Tech Brew keeps business leaders up-to-date on the latest innovations, automation advances, policy shifts, and more, so they can make informed decisions about tech.

Tech Brew

Automobiles

Jordyn Grzelewski

techbrew.com

CEOs of some of the biggest companies in the US have been outspoken of late about the ways they believe AI will disrupt workforces.

“AI is going to change literally every job,” Walmart CEO Doug McMillon 

Ford CEO Jim Farley echoed those remarks at an event in Detroit this week.

“The efficiency and automation always rips through our economy. And it will take jobs away from all sectors of the economy,” he said, speaking at a summit Ford hosted called Accelerate the Essential Economy. “Listen to what the CEO of Walmart said this week.”

US Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, speaking at the same event, offered a more optimistic view on how the technology stands to affect US workers.

“I don’t think it’s a hollowing out of anything. I really think it’s just a shift change, no different than the industrial age, no different than the technology age,” she said. “We will adapt.”

US workers must not only adapt, but lead the way on AI adoption, Chavez-DeRemer argued: “Because if America doesn’t do it, another country will. And that’s what the president wants, is to be dominant in AI.”

Chavez-DeRemer was one of dozens of government and business leaders on hand on Tuesday to talk about the “essential economy,” made up of roles like construction workers, electricians, and plumbers. In a 

, Farley pointed to a shortage of 600,000 factory workers and 500,000 construction workers in the US. One of the themes of the event was how to attract workers to these unfilled jobs, especially amid an AI-fueled data center boom.

“The narrative for the last 30 years has been, ‘Go out and get that four-year degree,’” Chavez-DeRemer said. “But to counter that 30-year narrative, now, for people to understand that there’s pride in building back America, that’s what this administration is doing. And so my part of the…equation is to make sure that we’re upskilling and reskilling the American worker, and letting businesses know that we’re here to help.”

Chavez-DeRemer touted opportunities in the skilled trades, like well-paying jobs, in addition to efforts by the Trump administration to support training programs. The Department of Labor recently awarded $86 million in grants to 14 states to support investments in skills training programs.

“We are not here to displace the American workforce at all,” Chavez-DeRemer said, “but we want to give them the tools so that they can be proficient and literate to move along with what is here to stay.”

 about the ways he believes AI could disrupt the white-collar workforce in the US, but said he sees 

 for blue-collar workers to benefit from the tech’s growth.

“When I look at the AI solutions that get pitched to Ford, they’re all about white-collar efficiency,” he said. “Very few AI companies come to us and say, ‘We want to dramatically help your efficiency repairing cars or your factory workers.’”

But it’s up to local communities, small businesses, corporate leaders, government officials, and other stakeholders to come together and make sure demand for “essential economy” jobs aligns with the workforce, he argued.

“We have to put some points on the board here,” he said. “And if Ford has to take the lead or other companies have to take the lead, if we have to sacrifice our short-term profitability to put more people in the workforce as apprentices, I think we’re going to have to.”

Lori Chavez-DeRemer, United States Secretary of Labor, spoke about the Essential Economy labor shortage at the Ford Pro Accelerate event on Sept. 30.

‘We will adapt’ to AI in the workforce, US labor secretary says

US Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer participated in an event hosted by Ford on the “essential economy.”

Back in 2023, BMW was widely panned for its plan to offer heated seats as a paid subscription.

Steve Basra, Google Cloud’s global head of automotive, believes that the tides have turned since then on what consumers are willing to pay extra for, upending automakers’ plans to create new subscription-based revenue streams.

“Subscription fatigue is definitely a real thing after Covid,” Basra said. “Customers are less willing to pay for things that they believe they should just get when they buy the second most expensive thing in their life.” After a home, that would be a new vehicle, which costs an average of nearly $50,000 in today’s market.

But Basra is bullish on automakers using AI to personalize and improve the in-vehicle experience, thereby creating a value proposition consumers can’t deny.

“A lot of the transformation hasn’t been achieved, and I think AI is the one technology that is going to transform the industry,” Basra said of the industry’s long-hyped transition to EVs and 

Tech Brew recently caught up with Basra, an auto industry veteran who spent 25 years at Toyota, at Google’s Detroit office, where he explained how Google Cloud is helping automotive clients implement AI across their value chains.

