Automotive State of The Union

EV Service Woes, Honda Sells Service, Walmart Nixes Search Bars

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Episode #1104: EV service frustrations rise as electric sales grow, Honda steps into the insurance game, and Walmart unveils Sparky—its bold AI move to replace the search bar.


Show Notes with links:

  • Electric vehicle sales hit a new high in the first half of 2025, but the surge is putting pressure on service departments nationwide. According to CDK Global’s EV Ownership Study, more EVs are hitting the service lane — and owners are increasingly frustrated with the experience.
    • Q2 EV sales rose nearly 5% over Q1; first-half total reached a record 607,000+ units.
    • Only 28% of EV owners reported same-day service in 2024 — down from 40% in 2023.
    • 85% of new EV owners needed dealership service in year one, often for recalls or minor repairs.
    • Multiple visits are becoming common: 34% of non-Tesla owners said service took longer than for gas vehicles, with 21% saying it took 4 visits or more.
    • Our friend David Thomas of CDK: “We know dealers are prepared for EV service, but these numbers getting worse is not a good sign as more non-Tesla EVs are on the road than ever before.”


  • Honda is taking a big step into the insurance space with the launch of Honda Insurance Solutions — a licensed agency designed to offer customers competitive, convenient coverage as part of the overall ownership experience.
    • Available in all 50 states, the platform provides quotes from top carriers via VIU by HUB, omnichannel insurance brokerage platform backed by one of the largest personal insurance brokers, Hub International
    • Customers can shop for coverage on autos, RVs, motorcycles, and even homes.
    • An OEM parts coverage option helps protect vehicle value by using only Honda and Acura Genuine Parts.
    • Future plans include full integration into Honda and Acura’s digital sales ecosystem.
    • Petar Vucurevic, President of American Honda Insurance Solutions: “Insurance is a key touchpoint in the vehicle ownership journey... promoting safer driving and increased peace of mind.”


  • Walmart is doubling down on its AI transformation with the rollout of Sparky, a next-gen digital shopping agent set to replace traditional search. The move marks the retail giant’s most aggressive bet yet on an AI-first future.
    • Sparky will handle everything from grocery reorders to furnishing entire apartments based on budget and preferences.
    • The new interface will be multimodal—supporting voice, images, and video—to mirror natural human shopping behaviors and eliminate the need for keyword searches.
    • Walmart’s AI framework includes four agents: Sparky (customers), Marty (suppliers/advertisers), an associate agent, and a developer agent.

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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Paul J Daly:

Good morning, everybody. We made it to Friday, July 25 This is the automotive State of the Union. I'm Paul Jay Daly. It's come out here. They're talking about EV service, wells, Honda selling some insurance and Walmart go just in the search bar. Goodbye in their app. Not Yet when they see me soon, but close. I have a very real and present story to share about that one

Kyle Mountsier:

real and present danger as

Paul J Daly:

it Wow. My mind got blown this morning by chat GPT, oh, yeah, that's impressed to do with this story. I know, I know. I like it. It's hard to do these days when you use a lot,

Kyle Mountsier:

right? Yeah, where it's like, Oh, you just came up with the new thing that

Paul J Daly:

you're feeling exactly right when you used to anything a lot. Like, I've seen it before me. I'm like, You

Kyle Mountsier:

know what's interesting? This is a random I've noticed GPT using less emojis recently. Like, I wonder if someone was like, You know what we should dial that?

Paul J Daly:

What are those lines that they use. What's that? The HR line breaks? Yeah, can figure that out. Those,

Kyle Mountsier:

oh, the M dashes, M dash. There's a whole debate on that right now, like on the internet, it's like all these people that are writers and like, have been using them for years, because actually, how

Paul J Daly:

move on the cheat, the cheese has gotten moved. The cheese has moved. You can't use them. Love the way things get communicated with an M dash, because it's how I think, right? It's like, yeah, it's like a thought, and then it's kind of a little tangential thought, yeah, right to the original, yeah, not as informal as the triple, as the ellipsis, no, and the parentheses really doesn't fit. It's now, I know those poor writers, ah, it's over, so frustrated over all right, Nathan's telling us we have to get it because we're actually going into clubhouse. Wow, we used to be in clubhouse five days a week, and we're going to David Long's all things, used car clubhouse right after this show, which is in 11 minutes from now, which means we have to be done this show in less than 10 minutes because I have to re download the app. Watch us roll. Here we go. Watch, watch, actually, should I actually look at the app store right now? Do you have the app on your phone? Did you do? I'm there, you know. Let me

Kyle Mountsier:

know. Just talk about EVs. We'll be fine, fam.

