July 18, 2026 | Weekend Drive: Toyota’s Koji Sato wants parts standardization; UAW President Shawn Fain is under investigation by the DOJ
Automotive News Daily Drive
July 18, 2026 | Weekend Drive: Toyota’s Koji Sato wants parts standardization; UAW President Shawn Fain is under investigation by the DOJAutomotive News Daily Drive · Jul 18, 2026
Koji Sato is a leader in Japan’s auto industry. In this story, he’s pushing automakers to use the same common parts across brands so they can save money and focus on new tech.
A wire harness is basically the car’s wiring system—wires bundled together with connectors that carry electricity to different parts. If automakers use the same harness design across many cars, it can lower costs and speed up production.
“Standardize common parts” means designing and sourcing shared components so multiple vehicle models (and sometimes multiple brands) use the same parts. The goal is to reduce cost and complexity while freeing resources for new technologies and manufacturing.
Here, “steel” means the metal parts used in the car. Using the same steel parts/materials across many vehicles can make manufacturing cheaper and more consistent.
“Plastics” refers to the plastic parts used in a car. If companies use the same plastic parts across different models, it can reduce costs and make production easier.
A “competitive advantage” means a company has something that helps it do better than competitors. Here, the question is whether sharing parts could help Japanese automakers save money and move faster—or whether it would make their cars feel too alike.
Sergio Marchioni is mentioned as the author of a book. The hosts are saying his earlier writing already suggested standardizing some common car parts that most buyers never see.
Window switches are the controls used to operate a car’s power windows. Because they’re common across many models, standardizing window switch designs can reduce supplier and production complexity.
Parts standardization is when carmakers agree to use the same parts across many cars. That can lower costs because they don’t have to design and build a totally new part every time.
Vertical integration is when a company tries to control more than one step of making a product—like making parts and assembling the final car. The discussion is comparing that to a different approach.
Horizontal integration means working with (or combining with) other businesses that do similar things at the same level. Here, it’s being used to describe sharing the same parts instead of controlling every step from raw materials to the finished car.
It means car companies agree to use the same parts across many vehicles. If more cars use the same components, factories and suppliers can build them more efficiently, which can reduce costs.
Manufacturing costs are what it takes to actually build the cars—materials, labor, and factory expenses. If car companies use the same parts more often, it can make production cheaper and simpler.
A “drive program” is an internal testing plan where vehicles are driven under controlled conditions to evaluate durability, performance, and real-world behavior. It’s mentioned here to show that analysts and automaker teams discuss which parts truly need to differ for customer experience.
A sunroof is the glass panel in the roof that can open. The hosts are saying some cars all use different sunroof designs, but customers might not care enough to justify that variety.
Wiring harnesses are the car’s organized bundle of wires that connects all the electrical parts. They’re tougher to reuse across different cars because the wiring paths and connectors may need to match each vehicle’s layout and features.
Development time is how long it takes to design and get a new car ready to build. Cutting that time can lower costs and help companies react faster to what customers want.
Antitrust is about stopping big companies from teaming up in a way that hurts competition. In this context, it’s the legal risk of automakers agreeing on common parts instead of competing.
Stalantis (likely Stellantis) is a large car group. It’s mentioned here to show that even big automakers can’t freely coordinate on shared parts without running into antitrust law.
GM is another large U.S. car company. The host is using GM as an example of a manufacturer that could get into legal trouble if automakers coordinated too much on parts.
Ford is a big car company in the U.S. The host mentions it to illustrate which automakers would be involved if companies tried to share parts—and why that could trigger legal issues.
Term
software developed vehicle fiasco
They’re talking about a project where the car’s software didn’t work out. If the software is buggy or doesn’t integrate properly, the car can behave badly or fail to deliver the promised features.
Volkswagen is a big car company. In this segment, they’re using Volkswagen’s sales problems to explain why automakers feel pressure to cut costs and get more efficient.