The auto industry’s product planning and development cycles are notoriously long, historically taking several years to bring a new vehicle to market. This is one area where Basra pointed to the potential for AI to help automakers save time and money, citing EV battery research as an example.

“When you get a direction from the company that says, ‘We want to start working on the next generation of EV batteries,’ the first step [is] a lot of research. What are the Chinese doing? What are other competitors doing? What are the latest technologies? What are the latest patents? That can take a lot of time,” he said.

Google Cloud offers its Gemini Deep Research 

, which Basra said can collect, collate, and summarize data in ways he claimed could cut research time down by months.

The US auto industry collectively spends tens of billions of dollars per year on warranty claims. This nagging issue is another opportunity, as Basra sees it, for AI to help reduce costs.

Google Cloud’s Manufacturing Data Engine tool connects factory floors with the cloud, which Basra said can help automakers catch issues like battery defects and paint anomalies before vehicles get shipped out.

“Using vision systems at the point of manufacturing to make sure that the batteries are manufactured in the correct way is one area that we’re investigating with an OEM,” he said.

, manufacturers like GM say they’re implementing AI to make their plants safer and more efficient, and to improve quality. One representative application uses AI to inspect weld and paint jobs.

Then, of course, there are the customer-facing AI use cases. Google Cloud’s Automotive AI Agent is being used by automakers including Mercedes-Benz to improve voice control and act as in-vehicle assistants.

Google Cloud revealed the product in January, describing it as “a new way for automakers to create helpful generative AI experiences” and to let automakers “create highly personalized and intuitive in-car agents that go beyond current vehicle voice control.”

And last year, Volkswagen announced that, in partnership with Google Cloud, it was introducing a GenAI-powered virtual assistant designed to give drivers “intuitive access to critical vehicle information and services.”

Basra posited that an AI agent could improve the in-vehicle experience for drivers, for example, by automatically opening the trunk when they approach with shopping bags in hand or notifying someone they’re meeting for lunch that they’ve hit traffic and are going to be late.

“You’ve got an assistant that sits with you in the car, that takes care of all that hassle,” he said. “That is the experience, I believe, that people want, and that’s the experience they expect from these agents.”

The transition to EVs and software-defined vehicles may be taking longer than expected, but Basra said he views AI as something that will force legacy automakers to catch up.

“I think without AI, they would have really struggled against the Chinese OEMs and the new OEMs that are coming in,” Basra said. “This gives them the opportunity to compete with these companies.”

A photo composite of a manufactory worker, a car panel with a screen on the dashboard and a table of people planning overlaid with binary code. 

Google Cloud aims to help automakers be more competitive in the age of AI

The head of Google Cloud’s auto business pointed to areas of the value chain where AI can make a difference.

The Covid pandemic’s effects continue to reverberate throughout the automotive industry—namely, in supply-chain management.

Automakers have long had close working relationships with Tier 1 suppliers—the companies that directly supply them with components. But up until the start of the pandemic and the ensuing semiconductor shortage, their view into the network of smaller sub-tier suppliers was more opaque, Jeff Morrison, GM’s SVP of global purchasing and supply chain, told Tech Brew.

“What we really learned with Covid was, we have to take it to a whole next level,” he said.

So in 2022, the automaker worked with its suppliers (of which it has roughly 18,000 around the world) to launch a suite of 

 to improve visibility and resiliency and mitigate risks. They include:

A supply-chain mapping tool based on data from global suppliers

“SupplyHealth,” a tool that monitors thousands of sites to identify potential risks

A communications platform that notifies employees when risks have been identified

And a “risk intelligence” system that uses machine learning and AI to tag public posts that could represent risks in GM’s supply chain.

A view of the SupplyMap tool that's part of a suite of AI-enhanced tools GM uses to monitor its supply chain.

“The first thing that we did was we mapped the supply chain down to a level that we haven’t done before,” Sean Gaskin, a systems engineer who helped develop the tools, said.

“We can actually use various machine learning techniques and various disclosures from our suppliers to do that. In the automotive supply chain, a lot of the networks themselves are confidential in nature. They’re protected by NDAs,” he added. “So it gets a little hard to surveil that on the public internet, but you can work with your suppliers as partners, and they will disclose their supply chain to you, and then you can actually start to help them mitigate risk themselves.”

