of people applauding the decision
and right down from government officials,
those in opposition, some in the auto industry.
But basically everyone's saying, okay, now do 232.
Are those going away or are they staying?
Chances are they're going to stay
because they are a matter of national security
according to the president.
And according to American laws,
the president has the ability to institute those tariffs
if they are deemed to address a national security issue.
So in Donald Trump's mind, aluminum, steel, auto, auto parts,
those all represent a national security threat
to the United States.
Now I would say this, I would agree with that.
If in fact we were sending over Chinese electric vehicles,
perhaps there is a national security issue there
in terms of technology, but just from building vehicles
in Canada and even in Mexico under the USMCA,
a lot of people in Canada within the industry
just don't see a national defense
or a national security issue with anything that's built
under the guys and under the rules of origin of the USMCA.
Can I just clarify something that Greg just said?
He prefaced that last sentence with among Canadians
and it should also include among Canadians
and many, many Americans.
They don't see a national threat
in driving a Chrysler Pacifica or a Toyota RAV4.
That does not constitute a national threat
to many, many Americans.
So I just want to point to that out
that there are many of us who are on the same side
on this issue.
And Larry, as you mentioned, the auto industry paid
about 8.6 billion through October 2025
in duties now deemed unconstitutional.
How do you expect suppliers and automakers to respond?
Do you see them filing a lawsuit to get their money back?
Well, presumably they shouldn't have to, right?
I mean, for every dollar that gets sent
into the federal government, there's a receipt.
Into the treasury.
And even though you're talking about separate fiscal years,
either side of October 1st,
there is a record of what every company paid in duties.
So presumably you just reverse those,
just like a tax return, you just reverse those transactions
for the duties that are deemed unconstitutional.
Now, will the federal government do that?
Probably not, they'll make it very complex.
But right now they don't really know.
Nobody knows at this point what'll happen,
but I will say this, if I'm a supplier
or if I'm an automaker who did pay a couple hundred
million dollars in duties that are now unconstitutional,
damn right, I want my money back, right?
I have more use for that money than the US government does.
I wanna make sure that I get that back.
So I think every company is gonna be very eager
to watch for a way, watch what the way is
that they're gonna get their money back.
But really, they shouldn't have to file lawsuits.
They shouldn't have to do anything other than say
to the Department of Treasury or the Department of Commerce,
hey, we sent you this money, you weren't able
to take it legally, send it back.
Before this week's Supreme Court ruling,
tariffs were already hitting dealer lots hard.
Larry, walk us through this new data from Catalyst IQ
that says automakers used model year changeovers
to quietly raise prices about $1,200 more aggressively
than last year.
Yeah, so Catalyst IQ is the successor company
to Cloud Theory and Cloud Theory has been tracking
average marketed price for us since these tariffs
came online back in April.
So we've had a little box in our website every day
that shows what the average marketed price is for that day.
And if you notice, if you watch that,
you noticed it didn't move very much.
And a lot of that was because even as the tariffs kicked in,
automakers were adjusting the mix.
And so just this broad average wasn't really showing
what's happening.
We also thought that what we were told by automakers
is that a lot of them didn't wanna get up in the face,
get it up in the grill of the Trump administration
by raising prices, even though they were paying these bills,
notably Toyota paid $10 billion this year in tariffs.
They didn't wanna get up there and get in front
and say, we have to raise prices because of these tariffs.
So what they did, we believed was what we were told
they were gonna do was bake them into the model
year changeover.
So what we did is we went to Catalyst IQ
who every night scrapes information off of every dealer
website in the United States by VIN.
And we said, take a look at that data
and tell us how prices have changed on vehicles
that were not built in the US.
And they can do that by VIN, right?
The first number of the VIN indicates what country,
first number of letter indicates what country
the vehicle was assembled in.
So they went back, they did the analysis.
And what they found is that the vehicles
from four nations had significant increases.
The biggest one was our friends north of the border, Canada.
Their prices, the prices of Canadian assembled vehicles
sold in the United States went up almost 10%
just since last October.
So what that tells you is that automakers
were baking that into the changeovers, right?
