“Commercial scale” means it’s not just a test—people can actually book rides and the service is running like a normal business. It usually involves lots of real-world driving situations.
“Autonomous miles” means how many miles self-driving cars have driven while the system was in charge. It’s used to show how much real-world experience the company has.
This is a way to count crashes that lead to serious injuries, using a severity definition. The idea is to compare how often serious harm happens with self-driving cars versus human driving.
Edge cases are the weird, uncommon situations self-driving cars might struggle with. Even if they’re rare, critics worry that with more cars on the road, rare problems can happen more often overall.
Level 4 means the car can do the driving by itself in certain situations, without needing a human to constantly take over. “Driver-free” emphasizes that you’re not expected to be the backup driver.
USMCA is a trade agreement between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada. It includes special rules for cars and trucks, like how much of the vehicle has to be made in North America to get lower or zero import taxes.
“Regional content” means how much of a car is made in the U.S., Mexico, or Canada. If the required percentage goes up, carmakers may need to change where parts and vehicles are produced.
A “preferential trade deal” is a trade agreement that can lower import taxes. Here, it’s about whether cars and trucks meet USMCA rules so they get better tax treatment.
A “credit for US content” is like a discount on the import tax if the car includes parts or value made in the U.S. It lowers what you end up paying at the border.
LIVE
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Welcome to Daily Drive for Tuesday, June 2nd, 2026. I'm Kellen Walker in Las Vegas.
Today on the show, the new vehicle market may finally be turning a corner. BYD has its eye on
a storied Italian luxury brand, but the owner says it's not for sale. And Waymo hits some rough
patches this spring, flooding, a construction zone scare, and some rattled riders. Plus,
we cap off our three-week series on the state of auto trade with a panel of industry experts
on what a renegotiated USMCA could actually mean for North American production.
Let's run through all the news you need to know to keep up in the auto industry.
Finally, some good news for the new vehicle market. May could deliver the first monthly
sales gain of 2026. According to JD Power Global Data and Cox Automotive, deliveries could rise
nearly 2% when final numbers come in. Hyundai and Kia bounced back from two tough months
with hybrid sales leading the way. Hyundai's overall US deliveries rose 3.5%.
Kia's climbed nearly 2%, as retail demand held steady despite affordability pressures.
Meanwhile, Mazda snapped a nine-month losing streak with May volume up 35%.
BYD is eyeing European luxury brands, including Maserati. The Chinese automaker is in talks
to acquire idle manufacturing capacity from legacy automakers to sidestep EU tariffs.
According to Bloomberg, BYD executive vice president Stella Lee called brands like Maserati
quote very interesting. But Maserati's chief operating officer says the brand is not for sale
and analysts are skeptical any deal materializes. Automotive analyst Ferdinand Dudenhofer
tells Automotive News Europe the idea makes little sense. Economically, especially after BYD's first
quarter net profit tumbled more than 55%. And Waymo has been hitting some spring turbulence.
Flooding and a construction zone scare prompted the RoboTaxi company to suspend highway and regional
service across multiple cities. But it hasn't slowed the company down. Waymo remains the
only US RoboTaxi operator offering rides at commercial scale. Here to talk more about it is
tech and innovation reporter Molly Boygon, one of the cohost of the Automotive News Shift podcast.
Molly, welcome back to Daily Drive. Thanks for having me, Kel. All right, Molly. So you talked
to a writer who was shaken by his experience in a Waymo construction zone incident. What happened?
Yes, I spoke to Elliot Slade, who's a 31 year old communications professional. He was riding home
from an event with his fiance in a Waymo and they went on the highway and to his telling the vehicle
basically began to swerve around some traffic that was caused by the presence of the construction
zone. And ultimately, the Waymo went into the construction lane, picked up speed and got chased
by the cops. So it sounded like a pretty harrowing experience. Wow, that sounds like a Netflix series.
Now, how does the company balance that kind of public fear? And what it claims is a strong
overall safety record? Waymo has published data about its safety record and the company says that
over 170 million autonomous miles, it's seen 13 times fewer what it calls serious injury causing
collisions than human drivers in the cities where Waymo is operating. So even though you hear about
these edge cases and challenging experiences for drivers, the company defends its safety record.
Then you have critics who say, well, you know, while 170 million autonomously driven miles sounds
like a lot compared to human drivers, it's really not that much. So the concern is that
as these Waymo, RoboTaxi and other RoboTaxi companies scale, these edge cases which proportionally
are few relative to the overall number of autonomously driven miles will increase in frequency.
That's the concern. Interesting. Now, what does the competitive landscape look like right now?
And does anyone have a realistic shot at catching Waymo?
