June 1st, 2026 | New UAW strike threatens GM truck production; who owns vehicle data?

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Welcome to Daily Drive. For Monday, June 1st, 2026,

I'm Kellan Walker in Las Vegas today on the show. The UAW was on strike at a major parts

supplier with this message, no contract, no axles. The US wants to rewrite the rules for USMCA auto

content and Canada might not get a seat at the table. And Toyota pulls the plug on a flagship

Lexus EV it was counting on to lead the electric push. Plus, Richard Ward from the American

Vehicle Owners Alliance talks about who really owns the data your car generates and why it's

turning into a billion-dollar fight in Washington. Let's run through all the news you need to know

to keep up in the auto industry. The UAW is striking against Dauke Corporation,

formerly American Axle, and it's a direct threat to GM's best-selling pickups.

Nearly 1,000 workers walked off the job at Dauke's Three Rivers, Michigan plant,

which makes axles for the Silverado and Sierra. UAW President Sean Fain announced the strike

on a Facebook livestream saying, quote, no contract, no axles.

GM says it's assessing the potential impact the two sides have been negotiating since March,

after workers authorized a strike last month. The Trump administration is pushing to raise

North American auto content requirements to 82% for vehicles to qualify for preferential USMCA

treatment, with half the value needing to come specifically from the US. That's a significant

jump from today's 75% regional content threshold. The proposal would also exclude Canadian parts

content from the totals entirely. Industry officials say Canada could end up facing a

take it or leave it deal after the US and Mexico hash out the details. That's according to four

people familiar with the US negotiating position, first reported by Reuters. Toyota has canceled

the Lexus LFZC, the flagship electric sedan it was counting on to lead its push toward

1 million EVs a year. The company says it's pulling the plug due to market demand fluctuations

and will redirect LFZC technologies to other projects. Toyota and Lexus sold fewer than 190,000

EVs last fiscal year, less than 2% of their global volume. It fits a broader pattern. Honda,

Mazda and Subaru have all recently canceled or delayed EV programs as well.

And those are today's headlines. You can find more details on all those stories at autonews.com.

BMW gave US dealers a first look at more than a dozen new and redesigned models during a private

meeting in Nashville last week. The lineup includes the IX3 EV arriving in September to take on Tesla's

Model Y, plus bold redesigns for the X5 and X7. Dealers left bullish, calling BMW's product

cadence incredible. Joining me now to talk about it is our own Ervash Kakaria who broke the story

for us at Automotive News. Ervash, welcome back to Daily Drive. Thanks, Gil. It's becoming a bit

of a habit here. We love having you. Describe the products that dealers saw in their reactions.

So it was BMW's Big Americas meeting. I believe it happens every two to three years and it was in

at Nashville's Music City Center. They had retailers from both North America, Central,

as well as South America. And dealers sort of got a preview of about more than a dozen. It's

coming to BMW, Mini and Rolls Royce showrooms over the next 24 to 36 months. The key vehicles that

were of interest to retailers, because again, these are volume models, was the X5 and the X7.

Both of those crossovers are getting redesigned. Interestingly, for those that follow this brand,

the X5 will ditch its popular split gate tailgate and it'll just be one unit. So that's definitely

going to get the attention of BMW Watchers who I believe really loved the split tailgate that

the X5 had. The X5 also appears to be looking a little more compact. Meanwhile, the X7 in its

redesign is becoming more wagon-like, as one dealer said. Unlike a lot of these large SUVs that

are boxy and have these curvy lines, the X7 is going to look a little distinct. And that's going

to create a separation between the large crossover, the X7 and the mid-size X5. It's going to create

more of a separation between these two key models, according to dealers. So, Irvash, what am I hearing

about Alpina? Yeah, this is a very interesting kill. So, BMW this year, BMW Group this year

announced that they were going to spin off Alpina as its standalone brand. And it would sort of fit

between the M brand and Rolls-Royce. Dealers said that essentially the Alpina models will get,

in terms of performance, they will be close to the M line, not as powerful as the M brand vehicles.