The same happened though not quite as extreme
with vehicles from Japan, with vehicles from Germany
and with vehicles from Mexico.
US-made vehicles went up slightly, right?
Less than 100 bucks.
And what's really interesting is that vehicles assembled
in South Korea actually went down.
Now-
How does that work?
Yeah, exactly, right?
How does that work?
Well, I tell you how it works.
If you're an automaker and you have prices rising
all around you, what do you do?
If you keep your prices low or actually even lower them,
you are buying what's called buying share.
You're buying market share, right?
It's gonna cost you a little more,
but you've now answered the affordability challenge
for consumers, you've exposed them to your vehicles.
So this drop, which is laid out in our story,
this drop is simply a move by Hyundai Kia.
Just to mention, General Motors also was building
the tracks there, right?
This is a move generally by Hyundai Kia to buy share.
Now, Greg, we just heard the data from Larry,
and as he said, sticker prices have jumped nearly $4,000
for vehicles that have been assembled in Canada.
This has to be painful for Canadian built vehicles.
How are they reacting north of the border?
I mean, so far it's full steam ahead
for Toyota building the RAV4.
Part of the reason some of the prices in Canada went up
is because Toyota, for example,
went all hybrid on all its RAV4s,
a little more expensive,
but Toyota has made massive investments
in their factories up here,
and they're not turning their back on it.
Honda is full steam ahead where they're at now,
and they did move some production to the United States
to avoid some reciprocal tariffs and that sort of stuff.
So right now, early on,
it doesn't look like much is going to change,
but we're still waiting for Ford Oakville
to come back online.
I don't know what happens there with super-duty trucks
when they're starting to be produced.
We're waiting to see what fills Brampton Assembly
owned by Stellantis.
We don't know what's going to be in there right now.
The easy solution is don't build anything in Canada.
If you have an empty factory, just don't fill it.
You can save some money.
So in terms of sticker prices in Canada,
I can confirm too that transaction prices through 2025
were up about two, two and a half percent,
not as much as everyone thought,
but we do know that automakers
are spreading out the cost of tariffs across all vehicles.
JD Power always uses this example
where if one particular vehicle has a price increase
of $6,000, that vehicle doesn't go up $6,000.
10 vehicles go up $600.
So they're spreading it out a little bit.
So in terms of the consumer in Canada,
we haven't seen a lot yet.
In terms of production in Canada, it's full steam ahead
because as everyone knows,
this industry just doesn't turn on a dime.
They've invested in this now
and everyone's waiting to see what happens with
as we started the show, 232 tariffs and with the USMCA.
Once there's more clarity, this dust might settle
and we might see transaction prices
come back down to somewhere a little more normal, pre-tariff.
The other thing I can tell you is automakers up here
are also adding to their destination fees.
So the sticker prices still look reasonably affordable
on some vehicles, but when you look at the destination fees,
some of them have almost doubled in cost.
So the automakers are finding a way to make up
for that cost of the tariffs.
Perfect, all right.
Well, speaking of big news from this week,
Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga just ratified
their first UAW contract in a landslide vote.
Coming up, we'll talk about what that means
for the union's Southern organizing push.
That's next on Weekend Drive.
The auto industry is the most disrupted
on the planet right now.
On this week's episode of the automotive news shift podcast,
we hear from Dan Hirsch, global co-leader of automotive
and industrial practice at Alex Partners.
He breaks down the firm's 2026 disruption index
and explains why tariffs, geopolitical tensions
and the rise of the Chinese automakers
are leaving global executives struggling
to plan for the future.
Senior executives, they are either finding themselves
in a spot where they have to redefine themselves,
which could be very difficult when you're really
well-established or they're going to find themselves
in a very different role or in a very different company.
I'm Molly Boygon.
Join me on Shift, available this Sunday,
wherever you get your podcasts.
Welcome back to Weekend Drive.
I'm Kellan Walker with Larry Bellacuette and Greg Lason.
So Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga
have ratified their first contract with the UAW,
and it wasn't even close.
Now, Larry, UAW President Sean Fain says
96% of workers approved the four-year pact.
