The Automotive Troublemaker w/ Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier

Stellantis Steadies, EVs Last For 20+ Years?, Sora Is Here

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The internet is abuzz this morning as OpenAI released its long-anticipated video generator, Sora, to the public. But before we get there, we have to talk about Tim Kuniskis coming back to Stellantis as the new Ram CEO, and how studies are suggesting that EVs could last longer than ICE vehicles.


Show Notes with links:

  • Tim Kuniskis is back at Stellantis, stepping in as the new Ram truck brand CEO after a brief retirement. The return comes amidst a significant leadership shake-up following CEO Carlos Tavares' resignation.
    • Kuniskis' comeback has been met with excitement from dealers who value his market insights and approachable leadership style.
    • Chrysler CEO Chris Feuell moves to lead Alfa Romeo in North America.
    • Jeff Kommor returns as U.S. sales head, reversing a prior restructure of retail and commercial divisions.
    • The shake-up follows a turbulent year for Stellantis, marked by declining sales and high inventories.
    • Michael Bettenhausen of Stellantis’ U.S. dealer council states: “Tim brings a wealth of knowledge, and everyone in the company has leaned on him for guidance at some point.”


  • Despite myths about rapid degradation and expensive replacements, evidence suggests EV batteries are far outlasting expectations, offering long-term reliability for secondhand buyers.
    • Studies show EV batteries retain 90% capacity after 62,000 miles and 87% after 186,000 miles, with an annual degradation rate of just 1.8%.
    • Factors like DC rapid charging and hot climates can increase degradation, but advancements in battery management systems are mitigating these risks.
    • Real-world data reveals early EV models like the BMW i3 and Tesla Model S retain over 80% capacity after nearly a decade.
    • Experts suggest smaller battery buffers and more transparent reporting could further reduce costs and boost confidence in secondhand EVs.
    • “The cost of maintenance is significantly lower,” notes Geotab CEO Neil Cawse. “Brake pads, wipers, and that’s about it.”


  • Get ready for all the AI videos to hit your social media feed, as OpenAI’s latest innovation, Sora, has been released, letting users generate videos from text and other inputs, marking a major leap in AI creativity.
    • Available to ChatGPT Plus and Pro subscribers, Sora offers tools to create, remix, and animate videos up to 1080p resolution and 20 seconds long.
    • Features include “storyboards” for multi-prompt sequences, AI-driven video blending, and a “remix” tool to refine outputs with text prompts.
    • Videos include visible watermarks and metadata to ensure transparency, with strict content moderation policies in place.
    • The launch follows controversy as some artists in OpenAI's alpha testing program protested, alleging their unpaid contributions were used for R&D and PR without consent.
    • Sora product lead Rohan Sahai says, “We want to balance creative expression with preventing misuse… It’s an ongoing challenge.”

Hosts: Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier

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Paul J Daly:

It is Tuesday, December 10. It feels like it's Christmas season. We have talking about new leadership at stellantis EV's lasting for over 20 years, and Sora is here. Meanwhile, I feel like I'm gonna I'm gonna vibe today. I have a candle burning in my office. I have a cardigan on that'll make your grandpa jealous. Oh,

Kyle Mountsier:

it is. It's a great cardigan, so nice.

Paul J Daly:

Oh, it feels so good. It's brand new, and it just got the new thing. I don't know. I'm just feeling like, I feel like in a calm mode, like, like, no matter time for

Kyle Mountsier:

us to switch our lights to red and green for the video. People like, should we do at this point? Nathan's

Paul J Daly:

shaking his head? No, Nathan's back. I

Kyle Mountsier:

mean, tomorrow is tomorrow. Two weeks now,

Paul J Daly:

I think we need, I think he would wait till next Monday, because that's like the last week, 10 days, no, but it gets old fast. Everything starts to look the same. Okay, seven

Kyle Mountsier:

days. We'll give it seven days next Monday. Remind us

Paul J Daly:

give into the commercialism. He's probably the same guy that doesn't get life anything on Valentine's Day, because we're

Kyle Mountsier:

literally getting to talk about commercialism for the next 15 minutes. That's kind of all we do. We live in

Paul J Daly:

commercial. Commercial pays for our stuff.

Kyle Mountsier:

I love paying for things. It's great.

