Welcome to the Daily 5 report for Thursday, March 13.
When J.D. Power issues its many automotive studies, the coverage at Automotive News and elsewhere tends to focus on which automakers and brands did well, but sometimes the more compelling stories are found at the bottom of the reports.
In the case of the J.D. Power 2025 U.S. Customer Service Index Study, we reported that Porsche topped Lexus in the luxury segment in this comprehensive survey of how dealership service departments handled their customers in 2024. Is it any surprise that these results emerged just a few days after we reported on Porsche's aggressive moves to increase its standalone U.S. stores and improve overall store quality?
In the mass-market segment, Subaru topped Mini and Honda in the J.D. Power study. Again, no surprise here because Subaru continues to deliver quality products to its U.S. dealerships and generated 31 straight months of sales increases through February 2025.
The conclusion: Happy dealers produce happy customers.
Meanwhile, the brands in last place in both segments in the J.D. Power report belong to Stellantis. Maserati bottomed out the luxury segment while Ram finished last among mass-market brands. We have reported at length for the past year how Stellantis has alienated its dealers, particularly in the U.S., leading to the departure of controversial CEO Carlos Tavares in December.
The search for a new CEO continues, but in the meantime, the current leadership team is repairing those relationships and getting more optimistic about the future. This story about Ram Heavy Duty trucks reflects that bullish attitude among company brass.
At Maserati, troubles piled up in the past year. The brand sold just 11,300 vehicles in 2024, down from 26,600 in 2023. It had an adjusted operating loss of €260 million ($284 million) in 2024, Reuters reported.
The new Stellantis CEO will no doubt see these results and perhaps understand that unhappy dealerships mean unhappy customers.
In the world of future products, the next-generation Mercedes-Benz CLA will roll silently into U.S. stores this year, as Urvaksh Karkaria reports in this story. The German automaker's redesigned entry model will debut as a pair of battery-powered variants.
The electric CLA, revealed today in Rome, rides on the new Mercedes Modular Architecture platform and delivers up to 792 kilometers (492 miles) of range based on European testing standards, our story says. Mild hybrid variants will follow, powered by a new four-cylinder engine, 48-volt technology and an electric motor integrated into the transmission.
In case you missed this story earlier, Richard Truett goes into great detail about the tariff hassles faced by automakers who move components back and forth across the U.S. borders with Mexico and Canada as part of their routine assembly process.
Some of the 30,000 components in an average vehicle cross the Canadian or Mexican borders only once to become part of larger systems that are installed in vehicles assembled in the U.S. The tariff on those components is straightforward, the story says. But the cost of the tariffs gets murky when parts cross borders multiple times for installation into larger components.
For the latest on tariffs, here's our live blog. And for a map of North American assembly plants, go here. Of course, we'll continue to report on the tariff chaos.
That's it for now. Have a great rest of your day.
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— Philip Nussel, online editor
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