General Motors is one of the big car companies in the U.S. Here, they’re talking about making more money by charging for connected and driver-assist features over time.
OnStar and Super Cruise are GM features you can use through a paid subscription. The big idea here is that GM makes money repeatedly from the car after you buy it, not just from the initial sale.
Audi is planning to stop selling its five-cylinder engine in Europe. The reason is that new emissions rules (Euro 7) are coming, and that engine won’t meet them.
Realized revenue is the portion of revenue that is actually recognized/earned in the accounting period, as opposed to booked or forecasted figures. The segment uses it to show how subscription growth is translating into measurable financial results.
Initial quality targets are goals for how good the cars are when they’re new. The episode says Ford did well on that early-quality measure even though there were lots of recalls.
They’re talking about how cars are doing very soon after purchase—within the first few months. The point is that Ford’s quality scores look best for brand-new vehicles.
Euro 7 is a new, stricter set of rules for how much pollution new cars are allowed to produce in Europe. If an engine can’t meet those limits, automakers have to change or stop selling it there.
Electric vehicles are cars that use a battery and an electric motor instead of gasoline. The idea here is that EVs don’t need the same exhaust-emissions hardware as gas engines.
Car
Tesla
Tesla is a major electric-car company. When people talk about EVs, Tesla is usually one of the first brands mentioned because it’s been a big player for years.
Car
Lucid
Lucid is an electric-car brand. The mention is mainly to show the guest covers multiple EV companies, not just one.
Car
Rivian
Rivian is another electric-vehicle company. It’s included here because the guest follows EV news across multiple brands.
COVID disrupted manufacturing and shipping worldwide. The story says that during that time, some carmakers couldn’t get enough cars, which opened the door for others.
A supply chain is the whole system that makes and delivers cars and parts. The point here is that China’s system could deliver cars more quickly than some other brands could.
Customer support is the help a company provides to owners—handling issues, scheduling service, and resolving problems. The episode connects weak customer support and slow service readiness to customer frustration during rapid market entry.
Infrastructure support refers to the physical and operational systems needed to sell and service vehicles—dealerships, repair facilities, trained technicians, and logistics for parts. The segment says these support systems took time to build after rapid sales growth, leading to customer dissatisfaction.
Toyota de Mexico is Toyota’s organization in Mexico. The guest is described as having led it, so they’re talking from experience about how dealers and customers are handled there.
Automotive News runs a program that recognizes dealerships as good places to work. It looks at things like training, leadership, and keeping employees, not just car sales.
Stopping distance is the total distance a vehicle travels from the moment braking begins until it comes to a complete stop. The segment ties improvements in stopping distance to safety benefits of the new dry brake technology.
“Maintenance free over lifetime” is a claim that the brake system is designed to avoid routine service items that typically come with conventional brake hydraulics (like fluid-related maintenance). In this context, it’s presented as a cost advantage for both customers and manufacturers.
In a completely electronic brake system, your foot on the pedal sends an electronic message. Computers then tell the brakes at each wheel how much to slow the car.
A brake hose is the tube that carries brake fluid to the brakes at the wheels. This segment explains that hoses have constraints that electronic/cable approaches can avoid.
Trucks and heavy vehicles brake differently because they carry more weight and work harder. So brake technology has to be reliable and cost-effective over a long service life.
They’re talking about how truck companies think about costs and uptime. A brake system that’s cheaper to run and lasts longer can be very attractive even if it’s more complex.
Brake-by-wire means your brake pedal sends an electronic signal instead of directly moving brake fluid. The car then controls the brakes electronically, which can allow smarter safety features.
The segment suggests a common adoption pattern: new vehicle technologies often debut in higher-end trims first (luxury and sports cars) before spreading to broader mainstream models. This is usually driven by higher willingness to pay, faster feedback loops, and more stringent performance/efficiency targets.
LIVE
This podcast is brought to you by Cintas, helping keep your automotive business looking
great from showroom to service bay, with essentials like durable workwear,
absorbent shop towels, and high performance floor mats.
Get ready for the workday at Cintas.com slash automotive.
Welcome to Daily Drive. From Monday, March 30th, 2026, I'm Kellan Walker in New York City.
