March 21, 2026 | Weekend Drive: Ford's casting gamble; China's route to U.S. via Canada

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Welcome to this weekend drive edition of Daily Drive

for the third week in March, 2026.

I'm Kellan Walker in Las Vegas.

We're breaking down some of the biggest stories

in the auto industry from the past week

and looking forward to what's in store in the days ahead.

We're going to dig into Ford's big bed on giant castings

to build its upcoming electric pickup

and China's route to break into the US car market and more.

Joining me today, Larry Velikwet

covers Toyota, Subaru and Mazda for us at Automotive News.

Larry Legend, welcome back to weekend drive.

Kell, great to be here.

All right, and Michael Martinez,

who covers Ford in a UAW for automotive news.

Mike, welcome back.

Always a pleasure.

All right, guys, so let's start with Ford.

The company is planning what CEO Jim Farley is calling

the most radical change to assembly since the Model T.

Mike, this is the latest example

of Farley invoking the Model T.

Why is Ford making this bed?

Yeah, for those keeping score at home,

we've had two Model T moments,

the lightning and now this pickup,

and then the assembly of the pickup

being the most radical change since that time.

But Ford's doing it for a two word reason, the Chinese,

right? They are terrified that Chinese automakers

are light years ahead of them

in terms of speed and efficiency

when it comes to manufacturing.

And they're hoping that using these mega castings

will get them back in the game, so to speak.

Now, the idea of the mega castings

being taking one large aluminum structural piece

in the rear of the vehicle and another one in the front

that would replace hundreds of smaller pieces

in a vehicle that's built the traditional way.

Tesla obviously pioneered this years ago.

They call it giga casting.

Ford's calling it unicasting.

I think Hyundai calls it hyper casting,

so everybody has their own sort of branded name,

but it's essentially a large casting.

That's the idea that we're talking about here.

Now, what about repair costs?

Something like this, if you get into an accident,

does cost go through the roof?

Do we save money on repairs?

What happens there?

Yeah, that's the big question

what I wanted to look at because specifically for Ford,

this pickup is going to start at $30,000.

It's going to be one of their most affordable models.

So when you think about who's going to buy it,

probably a lot of young kids just out of college

or probably a lot of people where affordability is top of mind.

So you don't want to buy a vehicle, get in a fender bender

or a more serious accident,

and then have this astronomical repair bill.

But turns out there's been research on this exact topic.

Thatchum Research, it's a UK firm.

They looked at insurance claims data.

They did their own crash testing.

And what they found is in some instances,

particularly in most common accidents,

low speed, rear end collisions,

a large mega casting is actually easier to repair

than vehicles done the traditional way.

And that's because of how they're built.

Tesla is a perfect example of this.

On their giga casting, they'll tell you,

hey, if this section is bent, cut it here, cut it here.

Here's a part that you can slide in, put some adhesive,

put in a few rivets, you're done.

It's a lot easier than bending steel, heating steel, welding steel.

I tried to talk to some of the experts on this,

a couple teardown experts,

and then somebody in a collision center in Pennsylvania

who's actually worked on these things.

And they tell me it's almost a piece of cake.

It's pretty easy to fix them.

Even in situations where you have to replace the whole thing,

the costs are comparable to a similar crash

on a vehicle built the traditional way.

So as long as Ford designs this for repairability,

and they're telling us they are,

it should be okay when it gets bumped or bent or damaged.

Larry, what's your take on this?

So I'm going to do two things here that I don't do a lot or often enough.

One, if you haven't had a chance to go read Mike's story, go do it.

Because that I should do more often.

I don't do that enough.

But the other thing Mike's story was really telling,

and it changed my mind about something else that I don't do enough,

and I should, which is credit Tesla for really sticking with their guns,

coming up with an innovation, a better way to build vehicles.

And sticking to their guns despite what all of the other automakers say,

and proving them all wrong.

And here's an instance where Tesla pioneered this technology.

Everybody is adopting it.

They're adopting it because it's better.

Mike's story points out is this last little vestige of why the industry didn't do this,

while it'd be harder to repair.

Well, no, if you basically build the blueprints to repair it on board.

Now, what Mike's story points out is that, yes, not in all instances,

is it easier to repair.

There are instances where it's more expensive.

There are instances where it's the same price as a traditional component built vehicle.

But there are instances where it's cheaper.

And it's certainly easier in those instances where it is cheaper.

So in this case, I think, really, this is, I hate to say it,

this is the future of automotive assembly.

If you can make things simpler, you pick up so much efficiency in the build process

that it pays for itself.

To that point, the folks at Kerasov Global, it's a vehicle teardown intelligence firm,

they told me they've talked with a number of automakers who are not yet using these

mega castings, who cited repairability and costs as one of the reasons why they didn't,

but now that they are looking at that.

