EV registrations are the official counts of electric cars that people have registered to drive. It's a way to see how many electric cars are being used.
Software-defined vehicles are cars that rely on software to manage their features, which means they can be updated and improved over time. This allows drivers to customize their cars and even pay for new features as subscriptions.
ADAS means Advanced Driver Assistance Systems. These are features in cars that help make driving safer and easier, like systems that can help you stay in your lane or automatically brake if there's an obstacle ahead.
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Welcome to Daily Drive. For Tuesday, January 20th, 2026, I'm Kellan Walker in Las Vegas. Today on
the show, Trump threatens European allies with tariffs unless Denmark sales Greenland. Mazda
is pushing back its first EV again and Lincoln is establishing its own identity with a move to
Detroit. Plus, EY's George Legno explains why software-defined vehicles are starting to become
a reality in 2026 and what that means for the industry. I think we have gone across the tipping
point now. Let's run through all the news you need to know to keep up in the auto industry.
President Trump says he'll impose a 10% tariff on goods from eight European nations,
including Germany, France, and the UK, starting February 1st. That would escalate tariffs to
25% by June unless Denmark sales Greenland to the United States. Germany's VDA Auto Industry
Association warns the costs will be enormous for automakers like Volkswagen, BMW, Mercedes-Benz,
and Porsche, all major exporters to the US. VDA President Hildegard Mueller called for a coordinated
response from Brussels. The move targets NATO allies and could derail a US-EU trade deal struck
last July. European Parliament lawmakers have signaled that they'll block approval of that
agreement following Trump's threat. Trump insists acquiring Greenland is necessary for national
security, claiming Russia or China will take it otherwise. Mazda is pushing back its first
dedicated electric vehicle by at least two years to 2029 as market conditions shift. The Japanese
automaker had planned to start production in 2027, but changing regulations and tariff uncertainty
have complicated the picture. EV registrations in the US dropped 49% in November following the
repeal of federal tax credits. So Mazda is pivoting to hybrids instead, including a new hybrid
option for its top-selling CX-5 crossover around 2027. CEO Masahiro Moro now expects EVs to account
for 25% or less of Mazda's global sales by 2030, down from the original 25-40% target.
And Lincoln is carving out its own identity. In February, the luxury brand moves about 55
employees to Ford's Michigan Central Station in Detroit, away from the parent company's
Dearborn headquarters. The brand says the move lets Lincoln establish itself as a distinct luxury
brand while staying connected to Ford's resources. And those are today's headlines. You can find
more details on all those stories at AutoNews.com. Automotive News is out this week with our latest
Auto Industry Confidence Index, which tracks how automakers, retailers, and suppliers are feeling
about their business outlooks. Automaker Confidence jumped 4.4 percentage points in the fourth quarter,
reaching 58.2 on the index. Joining me now to talk about the automaker side of things is Automotive
News staff reporter Vince Bond Jr. Vince, welcome back to Daily Drive. Thank you. Now, Vince, what's
driving this increase in automaker confidence? Well, there are several things. First, they're
pretty optimistic about the fuel economy rules that are being relaxed under Trump. They feel
they'll have more flexibility to build what customers want. And at the same time, they won't
have the same pressure to produce as many electric vehicles. And as we know, demand for those EVs has
been down, you know, in recent years. And so fuel economy rules is one. And then consumer demand,
you know, sales are up 2.2% last year. So that's a good sign. Sales still aren't at
pre-pandemic levels of, you know, 17 million. But we did see some gains last year. So
they do have some reasons to be optimistic about, you know, demand.
Nearly half of automakers expect their performance to be better in the next six months.
But 71% are still very concerned about supplier financial distress. What's driving this disconnect
between optimism about their own businesses and worry about their supply chain?
Well, there are a bunch of reasons. Suppliers are struggling in many ways. There are higher raw
material prices. And then at the same time, they have to face U.S. tariffs that are unpredictable
last year and Europe and North America, you know, thousands of layoffs among suppliers
and several bankruptcies. And so automakers know that their supply base is really, you know,
facing some challenges right now. So I think that's really driving that whole disconnect
that we're seeing. Perfect. Vince, thank you so much for joining me. You're welcome.
We'll go over results for suppliers and retailers in the coming days here on Daily Drive. And you
can read about all of the results of the latest automotive news auto industry confidence index
at AutoNews.com. Coming up, EY's George Legno talks about why he thinks 2026 is the year
software defined vehicles become reality. That's next on Daily Drive.
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Welcome back to Daily Drive. I'm Kellan Walker. Software-defined vehicles have been the industry's
holy grail for years, promising over-the-air updates in vehicle personalization and new
subscription revenue streams. At CES 2026, EY's George Legno declared that the industry has
finally crossed the SDV tipping point. Our own Molly Boygon spoke with Legno on the CES show floor
for the Automotive News Shift podcast. Here's an excerpt from that conversation.
Thanks so much for joining us. Thanks for having me, Molly. So I would love to hear just broadly
your impressions of the show so far. How does CES 2026 compare to the past shows that you've been
doing? I think 2026 is an interesting year. I think it's an interesting year for the Automotives
and the OEMs. I think that you feel a lack of presence from the OEMs this year, which I think
is palpable throughout the organization, but I don't necessarily think that's a negative either.
