What auto and AI leaders posted, October 10. Naming the price is easy, matching it is hard

Saturday is about numbers that must match everywhere. California's law puts the total price in the first written reply, and dealers find that naming it is only half the work. The hard part is to keep it the same on the website and on every listing site.

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#

The total price in the first reply is hard to keep the same everywhere#

Car Dealership Guy shared a talk from Daily Dealer Live. California's CARS Act puts the total price into the first written reply to a lead. Dennis Gingrich, Platform and Group Executive at Niello, says a lot depends on it. But the bigger lift, he says, is to keep that number the same on the dealer's website and on every third-party listing source.

My take. The law names a problem that was already there. A dealer's price lives in several places. The website, the listing sites, the manager's email, the phone call. A different person or system updates each place.

What to do today. Pick five cars from your stock. Find the price of each on your website and on two listing sites. If one price differs, you need an owner for this problem. Until one person controls the price, the law will not help you.

Post by Car Dealership Guy on X

What automakers say#

Honda enters body-on-frame pickups through a rebadged Mitsubishi#

Automotive News reports, citing Japanese media, that Honda will enter the body-on-frame truck segment. In Southeast Asia, it will sell a rebadged version of the Mitsubishi Triton pickup. The loss-making automaker tries to offset falling sales in China with new products in other markets.

My take. A foreign platform is the fastest way into a segment, but the weakest as a product. Pickup buyers know well who built the truck. A Honda dealer in these countries will have to explain why a Honda frame pickup is worth the money.

Post by Automotive News on X

Tesla Semi goes to mass production. More than 40 new trucks were seen at the factory#

Sawyer Merritt writes that more than 40 new Semis were spotted at the Tesla factory in Nevada. He says it feels unreal to see this truck finally in mass production. Separately, Tesla opened its fifth Semi Megacharger station in the U.S., in Tulare, California, with 4 stalls. The company says it will have more than 30 such stations by the end of 2026.

My take. Mass production starts with charging, not only with trucks. With about 30 stations by the end of the year, the routes you can drive are still limited. A commercial truck buyer will not ask "how much." The question will be where to charge on the route.

Posts by Merritt on X and about the Tulare station

AI and sales#

Lemkin gave an AI agent the job of reading and ranking all fund pitches#

Jason Lemkin, founder of SaaStr, writes that the agent Muse reads and ranks every pitch that comes to SaaStr Fund each day. He does not say the result is perfect, but he says it is not bad. He also says it makes sense to optimize your pitch for agents, especially the detail in the email.

In another post he describes an experiment. Muse and his AI VP of Revenue agent, called 10K, got a shared messaging board where they talk to each other every day. Muse, for example, saw that an API 10K used was broken, and told 10K to fix it.

My take. A dealer's sales team gets leads the way a fund gets pitches. A person with forty tasks reads them and ranks them by feeling. An agent does not get tired and reads each one.

What to do today. Take last week's leads and sort them into three piles. Hot, warm, cold.

Then ask the person who worked them why they sorted it this way. The rules that person names are what you must explain to the agent. Without them, the agent will guess.

Posts by Lemkin on X and about the shared board

For people who work with AI#

The full set of tips is in today's AI tips post. Here is what I found separately while preparing this issue.

Ethan Mollick sees a shift. People who use assistants like Muse or Dot more often tell stories where the AI did something for them on its own, without being asked. They feel good about it, and their view of AI changes. Post on X

What to do today. Pick one repeating task and tell the AI you want the result without a reminder. For example, a morning summary. After a week, check if it started to do it by itself and how exactly.

In brief#

Mollick on the AI bet and the game Montezuma's Revenge. He says GPT-6 Astra beat the game, and so did Opus 5. One condition to resolve an AGI bet on Metaculus is a win in a discontinued prize, a kind of weak Turing test. Metaculus decided to recreate the test to confirm the condition. X

Merritt's mother took her first Tesla Cybercab ride. The 76-year-old said the cabin feels like first class on a plane, clean and comfortable, and she would recommend the ride to everybody. X

What else was on screen#

These are titles without a review.

• Automotive News. News, October 9. What the DIY repair boom means for dealers, Chevy invests in its small crossovers
• Car Dealership Guy. His dad sold the store out from under him. He built an empire instead
• All-In. Is Claude conscious? The Pope rejects it, the model welfare movement
• Grant Cardone. Stop watching success, start studying it
• a16z. How Vesta designs financial software for an agent-first world