Commonization means using the same parts across different cars. That can make cars cheaper to build because the company doesn’t have to design and make everything from scratch for each model.
LIVE
Welcome to this Weekend Drive edition of Daily Drive for the third week of July,
2026.
I'm Kellan Walker in Las Vegas.
Today on the show, Toyota's Koji Sato wants part standardization to combat China.
The U.S. Justice Department launched a grand jury investigation into UAW President Sean
Fane and the WCEO Oliver Bloom outlines up to 50,000 more job cuts to hit savings goals.
Joining me this week, as always, to break it all down, Mike Martinez, who covers Ford
in the UAW for us at Automotive News.
Mike, welcome back to Weekend Drive.
Welcome back yourself, Kellan.
Thanks, Mike.
Appreciate it.
And Larry Velikwet, who covers Toyota, Subaru, and Mazda for us.
Larry Legend.
How you doing, sir?
I'm doing well, Kellan.
Happy 40th birthday to you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I don't look a day over 30, but I'll take it.
Yes.
No, you don't.
You don't crack at all.
No.
We don't do that.
We don't do that at all over here.
No one at Automotive News does, yeah.
No one does.
No, not at all.
All right.
So let's jump right in.
Japan's automakers are facing what Toyota's Koji Sato calls a once in a century challenge.
And his solution is something most of the industry outside of China hasn't embraced
in a big way before, working together.
As chairman of Japan's Auto Industry Association, Sato wants rival automakers to standardize
common parts like wire harnesses, steel, and plastics to cut costs and improve efficiency.
The idea is to free up time and money to invest in technologies and manufacturing needed to
compete in a rapidly changing global market.
So Larry, Koji Sato says standardizing commodity parts could dramatically improve productivity
and free up investment dollars.
Now could this level of cooperation become a competitive advantage for Japan's automakers?
Or does it risk making their products too similar?
It could become a competitive advantage.
It would still trail China if it did it because China is already doing this.
And I've got to tell you, this is not a new idea.
This is something that Sergio Marchioni suggested in his Confessions of a Capital Junkie more
than a decade ago, to commonize those things that consumers just don't see, like things
like window switches and, as Sato-san mentions, the wire harness.
Just doing the wire harness though, you're talking about a wire harness is a vehicle's
central nervous system.
And they are custom made for each vehicle because of the way that they have to wrap
around and find their way back to this central point, just like your nerves go back to your
spine.
This is not something that is going to be standardized easily.
It is one of the most expensive and complex components on any vehicle.
So they have their work cut out for them.
So, Mike, before I ask you a question, before you hop in real quick, Larry, is this like
vertically integrating without vertically integrating?
No, it'd be more horizontal integrating, right?
What Sato-san is talking about is Toyota and Mazda and Subaru and Suzuki and all of those
Japanese brands, even the ones that don't come to the United States, calling on separate
designs, right, say, I need a window switch and I need a pack of four window switches.
Well, there would only be one set of four window switches that everybody would then
use.
Now, that means that on a per-cost basis, even if you had multiple suppliers, you're
going to get the absolute lowest cost because they don't have to worry about development.
They don't have to worry about, you know, unless everybody goes up, you know, nobody
goes up.
They all use that same thing.
But it does, it drives down costs, it drives, it absolutely maximizes efficiency.
But you'd lose a little bit of the, of the, you know, individual taste of the car a little
bit.
Hopefully you would do that in stuff that you don't see.
Gotcha.
Now, Mike, if Japanese automakers successfully create a shared parts ecosystem, what impact
could that have on suppliers, manufacturing costs, and even the broader global auto industry?
Well, on suppliers, it have a tough impact because it would mean maybe you don't need
as many to offer as many parts as they do.
Manufacturing costs, as Larry said, would take a nosedive, which is a good thing.
And in terms of the global auto industry would put significantly more pressure on the folks
here in the United States to clean up their act and do something.
Because this is an idea, as Larry said, that's not necessarily new.