Paul J Daly:

I have to update. There you go. We're updating, so we're one step ahead, all right. Well, electric vehicle, Oh, that. I can relate to this one. I got a story for this one too. All these personal issues in my life today, electric vehicle sales hit a new high in the first half of 2025 but the surge is putting pressure on service departments, nature nationwide, according to CDK Global's EV ownership study, more EVs are hitting the service lane, and owners are increasingly frustrated with the experience. I can raise my hand there. Q2 EV sales rose nearly 5% over q1 only 28% of EV owners reported same day service in 2024 which is down from 40% in 2023 so that's almost that's like a 40 drop in the 40 that's good. 85% No, it's

Kyle Mountsier:

not. Oh no, it's no, the it's the other way. Oh, they can't get

Paul J Daly:

only 28% instead of 40% 85% of new EV owners needed dealership service in year one, often for recalls or minor repairs. Multiple visits are becoming common. 34% of non Tesla owners said service took longer than it would have for gas vehicles with 21% saying it took four visits or more. Our friend David Thomas of CDK said quote, We know dealers are prepared for EV service, but these numbers are getting worse. Is not a good sign, as more non Tesla EVs are on the road than ever before.

Kyle Mountsier:

This is what's crazy like. The reality is you should have less need for service in year one with any EV, because you don't have fluids to change the first year, unless you're just wearing out your you know, unless you have

Paul J Daly:

minor, minor, minor recalls. And entirely, I think, Well, I think to some of these, that's the scary part, right? Yeah, I drive, as some people know, enough 2022, f1 50 lightning, and there are just some little things that have happened to it because, and I think it's because it's like a newer vehicle, right? Let me tell you my service experience so far at four dealerships has been terrible, looking at you. So I actually ended up getting my my solution fixed, my problem fixed at an independent dealer. I paid out of pocket because my because I couldn't wait that long, because it was an actual issue with the thing. It was making this ridiculous clunking noise, and like, there's a bolt, a torque spec on a bolt was wrong. So like, the whole front end was, like, it sounded terrible. I went to one Ford dealership. The service advisor gave me the third degree, first of all, because they didn't buy the truck there. And then gave me the fourth degree because I bought an EV, and apparently all EVs were junk in his mind. And this is the Ford service advisor. Oh, he's like, I can get you in three weeks. All right, I'll call the other Ford dealership. That Ford dealership told me that the wait for the f1 50 lightning, right, was about four or five weeks, because EV certified tech, exactly. Even though the problem had nothing. Thing to do with the electrical component of vehicle, Yep, yeah, that's not, I mean, it's a terrible ownership experience. So I they this problem doesn't need to be fixed. And, I mean, the industry will fix it.

Kyle Mountsier:

But I mean, and if you buy a Tesla or rivian or something like that, fat chance of you getting your vehicle service anywhere near you, unless you're in a major metro. I don't know,

Paul J Daly:

though, because Tesla. No, seriously, maybe Tesla. Maybe Tesla. I mean, we struggle. Syracuse is in a major market. We have a big Tesla service station, and they deploy service vehicles out of that station. So

Kyle Mountsier:

Syracuse is a fairly major market. Don't try and go into a rural market, though, like you gotta be in an urban setting.

Paul J Daly:

What do they call them? Tesla Rangers? Yeah, that's, that's pretty appropriate. I wonder if they have a uniform, yeah, have a uniform, yeah, I don't know. Probably gotta

Kyle Mountsier:

fix our buddy Ben went three hours to go find his rivian service. Oh gosh, that

Paul J Daly:

was on the way home because his battery reading was wrong. After they start with, yeah, all right,

Kyle Mountsier:

what a mess. I still love my truck. I'm glad. Let's

Paul J Daly:

talk about insurance Honda is taking a big step into the insurance space with the launch of Honda insurance solutions, a licensed agency designed to offer customers competitive, convenient coverage as part of their overall ownership experience, available now in all 50 states. The Platform provides quotes from top carriers like Viu hub, Omni channel, insurance brokerage platform, basically, they're backed by one of the largest personal insurance brokers. Customers can shop for coverage on their cars, RVs, motorcycles, even their home. It's also going all in on the insurance thing. An OEM parts coverage option helps protect the vehicle by using only Honda incura, genuine parts future plans include full integration into Honda inaccuracy digital sales ecosystem, so buy it all at once, right? Peter vukovarik, president of America, Honda insurance solutions says, quote, insurance is a key touch point in the vehicle ownership journey, promoting safer driving and increased peace of mind. It makes sense to bring it all together if they

