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Runtime: 11:06
0:00 Auto Stocks Tumble on Trump Tariffs
1:04 U.S. Tariffs Will Hurt Honda & Toyota First
1:55 Tesla Sales Plummet 49% in China
2:41 Tesla Chairperson Selling Off Stock
3:15 U.S. Car Sales Down in February
4:07 Volvo’s Global EV Sales Fall 15%
5:59 GM Hires New Chief AI Officer
6:22 Ford’s Lawler Joins ACEA Board
6:48 Chinese EV Sales Stall in SE Asia
7:32 BYD Raises $5.6 Billion in Stock Sale
8:15 BYD Develops 1,000 Volt Architecture
8:54 VW Charges Same for LFP ID.3 as NMC
9:41 NIO Develops Own Aluminum for Gigacastings
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This is Autoline Daily, the show dedicated to enthusiasts of the global automotive industry.
AUTO STOCKS TUMBLE ON TRUMP TARIFFS
President Trump’s tariffs on cars and components imported from Mexico and Canada went into effect today and the impact was immediate. The stock prices of every single automotive related company in North America fell. Overall they were down around 3%. That includes all the automakers, all the suppliers, all the EV charging companies and all the retailers. The Anderson Economic Group expects prices of new vehicles coming into the U.S. from Canada and Mexico will go up by $4,000 for passenger cars and up to $10,000 for full-size pickups and SUVs. Automakers and dealers will likely pass those costs along to the customer and that will almost certainly trigger a drop off in sales because customers with lower credit scores can’t qualify for loans or leases, and others are simply priced out of the market.
TOYOTA, HONDA HURT FIRST BY TARIFFS
Here’s our Autoline Insight. This is why investors headed for the exits as soon as the tariffs became official. But we’re probably not going to see the full impact of the tariffs in the U.S. for a few more months. Car dealers have 2.9 million vehicles in inventory right now and until those are sold off, which will take months, prices will likely hold steady. But some automakers operate on very low inventory, like Toyota with only 22 days and Honda at 39. Both of them import hundreds of thousands of cars to the U.S. from Canada and Mexico. And so they’ll be the first to feel the pain in about a month. But make no mistake, this is going to financially hurt every North American company that has anything to do with the auto industry.
TESLA SALES PLUMMET 49% IN CHINA
On top of sales falling 12% in California and 50% in the EU last month. There’s more bad news for Tesla. Now comes word that deliveries also fell 49% in China. Tesla Shanghai shipped about 30,700 cars last month, which are wholesale numbers, including exports. The company reported its first drop in sales for the entire year in China in 2024, and it’s still not showing any signs of recovering. Tesla really needs the updated Model Y to be a smash hit and to get training approval for FSD in China. Or it’s going to keep losing ground to automakers like BYD, which reported its sales shot up 161%.
TESLA CHAIRPERSON SELLING OFF STOCK
Tesla’s chairperson, Robyn Denholm, has been selling big chunks of her stock holdings in the company. She sold $33.7 million worth of stock this month, $43.2 million last month, and has sold over $100 million in the last three months according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Tesla stock had a big jump after Trump’s successful run for the White Hours, but it’s now down 40% from that peak and is back to the same price it was on election day.
U.S. CAR SALES DOWN IN FEBRUARY
More automakers are reporting sales for last month and it’s a bit of a mixed bag. As we reported yesterday, the Hyundai Group had a fantastic February in the U.S. with Hyundai, Kia and Genesis all setting monthly sales records. Mazda posted a 2.5% increase and Subaru’s sales were up 4% last month. However, it was a tough month for some of the larger automakers. Ford’s sales were down nearly 9%, Toyota was down about 5% and Honda’s sales slipped almost 3% in February. Remember, some automakers only report sales on a quarterly basis. But sales of the six automakers that did report totaled about 654,000 units, which was down 2.7% compared to a year ago. And remember this is before those tariffs kicked in.