Today on the show, General Motors expects massive revenue growth from its on-star and
supercruise subscriptions. Ford CEO Jim Farley's compensation rises despite record recalls,
and Audi plans to phase out its five-cylinder engine in Europe by 2027. Plus, managing editor
Jerry Hirsch sits down with Dennis Fritsch, executive vice president of the Safety and
Motion Division at Imovio. So there are multiple advantages of these technologies. First of all,
talking about braking performance, because that's clearly related to safety.
Let's run through all the news you need to know to keep up in the auto industry.
General Motors expects its investment in subscriptions to start paying off.
GM currently operates two subscriptions and supercruise. Today, they're a small but quickly
growing piece of the automaker's total revenue. But CFO Paul Jacobson sees the potential for
nearly exponential growth. The subscriptions logged about $2.7 billion in realized revenue
for the company in 2025. That's up from $1.7 billion realized in 2020. And in 2026,
the company expects to generate $3.1 billion in realized revenue. Ford CEO Jim Farley made over
$27.5 million in total revenue last year, the most he's made since he started at Ford in late 2020.
The automaker exceeded initial quality targets last year, despite setting a record for the total
number of recalls. But initial quality is a more reliable metric for progress to Ford as many recalls
include older models. The automaker reached just 64% of its earnings targets in 2025,
but it reached the maximum 200% of quality goals related to vehicles with zero and three months
in service. And Audi plans to phase out its five-cylinder engine in Europe by mid-2027.
The engine doesn't meet the European Union's upcoming Euro 7 emission standards. The five-cylinder
engine has been a cornerstone of Audi's brand for decades, but upgrading the engine to comply
with the new emission standards would require extensive hardware changes and investment.
Instead, Audi opted to focus its spending on electric vehicles. The engine will still be
available in select markets, including North America. And those are today's headlines.
You can find more details on all those stories at AutoNews.com. Chinese automakers are rapidly
entering new markets with compelling products and attractive pricing. They're making an
impression, but dealers in Mexico have mixed feelings about these brands. Here to tell us
more is Lawrence Eiliff, who covers EVs, Tesla, Lucid and Rivian forests at Automotive News.
Lonnie, welcome back to Daily Drive. It's great to be here. All right, Lonnie,
what are some of the growing pains that Chinese automakers are experiencing in Mexico?
Well, it's a really fascinating story because during COVID, there were no car supply for the
traditional Mexican brands, right? Factories were closing, but China has a different supply chain.
China has a different auto market kind of separated from the West. So all the Chinese brands went
into Mexico because the tariffs were pretty low and they started selling cars, but they just kind
of, you know, they rushed in and started selling cars and the auto business obviously has, you
customer service, customer support after sales service, right? And so people did like the cars.
The prices were good. People bought a lot of cars, but then they found out if they had like a collision
that the parts for, you know, to repair the collision may not be available for weeks or
months. And, you know, there were other customer service things like some of the installations
weren't ready like for service, but you have to get your car serviced. And so it was just the
growing pains were kind of like rushing into the market and then, you know, trying to get the pieces
together later. And of course, you had a bunch of angry consumers. And I talked to a guy in the UK
who is both an auto analyst and a dealer of Chinese brands. And he said there was like some of that
happened as well in the UK where they rushed in sales, sales, sales. And then kind of the
infrastructure support those sales took some time to build up and customers got upset.
Now, we know it's not a question of if, but when, you know, Chinese brands make it to the US. But
what does this mean for US dealers who might be interested in Chinese brands?
Well, you know, I talked to an auto consultant in Mexico, who's the former president of Toyota
de Mexico, which is the top rated brand for customer satisfaction in Mexico and for factory
dealer relations. And he basically said that, you know, you have to do your homework, right?
You have to find out the companies, do they have strong backing in China? Are they, you know,
planning service and customer support? Because like he said, you don't sell a car once, you
sell a car three, four, five times to the same person or the same family and then to their kids.
And that's how you build up a business service, customer service, repeat customers. And so he
said that as US dealers and Canadian dealers, remember this is happening in Canada now,
with a few brands entering with low number of vehicles with reduced quotas. But still,
they're entering and that you have to pick and choose your partners, you have to do your research.
