AI and automation have produced significant operational improvements in specific functions, modest improvements in others, and almost no improvement where they were most loudly promised.
Three mass-market automakers — Tesla, Nissan, and Honda — each run distinct mass-market PR doctrines. Tesla's zero-paid-media model. Nissan's long-running Heisman House and the LEAF EV narrative. Honda's twenty-year "Power of Dreams" tagline and its multi-decade RPA partnership. What separates the disciplines.
Honda's January 29 2010 recall of ~646,000 vehicles globally for a driver-side master power window switch defect on the Fit/Jazz, City, and Civic — voluntary posture, engineering clarity, and multi-market coordination during the same window as Toyota's unintended-acceleration crisis.
