Welcome to the Daily 5 report for Wednesday, Feb. 12.
Japan's Isuzu Motors, known most in the U.S. for its popular Isuzu Trooper SUV in the 1980s and 1990s, is making a comeback in the market, announcing today it plans to produce commercial vehicles at a plant near Greenville, S.C.
In a Feb. 12 press release, Isuzu said it acquired a 1-million-square-foot facility on 200 acres. The company plans to invest about $280 million in the operation, hire about 700 workers and produce up to 50,000 vehicles a year. While the statement commits to building commercial vehicles, Isuzu could expand to other products.
"We plan to use a flexible manufacturing methodology that can accommodate demand for gasoline cars, while keeping in mind the transition toward electric passenger cars in the long term," it said in a statement.
"The plant will be optimally designed for our needs, streamline our processes, provide us flexibility to react to changing market conditions, and position us for even greater growth in the North American market," Noboru Murakami, president of Isuzu North America Corp., said in the statement.
Isuzu left the U.S. light-vehicle market in 2009. The company's best U.S. sales year was 1986 when it sold 127,630 vehicles.
Of course, the Japanese are using this news to demonstrate confidence in the U.S. market and avoid President Donald Trump's proliferation of tariff threats on U.S. trading partners.
Meanwhile, tariffs on electric vehicle battery cells and materials imported from China more than tripled to 25 percent last year and this is pressuring Volvo Cars to find a domestic battery source for its U.S.-made EX90 crossover, as Urvaksh Karkaria reports today.
Volvo Cars CEO Jim Rowan recently said the higher tariff "takes a bite" out of the profit on the EX90, which is assembled in Ridgeville, S.C., with batteries from China's Contemporary Amperex Technology Co.
Back in Washington, we are closely watching the ongoing chaos at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau brought on by actions of the Trump administration and Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency. The CFPB from the beginning has been the center of a political battle played between regulation-friendly Democrats versus the financial community, auto dealers and others.
This story by John Huetter raises questions about Musk's potential conflicts of interest presiding over an agency that regulates Tesla's finance competitors. Huetter also wrote this story about precedents influencing current management decisions at the agency.
So what happens if the CFPB gets permanently defanged? State attorneys general would likely fill the void, according to another story by Huetter.
Finally, we have the latest batch of auto dealership group earnings reports, with mixed results from Lithia Motors Inc. and Sonic Automotive.
Business remained strong across the board in the fourth quarter and in 2024 for most dealership groups, but margins are under pressure. New-vehicle sales rose but used-vehicle deliveries slipped.
That's it for today. Have a great rest of your day.
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— Philip Nussel, online editor
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