VOLVO GLOBAL EV SALES FALL 15%
Volvo’s sales are kind of a reflection of customer interests right now. The automaker’s global sales of fully electric vehicles dropped 15% last month to just over 9,300 units. But sales of plug-in hybrids increased 8% to more than 12,000 vehicles. Overall, Volvo sold 50,662 vehicles in February, up 1% compared to a year ago. Kia also reported its global sales, which totalled 253,850 vehicles last month, up 4.5% from a year ago. Kia says the new K4 sedan and Syros SUV helped drive that growth.
GM HIRES NEW CHIEF AI OFFICER
General Motors is trying to build up its software capabilities and has hired Barak Turovsky for a newly created role of chief AI officer. Turovsky was most recently vice president of AI at Cisco and prior to that he worked at Google for 10 years. He will report to Dave Richardson, GM’s senior VP of software and services engineering.
FORD’S LAWLER JOINS ACEA BOARD
And in other executive news, Ford’s vice chairman, John Lawler, was appointed to join the board of the ACEA, the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, a group that represents carmakers in Europe. That’s the same group that said European automakers faced up to 15 billion euros in fines for missing CO2 targets this year, which look like they’re getting relaxed.
CHINESE EV SALES STALL IN SE ASIA
There’s an interesting report from Bloomberg that Chinese automakers are getting a reality check in South East Asia. After an initial flurry of EV sales, things have slowed considerably or have even started to drop. EV sales in Indonesia, with a population of 281 million people, are coming in well below sales targets. In Thailand, sales of EVs are actually falling. And in Vietnam, customers are going for locally-made Vinfast EVs, rather than Chinese ones. This could turn around in the future as some Chinese automakers start building cars in Thailand and Indonesia. But it’s clearly not going to be the cakewalk that many thought it would be.
BYD RAISES $5.6 BILLION IN STOCK SALE
And all that expansion is also going to cost Chinese automakers a fortune, especially BYD who also wants to increase sales to 5-6 million vehicles this year, up from just under 4.3 million last year, and hire more workers, even though it already had nearly 1 million employees as of last September. So, to help fund all its efforts, BYD sold off nearly 130 million shares in the company at a slight discount, which brought in almost $5.6 billion. It was the largest transaction related to the auto industry in the last 10 years and the biggest of any kind in Hong Kong since 2021.
BYD DEVELOPS 1,000 VOLT ARCHITECTURE
Some of that money is also earmarked for research and development, which includes a new high-voltage platform for its EVs. Reports say BYD’s new 1000-volt architecture will start slowly rolling out in the middle of this month, first with its higher-end models. The company also plans to build a network of ultra-fast chargers, which may help explain the slow roll out. But those stations will allow more owners to take full advantage of the system’s capabilities, which can add 300 kilometers or about 185 miles of range in just 5 minutes of charging.
VW CHARGES THE SAME FOR LFP ID.3 AS NMC
EVs with lithium iron phosphate or LFP batteries are almost always cheaper than ones with typical lithium ion batteries. But VW is charging the same starting price for the all-new LFP-powered ID.3 in China as it is for the version with a nickel, manganese, cobalt or NMC battery. But the specs of the NMC pack aren’t great and the new LFP battery from CATL is about the same size, offers almost exactly the same range and only slightly slower charging. LFP batteries are also generally safer and longer lasting than NMC, so with both starting at roughly $16,500 the LFP version might be more popular.
NIO DEVELOPS OWN ALUMINUM FOR GIGACASTINGS
In one last bit of China news, NIO revealed it made its own aluminum recipe that’s meant specifically for high-pressure die casting, like Tesla’s gigcasting. NIO showed how it could use the aluminum for large castings in the ET9 SUV and ONVO L60 sedan. And said it’s also making the recipe available to the rest of the industry, which could bring in a much needed extra source of revenue for the company. And while it’s not related at all, here’s something else we found interesting from NIO. It says over 83% of its owners use battery swapping instead of plug charging when driving along the expressway.
But that brings us to the end of today’s show. Thanks for making Autoline a part of your day.
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you silly, slly idiot. Those who look in crystal balls eat broken glass. You have repeatedly failed in your silly prerdictions in the past, and you will fail in this one today. obviously you are incapable of learning a dam thing from your mistakes.