So if you look at the OEM's presence in the past, it's always been what I think
categorized around three major areas. One, do they have something to launch? And do they want to
launch something? Well, I think if you looked at the last years for a lot of the things that we
both know about, whether it's policies or tariffs, etc., there's been a lot of disruption in the
industry, which is causing them to focus their capital elsewhere. Hence, not a lot of launches
that they're going to have up. Number two, I think it's becoming a little bit more of a show on
software and the partnerships. So rather than the OEMs coming here and spending tens of millions
of dollars on large displays, they're actually showcasing their products through their partners,
which I think is interesting. So it sounds like to me it's a less of an automaker presence, but
that indicates perhaps more focus and more attention to the actual work of making all
these transitions happen. I think it's a focus on the ecosystem and I think it's a focus on
partnerships as you've seen several partnerships be announced already this week. And you know,
I think in years past, my understanding and my estimation is that there's been more talk about
electric vehicle technology, which seems to kind of have taken a backseat this year to some of the
robotaxies, autonomous vehicles, robotics. Do you agree with that assessment? I completely agree with
that. So like you, I've been here for several years and I think there's four themes and you
just mentioned all of them, right? Whether it's autonomous, whether it's AI, whether it's robotics
or EV, there's kind of an ebb and flow and I think you see an ebb and flow this year. So if I go back
five plus years ago, we were really talking about level four autonomy. I think then the industry
took a step back and tried to determine it's really hard and it's really expensive. So you saw that
for the last few years, you've had autonomy kind of take a backseat to EV. So policies come around
and people decide the automakers, we're going to push EVs. You see EV technologies the last few years.
Obviously with what happened in 2025, now EVs taking that backseat. AI and robotics have been
consistent. I think the difference this year is in prior years, AI and really robotics, humanized
robotics were ideological and now it's getting into practical use cases. So you're seeing that
being implemented. So that AI partnership along with the ability to increase simulation, increase
speed to market is really now making autonomy at the top of the presence here at CES in 2026.
I agree that it seems like robotics has a larger presence at the show. I have to wonder if that is
coincidence or perfectly aligned with the larger movement toward reshoring domestic manufacturing.
Do you think that you know this has been in the works for a while and it's sort of just blossoming
now or do you think that this is a conscious effort by companies to showcase how they can make more
efficient domestic manufacturing? I think it's a little bit of both. I think that clearly this year
there has been a push and with the kind of on shoring of the supply chain and manufacturing
there's going to be greater need for robotics. I think it comes along though with that AI technology
and really as you start to look at the AI and the compute power that exists today that didn't
exist last year, it's allowing for that technology to be brought to light. AI has also been really
transformative for autonomous vehicles as you mentioned and I do think last year was kind of
very hype around AI and you know TATGPT was still relatively new at that time and now there's
really like some demonstrable impacts. What do you think it is about the technological innovations
in AI that have really enabled those leaps and bounds for autonomy and robotaxies? I think the
the big presence and you've seen the announcement is the ability to simulate and the ability for
that compute power to take the miles that the human beings that we've driven for a number of years
and then actually be able to compute what's going to happen and how the car is going to react. So
if you take four years ago and you look at what was existing in autonomy and AI, it was still
relatively new and unproven. As the models get better, as the technology and the compute power
get stronger, it makes it easier and easier for that simulation to become a reality, hence the
robotaxies and the autonomous that we're seeing this year. You also mentioned that there's been a
lot of partnerships on display specifically in the area of software which I've seen too and you
software-defined vehicles are still kind of all the rage. Do you think that the industry is
meaningfully closer this show than last year to delivering like the promise of software-defined
vehicles, you know subscriptions through the cockpit, in-vehicle personalization,
autonomy and ADAS perhaps via subscription? That's a great question. I think it's top question of
the show, right? It's on everybody's mind. I think that software-defined vehicles will be around
reality in 2026. So to answer your question, I think we have gone across the tipping point now.
I think the estimation is 50% of the cars manufactured in 2026 will either be semi or full
SDV. So I think that is a large, large transition. Again, some of that is coming from the compute
power and the ability for AI to transition. So if we look at AI in the cockpit, right,
edge AI to allow personal assistance, that is all assisting the SDV. In fact, I think it,
you know, SDV is 2026. Will it be, you know, ADV in 2027 as AI takes a more dominant position
with the AI-defined vehicle? You can hear the full interview with EY's George Legno
on this week's episode of the Automotive News Shift Podcast, available wherever you get your
podcasts. That's Daily Drive for today. I'm Kellan Walker. Thanks to Automotive News executive
producer Jake Neer, as well as our own Hans Grimo and Michael Martinez for their reporting for
today's podcast. You can get the latest news on tech and innovation, Trump's tariff threats,
and everything happening in the auto industry at AutoNews.com. Come back tomorrow for a
conversation with Matt Carey, CEO of Teradar, about the company's pioneering sensor technology
combining the benefits of radar and LiDAR. What we've done because we're between these two is
combine the best of both. So we're flexible, solid state, we can see through weather like radar,
but we also give you the high resolution that LiDAR provides. We'd love to hear from you.
Let us know what you think of the show and the topics we cover today. Send us an email at
DailyDrive at AutoNews.com or leave us a voicemail at 313-444-2774. And if you enjoy the podcast,
remember to like, leave a review, and subscribe so you never miss an episode.
About this episode
Kellan Walker discusses significant automotive news, including Trump's controversial tariff threats aimed at European allies and Mazda's delay in launching its first dedicated EV until 2029. Lincoln is also making headlines by relocating to Detroit to establish a distinct identity. EY's George Legno shares insights on the rise of software-defined vehicles (SDVs), declaring 2026 as a pivotal year for their implementation in the industry. The episode highlights the shifting landscape of automotive technology and market dynamics, making it a crucial listen for industry followers.
