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Automotive State of The Union
Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier don’t just read headlines, they make the most important connections across car dealerships, general retail, tech, and culture. The goal? To help automotive leaders think clearer and move faster in a world that refuses to slow down.
Whether you’re running a rooftop, building a brand, or just trying to keep up with everything shifting in the business of selling cars, this is your regular stop for a shot of news, insight, and a little bit of chaos…always rooted in people-first thinking.
From the showroom to Silicon Valley.
From Wall Street to Main Street.
Paul and Kyle connect the dots, keep it real, and make it make sense.
Learn more at https://www.asotu.com
Automotive State of The Union
Rivian’s Southern Roots, Ford’s Hero Reward, ChatGPT Gets a Job
Episode #1098: Rivian is laying foundations in Georgia with a new East Coast HQ and massive EV factory. A brave deacon turns his F-150 into a life-saving shield, and gets rewarded. And OpenAI's latest ChatGPT upgrade puts real-world task management on autopilot.
- Rivian is plugging into Atlanta as it sets the stage for its next major manufacturing move. The EV maker is launching an East Coast HQ to support its second plant, with big plans to expand.
- The Atlanta office opens late 2025, expands in 2026 to support the nearby Georgia plant.
- An initial staff of 100 will grow to around 500.
- The new $6B+ factory in Stanton Springs to begin vertical construction in 2026 which will produce R2 and R3 models starting 2028, span 16 million sq. ft., and employ 7,500.
- CEO RJ Scaringe: “Atlanta embodies so much that makes Georgia great — top talent, exceptional creativity, and a desire to always be moving forward.”
- Some heroes don’t wear capes, they drive F-150s. When Richard Pryor saw a man pulling a weapon outside Crosspointe Church during Vacation Bible School, he didn’t freeze. He floored it. The deacon used his truck to stop what could’ve been a tragic day in Wayne, MI.
- Though he saved countless lives that day, unfortunately his truck didn’t survive the harrowing incident after taking a round and crashing
- When Demmer Ford heard what Richard had done, they handed him the keys to a new 2025 F-150 as a gesture of appreciation for his courage and quick action.
- We may not all have Richard’s bravery, but every one of us has the power to do something that matters. The key is keeping your eyes open and your heart ready.
- OpenAI has launched a game-changing upgrade to ChatGPT, giving it its own virtual computer. This move turns the AI into a fully-fledged assistant that can execute complex tasks—start to finish—without skipping a beat.
- ChatGPT Agent can now handle real-world work like analyzing competitors, booking travel, and updating spreadsheets, all from your single prompt.
- It blends the strengths of previous tools—Operator and deep research—into one powerful, task-completing system.
- The AI can click, scroll, code, and summarize, even logging into your Gmail or GitHub (with permission) to grab the info it needs.
- New benchmarks show it beats human-level accuracy across investment banking, data science, and spreadsheet modeling tasks.
- “You’re always in control,” says OpenAI. “You can take over the browser, pause tasks, or get a real-time progress summary.”
- Starting today (July 17–18), it’s available to Pro, Plus, and Team subscribers. Just toggle “Agent Mode” in the tools dropdown during any chat
Join Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier every morning for the Automotive State of the Union podcast as they connect the dots across car dealerships, retail trends, emerging tech like AI, and cultural shifts—bringing clarity, speed, and people-first insight to automotive leaders navigating a rapidly changing industry.
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Good morning. It is Friday, July 18. This is the automotive State of the Union. I'm Paul J Daly. This is Kyle mounts. Here. We got a lot of energy on Friday. It's been a bit of a squirrely week, but we're gonna get it to the ground today. We're talking about rivian Ford and Chad GPT, kind of three topics that come up once or twice around
Kyle Mountsier:in the news. Just a wee bit. Just a wee Bitsy. I like that
Paul J Daly:Friday. I know Friday. Yes, it's a weird Friday in the Daly household, because our oldest and Miles, who a lot of people know, who work here, he's going to Europe. He's going to Scotland. Yeah, he's leaving. That's a whole thing. So his mom is like, He's true to form, true to form. I was like, All right, how are you gonna make phone calls me over, I'm gonna download this sim card thing have what do you ask everybody else? They said, just use Wi Fi. I was like, No, it's like, so like, of course, you pull up jet cheap chat. GPT tells us how to activate it. On Verizon, it's$12 national on Verizon, it's five gigabytes, $12 a day, $12 a day. And he's like, Oh, you don't have to spend that. I was like, Are you kidding me? I was like, your mom needs to be able to get a hold of you anytime, anywhere.