What I am seeing in the sales figures thus far is people turning away from more expensive vehicles and looking for cheaper models. This would be normal as a lot of vehicles increased MSRP substantially in the past 4 years with trucks leading the way in increases. With persistent inflation and high interest rates, there was always going to be a time where people just said no more.
One of the key issues are the millions of people that bought covid cars way over MSRP. Those people face a terrible set of choices. Trade that covid car in on a new car and roll a bunch of negative equity into the financing and just deal with the massive payments. Trade it in and buy a new but cheaper model that can offset the depreciation loss(which most would do). Let it get repossessed and buy a Nissan or Hyundai/Kia model that anyone with a pulse can get financing on. Or keep the covid car to the bitter end and hope for the best. As this group numbers in the millions and are people most likely to buy new cars…to me they are setting the trends of new car sales that you are seeing right now.
All that to say, I don’t see the car market sales improving as this train wreck has been in motion for a few years now.
I presume Honda and Toyota brought some extra stock of hot selling CR-V and RAV4 into the US, in anticipation of the tariffs, but those sell well enough that maybe they weren’t able to stockpile too many.
I “moved up” purchase of a Prius in anticipation of things to come, but so far, I guess the tariffs on cars from Japan have stayed the same.
I’d think the best option for most people who bought “covid cars” would be to just keep them. With proper maintenance, today’s cars last a long time.
Kit,
They certainly do last a longer time these days than in days past. Oddly though, people who tend to buy new cars get scared as the vehicle approaches the out of warranty periods. That is mainly because even though less things go wrong overall, the things that do go wrong cost multiple thousands of dollars to repair these days.
The old Chrysler K-Cars had a lot of reliability issues, but $20 and some tape was usually enough to keep them going so it was worth buying one. Now you have a simple $20 sensor go wrong but that sensor is buried in some distant dark corner and cost $900 to replace. Or instead of a simple stamped oil pan, now they have an upper aluminum and lower steel pan and one of those 2 will leak. Replacing the seal on those now costs $1000. Or a transmission that used to cost $1000 to rebuild now costs $7K. Those repair bills tends to make people shy away from keeping their new car out of warranty periods.
On that though, thus the rise of Hyundai/Kia and their 10 year, 100k mile warranty. The old guard is still trying to convince people to accept 3 year/36K or at max 5 year/60k. If you are trying to save money and avoid massive repair bills, then a Hyundai/Kia would your preferred car. Buy one, sell it at year 9, get another H/K car, and avoid potentially large repair bills.
Good response by Merkur.
Robyn Denholm is regularly selling stock along with Mary Barra who sells GM stock as soon as it becomes vested. See lasted Youtube “Connecting the dots” Have thought how nice it would be to have all that stinking lucre and filthy money but I already drive a nice car without a chauffeur so I get the fun. Then just happy with my station in life.
I think it would be interesting to know which OEMs have factories OUTSIDE Mexico, Canada, China and the EU that could supply which models to the US or Canada. That might predict future behavior. For example, if Ford imports the Transit Connect from Turkey and Ram imports their competing model from Italy, does that mean Ford now has a massive advantage? For now, Japanese cars are tariff free. What about cars made in England? Ford/Honda etc. Is anything made in Thailand worth hearing about. Anyone want a VINFAST? Hearing about the possibilities would be interesting.
It’s too bad for a neighbor of mine that the H/K powertrain warranty doesn’t go more years. His 2011 Sonata just blew an engine at ~81K miles.
It seems that not many cars are sold in the US from other than the “usual suspects.” Mercedes imports a few cars from South Africa and Finland. Transit Connect, from Turkey, is no longer imported to the US. Ford Ecosport, from India as I remember, is gone.
