LIVE
This podcast is brought to you by Reynolds and Reynolds, the industry leader in automotive technology.
Learn how Spark AI, Reynolds Unified AI data layer, can help you unlock your full potential
by visiting rayray.com.spark-ai. That's R-E-Y, R-E-Y.com.spark-ai.
Hey, it's daily drive executive producer Jake Nier in Detroit.
On today's bonus episode, we'll get a comprehensive look at what we know now about
the US immigration raid at a joint battery plant being built by Hyundai and LG Energy Solution
in the fallout now that hundreds of workers who were detained are back in South Korea.
But first, on Thursday's show, we brought you an excerpt of publisher Casey Crain's conversation
with Asbury Automotive Group CEO David Holt on stage at Automotive News Congress in Detroit.
In this clip, they talk about the state of electric vehicle sales as regulations change
and most federal support ends. I'm trying to figure out how to phrase this without getting
you in trouble. You work with every automaker. We watched this EV craze happen over the last
10 years. It seems like one of the best models has been a little bit of everything and offering
consumers. And what I want to ask you is you get to talk to people, buyers every single day.
What are they saying about what they want? What do you guys see for trends where people
don't want to be sold? What do people want to buy? Yeah. I think, in a personal opinion,
the government was really pushing their own manufacturers to move too quick. And I just
don't think society moves that fast. I think it's a transition over time. I think EVs will
continue to grow over time, but it was too accelerated. The demand wasn't there and the
infrastructure wasn't there. A lot of the states that we do business in, the infrastructure isn't
there to support the vehicles. And I think there is range anxiety that existed for a period of
time out there. And if you're living in certain markets that have a good infrastructure, it's
a little bit easier. But as you get down into the smile states, the infrastructure just isn't
there. And that was a concern. The price point was there as well. The tax credit was there as a
benefit. But accepting if your average consumer is 40 years old purchasing a vehicle, and this is
brand new technology to them, and if they don't own a home and don't have access to charging,
there's a lot to be thinking about and how you have to handle that. And then first generation
technology isn't as good as what it can be in 10 years. So I think this is that transition point
that you have to go through. You always have early adopters that embrace new technology.
I don't think anything is the mistake, in my opinion, was made by the government pushing it too
fast, too hard. They were putting too much pressure from my perspective on the manufacturers
without an infrastructure to support it. Asbury Automotive Group CEO David Holt spoke with our
publisher Casey Crane at Automotive News Congress in Detroit, you can hear more of their conversation
on this past Thursday's episode of Daily Drive. Coming up, our own Molly Boygon breaks down
the latest on the ICE raid that targeted workers at Hyundai and LG Energy's battery plant site in
Georgia. That's next on this bonus episode of Daily Drive. As your business gets more complex,
it feels like productivity can't go any higher. You need a way to move forward to a future where
you don't have to start every interaction from scratch. You don't have to search for actionable
information. You don't have to manually pull data to make decisions. You need a future where the
complex is made simple and you can do more with less. How do you get there? It all starts with a
spark. Unlock your full potential with the next generation of automotive dealership technology
that actually does some of the heavy lifting for you by texting leads, transcribing calls,
making data backed recommendations and boosting your overall productivity so that you can spend
your time and energy on what truly matters. Selling cars and growing your business.
Spark AI, Reynolds Unified AI data layer can empower your dealership to operate more efficiently
and effectively than ever before. So you can do more, sell more and make more. To learn how Spark AI
can help your dealership reach its full potential, visit rayray.com slash spark dash AI today.
That's r-e-y r-e-y dot com slash spark dash AI to learn more. Welcome back to this bonus episode
of Daily Drive. I'm Jake Nier. Automotive news tech and innovation reporter Molly Boygon has been
spending many hours lately following updates about the recent US immigration raid that saw hundreds
of Hyundai and LG energy solution workers detain then later released and returned to South Korea.
Molly spoke with our own Rudy Shork about what we know at this point and what happens next.
