Toyota Helps Out In Texas, EV Battery Reboot, Government Deepfakes

Automotive State of The Union

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Episode #1090: Toyota leads with heart in Texas, Redwood supercharges old EV batteries for AI, and deepfake fraud hits a chilling milestone.

Show Notes with links:

• Following catastrophic flooding, Toyota is stepping up big for its home state, pledging over $600,000 in aid to support the Kerr County Flood Relief Fund and various on-the-ground recovery efforts.
  • TMNA is joining forces with Toyota Financial Services, Gulf States Toyota, Southeast Toyota, and dealers nationwide.
  • On top of the $600K, TMNA will match contributions up to $10,000 for eligible Toyota and Lexus dealers donating to flood relief charities and will double all U.S. team member contributions directed to disaster relief.
  • Relief includes financial assistance, donation drives, and payment relief for impacted customers.
  • “When disasters like this occur, it’s important to help our neighbors and communities in their time of need,” said TMNA CEO Ted Ogawa.
• Redwood Materials, led by former Tesla co-founder JB Straubel, is giving EV batteries a second life—this time fueling the AI revolution with renewable power.
  • In the Nevada desert, Redwood built a 12 MW/63 MWh microgrid from 792 repurposed EV battery packs from automakers like Toyota, GM, and VW, which is enough to power 4,000 homes continuously for about 5 hours.
  • The system powers an AI data center using only a 33-acre solar array—no grid connection, no permits, no backup generators.
  • With AI data centers projected to consume 12% of U.S. electricity by 2028, second-life batteries are gaining traction as scalable, fast-to-deploy storage.
  • Redwood expects to deliver over 5 GWh of repurposed storage capacity in the next 12 months.
  • “You can deploy this very fast,” said Straubel. “We’ll absolutely see much larger deployments of this.”
  • (Since they are powering an ai data center…speaking of ai)

• A new wave of AI voice cloning fraud has hit an alarming milestone: impersonating a U.S. Secretary of State. The attack duped global leaders—and required just seconds of audio.
  • In June 2025, a cloned voice of Marco Rubio was used to contact five officials via Signal.
  • Victims included a U.S. governor, a member of Congress, and three foreign ministers.
  • FBI warnings have cited a surge in AI-driven impersonation scams since April.
  • Past heists include $243K from a UK energy firm and $35M from a UAE bank.
  • Deepfake losses could hit $40B by 2027. Humans detect fake voices only half the time.
  • “It’s not a matter of if, but when,” security experts warn.

0:00 Intro with Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier
1:22 Announcements
3:05 Toyota Donates $600K To Texas Relief Efforts
6:40 Redwood Materials Recycled EV Batteries Powers AI Data Centers
11:26 Marc

Join Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier every morning for the Automotive State of the Union podcast as they connect the dots across car dealerships, retail trends, emerging tech like AI, and cultural shifts—bringing clarity, speed, and people-first insight to automotive leaders navigating a rapidly changing industry.
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