https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.gov/files/2025-02/MY2025-AALA-Alphabetical-2.4.25.pdf
Here is a lesson from history that shows why the doom and gloom predictions of what tariffs will bring are false. Back during Bush 41, he tried to raise taxes on luxury goods, such as yachts and private jets and the like. Everybody thought this was a great way to ‘tax the rich’. What happened? The rich did not become rich by being suckers or stupid, they KEPT their old yachts and private jets and the tax hit the poor workers who built them and were laid off. FF to 2025. Suppose the 25% tariff hits the S class,still the “gold standard’ in flagship luxury. Do you really think the rich will keep buying them? If Lincoln or Caddy had a proper rival to the S class, some would switch to those. But they have not, so the rich will stick to their old S clsass a few more years’
Hyundai and Kia have made huge progress both in the quality of their cars and the consumers appreciated it by seriously increasing their market share in the US. I doubt the alleged death of a Hyundai engine at 81k miles is a widespread problem for this maker. What does consumer reports say for this model? Anecdotal evidence is by itself no proof of unreliability or lack of longevity. And I say all this not as a fan of any of the Korean brands.
Regulus, the Trump tariffs have nothing to do with multimillion dollar yachts or $100K+ S-Classes. They will raise the price of mainstream cars, many food items, clothes, electronics, things that everyone buys. The stock market has crashed two consecutive days, and will continue to do so, if the tariffs on our now-former allies continue. Maybe the bottom line is that Trump wants to further transfer wealth from low and middle income people to the very wealthy, by enacting what is, essentially, a big sales tax increase, to fund tax cuts for the Elons of America.
It may well not apply to new Hyundais, but in CR’s reliability survey, a 2011 Elantra was “much worse than average” in “engine major,” while a same year Corolla was “much better than average.” I don’t know how common it is for 2011 Elantras to blow engines, but I suspect it is much more common than with same year Corollas.
So the VW ID.3 only costs about $16,500 in China?
MERKUR DRIVER Good observation regarding the Hyundai warranties.
Via the Financial Times’ Alphaville section, here’s a decent enough roundup of the simultaneous, all-round trumpiffs’ costs paid by you (all that’s missing is the EU now). Also featured is data on US exports to relevant countries. Quote:
The costs of these actions are enormous, covering $1.3T in US imports or roughly 42% of all goods brought into the United States. If households and companies tried simply to import the same goods from the same countries as last year, they would now be forced to pay an 11.5% effective tariff or more than $370B in total.
Unquote, Source https://www.apricitas.io/p/trumps-blockade-of-america
A thinking person would have to wonder if hitting total trade was worth the couple of percent in traded goods difference? Rather than say pushing US corporations to invest more in people and products over stock buybacks?
Tesla’s chairwoman Robyn Denholm has sold stock worth over $100 million in the last 3 months. It’s one thing to own part of a company as a founder, but this is your regular American corporate insanity.
I think it’s the WSJ that worked out the trumpiff costs for full-size pickup trucks to be $7-9K, from memory? And they remain US manufacturers’ bread and butter. Enough people have been saying that reliance was only inviting disaster, and now we have an exogenous shock to the system.
Meanwhile, double-digit billions are already being earmarked to support farmers hit by the trade disputes and the end of USAID. Exactly the same as last time round. And the same extreme corporate tax cuts are back too.
Kit Gephardt: You totally missed my point about the failure of the luxury tax of Bush 41 and using it to predict the behavior of the same rich wrt the tariffs, IF they are applied,
I said clearly that just as they behaved in 1990 or so, when a tax was slapped on luxury planes and yachts, the rich STOPPED BUYING them instead of coughing up the tax, leading to layoffs of poor workers building them, SIMILARLY with the Tariffs, the rich who would buy an S class at $150k, will NOT pay $200k for the same vehicle after the tariffs, but either find a made in the US non-tariff substitute, OR if none exists, KEEP their old S class for a few more years, JUST AS THEY DiD in 1990. Is it crystal clear now? I will not explain it again anyway.
As for the Elantra, I was sentenced to drive one in 2015 for a week, and it had of course no issues, but it felt lousy, tiny, tinny and cheap. I am surprised that, despite the CR Rating, Hyundai Kia had huge success in sales and grabbed market share from their competitors, Honda and Nissan in particular. They are sure the most successful automaker sales-wise and growth-wise (Tesla’s rise excepted)
I was surprised that the 2011 Elantra did so much worse than the Corolla in CR’s reliability survey. I just checked a newer year, 2020 and the Elantra was still bad in “engine major.” I’m surprised.