Automotive State of The Union

Trump Tariffs Loom Again, Hyundai Opens in GA, OpenAI Upgrades Image Gen

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Episode #1002: Today's show dives into Trump’s game-changing 25% auto tariff and what it means for car prices, Hyundai’s massive new EV plant in Georgia and OpenAI’s latest AI breakthrough in image and text generation.


Show Notes with links:

  • President Trump has officially imposed a 25% tariff on vehicles built outside the U.S., effective April 3. The move is set to rattle the global auto supply chain and could result in major price hikes for consumers.
    • The tariff increases from a 2.5% base to 25%, covering vehicles and some auto parts like engines and transmissions.
    • Parts meeting the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) rules will get a temporary reprieve until the Commerce Department sets new regulations.
    • Aaron Bragman of Cars.com said that 50% of all cars are imported from outside the US and encouraged potential buyers to act soon as prices could rise from $3K - $12K “If you need a new car, go get one as soon as you possibly can—lock in a price—because those prices might be going up very soon.”
    • Manufacturers may shift production and pass higher costs to consumers and dealers, while retaliatory tariffs loom from other nations.
    • UAW President Shawn Fain called it a victory for autoworkers, saying “Ending the race to the bottom in the auto industry starts with fixing our broken trade deals.”


  • Hyundai has officially opened its state-of-the-art EV plant in Georgia, marking a historic $7.6 billion investment in U.S. manufacturing. The facility will produce Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis electric vehicles, including the much-anticipated IONIQ 9.
    • Hyundai’s project is Georgia’s largest economic development investment ever, expected to create 8,500 direct jobs and over 58,000 total jobs.
    • The 2025 IONIQ 5 was the first model built at the plant, with the three-row IONIQ 9 set to debut this spring.
    • Hyundai recently announced a $21B investment in U.S. production, including $9B for EV expansion and $6B for a new steel plant in Louisiana.
    • Hyundai Motor Group executive chair Euisun Chung said, “Together with the talented workforce at HMGMA, we are building the future of mobility with America, in America.”


  • OpenAI is rolling out built-in image generation within ChatGPT, marking a big leap in AI-powered creativity. Dubbed “Images in ChatGPT”, this feature is available starting today across multiple user tiers.
    • Users can now generate images directly within ChatGPT using GPT-4o’s “omnimodal” technology.
    • New enhancements improve “binding”, meaning the AI better understands object relationships and attributes—avoiding mix-ups like miscolored shapes.
    • Unlike past models that produced garbled, misspelled words, GPT-4o can now render clean, legible text in images.
    • The AI now accurately follows detailed text-based prompts, even replicating whiteboard notes and comic strip text.
    • Research lead Gabriel Goh calls it a “step change above previous models”, with improved precision in rendering complex prompt

Hosts: Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier

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Kyle Mountsier:

Stop. It's Thursday, March 27 This is automotive State of the Union, and I'm Kyle Mountsier with Ben Hadley today. We're talking about Trump terrace looming again, Hyundai opening up in Georgia and open AI, getting it my grade. The people really want to know isn't who I be they stopped and stay with me. You like

Ben Hadley:

the new one? I want to go in reverse. You know, I want to go in reverse. But, oh, I know. I know. You like the new. You

Kyle Mountsier:

like the upgrade on the intro? You like the upgrade on the intro? We got a little late.

Ben Hadley:

I was looking, I was listening to it. Could you tell I was listening to it? I was like, I

Kyle Mountsier:

couldn't, I don't watch anything that you looked that you do, so it's fair. I was like,

Ben Hadley:

Oh, this is great. This is no great, yeah. We say yeah, yeah.

Kyle Mountsier:

We rebranded the automotive State of the Union. We rebranded to our brand. It's kind of interesting, because, you know, the show's been called the automotive troublemaker for the longest time,

Ben Hadley:

right? You know what? Like, I don't even know what I actually knew it as. So I've always, I've I went to more than cars, like, pretty hard in my head, got it as soon as I saw the shirt. So that's what you are. To me, you're just

Kyle Mountsier:

more than cars. Yeah. So it's the automotive State of the Union. We're talking about the automotive State of the Union every single day, but we're always bringing in the other retail things. Like you said, I can't wait to the third story. We'll see if we can reverse it, but if we reversed it, we never get out of the third story. It's always that, that way, it's going to be fun. Hey, you're going to be at a sodu Con this year, right? Of course,

Ben Hadley:

I'm going to be at sodu con. Who wouldn't, who wouldn't be at a sodu con, they'd be absolute idiots for missing this. It's

Kyle Mountsier:

going to be absolutely nuts. I I'm super excited about pitch tank. I posted about it on LinkedIn this morning. For direct and Beth Hill are making sure that we go to pitch tank. And we've got a bunch of startups, a bunch of founders, a bunch of innovative companies presenting in real time to dealers, investors, entrepreneurs, some investors like Bill Karis Chase Frazier. We've got someone from auto tech VC going to be there, so it's going to be definitely a, like, innovative and heavy thing. How crazy

Ben Hadley:

is it? Think about COVID pitch tank. Oh, I know the like lineage, the pedigree of pitch tank is pretty cool.

