What auto and AI leaders posted, October 8. One training program raised a tech's pay by 87%

Thursday is about people who count the result, not the nice words. One dealer group trained its service team and raised one tech's pay by 87%. One founder built his own sales tool, because the ready-made one only sees part of the data.

Here is what car dealers, automakers, and AI-in-sales people posted on X and YouTube in the last day. News from outlets is in this morning's issue. AI tips are in a separate post. I added my take to each post.

What dealers say#

Nine service standards raised one tech's pay by 87%#

Car Dealership Guy told the story of Norm Reeves Honda Superstore. The store suddenly lost its service manager, and Fixed Ops Director Richard Meneely saw that no one on staff was ready to step up.

Meneely built a training course for techs, nine standards, with a test for each module. He rolled it out across nearly 20 stores in the group. One group of staff compared the modules to a performance improvement plan, but Meneely runs them like football plays. Run the play, review it, coach it, repeat.

The result. One tech's pay went up 87%. The store's customer satisfaction score rose from 67.6 in August to 82.9. Meneely's point is simple. A happy employee who knows the job, and a happy customer, bring the revenue on their own.

My take. Nine standards with a test for each one is not a memo on a wall. That is the kind of training a sales team usually gets, and a service team almost never does. We train a salesperson to close a deal. We rarely train a tech how to talk to a customer about a repair.

I would not copy all nine rules from Meneely. I would copy the method. Break the tech's job into modules, give each one a short test, and track the result by person, not by store. In one quarter you can see who went up 87% and who did not move at all.

Post by Car Dealership Guy on X

Dealer insurance does not compare on price alone#

Peter Franco runs direct-market P&C sales at Zurich North America. On Daily Dealer Live, he said two similarly priced dealer policies can look the same on paper and behave very differently after a major claim.

His advice to dealers. Know what you can actually control, and build your plan around that, not around the number on the policy.

My take. The person who picks dealer insurance is usually not the person sitting in the room on the day of the one big claim. We pick by the yearly bill, not by the one event that costs more than a year of premiums.

I would ask the agent for one thing instead of a price sheet. Show me the last three major claims at a dealer like mine. How many days to a decision, and how much did they actually pay out. One answer like that is worth more than five price comparisons.

Post by Car Dealership Guy on X

What automakers say#

BMW shows the electric iX4. 428 miles of range, 400 kW charging#

BMW unveiled the fully electric iX4 crossover. Starting price $66,000, up to 428 miles of range, a 108 kWh battery, 0 to 60 mph in 3.7 seconds, top speed 149 mph. The car supports bidirectional charging, so it can send power to a house or other equipment. It cannot drive itself. The driver assist works only on the highway.

My take. In 2026, the line "cannot drive itself" reads as honesty, not a weakness. BMW is not promising something it cannot deliver, and that is easier to sell than a self-driving feature with thirty pages of fine print.

I would not hand a customer all four numbers at once. For the buyer who counts dollars, lead with range. For the buyer with solar panels at home, lead with bidirectional charging. One sharp, matched reason beats the full spec sheet.

Post by Sawyer Merritt on X

BYD shows an ultra-luxury electric sedan with coach doors#

A BYD electric sedan was spotted ahead of its official reveal. The doors open up and out, like a horse carriage, not like a normal car door.

My take. Chinese automakers are no longer copying Western design, they are trying things Western brands avoid because of tooling cost and warranty risk. A coach door costs more to build and is harder to warranty, and BYD is putting it on the car anyway.

This is a signal for the market before it is a signal for the buyer. If a brand spends on a detail like this on its top model, it has money to spend on design risk. I would watch the warranty terms on that door, not the door itself.

Post by Electrek on X

9,000 Stellantis workers in Canada will vote on strike authorization#

Automotive News reports the union representing more than 9,000 hourly Stellantis workers in Canada set a strike authorization vote for October 17 and 18. The vote decides whether the bargaining committee can call a strike if talks later break down.

My take. A vote is not a strike, it is the right to call one, and the difference matters. The union is showing strength at the table early, so it does not have to show it on the shop floor.

For a Stellantis dealer in the US or Canada, this is a reason to look at inventory of Canadian-built models three months out. Look now, not after a real strike makes the news. A month of extra stock is cheaper to buy now than to explain to a customer later.

Post by Automotive News on X

AI and sales#

Jason Lemkin built his own AI tool because off-the-shelf tools only see the CRM#

Jason Lemkin, founder of SaaStr, wrote that his team uses Clay, Agentforce, and Artisan for outbound sales. For large accounts, though, they built their own tool, which Lemkin calls an "AI ABM" tool. The reason is simple. Vendors only see the CRM, a fraction of the company's real data. His own tool builds the pitch for a top account from Salesforce, event scans, and which emails the person actually opened.

My take. A dealer has the same limit, just a different name for it. The AI inside a CRM sees the leads and calls that go through that CRM. It does not see what the customer typed into the site chat yesterday. It does not see what they told the service advisor last month. It does not see which promo email they actually opened.

A dealer does not need to build a tool like Lemkin's. But before turning on someone else's AI agent, I would ask the vendor one question. Which of those other sources can it see besides the CRM, and can at least one be added.

Post by Jason Lemkin on X

For people who work with AI#

The full write-up on AI tips, GPT-6's new visual answers in ChatGPT, and Claude inside Google Docs, is in today's AI tips post. Here is only what I found separately while building this issue.

Jason Lemkin writes checks from $500k to $5m himself. He restated an old rule for pitches that use an AI draft. Do not send a launch video. Do not send a Loom recording. Do not send an AI-generated pitch you would not fund yourself. Do not ask for feedback instead of a decision. Do not send a short teaser instead of the real deck. Send the deck. He says it still works best. Post on X

The same Lemkin compared Claude models on his own SaaStr apps. Haiku 5.5 runs 1.5x faster than the prior version and costs 85% less, with noticeably more usable reasoning. Sonnet 5.5 runs 2x faster, costs 10% less, and reasons materially better. His short conclusion, not all AI progress means higher prices for the person using it. Post on X

Headlines only, from OpenAI DevDay 2026. How Codex moves from single player to multiplayer. Higgsfield's agent tool finds its own compute. Qodo on code review without a human.

Short takes#

Tesla's 10 California virtual power plant events sent 5 GWh back to the grid. Sawyer Merritt says Powerwall owners across all 10 events in 2026 sent a combined 5 GWh back to the grid at peak demand. That is enough to power about 1.2 million US homes. X

Tesla opened its first East Coast Semi Megacharger station. The Georgia station has 8 stalls, each up to 1.2 MW. X

Automotive News covered China's rise and Honda's delayed CR-V. The October 7 news roundup includes an expert debate on how fast Chinese brands are growing worldwide. YouTube

McKinsey at the Automotive News Congress on turning AI strategy into real value. A talk from the outlet's annual industry congress on automotive and AI. YouTube

What else was out there#

Headlines only, no write-up.

• Autocar India. Triumph Bonneville T40, a new chapter for the brand
• OpenAI DevDay 2026. ClawLabs, building open source together
• OpenAI DevDay 2026. Stack Overflow, from idea to product with Codex
• Grant Cardone. How to turn a goal into an opportunity