Jan. 30, 2026 | Tesla-SpaceX merger talk; car buyer satisfaction

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 slash spark dash AI. That's R-E-Y, R-E-Y dot com slash Spark dash AI.

Welcome to Daily Drive for Friday, January 30th, 2026. I'm Kellan Walker in Las Vegas.

Today on the show, Elon Musk is thinking about merging Tesla with SpaceX.

Minivans make a roaring comeback, and automotive suppliers are bracing for consolidation as cost

pressures mount. Plus, Cox Automotive's Jessica Stafford explains why car buyer satisfaction

hit a record 76% in what's driving the shift. We feel like what's driving that satisfaction and

that loyalty is, it's a little simple, but it's meeting the needs of the consumer.

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

Elon Musk is considering some major consolidation moves. Bloomberg News reports

that SpaceX is weighing a potential merger with Tesla or alternatively with XAI ahead of a planned

IPO this year. The discussions would bring Musk's rockets, Starlink satellites,

ex-social media platform, and GROC AI chatbot under one roof. Some Tesla shareholders have been

pushing for the combination. They argue Musk spreads himself too thin across his companies.

Tesla shares jumped 4.5% after hours on the news. SpaceX is targeting a June IPO

that could raise $50 billion, which would make it the biggest IPO of all time.

Many vans are roaring back. US sales climbed 20% to more than 395,000 in 2025,

according to the Automotive News data center. Sales in Canada surged 34% last year to 42,377.

The segment's best year since 2020. So, what's driving the comeback? The answer is affordability.

Consumers are trading down from pricier three-row SUVs.

Stalantis CEO Chris Fewell says the vehicles are finding new buyers beyond families.

Think gig workers, grandparents, and campers.

You've got parents with younger families and the millennial cohort is growing in size and

their consideration for many vans. And then you've got Gen X and boomers who are entering

the grandparenting life stage. They're also active road trippers and many vans are a great option for

them. Analysts expect growth to continue. You can hear Chris Fewell's full conversation

with our own Greg Lason on this week's Automotive News Canada podcast,

available now wherever you get your podcasts. And automotive suppliers are bracing for a wave

of consolidation in 2026 as cost pressures and market volatility take their toll. High cost,

tariffs, and rapid shifts in automaker electrification plans have strained

supplier finances since the pandemic. Parts makers cut at least 60,000 jobs last year in North

America and Europe. That's according to the Automotive News supplier distress tracker.

Joining me now to talk about supplier consolidation is our own John Irwin,

who's been following supplier distress closely. John, welcome back to Daily Drive.

Thanks for having me back.

So John, what are suppliers telling you about specific pressures that are pushing them

toward consolidation right now?

Yeah. A lot of it's kind of similar to what we've been talking about over the past several years,

where suppliers really since the pandemic have sort of seen their margins squeezed and

whether that's by high raw material costs, kind of relatively volatile production,

at least earlier this decade, labor issues, that sort of thing. Really over the past year or two,

obviously, with tariffs being added to the mix, with changes in electrification plans,

particularly that last point where suppliers made these massive investments into electrification

to supply parts and components for automakers in their EV production. But a lot of those plans,

especially among the Detroit three, are being scaled back. Suppliers are sort of being left

holding the bag, not getting much of a return on those investments. In all, there's a feeling of

suppliers feeling kind of squeezed and a lot of financial pressure being put on them.

And as a result, a lot of suppliers are looking at, do we consolidate, do we look for M&A at the

moment? Because that might be a way for some companies to become more cost efficient, maybe

less vulnerable to these really fast swings in the marketplace, whether that's driven by

geopolitics and tariffs and that sort of thing, or whether it's where the market ends up on

electrification. So a lot of companies are kind of looking at that as a potential option.

At the same time, a lot are also looking at partnerships and JVs and that sort of thing.

The idea of just kind of bringing more capabilities, either in-house or working with

companies more closely to make sure that you're able to be a little nimble in a moment where

there's not a lot of long-term clarity on where things might end up.

So you're not left maybe not getting those returns on investment that

a lot of suppliers are struggling with right now with their electrification investments.

And with the Supreme Court set to rule on Trump's tariffs and the USMCA review looming,

how are suppliers positioning themselves to handle whatever comes next?

Yeah, like I just said, there's a lot of uncertainty about where things end up.