I spoke to an analyst for the story who said that Waymo is the leader in level four
driver free autonomy period. You know, no other RoboTaxi company is really close to what Waymo
is doing right now, which is paid, bookable, fully autonomous rides at scale. There are
some other players in the space who are working on catching up with Waymo, Zooks,
Motional and Tesla. But at this point, really Waymo is the leader and Waymo is continuing
its expansion. So the way that the experts that I spoke to sort of categorize that is by saying,
despite some of the safety issues that Waymo has had, the company is really picking up momentum
and doesn't appear to be stopped by any of these concerns.
Perfect. Molly, thank you so much for joining me.
Thanks for having me. Coming up, a panel of trade experts breaks down what a renegotiated USMCA
could mean for North American auto production. That's next on Daily Drive.
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Welcome back to Daily Drive. I'm Kellan Walker.
On Monday, we at Automotive News wrapped up our three week series on the state of auto trade
with a look at the full picture. On the latest Congress Conversations live stream,
we brought together a panel of industry experts to dig into the USMCA review from all sides.
That panel included Colin Shaw, president of MIMA Original Equipment Suppliers, David Gans,
Will Clayton Fellow in Trade and International Economics at the Baker Institute,
and Linda Hassenfratz, executive chair of the board at Linnimar. Our own Hannah Lutz,
assistant managing editor of content led the conversation alongside Greg Lason,
digital editor at Automotive News Canada. Here's a piece of that conversation.
So I wanted to start with some recent news. We're just one month away from the July USMCA
review, and there seems to be a constant chatter about it and chatter around it. On Friday,
there were reports that the Trump administration demanded Mexico to raise the level of the regional
content and North American built cars and trucks to 82% to qualify for the preferential trade deal
with 50% of that value produced in the United States. David, can you put that into perspective
for us? How likely is that scenario and what would the trade impact be? Well, certainly it's
an opening position, and it's almost identical to the opening position of the Trump administration
in the first, in the efforts that we negotiated after to produce the USMCA in 2018. So we don't
really know, of course, the extent to which Mexico will accept this as proposed or will seek
additional changes. I think if it becomes the law modifying the USMCA, which may well not happen
this year, the impact on Mexico is probably less than the impact on Canada, assuming Canada is told
that it must take the same rules. At present, autos and SUVs must have 40% of their content
made in factories that pay at least $16 an hour, which essentially means Canada and the US, but
not Mexico. It's 45% for small trucks. So if you raise the US content from 40 or 45% to Mexico,
in Mexico, it isn't as big a shift as it would be to say to Canada. Well, you have to use what
could be a much, much higher percentage just because the $16 rule doesn't really affect them.
So I would guess that if this happens, and I think it's a very large if, part of it, of course,
depends on what the US tariff would be. Under USMCA, US compliant vehicles should enter the US duty
free. Today, under Mr. Trump's unilateral mechanism, there's a 25% tariff on such vehicles with a credit
for US content. So a 50% content Mexican vehicle would pay a net tariff of 12.5%.
There is one, of course, could hope that Mexico can negotiate a lower rate than that. But I think
that's all still very much up in the air. And obviously, it's all going to be affected by the
50% tariffs on steel and aluminum and copper. Okay. And Linda, David just talked about how
that would be a big shift for Canada in particular. Do you have the same read on that or how would
Canadian companies approach that style of agreement? Yeah, I actually wouldn't say that it
would be as much a much more significant change for Canadian automakers because
a good chunk of content in Canada built vehicles comes from the US. I mean, for instance,
a lot of the engines and transmissions are coming from the US and that is a big percentage of
content. So I wouldn't I would not think that it would have as significant an impact as David is
is suggesting. Of course, we have to look vehicle by vehicle and see what the impact would be.
Of course, there would be changes. But I think that, you know, we would manage through it.
And frankly, I think that the sooner we come to an agreement, the better for a whole variety of
reasons. So, you know, I'm anxious to see the agreement get done as as soon as possible. So
I think we we have we need to look vehicle by vehicle. But I think that it's doable and we
can get there. Colin, what's your perspective from the US supply base? How are they thinking
through those or have they had a chance to since there's so much movement, it seems every day.
Yeah, there's there is a lot of movement. I think the devil's in the details here because
when you look at going up to 80, 82%, you also have to look at what are the pieces in the component
pieces. So you have the core principle and complementary. So it also depends on movement
within those categories, because movement in there, you know, if electronics were to move and a
lot of electronics are produced overseas, that could be very different than simply keeping
everything where it is and increasing that regional value content. So I think before,
you know, we get a lot of reactions because the supply base is so complex and automotive,
and it does include nearly every supply chain in existence, whether it's chemicals, metal,
upholstery, electronics, we need to really understand what are the ins and outs of those.
You know, I think at a very high and basic level, 80% might be doable. And again, this is just for
the past car market, the commercial truck market is still in an implementation phase.