That's a landslide.
What did workers get from the deal?
The terms of the deal, according to the UAW,
this is their first contract with VW.
The workers will get a 20% general wage increase
over five years.
They get improved healthcare with lower out-of-pocket costs,
a one-time $4,000 ratification bonus
and annual bonuses of $2,550 each year.
So you got about $14,000, $15,000 in bonuses
over five years, plus a 20% wage bonus.
That's, yeah, it's not bad money.
After taxes, though, let's be real.
I'm just kidding.
We're all paying them.
I know we're all paying them, right?
One reason why I say that is because tax time is like now.
Oh yeah, believe me.
And trust me, I'm paying more than you guys.
Oh, for sure.
Just so you know.
You're paying 2% more.
Don't kid yourself.
Then you get healthcare.
Well, this is a major victory for the union
in a decades-long push to organize
foreign-owned plants in the South.
Where does the UAW go from here?
And what's the next target?
So they have many targets that they identified early on,
whether they can get any of the rest of them to votes.
We haven't seen yet, right?
The next one, obviously, we think is gonna be Mercedes.
They're plants in the South.
We'll see, though.
This might be a one-and-done.
I'm gonna say first, this is a historic achievement, right?
Let's be clear.
They have not had success organizing transplant workers
since 1979, right?
It was before Mike Martinez was born, as we noted.
But it's a long way back.
I was still in middle school at that point.
So it's been a very, very long time since they had success.
And just winning an election was historic.
Actually getting a first contract is way more difficult.
And the fact that they did,
and that they got 96% approval on eradication,
is pretty stunning.
Now, will other workers in the South at Mercedes,
at, you know, perhaps BMW, Toyota's got a plant in Missouri
that they were targeting for a while, will they go to?
That's the open question.
What I will say is those companies are probably not going to,
they're gonna do everything they can to not be unionized,
but there's a secret.
And I say this as a former union negotiator, right?
If you don't want a union at your place of business,
act like you already have one, right?
If you're an employer, and if you don't want
your company unionized, act like it's already there.
Treat your employees like they're already unionized,
and you won't have a union.
That sounds like Toyota though, right?
Isn't Toyota kind of like that?
Well, I can speak for that up in Canada.
I have Toyota employees tell me all the time,
we don't need a union because they give us
what Unifor negotiates with the Detroit three.
So they have no reason to vote for a union
because Toyota turns around and gives them essentially
the pattern that the Detroit three get
when they bargain with Unifor.
Yeah, and they did the same,
the foreign transplant plants did the same thing
when the UAW got its contract here,
and what was that, 23, right?
Yes.
Yeah, they almost all immediately raised wages as a result.
Well, Greg, speaking of Canada,
I know Canadian workers have been watching this.
Does this have any implications north of the border?
Not directly.
I mean, Unifor's been trying hard to unionize Toyota,
Honda, others around the province
and the supply chain and supply check sector.
I don't foresee that happening ever at Honda and Toyota.
I always get positive reactions from them
in terms of their pay, their wages, their hours,
all of that stuff.
What I'm keeping my eye on is,
I mean, they did unionize Nextstar,
which was up until recently a joint venture
between LG Energy Solution and Stellantis.
So they unionized that shop, the Battery Plant Windsor.
I think the next target would be
Volkswagen's PowerCo Battery Plant in St. Thomas,
but I mean, shovels are barely in the ground there,
but that would be the next target for Unifor, I think,
in Canada.
Yeah, they're gonna need workers there
before they can form a union right there.
The world long ways off.
I mean, like I said, shovels barely in the ground there.
Let's get some bodies in the building first.
Or let's get a building first.
Yeah, or let's get an actual building first, right?
Can we get the foundation built first?
Now, shifting gears to something we've been hearing
a lot about, humanoid robots and manufacturing.
Now, Greg, you've been covering this story
as automakers like Hyundai and Mercedes
push toward full assembly automation
with humanoid robots.
Experts are warning about a fundamental economic paradox.
If robots eliminate manufacturing jobs,
who will have money to buy cars?
Walk us through what you found.
