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00:35
Welcome to this weekend drive edition of Daily Drive
00:38
for the third week in February, 2026.
00:41
I'm Kellan Walker in Las Vegas.
00:42
We're breaking down some of the biggest stories
00:44
in the auto industry from the past week.
00:46
Looking forward to what's in store in the days ahead.
00:49
Joining me today are Larry Veliquette,
00:50
who covers Toyota, Mazda and Subaru for us
00:53
at Automotive News.
00:55
Larry Legend, thanks for joining us.
00:59
And Greg Lason, digital and mobile editor
01:01
of our sibling publication, Automotive News Canada
01:03
and host of the Automotive News Canada podcast.
01:06
Greg, it's great to have you back.
01:10
All right guys, so let's start with the big news
01:12
from this week, the US Supreme Court struck down
01:15
many of President Trump's tariffs,
01:17
ruling they were issued illegally
01:18
under a 1977 emergency powers law.
01:22
Larry, this is a six to three decision
01:24
that affects reciprocal tariffs
01:26
and duties on Canadian, Mexican and Chinese goods.
01:30
But tariffs on vehicles, auto parts, steel, aluminum
01:33
and copper remain in place.
01:35
Walk us through what just happened here.
01:38
So, Kell, what happened is that these US Supreme Court
01:41
ruled six to three to say that Donald Trump
01:45
did not have the ability to enact these emergency tariffs
01:50
under what's known as the IEPA, IEPA tariffs.
01:56
Notably, this was the same ruling
01:57
that the Supreme Court upheld a ruling
02:00
mentioned six months or that was made six months ago
02:03
that these tariffs were illegal.
02:05
And a majority of the Supreme Court said yes.
02:08
But in that ruling, when six months ago,
02:13
they stayed the decision pending this outcome.
02:15
So the tariffs have continued to be collected
02:19
during the last six months.
02:21
And now what's happened here,
02:23
and this is extremely complicated,
02:26
but let's just stick with the auto industry part, right?
02:29
Because it's gonna be a mess, no matter what.
02:34
Because we're talking about now the government
02:38
has to refund this money
02:39
because it was collected unconstitutionally.
02:42
Right now, the estimate of what's been collected
02:46
under this emergency powers law is about $133 billion,
02:50
including at least $8.6 billion
02:54
that was collected in the auto industry.
02:56
And that will have to be refunded at some point.
02:59
We think the decision didn't actually deal with it
03:04
with how to refund it.
03:05
It simply said that these were illegal.
03:08
So right now, we are hours when we're recording this,
03:12
we're hours into this decision.
03:14
It's gonna take some time for everybody to digest this.
03:18
Already though, we are seeing some reactions
03:20
from the federal government,
03:22
the Trump administration saying
03:24
that they'll just redo these tariffs under different laws.
03:28
What is notable though is that most for the auto industry,
03:32
most of the ruling, most of the tariffs
03:34
paid by the auto industry
03:36
are what are called section 232 tariffs.
03:39
Those tariffs remain in place.
03:42
So the tariffs that are driving up prices
03:45
in dealerships across the country
03:47
and really creating havoc with our trading partners,
03:51
those are unaffected by this ruling.
03:53
Now, Greg, from a Canadian perspective,
03:56
what does this ruling mean?
03:57
The court didn't say whether refunds are owed
04:00
or how they be distributed.
04:02
What are you hearing?
04:03
I mean, more than anything for Canadians as a whole
04:06
and even in the auto industry,
04:07
this is more of a moral victory.
04:09
It feels good because Donald Trump has been ruled against
04:13
and remember, as Larry said,
04:15
most of what this ruling covers
04:17
are tariffs and duties outside of the auto industry.
04:20
But what it does is it gives a little bit of hope
04:22
to the industry and to Canadians
04:24
that the 232 tariffs might be next.
04:26
Although if you listen to all the experts,
04:29
Donald Trump has a little more leeway
04:31
and a little more authority over those 232 tariffs.
04:34
And so those will probably remain in place.
04:36
And so just as the prices remain high in the United States,
04:41
they're gonna remain high over here.
04:43
Some of the tariffs that have been collected
04:46
under the IWEPA, maybe there's a refund coming,
04:50
but as Larry said, we're still a few hours into this.
04:52
We don't really know who's getting back what
04:54
or if they even have to be reimbursed at this point.
04:57
But in the immediate term, there's a lot of positivity.
