Auto News Weekly: 08/24 - 08/30

Hey LinkedIn fam! Welcome to week 5 of Auto News Weekly where we dive into 5 of the latest and greatest news, trends, and insights from this past week. As a Sr. Principal at Slalom Consulting, I do my best to keep my finger on the pulse of the industry, and this week's lineup is packed with innovation, collaboration, and a glimpse into the future of driving. From AI supercomputing powerhouses to Rivian production surge, it's clear the road ahead is as exciting as ever. Ready to dive in!? Let's go!

1. Lucid Motors and NVIDIA Collaboration - Lucid Motors 英伟达 #EV #innovation #technology #digital #slalomconsulting

Let's kick things off with news from the bay; rising EV OEM, Lucid Motors announced their partnership with none-other-than 英伟达 , the industries leading AI company. Lucid has integrated NVIDIA's DRIVE platform into its latest models, including the new Gravity SUV. This partnership aims to enhance Lucid's driver-assistance capabilities with AI-driven features, further solidifying its position in the luxury EV market.

What This Means:

Like most OEMs, NVIDIA is the desired partner when it comes to driver-assistance capabilities through AI. For the industry, this signals a shift towards more software-defined vehicles, where continuous updates keep vehicles at the forefront of innovation. It challenges other OEMs to step up their game in integrating AI and advanced tech into their offerings, raising the bar for luxury and performance in the EV market.

福特 CEO, Jim Farley recently highlighted, "The future of the automotive industry lies in its ability to transition from a hardware-driven to a software-driven business model. Software-defined vehicles will allow us to offer more personalized experienced, increase safety, and continuously improve our products even after they've left the factory."

As the shift continues, it presents significant opportunities for organizations like Slalom, for example, to support OEMs in managing the vast amounts of data generated by these vehicles, helping to ensure data quality, create actionable insights, and enable targeted marketing strategies that enhance customer engagement and brand loyalty. Our expertise in data analytics and AI integrations helps to transform OEMs to deliver exceptional and personalized customer experiences.

2. AWS and NVIDIA's Strategic Partnership - Amazon Web Services (AWS) 英伟达 #strategy #partnership #AWS #slalomconsulting #innovation #cloud #migration

Adding to the list of organizations partnering with NVIDIA, you have another powerhouse, Amazon Web Services (AWS) . AWS announced a collaboration with NVIDIA to offer new supercomputing infrastructure for GenAI. The partnership will provide AI-powered tools that enable automakers to develop cutting-edge autonomous driving systems, predictive maintenance solutions, and advanced customer engagement platforms.

What This Means:

The AWS-NVIDIA partnership is a game-changer, especially in developing AI-driven systems for autonomous driving and customer engagement. As OEMs increasingly shift towards software-defined vehicles, they will require robust cloud infrastructure and AI capabilities to process and analyze the enormous volumes of data generated by these vehicles. OEMs will need help not only implementing these solutions, but ensuring that data is not only collected but also transformed into actionable insights. These insights can be leveraged to enhance marketing strategies, improve customer experiences, and identify new ways to personalize experiences leading toward deeper engagement, resulting in retention and brand ambassadorship.

For marketing teams and agencies representing these OEMs, this shift presents both a challenge and a opportunity. The traditional approach to automotive marketing-largely centered around demographic data and generalized customer personas- will not be sufficient. To create truly personalized experiences, marketing teams must start asking the right questions about the data being collected by these vehicles. What insights can be provided from a customer's driving patterns, the features they frequently use, or the content they engage with through the infotainment system? Consider the impact based on some stats:

• McKinsey reported that data-driven organizations are 23x more likely to acquire customers, 6x as likely to retain customers, and 19x more likely to be profitable as a result
• According to Intel - the automotive industry is expected to generate 25GB of data per hour per connected car by 2025. This data provides a wealth of insights into consumer behavior, preferences, and needs, which can be harnessed for more targeted marketing strategies
• Salesforce found that 76% of consumers expect companies to understand their needs and expectations, and 57% are willing to share personal data in exchange for personalized offers or discounts

3. Rivian's Production Scale-Up - Rivian #supplychain #digital #innovation #supplyanddemand #slalomconsulting

Rivian is on the move with reports of a significant increase in production output, reflecting its efforts to scale up operations to meet growing demand. The company has also been focusing on improving tits supply chain resilience and expanding its service network.