Yeah, I wrote a whole story on this
and it starts with a 70 year old story
that involves the UAW president, Walter Ruther
and a Ford Motor Company manager
who is allegedly Henry Ford II, having a conversation.
Where they say to each other,
hey, Walter, how are you gonna get those robots
to pay union dues?
And Ruther says, how are you gonna get them to buy cars?
So this has been going on for 70 years across automation.
And so when I wrote this story,
what we haven't been able to find
is a CFO or an accountant at an automaker
who's actually looked at this and said,
hey, we can't go full automation
because we'd have no one to buy our cars.
But what I have found is Unifor, for example,
wants to sit down and negotiate robotics
and humanoid robots as part of the collective agreement.
They want to make sure that they aren't taking jobs,
but that they're enhancing jobs,
that they're increasing efficiency and productivity,
and that any of those gains are shared with the union.
So it's really going to become a bargaining topic
when they sit around the table,
probably this Labor Day and beyond
when contract talks start,
because we're coming up on that.
The other thing is this,
the Canadian government is trying to lure Chinese automakers
to Ontario to build vehicles.
Well, the thing is China leads the world
in robot densification.
They have more doing human jobs
than any other country on the planet.
And so we just ran a story over on auto news
and we picked it up at Auto News Canada saying,
the first dark factory,
which means all production done by humanoid robots,
AI and other robotics in the plant,
could appear in 2030 and it will likely be Chinese.
So the question is,
are we pursuing as a Canadian government
a factory that's going to come here
and then just not employ anyone?
We don't know that yet.
But if you've seen the videos just this week
of robots doing Kung Fu in China,
it is a scary proposition
that these robots are going to end up in factories
and they will end up in a Hyundai factory in Georgia
as late as this year or early next year doing some jobs.
In fact, Toyota Canada, just this week announced
it will have six on a shop floor
assisting in building RAV4s.
So yeah, it is a very valid question.
What do you do when the robots arrive?
Who is left to buy the vehicles?
One labor prof at Brock University that I spoke to says,
maybe the government has to step in
and declare a robot tax.
So if you have X amount of robots,
you have to pay more taxes
in order to offset the fewer employees
that are needed on the factory floor.
It is a conundrum that is coming.
And I'm not so sure the union labor employees,
governments and automakers are all on the same page
when it comes to what happens
when we have humanoid robots building vehicles.
I will say Greg is absolutely right here.
This is a larger issue than just the automaker
and their labor relations.
This is a larger issue than just governments and automakers.
This is a societal issue.
It's even bigger than just countries, right?
You're talking about a global issue
that is going to impact humanity writ large.
Now, there are jobs where humanoid robots,
you can see where humanoid robots would be so helpful,
like home health aids, for example.
Fantastic use if you could program them
to have a humanoid robot to help somebody elderly
off the toilet or out of the tub
or to be there as long as they weren't,
you're gonna kill them
from all the science fiction we watch, right?
But if you had an assistant there that could help you,
fantastic use.
When we get into manufacturing,
let's look at what manufacturing jobs are.
These are low education jobs for the most part.
They are physically demanding jobs.
They are repetitive.
They lead to injuries.
They're frankly perfect for robotics,
but that's a problem.
You have vast numbers of citizens who are in those jobs,
right?
And as a society, and not just in my nation,
as a society mankind is gonna have to figure out
what to do with this.
I mean, you bring up a great point about assisting.
So when I first started at Automotive News Canada,
almost more than 10 years ago now,
we did a story on Ford's exoskeletons
that were being used to make it easier
for its employees to lift heavy items such as batteries.
And that was a real bonus.
And that would save the health of the employee
and money for the employer
because those employees weren't suffering injuries as often
as they were before wearing an exoskeleton to help.
That is a way that they help.
But we're talking about robots that can come in
and simply do the job in its entirety.
That is job loss.
That is not job assistance.
And that is a big, big issue for the unions
and for the automakers.
Do you guys think this is a little polarizing though?
Because I just feel like with the robotic technology,
we're still a little far off from having efficient robots.