And it's interesting because Expung, the Chinese automaker announced just last week that they're
launching in Mexico, right? Even though there's like 30 brands there already, they're launching in
Mexico and they explicitly said, we already have a part center. We are committed to service. They're
obviously aware of what's going on and they're saying, we're going to do it right. And so for
US dealers, Canadian dealers, you know, you need to find a company with kind of attitude.
Lonnie, as usual, always insightful. Thank you so much for joining me.
It was great to be here. Coming up, we'll hear from Dennis Fridge,
Vice President of the Safety and Motion Division at Amovio. 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.
Your day to day is hectic. Don't waste time juggling vendors.
Sintas helps keep your auto shop looking great from showroom to service bay. Get durable workwear
from your team's favorite brands, absorbent shop towels to tackle oil and grease,
and high performance floor mats to help keep your lobby clean. All picked up,
washed and returned back to you with no upfront cost required. Get a single source partner to
keep you firing on all cylinders. Visit Sintas.com slash Automotive to get ready for the workday.
Welcome back to Daily Drive. I'm Kellan Walker.
Brake systems are evolving rapidly, moving away from traditional hydraulic designs
toward dry brake technology that could reshape vehicle engineering. On the latest episode of
the Automotive News Shift podcast, managing editor Jerry Hirsch traveled to Sweden to test new brake
technology with Dennis Fritsch, executive vice president of the Safety and Motion Division at
Imovio. They talked about the advantages of dry brake calipers, how the technology works,
and when we might see it in production vehicles. Here's a piece of that conversation.
We're here in the frozen tundra of Sweden in Arvis jar testing some of these new products,
mostly braking in the ice and the snow. Dennis, one of the things that you guys are developing
is what you call the dry brake caliber. This is a brake that has no hydraulic fuel.
Tell us the advantages of this and how far off is this from production?
So there are multiple advantages of these technologies. First of all,
talking about braking performance, of course that's clearly related to safety. We are seeing
advantages that it comes to a braking distance, stopping distance. Here we are talking about meters,
what we can achieve with these new technologies. And at the same time, we also see cost advantages,
cost advantages for the fighter customer because of maintenance topics. It's significantly less
maintenance or even maintenance free over lifetime of the entire product. And we are seeing cost
advantages for the car manufacturers within their SMD processes. We are pretty advanced in the
development of these technologies. We will have first SOPs in the year 27 and 28,
depending on which configuration there are multiple steps of the dry brake technologies.
But we are clearly advancing in this direction with SOPs in 37 and 38.
So this is a brake that's completely electronic. And so there's computers and wires and you step
on the brake pedal and it sends an electronic signal to the brakes in each corner of the vehicle
and it stops the vehicle. This takes out all the hydraulics, the hoses. And I think that
there's an estimate that's like 20, 25 pounds of equipment. But what does this do to the vehicle
architecture? How does this make a vehicle easier to design? Yeah. First of all, again,
talking about hydraulics, that's the most obvious part. You have a lot of hydraulics, what you have
to bring finally into each and every corner. You have the center device and from the center device
to the corner. There's a lot of assembly airport on the one hand side. But again, also for the car
itself, it's having a lot of advantages. For example, when it comes to size scalability,
it's much easier to make a cable a little bit longer than just making a brake hose is longer.
Brake hose because there's liquid inside, depending on low temperature. That's a different
let they fluid behavior depending on the length of the vehicle. So it shows once again what the
difference is between just making a cable a little bit longer and a brake hose.
When do you think this will actually be in production cars?
We are, if you distinguish a bit between the semi-dried brake solutions and the full-dried
brake solutions. So we are targeting years 27 and 28 to be in serious production, first small scale.
We are clearly seeing interest increasing of customers. So we, let's say for this
from 27 to 2030, we would rather still call it a low scale, low volume application. But as soon
as we are in the 2030s, we are massively seeing the installation rates going up, at least in
oil forecasts. Let's go back to that term you use semi-dry system. Now this is a split system where
you have electronic brakes in the back and you have more traditional hydraulic brakes in the front.
And my understanding is that first this creates a redundancy in the brakes. So if you had some
failure on one side, the other side could take over, the front could take over for the back,
vice versa. The other thing is that this provides a bit more braking power. Do you see this as a
good use for commercial vehicles and heavy load vehicles? Tell me how this would work.