But it's honestly about time.
Somebody takes a serious look at it.
I know, I believe our colleague, Richard Truitt, wrote a column within the past couple years
saying if the Detroit three really wanted to catch up with China, they would standardize
parts.
And Larry mentioned, it doesn't matter if you have the same part that nobody sees, I'd
go a step further.
There are some parts you do see as a customer that doesn't need to be different.
I've had many discussions on drive programs with other analysts, with folks within the
automakers that say, yeah, it's kind of dumb that all the full size SUVs with the sunroof,
all have different sunroofs.
Does anybody really care?
It's a piece of glass that goes back and forth.
It can be the same thing.
You mentioned light switches.
You mentioned wiring harnesses, which might be a little tougher, but there's so much
and they weigh so much.
That's a very sort of low hanging fruit area for some cost savings.
Automakers have collaborated on engines before the customers don't ultimately care.
I have a feeling that you could do more than you think, standardize it and people wouldn't
care.
It's all about competing with China these days and being able to cut development times
and cut costs.
They are so far ahead of the game in China that everybody else is just trying to play
catch up and survive.
This would help get them a little bit closer.
It wouldn't be the only solution.
It wouldn't get them even right away.
But it's something the whole industry needs to take a serious look at because there is
a lot of waste out there in terms of cost.
Kelly, the one thing that holds, there is one overriding thing that holds back the
manufacturers in the US from doing this, which is antitrust.
There would be an antitrust suit within moments of Ford and GM and Stalantis agreeing to common
by common parts.
That law does not exist in Japan, a law that would prevent this, so that's a significant
hurdle that we would have to figure out in the US if we were ever to pursue this.
The other question that we need to talk about is, okay, it's the team Japan doing this.
If Koji Sato, who now heads the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association, if he could somehow
pull this off, that would be one thing, but why should it stop at Japan?
China's manufacturing capacity threatens, and I know you were down in South America, maybe
you can talk about this.
China's manufacturing capacity right now threatens all of the western and eastern
hemisphere automakers.
All of those other markets because of what's going on in China are under threat.
We've seen it in Europe, you've seen it in South America first hand.
Right now, we've held off in North America, but that day is coming and everybody realizes
it.
Yeah, so for the listeners, Larry's attributing to that, I was just in South America for two
weeks, and I was there a year ago and compared to a year ago till now, it's one word, it's
spooky.
The amount of Chinese EVs that I saw and brands that I'd never even heard of, I mean, every
Uber I got into was a Chinese vehicle.
They're coming.
That's the only way I could describe it is that it's really spooky.
And they were all nice cars, weren't they?
Very nice cars.
They're all very, very nice cars.
Every car I got into, I did kind of like an inspection.
I'm like, let me see if this leather's cheap or if the dash is cheap rubber.
No, these were very well built cars.
Like China has come a long way from, as we say, the Timu of cars, but these were really,
really nice, very, very well built cars.
And like I said, they're coming and they're going to come fast.
And it's not a question of if it's just one at this point.
Look at you, man.
You've you've you're talking like an industry veteran.
Look at me.
All right.
Well, coming up, UAW President Sean Fane is under investigation by the DOJ and what
it may mean for his reelection as UAW president.
That's next on Weekend Drive.
Electric vehicle sales have been on a roller coaster, but McKinsey says we'll still see
gradual growth in the U.S.
This week on Shift, we're digging into the factors that are most influencing consumer
demand for EVs.
McKinsey analysts talk about why consumer confidence in EVs improves as the battery range increases.
The McKinsey analysts also talk about the state of charging anxiety and why they think
EV customers will look to hybrids at extended range EVs.
Join us for Shift, available this Sunday, wherever you get your podcasts.
Welcome back to Weekend Drive.
I'm Kellen Walker with Michael Martinez and Larry Velikwet.
So the Justice Department has reportedly launched a grand jury probe into allegations
that UAW President Sean Fane pressured other union leaders to secure benefits for his fiance
and his sister.