The risk intelligence system, Gaskin said, allows risk analysts to avoid looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack.

“The machine learning algorithms and the large language models are helping them identify those needles without looking at the large bale of hay,” he said. “Once we train those models on those risk signals, the machine goes to work and surveils the news for any risk that we might have.”

Getting suppliers on board was no small feat.

“It’s not easy just to say, ‘This is a requirement; please now disclose all the way down, as far as you can, all this data and information,’” Morrison said. “We find it’s more powerful and impactful when they actually need our help.”

Pandemic-related disruptions spurred GM to dig deeper into its supplier network. It helped that the automaker was able to come to the table with resources that OEMs have greater access to, Morrison said, like connections with government officials.

“As you can imagine, when you ask a Tier 1 supplier to provide their Tier-n information, that’s very, very sensitive information for them. It’s a competitive advantage,” Morrison said, referring to sub-tier suppliers. “So we’ve also worked hard to have trust in a relationship and actually be a good partner so they’ll work with us to disclose that.”

The new system has helped GM respond to the Trump administration’s 

, including avoiding downtime at plants due to China’s move to 

“When you get into some of the details and intricacies of trade, we can look at that early on and say, ‘OK, we understand you’ve got tariff risk. We see it,’” Morrison said. “And then we’re in a better position. We can start the conversation earlier about, what can we do to mitigate it?”

How GM is using AI to keep supply chains intact and factories running

GM worked with its global suppliers after the start of the pandemic to get better insight into its supply chain.

TBR-Rare Earth minerals audio embed

Add “rare earth minerals” to the list of suddenly inescapable terms, alongside “

That’s because in April, China made these materials subject to export controls in response to new tariffs implemented by the US. Cue 

, which needs rare earth minerals for myriad vital components, from electric motors for EVs and oil pumps to catalytic converters and windshield wipers—and which is almost entirely reliant on China to supply them.

China controls nearly 60% of rare earths mining and nearly 90% of the processing capacity in the world, according to AlixPartners.

“It’s integral to the production of the vehicle,” C.J. Finn, PwC’s US automotive industry leader, told Tech Brew. “The OEMs and the suppliers [are] all very much looking at identifying what alternatives may be available to them.”

But even as the industry looks for near-term solutions to avoid production stoppages, experts say that a long-term fix may be tricky—and largely dependent on politics.

“There’s really no getting away from China in the near term,” Mark Wakefield, global automotive market lead at AlixPartners, said. “Really there has to be a political solution.”

Chinese export restrictions apply to seven rare earth elements (gadolinium, yttrium, and five other elements that end in -ium) and rare earth magnets. Companies that want to export the minerals must apply for licenses, a process that is reportedly slow, complicated, and 

 by a small group of Chinese bureaucrats.

“The application process for export permits for various rare earths by our suppliers, which has been in place since April, is complex and time-consuming—partly due to the collection and provision of a large amount of data,” automotive supplier Bosch said in a statement.

Some of the industries most susceptible to supply chain disruptions due to the restrictions include automotive, consumer electronics, and medical devices, according to an analysis by supply chain risk management software company Everstream Analytics.

Auto industry stakeholders in the US and Europe have been 

, though Everstream so far hasn’t seen signs of major stoppages.

 Bloomberg News that the automaker is struggling with rare earths, saying: “It’s day to day. We have had to shut down factories. It’s hand-to-mouth right now.”

That’s despite China granting temporary export licenses to the suppliers of the top US automakers, 

. Ford reportedly shuttered production at its Chicago Assembly Plant, which produces the Explorer SUV, for a week in May because of the issue.

At a recent automotive tech conference in Michigan, executives at major suppliers, including Aptiv and ZF North America, acknowledged the seriousness of the issue and said they were focused on finding sourcing alternatives outside of China.

Jena Santoro, global lead of research and analytics at Everstream, told Tech Brew that leaders of the industries most affected by the export restrictions are likely awaiting details from recent US-China negotiations.

“All we know is that the two sides…reportedly reached an agreement…but the details were not disclosed of what that agreement entailed,” she said. “There was some ambiguous language that was shared, which is basically that China has agreed to ease the licensing requirements and expedite the licensing to some trusted US companies.”

Expediting license approvals, she said, should speed up a process that currently takes an average of 45 days.

