“Combustion-free” means the company wants to stop using gasoline or diesel engines. Instead, it would focus on electric cars that don’t burn fuel in the engine.
In this podcast, “X9” is mentioned as part of an EV company’s plans, not as a detailed car model. The show says the company wants to build factories in Europe. That matters because factories affect how many electric cars can be made and sold there.
Liz Dorr is Ford’s top person for supply chain decisions. She’s talking about how Ford works with part suppliers and how they plan to recover after disruptions.
A write-off is an accounting “loss on paper” when a company decides an investment won’t pay off as expected. Here it means Honda had to admit that some EV plans weren’t going to work out financially.
A hybrid uses two ways to power the car, usually a gas engine and an electric motor. The electric part helps the gas engine and can improve fuel economy.
S&P Global Mobility is a company that collects and analyzes car-market data. Here, it’s being cited to explain how EV registrations have been changing.
A federal tax credit is a government discount for buying certain cars. If it gets removed, fewer people may be willing to buy EVs, which can slow sales.
Lancia Flavia is a vehicle name connected to Lancia. In this episode, it’s brought up as part of an interview segment involving leaders in the automotive parts manufacturing world. The focus is more on the people and the industry than on how the car drives.
USMCA is a trade agreement between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada. It affects how cars and parts move between those countries, so trade disputes can change how many vehicles get imported and where they’re built.
Tariffs are extra taxes on imported products. If cars or parts cost more to bring in, fewer get shipped, and companies may change where they build or buy components.
This is about how many completed cars are shipped from the U.S. into Canada (and vice versa). If those numbers fall, it usually means the trade dispute is affecting what gets sold where.
This is an industry group in Canada that represents automakers. The hosts are using its data to show how many vehicles are (or aren’t) moving across the border.
“Detroit 3” refers to the big three older American automakers: Ford, General Motors, and Stellantis. It’s a way of talking about the biggest legacy players that are heavily involved in North American car production.
Concept
retooling nuances
Retooling is the process of updating or changing manufacturing equipment so a plant can build different vehicles or components. “Retooling nuances” suggests that timing and setup changes can affect production schedules and the import/export numbers during a trade dispute.
The Mazda CX-50 is a small-to-midsize SUV made by Mazda. The podcast is saying that Mazda stopped selling it in Canada, which can happen when companies change their product plans for different countries. That’s why it’s being mentioned alongside other models being dropped.
Here, “free trade” means it’s easier and cheaper to move cars and parts across borders. The concern is that if barriers go up, companies that planned around open trade can be hit hard.
NAFTA was an earlier trade agreement for North America. The host mentions it to show that for many years, trade was expected to stay open—so factories and supply chains were planned around that assumption.
Concept
UEV space
UEV is Ford’s term for a new wave of vehicles that are tied to electrification. The point here is how Ford plans to keep using money and supplier know-how as it shifts toward those future electric-related programs.
“Multi-energy vehicles” just means the company is working on cars that use different kinds of power—gas, hybrid, and electric. The discussion is about how they plan for all of those at the same time.
Electrification means moving toward cars that rely more on electricity to move—like electric vehicles and plug-in or electric-assisted hybrids. The host is connecting it to future vehicle programs and supplier planning.
The “supply base” is the group of supplier companies that make components for a carmaker. The discussion is about how Ford keeps those relationships healthy while changing how much work it does internally.
“Bringing work in-house” means the company does more of the work itself instead of relying on outside suppliers. Here it’s about engineering and development, and how Ford still keeps suppliers involved and supported.
Concept
UEV program
They’re talking about a specific car-development project (“UEV program”). The key idea is that the company works with outside suppliers early so the parts and new tech are ready when the car is being built.
Novellis is a company in the supply chain that had a serious incident (“since the fire”). When a supplier like that is disrupted, it can slow down or complicate making cars because the materials or components aren’t available as planned.
A “Black Swan event” means a sudden, very unusual problem that you didn’t see coming. The point here is how companies respond when the supply chain gets hit unexpectedly.
Materials planning is figuring out what materials are needed for manufacturing and when. If something unexpected happens, this planning helps the company adjust so production doesn’t stall.
The Ford F-150 is a large pickup truck made for hauling and everyday driving. Because it’s produced in high numbers, changes to the factory schedule can affect when trucks are available. The podcast is talking about the factory restarting production on time and adding more workers for the schedule.
LIVE
Welcome to Daily Drive for Thursday, May 14th, 2026.
I'm Jake Nier in Detroit in for Kellan Walker.
Today on the show, Honda abandons its goal of going combustion-free.
EV sales are still down, but they're coming back, and Chinese EV maker X-Pong eyes European
factories.