Kyle Mountsier:That's exactly right. It is so worth it when you're traveling to just do that international plan. By the way, you should switch to xfinity if you can, because it's only five bucks a day. I can't, and they just don't
Paul J Daly:have the eggs. Oh, that's sad. Yeah. Is that like your home internet and everything
Kyle Mountsier:too? Is it all? They just went from one gigabyte to five gigabytes a day, yep, which is like, if you're using five gigs a day and data, you're, I don't know what you're doing, then you're not paying attention to the fact that you're in Europe. Yeah, that's exactly right. You're missing the whole point. All right, missing the home point.
Paul J Daly:We have some new content that just dropped, a new auto Collabs episode, How To Be your own CDP with Nick askew. Look smartest guy we know, or one of the smartest guys we know, you can get it by going to auto Collabs. This is a great weekend Listen, in my opinion, it'll keep you going. It'll it'll broaden your horizons, for sure. And I think he would have a thing or two to say about our third story today. But we also have a webinar coming up next week, August. Actually, it's a few weeks from now, August 6, with our friends at car RX, driving loyalty with data. Super important. How do you make sure you're getting your customers staying in front of your service, customers at the right times, giving them the right information, just go to asotu.com you can register right toward the top of the page. All right, let's get into some news. Rivian is plugging into Atlanta as it sets the stage for its next major manufacturing move. The EV maker is launching an East Coast HQ to support its second manufacturing plant with big plans to expand the Atlanta office. Oh, Paul, you went on you. I'm not sure how that happened. Did I? Did I go on mute? I don't know. Just mid sentence. That was the wildest thing. What? Okay, yeah, where was I plugging into Atlanta? Oh, no, manufacturing move. The EV maker is launching an East Coast headquarters to support the second plant with big plans to expand. The Atlanta office opens late 2025 expands in 2026 to support the nearby Georgia plant. The initial staff of 100 will grow to 500 and the new $6 billion factory in Staunton springs, which is like I think, the east side of Atlanta, is to begin vertical construction in 2026 which will produce the r2 and r3 models, starting in 2028 16 million square feet, employing my 7500 human beings, not gpts human beings. CEO RJ scaring says, quote, Atlanta embodies so much that makes Georgia great, top talent, exceptional creativity and a desire to always be moving forward. Look,
Kyle Mountsier:RJ, scared that brother, he's coming for him. One, he's having these he's got all the comments about the franchise model. Two, he's coming in, just bringing plants to the US, yeah, well, everyone's following this model. He's manufacturing here whenever everyone else is trying to get offshore. It's unbelievable. I know. I don't even know what to say, other than, like, bring the jobs, bring the plants, bring the cars and like, you know, and make a case that that your dealership works really well for consumers by being better than everybody else, and see if you can sell some of them. Yeah, that's my thoughts. My last thing is, like, I bet you could sell them through a dealer network. I bet you could sell them real fast. Yeah, I bet we know a couple dealers that would love to sell them things
Paul J Daly:absolutely but we'd love to come visit. So you know, we would love to do that. Give us a bite. Speaking of loving to do things, seems like lately, for dealers away f1 50s to
Kyle Mountsier:Ford, sending money to Texas. For dealers giving cars away. Go for it. What was the f1 50 was given away last week in Pennsylvania to the guy from that was stuck in Russia. That's right, he
Paul J Daly:got home. They're like, here's. New truck. While some heroes don't wear capes, they drive f1 50s. When Richard Pryor saw a man pulling a weapon outside the cross point church during vacation Bible school, he didn't freeze. He floored it. The Deacon used his truck to stop what could have been a very tragic day in Wayne, Michigan, though he saved countless lives, unfortunately, his truck didn't survive the incident after taking a round and crashing. So basically, he started driving toward the suspect. They shot at the truck. They killed it. One shot, basically the truck. So when Denver Ford heard that what he had done, they basically handed him keys to a brand new 2025, f1 50, as a gesture of appreciation for his courage and quick action. Here's a quote says we may not all have Richard bravery, but all of us has the power to do something that matters.