“But we don’t know what, exactly, the new timeframe would be,” she added. “And then we don’t really know what ‘trusted US companies’ means to China, and who will be considered a trusted company or trusted industry and who will not.”

 to source rare earth magnets outside of China and to develop components with less or no rare earth content. Efforts are also underway to establish processing capabilities elsewhere.

But experts say, given the long lead time on such projects, the world will remain reliant on China for rare earth mineral mining and refining for years to come partially due to where these elements naturally occur.

“While some countries have initiatives on the way to increase rare earth mining, refining as well as magnet production, setting up new rare earth supply chains outside of China is going to take time, leaving many companies exposed to further production disruptions for the foreseeable future,” per Everstream’s analysis.

AlixPartners estimates it would take three to five years to establish new refining capacity in other regions, even with strong governmental support.

And regardless of trade negotiations, Santoro said, the issue will remain a challenge because the export controls are expected to stay.

“Negotiations need to take place, and there needs to be some sort of concessions made by the US to entice China or coerce China to allow these exports to take place, because they really have a stronghold on the resources,” she said.

A collage featuring a white SUV and a pile of rare earth minerals

Why auto industry anxiety over rare earth minerals may not dissipate any time soon

Though auto companies are scrambling to avoid near-term production disruptions, experts say the industry will be reliant on China for critical raw materials for years to come.

President Donald Trump has touted his tariff regime as a way to bring back domestic manufacturing jobs—but experts say it’s not that simple.

 on all vehicle imports is that they’ll prompt automakers to invest in US manufacturing, and therefore create new jobs in an industry that has suffered steep job losses over the last few decades.

But a number of factors stand in the way of this vision. Not only would it take years and billions of dollars to build new auto plants in the US, but the industry already struggles to attract the skilled labor it requires—and in recent years has turned to automation to meet its needs.

“Ostensibly, the automotive tariffs are designed to reshore manufacturing, and this, in theory, would lead to more jobs,” Mika Takahashi, a technology analyst at IDTechEx, told Tech Brew via email. “However, the situation is more complicated than that for several reasons.”

One of the major barriers is the time and investment required to move production to the US. Takahashi noted that, given the “significant amount of capital” needed to build new plants, many auto executives are opting to hold off until there’s greater policy certainty.

Swamy Kotagiri, CEO of automotive supplier Magna, 

 at an event in April that the manufacturer’s global footprint was unlikely to change in the near term, emphasizing his view that the industry shouldn’t be reactive.

“Is there a chance in the short to medium term to look at balancing capacities where possible? Yes,” he said. But building a new plant would take about two years, and Magna was not considering any long-term strategy changes at that time.

 that most companies are unlikely to reshore supply chains because of the steep costs of doing so.

, which represents hundreds of thousands of autoworkers in the US, has called on domestic automakers to crank up some of the unused capacity in their US plants. The union recently published a white paper citing industry data indicating that the US auto industry had the capacity to build more than 14.7 million vehicles last year, but ultimately only built 10.2 million.

“We don’t need to break ground on a single new plant to rapidly grow auto manufacturing capacity—it’s already right in front of us, in the plants we've built, the skills of our members, and the communities that depend on these jobs,” UAW President Shawn Fain said in a statement. “Instead of offshoring jobs to low-wage, high-exploitation countries, auto companies must invest here at home and rebuild the middle class with union labor.”

Some experts, however, say it’s not so simple.

“Just because the capacity is there doesn’t mean [it] could be filled,” Sam Fiorani, VP of global vehicle forecasting at AutoForecast Solutions, 

 the Detroit Free Press. “Much of the current level of employment in the industry is due to the increased automation, a point that the UAW doesn’t want to acknowledge. It takes fewer people to make a vehicle today.”

Another one of the challenges is the cost of labor, and a lack of skilled labor in a low-unemployment economy.

“US labor remains much higher cost, and it may simply be uneconomical even with tariffs to produce low-cost models in the US,” Takahashi said.

More than a fifth of respondents to CNBC’s survey said that finding skilled labor was a roadblock to reshoring supply chains. More than 80% of respondents said they would use automation more than human workers if they were to boost US manufacturing.