Fane denies the allegations, calling them false and politically motivated as the union prepares
for the next leadership election.
So, Mike, can you explain what's going on and what sort of ramifications this latest scandal could have?
Sure.
This is a serious situation for a union that has just been plagued by scandal for well over a decade.
Now, you sort of summed it up well, but essentially two and a half years ago, Sean Fane basically
demoted two of his top lieutenants.
He took away key duties from the secretary treasurer and he took oversight of the Stellantis
department away from Rich Boyer, one of his three VPs.
They said they were unfairly targeted.
They went to the monitor that court appointed federal watchdog who is looking over the union
because of its corruption scandals.
The monitor found Fane did unfairly retaliate against both Mike and Boyer because they wouldn't do
what he said.
In Boyer's case, allegedly what he wanted was for Boyer to grant a bonus for workers at the
training center where his fiancee happens to work and he wanted Boyer to personally intervene
in a workman's comp claim for his fiancee sister, essentially cut through the red tape.
Now, Kel, I want to talk about everybody's talking about how this could affect the election
that's coming up.
And yeah, it's gotten nasty.
Fane slashed out really hard.
He said Boyer is trying to steal the election from him.
He said the monitor is politically motivated against him.
He's using some very Trumpian language, by the way.
But I want to talk about the long term ramifications.
It's not something I've heard anybody speak about.
And I have a story coming out Monday.
So here's a little sneak preview for you guys.
The fact that the union continues to be plagued by this infighting and this drama, I don't think
people realize they're set to end their period of oversight in January.
January 12th, 2027, the monitor's term ends.
But if you read that consent decree, it's a very low bar to extend the monitor's tenure.
It doesn't have to be a lot.
It just has to say, essentially, there's good cause and a party has to file a motion and a court
would most likely approve it.
So the fact that the president's being investigated by the DOJ, the fact that the leadership hasn't
implemented all the reforms the monitors suggested, the fact they're fighting with the monitor actively.
In my mind and in a lot of experts' minds, that gives the government perfect justification to
extend the period of federal oversight by a year, by two years, maybe even longer.
So this can have really, really big ramifications for the UAW.
Larry, with Sean Fain denying the allegations and pointing to internal political divisions,
what impact could this investigation have on the UAW's upcoming leadership election
and its relationship with automakers?
Well, as Mike noted, you don't want anything to cast even more of a pall over this.
I mean, right now, the clouds over the UAW are similar to the air quality here in Michigan.
Michigan and across the upper Midwest and the East Coast because of the fires in Canada.
Same kind of thing, Paul hangs over the UAW right now.
I will just say this, I don't know what Sean Fain did or didn't do,
but abusing one's power as the UAW president to take care of family and friends has a long
and glorious history going back in that organization, as Mike wrote about in earnest
for many years. I don't know in this atmosphere whether having an active DOJ investigation
might not be termed a badge of honor in some circles given the DOJ right now.
Whether or not, you know, how this plays out long term, we just don't know.
If it motivates people to vote one way or the other, that would be a good thing
because the one thing that was really kind of, well, pathetic, right? I don't know how
to phrase it. The one thing that was really kind of pathetic about the last
election for UAW was the participation of membership, the percentage of participation.
It was abysmal. And if that, if this motivates them one way or the other, that's only a good thing.
Guys, can I go a bit off script? I kind of want to put my tinfoil head on for a second.
Please, go ahead. Yeah, of course.
Maybe talk through a potential scenario with you guys, because the way I see it, and based off
the folks I've talked to, sort of the experts in the field, they think it's quite likely that the
feds extend the monitor's tenure after January. But there's another option that's out there,
sort of the nuclear option, which would be to place the union in receivership,
basically complete government control. That's the thing they narrowly avoided in 2020,
when they cut the consent decree deal. Now, everybody I talk to says this is
really, really unlikely and farfetched. But in my mind, with my tinfoil head on,
I could totally see a scenario where President Trump catches wind of the fact that the UAW
president is being investigated by the DOJ. Now, Trump has shown a willingness, more so
than other presidents, to direct his DOJ to do things, the church and state line between the
presidency and Justice Department has blurred. And he likes going after his political enemies.
