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Runtime: 11:20
0:00 Trump Officially Announces Tariffs on U.S. Imports
1:02 German Auto Stock Prices Getting Hammered
1:43 Possible Price Increases a Guessing Game
2:59 Tesla Has Rough Q1
3:39 Rivian Sales Down, But Keeps Full Year Forecast
4:19 Gravity SUV Likely Drove Lucid Sales Up
4:50 BYD On Pace to Be Top BEV Maker
5:32 Hyundai Reveals All-New NEXO Fuel Cell Vehicle
7:19 IONIQ 6 EV Gets a Refresh
7:44 Genesis Makes a Design Statement
8:16 Toyota Has Most Auto Patents 11 Years In a Row
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TRUMP OFFICIALLY ANNOUNCES TARIFFS ON U.S. IMPORTS
We start off today with the one thing that everyone in the world seems to be talking about: Trump’s tariffs. Obviously, we’re only going to look at the ones that impact the auto industry, but that impact will likely be massive. Yesterday the president confirmed that he’s adding a 25% tariff on all imported vehicles and components coming into the U.S. For vehicles imported from Mexico and Canada, the tariffs will apply only to the non-U.S. content. For components imported from Mexico and Canada, nothing changes until U.S. Customs can figure out how to process the tariffs on the non-U.S. content. To offset the impact on consumers, the President said he wants to let car buyers deduct the interest they pay on car loans from their income taxes. But that’s legislation that still needs to get passed.
GERMAN AUTO STOCK PRICES GETTING HAMMERED
And it looks like all this tariff uncertainty has hit the stock prices of German automakers really hard. Volkswagen is down 16% over the last week. Mercedes is down 11%, BMW almost 15% and Porsche by 14%. Bloomberg reports that Volkswagen stopped all rail shipments of cars from Mexico and is holding all imports from Europe at ports. VW also told dealers it’s going to start applying import fees to the cars they buy. And as we reported yesterday, Mercedes is considering dropping its GLA, the least expensive crossover that it sells in the U.S.
POSSIBLE PRICE INCREASES A GUESSING GAME
Now everyone is wondering how much car prices are going to go up. So far it looks like a guessing game. Cox Automotive predicts that car prices will go up across the board by 2.8%. Black Book says they’ll go up 5%, while Morgan Stanley says it will be 11-12%. What automakers are likely going to do is spread the cost of the tariffs across all their vehicles, to spread the pain, so to speak. And by the way, on Autoline After Hours later today here’s what the main topic will be: as the CEO of a car company or supplier, how do you deal with the tariffs? What’s the plan? What’s the strategy? We’re going to have Edgar Faler, the chief economist from the Center For Automotive Research on the show. Paul Eisenstein from Headlight.news will also be on, and we invite you to join John and Gary when the show goes live at 3 pm eastern time.
TESLA HAS ROUGH Q1
Tesla’s first quarter sales were the lowest in nearly three years. The EV maker sold a little under 337,000 vehicles globally in the first three months of the year, which is down 13% compared to a year ago. Analysts point to the backlash against Elon Musk’s politics, increased competition, and the changeover to the new Model Y for the decline. Tesla’s stock dipped after it reported sales but it rallied after reports surfaced that Musk will soon step down from his role in the Trump Administration. However, the White House denied the report and said Musk will stay on until his work is complete.
RIVIAN SALES DOWN, BUT KEEPS FULL YEAR FORECAST
But Tesla wasn’t the only EV maker that struggled in the first quarter. Rivian delivered just over 8,600 vehicles, down 36% compared to a year ago. And its production outpaced sales by a wide margin. Rivian built more than 14,600 vehicles in the first quarter. The company said it did anticipate the lower deliveries this quarter due to “seasonality” and increased competition. But despite the Q1 drop in sales, Rivian reaffirmed its annual delivery forecast of 46,000-51,000 vehicles.
GRAVITY SUV LIKELY DROVE LUCID SALES UP
Meanwhile, Lucid had a strong first quarter. The EV startup delivered 3,109 vehicles, up 58% compared to last year, a likely benefit from the introduction of the Gravity SUV. But despite the big boost in sales, Lucid estimates that its first quarter revenue came in between $232-$236 million, which is below Wall Street estimates of $256 million.
