June 9th, 2026 | Edmunds' Jessica Caldwell on auto sales vs. economic headwinds; Stellantis quality concerns
Automotive News Daily Drive
June 9th, 2026 | Edmunds' Jessica Caldwell on auto sales vs. economic headwinds; Stellantis quality concerns
Automotive News Daily Drive · Jun 9, 2026
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Car
Jeep Wranglers and Gladiators
The Jeep Wrangler and Jeep Gladiator are popular Jeep models. Here, the recall is about a wiring problem that can overheat and cause a fire, so owners are being told to park safely until a fix is available.
Term
fire risk
A “fire risk” means the car has a problem that could get hot enough to catch fire. In this case, it’s related to wiring that can overheat.
Company
Stellantis
Stellantis is the company that makes Jeep. They’re the ones issuing the recall and telling owners how to park safely until the problem is fixed.
Topic
recall covers 2021 through 25 model year vehicles
This tells you which years of the Jeep models are included in the recall. If you know your model year, you can figure out whether you should check for the remedy.
Part
power steering pump wiring
Power steering uses a pump to help you steer with less effort. The recall says the wiring for that pump can have a loose connection that gets too hot and could start a fire.
Term
loose electrical connection
A loose electrical connection is when a wire connection isn’t tight. That can cause heat to build up at the connection point, which is what can lead to a fire here.
Car
Dodge Spirit
The Dodge Spirit is an older Dodge model that was sold as a compact car. The podcast brings it up because it was associated with a difficult time for the company, and people remember that era as being negative. It’s being used as a reference point in the discussion.
Concept
affordability picture
“Affordability picture” means whether buying a new car feels financially doable for most people. It depends on things like monthly costs and car prices.
Term
average transaction prices
Average transaction price means the average price people really pay for cars when they buy them. It helps show whether sales are getting more expensive because of what kinds of vehicles are being sold.
Term
SUV crossover type body execution
This phrase is basically describing the popular “SUV-like” vehicle shape. It means people want the SUV look and vibe, but automakers may be able to build it in a more cost-friendly way.
Car
Ford Bronco Sport
The Ford Bronco Sport is a compact SUV that’s built for everyday driving but also aims to handle rougher roads. It’s smaller than the main Bronco, so it’s easier to fit into more garages and commutes. The podcast mentions it as an example of a smaller SUV that could have more versions in the future.
Car
Ford Maverick
The Ford Maverick is a smaller, cheaper kind of pickup truck made by Ford. People bring it up because it shows how you can get “truck” usefulness without paying full-size truck prices.
Car
Jeep Grand Cherokee
The Jeep Grand Cherokee is a midsize SUV, meaning it’s bigger than a compact but not as large as a full-size vehicle. It’s designed to handle both normal driving and tougher roads. The podcast mentions it because the brand has been adding smaller versions in its lineup.
LIVE
Welcome to Daily Drive, and for Tuesday, June 9th, 2026, I'm Kellan Walker in Las Vegas,
today on The Show.
Decades in the making, we finally have a date for the opening of the Gordy Howe Bridge between
Detroit and Canada.
Honda's CEO survives a revolt by retired executives, and Stellantis is recalling more
than a million jeeps over a fire risk, raising old questions about the company's quality
struggles.
Plus, the economic data looks rough.
So why are people still buying cars?
Edmunds Jessica Caldwell has some answers.
Dealers probably have to be wary that these financial conversations are taxing on a lot
of consumers, and a lot of them, especially if they haven't been in market for a long
time, will face sticker shop.
Let's run through all the news you need to know to keep up in the auto industry.
The Gordy Howe International Bridge is set to open for traffic this weekend, ending years
of construction on the $4.6 billion crossing linking Detroit to Windsor, Ontario.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney confirmed Tuesday the bridge would open at the end of
the week, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony planned for Friday.
That's according to a report from the Detroit News.
The six-lane span gives the North American auto industry a second crossing for just-in-time
parts shipping, reducing reliance on the Ambassador Bridge.
The only link right now for truck freight between the two cities.
Honda's CEO is keeping his job, despite a revolt from the old guard.