Paul J Daly:

Speaking of paying for things, we have next ASOTU webinar coming up next week with our friends at automotive mastermind on data driven strategies for scalable service to sales processes. It's a long title, but it's something that if you just drop in for 20 minutes, you're gonna get thinking in ways that can actually improve your business. We're gonna be here how Shane O'Hara GM at Chapman BMW Chandler transformed his dealership service drive into a thriving sales hub, averaging 30 to 45 cars a month. So that's if that's not commercialism and good marketing and good strategy. I don't know what is. Go to asotu.com you can register for the webinar, which is next Wednesday, December 18, at 2pm these have been amazing. You should get it. You should watch it with your team. We guarantee it will help you think outside the box and make some improvements. Yeah, a couple other things. Tell them about. The other things,

Kyle Mountsier:

this is what I'm gonna actually tell you about, is, is auto industry.ai? Oh yeah, because, like, just before we got on the show, we got the weekly email, yeah. And yet again, yet again. The prompt stuff, prompt of the week is putting together about like, how to work with these AI tools and chat with them and communicate with them and get the thing that you want out of them. If that's the only reason you sign up for it, you should. But other, you know, there's a lot of there's a lot of reasons, but that one, you can actually go to auto industry.ai. Right now, the very first thing on there is going to be our weekly email this week. We're talking about something that we're talking about at the end of this show, GPT Pro, all of the stuff, but you gotta sign up for it. It's crazy.

Paul J Daly:

Yeah, you do All right, let's get into some news. Got some got some good things to talk about, um, Tim knisky is he's back at stellantis. I don't know if you remember him. I remember him. Put his picture up. Do we have his picture to put up? This gentleman, he looks like he knows he's doing. He looks he's gonna be the new Ram truck brand CEO. He looks like, I don't know, forgive me, not meant to be offensive. He's a good looking, handsome man. If David Long and Joe Chura had a shared brother, it would be this guy nailed it, right. But his return is coming amidst a significant leadership shake up following CEO Carlos Tavares resignation. It was big news last week, so his comeback has been met with excitement from dealers who do value his market insights. He's very approachable. He's, in my opinion, he's like, kind of the perfect kind of guy to lead the RAM brand Chrysler. CEO, Chris fuel is moving to current. Is moving to lead Alfa Romeo in North America. Jeff COMAR returns as US sales head. So they're just moving everything around. It's following a very turbulent year at stellantis, marked by declining sales, high inventories, and the head of scientist us, dealer council said, quote, Tim brings a wealth of knowledge, and everyone in the company has leaned on him for guidance at some point. So it seems like they're going back to what seemed to work to rebuild that trust.

Kyle Mountsier:

Yeah. I mean, one. Let me start with this. If you can or can't hear us out there, we apologize if you're watching the live stream. I don't know if you can read my lips, but if you want to listen, if you listen to the pod, you can definitely hear us, so you're good.

Paul J Daly:

But Doug, jump over to LinkedIn. It might, maybe it's working. We

Kyle Mountsier:

what we do know is that obviously some of the top of stellantis is going to get shaken up. This is, this is going to be, you know, I think, one of multiple places where we see a shake up. Obviously, the ram truck brand has been trying to survive, kind of out on its own, getting out from the Dodge nameplate. So we'll see. If you know there's, there's some movement and some some opportunity for RAM to kind of like, really stand out on its own at this point. Yeah. Speaking of

Paul J Daly:

standing out, stop segway. I'm so happy to have my trigger pads back. I didn't have him yesterday. Got him today. Nice. It's nice. This is, this is a really eye opening with a lot of potential implication. Despite myths about rapid degradation and expensive replacements, evidence is now suggesting that EV batteries are far outlasting expectations, offering some long term reliability for second hand buyers. Studies are showing that EV batteries retain 90% capacity after 62,000 miles and 87% after 186,000 miles with an annual degradation of just 1.8% factors like DC, rapid charging in hot climates can increase degradation, but advancements in battery management systems are starting to mitigate the risks. Real world, real world with a real world data reveals early EV models like the BMW i three Tesla Model S have retained 80% of their capacity over a decade later, and that's the old battery technology experts are saying smaller battery buffers and more transparent reporting could future reduce future costs. Basically, the cost of maintenance is lower, says geotech CEO Neil costs, he said, brake pads, wipers, that's about all you need.

Kyle Mountsier:

Look. This is, this is one of those things that I remember selling EVs very, very early on in like, 2010 2011 and everybody had the question, the battery, are these things going to stand up? And now that we're seeing the results of this, you know, long term, pretty impressive to see just an 80% you know, like capacity at at this point, you know, there's still question marks on whether or not you actually get 100% capacity. So maybe 80% is really,

Paul J Daly:

maybe you never really get 100 from the start, right from

Kyle Mountsier:

the start. So, but you know, this is just, this is a part of the education path of hey, EVs, from a cost perspective, from a longevity perspective, like people that are just wondering, having those questions, will this car last the same 13.6 years that my I sent that my ice car, which is the average that we're talking about yesterday, is, you know, we're starting To see like, hey, maybe that's a reality for these cars. And so it's it's furthering the education path for consumers at this point, you