05:01
There are a lot of people applauding the decision
05:03
and right down from government officials,
05:05
those in opposition, some in the auto industry.
05:08
But basically everyone's saying, okay, now do 232.
05:11
Are those going away or are they staying?
05:13
Chances are they're going to stay
05:14
because they are a matter of national security
05:17
according to the president.
05:19
And according to American laws,
05:21
the president has the ability to institute those tariffs
05:24
if they are deemed to address a national security issue.
05:28
So in Donald Trump's mind, aluminum, steel, auto, auto parts,
05:33
those all represent a national security threat
05:35
to the United States.
05:36
Now I would say this, I would agree with that.
05:39
If in fact we were sending over Chinese electric vehicles,
05:42
perhaps there is a national security issue there
05:45
in terms of technology, but just from building vehicles
05:48
in Canada and even in Mexico under the USMCA,
05:52
a lot of people in Canada within the industry
05:54
just don't see a national defense
05:55
or a national security issue with anything that's built
05:59
under the guys and under the rules of origin of the USMCA.
06:02
Can I just clarify something that Greg just said?
06:06
He prefaced that last sentence with among Canadians
06:11
and it should also include among Canadians
06:14
and many, many Americans.
06:16
They don't see a national threat
06:19
in driving a Chrysler Pacifica or a Toyota RAV4.
06:24
That does not constitute a national threat
06:26
to many, many Americans.
06:28
So I just want to point to that out
06:31
that there are many of us who are on the same side
06:37
And Larry, as you mentioned, the auto industry paid
06:39
about 8.6 billion through October 2025
06:42
in duties now deemed unconstitutional.
06:45
How do you expect suppliers and automakers to respond?
06:48
Do you see them filing a lawsuit to get their money back?
06:51
Well, presumably they shouldn't have to, right?
06:54
I mean, for every dollar that gets sent
06:57
into the federal government, there's a receipt.
07:01
And even though you're talking about separate fiscal years,
07:03
either side of October 1st,
07:05
there is a record of what every company paid in duties.
07:09
So presumably you just reverse those,
07:13
just like a tax return, you just reverse those transactions
07:18
for the duties that are deemed unconstitutional.
07:20
Now, will the federal government do that?
07:23
Probably not, they'll make it very complex.
07:26
But right now they don't really know.
07:28
Nobody knows at this point what'll happen,
07:32
but I will say this, if I'm a supplier
07:35
or if I'm an automaker who did pay a couple hundred
07:38
million dollars in duties that are now unconstitutional,
07:42
damn right, I want my money back, right?
07:45
I have more use for that money than the US government does.
07:50
I wanna make sure that I get that back.
07:52
So I think every company is gonna be very eager
07:56
to watch for a way, watch what the way is
07:59
that they're gonna get their money back.
08:01
But really, they shouldn't have to file lawsuits.
08:04
They shouldn't have to do anything other than say
08:08
to the Department of Treasury or the Department of Commerce,
08:11
hey, we sent you this money, you weren't able
08:14
to take it legally, send it back.
08:16
Before this week's Supreme Court ruling,
08:18
tariffs were already hitting dealer lots hard.
08:21
Larry, walk us through this new data from Catalyst IQ
08:24
that says automakers used model year changeovers
08:27
to quietly raise prices about $1,200 more aggressively
08:32
Yeah, so Catalyst IQ is the successor company
08:35
to Cloud Theory and Cloud Theory has been tracking
08:39
average marketed price for us since these tariffs
08:43
came online back in April.
08:45
So we've had a little box in our website every day
08:49
that shows what the average marketed price is for that day.
08:52
And if you notice, if you watch that,
08:54
you noticed it didn't move very much.
08:56
And a lot of that was because even as the tariffs kicked in,
09:00
automakers were adjusting the mix.
09:02
And so just this broad average wasn't really showing
09:06
We also thought that what we were told by automakers
09:09
is that a lot of them didn't wanna get up in the face,
09:13
get it up in the grill of the Trump administration
09:15
by raising prices, even though they were paying these bills,
09:20
notably Toyota paid $10 billion this year in tariffs.
09:25
They didn't wanna get up there and get in front
09:28
and say, we have to raise prices because of these tariffs.
09:31
So what they did, we believed was what we were told
09:35
they were gonna do was bake them into the model
09:39
So what we did is we went to Catalyst IQ
09:42
who every night scrapes information off of every dealer
09:47
website in the United States by VIN.
