March 31, 2026 | General Motors idles 1,300 workers at its Detroit EV plant; GasBuddy’s Patrick De Haan talks gas prices; Infiniti scales back growth targets
Automotive News Daily Drive
Automotive News Daily DriveMar 31, 2026
March 31, 2026 | General Motors idles 1,300 workers at its Detroit EV plant; GasBuddy’s Patrick De Haan talks gas prices; Infiniti scales back growth targets
General Motors is a major car company. In this story, GM is slowing down production at an electric-vehicle factory because people aren’t buying as many EVs right now.
Infiniti is Nissan’s luxury car brand. Here, the company is adjusting its sales plans because it’s facing tougher competition and doesn’t have as many models to sell.
Ramping up production means making more cars. The point is GM is building more gas-powered vehicles because EV sales are slower than expected.
Concept
U.S. won't allow Chinese EVs to enter from Canada
This is about a rule that would stop certain Chinese electric cars from entering the U.S. through Canada. It’s meant to address security concerns and can affect what cars are available.
This refers to concerns that connected cars collect data and transmit it over networks. Regulators may worry about privacy, cybersecurity, and whether data could be accessed or misused.
A sparse lineup means there aren’t many different models to choose from. If a dealership doesn’t have enough options, it’s harder to match customers with a car they want.
Intensifying competition means more companies are trying to win the same buyers. When that happens, it can be harder for a brand to hit its sales goals.
Car
Infiniti QX-65
Infiniti is a luxury car brand. The QX-65 is a new midsize SUV/crossover that Infiniti plans to start selling soon, and it’s meant to help dealers sell more cars.
A dealer network is the network of dealerships that sell and service a brand’s vehicles. When executives say a launch is “critical to restoring momentum,” they mean the new model should drive traffic, sales, and confidence across those dealerships.
“Violent” swings describe rapid, large changes in crude oil pricing over short periods. That kind of volatility often reflects shifting expectations about future supply disruptions and how traders price risk.
The discussion connects gas prices to shifts in demand and consumer behavior, such as how often people buy fuel or how they plan trips. It’s an economic feedback loop: higher prices reduce demand and alter driving habits.
In this context, “resistance” means consumers push back when prices rise—often by reducing purchases or changing routines. The segment links resistance strength to how recently consumers have experienced those price levels.
Sticker shock just means the price feels way higher than you expected. When gas gets expensive quickly, people react and start changing how they drive or how often they fill up.
“Bust out the bicycles” is a vivid way to describe mode shift—switching from driving to non-driving transportation when fuel costs become too high. It illustrates how extreme affordability pressure can reduce car usage.
The auto supply chain is the network that gets parts and materials to carmakers and dealers. If fuel gets expensive, it can raise costs across that whole system.
Fuel price swings refer to rapid increases or decreases in fuel costs over a short period. The transcript frames this as a risk factor for both consumer decisions and business operations, because companies can’t always adjust quickly enough to changing fuel expenses.
A break-even point is when you’ve saved enough money to “make back” what you spent. The question is whether fuel price spikes can push some businesses past that point.
Diesel is a fuel used a lot for trucks and shipping. If diesel gets more expensive, it costs more to deliver car parts, and that can affect what cars cost.
This is how many people are buying brand-new cars. If fewer people are buying, it’s harder for companies to raise prices to cover higher shipping costs.
Recouping means trying to make back the extra money from higher diesel prices. But if people aren’t buying cars as much, it’s hard to raise prices quickly.
GasBuddy is a website/app that collects gas prices from stations and shows you what people are paying. News outlets use it to talk about whether gas prices are going up or down.
Production stoppages are interruptions where factories pause manufacturing, often due to supply shortages, labor issues, quality problems, or logistics disruptions. They can quickly ripple through vehicle availability, pricing, and inventory levels.
Brand growth targets are goals car companies set for how much they want to sell and expand. They affect decisions like where to invest and which cars to prioritize.
US trade policy refers to government rules and actions that affect imports and exports, such as tariffs, quotas, and trade agreements. For automakers, it can change the cost and availability of parts and vehicles, influencing production plans and pricing.
Diversifying supply chains means not depending on just one supplier or one shipping route. If something goes wrong, there are other options to keep production going.
Reshoring supply chains means moving manufacturing and sourcing back to the company’s home country (or closer to it). Automakers pursue it to reduce delays, lower logistics risk, and improve control over quality and lead times.
