How Tariffs Threaten America’s Clean Car Future

Honda’s quarterly profits took a 50% hit over tariffs. Oof.

Ford, despite making 77% of its cars domestically, said it expects tariffs to cost the company $2 billion in 2025. (Help me make sense of that one.)

Toyota, which has a sizable U.S. manufacturing presence, now expects a crushing $9.5 billion tariff hit through March 2026.

Tariffs will cost General Motors as much as $5 billion for the full year.

Though South Korea’s Hyundai and Kia have made significant U.S. investments, the 15% tariffs on imports from that country will be painful.

Rivian’s stock took a nosedive this week (though it has since rebounded) on news of losses from both the end of regulatory credits and tariffs—including on Chinese-sourced battery components and raw materials like rare earth magnets.

Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe said the company expects tariffs to add a "couple thousand dollars" of cost to each R1S and R1T it sells this year.

Lucid Motors incurred $54 million in extra costs from tariffs in Q2, one of the things its interim CEO says “keeps us up at night.”

Even as the “most American” manufacturer, Tesla warned of a "sustained uncertain macroeconomic environment” over tariffs on its earnings call in late July.

Many automakers all over the world have significantly boosted their R&D and capital spending in recent years to scale up electric powertrains, advanced software and autonomous driving efforts. (The ones that haven’t are pretty behind on those efforts.)

By the way, that has included major R&D spends in the U.S., specifically.

Nominally, Trump’s tariffs are meant to bring auto manufacturing back to the U.S., which is a positive goal.

But building a new auto plant, or facilities to support one, can take the better part of a decade. And automakers that have invested in America already (see Hyundai’s Georgia Metaplant, for example) are still getting hammered here.

Automotive supply chains are heavily global. Parts and components come from everywhere, and rather than shift everything, companies may decide to ride the tariffs out until another administration hits reset on trade again.

Faced with multi-billion-dollar tariff headwinds, automakers have two choices: cut back on development of new technologies or pass the cost onto the consumer. (See what Scaringe said above if you need proof.)

So far in America, car prices haven’t gone up much, if at all, due to tariffs. Automakers are absorbing those costs… for now. [Just Auto]

That doesn’t feel like it will last forever. Ultimately, this may just mean more expensive cars in the short- and medium-term. Cox Automotive predicts consumers will “see retail prices climb by 4–8% by year-end”, which will keep rising through 2026.

Not great news at a time when household budgets are already squeezed.

Or consumers will just see more de-contenting in new cars: same prices, fewer features, like during the pandemic’s supply chain crisis.

And they could set back investments in promising future tech, like cleaner cars or autonomous vehicles—while rivals in China manage to pull ahead.

General Motors and Hyundai will team up to make five new vehicles, including a small electric van for North America. [GM Newsroom]

Rivian, at least, is on target for its factory expansion to build the $45,000 R2 coming next year. [InsideEVs]

The upcoming BMW iX3 will be much more than just another electric SUV: it’s a high-tech tour de force aimed at putting BMW on par with Tesla and China’s automakers. [Bloomberg]

Also debuting at Germany’s big auto show next month: the Mercedes-Benz GLC Electric, which leads a needed electric do-over at this storied company. [Autocar]

Give the Chevy Equinox EV its flowers: it became the best-selling non-Tesla EV ever in July. [InsideEVs]

Monday is gonna be a big deal for Ford. It’s promising a “Model T moment” at its Louisville, Kentucky plant, where it’s expected to unveil a new affordable EV and the platform it rides on.

We don’t know anything concrete about that vehicle yet, but it’s expected to be an electric truck. (Here’s more on Ford’s “skunkworks” EV plan.)

Car costs are turning into a major problem for consumers. One in four car trade-ins had negative equity in Q2 2025—the highest rate since the peak of the pandemic. [Edmunds]

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reports that Detroit’s automakers are “rediscover[ing] their love of gas guzzlers” after the Trump administration kills EV tax credits and clean-car rules. Here’s why I think that’s a mistake.

I’m keeping an eye on the automakers who are using this moment to dial back their electrification plans. One may be Subaru, which has a green image but is a laggard on the powertrain tech front—it’s now planning for a 50/50 mix of combustion cars, hybrids and EVs “sometime after 2030.”

GM’s long-troubled former Lordstown, Ohio factory has been sold by Foxconn to… a mystery buyer? Email me if you know who it is. [TechCrunch]

Hundreds of old, repurposed EV batteries are being put to work just east of my hometown of San Antonio, Texas, stabilizing the power grid. [The Texas Tribune]

Redwood Materials is a player to watch in the used EV battery storage race. [Canary Media]

Hotel mega-chain Hilton says the presence of EV chargers is now the biggest feature driving online booking. Yes, more than free breakfast. [Skift]

Electrify America tells InsideEVs’ Tim Levin that it, too, won’t slow down on deployments even as the market gets weird.

Also not slowing down: California, which just announced $55 million for more public fast-charging stations.

The Tesla Diner may be kind of goofy (and hot dogs somehow cost $13), but it’s a big boost for EV charging in metro Los Angeles.

In the UK, Octopus Energy is giving away chargers to Uber EV drivers.

Orion Energy Systems is deploying 90 fast-charging stations for EV school buses in Boston.

Amazon’s Zoox cab gets clearance to operate without a steering wheel or pedals.

Ride-sharing giant Lyft will partner with China’s Baidu to deploy autonomous vehicles in Germany and the UK starting in 2026.

Uber’s CEO says the average Waymo cab completes more trips per day than 99% of Uber drivers.

Tesla, however, is still reeling from a $243 million lawsuit verdict related to a 2019 fatal Autopilot crash. Tesla will appeal the verdict.

Tesla’s much-hyped Dojo supercomputer effort is dead. It was meant to train the AI behind its self-driving cars via a custom in-house chip, but amid a talent drain at the company, it will rely on external partners like Nvidia and AMD instead. [Bloomberg]

China’s EVs already often have advanced AI features, and now Xiaomi is rolling out its new MiDashengLM-7B model—for home gadgets and cars. These types of features are expected to become more common in the North American and European markets over time.

Case in point: Three unnamed “major” automakers will start rolling out voice-controlled AI from SoundHound AI, providing weather reports, sports scores and even restaurant recommendations.

Another frontier for AI: the car dealership experience, where it can aid and augment the efforts of already stretched-thin dealer staff.