So this really does seem to be the way the industry is moving.

Does this make sense for the smaller truck segment?

So like the Ford Rangers, the Toyota Tacomas, to do something like a casting?

It's size and vehicle type agnostic, right?

It's more so for the automakers in terms of buildability, right?

They want fewer moving parts.

They want faster assembly time.

So it doesn't matter if it's a pickup or SUV or what shell you put over it.

It's the fact that you have one big piece in the rear, one big piece in the front.

It lends itself well for EVs because then you have a battery built in as a structural floor.

You snap those three things together and you pretty much have a vehicle ready to go

once you put all the innards inside of it.

The only issue I think when you talk about small vehicles is the price.

What price point will these things be that?

Are you talking about a luxury car or a $30,000 entry-level model?

You start to get into maybe concerns about residual values.

If you are in a bad crash and it would be worth it to repair if you have a cheaper vehicle,

so maybe some concerns there, but other than that, I don't really see any other ones.

I would say, Kel, the vehicles that you mentioned, right?

The mid-sized pickups at Tacomas, the Rangers, etc.

A body and frame vehicle like you mentioned are built that way because of the extra strength

that you get from the ladder frame.

The unicasting doesn't make as much sense because you're replacing the frame itself

with a component.

You don't have a front piece and a back piece so much because they wouldn't be as rigid

and you wouldn't get the towing capability out of it that you do from just a rigid frame,

but they get to a point where you can unicast the frame, maybe.

All right. Well, let's shift gears to tariffs.

We reported this week that Trump tariffs have cost automakers at least $35 billion since last year.

Larry Toyota is getting hit the hardest.

How long can automakers absorb these costs without passing them along?

Well, what I will tell you is what we reported earlier this year, they're almost there now,

some of them.

Right now, Toyota executives told us in January that they would begin passing those along

and they've absorbed $9.1 billion.

That's their tariff liability that they've incurred since March of last year.

They're on a March to March or April to March fiscal year in Japan.

They're projecting a $9.1 billion hit from tariffs.

Toyota Motor Corp is.

The executives in North America said, look, we're probably going to have to do,

instead of two price increases this year for their vehicles, probably going to be three

because they have to start passing it along.

Toyota is on a run because of their hybrids.

They had their fourth best year in North America ever last year and they lost money

because of the tariffs, which is crazy.

They lost money in North America.

Their North American operations lost money because of the tariffs.

So they're going to have to pass that along.

Now, their dealers didn't lose money, but they did.

And there's only so much that they can do.

Now, interestingly, you look at South Korea, if you remember the story that I did last month

about how the tariffs impacted different countries, that story hit on the same day that

Supreme Court tariff decision landed.

So it was timing, but it also got lost.

South Korea is the only country where prices have gone down, and that's because

the Korean automakers have opted to absorb all those costs and what we would call buying share.

To make their cars more competitive, their vehicles more competitive in the marketplace

against other automakers who are not absorbing the costs, who are passing them along.

So their prices have actually gone down over the last year, but their sales are also rising.

So it's improved an effective strategy.

And Mike, what does this mean for the industry going forward?

Well, you would have to assume that it's only going to get worse because you'll

have the compounding effect of these tariffs on operations as you continue.

It's going to continue to hammer the supply base, and maybe you see,

worst case scenarios, some suppliers start to go under and then that could have

a snowball effect on automaker operations.

So not only costs, but production and availability of parts.

Then you have to remember later on this year, we're supposed to get a review of USMCA.

Trade deal between the three countries here.

And that could be critical because if you no longer have true free trade between the nations,

I know obviously you have tariffs on Canada and Mexico now, but if that changes or gets

worse in any way with a new agreement, the costs would only further increase.

So there's potential for this to get a lot worse before it gets better.

Good stuff, guys.

Coming up, we'll talk about how Chinese automakers could use Canada as a backdoor to the US market

and why some automakers are still charging ahead with EVs despite all the cancellations.

That's next on Weekend Drive.

Nvidia is betting on cars.

And this week, I got a closer look at the company's strategy.

On this week's episode of the Automotive News Shift podcast, I'm joined by Ali Kani,

Nvidia's vice president of automotive.

We talk inside of a moving, Nvidia-powered Level 2 vehicle about the company's automotive goals

and how its chips are managing the complex tasks required for automated driving.

The industry is at an inflection point.

Every car will want to be autonomous.

Plus, I'll recap Nvidia's GTC in San Jose, including why CEO Jensen Huang says

autonomous driving tech is a solved problem.

I'm Molly Boygon.

Join me on Shift, available this Sunday wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome back to Weekend Drive.

I'm Kellan Walker with Michael Martinez and Larry Veliquette.

So, Mike, our colleague Richard Truett wrote this week about how Chinese automakers could

potentially use Canada as a stepping stone to enter the US market.