From your reporting so far, what's something most people still don't understand about this raid
or its impact? The raid really highlights this very common but illegal practice of companies in
the auto industry and in other tech manufacturing industries of using foreign labor, using B1 and
visa waivers. And the reason why companies do this is because the US has a fairly antiquated
system of distributing visas and otherwise dealing with immigration. And this has just
emerged as basically the fastest and easiest way to get specialized workers to plans to get things
set up. The interesting thing going forward is whether or not companies plan to continue to
rely on foreign labor to get factories up and running like the HLGA battery plant in Georgia
or whether they eventually expect to be able to use American workers to build tool and calibrate
advanced tech manufacturing facilities. You've reported on how common it is for
automakers to use foreign labor during plant construction. Do you think this changes the
game for companies going forward? The Hyundai raid signals to companies in the auto industry and in
other industries that there's a new way of doing business. And actually Commerce Department
Secretary Howard Lutnik said something to that effect on an Axios podcast a couple of weeks ago.
While this was sort of standard practice, the Trump administration has obviously taken a
harder line on immigration and it has demonstrated that it will crack down on practices that even
had been subject to sort of handshake or informal agreements between governments.
The Hyundai raid also has prompted calls from companies like Hyundai and LG for a more streamlined
and better visa process for those specialized workers that are coming into build and tool
plants. And we'll see if the two governments actually make that a priority because as the
administration has demonstrated elsewhere, the sort of undocumented immigrant roundup
has been a priority. So it's unclear whether different immigration agencies even have the
bandwidth to sort of revise that type of visa process. Recently you were at a round table
sit down with Jose Munoz. What did you learn from that conversation? My biggest takeaway from that
conversation is that Hyundai is in an interesting position. It continues to try and distance itself
from the facility. So during the round table, Jose Munoz said this was an LG facility. The
employees that were detained were tier two and tier three subcontractors for LG. That's partly true.
While roughly 50 of the employees that were detained were direct employees of LG,
the remainder of about 300 employees were employees of subcontractors of HLGA,
which is a joint venture between Hyundai and LG. So clearly the company views this as a bit of a
PR hit and is trying to sort of stress the technicalities of its employment situation
at the plant, which I should also mention is actually located at the meta plant that Hyundai
is using to manufacture vehicles. Did he from that conversation, did he give any indication of what
Hyundai is planning to do differently going forward, whether that's hiring practices or
training or compliance checks? Munoz stressed that Hyundai wants to comply with the rules and
regulations and laws of the US government. Munoz said that he had spoken to the White House,
he had not spoken to Trump himself, but had spoken to someone in Trump's White House office
about this issue. The tack that the company has really taken is pushing for a revised visa process
because Hyundai has stressed and stressed at the roundtable that at this point it still needs
Korean battery expertise to get these battery plants up and running.
And did he say anything that helps us better understand how Hyundai views its relationship
with the US regulators and lawmakers after all this? A lot of the investor day presentation
in New York had to do with the US market. And during the roundtable, Munoz said
something along the lines of my number one priorities are US and A. So clearly the company
is committed to its investment in the United States. They indicated that there are plans to
release a pickup in the United States, obviously a very important segment to this market.
And Munoz and others during the investor day stressed how important the US market is to the
company's overall strategy. So I would say that either because of the opportunities in the US
market or because of Hyundai's awareness of the way that this incident may have impacted
the brand's kind of aura, they stressed the importance of the US during the presentations.
And based on what you heard, what should people in the industry be paying attention to next?
A couple of weeks ago, I spoke to Charles Cook, who's a lawyer who was representing 12 of the
detained workers from the raid. And he said that he had already heard from two auto parts
manufacturers trying to figure out how they could avoid similar action at their plants.
I think I will be watching to see if the Trump administration moves forward with immigration
raids at similar facilities. If the administration does move ahead with this,
it signifies that the immigration priorities of the administration have kind of superseded
some of the more diplomatic avenues that it's tried to take with the auto industry.
And if the administration does not continue to kind of strike a hard line on immigration and
foreign labor at these facilities, it indicates to me that there's some understanding from the
Trump administration that different auto industry companies need to rely on foreign labor and that
the existing visa system doesn't really enable that. So that's really what I'll be watching
for and to see if those comments from Howard Lutnik that the old way of doing business is over
is actually true. Automotive news tech and innovation reporter Mollye Boygan spoke with
our own Rudy Shork. You can find all of the latest news and updates about the ice raid in Georgia
over at AutoNews.com. Thanks for listening to this bonus episode of Daily Drive. We'll be back on
Monday with a brand new full episode of the show.
0:00
12:25