Reuters reports that retired Honda executives privately campaigned for CEO Toshihiro Mibe
to resign, blaming him for Honda's collapse in China and a costly EV bet gone wrong.
Honda wrote down roughly $9 billion in EV-related costs and faces its first annual loss since
going public in 1957, but Honda's board reshaped by corporate governance reform backed Mibe.
He'll take a 30% pay cut for three months.
Stellantis is recalling more than 1.3 million Jeep Wranglers and Gladiators worldwide over
fire risk.
The automaker is urging owners to park outside and away from structures until a fix is ready.
The recall covers 2021 through 25 model year vehicles.
The problem traces back to a loose electrical connection in the power steering pump wiring
that can overheat and ignite.
Stellantis says at least 72 fires may be tied to the issue.
A fix is expected no later than July.
Quality issues aren't new for Stellantis.
Our own Richard Truett writes in a new column on Autonews.com that it's going to take years
to address those persistent problems.
He joins me now.
Richard, welcome back to Daily Drive.
Good to be here, Kel.
How are you?
Doing good.
So we just heard about Stellantis recalling more than a million Jeeps over a fire risk.
72 fires tied to a loose wiring connection.
You just spent time inside the Auburn Hills Tech Center.
Does what you saw there give you any confidence that issues like this get caught earlier going forward?
Yeah, Kel, that's a really good question.
But before I get to that, let me set the scene a little bit for you.
The technical center is celebrating its 30th anniversary and the Stellantis folks invited
a few reporters to come in and take a tour so they could show us what they were doing.
Because since March, they've all come back to work.
And they've got a huge project on coming out called Stella One.
So we walked through the main hall and the stereo came on.
And what would come oozing out of the speakers?
But everyday people from Sly and the Family Stone from 1968.
Oh, it just helped set the atmosphere of people who seem to be happy to be there.
The Dodge crew was having a celebration with donuts on tables and people were having a good time.
And why is that important?
Because there was such a spirit of doom and gloom around there during the Carlos Tavari's era
that people, you know, they were looking for ways to save money anywhere they could,
even if it meant degrading the way products were developed.
So to answer your question, yeah, the quality issue is now coming home to roost
from all those bad decisions that were made back then.
And the products that are coming out now, I believe, have a pretty good chance
of being free of these defects that we saw with the Jeep today.
Now, your column notes that Stalantis's warranty cost balloon to seven point 4000000000 dollars last year.
And a recall like this one is a reminder of how quickly those costs add up.
With Stella One on the horizon as the real test of whether this quality push is working,
what happens to Stalantis if that launch has problems?
Well, here's why I think it's probably not going to have problems with everybody back at work.
And I saw this when I worked at Ford, when I worked at Ford,
the engineers would tend to have parts on their desk and they would gather around and talk and discuss things.
The folks at Stalantis haven't been able to do that in recent years because they've been working from home.
You know how that is when you work from home, you can you can do FaceTime and you can do emails.
But there's nothing like working together, holding parts up and solving problems and
going to the designers and to the engineers testing people,
having them all in one place.
And one of the the people I spoke with at Stalantis told me that exact thing,
that now the collaboration is going to get a lot better.
Does that guarantee quality? No.
But probably it will guarantee that a lot of the things that did slip through the system won't happen again.
All right, very insightful.
Richard Truett, thank you so much for joining me.
The economic picture for auto sales looks troubling.
Inflation is hitting its fastest pace in three years.
Consumer confidence edging down.
Real disposable income falling for three straight months.
And yet the sales numbers aren't collapsing.
Jessica Caldwell is head of insights at Edmonds.
She says the answer has a lot to do with who's actually in the new vehicle market right now
and why cars remain a needs-based purchase that consumers can only defer for so long.
Caldwell joined our own Molly Boygon to talk about the disconnect between the economic data
and the showroom floor, what dealers should expect heading into the summer,
and whether automakers have any real levers to pull on affordability.
Jessica Caldwell, head of insights at Edmonds, thanks so much for joining us.
Thank you for having me.
So just so many economic indicators coming out in the recent months, but two that caught my eye
were CPI, so CPI rising by 0.6% month over month and 3.8% year over year,
which was the fastest rate of growth in three years.