09:50
And we said, take a look at that data
09:52
and tell us how prices have changed on vehicles
09:55
that were not built in the US.
09:58
And they can do that by VIN, right?
10:00
The first number of the VIN indicates what country,
10:03
first number of letter indicates what country
10:05
the vehicle was assembled in.
10:07
So they went back, they did the analysis.
10:10
And what they found is that the vehicles
10:12
from four nations had significant increases.
10:16
The biggest one was our friends north of the border, Canada.
10:20
Their prices, the prices of Canadian assembled vehicles
10:25
sold in the United States went up almost 10%
10:29
just since last October.
10:30
So what that tells you is that automakers
10:33
were baking that into the changeovers, right?
10:37
The same happened though not quite as extreme
10:39
with vehicles from Japan, with vehicles from Germany
10:42
and with vehicles from Mexico.
10:44
US-made vehicles went up slightly, right?
10:48
Less than 100 bucks.
10:49
And what's really interesting is that vehicles assembled
10:53
in South Korea actually went down.
10:56
How does that work?
10:57
Yeah, exactly, right?
11:00
How does that work?
11:01
Well, I tell you how it works.
11:02
If you're an automaker and you have prices rising
11:07
all around you, what do you do?
11:09
If you keep your prices low or actually even lower them,
11:12
you are buying what's called buying share.
11:15
You're buying market share, right?
11:17
It's gonna cost you a little more,
11:19
but you've now answered the affordability challenge
11:22
for consumers, you've exposed them to your vehicles.
11:27
So this drop, which is laid out in our story,
11:30
this drop is simply a move by Hyundai Kia.
11:34
Just to mention, General Motors also was building
11:37
the tracks there, right?
11:39
This is a move generally by Hyundai Kia to buy share.
11:44
Now, Greg, we just heard the data from Larry,
11:47
and as he said, sticker prices have jumped nearly $4,000
11:52
for vehicles that have been assembled in Canada.
11:55
This has to be painful for Canadian built vehicles.
11:58
How are they reacting north of the border?
12:00
I mean, so far it's full steam ahead
12:02
for Toyota building the RAV4.
12:04
Part of the reason some of the prices in Canada went up
12:07
is because Toyota, for example,
12:09
went all hybrid on all its RAV4s,
12:12
a little more expensive,
12:13
but Toyota has made massive investments
12:17
in their factories up here,
12:18
and they're not turning their back on it.
12:20
Honda is full steam ahead where they're at now,
12:22
and they did move some production to the United States
12:24
to avoid some reciprocal tariffs and that sort of stuff.
12:27
So right now, early on,
12:29
it doesn't look like much is going to change,
12:31
but we're still waiting for Ford Oakville
12:34
to come back online.
12:35
I don't know what happens there with super-duty trucks
12:37
when they're starting to be produced.
12:39
We're waiting to see what fills Brampton Assembly
12:42
owned by Stellantis.
12:44
We don't know what's going to be in there right now.
12:46
The easy solution is don't build anything in Canada.
12:48
If you have an empty factory, just don't fill it.
12:50
You can save some money.
12:51
So in terms of sticker prices in Canada,
12:54
I can confirm too that transaction prices through 2025
12:57
were up about two, two and a half percent,
13:00
not as much as everyone thought,
13:01
but we do know that automakers
13:03
are spreading out the cost of tariffs across all vehicles.
13:07
JD Power always uses this example
13:09
where if one particular vehicle has a price increase
13:12
of $6,000, that vehicle doesn't go up $6,000.
13:15
10 vehicles go up $600.
13:18
So they're spreading it out a little bit.
13:20
So in terms of the consumer in Canada,
13:21
we haven't seen a lot yet.
13:22
In terms of production in Canada, it's full steam ahead
13:25
because as everyone knows,
13:26
this industry just doesn't turn on a dime.
13:28
They've invested in this now
13:30
and everyone's waiting to see what happens with
13:32
as we started the show, 232 tariffs and with the USMCA.
13:36
Once there's more clarity, this dust might settle
13:40
and we might see transaction prices
13:42
come back down to somewhere a little more normal, pre-tariff.
13:46
The other thing I can tell you is automakers up here
13:48
are also adding to their destination fees.
13:51
So the sticker prices still look reasonably affordable
13:54
on some vehicles, but when you look at the destination fees,
13:57
some of them have almost doubled in cost.