Kyle Mountsier:

can. Yeah. I mean, the you know, this is one of those like, Okay, we're gonna go find some money somewhere else. And absolutely, can make this white label solution of another broker. And so, you know, my question is always like, are customers actually going to interact with this? You know, I just bought a Toyota. Same thing. I get an email. So Toyota has something very similar, where they where they're reselling insurance, you know? So multiple manufacturers have been doing this. The question is, is whether there's adoption ready enough for it. The the one that's really interesting to me is, like, full integration into the digital sales ecosystem. That's it. That's, I mean, if

Paul J Daly:

you could sell this at the F ideal, if you sell the F and I desk, here's your payment, here's your payment, including insurance.

Kyle Mountsier:

Oh, yeah, and there's already dealers doing this. I mean, it makes, it makes so much sense. It does. You know, as long as you can, like, provide some Fe F and I, you know,

Paul J Daly:

Chris chiming in the live stream, OEM needs to be in the insurance business when they launch full autonomous driving vehicles. That's the truth, for sure. It'll be much more streamlined and much better for consumers. Speaking of more streamlined stuff, oh, segway, we're doing

Kyle Mountsier:

good. We got three minutes. Walmart is doubling down on its AI transformation with a roll out of Sparky, a next not a dog, uh, a next gen digital shopping agent set to replace traditional search. The move marks the retail giant's most aggressive bet yet on the AI first future Sparky will handle everything from grocery reorders to furnishing entire apartments based on budget and preferences. The new interface will be multimodal, supporting force images and video to try and mirror natural human shopping behaviors and eliminate the need for keyword searches. Walmart's AI framework includes four agents. Actually, there's sparkly, that's the consumer facing model Marty, which is for suppliers and advertisers, an associate agent and a developer agent. The CTO Harry Vasudev said we expect that the search bar will be replaced by this multimodal interface in Sparky, I

Paul J Daly:

need to have a conversation with the brand marketing messaging team on this one. How are you going to have Sparky, which is like the little star in the Walmart Marty, and you're not going to have Wally? How is that even possible? Wally? Marty is Sparky. It's like, that's our logo. That's it is. That's a big miss. But I think this is a very this should be a shot across the bow for anybody who thinks about search based intent, and we've been having this conversation this morning, uh, chat. GPT agent mode is now available to everyone with a teams. So I tried it for the first time, and I need to get my driveway seal coded. So I was like, perfect. I was like, find me reputable seal coders in the Syracuse market, and give me three options based on reviews and what you you know how well they can do the job. It gave me three I said, go and fill out contact forms. And it took forever, by the way, but, oh, it takes I video it every but it filled out the first contact form. No problem. The second one, the website's architecture. It actually told me why the website architecture would. Not letting it do it. It wouldn't let it copy paste, and then it said, Let me type it manually. And then it wouldn't work. And then it wouldn't work. I was like, skip it. Go to the next one. The next one didn't have a clearly identifiable form on the site. And it says, Would you like me to try to call them or send them an email? It could have done that. But I was like, done. So the first site, it's like, oh, well, that site was super friendly. It was done in like, a minute. And so this, this like, when agents are doing the work for you, the whole game is about to change. You

Kyle Mountsier:

know? What's crazy? The hardest thing an agent has to do is find its way to an iframed modal in a website that isn't native to the site's content architecture.

Paul J Daly:

You know? One other thing, it says, Watch out automotive. I was like, I thought about, like, what it would be like if we had searched for a car, and immediately my mom was like, this, it's gonna be a total disaster. Especially

Kyle Mountsier:

I know someone that tried it yesterday, and they were like, don't even let it, don't even let

Paul J Daly:

it try and worthless. It's literally worthless. The one thing it said is that the site uses dynamic structuring, which is making it difficult for me to navigate the site. Wow. I know. So interesting. I know. Well, there you go. It's coming. So you didn't hear it first listen. We're on our way over to David Long's all things, used cars, clubhouse room. Come over to clubhouse and join us. If you're on the live stream. We'll continue the conversation there. Until then, it's Friday. Make sure you get ready for this weekend. Get everybody ready. Get the people ready. We'll see you tomorrow. You

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Kyle Mountsier

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Paul J Daly

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