Sean Fain called him a scab in the last election, which is the worst thing a union person can label
you. He is not a fan of the president's outside of his tariff policy. So I could totally see a
scenario where Trump gets up and says, Hey, whether or not there's any evidence or any
charges brought against Sean Fain, Trump says, Hey, your union boss is a crook. Our Department
Justice is looking at them. Hey, all you auto workers that love me, I love you too. You helped me
win the election. I'm going to save the UAW. I'm going to direct the Attorney General or the DOJ
to put the UAW into receivership. And I'm going to do what they haven't been able to do. I'm going
to clean it up for all you wonderful auto workers in Michigan and Ohio and everywhere else.
I think stranger things have happened. Will that happen? We're 10 steps away from anything
like that. But I don't know. I can't shake that feeling. I got to say, that's actually pretty
brilliant. I think you're right. I think that's what's happening. But again, we do need to be clear
that no charges have been brought against Sean Fain. It's not even guaranteed there will be.
There's plenty of grand jury investigations that go nowhere. And they decide not to charge
that the evidence is insufficient or what. So we're still in that evidence gathering stage
right now. But if you play it out 2345 steps ahead, I could see a worst-case
scenario where this happens. So my rambling point being, yeah, we've talked about the UAW's drama
for years. This could really be an inflection point. And I think folks need to pay attention
to what happens next. You spoke with former US attorney and lead prosecutor during the UAW's
corruption scandal. What did he have to say about where things stand? Yeah, Matthew Snyder. A lot
of folks who covered the union at the time knows that name. He's now a lawyer at a law firm in
Detroit. He said he was disappointed. He's been keeping up with what's happened. He's been keeping
the union should be further along in terms of its reform, in terms of its
cooperation with the monitor than it has been. And he thinks the extension of the
monitor ship is quite likely. And he said he was sort of sad to see it because he worked with then
President Rory Gamble to sort of avoid receivership. And he said the goal was that this would be a
short thing six years is a long time. But hopefully even before then, they would have everything
cleaned up and the government could walk away and the UAW could fully control itself. And he says
he doesn't think they're there yet. Here we go. Hot take, guys. Does Sean Fain win reelection?
I still think yes. What do you think, Larry? Probably. Do we think that because of
participation of the union of people voting and people that actually don't really care?
That's like, well, I still got to go to work tomorrow, so I don't really care who's going to
be the president. They can put anybody in there and I still got to go to work tomorrow.
I think it's a combination of the low turnout in the last election and what he has done.
What he's done is showing up in the workers' paychecks and showing up in their employment,
quite frankly, in some of these plants. And that's... Yeah, that 2023 contract was not
nothing. Right. At the end of the day, follow the money. Makes sense.
All right, guys. And finally, Volkswagen is preparing for another major round of cost-cutting
as CEO Oliver Bloom pushes to reshape the automaker for a more competitive future.
Bloom says VW's overhead costs are about 20% higher than its rivals and closing that gap
could mean eliminating as many as 50,000 additional jobs worldwide. The move comes on top of an
existing restructuring effort and underscores the pressure traditional automakers face as they
navigate slower demand, rising cost, and a transition to new technologies. Now, Larry,
you've covered VW for several years. It's already been cutting cost but is now considering another
50,000 job reductions. What does that say about the scale of challenges facing legacy automakers
and how much further could this restructuring go? Well, we have to understand that VW is unlike
any other legacy automaker, right? Because of its quote, unquote, unique origin story.
If you go back to the 1930s, what they have is they are hugely inefficient, right?