How would that work?

Yeah, pretty smart take by Richard here.

Sure, most of our audience understands, but if you're trying to sell a vehicle in any market

globally, there are certain certifications you need in terms of safety, in terms of emissions.

But as he points out, those certifications in Canada and the United States are pretty similar.

You're going to need to do a few minor tweaks, things like headlights or the speedometer.

And I think you got to reprogram the GPS to focus on Starbucks instead of Tim Hortons, but

you know, it's mostly just that.

I'm sorry, I caught that, Mike.

I just got that.

That's good.

I'm sorry.

Continue, Fred.

But it's mostly the same.

So, he points out that this could very easily be a trial run for the Chinese to eventually

sell in the States.

Now, we know there's a lot of barriers to entry, obviously massive tariffs being won,

but if those tariffs are lifted at some point in the future, it would not be hard for BYD,

Geely, whoever else is selling in Canada to just take those same vehicles and move them

across the border.

So, we've been talking a lot in the paper on this podcast for years now about how much

of a threat the Chinese auto industry is.

And this is an example of the fact that they may be closer, you know,

objects in the mirror may be closer than you think.

But Larry, what would you say are still the major hurdles?

There's still one left over from the Biden administration, right, which is the prohibition

against Chinese software.

Right now, it might be the last big hurdle that they're going to have to overcome, right?

And it's what's keeping Chinese vehicles off of our streets.

The fact that this software is considered a national security threat.

And probably for good reason, we don't know.

I mean, you know, it's how you consider what you consider China.

If it's certainly a national competitor, nothing else, right?

I think it's important, though, that we look, Richard's take on the homologation issue.

Every vehicle has to be homologated if it's being brought into the United States.

You know, everything that companies that I cover, Toyota and Subaru Mazda,

everything they bring from Japan, where it's a right hand drive market,

they have to make left hand drive vehicles to come to the U.S.

They have to change the, you know, from amber lights to red lights.

The headlight standard is different in the U.S.

And these are small things.

But it really is.

I mean, I don't think we can overstate the threat that Chinese automakers pose,

not only to the United States, but really to this entire industry.

And at some point, we're all betting, right?

The dam that's holding back the flood of Chinese vehicles is going to hold.

But if it ever breaks, all you got to do is look at Europe.

I mean, look at what's going on with Volkswagen right now.

And Chinese vehicles are flooding into Europe.

And it is destroying the European car market because they're so much cheaper.

And it's not like they're inferior anymore.

These are largely better vehicles made more inexpensively and offered more inexpensively,

even with tariffs.

And they are a threat to our entire industry,

both from a manufacturing standpoint and from a retailing standpoint.

And the question is, we kind of take it for granted that they're going to be here someday.

But we have to prepare for that day in all seriousness.

I know we joke around in this program a lot.

When it happens, it will be bad.

There's more manufacturing capacity in China right now than what is demanded.

They could absorb the entire U.S. market and still have access capacity in China.

Now, that's weeding itself out within China because of the strains of that excess capacity

and how their economy is governed, their top down governed economy.

But if it ever gets loose, their only outlet right now is export.

And you look at those vehicles are already in Mexico.

They are having a really, really bad effect on Mexican auto production and Mexican retailing

down there.

They are coming into Canada in a very limited sense, limited to 49,000 EVs right now.

But you're talking about 49,000 EVs that are going to come in,

and they're going to be cheaper than anything else in the market.

They're going to be really attractive.

And the political pressure on Canada from its own consumers who say,

well, why can't I buy one of those is going to be strong.

That's what's going to happen here.

We've been talking a lot about EV cancellations lately.

Volvo dropping its EX30 in the US, Honda cancelling three models.

But not everyone is hitting the brakes on electric vehicles.

Mercedes unveiled three new electric GT models, a coupe launching early next year,

followed by two crossovers.

Toyota is also coming out with new EV models.

Mike, what do you make of this split we're seeing?

Some companies pulling back while others like Mercedes is doubling down.

I think it's important that we keep perspective here.

The EV market may have taken a nosedive, particularly after we lost the federal

tax incentives, but it hasn't completely collapsed.

Even in the worst case scenarios, folks were talking about the market being cut in half.

Well, that would still mean four or 5% of the market is EVs and customers who want an EV.

Now, obviously, we have the situation with the war in Iran driving up demand again,

but there's always going to be at least some baseline of folks who want these types of vehicles.

I think it's important for the automakers that are still coming out with them,

but it's just that they're learning about what those customers want and finding out that it was

probably not at all what they originally expected.

You have situations like Fords where you came out with the F-150 Lightning and the Maki.

Those products were nowhere near as popular as what they expected.

Now, that company is pivoting to smaller, more affordable products.