BYD ON PACE TO BE TOP BEV MAKER THIS YEAR
But no EV maker is having sales success like BYD right now. It delivered just under 416,400 pure-electric vehicles in the first quarter, which is nearly 80,000 more than Tesla and it’s the second consecutive quarter that BYD has outsold Tesla in BEVs. And according to Counterpoint Research, BYD is projected to overtake Tesla in global BEV sales in 2025. It forecasts that BYD’s global BEV share will be 15.7% in 2025, compared to 15.3% for Tesla.
HYUNDAI REVEALS ALL-NEW NEXO FUEL CELL VEHICLE
Hyundai revealed the all-new version of its NEXO fuel cell vehicle that hits markets around the world before the end of the year. The design is based around the INITIUM concept that the company debuted last year and the vehicle is longer, wider and taller than before, which helps provide more interior space. The front seat area of the interior is highlighted by a large, curved display screen and you may also notice a couple of screens at each end of the dash for the camera-based side-view mirror system. Hyundai made a number of upgrades to the powertrain system as well. Power output of the fuel cell stack increased 16%, it got a new more powerful electric motor, the power electronics were improved and output of the battery doubled. When you put that all together the new NEXO now produces 190 kW or nearly 255 horsepower, instead of 130 kW or about 175 horsepower like before. That lowers 0-100 km/h, which is roughly the same as 0-60 MPH, from 9.2 seconds down to 7.8 seconds. Another benefit of the system upgrades is that Hyundai says the new NEXO will now have the ability to tow with its capacity topping out at 1,000 kilograms or about 2,200 pounds. And lastly, an ever so slight increase in tank capacity also does two things. One, Hyundai is expecting an increased range of 700 kilometers or about 435 miles. And two, you can power devices that plug into a standard electrical outlet on the side of the vehicle for longer periods of time.
IONIQ 6 EV GETS A REFRESH
And in other Hyundai news, the automaker refreshed the look of the all-electric IONIQ 6 sedan. The design of the front end is a little more simplistic with new thin headlamps and there’s some slight tweaks to the interior as well. Hyundai added a new sportier looking N Line model and it looks like it teased the full-blown IONIQ 6 N in the background of one of the pictures.
GENESIS MAKES DESIGN STATEMENT
And let’s stay with the Hyundai Group for another moment, but switching over to Genesis. The Korean luxury brand revealed two new concept cars that we think make a pretty big design statement, even though they’re based around the existing G90 sedan. But instead of 4-doors, these are extra-long 2-door coupes. One is a hard-top and the other is convertible and together they’re meant to show off the capabilities of Genesis and possibly provide a look at future design directions.
TOYOTA HAS MOST AUTOMAKER PATENTS 11 YEARS IN A ROW
For the 11th consecutive year, Toyota had the most patents amongst automakers in the U.S. The automaker ranked in the top 10 overall with 2,428 patents in 2024. Toyota received patents in a whole host of areas including cybersecurity, driver assistance, edge computing, electric and fuel cell vehicles, manufacturing, robotics and bidirectional technology.
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Anyway, that brings us to the end of today’s show. Thanks for your interest in our reporting on the global automotive industry. And I hope to see you for Autoline After Hours.
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1. Their own numbers, forecasting price increases from 2% to 11 or 15%, show how clueless the forecasters are. And not because they are stupid, it is just not possible at this moment to offer any intelligent guess.
2. Tesla may had a bad quarter, but I got the sales data in an email from Automotive News and it is still, by leaps and bounds, by far the biggest EV seller in the US market, despite having 15 and 12 and 8 year old models. If Honda or TOyota redesigned their models every.. 15 years, you can guess they would sell fewer than even VW.
3. While on Q1 sales, I was sorry to see the excellent Accord sold only 30k or so units, a number it easily achieved in ONE month, not the three of Q1. And at the same time, the Camry, while being the best selling sedan, was only number NINE in sales after 8 trucks and crossovers.
4. Nissan, infamous maker of junk, did very well sales (but not profit-wise), it had all its three miserable models, the Sentra, the Versa, and the Altima, in the top ten CARS (not vehicles!). Probably they are giving them away to auto illiterates..
5. Comparing BYD with all the support it gets from its Commie masters to any Automaker in the Free World, Sean, is invalid and meaningless.
6. If this escalates into a Trade War and not a negotiated reduction (mutual!) of tariffs, expect the ocean shipping industry to suffer. Danish Maersk, the biggest containership company in the world, already down 7%.