I mean, just as simple as robots that I've seen,
like at CES of folding shirts,
it's like a human can fold this shirt
10 times faster than this robot, right?
So it's like, is it just a little polarizing?
Are we being a little too doom and gloom?
Because my thing is, is I think robots are great
for like the nasty jobs.
So for instance, I think they should put robots in mines.
No human wants to be in a copper mine, right?
Put the robots in the mines.
We wanna get all these, these battery plants online
and do all this stuff and centralize our supply chain
here in the United States.
Have the damn robots do that work.
I would say this, you know, based on,
and I did a lot of reading and research
over the last three weeks on this for that story,
I would say we don't really know how far off
mass production of robots are that have the ability
to do the jobs we're discussing.
I would also warn that everything I read said
some of the robots that are out there now
can watch you work and learn your movements
and learn your job.
So that is a possibility.
Now the final point I would make,
and I brought this up on an editorial call
at Automotive News this week is,
how are we going to power all of these things?
I've done the research.
These robots last about four hours on a charge.
So they're going to need replacement twice,
a shift essentially, and that's going to take
a lot of energy.
And we hear, at least in Canada,
one of the big complaints about EVs is,
the power grid's not ready.
So if the power grid isn't ready
to power electric vehicles for all,
how is the power grid going to be remotely close
to power an entire population of robots?
And oh, by the way, run AI,
run chat GPT in similar programs and cool them
and all of this stuff that goes into the energy needs.
And so while it's easy to play and say doom and gloom,
I also think we need to take a step back,
go how soon are these really going to arrive
and how are they really going to be powered
and how are they really going to be used?
I think these stories are great to drive interest
and readership and I think there are facts
that are immensely important in the things we do.
But long-term, no one's really been able to say,
how are they going to be powered?
When will they arrive en masse?
Yeah, you know what, Greg is absolutely right here.
And like I said, these are societal issues
that we have to deal with.
I just want to point out, we are all old enough
to remember four years ago when the thought of,
how are we going to power all these electric vehicles
when we don't have enough generation
or the grid is on, that debate raged.
Nobody's brought up that debate
as we're building data centers all over the place.
Yeah, it's the same electricity folks.
If we didn't have enough power to run EVs,
but we suddenly have enough power to run data centers
in every damn town in the Midwest, I don't get that.
Yeah, the final point I would make is this.
My wife works at a bank.
She works as a teller on the line serving people every day.
The ATM was invented what, 50 years ago
and they still have jobs and they were told
the ATM was going to put them out of business
before my wife was even born.
So, I mean, it takes a long time.
How long did it take us to go from essentially
the first Mac to a computer in our pockets, right?
And so, this is the pace at which technology moves.
It's going to, it's going to quicken, no question about it,
but when will it arrive?
We don't know.
Yeah, it's a great point, Greg,
because at the same time, I was at the grocery store yesterday
and the self-checkout lines were a lot longer
than the regular checkout lines,
but only two regular checkout lines were opened,
but everybody was in the self-checkout line,
but there's still a place for it.
I get what you're saying.
Well, I say this, it's similar in auto.
Why are the sales of trucks and SUVs up?
Because there are no sedans to buy, right?
So, if you want people to use the self-checkout,
you don't give them a human to check out with, right?
So, there are ways that companies can force you
into making a decision you may or may not want to make.
Absolutely right.
Let's leave it there, guys.
Greg, Larry, thank you so much for joining me.
So, Greg, who's going to win the men's gold medal game?
Oh boy, man.
You know, I got to say Canada
because I'm from Canada, but I am looking forward to it
as long as the United States is there.
That's what everyone wants, coast to coast to coast up here
and across North America.
Bring on the United States.
It has so much meaning.
I think it's going to be awesome,
and I can't wait to watch it, but who knows?
Who knows?
Me too.
More interest in that than the women's game, believe me.
But, you know, pride's a little hurt up here.
He took a little dent.
Yes, he did.
All right, that's all for this weekend's
Drive edition of Daily Drive.
I'm Kellan Walker.
Thanks to Automotive News executive producer Jake Neer
for his help on today's podcast.
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