Kyle Mountsier:

You know, I went back, I went back. I counted one time because I had, like, an old notebook that I that I kept on, like, who we were gonna have that week, on clubhouse, I I counted 216 individual companies that pitched in that. Like, I don't know how long it was. It was probably nine months. You and I did that. Yeah, 216 companies that

Ben Hadley:

we got track. Where are they at now? We should, we should go back. Della was, like, one of the ones like, way, way back, way early. Yep. Brooke, all those guys, I bet, I bet, like, the numbers are pretty staggering. It's got to be staggering. Yeah, I can't even give you a transition. Let's throw you up, dude. What about those tariffs? Oh,

Kyle Mountsier:

President Trump has officially imposed 25% tariffs on vehicles built outside the US, effective April 3. That's early next week. Team. The move is set to rattle the global auto industry supply chain and could result in major price hikes, hikes over time for consumers, the tariff increases from a 2.5 base to 25% covering vehicles and some auto parts, like engine and transmissions parts, meaning the United States, Mexico, Canada agreement rules will get a temporary reprieve, like they have over the last month, until the comments Commerce Department sets the new regulations. Yesterday, Aaron Bragman of cars.com was on YouTube shorts saying that 50% of all cars are imported from outside of the US, and encourage buyers to act as soon as prices could rise from three to $12,000 said, if you need a new car, go get one as soon as you possibly can lock in a price, because those prices might be going up very soon. Here's here's our old friend, Sean Fain, the UAW president, called it a victory, however, for auto workers, saying ending the race to the bottom in the auto industry starts with fixing our broken trade deals. Hmm, kind of a Yeah, kind of like an at, you know, you got both sides of the equation coming in now, yeah, yeah. I

Ben Hadley:

mean, how do we know? Do we know how his Tesla is almost all us, right? Or no, they

Kyle Mountsier:

like final manufacturing for us, sold vehicles is a lot in the US that Austin facility feels like

Ben Hadley:

a little bit of like a, you know, little little carve out, yeah?

Kyle Mountsier:

Well, you know, actually there Trump did go, you know, go on saying a few times like, Elon's never asked me for a favor, and this is definitely not one. So it seems like there's probably some level of interaction. Obviously, he has manufacturing facilities all over the world. You know what? I mean, it's kind of like, Hey, did it for a bud over here. Yeah, dude

Ben Hadley:

sleeping in the bedroom. A couple hallways down, you don't go like, Hey, bro, I'll jump in

Nathan Southwick:

here because I saw a story on electric this morning where Elon apparently tweeted that the impact is still significant. And some details is that they do import a they get some of its parts from China and steel and aluminum from Mexico and Canada, which will be subject to tariffs, and then 20, more than 20% of its parts come from Mexico, wow. So all those, all that might add up to what he calls significant, wow. Okay,

Kyle Mountsier:

and that's what, that's what they're saying, like, hey, even, even when you look at quote, unquote, American manufactured vehicles, right? GM, Ford, stellantis, still over 50% of those vehicles is parts and steel and aluminum coming from these other countries. So I

Ben Hadley:

haven't, I haven't fact checked this, but back end of January, beginning of February, I did this thing on chatgpt deep research. It predicted kind of what the impact of tariffs would be for the year. And it called out, if I remember correctly, that Kyle and Hyundai, because they have higher amounts of us parts sort of production would actually be the least impacted, and those guys were kind of set up to skyrocket, yeah.

Kyle Mountsier:

Well, look, and speaking of Hyundai's US production,

Unknown:

that's my favorite.

Kyle Mountsier:

Now you had the setup. Good at this, bro, you had the setup. Good. It was good. I was proud of you. You had the setup all right. Hyundai has officially opened its state of the art EV plant in Georgia. We've been talking about it for a while, marking a historic $7.6 billion investment in US manufacturing. The facility will produce Hyundai Kia and Genesis electric vehicles, including the most anticipated three row ionic nine, Hyundai's project in Georgia's in Georgia is expected to create 8500 direct jobs and over 58,000 total jobs from indirect product supply. The 2025 ionic five was the first model built at the plant with a three row ionic nine sets of debut this spring, later this spring, they recently announced a $21 billion investment in US production, including 9 billion for EV expansion and 6 billion for a new steel plant. Speaking of steel and aluminum in Louisiana, Hyundai Motor Group, executive chair ice and Cheung said, together with the talented workforce in H, M, G, M, A, which is the like Hyundai Motors, Kia, Genesis, I don't know it's a whole bunch of letters. We are building the future of mobility with America, in America, I feel like he's got some you know thing with Steve Greenfield, I don't know,

Ben Hadley:

future mobility. I mean, you know what's crazy. Have you looked into I think this maybe is commonplace in like, Japanese or Korean companies, but Hyundai is, like, they own baseball teams. Oh yeah. They are huge, huge, massive amounts of steel, everything they got all and so, I mean, it's pretty amazing that they were convinced to come in make a giant investment over right? And I think that's a silver lining, is it because this tariff stuff is working?