Plus, Ford Chief Supply Chain Officer Liz Dorr talks about how the automaker is approaching
supplier relationships and managing a decade of disruptions.
We have to sit with them and understand how do we reutilize that capital?
Can that capital be used on a new program?
Is there other ways that we can remedy some of the hardships that our suppliers had?
Let's run through all the news you need to know to keep up in the auto industry.
Honda just posted its first loss since going public in 1957, and the red ink is all about
EVs.
CEO Toshihiro Mibe said the company lost $2.6 billion on bad bets for electric vehicles,
with nearly $10 billion in EV-related write-offs.
Honda is scrapping its 2040 combustion-free goal and going all-in on hybrids instead,
planning 15 new models through 2030, mostly for North America.
EV sales are still down for everybody, but they seem to be coming back.
New EV registrations fell 25% in March, but here's the thing, according to S&P Global
Mobility, it's the best month since Congress killed the federal tax credit last fall.
And some automakers are thriving, namely Toyota, Lexus, and Subaru.
Their combined EV share nearly tripled to 8.8%.
What's driving it?
Analysts say automakers are throwing cash at the problem, generous incentives and higher
gas prices are bringing buyers back.
And Chinese EV maker Expong is in talks with Volkswagen Group and other automakers about
buying a factory in Europe, that's according to the Financial Times.
However, VW brand chief Thomas Schaefer isn't having it.
He called the reports nonsense, saying there's no interest from automakers in using the German
plants slated to close.
Still, Expong's Elvis Chang told the Financial Times, the company is looking to see if, quote,
there is any possibility we can find a location here in Europe.
And those are today's headlines, you can find more details on all those stories at Auto
News.com.
This week, we at Automotive News have been publishing a package of stories looking at
how tariffs are reshaping North American trade.
The last couple days we've brought you interviews with Unifor President Lana Payne and Flavia
Volpe, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers Association, who talked with
Automotive News Canada Toronto bureau chief David Kennedy about the state of USMCA renegotiation.
David joins me now to talk about his takeaways from those conversations and all of his reporting
for this series on the state of trade.
David, welcome back to Daily Drive.
Thanks for having me.
Really been enjoying this series of conversations that you've had with leaders on this topic.
I'm curious about your takeaways or maybe even your just single biggest takeaway from
these conversations.
Well, I mean, from the Canadian auto industry's perspective, it's actually pretty simple.
There is really one goal here going into this review, and that's get rid of the section
232 tariffs.
They've been in place for more than a year now.
The effective tariff rate is about 12.5% on vehicles moving across the border, thanks
to parts exemptions.
But the reality is in an industry that is used to zero tariffs, 12.5% is an awful lot.
And Canada just cannot sustain itself like this over the long term.
The big producers here, Honda and Toyota, have continued building vehicles at a steady
clip.
They haven't cut production or anything like that.
But at the same time, it just can't go on like this, and everybody acknowledges that.
To say nothing of the fact that the tariffs are just a flagrant violation of the trade
deal itself.
Not only to speak of the trade deal, but there is a side letter to the USMCA that actually
goes out and spells out that the US is not allowed to put section 232 tariffs on.
I think it's two and a half million vehicles from Canada a year.
So I mean, it's so against the grain of what this trade agreement is that that's really
the full-core press here from up on the Canadian side.
Yeah, both Lana Payne and Flavia Vopay told you that they don't expect a deal by the July
1st deadline.
If that's actually the case, what happens next?
Yeah, I mean, we don't really know exactly how these talks are going to go.
I think the joke in the room is that it might be a half hour discussion.
The US, Mexico and Canada walk into a room and say, sure, let's renew this thing.
But I think everybody knows that's probably not going to happen.
The theory goes anyway that conversations just haven't advanced far enough to really
agree on any of these topics to renew the trade agreement further.
But as we all know, that doesn't mean the USMCA dies on the vine here.
It will continue in some capacity unless somebody decides to leave it.
So the expectation here is that it's going to take longer than the next few weeks to
work through these trade differences and come to a deal like a cohesive deal that can tackle
all of the different problems that are really nagging at folks in Washington,
Mexico City and Ottawa.
And Flavia Vopay, anyway, thinks it's going to be into the fall.
And partly, I think, for political reasons that it's just advantageous for the Trump
administration to put up a win in the fall ahead of the midterm elections.
Now, looking back at what we've seen so far with USMCA in your reporting,
you found that vehicle imports between the US and Canada have dropped significantly
since the tariffs hit.
What are those numbers?
Tell us about the real world impact of this trade fight.
They show us that it has been real.
You know, it's not just us talking about it.
The numbers come from the Canadian Vehicle Manufacturers Association,
which represents the Detroit 3 up here in Canada.
