00:00Now, Sam Fiorani is a car industry expert at Auto Forecast Solutions.
00:05He joins us now.
00:06Sam, thanks so much for your time.
00:08GM is an American company.
00:10Why are tariffs hurting it so much?
00:13General Motors imports a lot of vehicles from Mexico and Canada, and especially from South Korea.
00:19The South Korean vehicles are their entry-level models, and they require these vehicles to be less expensive to build.
00:26And so the tariffs are going to push them out of the market, potentially eliminating the entire class of vehicles for General Motors.
00:35General Motors is also facing a challenge around EVs because Trump's big, beautiful bill has ended the tax subsidy for electric vehicle sales.
00:45Do you foresee a change in policy?
00:47After all, GM wants to be only electric by 2035.
00:51GM has already changed its direction prior to the elimination of the incentives and was already phasing in some gas-powered vehicles, hybrids, and plug-in hybrids to offset the slow transition to EVs.
01:07And this was going to delay the eventual move to fully electric vehicles even before the bill came out.
01:15So this is just pushing them in the correct direction for the market at the moment.
01:21If we look at Dutch-owned Stellantis, fourth largest auto company in the world, they reported losses for the first half of 2025 earlier this week.
01:31Do you think factory closures are now inevitable for a group like Stellantis that has factories in Canada, for example?
01:38The plants that it has in North America are being utilized properly, except for a couple in the United States, which, because of the direction of the administration right now, will need to get some product going forward.
01:53It's unlikely that they'll close any plants anytime soon, especially in North America.
01:58But the company is dealing with a lot of changes and a lot of financial issues through the second quarter.
02:05And with the new CEO, we're looking at better prospects in the future.
02:10You're a forecaster in the auto industry.
02:13I'd say that's a pretty tough gig right now.
02:16But if you had to give us an overall picture of where things are going, you know, there's fears about factories having to completely reinvent themselves, but also entire streams just falling off.
02:25Where's this all going?
02:26Because we heard from Trump things are going to get worse before they get better.
02:30The whole industry was moving towards electrification, and that will happen eventually.
02:37But now they're realizing that there's going to be an extended period where internal combustion engine vehicles will be required.
02:44And so a lot of new products are coming online.
02:47A lot of vehicles that were planned are being delayed.
02:49The industry is in a huge amount of transition at the moment, and this will grow over the next few years.
02:57It will get worse because the plans were for electric vehicles, but we're going to get new vehicles and a better future in the next five years.
03:08If we look at GM again, an American company that's feeling the heat of tariffs because, let's face it, car manufacturing is globalized.
03:17Do you think it will survive this?
03:20General Motors will survive this.
03:21They have consolidated themselves to be a North American manufacturer with a footprint in China and South America.
03:30But the idea that the industry can survive by being walled off into one country doesn't understand how this industry works.
03:39It is a very global industry and requires suppliers across nations, manufacturers across borders.
03:45This is an industry that requires a lot of work from a lot of expertise around the world.
03:51And walling yourself off just makes the vehicles uncompetitive in the global market.
03:57All right.
03:57Thank you so much for speaking to us today.
03:58That's Sam Fiorani, who is an auto industry expert.
04:02That's Sam Fiorani, who is an auto industry expert.