14:00
So the automakers are finding a way to make up
14:03
for that cost of the tariffs.
14:05
Perfect, all right.
14:06
Well, speaking of big news from this week,
14:08
Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga just ratified
14:10
their first UAW contract in a landslide vote.
14:14
Coming up, we'll talk about what that means
14:16
for the union's Southern organizing push.
14:18
That's next on Weekend Drive.
14:24
The auto industry is the most disrupted
14:27
on the planet right now.
14:29
On this week's episode of the automotive news shift podcast,
14:33
we hear from Dan Hirsch, global co-leader of automotive
14:36
and industrial practice at Alex Partners.
14:39
He breaks down the firm's 2026 disruption index
14:43
and explains why tariffs, geopolitical tensions
14:46
and the rise of the Chinese automakers
14:49
are leaving global executives struggling
14:51
to plan for the future.
14:53
Senior executives, they are either finding themselves
14:56
in a spot where they have to redefine themselves,
14:58
which could be very difficult when you're really
15:00
well-established or they're going to find themselves
15:02
in a very different role or in a very different company.
15:07
Join me on Shift, available this Sunday,
15:09
wherever you get your podcasts.
15:15
Welcome back to Weekend Drive.
15:17
I'm Kellan Walker with Larry Bellacuette and Greg Lason.
15:20
So Volkswagen workers in Chattanooga
15:22
have ratified their first contract with the UAW,
15:26
and it wasn't even close.
15:27
Now, Larry, UAW President Sean Fain says
15:30
96% of workers approved the four-year pact.
15:33
That's a landslide.
15:35
What did workers get from the deal?
15:37
The terms of the deal, according to the UAW,
15:39
this is their first contract with VW.
15:41
The workers will get a 20% general wage increase
15:46
They get improved healthcare with lower out-of-pocket costs,
15:50
a one-time $4,000 ratification bonus
15:53
and annual bonuses of $2,550 each year.
15:59
So you got about $14,000, $15,000 in bonuses
16:03
over five years, plus a 20% wage bonus.
16:07
That's, yeah, it's not bad money.
16:09
After taxes, though, let's be real.
16:14
We're all paying them.
16:15
I know we're all paying them, right?
16:16
One reason why I say that is because tax time is like now.
16:20
Oh yeah, believe me.
16:22
And trust me, I'm paying more than you guys.
16:27
You're paying 2% more.
16:29
Don't kid yourself.
16:30
Then you get healthcare.
16:32
Well, this is a major victory for the union
16:34
in a decades-long push to organize
16:36
foreign-owned plants in the South.
16:39
Where does the UAW go from here?
16:41
And what's the next target?
16:43
So they have many targets that they identified early on,
16:46
whether they can get any of the rest of them to votes.
16:52
We haven't seen yet, right?
16:54
The next one, obviously, we think is gonna be Mercedes.
16:57
They're plants in the South.
17:00
This might be a one-and-done.
17:01
I'm gonna say first, this is a historic achievement, right?
17:08
They have not had success organizing transplant workers
17:16
It was before Mike Martinez was born, as we noted.
17:20
But it's a long way back.
17:23
I was still in middle school at that point.
17:25
So it's been a very, very long time since they had success.
17:29
And just winning an election was historic.
17:32
Actually getting a first contract is way more difficult.
17:36
And the fact that they did,
17:37
and that they got 96% approval on eradication,
17:41
is pretty stunning.
17:43
Now, will other workers in the South at Mercedes,
17:47
at, you know, perhaps BMW, Toyota's got a plant in Missouri
17:51
that they were targeting for a while, will they go to?
17:55
That's the open question.
17:57
What I will say is those companies are probably not going to,
18:02
they're gonna do everything they can to not be unionized,
18:05
but there's a secret.
18:06
And I say this as a former union negotiator, right?
18:10
If you don't want a union at your place of business,
18:14
act like you already have one, right?
18:17
If you're an employer, and if you don't want
18:21
your company unionized, act like it's already there.
18:25
Treat your employees like they're already unionized,
18:28
and you won't have a union.
18:29
That sounds like Toyota though, right?
18:31
Isn't Toyota kind of like that?
18:33
Well, I can speak for that up in Canada.
18:36
I have Toyota employees tell me all the time,
18:38
we don't need a union because they give us
18:40
what Unifor negotiates with the Detroit three.