However, it would be significantly more refined and luxurious. Again, not Rolls-Royce level luxury,

but a notch down. So, this creates a separate brand identity for Alpina. Dealers at the meeting

were also shown Alpina variants of the X7 and the X7 series. So, a sedan and a crossover,

the dealers sort of described it as having distinctive grills, modified facials, and

significantly more luxurious interiors than their mainstream brands. And then one dealer also said

these X7 and 7 series version of Alpinas would be in the $200,000 to $350,000 range and that they

would sort of be built for speed, not sport. So, that kind of gives you a general idea of the

direction that BMW Group is going with Alpina. Wow. Now, you write that the IX3 addresses BMW's EV

shortfalls. What's the hope for that model? Yeah. So, the IX3 is a key model for BMW because it

competes in the sort of in the critical compact crossover EV segment dominated by the Tesla Model

Y, which I believe is still the most popular EV on the market. So, there's definitely a lot of

market share for BMW to capture with this IX3. The IX3 will also debut BMW's new Noia Classa

platform, which essentially is not EV only, it's more EV first that Noia Classa designs and technology

will also spread to the hybrids of the lineup. But they of course, you know, have much more cost

efficient and energy efficient batteries, more powerful motors. So, the IX3 will be a key test

for BMW's all new platform. Perfect. Irvash, you know, I like talking to you because you always got

the good stuff for me. Thank you so much for joining me. Thanks, Gil. Coming up, a fight is

brewing on Capitol Hill over who should own the data that personal vehicles generate. We'll hear

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Kellen Walker. Vehicle data is increasingly valuable and automakers have been quietly

profiting from it. But a growing coalition of fleet operators, rental car companies,

insurance firms, and consumer groups says the data belongs to vehicle owners, not the OEMs.

Richard Ward is the executive director of the American Vehicle Owners Alliance,

a coalition pushing Congress to change the rules. He joined our own Molly Boygon on the shift podcast

to talk about the legislative battle taking shape in Washington, including two competing bills

who's fighting for what and what it means for the future of car ownership. Here's a piece of that

conversation. So for those who aren't familiar, can you explain what the AVOA is and who your

members are made up of? Absolutely. We are a coalition made up primarily of fleet operators,

rental car companies, insurance companies, a few companies like a safe light that depend on

vehicle data for the equipment and parts that they manufacture. We work across all those

industries to bring together around a very simple first principle of if it's the car you own or

purchased or leased, that data that the car is generating is yours. And so we often say my car,

my data. And it's something that has gained a lot of traction across the industry, across

consumer groups that are also members, across public fleet managers that operate their city or

county fleets, including first responders. And we really come together to advocate to Congress

and to the administration that when you purchase a vehicle, the data that comes along with it,

when you generate that data is in fact the owners. Right now, that's not the case. There's a number

of different debates going on around what some of the rules should look like and whether they

should be included in upcoming service transportation legislation at all. So before we get into the

legislation that's on the table, can you just say a little bit more about the status quo?

Like what happens when a vehicle changes hands and what happens with the data?

Currently, the data with respect to the status quo is completely owned and controlled by

the OEMs, the car manufacturers. And when you purchase a vehicle, if you're an individual

consumer, they maybe offer you a subscription for certain features. If you're like a fleet operator

or a rental car company and you're buying large quantity of cars, you're actually negotiating

with the OEM for the data and are being charged for it. So they're actually charging you for data,

the raw data that is actually you're generating. And so there's kind of two buckets here. OEMs do

produce a lot of fantastic products that is derived from the vehicle data and is often sold,

whether to repair shops, dealers, fleet owners. And that's one thing that certainly all of OVOA's

members they're willing to pay for. But that raw generated data, given how connected vehicles

have become and where they're going, that data has really become the lifeline for how they

operate. And the other concern is if the OEMs own and control all the data, they're very worried

about sort of over the horizon issues around potential gatekeeping of that data. They may

be willing to sell that data to their customers today, but we've certainly seen examples where

OEMs have entertained getting into insurance or renting cars. And now you are really sort of

threatening that competitive market. If you control all the data, if ownership becomes a condition

for the data, then you do truly own the vehicle. In the case of rental car companies,

are they paying to access the data that the vehicle is generating once it's already

in their purview basically? Correct, correct. Again, if the OEM takes that data and puts

together a product, the customer can decide if they would like to purchase that product or not.