Kyle Mountsier:

Yeah, but I mean, this hunt, this Hyundai plant, has been being built for two years, right? You know the time to release the news? Yeah, it's a great it's a great timing thing for them. And I mean, their ride from a market share perspective right now is insane in the US, right, particularly under the Hyundai and Kia brands. It's wild. And they are definitely. They're like, they're the gas, you know, like, gas hybrid, you know, fully electric, like, they've got something for everybody, which not a lot of manufacturers can boast right now. No,

Ben Hadley:

they're playing it perfect, was one of my guesses. Was the, I thought Daly was gonna get the the Kia SUV

Kyle Mountsier:

Oh, he loves the Kyle, yeah, yeah. I thought so

Ben Hadley:

that was gonna be it. But then I also guessed the f1 50 publicly. Oh, that's strong, dude. I had, I had that early, early early call out, did

Nathan Southwick:

you have it, or did you have chat? GPT do deep research on it, and it told you to, yeah,

Ben Hadley:

give me a psycho profile.

Unknown:

Analyze This man. Tell me what he's gonna buy next

Ben Hadley:

dude, yes, I I want to do something real quick, right here. Okay, is that? Is it okay if I do that, go, go, speaking of chat, GPT, psycho analyzing something, the

Kyle Mountsier:

end of a segue that doesn't work, open. Ai, pretty good, though. Today is rolling out and has rolled out our. Already built in image generation with chat with chat GPT, making a big leap in AI powered creativity dubbed quote images in chat GPT. This feature is available for all usage tiers. Users can out generate images directly using GPT, four OHS Omni modal technology, new enhancements improve quote binding, meaning the AI better understands object relationships and attributes, avoiding mix ups like miscalog shapes, unlike past models that produce garbled, misspelled words. GPT four, oh, this is the big one. Can now render clean, legible text in images. The AI now accurately follows detailed text prompts, even replicating whiteboard notes and comic strip text. We tried it out a few times. Research lead, Gabrielle go calls it a step change, a step change above previous models, with improved precision and rendering complex prompts. It's nuts. Nathan tried it out this morning. Check out. Check out this before we get little commentary from Ben, because Ben uses this. He, he get, he, he first just got like, Hey, give me, give me a man wearing the shirt. And we've got this. You know, bearded guy with love people more than you love cars. Miss the you and the ASOTU hat said, Give me an infographic about this. Here's the infographic. It says, automotive troublemakers love people more than cars. Challenge the status quo. Envision a better industry, consumers, collaborators, conspirators, a so do there it is now watch, he said, throw it on a billboard. Oh, there it is on a billboard. It looks dope. You might as well just like, put that out there and ship it. You can do anything. Let's show that

Ben Hadley:

look. I I, I want to give, like everybody, a couple different things to do as homework. I love this. One is, I just did this this morning. We were debating, what should I post today? About LinkedIn? I ended up posting an interactive dashboard for the tariff thing that. One's fun, you should click it. But two, what The Contender that I'll post tomorrow was, hey, chat, G, B, T, you know me really well at this point. Make a two panel comic that will make me laugh and visualize it, and it knocked it out of the park. So that makes you think, okay, are we just gonna be like, essentially entertaining ourselves with inside jokes that only we know. Like, I can imagine myself on the couch next to my wife laughing, and she's gonna be like, What are you laughing at? I'm like, it's an inside joke in my own head. Like, it's like, That's ridiculous, well, but like, the thing,

Kyle Mountsier:

yeah, I mean, but you think about the possibility when the image generation becomes much faster, because, you know, it will over the next, like, four or five months, right? It'll be so fast, and you think about like a CDP, segmenting an audience with qualities that has history in your CRM, and all of a sudden implementing a marketing strategy with content that's relevant at a personalized level to a segment of your audience with a real vehicle, real text value propositions. And you know, inside what they're thinking about, it's unbelievable.

Ben Hadley:

So that's, that's number two. It's almost like, Dude, you just segued me. Number two is take a screenshot of your website on mobile and then just say, hey, visualize this for a more optimal conversion experience. Whoa. Just take what I just, you know, here's my that you know, here's my VDP vomit, is what I call it now. Just like, show me what it should look like. And then before and after, screenshot that and post it and tag me, because I would love to see it. Oh, that's gonna be amazing. My gosh, is such a powerful tool to just look at UX UI better, because if you think about it, it is a an LLM is really just a probabilistic predictive thing. So it already is kind of going well, like based on the probability and prediction of getting a conversion, here's how it should look. Here's the verbiage, have you have everybody's probably always wondered, like, what's the best CTA name? Like, what should I call it? You know,

Kyle Mountsier:

it's literally trained to make that decision for us. For sure.

Ben Hadley:

Screenshot, send it in. Do mobile? 70% of your traffic's mobile. Do mobile? Don't do desktop. Yeah, genius, blown away. Look,

Kyle Mountsier:

we only send the hot takes. We sent hot takes. We sent segues. Ben got his first ever segue on a show this morning. I think I went back to back. It's unbelievable. Hey, look, take this stuff, plug it into your business. You are the operator. Go. Can we

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Kyle Mountsier

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Paul J Daly

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