Kyle Mountsier:That's right. Hey, look, here's the thing. One, just kudos to my man, Richard Pryor. Two, what a name for this story. Like three. Three, I'm just like, dealers just know what's up, right? They just know what's up. Celebrating people in the way that we can celebrate them. I love how Liza Borches always talks about like solving mobility problems doesn't matter how we're solving them, doesn't matter who we're solving them. For you might be selling a car. You might be giving away a car to a family in need, to a person that that did something great. The connection of auto to life's moments is so deep and continually integrating that look. We're just seeing it. We can't We can't stop the stories. They happen every week, and if
Paul J Daly:you didn't know that that story was in actually this morning's email, we have a daily email that has some updates as industry news, all that things, but we always try to include as much of this as we can, to constantly remind you that this industry is in every corner and has the power to cultivate culture across the country. Bam, all right. Speaking, I don't know if this is cultivating. I don't know what, what we're going to call this one. I don't know what I don't know what to call this one,
Kyle Mountsier:outside of amazing open AI has launched a game changing upgrade to chat GPT, giving its own virtual giving it its own virtual computer. The move turns AI into a fully fledged assistant that can execute complex tasks start to finish without skipping a beat. The agent now going to be available. It's getting rolled out slowly in the GPT interface, can handle real world like analyzing competitors, booking travel, updating spreadsheets, all from a single prompt. It blends the strengths of previous tools like operator and deep research into one powerful tax task completing system. It can click, scroll, code, summarize, even log into your Gmail or GitHub with permissions, obviously, and grab the info it needs. It shows it beats human level accuracy across investment banking, data science and spreadsheet modeling tasks. Excuse me, I'm sorry you're always in control. Says, OpenAI, you can take over the browser, pause tasks or get real time progress summary, starting today, the 17th, 18th, it should be available to Pro Plus and team subscribers. Just toggle to agent mode and the tools drop down during any chat. We don't have it yet, but hopefully we'll get it sometime today. I got this task to send it Yes,
Paul J Daly:like, Okay, this is one of those things. If you go through and watch some of the videos, you click through the link in the article, you realize the potential power that this has. The one the spreadsheets, one which I looked at because I hate spreadsheets and making them and having to use them. So I was like, This is great. I can now make spreadsheets and impress Kyle and the rest of the team without them knowing I used GPT. They would know the second I pushed. But basically, the guy who's the head of spreadsheet stuff at chat GBT, had this video where he's like, look, I can compile. I want to find research from the city of San Francisco's budget and break it down. And he's like, so I do this, I do this, and I usually shut my laptop, and then sometimes I'll go get coffee or go for a walk, which is total BS, right? No way. He's like, Oh, let me just I'm doing my work for that kind of person is working hard. Then it compiles the numbers. It searches PDFs. It finds the websites. It puts them into a neatly organized spreadsheet, as he instructed it to do. Instead of the end, he said, You know, it's like, 98% of this information is correct, right? He's like, and he's like, and I Nathan just commented in the title, it's a great job title, head of spreadsheets. That sounds like a terrible job title sounds. And then I woke up. It's like, oh, I woke up, sweating, and then I woke up. And so, like, without a doubt, like this starting to get into the application in the auto industry, or anyone who's an entrepreneur in this business. If we don't learn how to leverage these things sooner, we're going to be left behind full
Kyle Mountsier:stop when you are leveraging data that's already at hand and closed loop data things that you can actually find and search and filter from like under like data is the best thing that you know, intense reasoning or, you know, bringing in like thoughtfulness or things like that are. Complex and actually very, very hard, because it takes a lot of like relevance and cultural understanding, worldview, all that. But when it's like a equals A plus B equals C, any type of operation that has mathematics or data conversion involves these AI models are getting absolutely insane. And so even a thing like building a pro forma or thinking about financial modeling, understanding how adding or removing employees or things like that might might impact your business, this is going to be lightning in a bottle for any business
Paul J Daly:operator. I think the competitive analysis thing that you just brought up is huge, because say, you're talking thinking about like I'm thinking of our tech partners, building a product, launching a product, you can say, create me a competitive analysis of a new product that I want to offer that does x, y and z. Here are some of my competitors, but make sure you look for other ones. Here you get their pricing model. If you have their pricing model, here the pricing models, here's their estimated customer sites. Build a competitive model based on my person, my company's data, and draft a pro forma that I can use as a guiding, you know, Guiding Light to form budgets, talk to investors and, you know, prove viability. Boom, print that. There you go. You spend 60 seconds doing that, and then you go away and have a coffee, like this chat GPT guide. You come back just have a coffee, or run through the service department and say hi to everyone that's about. Oh, if you're at a dealer, you know I'm saying without a doubt, oh, Caleb. C Caleb, our boy, Caleb. Caleb, we saw what you did at the prime time logo. By the way, that was it looked amazing with Nathaniel, Greg lick and Brian Ortega, who loves spreadsheets. He says, AI keeps getting better better. Day by day, we're getting hints of what the future will look like, yes, silly me, having to interact with spreadsheets even less I'm excited
Unknown:about get on it.
Paul J Daly:Listen, we hope you had amazing Friday. Get out there. Take care of the people around you. This industry is full of them, full of opportunities, especially when your head and your heart are looking for them. So go take care of that stuff and make sure you let us know what you do, and we'll talk about
Unknown:it here on the show. Yep,