Experian Automotive is a company that uses customer data to help car dealers find the right people to contact. The idea is to market to the right buyer at the right time instead of using broad ads.
Sony Honda Mobility is the partnership company formed by Sony and Honda to build electric cars. In this news segment, that partnership is deciding to stop the early EV plans in North America.
A joint venture is when two companies team up to build something together. In this case, Honda and Sony partnered to develop EVs, but they’re now rethinking the plan.
Stellantis (transcribed here as “Stalantis”) is a large automaker formed from the merger of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and PSA. The segment references its North America design leadership and brand strategy.
The FTC is a government agency that watches for misleading ads. For car dealers, it means they have to follow rules about how they advertise prices and cars.
The FTC may treat what a dealer employee posts as if the dealership posted it. So the dealership can still be held responsible for employee social media ads.
This refers to a compliance workflow where corporate legal reviews marketing content before employees publish it. For dealerships, this reduces the risk that employee posts create misleading claims about pricing, availability, or promotions.
Timely takedown means removing online listings or posts quickly once a vehicle is sold or no longer available. Delayed removal can create a mismatch between what customers see and the actual sale status, which can lead to complaints and compliance issues.
Inventory is how many cars are sitting at dealerships. If there aren’t many cars available, it can change pricing and make it harder for shoppers to find deals.
“Price to the market” means pricing based on what’s happening in the real buying world—like competitor prices and how much people are willing to pay. It’s a way to avoid pricing yourself out of sales.
The Toyota bZ4X is an electric SUV, which means it runs on a battery instead of gasoline. It’s the kind of car people talk about when comparing earlier EVs to newer ones in the same overall electric lineup. The podcast is essentially saying the later bZ is an improvement over the bZ4X.
Incentives are deals that reduce what you pay for a car, like rebates or special financing. They’re often used to make electric cars more affordable and easier to buy.
Dealer training means teaching dealership staff how to sell and support a new type of car. With EVs, that includes helping customers understand charging and what to expect from ownership.
The segment ties EV demand narratives to fuel prices—specifically oil and gas price movements. The speaker notes articles arguing EVs are attractive when gasoline costs rise, and also articles raising concerns. This highlights how consumer economics and media framing can influence EV buying decisions.
They mean trying to steal customers from other brands. In this case, Toyota wants to win back people who already tried electric cars from other automakers. The strategy is about brand trust and getting people to switch again.
They mention Toyota’s big logistics system, meaning how the company ships parts and vehicles. Fuel price changes can affect those shipping costs and planning. The speaker is saying it’s complicated and not something they can predict perfectly in the short term.
A “test phase” means the company is trialing a new technology or process before scaling it up. For hydrogen fleet conversions, this often involves validating reliability, safety procedures, and real-world operating costs.
Charging at home means plugging the car in where you live. It makes owning an electric or plug-in hybrid easier because you don’t have to find charging stations every time.
Battery electric vehicles are cars that run on electricity from a battery. In this discussion, the point is that many people buy an EV in addition to their current car, not instead of it.
A plug-in hybrid is a car that can run on electricity, but it also has a gas engine as backup. You can charge it at home, and it can still handle longer trips without worrying as much about running out of battery.
Your manufacturing footprint is basically where a company builds cars and parts. If rules or costs change, they may move or expand production to stay competitive.
A tariff is basically a tax on imported products. If cars or parts cost more because of tariffs, companies may raise prices or change where they build and buy parts.
A battery plant is where EV (and some hybrid) battery packs are produced or assembled. Battery manufacturing capacity is a major lever for automakers because it affects cost, supply reliability, and the ability to scale electrified vehicles.
“Full capacity” means the factory is working at its maximum production level. If demand increases, the company may still have room to grow depending on timing and planning.
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Welcome back to Daily Drive. I'm Kellan Walker.
Tariffs have cost automakers more than $35 billion so far.
Toyota has been hit the hardest with $9 billion in total cost.
Our own Larry Veliquette recently visited Toyota's site in Georgetown, Kentucky,
and spoke with Toyota North America's COO Mark Templin.
They talked about the tariff pressure and the automakers' product plans for 2026.
Are you seeing any change on the consumer level yet from the war or the fuel prices?
You're seeing any changes?
I have not yet, and I don't know if that's a result of the fact that we don't have as much
inventory as we would try to sell normally, but I haven't heard any negatives yet.
I want to ask about tariffs now. How is this playing through?
You guys are coming into the end of your fiscal year,
and that's a big number that they're asking. What happens to, I know Andrew said, in January
there will probably be three price increases this year.