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Welcome to Daily Drive for Tuesday, March 31, 2026. I'm Kellan Walker in New York City.
Today on the show, General Motors idols 1,300 workers at its Detroit electric vehicle plan.
The U.S. won't allow Chinese electric vehicles to enter through Canada and infinity dials back
its growth targets. Plus, daily drive producer Jake Nier sits down with Patrick Dihon,
head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy. Well, a lot of it really is to do with the fluctuation
of the price of oil, the underlying commodity that 60% of what you're filling up with is
essentially refined crude oil. Let's run through all the news you need to know to keep up in the
auto industry. General Motors is idling production at its EV plant in Detroit due to waning demand.
The stoppage comes less than three months after a mass layoff at factory zero. Today,
only 1,300 workers remain and they are temporarily laid off from March 16 to April 13. The plant
produces the electric GMC Hummer, Chevy Silverado, Sierra Pickups, and the Cadillac Escalade.
Sales for these electric models have waned as GM ramps up production of gas-powered vehicles.
The U.S. will not allow Chinese EVs to enter from Canada, according to President Donald
Trump's ambassador in Ottawa. Pete Hookstra told Canada's Rebel News, quote,
That ain't gonna happen. The comment comes after a January deal in which Canada lower tariffs on
Chinese EVs. Hookstra cited security concerns related to data collected and transmitted by
modern vehicles as a reason for barring their entry. He did not specify how the U.S. would block
these vehicles from entering the country. An infinity is scaling back at U.S. growth targets
amid intensifying competition and a sparse lineup. The brand originally told dealers it was
targeting a 30 percent increase in U.S. retail sales for the fiscal year, but executives have
dropped the goal to about 20 percent. Infinity started the year with its lineup halved in part
by tariffs. Dealers are struggling with the thin portfolio to pitch to luxury buyers.
In the first two months of 2026, Infinity's stores posted an average net loss of $26,000.
The brand's new nameplate, the QX-65 midsize crossover, will hit dealerships in May.
Executives at Infinity said the launch is critical to restoring momentum for its dealer network.
And those are today's headlines. You can find more details on all those stories at AutoNews.com.
Coming up, Patrick Dihon, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy,
joins the show to talk about gas prices and consumer behavior. That's next on Daily Drive.
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Welcome back to Daily Drive. I'm Kellan Walker.
Gas prices affect nearly every aspect of the automotive business,
from consumer vehicle choices to shipping costs to dealer inventory strategies.
And with the Iran War pushing prices up sharply over the past few weeks,
industry executives and dealers are watching the price at the pump closely.
Daily Drive executive producer Jake Nier spoke with Patrick D. Hahn,
head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy.com about what drives gas prices,
how high they could go, and what price points trigger real changes in consumer behavior
and supply chain costs. Patrick, it's great to have you here on Daily Drive. Thanks for joining us.
Thanks for having me. So I wanted to do this in a way to
illuminate what is behind gas price fluctuations in the United States and how
that can affect the market for those of our audience that are in the automotive industry,
which is just about all of them. So let's start with the basics for our audience.
When you see gas prices spike or drop, what are the main factors at play?
Well, a lot of it really is to do with the fluctuation and the price of oil,
the underlying commodity that 60% of what you're filling up with is essentially refined crude oil.
So that's a big part of it and sounds very simple, but the supply and demand scales
can be tipped very quickly. And when you see interruptions or delays or weather,
anything that can be very impactful to either one of those balances supply or demand
can really tip oil prices in a way that send gas prices soaring or plummeting.
So let's take the example of the Iran War and what's happening right now.
Obviously, we've talked a lot about the Strait of Hormuz and not being able to
get through that channel right now, but what are your expectations for what that will mean
and sort of the different scenarios that could play out based on how long this lasts?
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of different ways to look at this. Just the highlighting the
uncertainty, though, of even in the last couple of days, watching oil prices swing violently
in search for some sort of clarity on what's happening. The risk calculation is changing
on an hour-by-hour basis as actions cause deviations amongst traders to think differently.
Is oil more at risk? Is it less at risk? And there's been a lot of that back and
forth between the United States and Iran. There's been a lot of other countries that
seemingly are offering to take part in some way to either help or to work on a peace deal,
a potential peace deal. And so the calculation that the risk is changing. And a lot of that risk
for the price of oil goes to the Strait of Hormuz, which is essentially closed off,
blocked, kinked because of the risk of attack that Iran would launch additional attacks on vessels
in the Strait. We've already seen drone attacks on some vessels transiting through the Strait,
which has caused much of the fleet of ships that carry crude oil to remain parked.