But we just have to really understand what are the details of those detailed component categories
before we really understand what the impact is going to be to the entire region,
let alone country by country. Linda, I think, you know, Donald Trump's administration negotiating
team is trying to bring jobs back to America to get more people working in America. And whether
those jobs come from Canada or Mexico is yet to be determined. But when we're talking about these
new content rules, obviously, Canada would like more auto making, more supply chain activity.
But in the end, given the stakes and what's going on and how things have been negotiated,
is sort of status quo considered a win for Canada? If Donald Trump goes to Mexico and makes
these changes in Mexico has to sort of capitulate and sort of lose some jobs and make some changes.
But Canada stays the same, as you mentioned, it might not affect us as much. Is that a win
for the Canadian auto industry? Look, I think it's a win that we get a deal over the line,
so that we can resume a tariff free trade of vehicles. I mean, from a parts perspective,
as I think everybody knows, the parts are not being tariffed. I mean, you know, we have no
tariffs on any of our product coming from either Canada or Mexico. So this is this is a vehicle
and assembled vehicle issue. And for for Linnimar for Canadian plants, because we have quite a few
American plants as well, by the way, almost the same number as in Canada. But for the parts we're
shipping into into the US, I mean, we're not seeing any tariff impact. So from a supplier
perspective, I think it's like the perspective is different. I'll also point out that our product
that's shipping into the into the US, well, I guess by definition is going into transmission,
engine or vehicle assembly plants there. So for Linnimar's own situation, we don't have a huge
amount of supply to the Canadian vehicle assemblers, we have some. But I know for other suppliers,
they're more reliant on the vehicles being built in Canada. So I think that depends on
the company and depends on the vehicle. But I mean, to me, let's get a deal across the line.
If we have to give up something on a US content, as is being proposed, I think we can figure that
out. Honestly, there's already quite a lot of US content in a lot of vehicles is just the nature
of the industry and how it slices and dices. And I think the key part is keeping things
tariff free, floating across those borders. Because as everyone knows, there's a lot of
crossings happening there. I mean, I've got examples in our own company where the same component
in various forms is crossing a border six times before it pulls into somebody's driveway. So,
you know, I think it's critical to maintain that tariff free status for the parts. But I also think
it's really important that we maintain tariff free status for vehicles in each country as well.
So the sooner that we can get that done, I think the better.
So speaking of that, when do you think we should expect an outcome on the US MCA? And
anyone can jump in on this, Linda, what's your expectation?
It's not going to happen by July 1st. That's for sure.
It's going to officially start, right? And now informal negotiations are ongoing and formally,
they start July 1st. So what is a realistic timeline?
I think by the end of the year, in my opinion, we should have a resolution.
I think everybody's pretty motivated at this point to have this discussion and get things
settled. The US has enough issues around the world that they're dealing with, both trade and
non-trade related, that this is one less thing to worry about is maintenance of a critical
free trade agreement within our continent that is responsible for millions of US jobs.
I think the US notwithstanding the fact that they say that Canada and Mexico don't matter
to them from a trade perspective, it absolutely matters. I mean, the trade relations are extremely
deep. Canada, as an example, is a number one customer for, I think, 36 US states.
Like Canada matters a lot to those states and therefore to the United States and as I say,
millions of jobs that are related in all industries. So we all have a lot at stake to try to come to
an agreement and make the changes that we need to make to make everybody as happy as possible.
So I think all parties are motivated to try and get things done as soon as we can.
You can find our full three-week package of stories on the state of trade in North America
at AutoNews.com. That's daily drive for today. I'm Kellan Walker. Thanks to automotive news
executive producer Jake Neer, as well as our own Molly Boygon and David Phillips. We also had
reporting from Lois Jones of our sibling publication, Automotive News Europe. You can get the latest
news on USMCA trade negotiations, Waymo and the RoboTaxi race and everything happening in the
auto industry at AutoNews.com. Come back tomorrow for a conversation with Daniel Govair of Beaver
Toyota in Georgia, who's developing a free white paper for dealerships to help counter AI-generated
customer advice. Ultimately, we said, is it fair to think that the two models did not consider
these items? And do you think, in your own mind, do you think you would agree that chat didn't
value these things and it's certainly worth the small difference figure that we're at?
She did agree. She did buy the car. We'd love to hear from you.
Let us know what you think of the show and the topics we covered today.
Send us an email at dailydrive at autonews.com or leave us a voicemail at 313-444-2774.
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About this episode
Momentum is building in the auto market as experts weigh BYD’s push into Europe—eyeing brands like Maserati and talks to acquire idle capacity to sidestep EU tariffs. Waymo, meanwhile, is dealing with spring turbulence, including flooding and a construction-zone scare, even as it claims strong safety performance and keeps gaining momentum. The panel then turns to the July USMCA review, debating how higher regional-content thresholds and U.S. tariff mechanisms could change costs and supply-chain impacts across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.