It takes them an enormously long time to make decisions, to get products to market,
to manufacture products. And the fact that they still make money and that they have made money
up to this point is nothing short of a miracle, right? Compare them to Toyota, right? Because
their Volkswagen globally is number two for now. They have almost 70% more employees globally
than Toyota does. 70% and Toyota makes more vehicles and sells more vehicles globally than
what VW Group is. It is a very large employment scheme that happens to make cars, right, globally.
They could cut easily 150,000 workers and still have more workers than Toyota.
Wow. Yeah. I didn't know that.
So the fact that Volkswagen, you know, that CEO Oliver Bluma is doing this,
this is the right thing to do, but it may not be far enough. They need a dramatic intervention.
And some of this, we should note, Bluma is not the first guy to propose job cuts. The last
five VW CEOs have all decided, have all said, we need to cut jobs. And they ended up either
not cutting jobs or adding jobs because of the way VW is structured. It is a unique animal. I
it's had a run of just horrible, horrible luck and development over the last 15 years.
Going back to the diesel gate, you know, that cost 38 billion dollars because of what it had done
in cheating diesel emissions globally. And at that, it had its Kariad software, you know,
software developed vehicle fiasco. It tried to do, you know, it tried to do these software
developed vehicles that just did not work. They were horrible at it. They've now they've
abandoned that effort, that internal effort. They've just, they've not been very, very efficient
at all. And it's, you know, it's starting, they no longer have this volume in China
to cover all this inefficiency, right? Decades ago, they were the number one
automaker by a lot in China. And as the Chinese automakers have, have risen,
as the Chinese automakers have risen, Volkswagen, Volkswagen sales have declined.
Volkswagen group sales have declined. And now they're, you know, that's all coming home to Roost.
Mike, what are your thoughts?
Larry just mentioned China in China, but also I think to put a bow on this show and what we
talked about in the first segment, VW also has to contend with China in Europe now and the rest
of the globe. And you're seeing that level of pressure sort of forcing them to look in the
mirror and realize they need to get more efficient. So talk about parts, commonization,
standardization, maybe VW needs to consider this. You saw this a few years back when they partnered
with Ford, particularly on vehicle development, to try to lower manufacturing costs. But I think
just the numbers Larry gave are absolutely staggering. And there's no other automaker,
I think that you can compare that to. But at the same time, they are sort of the prime example
of what we're talking about here, where legacy companies are facing pressure because now the
volume isn't guaranteed even in their home markets because they have a lot more competitors.
They're coming quickly, often with better products and often with cheaper products. So
this is another example of a legacy car maker that needs to get its house in order or could face
some real trouble. Now, Larry, as Volkswagen works to lower cost and improve competitiveness,
what are the biggest risk of reducing its workforce this aggressively,
both for the company and for the broader auto supply chain?
The biggest risk for Volkswagen is domestically in Germany. Because of their management structure,
they have not had a war with IG Mattel. They're their largest, one of their giant shareholders
and the union that represents hundreds of thousands of its employees.
If they actually went to war with IG Mattel, and I'm not even certain that they could,
you're looking at potential domestic strife in Germany. That's a far bigger threat
to Volkswagen and to Europe, frankly, than whether or not its profitability remains.
Interesting stuff. Mike, Larry, as always, very insightful and thank you so much for joining me.
Thanks, Kel.
Great to have you back, Kel.
That's all for this weekend Drive edition of Daily Drive. You can get the latest news on
Toyota's part standardization push, UAW President Sean Fain's DOJ investigation and
everything happening in the auto industry at AutoNews.com. 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,
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About this episode
Weekend Drive weighs Toyota’s Koji Sato pushing Japanese automakers to cooperate on parts standardization—covering items like wire harnesses, steel, and plastics—to cut costs and speed development as China pressure ramps up. The hosts debate how far sharing can go, noting antitrust risk and supplier impacts, while giving examples like standardizing window switches and even sunroofs. The labor side turns to a DOJ grand jury probe into UAW President Sean Fane, plus a court-appointed monitor’s findings and possible extended oversight.