Well, we're continuing to watch the market closely, and as the market moves, we're moving with it.
So, yeah, we're probably going to be doing more price increases than we have in the past,
just based on market movement. But we've been very clear with our dealers, and with the customers
we've talked to, we're not going to lead. We're going to follow the marketplace and
we'll price to the market.
What about in those segments where you don't have much margin to begin with?
Well, there's some markets like we're really trying to push. We're trying to give people,
you know, we had the BZ4X, now that we have the BZ, which is a much better product,
we really want to jumpstart electric cars because we have a lot coming, and so we've
done a lot of training, and we have good incentives on those cars to make sure that people,
the more people we can get in now early on, that will help us somewhat better electric cars in the
future.
I want to talk about the EV timing here, the two joint EVs that launched already.
The Woodland and the CHR launched with pretty aggressive incentives. Are those,
you think those will be necessary? Will they stay on there?
No, I think that we just have to make a statement in the market. We've got to give people in the
cars, and those people are going to say great things about them because they're fantastic cars,
they're fun to drive. Not only those four that we have now on the Toyota side and the two that
we have on the Lexus side with the RZ and the ES, they're all great products, and there are no
excuses, so we want to get people in them as quickly as possible.
Yeah, David has talked about winning your fair share of the EV market. Where do you think,
where's the natural level for the EV market? Well, what he means by that is, whatever the
EV market is, if we get 15% of the total market, we should give 15% of the EV market.
That's their philosophy. I like it. I think we can get more than that.
What are you seeing in the market right now, the demand market for EVs across?
Well, I looked at the news clips the other day, and every other article, one was
right off of an automaker, and then there was one about how EVs are great because oil prices
are going up and gas prices are going up, and then there was an article about the negative,
and then there was an article about positive. There was an article about negative and an article
about positive, but I think there are a core group of people who have been buying cars for a
long time now who want to be in EVs, and when you ask all those people who they trust to build
a quality EV, they say Toyota. I think we have a chance to conquest customers who have gone and
tried electric cars by other automakers, and we can bring them back into our family.
Yes, I remember, right? They all came from Prius to begin with, right?
So, I want to ask about fuel prices, how they changed Toyota's operations internally, right?
You have a very large logistics operation. Nothing in the short term. So, what happens is,
right now, how long is it going to last? Nobody can tell you. So, we're not going to panic,
we're going to keep doing business the way we do business. Now, if it lasts for a long time,
we're going to have to come up with countermeasures, but right now, we haven't taken any actions,
because we don't expect it to last for a long time. What kind of levers can you pull
to change your logistics? You're still going to have to move product,
that's not going to change. But we might be able to use some of our, especially in the port
processing areas, we can expand our use of the trucks that we have, hydrogen fuel, self-trucks,
for instance. That's a good way for us to save. How far along are you on converting your fleet
to the hydrogen fuel? No, it's still in test phase. We're still small, but we're big. You've
been down to a long, you've seen what we're doing there. We could expand that easily. I mean,
this plant here builds fuel, so rest acts. You've seen that here too. We've got two different
versions of them here. We've got the ones we're selling for vehicles like that, and then we have
the ones that are being used for data centers and stuff. Okay. So when Accio laid out those vehicles
up there at 21 and set a vision path for out to 2050 for the company, other automakers have slid
back. You've talked about the write-offs and stuff. Are they making a mistake? The other
automakers? I don't know. I don't know what their plans are and what they've done, so I can't tell
whether they made a mistake. All I know is we are happy with the approach we took. It was a practical
approach based on customer input. Customers weren't ready to go all electric 100% when everybody
wanted to go there. We know that there's going to be an audience. There's going to be a percentage
of the marketplace that is electric. Somebody has a home with a garage and they can charge
it home and they don't drive a lot. It's great. Still today, most of the battery electric vehicles
that are sold are in addition to a household fleet. They're not replacing gas cars, so it might be a
homeless multiple cars and one of them is an EV and you can charge it at home. That makes perfect
sense. My wife now drives a plug-in hybrid. She loves it because she never has to go to a gas station,
but she didn't have to fear going on a long distance trip if she wants to go.
All right, let's talk about Mark Templin for a minute.
Oh, yeah. You sure?
Well, I got extra time and so do you.
So what's your future plan? Because when you took this operating job last year, you were
close to that retirement age. Who told you that?
I can read a number. What's the retirement age in the U.S.?
Not in the U.S. within Toyota.
We have to go by the U.S. laws here, so they can't force me to retire.
No, that's true. Are you still having fun?
I'm still having fun. I love every day I get up, energize and ready to go take on the world.
