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Description
Collaboration through connection.
Hosted by Paul J Daly, Kyle Mountsier, and Michael Cirillo, Auto Collabs is your connect point to the human side of the retail automotive industry: what motivates its leaders, how they navigate change, and what keeps them pushing forward. It’s beyond-the-business-card conversations with real people powering dealerships, technology platforms, and everything in between.
From the team behind the More Than Cars movement, this podcast is built on one big belief: thriving people create thriving businesses. With candid conversations, industry insight, and just enough unfiltered banter to keep things interesting, Auto Collabs delivers authentic stories that inspire real collaboration.
// Auto Collabs is produced by Automotive State of the Union (ASOTU). Learn more at https://www.asotu.com
206 Episodes
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Send us a text Recorded live at the Alliance for Automotive Innovation's The Merge 2025, this episode features Drew Ferguson, Senior Vice President of Government Affairs for Hyundai, Kia, and Genesis, sharing a deeply personal view of what automotive investment really means for American communities. From his hometown of West Point, Georgia—once devastated by the collapse of textiles—to the arrival of Hyundai’s manufacturing footprint, Ferguson explains how advanced auto plants don’t just buil...
Send us a text Recorded live at Merge 2025, this episode of Auto Collabs features Congresswoman Debbie Dingell of Michigan, a lifelong advocate for the auto industry and someone whose personal and professional history is deeply tied to it. From growing up with “Body by Fisher” in her blood to working more than three decades in and around automotive before Congress, Dingell makes a clear case for why the automobile remains a backbone of the American economy—and why that reality is often undere...
Send us a text Recorded live at the Alliance for Automotive Innovation's the Merge 2025, this episode of Auto Collabs features Jason Hoff, CEO of Mercedes-Benz North America, sharing a clear look at where the brand is headed—and what that means for dealers. Hoff outlines the largest product launch cycle in Mercedes-Benz history, with nearly 40 models set to debut over the next three years, spanning both electric and internal combustion powertrains. His message is straightforward: customers wa...
Send us a text Recorded live at the Alliance for Automotive Innovation's the Merge 2025, this episode features Michael Dunne, one of the most respected global analysts on the Chinese auto industry. From his vantage point tracking China for decades, Dunne delivers a blunt assessment: the biggest issue facing the auto industry today isn’t EVs, autonomy, or affordability—it’s China, at a scale most Americans still don’t fully see. Dunne explains how Chinese automakers have gone from exporting ...
Send us a text Recorded live at Merge 2025, this episode of Auto Collabs features Jeff Walker, Chief Commercial Officer of SDVerse, unpacking one of the most important—but least understood—shifts happening inside modern vehicles: the move to truly software-defined architectures. Jeff explains why SDVerse was created by GM, Magna, and Wipro, and how the platform helps OEMs discover, evaluate, and scale software from startups and suppliers across the globe—without slowing innovation or inflatin...
Send us a text Recorded live at the Alliance for Automotive Innovation's The Merge 2025, this candid conversation with Senator Bernie Moreno offers a clear look at how quickly sentiment in the auto industry has shifted. Just eight months ago at the New York Auto Show, many in the room were worried about the direction of the market, from economic uncertainty to concerns over EV mandates. Moreno explains why those predictions didn’t play out, how easing regulatory pressure opened the door for m...
Send us a text If your dealership tech stack feels broken, Jason says there’s a reason—and the fix starts way upstream. In this episode, the crew sits down with Jason Tryfon, long-time automotive tech operator and now one of the leaders at Authenticom, the data connectivity company quietly powering huge chunks of the auto ecosystem. Jason walks through his “dinosaur” journey from carrying a bag at ADP/CDK to launching Vital Insights in 2005, scaling it to 52 countries on the back of simple ...
Send us a text This might be the definitive reboot in modern automotive. In this conversation, Ryan Decker pulls back the curtain on how Scout is shaping one of the most anticipated returns to market in modern history. From a hallway conversation to a full factory, two show vehicles, a new platform, and an entirely new sales model, Ryan explains how discipline, community, and creativity intersect to form a brand that already feels bigger than its product. He shares how engineering thinkin...
Send us a text Clean power is only half the story; affordability and access are the real battleground. Clean Power Alliance is reshaping how Southern California thinks about energy—not just by supplying cleaner power, but by redefining what a community-driven utility can look like. In this conversation, Kara Renée explains how a nonprofit energy provider has become the largest green-power supplier in the United States, securing decades-long renewable contracts, lowering volatility for custo...
