Jan. 27, 2026 | Ancor CEO: “Data is king”; Hyundai, Kia face new disadvantage

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Welcome to Daily Drive. For Tuesday, January 27th, 2026, I'm Kellan Walker in Las Vegas today on

the show. Trump raises tariffs on South Korean vehicles to 25%. GM widened its fourth quarter

loss but raised 2026 guidance. Ford and GM just cleared a major banking hurdle. Plus,

anchor CEO Jose Flores explains why automakers are bleeding profit by treating data as a back

office compliance thing. Let's run through all the news you need to know to keep up in the auto

industry. President Trump is raising tariffs on South Korean vehicles to 25%, up from 15%,

putting Hyundai and Kia at a disadvantage. Trump says South Korea's parliament has an

approved last summer's trade deal, so he's bumping duties on autos and other goods to the higher rate.

That gives Japanese automakers, who face just 15% tariffs, a new edge over their Korean rivals.

The move also affects GM, which imports the Chevy Trax and Buick crossovers from South Korea.

Seoul is now sending its trade and industry ministers to Washington to implement the deal.

South Korea's parliament says it'll take up the legislation next month. Speaking of GM,

the United States' largest automaker widened its fourth quarter net loss to $3.3 billion.

That's after taking more than $7 billion in charges, mostly tied to scaling back EB production.

But despite the red ink, GM raised its 2026 guidance. The automaker projects net income of

$10.3 to $11.7 billion and expects to cut EB losses by more than $1 billion this year. CEO

Mary Barra called 2025 exceptional amid shifting trade and tax policy. GM's also boosting its

dividend 20% and buying back $6 billion in shares. The company anticipates higher tariff cost in 2026

between $3 and $4 billion. We'll have more on this story in a minute with our own Lindsey Van

Hulley. And GM and Ford just cleared a major banking hurdle. After years of waiting, the FDIC

approved deposit insurance for their industrial banks. Ford Credit Bank and GM Financial Bank.

Why does this matter? The answer is lower funding costs. FDIC insured deposits are cheaper than what

captive finance companies typically pay to raise money. Ford plans to buy auto loans from dealerships

and finance EV infrastructure. GM will mostly buy loans from GM Financial. Both automakers have a

year to launch. They need to maintain hefty capital reserves and must keep their bank boards

independent. BMW and Toyota already operate industrial banks. Stellantis and Nissan have

applications pending. And those are today's headlines. Joining me now to discuss GM's

fourth quarter results is our own Lindsey Van Hulley, who covers General Motors for

Automotive News. Lindsey, welcome back to Daily Drive. Hi, Kel. Happy to be here.

So Lindsey, GM took over $7 billion in charges but raised its 2026 guidance.

Walk us through how GM can be optimistic about this year despite the massive write downs.

So the charges that they took in the fourth quarter are mostly related to scaling back

EV production. There were some charges related to ongoing restructuring in China.

Those really have an impact on net income. So in this case, that contributed to a net loss in

the fourth quarter of $3.3 billion. But when you look at their earnings from an adjusted basis,

before interest in taxes, that was actually up 13% to about $2.8 billion. And for the year,

when you look at that adjusted pre-tax earnings, it was actually near the high end of their

guidance for the year. And so they look at this really as underlying strength in

their core automotive business. Pricing is remaining strong. They've kept inventory

pretty disciplined as far as trying to match output to demand so that they don't have a lot of

inventory sitting there that then requires a lot of incentives to move. And they see more of the

same into 2026. They're forecasting a more profitable year. They have raised their guidance for

net income and for their adjusted EBIT in 2026. And that's even with tariff costs that continue

looking at ways that they can offset that. They're expecting to be able to improve their EV losses

by about $1 billion in 2026. And all of those factors together kind of look to that being a

stronger year going forward. And Lindsay, what can UAW workers expect when it comes to profit

sharing checks this year, given these results? Profit sharing is tied to North American earnings.

And so they're going to be about $10,500 or up to $10,500 this year. It's less than about $14,500

that they received last year. And it's a reflection of the fact that while they earned nearly $10.5

billion in North America for the year, it's less than last year. And tariffs obviously had an impact

there. And so it's still a pretty significant bonus check. It's just not going to be as much as last

year. Perfect. Lindsay, thank you so much for joining me. Thanks, Cal. You can read Lindsay van

Hulley's reporting on GM and all of today's top stories at AutoNews.com. Coming up next,

anchor CEO Jose Flores discusses why data management is a critical and overlooked factor

in the software-defined vehicle era. That's next on Daily Drive.