And then consumer confidence from the conference board edging downward in May
as inflation from the conflict in the Middle East kind of continues to drive up prices.
How important are these two indicators to the way that the auto industry is looking
ahead to the coming months and consumer behavior?
Well, I think they're a good temperature of how consumers are reacting to the macroeconomic
environment. I think there's a lot of reasons why people could be feeling very shaky and unsure
about making a big purchase right now. And I think that these indicators are sort of a
consumer's under stress. It feels like from the consumer confidence,
again, things don't maybe look that great to a lot of consumers. And then we know from the CPI
a lot of it is brought up by energy costs, which is directly related to what's going on in the
Middle East, the rising gas prices, everyone's very familiar with that.
Can automakers change what they do in the next few months to address these things?
Likely not. They may kind of be able to perhaps change some marketing messages,
shift some incentive money around, but in terms of long-term change,
they're not really reacting to some of these metrics in a short-term way.
And when you mentioned that a vehicle purchase is this very significant financial purchase,
one of the things that I'm not totally clear on is the extent to which people,
if they are intending to buy a car, are going to do it anyway, or if they're going to wait,
or if at this point, honestly, given the average transaction price of vehicles,
if the people who are looking are even really impacted by a 0.6% increase month over month
in inflation. So can you break that down a little bit for us and talk a bit about that buyer?
Yeah, so this has really been the shift in the new car market, I would say, post-pandemic,
is that we have seen rising transaction prices. There still is a market of new vehicles that
are on the less expensive side. There are $25,000 to $35,000. I mean, maybe people don't find that
on the less expensive side, but it's not like everything costs over $50,000.
But increasingly, more and more vehicles are getting to be that way. So it does feel like the
new car market has eliminated a lot of buyers just from a pricing standpoint, because we've
seen prices raise so much in the past six years, and they are forced into the used car market.
So if we are talking to this specific set of buyers at our higher income,
they may not be filling the pinch as much as necessary. For instance, they may not like
rising gas prices, but is it going to stop them from driving? Is it going to change behavior?
It's not. It's just something that they're like, I don't like this. However, I'm still going to
do what I do. And I think that is probably a lot of new vehicle shoppers, especially those people
that are purchasing on the higher end on the $50,000 plus. And then it feels like there's a whole
other market that is definitely more price sensitive, that are looking for cheaper new vehicles.
And if they can't find those, they're going to the used vehicle market. So it does feel like
there's a bit of a different reaction spread across the vehicle market. That hasn't always
been the case, because there has been more of a thriving new vehicle market for subcompact cars,
subcompact SUVs, just smaller cars in general that have lower price tags.
So what can dealers expect in the coming months? You don't have a crystal ball,
which is one of my favorite things to say these days. But are these pressures and this lack of
consumer confidence enough to make a meaningful change in projections? Or would you advise that
people expect over the coming months? Well, we know that the coming months are is the summer.
Summer tends to be a pretty good sales season, just from a strictly a volume standpoint, May,
July, August, all generally high volume months. There's a lot of sales events like end of summer
and of model year that kind of drives consumers, even if the deals aren't there. When people hear
these messages and these cues, they think, Oh, now is a good time to buy a car. I mean, people are
definitely weighed down by, you know, they're concerned about gas prices. If they're doing
their research, they're also concerned about insurance. That's definitely gone up if you
haven't purchased a vehicle at quite some time, and now you're going to jump back into the new
vehicle market. So I think dealers probably have to be wary that these financial conversations are
taxing on a lot of consumers and a lot of them, especially if they haven't been in market for
a long time, will face sticker shock. I mean, I think you are hearing, Oh, yeah, new vehicle
prices are going up or just car prices are going up in general. But when you're actually
shopping for a vehicle yourself, and you're looking, Oh, this is what my monthly payment is,
people are quite surprised how much it is, especially if they haven't bought a vehicle
in, you know, 67 years, which is a significant number of you are, you know, taking
out the leasers, and you're just looking at people that are buying. So having those, those
conversations are, you know, are a bit tough. And also, I think a big component of this too is
looking out to see if someone can qualify for a loan, because you may have this whole conversation
with someone, they may go on a test drive, they may fall in love with the vehicle,
but you find out they have, you know, maybe a lot of negative equity in their trading, or they,
you know, they don't have much of a down payment, their credit score isn't good. So it's almost
like you have to really assess the financial and see if even before you get to the car, I mean,
car is the fun part, that's the fun part of the purchase. The deal is maybe not as, you know,
as fun, but it seems like for a lot of consumers, that may be a, you know, a better, more reasonable
place to start. I'm wondering if you're seeing any indicators that sort of complicate the narrative.