Paul J Daly:

know, just think about as this information comes out. And this is a something that Steve Greenfield pointed out in a post that he made on this topic, talking about long term used car residuals, as we learn more about how the depreciation curve is going to be on EVs battery being the major concerns, like EV leasing might become way more affordable, right? The depreciation is way less, because you already know, like, the wear and take like, I don't know this is a shake up, but we're in the let's we have to find out mode right now, right? We still, yeah, but

Kyle Mountsier:

you know, the only thing about EV leasing, the only thing about EV leasing that I gotta say is, like, every EV that I've ever seen has curved up wheels. So all those wheel guys, they're gonna have jobs. You know what? I mean, that's close

Paul J Daly:

to my heart. That's close to my heart. I mean, when all that started happen, I did contemplate, like,

Kyle Mountsier:

like, just spin that up.

Paul J Daly:

I still get phone calls. I still get phone calls all the time, people looking for the room. Doctor, it was my first business, fixed wheels. It's a story, but it's a fun one, and it just it calls to me. It calls me speaking to Colin. Stop

Unknown:

segway, here,

Paul J Daly:

comes open AI, swinging back. If

Kyle Mountsier:

you're not watching it, you should be paying attention to open AI's 12 days of ship. Miss. It's all of these new features that they are shipping across their entire platform. It's pretty wild. But right now, they have released as of yesterday, it was a really, it was actually, I don't know if you watched any of it. I did, but I checked it out. I watched, like, soar apart. It's kind of like three guys in a in a kitchen, you know, and like your grandma's kitchen. I'm not quite grandma's kitchen, but it's, talking about some new net new technology, trying to be Tim Cook, but they didn't spend money on the set. That's fine, but they released their newest innovation, Sora, to the general public. They've been talking about it for a while, letting users generate videos from text and other inputs, marking a major leap in AI capacity. Right now it's available to GPT Plus and Pro subscribers. The videos are up to 1080p resolution and 20 seconds long, depending on your subscription level, prior to prioritizes your you know, access to it the speed in which the video gets rendered. All those type of things. Features include things like storyboards for multi prompt sequences, AI driven video blending and a remix tool to refine outputs with text prompts there are visible watermarks and meta metadata to ensure transparency, restrict content moderation policies in place. The launch obviously follows controversy as some artists and open AI's alpha testing program protested. But. Alleging their unpaid contributions were used for R and D and PR without consent. Yikes. The product lead Rohan, sigh. He said, We want to balance creative expression with preventing misuse. It's an ongoing challenge. I mean, this one's a tight one, okay. I have a question about the artists.

Paul J Daly:

When someone gives you a beta, isn't it assumed that they're using the beta to R and D. The problem literally, like, that is the definition of a beta. I'm almost guaranteeing that

Kyle Mountsier:

whatever document you had to sign or, like, click Approve in the thing said, like, we get to basically use everything

Paul J Daly:

as a benefit, you get to be the first I don't know that. Just that stuff drives me nuts, but, but, but this tool, I I'm excited to use it, and one of the reasons I will use it more than I've used runway, which is the other video generation tools, the fact that it's just built and baked within open, AI, chat, GPT platform, so it's all in one I watched, I watched I watched the part where they were going through and they were like, sampling the videos, and it looked really savvy. A lot of these tools, and we'll say it again, whether it's this video tool, whether it's just regular old chat, GPT or Google's LM, all of these are a way to get first draft on the table as fast as possible, because most people say, like, oh, once it started, I can get rolling, right? That is, you know, the old adage, once begun is half done, right? Ai helps you get it not just started, but it gets you, you know, a third of the way down the road. People that rely on it to get all the way down the road. You can, you can watch it happen, and it's this point it falls apart. And you can

Kyle Mountsier:

spot it all. It always looks funny or sounds funny in the end, if you try and get all the way there with it, and that's where, like, I'm really encouraging people, especially as people are thinking about 2025 that all of this, like, ideation, that becomes difficult, especially if you're trying to work on these things later in the day with teams across your departments or inter departmentally. Like, it's a great way to honestly start the conversation. It's almost like GPT becomes the icebreaker for your vision casting, right? That's really come on. People said that.

Paul J Daly:

I don't know if we can end the show on anything. Get out of here other than that. Listen, Addie, we're glad you're joining with us today. Look, we're in the auto industry, but we're in the people industry. We like commercialism, like Nathan said, but we like people even more. Get out there. Care for some people. Use some AI. We'll see you here tomorrow. You.

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Kyle Mountsier

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Paul J Daly

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