Kotagiri, too, acknowledged this challenge and noted that it was a 

 for the industry at the start of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Over the last 10 years we’ve done a lot in robotic programming, controls, and mechatronics, and [it’s] still not enough for us. And during Covid, when we started having the churn of people, it became a huge issue,” he said. “That is a huge, huge challenge that’s not being talked about.”

Already, factories are heavily automated and employ robotics alongside human workers. A recent survey from QNX found that 30% of respondents in the North American auto industry use robotics in their organization. In 2024, the US auto industry’s installations of industrial robots climbed 10.7%, according to the International Federation of Robotics.

Collaborative robots “enable these companies to scale operations more efficiently and cost-effectively, helping bridge the gap between labor shortages and growing production demands,” Takahashi said.

Gene Berdichevsky, co-founder and CEO of 

, told Tech Brew that he doesn’t believe the tariffs will lead to a boom in general assembly manufacturing jobs.

“It’s a joke, and I don’t think anyone in the administration or in the world assumes that we’re going to have Americans screwing together iPhones. That’s not what’s going to happen,” he said. “General assembly will have to be automated if it’s going to reshore.”

Car workers fitting bonnets to cars on production line in car factory. 

Why Trump’s tariffs may not lead to a domestic manufacturing renaissance

“The automotive tariffs are designed to reshore manufacturing,” according to one analyst. “However, the situation is more complicated than that.”

Forget about easing into the new year––come the first full week of January, we’ll be headed to Vegas for CES, the tech industry’s biggest trade show.

The 2025 show runs from January 7–10 and, as usual, the week is jam-packed with keynote speeches, informational sessions, and exhibits on the latest tech innovations. Some of the keynote speakers this year are Delta CEO Ed Bastian, Volvo Group CEO Martin Lundstedt, Accenture CEO Julie Sweet, and Nvidia CEO and founder Jensen Huang.

Tech Brew is sending its transportation reporter to CES this year, so we’ve rounded up some of the mobility tech themes we’ll be keeping an eye on.

Major manufacturers––from Tier 1 automotive suppliers like Continental and Magna to OEMs like Honda and Toyota to industrial equipment bigwigs like John Deere and Caterpillar––will be there.

Hundreds of other exhibitors in the vehicle tech and advanced mobility sector will be there, too, from EV charging companies to AV sensor startups.

The schedule is chock full of mobility-focused sessions, including a presentation about how to use AI and data analytics to help address slower EV demand, a discussion led by Cox Automotive on the EV future, and opportunities around 5G.

And just a brief glance at our overflowing inboxes tells us we can expect autonomy-related announcements, at least one new EV charger debut, updates on cybersecurity software for the auto industry, a look at Sony Honda Mobility’s Afeela EV prototype, and much more.

We’ll also be listening for any discussions related to 

 under the next Trump administration, like threats of new tariffs, changes to federal 

, and nixing at least some parts of the Inflation Reduction Act.

“I’m sure those discussions will be going on in the background and maybe even in the foreground,” Sam Abuelsamid, a principal research analyst at Guidehouse Insights, told us. “There’s a lot of uncertainty right now.”

There’s a lot happening in the AV space, from the prospect of the incoming Trump administration 

 a federal regulatory framework for self-driving vehicles that could speed their deployment to 

Jeremy Carlson, who leads autonomous driving research for S&P Global Mobility’s automotive team, told us he’ll be paying attention to the AV tech automotive suppliers have on display, since they’re generally working on products several years in advance and ahead of their automaker customers.

Another theme to watch: any updates around the capabilities of 

, including the Level 2+ and Level 3 systems many automakers are focused on.

“There’s a huge amount happening [with lower levels of autonomy], and that is a little less exciting because it’s a little less revolutionary,” Carlson said. “It is big-scale and it is relatively lucrative for automakers and the supply chain. A lot of those then lead us into things like connected services and updates for those vehicles over wi-fi or over the air, delivering new functionality.”

Abuelsamid has been to CES at least 10 times over the years, so he’s well-versed in the ins and outs of the show. This year, he expects a focus on the various ways that technology can improve the 

Examples might include in-cabin sensing (for example, tech that can detect whether a child is in the back seat), next-generation driver monitor systems that are getting increasingly better at detecting whether drivers are fully engaged, improved navigation systems, and 

“The user experience in the vehicle is maybe kind of the overarching theme,” he said.