I actually have, I have one in mind, but I want to see what you say first and see if it
comes up. Yeah, anything that sort of adds a little bit of gray area or nuance to this picture,
that may be a positive sign of things to come this summer. Well, I mean, a positive sign is that
if you look at what the sales rate has been over the past few months, it hasn't been bad. I think
that it's not as if sales are, you know, terrible, it's like you hear the macroeconomic news and you
think, oh, this must be bad. It's, you know, it's not record sales, but they're pretty decent
considering. And again, I think that because of the shift in the new vehicle market to a higher
income buyer, they feel more isolated to what everything is going on. So I think that we'll
still see sales be relatively steady and strong this year. Again, we're not breaking any sales
records, but we're not going down to 14 million for 2026. I don't think that would be another,
maybe a few more Black Swan events, which I wouldn't rule out, but I definitely see it
likely at any point in time. But it's hard to say the Black Swan events because they seem to happen
more frequently than they ever did before. Yeah. And I think I actually had to look up for a story.
What is a, what is a multiple, like a group of swans? And the term is bevy. So if we have a
bevy of Black Swan events, yeah, that'll be a shift. But one thing that I was thinking about
is the profit per unit. So even though volumes may be a little bit up in the air, the automakers
and the dealers are still making a significant profit on the sale of individual vehicles. And
I guess I wonder if that sort of insulates the auto industry from some of these potential
sales volume declines that may be coming or if there's still sort of long-term negative impacts
of relying on that larger profit per vehicle? Well, I mean, I think there's a few things
happening. I mean, the one good thing is inventory has not gotten out of hand. It's pretty in
checklist prices. It's not to a situation where inventory is rising rapidly. And that's a good
thing if you're an automaker, not if you're a consumer, because consumers want inventory to
go up so you can get a better deal and get incentives. So I think that there's no reason
right now that incentive should be a massive part of the overall sales picture. So I think
that that's one thing. And I think the other thing is the rollback of cafe, meaning that
automakers can sell more large trucks and SUVs, at least in the short term, we don't know how long
the rollback will last, at least through this administration, hard to say beyond this administration.
But at least in the short term, automakers are more free than not paying fines on selling
vehicles that would have cost to them in this regard. So that is going to lend itself to more
profitability by unit if you can sell the bigger trucks and SUVs.
Yes. And I also know that the automakers are under less compliance pressure and therefore
paying fewer fines because of the elimination of the cafe fines. So I know that also factors into
some of those calculations. Going back to the affordability picture, because you mentioned
the sale of larger trucks and SUVs, which have been much more popular over the last six or so
years since the pandemic, that's also part of the reason in addition to EV sales that average
transaction prices have increased. When I think about that, the factors driving the average
transaction price, I don't see a ton of easy ways for automakers to bring those prices down
while meeting consumer demand. I wonder what you see, like what levers do they have to pull
to be able to deliver those lower cost vehicles that consumers say that they want despite the
fact that they're still purchasing these larger costlier vehicles?
Well, that's the interesting thing because consumers say they want less expensive vehicles.
But when you think about what has happened, especially through 2010s, consumers demanded
larger vehicles because interest rates were low. It just felt like the economy was better. We had
gotten out of the great recession. And so nobody really wanted to buy the smaller vehicles that
were demanded when gas prices spiked in 2008. So it was like, why are you not making these vehicles?
There was the bankruptcies. And a part of it was like, well, you're going bankrupt because
you didn't make any small vehicles. And that's what Americans want, whether that's true or not.
That's a 10-year-old debate. But they did. I mean, especially the Detroit makers,
they made smaller vehicles after that point in time. But now they've all been shuttered
because nobody actually wanted those. So I think that the challenge is how do you
deliver more flexible product? I think most consumers still want an SUV crossover type
body execution. But perhaps is it more smaller? Is it more flexible? Is it just more sizes like
the Ford Maverick or even the Bronco Sport? It seems like maybe there is some runway there.