I mean, even just looking at those two issues, look at USMCA and there's a wide range of options

where maybe this year the countries agreed to extend the USMCA, keep things maybe about where

they're at now. Maybe there are massive changes to it. The agreement might end up getting blown

up entirely. There's a wide range of outcomes there. And it's difficult to know, okay, if we're

in North America, we operate on these North American trade rules, we don't know exactly what

those rules are going to look like in the future. And it's a similar thing with the

Supreme Court and tariffs and where tariffs are going to end up long term. And so I think the big

thing a lot of companies are looking at is just how do we become nimble. And a lot of that is

making sure that I talked with at CES a few weeks back with Paul Thomas who leads Bosch in North

America. And one of the things that he said was that for a company like them, they're looking to

make sure that they have all options open regardless of where things end up. For instance,

on electrification, if it turns out a few years from now, EV demand is higher than they're expecting

at the moment. Okay, we're able to pivot at our plants. We make components for both ICE and EV

programs here at this plant in South Carolina. For instance, we can pivot and just move production

a little bit more in the EV direction. Or vice versa, EV demand continues to maybe slow a bit.

We can pivot more back toward ICE if we need to. For a company like Bosch, it might be maybe a

little easier just because I don't want to say easier, but for a company like Bosch, they have

the resources to maybe do that. Some of the smaller suppliers that maybe only rely on a couple of

programs that can be a little more difficult. But even for them, that's something that they're

looking at doing. Maybe not being tied up in one program, in one program or one product.

Yeah, I think that's sort of where suppliers are really looking to make sure that they're not just

putting all their eggs in one basket. It's just because there's no way to really know at the

moment where things are going to end up at the end of this year, let alone five years from now.

Perfect. John Owen, thank you so much for joining me.

Thanks so much.

You can read more about the latest on supplier distress and all of today's top stories at

AutoNews.com. Coming up next, Cox Automotive's Jessica Stafford discusses why Car Buyer's

satisfaction hit a record 76% and how digital tools and AI are reshaping the buying journey.

That's next on Daily Drive.

If you're an automotive supplier and you know your team is building the next big thing,

prove it on the industry's biggest innovation stage. Automotive News is now accepting

applications for the 2026 PACE program. PACE awards recognize traditional and non-traditional

suppliers worldwide for new product, process, and business model innovation. And entries must be

innovations already commercialized through a sale to an automaker. Still pre-commercial but

past the pilot stage, PACE pilot recognizes post-pilot pre-commercial innovations across

automotive and future mobility, products, software, IT systems, and processes with the potential to

revolutionize an automaker's business. All submissions are reviewed by an independent

panel of judges and MIMA is the exclusive lead sponsor. Ready to be recognized?

Apply by February 9th at AutoNews.com.

When your AI tools are siloed, lost data, duplicate entries, and confusion are inevitable.

Spark AI isn't another AI tool to manage. Instead, it's a unified AI data layer,

changing the game by ensuring your solutions are making life easier and working at their highest

capacity. Don't miss Spark at NADA. Watch Ray, our new AI assistant, bring everything together

in one intuitive command center for smart, fast decision-making. Ray answers your questions at

any time providing instant messaging, insights, help videos, or live support. Instantly analyze

your sales history and market trends or generate a sales report with one prompt. You can even ask

which cars to buy at auction today for the best return. Schedule an appointment at our booth

for everything from a short demo to a full retail management system demonstration using our core AI

products. Visit rayray.com slash NADA. That's r-e-y r-e-y dot com slash NADA.

Welcome back to Daily Drive. I'm Kellan Walker. While affordability remains top of mind for car

buyers, shoppers' satisfaction with their dealer experience grew in 2025. That's according to

Cox Automotive's Car Buyer Journey Study. Jessica Stafford is Senior Vice President of Consumer

Solutions at Cox. She spoke with Senior Editor Dan Shine about the key takeaways for dealers from

the study. Jess, thanks so much for joining me on the FNI Friday edition of Daily Drive.

Thanks so much for having me, Dan. Excited to be here. Well, we want to talk about the Cox

Automotive Car Buyer Journey Study. This, I think, is an annual report, correct? It is. It is, yes.

All right. And it has some good news for dealers. It seems like people are happy with their car

buying process and with dealerships. Tell me a little bit about what you found.