And many of our members do. But the idea that the data that you're generating

from the vehicle that you already own is not yours and you don't have access to it

or control of it. A lot of members of Congress have sort of hyper started to focus on this

issue because there was an OEM story where they were selling this data to third party

brokers who were then selling it to insurance companies and customers had no idea why their

auto insurance rates were going up. And so one of the reasons why insurance is so active in our

coalition is because they want to make sure that the individual owner of that vehicle

is the one providing the consent now to insurance companies to share that data. And in return,

they can get additional bonuses or reduced rates for good driving and those types of things.

But they want to put the customer back in the middle, the owner of the vehicle,

back in the middle of that decision. And so leaving it all in the hands of the OEMs,

what we're unfortunately seeing is they're now more openly talking about how much money this

is going to bring into their companies. We're talking about hundreds of billions of dollars on

subscriptions. And that's all on the back of the vehicle owner. We don't want to be

subscription to death on the data that we believe we already own. And so it's a real challenge

right now. And it's only going to get more difficult as these cars produce more and more data.

Let's talk a little bit more about the conversation that's happening in Washington. So my sense is

that there are kind of dueling bills on the table. One that's representing AVOA's interest and one

that's representing the interests of the OEM. So is that correct first of all? And can you just

talk a little bit about what these different bills are trying to do? I would sort of break it down

into two groups. And the OEMs are generally opposed in both. The issue around what we're

working on with respect to the Driver Act, we have a full backing of our coalition and that

really talks about access to 100% of the vehicle-generated data. The other area is what I would call

the Repair Act, which is looking at a small subset of vehicle-generated data and the ability to be

able to share that data with independent repair shops because they are struggling to fix these

cars that are now basically computers on wheels and the dealers have a much greater advantage.

But the problem is that the dealers aren't everywhere and independent repair shops are

throughout the country and people who own vehicles within proximity to independent repair shops would

like to take their vehicles to those shops and not have to pay to have their cars towed sometimes

hundreds of miles away to a dealer to fix it. And the Repair Act issue has been around for

many years. We've seen the Repair Act introduced in several congresses and that is currently on the

table as we speak in terms of the surface transportation bill. The Driver Act is relatively

new. Again, it represents 100% of the data where we think Repair is somewhere in the 20% of the

range. And so if you were to just act on Repair, you're not going to be including about 80% of that

transportation, mobility, fleet ecosystem. And so there's been a lot of resistance from

the OEMs again because this will significantly eat into their revenue. We know OEMs have had

issues in the past. They've needed government bailouts. They've made difficult choices and

have lost money on EVs. And now all of a sudden they've come across how this data sort of the new

oil and they see a real opportunity to pad their pockets and sort of write their ships. But they're

doing it on the backs of their customers and we don't think that's right. To your question,

the OEMs have worked sort of an MOU around what's called the safe repair. And there's been some

fits and starts about trying to get legislation around that. But we mostly view that as their

effort to try to at least demonstrate that they could be for something. But the legislation has

never really materialized. I think what we'll see is they'll be working more off the repair bill

and trying to find consensus with stakeholders there. I think Driver Act has a real opportunity.

I don't know if we'll see it this year, but we are going to continue to fight for it. And if we

have to work to expand Repair Act to include all data, that's what we'll look to do.

We'd love to hear from you. Let us know to think of the show and the topics we cover today.

Send us an email at dailydriveatautonews.com or leave us a voicemail at 313-444-2774.

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June 1st, 2026 | New UAW strike threatens GM truck production; who owns vehicle data?

About this episode

Chevrolet Silverado

Tesla's Model Y

Mini

Rolls Royce

BMW X7

BMW X5

split gate tailgate

Alpina

iX3 (G08)

Noia Classa

energy efficient batteries

OEMs own and control the vehicle data

fleet operator

connected vehicles

gatekeeping of that data

ownership becomes a condition for the data

Driver Act

vehicle-generated data

Repair Act

independent repair shops

computers on wheels

Request an Explanation

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