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Welcome back to Daily Drive. I'm Kellan Walker. As automakers race toward software-defined vehicles,

most focus on flashy sensors and autonomous technology. But anchor CEO Jose Flores says

they're missing the foundation, data management. Flores argues that without proper data collection

and traceability, companies are bleeding profit, trust, and time. Our own Jake Nier spoke with

Flores at CES about why he says data is king. Jose Flores, welcome back to Daily Drive. Excited

to be here. So the last time I talked to you, this was on Mackinac Island at the Mackinac

Policy Conference. At the time, I know anchor was really leaning into the EV battery passport

technology at the time. And a lot has changed then. So I'm really excited to hear what the road has

been like since then. So obviously with a lot of policy changes, back then you had a different

administration really pushing for a lot of requirements for sustainability. Europe was

doing a lot towards sustainability and tracking and things like that. Different kind of environment,

now to say the least. So talk about that part of the business and sort of what the situation is there.

Yeah, I think as you mentioned, a lot of things have changed since two years ago. When we launched

BATCOR two years ago, there was no regulations. We were following the EU battery regulations and

the CARB standards. I went three, four months ago to the battery conference in Detroit and I had a

panel interview and the great news is that now there's a battery regulation in the US. If you

ask me how does it compares or for the audience, how does it compares to the EU battery regulations,

I think we did it in a smarter way in the US. It's less, more simplistic, no calculations

needed. It's just building the foundation for the next step which is how do we get the compliance

on the battery traceability. So what's new with Anchor right now? What's been some of the things

you're working on right now? There has been a lot of great news at Anchor on our side. Last time we

spoke we were just automotive. Now we're a whole different group. We're not just one company, we're

a group that has different divisions. We have our automotive division which is the one that we

built our foundation on for more than 50 years and then we have our regulated industries division

which serves healthcare, retail, defense. The fun one which I call my baby is the innovation

solutions group which is the one that comes up to challenges and solutions that serve the

customers. Our latest product is TraceCorp. It's an asset tracking software that will let you track

the supply chain and components in real time through a smart connectivity label. So we took

our label which was our main product and data management to a whole new level now with AI and

chips and it will give you that visibility and auditing for all the warehouses and it's very

impressive. So I'm very excited to be here and see how can I partner with a lot of tier ones and

customers that will want this solution. So talk about what the goal is here at CES. We've had

conversations with analysts who have said you know in the past we've seen a lot of automakers

and tier ones here that are kind of selling what they're doing and now they're doing a lot more

shopping. So I assume that you're you're trying to take advantage of that. Yeah of course I mean

the CES in the last three years has changed and evolved a lot. For me last year it was mainly

automotive I was surprised to see a lot of EVs and startups. This year is a totally different 360

because yes you have the lighter suppliers and automotive and new EV startups and formal over

the world but also you have the AI side of the business and you have everyone that is trying

to build and contribute to the new mobility ecosystem. So for me coming here is okay I'm

looking for partners or how can I put my contribution to this mobility because at the end the way I

see a jake is yes CES tells you about the innovation, the vision, what's the goal. Everyone that is

here is trying to contribute towards that next mobility phase if you want to call it that way

but also all of this mobility you're seeing flying cars you're seeing parts you're seeing cars

recreational vehicles all of these platforms have something in common that I think nobody's

talking about and that's the data intelligence operations right how do you connect all these

components to the platform which is the vehicle right the vehicle is the platform that is going

to take you there but if you don't manage the data properly from mental and you don't have the

traceability the visibility companies will keep bleeding profit trust and time right nobody

nobody thinks about the data only the people that we are into the data field we don't like they

don't think about it but I think it's critically as an important and I know it as long as companies

don't stop seeing data as a back chore compliance thing I don't think they're going to be in the

competition field. That's really interesting to me one of the things that I've heard too is that

on the again on the automotive side for automakers or tier ones to do this correctly to to get into

the sdv era that sort of thing it's going to be really really and in eight s as well it's going

to be really important to choose your partners carefully you know that you could lose a lot of

money if you just try to you know hire everybody and get like everyone's solutions and then all

of a sudden you know it's it's kind of a mess and it's costly so what are you telling automakers

as well as to why you should be part of that team I always start with the line that I like is for me

data is king right you might have the fanciest lighter supplier that there is out there for

for your vehicle platform or or your vehicles but garbage in garbage out right what are you

doing with that data yes the lighter will do its job will tell you where things are but are you

making informed smart decisions are you harvesting the data and now with AI it's even easier because

the challenge previously with data was who manages and makes the decisions with the data like who