7. Vietnam had the highest tariff etc at almost 100% and was hit with a 50% tariff. What do I care, you may foolishly say. Vietnam is where Nike, Adidas, Puma and all the other greedy sneaker makers mke their crap for $5 and sell it to you for $150. THeir shares are plummetting double digits today. If interested, hold a candlelight vigil tonight. Many Dem Senators and Congressmen will be there to talk on and on and on. Like that idiot from NJ who talked in the US Senate for 25 hours and accomplished diddly squat. Your tax dollars at work!
Now if only Mexico banned Tesla’s and BYD announced plans to expand their Mexican plant, we’d have some REAL excitement
My Samsung phone was from Vietnam.
What will the tariff be on Pacifica, RAV4, and CR-V from Canada? I suppose Trump may end up singlehandedly killing the Chrysler brand, if the manufacturing plus tariff cost for Pacifica goes up 15%.
@Import tariffs
Yesterday the President showed figures up to 60-70% on a large slide which he claimed are import tariffs for American products in selected countries, among the ones Regulus mentioned. Most of those countries are in Southeast Asia, surrounding China and have very low tariffs among themselves. And with Canada and Mexico. Because they are all in the Trans Pacific Partnership. On January 23, 2017 one of President Trump’s first actions was withdrawing from the Trans Pacific Partnership which he called “the worst trade deal ever” until he started calling NAFTA that.
AFTER withdrawing from the Trans Pacific Partnership he started a trade war against China. By cancelling the alternative for trade with China he had given up his leverage against China before he started the previous trade war. Result: we did not win that war. So we lost the first trade war against China and are following the same course of action for the second one, but against all countries in the world and with higher import duties.
We left a partnership with major trade partners with low single digit import tariffs in 2017 and have now 60-70% tariffs with the same trading partners, while Canada and Mexico stayed in TPP and continue to have the low single digit tariffs.
Time will tell but I don’t think this is smart.
The US never ratified the TPP despite Obama’s best efforts. His own base railed against it after seeing that NAFTA had the exact effect on US jobs and the middle class that Ross Perot had warned and predicted. TPP was a non starter and even Hillary Clinton campaigned against it when she wasn’t falling out of vans.
If this whole tariff thing wipes out Volkswagen, a company that preaches holier than thou green climate religion while at the same time perpetrating massive emissions and recycling law fraud, then it’ll all be worth it.
Trump is already coming up with ways to blame others for the global recession he will be causing.
@Daily Driver on TPP: you are implying that low single digit import tariffs is worse than the 60-70% Trump showed yesterday. That makes sense 🙂
Hi Wlm, no, was just commenting that TPP was not going to happen even if Clinton won in 2016.
Well, blithering fool Trump cost me about 5% of my investment portfolio in one day with his stupid trade war. Congress needs to do their job and get rid of the psychopath. Sorry about getting political.
Daily Driver —
I’m not defending the VW Group, because they got what they got, because of what they did! Yet, VW went all EV not because they were holier then thou, but because they were busted over diesel-gate and US law makers pressured then to go all BEV like Tesla as a recompense here in the States. The EU liked that punishment and followed suit. It’s funny that many lawmakers thought that forcing a major legacy OEM to do this was a good thing, now that the political winds have changed, the claim is that the automakers WANTED this!
wmb, I don’t know what you mean by VW going “all EV.” From what I find, EVs make up less than 9% of VW group sales.
@Wim Van Acker
The Asia Pacific already enjoyed low single digit tariffs on their goods coming here. While at the same time slapping 60, 75, 100% tariffs on our goods in their markets. So no, I don’t think that’s fair. If Trump’s tariffs force them to accept reciprocal low tariffs then that achieves your goal.
@ WMB. You sure about that? Because I remember the ads that VW ran when they pledged and touted their all EV future as paragons of climate justice. It was pretty obnoxious after just getting busted cheating emissions for years. And now busted again, still scheming and cheating on this recycling thing. They lauded the EU standards that they have now cried and received a 3 year reprieve on and in 3 years they’ll do it again (if they’re still around). They are two-faced virtue signalers in the same vein as hypocrite celebrities that preach green while crisscrossing the globe in private jets. And all the very serious politicians that take their G5s to climate summits while ordering us to ride bikes and depend on windmills for electricity.
Tesla Model Y ramping all 4 manufacturing facilities at the same time had nothing to do with the sales decline Nope Nope let me put my head in the sand.