But it is kind of funny because I don't think necessarily consumers want something that is
small. They just want something that is cheaper. And that's generally hard to execute. And I think
when you look at the grand scheme of things, I mean, where do you have a market in which prices
significantly go the other direction? Like prices are just going up for everything. It's not like
all of a sudden you hit a point and it's like, okay, well, prices have to go back down yet we're
expecting this with autos. So the only way they can really do it is deliver different types
of products, which are, it's tricky at best. And you also don't really know what the market is.
I mean, I think there could be some creative ways to go about it. But there has to be an
environment in which automakers are sure that they're going to have the market for these vehicles
because it seems like right now sales are okay, profitability is okay with the absence
of those smaller vehicles. When you talk about flexibility, can you just say a little bit more
about that? Is that different trims on the same model that you mean? Or is that offering somehow
like a bare bones version of one product that can be upgraded? Or can you just speak a little bit
about what that flexibility looks like from a product perspective? Yeah, from a product
perspective, the flexibility sort of means playing with trim levels. See if you can achieve something
that or a vehicle rather that consumers want or the profitability still good, but you're not
necessarily over equipping it with things that they don't want. So you're not necessarily putting
all this stuff in that will make margin for you. Usually if you have a lot of content in a vehicle,
the margins are better, but it becomes unacquittable for consumers. But the thing is, is that when a
lot of people, and this is the emotional part of car buying is they sit inside the vehicle,
they start wanting all the bills and whistles. And when you frame the conversation as a monthly
payment, that's where it gets a bit dangerous because you're just like, well, you can have all
the bills and whistles that you want or the bare bones one for $20 more a month. And when you put
it in terms like that over the life of 72, a loan of 72 months, it becomes like more easier for
consumers to pallet rather than saying that this costs an extra $5,000 more. So it is a bit tricky
because I think consumers do like the bells and whistles. And again, that's why we have seen
transaction prices balloon so much over the last decade or so because people are opting for more
technology, more creature comforts. But there is flexibility of what you can do in terms of trim
levels. You know, maybe in automakers, this is not a short term fix, but they do create smaller
derivatives off of the same platform or different types of derivatives off the same platform. If
you know that the market is missing a certain type of vehicle that is cheaper, that can be,
you know, a smaller version, we see this with like the grand Cherokee and the
Bronco and the Bronco Sport. You know, smaller versions of a more popular vehicle that people
can buy and get into, but they're not necessarily paying the full price. So it just creates kind
of more of a family of product in which more vehicles can match different budgets, basically.
Jessica Caldwell, head of insights at Edmunds. Thanks so much for joining us.
Thank you, Molly.
That's Daily Drive for today. I'm Kellan Walker. Thanks to Automotive News executive producer
Jake Neer, as well as our own Richard Truett. You can get the latest news on auto sale trends,
Stellantis quality, the Gordy Howe bridge and everything happening in the auto industry at
AutoNews.com. Come back tomorrow for a conversation with Magna International CEO, Swami Kodagiri.
When we were going through the last one and a half years, we have got compensated for the
tariff exposure by the customers. So when and if we get this tariff recovery, it's a pass through
to the customer. 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. And if you enjoy the podcast, remember to like, leave a review and subscribe
so you never miss an episode.
About this episode
Summer sales are expected to stay resilient even as economic pressure builds, with Jessica Caldwell noting that May, July, and August are typically high-volume months. She points to stable inventory and “checklist prices” limiting incentive pressure, while consumers may still face “sticker shock.” The episode also flags Stellantis quality concerns, including a large Jeep fire recall tied to a loose electrical connection in power steering pump wiring, with at least 72 fires reported and a fix expected no later than July.
Original notes
Edmunds Head of Insights Jessica Caldwell breaks down why auto sales are holding steady even as inflation hits a three-year high and consumer confidence slides. A major Jeep recall raises fresh questions about Stellantis’ quality trajectory. Plus, Honda’s CEO survives a revolt by retired executives.
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