#452 - 🤓 Smart and Smarter

TOGETHER WITH

When you set out to change the cultural narrative around retail auto, going it alone is not an option.

That’s why we would love it if you shared More Than Cars with even just one person! Trust us, you will want all of your friends in the know before episode 2 and 3!

Keep Pushing Back
-Paul, Kyle, & Chris

/Positivity

Do you have a story showing the positive impact dealerships have on their community? Let us share it!

AUTOMOTIVE

AI and Automotive

There are three areas to consider while considering the future of AI in the automotive industry. What is now, what is just over the horizon, and what our imagination can dream up. Remember, the first tablet computer was a Star Trek dream.

What is now:

Companies already use AI in the design, maintenance, and enhancement of owner experience.

• 🦜 Mercedes-Benz has introduced GPT models in its Voice Assistant across 900K cars to assist drivers with inquiries and recommendations.

• 🎨 BMW utilizes generative AI in its design process to generate many efficient, innovative, and visually appealing design alternatives.

• 📸 Toyota Research Institute employs a generative AI technique, using text-to-image AI tools to expedite the harmonization of design and engineering considerations in their design workflow.

• 🤖 Tesla's AI-powered autopilot system uses generative AI to understand and learn from various driving scenarios, improving its advanced driving assistance capabilities.

• 🧠 Chinese startup Haomo.ai introduced DriveGPT, a generative language model-based platform that enhances decision-making in autonomous driving systems.

• 🗺️ Waymo uses generative AI models to create thousands of diverse real-world driving scenarios for training its autonomous driving algorithms, improving safety and resilience.

What is getting close:

For now, we expect all practical applications of AI only to evolve as the technology is refined and real-world experiments are performed. Already new breakthroughs get closer each day.

• 🎮 Digital autonomous driving testing grounds provide something so close to real-world testing that self-driving tech development will be safer and faster.

• 🧑‍🍳 In-car software that knows the driver's preferences. Route suggestions, service recommendations, seat placement, and radio stations, each set by a personal assistant that follows you from car to car.

• 📻 Marketing campaigns that can build themselves.

• 🤑 Save costs and time between designing, developing, and producing new models.

• 👩‍🔧 Precise knowledge of vehicle health from tires to performance with real-time data about upcoming maintenance and even the results of hitting a nasty pothole.

For fans, it is an exciting time for automotive and AI. While others are left wondering if somewhere, buried in all the artificial intelligence, will be space left for authentic intuition.

Telling it like it is – We left the dream portion of this piece open for replies; please let us know where you see the relationship between vehicle ownership and AI going in the one, ten, or one hundred years.

TOGETHER WITH HILINE

What did the accountant say to the Pro Gamer?

Answer: Pray you never get audited.

Pro Gamers, fast-moving tech companies, and rocket-ship media companies (ahem…ahem) all have very similar challenges regarding bookkeeping, accounting, and HR. Mainly, they are moving so fast that they don’t have time to prioritize keeping their books running as fast as they are.

That’s why the ambitious and savvy team at Hiline is here to the rescue. Their accountants understand entrepreneurs…because they ARE troublemaking entrepreneurs!​​

AUTOMOTIVE

Motor Morsels: Tesla, Rivian, Stellantis

📈🏭🍕 Tesla's Q2 scheduled its Q2 results call for July 19th, but things are already looking great for the EV company.

• Tesla's 466,140 deliveries put Q2 2023 at nearly double the same quarter last year.

• At 479,700, the automaker increased production by 83% compared to Q2 2022.

While ramping up production toward the Cybertruck's release, Tesla also plans to open a new plant in Mexico. It seems to be readying Third Party App support, allowing users to customize their experience further. Like an Android, not an Apple.

💪🚀🚚 Rivian's Q2 outperformed market estimates with 12,640 EV deliveries, exceeding the expected 11,000, leading to a 14% stock surge. These figures, reflecting a production increase at their Illinois facility, suggest At nearly 14K vehicles produced, Rivian is overcoming past supply chain issues and is on track to reach its annual production goal of 50,000 vehicles.

The US-based EV startup also shipped the first of its delivery vans to Europe as part of a deal with Amazon to electrify part of the fleet in the market. Following a year of dents and dings, the news suggests the company has found a pace that could carry it long-term.

👏🚙🍝 Stellantis' Q2 sales scaled 6.4% on the shoulders of its newest models. While a far cry from the estimated industry forecast of 16-18%, the increase confirms pent-up demand just waiting for inventory levels to rise. The fact that the big sellers were a Chrysler minivan, a Jeep SUV, and a Dodge Durango also hints that, despite gas price woes, people are waiting for specific models and types.

Beyond Q2, the company is working out a $5.45M battery material deal with Australia's Kuniko and a $109M investment to electrify an Italian plant.

TL; DR – Tesla’s Q2 is unofficially great, Rivian’s Q2 is better than anybody expected, and Stellantis’s Q2 is good but not great.

CULTURE

Barney Is Back…

🦖 After the slasher Winnie the Pooh "Blood and Honey" and the upcoming grown-folks-oriented "Barbie" movie, we aren't even surprised to report Mattel Films is working on a "Barney" movie described as "surrealistic" and an "A24-type" film. 🦕

🎭 They are targeting millennial angst rather than children. The film will explore disillusionment within the generation that grew up with Barney. Oscar-winner Daniel Kaluuya (Black Panther, Get Out, Nope) will produce the project, which he described as "heartbreaking." 💔

Telling it like it is – Of all the emotions art can inspire in an audience, everybody keeps defaulting to “sad.” 🤷‍♀️

Quick Hits

• Meta’s “Twitter Killer” is a micro-blog app called “Threads.” We will see Thursday when it is available for download just how much Twitter it can kill. ☠️

• Monkey was given a shot of kidney proteins, and its memory improved. Now scientists are considering trying it on people. 🐵

• Nike will release NFT sneakers for players to wear in Fortnite. That sentence made me feel ten years older. 👟

History

• 1869: Reports of the first car in Prince Edward Island, Canada, are published. 🚂

• 1937: Spam, the luncheon meat, is introduced into the market by the Hormel Foods Corporation. 🥫

• 1996: Dolly the Sheep is the first cloning of an animal by scientists in Scotland. 🐑