Automotive News Daily Drive · Automotive News

Feb. 27, 2026 | Software woes persist; BMW’s humanoid robot expansion

·20 min

Daily Drive opens from Detroit with Jake Neer filling in for Kellen Walker. The show starts by laying out the day’s key auto-industry headlines. Software problems remain the dominant theme. J.D. Power’s latest dependability study puts infotainment at the bottom of the reliability stack. Phone-to-car connection problems still frustrate owners. The episode notes that over-the-air updates are not delivering much visible value for many drivers. 58% of owners who received those updates said they noticed no difference, and only 27% reported an improved experience. That matters because automakers are betting on software as a future subscription business. Jason Norton of J.D. Power says automakers need to make updates more meaningful, or at least explain what’s changing. The episode also flags a major Ford pickup recall. Stellantis’ disclosure of its new CEO’s compensation last year gets a mention as well. After the headline run-through, the show shifts to customer experience at franchise dealerships. Wide Whale recently released its 2026 Voice of the Customer report, detailing the top complaints from millions of Google reviews. Wide Whale CEO Kyler Owens joins Automotive News Senior Retail Editor Dan Schein for that segment. Owens explains how Wide Whale invites reviews across multiple different sites after dealership transactions. He says the company has a Vermont-based team that responds to reviews on behalf of dealers. The point is to keep customer comments from disappearing into the ether. The conversation also covers Wide Whale’s latest look into customer satisfaction at franchise dealerships and its broader tracking of customer sentiment across franchise dealers in the US over the last three years. That data is used to benchmark the industry. It also helps identify recurring service and sales patterns. Communication comes up repeatedly as a driver of satisfaction. Staff quality does too. The episode treats those as the clearest reasons customers stay loyal or look elsewhere for service.

As heard by us

A clear look at software frustration and the service habits that still shape auto loyalty.

Automotive News Daily Drive spends its February 27 episode on three pressure points in the auto business: software reliability, Ford's pickup recall, and Stellantis's disclosure of its new CEO's compensation last year. The software segment is the sharpest of the three.

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Why you'd press play

If you need the business case for why car software still disappoints, start here.

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