18:43
So they have no reason to vote for a union
18:45
because Toyota turns around and gives them essentially
18:47
the pattern that the Detroit three get
18:49
when they bargain with Unifor.
18:51
Yeah, and they did the same,
18:53
the foreign transplant plants did the same thing
18:56
when the UAW got its contract here,
18:59
and what was that, 23, right?
19:02
Yeah, they almost all immediately raised wages as a result.
19:06
Well, Greg, speaking of Canada,
19:08
I know Canadian workers have been watching this.
19:10
Does this have any implications north of the border?
19:15
I mean, Unifor's been trying hard to unionize Toyota,
19:18
Honda, others around the province
19:20
and the supply chain and supply check sector.
19:23
I don't foresee that happening ever at Honda and Toyota.
19:27
I always get positive reactions from them
19:30
in terms of their pay, their wages, their hours,
19:34
What I'm keeping my eye on is,
19:36
I mean, they did unionize Nextstar,
19:38
which was up until recently a joint venture
19:41
between LG Energy Solution and Stellantis.
19:45
So they unionized that shop, the Battery Plant Windsor.
19:47
I think the next target would be
19:51
Volkswagen's PowerCo Battery Plant in St. Thomas,
19:54
but I mean, shovels are barely in the ground there,
19:56
but that would be the next target for Unifor, I think,
20:00
Yeah, they're gonna need workers there
20:01
before they can form a union right there.
20:04
The world long ways off.
20:06
I mean, like I said, shovels barely in the ground there.
20:09
Let's get some bodies in the building first.
20:12
Or let's get a building first.
20:14
Yeah, or let's get an actual building first, right?
20:17
Can we get the foundation built first?
20:20
Now, shifting gears to something we've been hearing
20:22
a lot about, humanoid robots and manufacturing.
20:25
Now, Greg, you've been covering this story
20:27
as automakers like Hyundai and Mercedes
20:29
push toward full assembly automation
20:31
with humanoid robots.
20:33
Experts are warning about a fundamental economic paradox.
20:37
If robots eliminate manufacturing jobs,
20:40
who will have money to buy cars?
20:43
Walk us through what you found.
20:45
Yeah, I wrote a whole story on this
20:46
and it starts with a 70 year old story
20:49
that involves the UAW president, Walter Ruther
20:52
and a Ford Motor Company manager
20:53
who is allegedly Henry Ford II, having a conversation.
20:59
Where they say to each other,
21:01
hey, Walter, how are you gonna get those robots
21:04
And Ruther says, how are you gonna get them to buy cars?
21:06
So this has been going on for 70 years across automation.
21:10
And so when I wrote this story,
21:12
what we haven't been able to find
21:14
is a CFO or an accountant at an automaker
21:17
who's actually looked at this and said,
21:18
hey, we can't go full automation
21:20
because we'd have no one to buy our cars.
21:22
But what I have found is Unifor, for example,
21:25
wants to sit down and negotiate robotics
21:28
and humanoid robots as part of the collective agreement.
21:32
They want to make sure that they aren't taking jobs,
21:35
but that they're enhancing jobs,
21:37
that they're increasing efficiency and productivity,
21:40
and that any of those gains are shared with the union.
21:43
So it's really going to become a bargaining topic
21:46
when they sit around the table,
21:48
probably this Labor Day and beyond
21:50
when contract talks start,
21:53
because we're coming up on that.
21:55
The other thing is this,
21:57
the Canadian government is trying to lure Chinese automakers
22:00
to Ontario to build vehicles.
22:03
Well, the thing is China leads the world
22:07
in robot densification.
22:09
They have more doing human jobs
22:11
than any other country on the planet.
22:13
And so we just ran a story over on auto news
22:16
and we picked it up at Auto News Canada saying,
22:19
the first dark factory,
22:20
which means all production done by humanoid robots,
22:23
AI and other robotics in the plant,
22:25
could appear in 2030 and it will likely be Chinese.
22:29
So the question is,
22:31
are we pursuing as a Canadian government
22:33
a factory that's going to come here
22:35
and then just not employ anyone?
22:36
We don't know that yet.
22:38
But if you've seen the videos just this week
22:40
of robots doing Kung Fu in China,
22:43
it is a scary proposition
22:44
that these robots are going to end up in factories
22:48
and they will end up in a Hyundai factory in Georgia
22:51
as late as this year or early next year doing some jobs.