So essentially the threat of attack has blocked 20% of the world's daily oil supply through the
Strait. Countries like Kuwait, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, all ship oil, gas through the Strait of
Hormuz. And essentially now this has really ceased traffic through the Strait, which obviously has a
very major impact to that balance of supply and demand I was referring to. Demand hasn't changed,
but supply has suddenly plummeted overnight. And that's caused a major escalation, a major
jump in the price of oil, which is now highly sensitive to any new developments.
I know that the government of Iran has said, sort of threatened that Americans could see
gas prices above $6 a gallon. And I would sort of assume that they mean not just in California,
but what's your reaction to sort of that extreme scenario?
Yeah, I mean, you look at it, it may feel less credible, but the only thing I've learned through
situations like 2022 and 2028 is you never bet against something as being impossible. Most
of these types of numbers are still improbable, but it highlights the uncertainty of economics
that we just don't know how high prices will go. We don't necessarily know the inelasticity of
gasoline where you are willing to buy is going to be different than I'm willing to buy. And so
it's hard to parse all of that down to explaining how high oil can go. There's a lot of mechanisms
that drive the price of oil up. At the end of the day, though, you at $4 might stop buying gasoline,
and I might continue to buy until $6 or $7. And that can change on a daily basis. Your need for
gasoline, if you have a big road trip, you might say, well, I don't care if it's $6. So we all have
a level of what is too high to pay. And that's what makes determining how high oil can go virtually
impossible. So while $200 today sounds improbable, it's not impossible. And there's really no definite
way to say, here's the likelihood of that because our decisions change on a momentary basis.
Yeah, I mean, sort of going off of that. From your data at GasBuddy, at what point do you usually see
sort of widespread shifts in demand patterns or consumer behavior at certain price points?
Price points are certainly very distinguishable. When prices hit $3 after being below $3 for a
long period of time, there's a bit of resistance there. $4, there's more resistance because consumers
haven't seen that since 2022. And $5, there's still a lot of resistance because we only hit that
for seven days. But it also goes down to what consumers are earning. There is the psychological
impact of sticker shock of $5 or $6 or $7 prices. But at the end of the day, those are the things
that we look at to complain or to make, you know, how do we feel? But ultimately, it's the amount
that you're paying at the pump that $7 or $80 is only getting you a third or half of a tank.
That is really where motorists are making their behavioral changes when they leave
4% behind at the pump. That is really what sparks change. The optics are, we might feel less good
about the economy. We may scale back a little bit. But ultimately, how much we're paying is
really that key psychological level of, wow, I have nothing left in my paycheck because I just
put it all in my tank. So, you know, the three, four, five, $6 marks, those are all key psychological
barriers, resistance points. But a lot of what it comes down to at the end of the day
is how much percent of your paycheck are you leaving behind. And earlier, just a couple months ago,
the average household was spending about 2.5% of its paycheck on filling a tank up. Now,
it's about 3.2%. Once we get to the four and definitely the 5% levels are where you see a
lot more resistance. Consumers that would have to pay 5% of their paycheck to filling their tank,
there'd probably be a lot of discretionary income impacts from that happening. And that's really
where people bust out the bicycles. They start using their legs a lot more. That's really a
major resistance point is 5% of their income is a huge resistance point, not so much $5 a gallon,
though. Interesting. And do you have you seen any reason to think that, you know, obviously,
when you're paying more for gas, that is a hit. But instead of just breaking out the bicycles
or walking more, do you think that powertrain choices might be affected by this too? Or is that
such a big investment in itself that it sort of makes it difficult for people to make a jump
to something like a hybrid or an EV based on gas prices? Yeah, I mean, it's a lot easier to bust
out the bicycle than it is to rip the transmission out or say, hey, let's go buy a new car that has
a CVT or something like those new purchases that are expensive, right? Everyone's like, well,
just go out and get an EV. Well, it's not quite that simple. There's a cost to that. So consumers
generally, if gas prices are at very elevated levels for beyond six or 12 months, that's really
when consumers start to raise up the importance of fuel economy. But yeah, I mean, the next time
people buy a car, people in car dealers today are probably thinking about that. Prices have gone
up pretty fast and furious across much of the country. So do I look at something that's more
fuel efficient? People generally aren't going to be compelled to go look at a new vehicle
until prices remain elevated for beyond a year. Then you have a lot of folks trickling into
the car dealer, hey, do you have something that's a hybrid? Do you have a plug-in hybrid
electric vehicle? That's really what sparks change right now. Consumers are making low-level
behavioral changes. But if it does stick around six months, people are going to be a lot interested
in, hey, what's the fuel efficient hybrid that you have at the dealer? What can I get into next
and where I don't have to pay $3,000 a year on gasoline?