You have some of the luxury automakers tweaking what they're doing,

so it's not that there's no demand, it's just that it wasn't what the companies were originally doing.

I think it's important for us to think about EVs.

Everybody listening today probably has a smartphone in their pocket or their purse

or whatever, right? Think about how that technology, where it started, right?

In the bag phone, in the brick, remember the motor, the brick, the giant motor roll of brick,

and look at what you have today, what it can do today.

We're talking about an advancement in a technology, and that's what EVs are, right?

This is a brand new form of technology, a propulsion technology, that we are,

well, it's not really brand new because they started doing it.

At the beginning, it just didn't work out. They didn't have the battery capacity,

but what we're doing now is a evolution of this technology that will continue to evolve

and get better just as our phones did. It'll get better at the same rate,

and as it gets better, it's going to get better than gasoline.

This is why landlines are disappearing, right? It's a better technology.

You don't need that old landline anymore. That is going to occur here,

and it's going to occur naturally. The thing to remember is that now,

without the federal subsidies, they simply have to find their own market level.

As the technology gets better, as they get more competitive and eventually overtake

gas-powered vehicles, and in terms of efficiency and cost and ease of repair,

all the things that we talked about today, those things are going to drive that market share up

naturally. Where we screwed up as a nation was we tried to juice the natural market

and tried to get them to come earlier for environmental reasons. You can argue the merits

of that, but we tried to jumpstart that, and it didn't really take, but it'll happen over time.

So Larry, in retrospect, was the luxury market the better place to roll out flagship EV models

in the first place? It seems like that's been the sweet spot for EV adoption.

Well, here's what it is. The luxury markets were the sweet spot for EV adoption because

that's where they remained profitable because of the margins that existed in the luxury market.

So you have a consumer base that's willing to adopt new technology for the most part in luxury

buyers. You also have the margins to allow you to experiment. Mass market automakers like Ford

and General Motors tried to use pickup trucks because they were their most profitable vehicles.

They're the place where they were best able to absorb the hits and still try to eke out

small profits on this very, now still very expensive technology. It was just the wrong

product to choose because making an EV pickup fundamentally changed what a pickup was supposed

to be, which is a capable tow haul, beat the hell vehicle. And that EV technologies just didn't

work well there. It's not evolved enough yet. But luxury vehicles, they have the margins to do

it. I think as the, I know that as EV technology continues to advance, it'll come back to the

mass market. We are just in a lull right now. Kelly, I hate to use a cliche that a lot of

the companies tend to use this idea of power of choice. They say that a lot, that they want

their customers to be able to pick between different vehicle styles and that applies

to powertrains too. But it seems like now in 2026 and moving forward, it would be who companies

to still have at least a few EVs or plans for a few EVs to have hybrids and to have gas power

miles. If you swing one way or the other on that pendulum, you could find yourself in trouble when

you have major events like wars that drive up the price of oil. Or on the other side,

there's still a lot of concerns about the energy grid and how many EVs it can actually support.

So you want to sort of hedge your bets a little bit. So in my mind, at least companies like

Mercedes or Toyota or Ford or GM, they seem to be taking the right track now, even though

they made some missteps early on. Yeah, you know what, Mike brings up a great point. We talk about

the Iran war right now. But we haven't, the thing that we haven't talked about is, okay,

as data centers come online and start driving up residential costs for electricity, what happens

to the folks that switch to EVs, right? As their costs to refuel at home go up as well.

We're not there yet. It's not a big enough penetration rate to impact EV drivers. But

eventually that's all going to play out too. No, that makes perfect sense. As always, Mike, Larry,

thank you so much for joining me today. Thanks, Bill. Cal is always great to see you, man.

That's all for this weekend drive edition of Daily Drive. I'm Kellen Walker. Thanks to Automotive

News executive producer Jake Nier for his help on today's podcast. You can get the latest news on

Ford's manufacturing plans, Chinese automakers strategies and everything happening in the

auto industry at AutoNews.com. Come back on Monday for a conversation with Ali Kani,

Vice President of Automotive at NVIDIA. We have customers like Tesla who says to us,

we don't need any of your help for the chip in the car, the operating system or the models in

the car. We got that. But I need your help for training. 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.

March 21, 2026 | Weekend Drive: Ford's casting gamble; China's route to U.S. via Canada

About this episode

workplace culture

employee retention

Toyota

Subaru

Mazda

Model T

mega castings

$30,000

fender bender

Thatchum Research

cut it here, cut it here

adhesive

rivets

welding steel

collision center

Ford

Tesla

Kerasov Global

repairability and costs

faster assembly time

towing capability

tariffs

hybrids

USMCA

Nvidia

homologated if it's being brought into the United States

Volkswagen

manufacturing capacity in China

EVs

market share

efficiency and cost and ease of repair

General Motors

energy grid

refuel at home

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