Is the COO role better than running TFS was?
When they asked me to become the Global Chief Operating Officer of TFS, I go,
I'm a car guy, but it was the best thing that ever happened for me, probably. It made me a
better leader. It made me a better business person. So I can leverage all of the things I
learned over the last 10 years in this role. So who's your natural successor?
I'll never tell. Maybe it's Scott. Maybe it's Scott.
I keep pushing for him, but he's, you know, he and I are in a race to see who gets out of your
position. You know, you've heard, you've heard O'Garleton say it before. We have a deep bench
in a lot of people. And whether we pick someone just to succeed me in exactly the same job that
I have, remember I have a lot of other jobs too. I've still got a foot in that TFS world and the
toyed insurance world and these other roles. So whoever replaces me may not be one person,
and maybe multiple people in different roles. I don't know. We haven't even gotten that far
because I'm not ready to retire yet. Yeah. Okay. One last one. So all those roles
and everything going on in the world right now, what's keeping Mark Templin up at night right now?
The biggest challenge for the industry in the United States right now is the tariffs.
And like Akio says, he understands why the government wants to do it. They want to protect
jobs for people in Japan as well. But it's fundamentally going to change the structure
of the industry in the U.S. And that's the biggest thing. And I've been in business for almost 44
years now, 36 at Toyota. And it's the biggest challenge I've ever seen in my whole entire career
because there's no one fixed to get there. Pricing that you discussed is one piece of it,
one component of it, but there's no way you can price yourself out of it. So you have to build
a more efficient organization. And when the laws and the regulations change from one side
to the other, it's hard to keep up with it. That's the hardest thing for anybody in our
business is just we need consistency. Lack of consistency makes it difficult for us. But
there will never be a challenge we can't figure out a solution for. Okay. And you know what,
I'm going to ask you one other question because I still got a minute. So I wrote a column suggesting
that maybe Toyota needs a six-year-old assembly plant. Just speculative column suggests that
you know, listening to executives like yourself talk about what you need. What do you think?
Does Toyota's manufacturing footprint in the United States right now, good where it is for
the long term? Well, you want the scoop, huh? Should I give it to you? Why are you reporting it? So go
ahead. No, I think you have to give us time. When you talk about this tariff issue, they're
going to be short. There's going to be pricing solutions. There's going to be efficiency solutions
and there's going to be footprint solutions. Those are the three big buckets that probably
encapsulate the actions that any automaker doesn't have to take. But you have to remember in the
last 18 months what we've done. We spent a bunch of money to build six-gen hybrids in West Virginia.
We spent a bunch of money in Texas to build axels. Now we're spending money here. We're
spending money in Indiana. So we have a lot of things going on on top of the $14 billion
battery plant that we're still building out. So give us some time. Give us some time. But
as we always say, we want to build where we sell. I want to buy where we build. So
spend our philosophy for a long, long time and it won't change. The underpin of that column was,
I don't know if Toyota has reached its max market potential in the US yet.
I don't think so. I don't believe so. I think there's still upside potential.
You want to put a number on? No. I will tell you that our plants are more efficient than anybody
else's in the industry and we're running them at full capacity. So there's always room for more.
It's a matter of when the timing's right and what does that look like? What is the long-term
business case? It's like this. We've been in business here for 40 years. We don't do things
quickly just for things that change in the marketplace. We make long-term decisions that
are going to have to stick. We've been doing this here for 40 years. We expect to be doing it another
40 years. Yeah. All right. Mark Templin, thank you very much. Thank you. That's Daily Drive for
Today. I'm Kellan Walker. Thanks to Automotive News executive producer Jake Nier, as well as
John Hutter, Hans Grimel, and Vince Bond Jr. for their reporting for today's podcast.
You can get the latest news on tariff impacts, EV cancellations, and everything happening in
the auto industry at AutoNews.com. Come back tomorrow for a deeper dive into Honda and Sony's
decision to cancel their Afila EVs. 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 Daily Drive at AutoNews.com or leave
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About this episode
Sony and Honda are canceling the first two Afeela EV models in North America, citing the same pressures that led Honda to scrap other Zero-series EV plans—tariffs, weaker EV demand, and limited appeal in Asia. Toyota CEO Koji Sato warns suppliers to boost productivity as tariff turmoil and tech-driven competition squeeze margins. Stellantis design chief Scott Kruger says Chrysler is “very much alive.” The retail segment covers FTC risk for dealers when employees post vehicle ads on personal social media. Mark Templin explains Toyota’s tariff strategy: follow the market on pricing, push EVs with incentives, and improve logistics efficiency rather than panic.