22:54
In fact, Toyota Canada, just this week announced
22:58
it will have six on a shop floor
23:00
assisting in building RAV4s.
23:03
So yeah, it is a very valid question.
23:05
What do you do when the robots arrive?
23:08
Who is left to buy the vehicles?
23:10
One labor prof at Brock University that I spoke to says,
23:13
maybe the government has to step in
23:15
and declare a robot tax.
23:16
So if you have X amount of robots,
23:18
you have to pay more taxes
23:20
in order to offset the fewer employees
23:24
that are needed on the factory floor.
23:26
It is a conundrum that is coming.
23:28
And I'm not so sure the union labor employees,
23:33
governments and automakers are all on the same page
23:35
when it comes to what happens
23:36
when we have humanoid robots building vehicles.
23:39
I will say Greg is absolutely right here.
23:41
This is a larger issue than just the automaker
23:45
and their labor relations.
23:47
This is a larger issue than just governments and automakers.
23:52
This is a societal issue.
23:55
It's even bigger than just countries, right?
23:57
You're talking about a global issue
23:59
that is going to impact humanity writ large.
24:03
Now, there are jobs where humanoid robots,
24:07
you can see where humanoid robots would be so helpful,
24:11
like home health aids, for example.
24:13
Fantastic use if you could program them
24:18
to have a humanoid robot to help somebody elderly
24:22
off the toilet or out of the tub
24:24
or to be there as long as they weren't,
24:27
you're gonna kill them
24:29
from all the science fiction we watch, right?
24:31
But if you had an assistant there that could help you,
24:37
When we get into manufacturing,
24:39
let's look at what manufacturing jobs are.
24:40
These are low education jobs for the most part.
24:43
They are physically demanding jobs.
24:46
They are repetitive.
24:48
They lead to injuries.
24:49
They're frankly perfect for robotics,
24:53
but that's a problem.
24:55
You have vast numbers of citizens who are in those jobs,
25:01
And as a society, and not just in my nation,
25:05
as a society mankind is gonna have to figure out
25:07
what to do with this.
25:08
I mean, you bring up a great point about assisting.
25:11
So when I first started at Automotive News Canada,
25:13
almost more than 10 years ago now,
25:15
we did a story on Ford's exoskeletons
25:18
that were being used to make it easier
25:21
for its employees to lift heavy items such as batteries.
25:24
And that was a real bonus.
25:26
And that would save the health of the employee
25:29
and money for the employer
25:31
because those employees weren't suffering injuries as often
25:34
as they were before wearing an exoskeleton to help.
25:36
That is a way that they help.
25:38
But we're talking about robots that can come in
25:40
and simply do the job in its entirety.
25:45
That is not job assistance.
25:47
And that is a big, big issue for the unions
25:50
and for the automakers.
25:52
Do you guys think this is a little polarizing though?
25:55
Because I just feel like with the robotic technology,
25:57
we're still a little far off from having efficient robots.
26:04
I mean, just as simple as robots that I've seen,
26:06
like at CES of folding shirts,
26:08
it's like a human can fold this shirt
26:09
10 times faster than this robot, right?
26:12
So it's like, is it just a little polarizing?
26:14
Are we being a little too doom and gloom?
26:17
Because my thing is, is I think robots are great
26:20
for like the nasty jobs.
26:22
So for instance, I think they should put robots in mines.
26:26
No human wants to be in a copper mine, right?
26:30
Put the robots in the mines.
26:31
We wanna get all these, these battery plants online
26:34
and do all this stuff and centralize our supply chain
26:38
here in the United States.
26:39
Have the damn robots do that work.
26:41
I would say this, you know, based on,
26:43
and I did a lot of reading and research
26:45
over the last three weeks on this for that story,
26:48
I would say we don't really know how far off
26:51
mass production of robots are that have the ability
26:54
to do the jobs we're discussing.
26:57
I would also warn that everything I read said
27:00
some of the robots that are out there now
27:02
can watch you work and learn your movements
27:05
and learn your job.
27:07
So that is a possibility.
27:09
Now the final point I would make,
27:10
and I brought this up on an editorial call
27:12
at Automotive News this week is,
27:15
how are we going to power all of these things?
27:17
I've done the research.
27:18
These robots last about four hours on a charge.
27:20
So they're going to need replacement twice,
27:24
a shift essentially, and that's going to take
27:27
And we hear, at least in Canada,
27:29
one of the big complaints about EVs is,
27:31
the power grid's not ready.