Yeah. It's really good news. And I mean, I would say not necessarily surprising, although we

continue to see satisfaction tick up. Like you mentioned, we do this every year. And we see

fluctuations. And of course, around the 2020 to 2024 timeframe, lots of changes. But the cool part is

the 2025 study shows us that we're seeing record high satisfaction across all buyers,

but particularly new car buyers. And the number itself is 76% being highly satisfied

with the process itself, which is really high for a process. That's a big number, yeah. Yeah.

And we all know this process of shopping and buying is complicated. Add to it things like the

tariffs this year, affordability challenges, and everything going on in our industry and in our

world could have set us up for a shaky year. But at the end of the day, consumers, car buyers out

there are more and more satisfied. And what we're finding is that it really comes from three areas.

Vehicle selection is always important. That influences their satisfaction every year.

But two things that really stood out this year and that are making the car shopping process

from what consumers tell us even more efficient and even smoother than years before is that it's

all enabled by kind of a connected buying process. And so by being able to see more efficiency

and this smoother process, these are the words consumers are using, they're happy with it.

And it makes a lot of sense for if you think of URI as a consumer,

if a buying experience is considered to be smooth and connected and it's efficient because we all

want it to be more efficient, I'm going to be happy with it. Yeah. And I was interested too that

the loyalty, dealership loyalty was pretty high too, that again, good news for dealerships and

for dealers. There's a reasons for that. Again, it's a private go back to selection. If you give

enough people a price range of maybe I can't afford this, but you got something lower for me,

I can do that. Give them the right tools and they will feel like their needs are met and

therefore they will be satisfied and therefore they will be loyal. I mean, it's kind of core

cycle that works in a lot of industries, but particularly for us. And so a lot of that loyalty

and satisfaction are coming from that same core of we're doing a better job as an industry,

meeting consumers where they are. And a lot of that comes from the further adoption by a lot of

dealers of digital tools, digital tools that are enabling consumers to do as much or as little of

the process online ahead of walking into the dealership that they want. They can apply for

credit apps. They can not only shop and find the car they want, but they can do a lot of those

buying steps online ahead of going into the store, touching and feeling the car, asking their questions.

And so we feel like what's driving that satisfaction and that loyalty is it's a little simple,

but it's meeting the needs of the consumer. It's meeting them where they are. And they have these

really high expectations for convenience and digital tools because you and I can order whatever we

need and it shows up on our doorstep the next day. Right, push one button and it's there. Yeah,

translates into big purchases too, where now we see most consumers don't want to, you know,

push a button and have a car delivered to their front door. They want to do more research. They

want an omnichannel experience where they can shop and touch and feel the car ask those questions.

But they do want the ease and the seamlessness of kind of doing that at their own pace, engaging

with the sales rep, with a with a person at the dealership to get their questions answered.

Like I said, touch and feel the car, but those digital tools enable them to be even more efficient

in the process. Yeah, I saw where like, you know, the total time spent purchasing the car was,

you know, declined. And I think that's a major complaint. It's almost like going to the DMV or

getting a root analysis, you know, it's going to take forever. And I think like, you know,

that omnichannel where I can do a little bit of research on the front end online, I can apply

and get approved online. So I know how much car I can buy. And then when I walk in, people, especially

I think younger people are, they're better prepared. And so they're again, that's going to cut down on

the time and dealerships that have that ability, I think, you know, again, I don't understand

like buying a car without being able to like touch it and see it and drive it. But some people do.

But yeah, but it's a small amount, you know, our studies are showing 7% or so of consumers

want to want to buy completely online to your point, like really, really like completely digital,

not touch and feel the car ahead of time. So it's really a small amount of folks still,

the vast majority of consumers want to do a combination, a little bit online, a little bit

offline. And so that concept of, you know, formal word, but omnichannel makes so much sense because

you can do as much as much or as little. And I will tell you, you know, new technology, new,

of course, I wouldn't even say it's trend anymore, but new realities of AI in our world.

Right. I was going to ask about that.

That adds just another channel to the omnichannel approach. And so consumers are playing with AI

quite a bit. They're asking a lot of questions, they're doing research about vehicles,

they're leveraging agentic experiences, both of course, on AI platforms, but then also on dealer

websites, on third party websites like Auditrader or Kelly Blue Book, where you can have kind of

a virtual consultant that's helping you through this process. And so we're seeing that while it's

still a small amount of folks that are using those AI tools, you know, kind of like low double digits

percentages of consumers are using those AI tools in their shopping process, it's continuing to grow.

