Trying to Catch Tesla, Travel Expectations Up, & Amazon Robots

The Automotive Troublemaker w/ Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier

We are winding down our time at the VADA convention and have been enamored by the energy and conversations here. Less than 2 weeks from now tickets for ASOTU CON will go on sale, but for now: the news. GM and Ford are racing to the top to take over Tesla, July 4th weekend looks like it will be a record for car travel, and Amazon has implemented their first full autonomous robot to hold down the warehouse floor.

• The Race for 2030, or is it the race for Tesla?
  • Ford’s approach: fewer, more intentional (and innovative, in their words) models
  • GM’s approach: wide range of EVs across the price spectrum.
  • A Ford spokesman said that “Customers are smart, and we trust them to discern true innovation versus future hype,” and that “We are happy to leave the old-school approach of flooding the zone with 10 mildly different mid-size SUVs to others.”
  • I thought, ‘Well, if the buses go electric, then the F-150 is going to go,’ Jim Farley said.
  • Take Away: After having learned the legislative side of things this week, we know that demand and production are not on level playing fields with each other from a consumer or political standpoint.
• Record travel expected for July 4th weekend
  • 42 Million people expected to hit the road for the holiday weekend
  • All airlines still expecting record travel this summer
  • Airline cancellations and troubles have been pushing more people to drive
  • Despite rising gas costs, Americans are still using disposable income for experience based travel
  • Take Away: If you haven’t started advertising Summer Travel Service Specials…..
• Amazon introduces its first ever fully autonomous mobile warehouse robot, Proteus
  • Designed to move large racks, these robots will share the floor w humans as opposed to previous robots who operated in their own caged areas
  • The robots robots have “advanced safety, perception, and navigation technology,”
  • Also showed off a new scanning tech for warehouse workers leveraging their “just walk out” tech featured in Amazon brick and mortar stores that allows workers to simply move packages from one place to another without scanning them
  • Take Away: Necessity is the mother of invention

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Hosts: Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier
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