What This Means:

Rivian has experienced strong growth recently:

• $1.12B in Q2 2024 revenue, reflecting a significant YoY increase as the company continues to ramp up production and deliveries of its EVs
• In Q2 2024, Rivian delivered approx. 12,640 vehicles, a notable increased compared to the same period in the previous years, driven by strong demand for its R1T pickup and SUV
• Rivian is projected to deliver around 57,000 vehicles in 2024, which represents a substantial scale-up from the previous year

Rivian's ability to scale production is a strong indicator of its growing influence in the EV market. This success highlights the importance of robust supply chain management and operational efficiency, especially as demand for EVs continues to rise. Rivians' achievements put pressure on established OEMs to refine their own production processes to meet increasing consumer demand.

4. Google's Expansion into Automotive Software - 谷歌 #automotive #innovation #GCP #cloud #AV #EV #slalomconsulting Android BMW of North America 奥迪

This past week Google announced a new partnership with several automakers, including Audi and BMW, to expand its Android Automotive operating system. This system offers an integrated, in-car experience with Google's suite of apps and services, aiming to enhance the digital driving experience.

What This Means:

Personalization is the name of the game! Google’s decision to partner with OEMs like BMW and Audi to expand its Android Automotive platform is a strategic move that brings substantial benefits to both Google and its automotive partners. By integrating Google’s software, OEMs can offer a seamless and familiar experience for drivers, enhancing the in-car digital environment with features like Google Maps (which I love!), Google Assistant, and a variety of third-party apps.

For Google, these partnerships mean more data, more insights, deeper personalization, and stronger offerings to the advertisers (i.e., BMW and Audi). This data, which includes driving patterns, in-car preferences, and location-based behaviors, offers deep insights that can significantly enhance targeted marketing efforts. It’s estimated that global automotive OEMs spend over $50 billion annually on marketing, with an increasing focus on data-driven personalization. By leveraging the granular data from Android Automotive, Google can help these OEMs refine their marketing strategies, making them more effective and personalized, which in turn boosts customer engagement and loyalty.

Data, personalization, transformation, we love it all! Our expertise in managing and analyzing the vast amounts of data can help to ensure data quality and security while enabling the extraction of actionable insights that can be used to refine advertising and marketing efforts.

By transforming in-car data into actionable insights, Google and it's OEM partners are setting a new standard for personalized, data-driven customer engagement.

5. Microsoft's AI-Powered Predictive Maintenance Solutions - 微软 通用汽车 大众 #carmaintenance #Ai #EVs #AV #slalomconsulting #maintenance #innovation

Vehicle maintenance... the last thing anyone wants to deal with. Recently Microsoft took significant steps to reshape the automotive landscape through its AI-powered predictive maintenance solutions. Microsoft has been pushing the adoption of it's AI-powered maintenance solutions across the industry. With these solutions, Microsoft hopes to help OEMs anticipate and prevent vehicle failures, reducing downtime and enhancing vehicle longevity. But, does it really matter?

What This Means:

As vehicles, particularly electric vehicles (EVs), become more complex and software-driven, the traditional approach to vehicle maintenance is rapidly evolving. Predictive maintenance, powered by AI, allows OEMs, dealers, and consumers to anticipate and address potential issues before they become costly problems, minimizing downtime and enhancing vehicle reliability. Partnering with OEMs such as 通用汽车 and 大众 , Microsoft’s move into AI-powered predictive maintenance is driven by the increasing demand for smarter, more efficient vehicle management systems. As EVs gain popularity—expected to account for over 30% of global vehicle sales by 2030—the need for maintenance will shift from mechanical to software-related issues. These AI solutions are designed to preemptively identify and solve these problems, helping OEMs reduce warranty claims, dealers improve service efficiency, and consumers enjoy a seamless ownership experience.

So what is the potential impact? Well:

• For OEMs - reduced warranty claims and recall costs. Predictive maintenance savings could reduce OEM costs by up to 20%
• For Dealers - they could see a 10-15% reduction in service-related labor costs, helping to reduce labor expense
• For Customers - this could mean overall lower maintenance costs and fewer unexpected breakdowns, resulting in an estimated 30% in total cost of ownership

Conclusion:

That wraps up this weeks auto news. As the automotive industry races toward a future defined by AI, data, and software-driven innovation, one thing is clear: personalization is the key to unlocking customer loyalty and driving sales. By turning actionable data insights into tailored experiences, OEMs, tech giants, and marketing teams alike can gain deeper customer engagement and long-term success.

Hope everyone has a great long-weekend! Stay safe out there!