And over 80% of them are saying, I think my next car purchase for sure, I will be engaging even more

in those AI tools. And so I think we'll continue to see that grow.

One other A word I want to bring up, and that's affordability. I think I've noticed in your study,

62% of consumers, car buyers said it's cost too much to buy or lease a vehicle. How is

affordability issues kind of reshaping that car buyer journey?

You know, it's interesting because despite those affordability concerns, and look, we all have it

across not just cars, but everything we're buying. The fact that the satisfaction remains high is kind

of this interesting dynamic. And it's coming from a place of we even we looked at it over the course

of last year. And when tariffs and cost pressures came into play, 68% of buyers who purchased a

little bit sooner than they would have because they were trying to get ahead of those prices,

they were actually satisfied with the price they paid. And so you're seeing a mix there. And obviously

we're seeing MSRP averages continue to kind of eke up that affordability is tough, but therefore

shoppers are doing even more research ahead of time, and they're really trying to plan for their

purchase. And so we see the concept of digital tools converge there as well, because they have

the tools to do those comparisons and to sort through options. You know, like you mentioned,

while time in the dealership is shrinking, we believe that also fuels their satisfaction.

There's an interesting dynamic there because the study also showed 66% of buyers are considering

both new and used these days, which is up from 57% prior. It's a pretty big jump from a percentage

standpoint. And new car buyers are actually at an all time high for considering used. And so

they're cross shopping more and more. A lot of that's coming from the affordability concerns.

And really that drives that drives this concept of they're cross shopping, they're comparing,

they're going to marketplace sites, you know, marketplaces, third party marketplaces have always

been the highest when we do our surveys, the highest place that consumers go first and last in

their shopping and buying process. Right now it's up over 75% because they can go to compare

their options. And I think, you know, we see on average people, this study showed are going to

about four and a half point 4.6 websites for their shopping experience, their shopping, and

they're just they're comparing their options. I think that's interesting for our industry too,

because it allows dealers, manufacturers, anyone selling a car to influence the consumer during

their process. 71% of buyers go into the process with an open mind today, not knowing exactly what

they want. And so you have a chance to sell them on your dealership, on your make and model, even

on the model of how you sell them the car. Yeah, great interesting stuff from Cox Automotive and

just YouTube as well. Thanks so much for sharing that. And some good take homes for dealerships

and dealers to kind of think about. And again, I think it's, if you've got the digital tools to

let the shoppers do a little bit at home before they get there, it's just going to make them a

better experience for them. It sets everybody up for success. The consumers will be happy,

dealers will sell more cars, be more profitable. And like you said, in the beginning, you know,

really great news, of course, going into NADA here soon, but also just kicking off the year,

high satisfaction will continue to drive that loyalty that's so important in our industry.

Yeah. Jess, thanks so much for your time. Thanks, Dan. Jessica Stafford

is Senior Vice President of Consumer Solutions at Cox. She spoke with our own Dan Shine.

That's Daily Drive for today. I'm Kellan Walker. Thanks to Automotive News Executive

Producer Jake Neer, as well as our own John Irwin for his reporting for today's podcast.

We also had reporting from Greg Lason of our sibling publication Automotive News Canada.

You can get the latest news on automotive retail, the potential Tesla SpaceX merger,

and everything happening in the auto industry at AutoNews.com. Come back over the weekend for

our weekend drive episode, where Larry Veliquette and Michael Martinez will discuss Tesla ending

Model S and Model X production, Hyundai killing the Santa Cruz, and preview next week's NADA show

here in Las Vegas. I think a lot of dealers are worried that this is the year automakers will

start to pass along the tariff costs even more than they did in 2025, which could drive on prices

and could anger those customers who are dealing with AI robots, if not, you know, real people.

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.

Jan. 30, 2026 | Tesla-SpaceX merger talk; car buyer satisfaction

About this episode

Bosch

ICE

EV

MSRP

digital tools

Hyundai Santa Cruz

Tesla Model X

Tesla Model S

Request an Explanation

Want to learn more?

Help improve this episode

More from Automotive News Daily Drive