The mobility tech we’ll be keeping an eye on at CES 2025

The in-vehicle user experience, automated driving, and improved navigation systems are just a few of the mobility tech trends Tech Brew will be watching at CES 2025.

From Wall Street to Detroit to Silicon Valley, all eyes will be on the Warner Brothers lot in Burbank, California, on October 10, when Tesla is slated to reveal its highly anticipated robotaxi.

The event could mark a major step forward for CEO Elon Musk’s efforts to turn the electric-vehicle maker into an AI and robotics company worthy of a $1 trillion-plus valuation. But given the 

 of deploying autonomous vehicles at scale—as well as Tesla’s own spotty track record on 

—it’s also sure to generate a lot of questions.

“It’s a big deal,” Ram Machness, chief business officer at radar technology company Arbe, told Tech Brew. “Everybody is looking at it.”

 including growing competition, recent financial results that underwhelmed Wall Street, and scrutiny into its self-driving vehicle tech. It also comes just before the company reports Q3 earnings on October 23.

The reveal is expected to have a significant impact on Tesla’s stock.

In a July research note following the news that Tesla was delaying the event from August to October, Wedbush Securities analysts wrote that they “believe a linchpin to Tesla reaching $1 trillion-plus valuation and ultimately higher over the next year is contingent on the AI/[Full Self-Driving] story materializing into a monetization path over the coming years.”

On the company’s Q2 earnings call, Musk reiterated his view that “the biggest differentiator for Tesla is autonomy.”

With all of that in mind, here are a few themes to watch for come October 10. (Tesla didn’t respond to a request for comment.)

One of the things Machness and his peers in the AV sector will be watching for is whether Tesla continues to rely heavily on cameras as the sensors for its self-driving tech system.

 of many of its competitors, which use sensors like radars and lidar (light detection and ranging) in addition to cameras. Musk has called lidar a “crutch,” though it was 

 earlier this year that Tesla is actually a major customer of lidar company Luminar.

“All the players that tried, all the players today that are in the market, all the players that are planning to be in the market, all the players that were in the market and exited the market, are saying that cameras alone will not solve this problem,” Machness said. “[Tesla] did an amazing job with the camera. But you must have a different, independent sensor on top of the camera. I don’t know anyone that disputes it.”

Machness expects the event to be closely watched both by legacy automakers who are developing autonomous driving features for personal vehicles, as well as by robotaxi companies like Waymo and Cruise.

“Is it really going to be autonomous? Or how autonomous is autonomous? That’s one of the biggest questions that everybody is looking to answer,” he said.

Tesla calls its semi-autonomous vehicle system “Full Self-Driving,” but the technology does not, in fact, enable full self-driving; it requires supervision from the driver.

Leaf Jiang, founder of NODAR, which develops 3D vision systems for AVs, said he’ll be curious to see if Tesla takes similar creative license with how it defines what a robotaxi is.

“I think there’s a lot of folks that would be shocked to see an L4 vehicle coming out of Tesla, without any sort of indication that they’re close to that,” Jiang said, referring to the level of vehicle autonomy that does not require human supervision.

Wall Street already is pressing Musk on when its robotaxi will be ready to hit the road. During Q2 earnings, he said that 2025 “seems highly probable,” but Tesla is notorious for blowing deadlines.

And some investment analysts appear to be concerned that regulatory approvals could hamper the timing of the rollout. On the July call, analysts quizzed Musk about what type of approvals the company would need. There have been signals that the robotaxi could be built without a steering wheel or pedals, which would require Tesla to secure a Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards exception—something that’s tripped up some of its competitors.

Musk claimed that regulatory approval would not be a “limiting factor,” but some analysts remain skeptical.

Whatever else is revealed, Machness and Jiang emphasized that it’s crucial for Tesla to demonstrate that its product is 100% safe, especially given some major setbacks both Tesla and some of its competitors in the AV sector recently have faced.

“It needs to be 100% safe. Not 95%. Not 96%. Not 97%,” Machness said. “That’s a tough bar to achieve. So, I think that’s what everybody on the autonomous side will be looking for.”

Correction 10/03/24: This piece has been updated to correct the date Tesla is scheduled to release its third-quarter 2024 earnings.

A coffee mug with the Tesla logo on it filled with a drink with a question mark in the milk