Now, beyond consumer choice, gas prices affect the entire auto supply chain, whether it's shipping
costs, dealer logistics, parts distribution, what's your sense of how sensitive supply chains
could be to these fuel price swings? And are there break-even points where certain operations
kind of become unprofitable? Well, I'd almost argue that a lot of folks are going to become
unprofitable given the huge cost increase in diesel over the last four weeks. I mean,
if your business isn't adopting for that immediately, whether it's automakers or airlines or
farmers out in the field construction, if you're not passing that a lot of cost long now, you're
probably going to have to have a really tough conversation here with your bank in the days
ahead. But diesel prices, we sit and talk about gasoline and consumers are really in touch with
gas prices. But a lot of consumers ignore those green LED signs below the regular gasoline. And
those are screaming even louder. Diesel prices at $5.35 a gallon. And as you mentioned, supply
chains that are constantly moving auto parts around, final assembly, all of that is using
diesel to get these parts to where they need to go for final assembly. And I mean, there's
probably going to be some searching in the logistics chain for how do we improve this?
How can we cut down on the distances that these parts are traveling? Because we're very exposed.
I mean, you look at markets like California where diesel has now eclipsed $7 a gallon.
And if you have any parts coming from California, you're probably going to say, well, what can
we do to mitigate the cost of fuel? And I mean, to your point, supply chains probably are very
in touch with our costs. But you can't immediately in this environment where consumers have already
been slowing down new vehicle purchases or they've shifted elsewhere. It's not like you can just
raise up the price and other $200, $300 for the cost of a vehicle. So some of these logistics
and supply chains, it's very difficult to recoup the increase in the price of diesel.
But at the same time, I mean, diesel has gone up so dramatically that I don't think that many
supply chains can survive if they don't pass the cost along. So this is where a company like Apple
has a very different supply chain, but it's very in touch with the costs that go into it. I mean,
look, Apple's down to the packaging on their iPhones for saving a few cents every shipment.
And that's where the calculus is going to be different. A lot of auto manufacturers may not
look at their logistics changes closely as a company like Apple. I mean, obviously very focused.
They have one product. A lot of the time when you go to a car dealership, there's not one product.
There's multiple different parts for different purposes. So that's where the logistics and
knowing the data is going to be imperative to address the increased cost of diesel.
Patrick Dahan is head of petroleum analysis at gasbuddy.com.
Patrick, thank you so much for taking time to offer these insights. Really valuable.
Thanks for having me, Jake. That's Daily Drive for today. I'm Kellan Walker.
Thanks to Automotive News executive producer Jake Neer, as well as our own Riley Hotter,
Kurt Nagel and Urvash Kakaria for their reporting for today's podcast. You can get the latest news
on production stoppages, US trade policy, brand growth targets and everything happening in the
auto industry at AutoNews.com. Come back tomorrow for an interview with our own Mollie Boygon on
how the auto industry is responding to six years of crises. The auto industry has made a lot of
significant adaptations, reshoring supply chains, diversifying supply chains and also just kind of
on a personnel level. People have become so much more resilient. 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
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About this episode
GM idles 1,300 workers at its Detroit EV plant amid waning demand, with production paused March 16–April 13 for models like the Hummer EV, Silverado/Sierra EV pickups, and Escalade EV. The U.S. signals it won’t allow Chinese EVs to enter via Canada, citing security concerns. Infiniti trims its U.S. growth target from about 30% to 20% as its lineup thins, with dealers seeing losses. GasBuddy’s Patrick De Haan breaks down what drives gas prices—oil risk around the Strait of Hormuz—and how $3–$7 levels change consumer behavior and diesel-heavy supply chains.
Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at GasBuddy, talks gas prices and consumer behavior. General Motors idles 1,300 workers at Factory Zero, its electric vehicle plant in Detroit. And Infiniti scales back its U.S. growth targets for the fiscal year.