makes the analytics on the data you you needed data analytics persons to do that nowadays if you

have a strong AI software you can make those smart decisions with the data but the data needs to be

collected and managed from that point right so are you just using your components to a full

full point are you just using them as a informative type of goal that makes a lot of sense and it's

something that I think is is key across so many different sectors I got to ask you you know you

mentioned that that anchor is now a group within many different things you know any other you know

sides of any other businesses you're you're eyeing right now or anything you want to get into in the

future so we we are getting into healthcare as well it's the same data reigns all right so imagine

this you have a medical enclosure with medicines or components each component has has an RFID label

on it that will give you the data to make informed decisions like okay how many quantities do I have

when do they expire who's checking those items or medical medicines in and out of the cabinet

and it's just faster and everything flows because you're not going sending a human to check okay

do I have enough inventory in this medical cabinet do I need to order more when are they expiring no

right now with with the technology that we have if you leverage it properly you can make very fast

informed decisions so we are in the we're in the healthcare field now and right now we're also on

the supply chain filled with trace score which is what I said on the warehouse through smart

connectivity labels you can audit assets on real time in seconds you don't need to send someone to

do head counts or counts of how many material do you have with a click you can see like hey

you have 10 000 assets you're missing nine 10 of them are misplaced they're not in the on the rack

and shelf that it should be and by the way you have only two of this so you might order more

and when you're in production you know how important is for you not to have downtime downtime is

costing you a lot of money so when a line breaks you need to go and find that part and make sure

that you have that part and go and replace it right away so the amount of money that automakers

are losing trying to find in a 10 000 or 100 000 critical component cage departs it's very impressive

so we saw that business case we saw that for one of our partners and now it's one of our flagship

products so you're in you're in different sectors but you're really in the data efficiency business

is that fair yeah that's a very nice assumption data operations intelligence it's everything that it's

related to data that will give you the traceability to make the decisions i wanted to do a quick

follow-up on actually my first question there because i'm i realized i should have followed

up in the first place i'm curious what you think in terms of again when it comes to ev batteries

which is what we talked a lot about last time is it easier now is it harder now in that business

based on all the i mean we hear so much about the the pullback on evs and the you know and

that sort of thing how's that affecting you guys i think it has been affecting us also as a country

because as you saw the ev credits are being pulling back people are being more resilient

towards evs they're now now we're following the hybrids route and everything if you ask me jake

the need is out there we do need the ev batteries yes we have the tools that we need to do the digital

twin for the batteries and that will take the batteries decision to the next level because

you will be able to see on a digital twin what's the real life cycle of the battery how many cycles

left i i saw one supplier here that also does a battery management system like like like we do

and i think the need is there companies are struggling because we don't have the direction

jet off okay are we are are we following going all on board to the ev race or no two years ago

yeah we were as a country full ev race mindset now if you read about well you know the automakers

are pulling out of the ev race like they're they there's there's oems that have full platforms

that were very popular and now they're going a different direction so the need is out there

i don't think he's a surgeon as he was two years ago and and do you think that you're

feeling optimistic about the long-term future or are you a little less optimistic now i'm very

optimistic i do think that the ev platform it's something we need we don't need to rush into it

we need to go step by step same thing that we did with the regulations we decided to lower down

the regulations now we need to say like okay if we want to go on the ev race how long is it going

to take five years ten years okay what do we need do we have the infrastructure because i i always say

we don't even have the data and and and for the infrastructure to charge the vehicles and now we

did the ai on it like the power that we require to maintain ai plus the ev vehicles that's going to

be a very interesting question that if someone needs to address like how are we going to get all

this energy from it's not like we don't pull it out of the air you know anything else that you

want to say before we end up here no i think it has been an excited uh very exciting show i i like

to see the the goal ces is always the innovation the the show i i i always tell my friends and and

my uh my partners that for me ces is it shows you the chinese objects right but the real question is

out there like do you have the software and the tools that run at three in the morning on the

operations plan because that's the thing that is going to give you the real advantage not the

chinese vehicle but something that runs at three in the morning when no one is working that's how

you build the legacies osa flores ceo of anchor thank you so much for joining us today of course

jake thanks for having me that's daily drive for today i'm kevin walker thanks to automotive news

journalist lindsay van hulle ans grimo and john hudder for their reporting for today's podcast

you can get the latest news on tech and innovation tariffs and trade and everything

happening in the auto industry at auto news dot com we'd love to hear from you let us know what you

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Jan. 27, 2026 | Ancor CEO: “Data is king”; Hyundai, Kia face new disadvantage

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