Exactly. So especially the semi-dry brake solutions where we have hydraulics in the front
and electric calipers in the rear. So they are especially a very nice application, not only,
especially for these kind of implications for truck business like truck businesses.
One of the advantages again, the length scalability. So you have all the hydraulics on the front
and that's more or less the stable part. And then scalability of the length is just coming again
by the length of the cables. So there's a certain level of scalability achieved by this technology.
But also when it comes to braking performance, you're still having the hydraulic high performance
part on the front axle. And that's also again important when it comes to the, when it comes to
fallback solutions, when it comes to failures, which we, which have to be prevented.
My understanding is that you already have a customer for this system.
I guess you're not going to tell us the name, but tell us a bit about this customer. Where are
they? What do they want to use it for? Yeah, so it's a European based customer, but offering
their products globally. It's also about commercial vehicles. They're strategy is also having a
certain scalability in their platforms. And that's by also a component technology, which is offering
scalability is perfectly made for a component, which is finally also being used or in a scalable
platform. It's commercial vehicles. So cost of the car operating costs, lifetime costs is also
crucial for their final customers, which are in a, in very competitive commercial businesses,
like transport businesses. So these are the typical applications of this area.
For the dry brakes, where do you think we're going to see them first, the complete electronic
brake by wire systems? Which OEMs will adopt them first? Yeah, that's difficult to say who's
finally the first one. We see basically all OEMs are very interested. Every OEM is asking for
this. And we have a lot of proof of concepts and design studies and evaluations. So I can tell you
that most of the customers are very interested in dry brake technologies. The question is,
which one is finding the one who's bringing it first into application and then in which application?
We are seeing more customers when it, when it comes to the full dry applications, we are seeing
more customers asking first for high end applications, like in luxury cars or in sports cars, but
that's not a digital direction. So it's just a tendency. We are seeing a bit more, but finally
we are seeing customers in all segments and customers in all markets asking for these technologies.
What about the vehicle architecture? Are we seeing this primarily as an electric vehicle
technology? Primarily, yes, which means not, not excluded to make it in combustion, but
overall there are certain architectural advantages of e-vehicles where you have a certain
centralized architecture. It's certainly an advantage to be in a more, let's say up-to-date
and a more modern architecture than being a legacy architectures. Again, not necessarily,
but we are seeing advantages to be in these architectures. You can hear the full conversation
between Amovio's Dennis Fritsch and our own Jerry Hirsch on the latest episode of the Automotive
News Shift Podcast, available now wherever you get your podcasts. That's a daily drive for today,
I'm Kellan Walker. Thanks to Automotive News executive producer Jake Neer, as well as our own
Riley Hotter, Frank Volt, Michael Martinez, Lauren Siliff and John Irwin for their reporting for
today's podcast. You can get the latest news on automakers subscriptions, CEO compensation,
powertrain changes and everything happening in the auto industry at AutoNews.com. Come back
tomorrow to hear what Patrick D. Hahn, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy.com, has to say
about gas prices. You know, when you see interruptions or delays or weather, anything that can be very
impactful to either one of those balances supply or demand can really tip oil prices in a way that
some gas prices soaring or plummeting. We'd love to hear from you. Let us know what you think of
the show and the topics we cover today. Send us an email at dailydrive at autonews.com or leave
us a voicemail at 313-444-2774. And if you enjoy the podcast, remember to like, leave a review
and subscribe so you never miss an episode.
About this episode
GM expects its OnStar and Super Cruise subscriptions to drive “nearly exponential” revenue growth, with realized subscription revenue rising from $1.7B (2020) to $2.7B (2025) and a $3.1B forecast for 2026. Ford’s Jim Farley sees higher pay despite record recalls, while Audi plans to phase out its five-cylinder engine in Europe by mid-2027 due to Euro 7 compliance costs, shifting focus to EVs. A guest also breaks down how Chinese automakers’ Mexico expansion is colliding with parts and service growing pains. The feature interview dives into Imovio’s dry brake tech—brake-by-wire, less maintenance, and potential production timing in the late 2020s.
Dennis Fritsch, Aumovio’s vice president of safety and motion, discusses dry brake technology and how it could impact vehicle engineering. Audi is phasing out its five-star engine in Europe by 2027. Plus, what dealers can learn from China’s rapid expansion in Mexico.