Send us a text If you’ve ever wondered why some dealers win online and others don’t, it often comes down to one thing: who has better data. JATO might not be a household name for most people in automotive retail—but quietly, for 40 years, they’ve been the data backbone behind the industry’s biggest decisions. In this conversation, Head of Retail Paul Hilton reveals how JATO has become the global source of truth for vehicle specs, pricing, options, EV attributes, and competitive insights, fu...
Send us a text Most people think casinos and car dealerships live in different worlds. Until you hear Sal Scheri talk about guest experience. As COO of Agua Caliente Casinos, Sal lays out exactly why customers will drive past multiple competitors just to get to a place that consistently delivers a better feeling — and why most businesses still underestimate what “hospitality” actually means. From premium spas to high-energy gaming floors, Sal explains how his team builds sensory-driven ex...
Send us a text Autonomy isn’t the future of new cars—it might be the future of used cars too. A friend’s death pushed Will Bright to ask one question: Why don’t most cars on the road have the safety tech that could save lives? What he uncovered was staggering—road fatalities up 50% over the past decade, only 10% of vehicles equipped with modern pedestrian detection, and a 40+ year timeline before OEM technology reaches the full U.S. fleet. So he built Safe Ride: a palm-sized retrofit th...
Send us a text The biggest safety challenge Honda is tackling isn’t autonomy—it’s the way people actually drive. Honda has one of the boldest safety targets in the industry: zero traffic fatalities by 2050. It’s ambitious, but when you hear Brian Bautsch, Director of Safety Strategy, American Honda Motor Co., Inc., explain the three-part strategy behind it—technology, human behavior, and national partnerships—it starts to sound a lot more achievable. In this conversation, Brian shares how H...
Send us a text Everyone argues about electric cars — meanwhile, electric boats quietly solve problems the auto industry hasn’t touched. In this episode, we sit down with Mitch Lee, co-founder and CEO of Arc Boats, a company reshaping an industry most people assumed would be the last to electrify. Gas boats are famously loud, maintenance-heavy, unreliable, and inconvenient. Arc attacks all of that at once, building fully electric wake boats and center consoles that are quiet, clean, far more...
Send us a text This exclusive interview series from Automobility LA at the LA Auto Show is brought to you by Cars Commerce. Most people still think flying cars are science fiction. Pivotal is already delivering them — and you don’t even need a pilot’s license to fly one. In one of the most future-forward conversations of the LA Auto Show series, we sit down with Cal Cruickshank of Pivotal — the company bringing personal EVTOL aircraft out of the prototype phase and into real customers’ back...
Send us a text The car-buying journey has officially changed and it's nothing to do with dealers. It's because consumers are using AI long before they ever walk onto a lot. Live from Automobility LA, we sit down with Amie Lindaas, Director of Research and Insights at Cars Commerce, to uncover the truth about how consumers are actually shopping in 2025. Amie reveals a striking insight: 83% of shoppers have now used an AI tool, and nearly half have used one specifically for car shopping. That...
Send us a text The biggest mistake dealers make with AI? Treating it like a tool, not an ecosystem. Recorded live at Automobility LA, this conversation with Marianne Johnson (EVP & Chief Product Officer, Cox Automotive) and David Foutz (VP of Enterprise Client Management) cuts straight through the noise surrounding AI. Instead of buzzwords, they focus on what AI can actually do for dealers today — from hyper-personalized communication that lifts appointment conversion by 26%, to intellige...
Send us a text This exclusive interview series from Automobility LA at the LA Auto Show is brought to you by Cars Commerce. Everyone talks about EV adoption — but almost no one understands the brutal reality of actually powering the fleets that need to drive it. In this episode from the LA Auto Show, we sit down with Brett Hauser, Chairman & CEO of Voltera, to unpack one of the biggest bottlenecks in the EV transition: the infrastructure required to power commercial and autonomous fle...
Send us a text This exclusive interview series from Automobility LA at the LA Auto Show is brought to you by Cars Commerce. Everyone talks about electrification — but very few understand the data, speed, and intelligence driving it. JATO sits right at the center. Recorded live at Automobility LA, this episode features Luis Brizuela, Director of the Americas at JATO, one of the auto industry’s most trusted sources of competitive intelligence. Luis reveals how JATO aggregates specifications, ...
Send us a text This exclusive interview series from Automobility LA at the LA Auto Show is brought to you by Cars Commerce. Auto shows aren’t dying — they’re evolving. And according to someone who runs LA’s, they may be more important to the industry now than at any point in the last decade. Recorded live at the LA Auto Show, this episode goes behind the curtain with the person responsible for building one of the most influential automotive events in the world. Andy Steinhauser, Director of...
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