Welcome to today's edition of the Daily 5.
It's no surprise that President-elect Donald Trump is sending out scary signals about tariffs — he promised this on the campaign trail all along. So today he's having the usual impact creating controversy among U.S. trading partners Canada, Mexico and China, promising broad tariffs that would have a direct impact on automotive assembly and parts manufacturing — and ultimately car prices.
Flavio Volpe has seen this act before as president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers' Association, Canada's top advocate for suppliers. Here's what he told Bloomberg in our tariff coverage today.
"The president-elect has done what he's famous for, which is try to stir the debate. The only surprise is how early he's done it," Volpe said. "What we learned in the first term was he uses strong rhetoric, public rhetoric. But the negotiations are always tough, but reasonable — and I'm just telling everybody to be patient."
South of the border, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said she would send a letter to Trump on Tuesday to urge dialogue and cooperation following his threat of across-the-board tariffs on Mexico and Canada, Reuters reported.
"One tariff will follow another and so on, until we put our common businesses at risk," Sheinbaum told a press conference. She predicted such tariffs would cause inflation and job losses in Mexico and the U.S.
She's no doubt correct, but as Volpe said, negotiations will happen, and they will be tough. Stay tuned.
Meanwhile, major news broke today out of Italy involving the Agnelli automotive clan. Reuters, citing prosecutors, is reporting that Italian tax police have searched the offices of some legal firms as part of an investigation into allegations of tax fraud involving five people, including Stellantis and Ferrari Chairman John Elkann.
The investigation alleges Elkann and his siblings Lapo and Ginevra did not pay taxes in Italy on assets they inherited after the 2019 death of their grandmother Marella Caracciolo, the wife of late Fiat boss Gianni Agnelli, the Reuters report said.
In other news, this story by Nick Gibbs of Automotive News Europe tells us Porsche has clearly begun pivoting back to internal combustion engines as electric vehicle sales continue to disappoint.
Porsche said it will develop new combustion-engine derivatives across its model range to meet customer demand as sales of full-electric cars fall, Gibbs reports.
"There is a clear trend in the premium luxury segment in the direction of combustion-engine cars, therefore we will react in our product cycle," Porsche CFO Lutz Meschke said in our story.
While Porsche resumes a future with combustion, its affiliate Volkswagen brand is about to launch its Thanksgiving ad campaign to promote the ID Buzz electric minivan. The campaign will be all about optimism.
Rachael Zaluzec, VW of America's senior vice president of customer experience and brand marketing, told Jack Walsworth in our story today that the marketing pitch aims to leverage the positive emotions generated by the ID Buzz across the VW lineup.
"Yes, it's a Buzz campaign," she said, "but it's effectively a brand campaign."
Also in today's report, our "Daily Drive" podcast features the second installment of our exclusive interview last week with incoming Hyundai global CEO Jose Munõz, who discusses his new position and his plans for the automaker moving forward.
Looking ahead to Wednesday, we're going to take a close look at how the dealership buy-sell market will look in 2025 as Trump returns to the White House. This is a must-read for any auto dealer looking to buy or sell stores next year.
That's it for today. Have a great rest of your day!
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— Philip Nussel, online editor
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