27:33
So if the power grid isn't ready
27:34
to power electric vehicles for all,
27:36
how is the power grid going to be remotely close
27:39
to power an entire population of robots?
27:42
And oh, by the way, run AI,
27:44
run chat GPT in similar programs and cool them
27:47
and all of this stuff that goes into the energy needs.
27:50
And so while it's easy to play and say doom and gloom,
27:54
I also think we need to take a step back,
27:56
go how soon are these really going to arrive
27:59
and how are they really going to be powered
28:01
and how are they really going to be used?
28:03
I think these stories are great to drive interest
28:06
and readership and I think there are facts
28:08
that are immensely important in the things we do.
28:11
But long-term, no one's really been able to say,
28:14
how are they going to be powered?
28:15
When will they arrive en masse?
28:17
Yeah, you know what, Greg is absolutely right here.
28:20
And like I said, these are societal issues
28:23
that we have to deal with.
28:24
I just want to point out, we are all old enough
28:26
to remember four years ago when the thought of,
28:30
how are we going to power all these electric vehicles
28:34
when we don't have enough generation
28:36
or the grid is on, that debate raged.
28:41
Nobody's brought up that debate
28:43
as we're building data centers all over the place.
28:47
Yeah, it's the same electricity folks.
28:50
If we didn't have enough power to run EVs,
28:53
but we suddenly have enough power to run data centers
28:57
in every damn town in the Midwest, I don't get that.
29:02
Yeah, the final point I would make is this.
29:04
My wife works at a bank.
29:06
She works as a teller on the line serving people every day.
29:10
The ATM was invented what, 50 years ago
29:12
and they still have jobs and they were told
29:14
the ATM was going to put them out of business
29:16
before my wife was even born.
29:18
So, I mean, it takes a long time.
29:20
How long did it take us to go from essentially
29:23
the first Mac to a computer in our pockets, right?
29:25
And so, this is the pace at which technology moves.
29:29
It's going to, it's going to quicken, no question about it,
29:31
but when will it arrive?
29:33
Yeah, it's a great point, Greg,
29:35
because at the same time, I was at the grocery store yesterday
29:39
and the self-checkout lines were a lot longer
29:42
than the regular checkout lines,
29:44
but only two regular checkout lines were opened,
29:47
but everybody was in the self-checkout line,
29:49
but there's still a place for it.
29:51
I get what you're saying.
29:52
Well, I say this, it's similar in auto.
29:54
Why are the sales of trucks and SUVs up?
29:57
Because there are no sedans to buy, right?
30:00
So, if you want people to use the self-checkout,
30:03
you don't give them a human to check out with, right?
30:06
So, there are ways that companies can force you
30:08
into making a decision you may or may not want to make.
30:13
Let's leave it there, guys.
30:14
Greg, Larry, thank you so much for joining me.
30:18
So, Greg, who's going to win the men's gold medal game?
30:21
You know, I got to say Canada
30:23
because I'm from Canada, but I am looking forward to it
30:26
as long as the United States is there.
30:28
That's what everyone wants, coast to coast to coast up here
30:31
and across North America.
30:32
Bring on the United States.
30:34
It has so much meaning.
30:35
I think it's going to be awesome,
30:36
and I can't wait to watch it, but who knows?
30:40
More interest in that than the women's game, believe me.
30:43
But, you know, pride's a little hurt up here.
30:47
He took a little dent.
30:51
All right, that's all for this weekend's
30:54
Drive edition of Daily Drive.
30:56
Thanks to Automotive News executive producer Jake Neer
30:58
for his help on today's podcast.
31:00
You can get the latest news on the Supreme Court's
31:02
tariff ruling, VW's UAW contract, humanoid robots,
31:07
and everything happening in the auto industry
31:10
Come back on Monday for a conversation
31:12
with Dan Hirsch of Alex Partners
31:13
about a new study that says the automotive industry
31:16
is the most disruptive industry on the planet right now.
31:20
They're individual disruptors that
31:22
are kind of pushing these things, in many cases,
31:24
heads of state or administrations,
31:27
and not things that you can kind of plan for,
31:30
even with advanced statistical models
31:32
or artificial intelligence.
31:34
We'd love to hear from you.
31:35
Let us know what you think of the show
31:36
and the topics we cover today.
31:38
Send us an email at dailydrive at autonews.com
31:40
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31:45
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