But they show that there's been about 62,000 fewer US-built vehicles
come up to Canada and double that of vehicles built in Canada,
not going into the US that did previously.
And there's sales nuances, retooling nuances and things like that
that could get packaged into those numbers.
But, you know, those are significant tallies when it comes down to it.
So what we're seeing, at least up here in Canada,
is we've seen automakers drop models.
You know, Mazda's dropped the CX-50 up here in Canada,
Nissan dropped a few last year, and we've seen, you know,
numerous importers shuffle what they're doing and where they build it.
And, you know, that's taking production out of plants in the United States
and up here in Canada.
And you could argue that it's going back in, you know,
to south of the domestic market in different ways.
But the thing is, getting back to the root of this problem,
USMCA has made free trade the norm in North America for the past,
well, going back to NAFTA the past 30, 40 years, right?
So you're putting into place barriers for companies
that just aren't used to handling them.
You know, the billions of dollars of investment
that are tied up in these assembly plants that were built partly on the contingent
that this free trade would continue is all of a sudden, you know,
thrown into disarray here.
So, you know, the long term consequences will be enormous
if this doesn't get solved.
So we're all waiting with bated breath for July 1st.
And beyond that, you know, to see what will happen.
You can find all of David Kennedy's reporting
on the state of trade at AutoNews.com.
David, thank you so much for joining us today on Daily Drive.
Thanks for having me.
Coming up, Ford Chief Supply Chain Officer, Liz Dore,
talks about how the automaker is managing supplier relationships
and disruptions. That's next on Daily Drive.
New EV sales slipped in April,
but the used EV market is telling a very different story.
On this week's episode of the automotive news shift podcast,
I'm joined by Stephanie Valdez-Sredi,
director of Industry Insights at Cox Automotive
and Elena Ciccatelli, host and producer of the EVs for Everyone podcast.
We break down why new EV sales declined last month,
even as used EV sales surged nearly 17 percent from a year ago.
Looks like a new car, smells like a new car, but it's 40 percent cheaper.
Plus, my co-host, Hannah Lutz, joins me to talk about the biggest tech issues
discussed at this year's Automotive News Leading Women Conference.
I'm Molly Boygon.
Join me on shift, available this Sunday, wherever you get your podcast.
Welcome back to Daily Drive.
I'm Jake Neer.
After less than stellar rankings in recent industry studies,
Ford has rolled out four key initiatives to improve supplier relations this year,
including a buyer directory, a supplier help desk
and a three-year production forecast called Ford Horizon.
Liz Dore is Ford's chief supply chain officer.
She spoke with our own Michael Martinez on the sidelines of the Automotive News
Leading Women Conference in Dearborn, Michigan to discuss Ford's supplier
partnerships, managing the fallout from EV pivots and dealing with Black Swan
events like the Novellis aluminum plant fire.
A quick note, they spoke before Wednesday's news that Ford is cracking down
on many suppliers on cost and quality.
Here's their conversation.
Liz Dore, chief supply chain officer for Motor Company.
Thanks so much for joining me.
Thank you.
Thanks for having me today.
So I know there's a lot going on in the supply community right now,
but I wanted to start off with talking about the big study that comes out every
year, Plant Moran's WRI.
I know Ford had some less than stellar rankings in recent studies.
I'm wondering, given all the uncertainty in this industry right now, in this space,
what are you guys doing to improve your relationships with your suppliers
and eventually boost those scores?
Yeah.
So my supplier relationships are absolutely critical to Ford.
It's one of our key priorities.
And we know we won't be successful without great relationships with our suppliers.
This year we rolled out four key initiatives with them.
The first one was our buyer directory.
We heard that a lot of our suppliers just didn't really understand who their buyer
was, how to connect with Ford.
So that was a key initiative.
These are basic building blocks, but critical for us to be successful.
The second was the help desk.
We heard that many of our suppliers had a number of friction points in terms
of how they interact with Ford.
And so that's critical for us to understand, well, what are those specific
issues so that we can drive continuous improvement with our suppliers?
The third was what we call Ford Horizon, which is a three-year look ahead.
And that gives them the opportunity to take a look at what our estimates are
of our future volumes out in the marketplace and allows them to do some planning.
And then the fourth is a two-way scorecard.
And that allows the suppliers to rate all of their interactions with our buyers
so we know where we may have skill gaps, where we may need to modify our approach.
And that gives us real-time feedback.
So all of these opportunities are for us to listen very closely to the suppliers
and then to prepare and respond.
And so we think this is a critical building block for us as we accelerate
our relationships with our suppliers now and in the future.
I wanted to key in on that horizon, that three-year time frame.
And I know it's an estimate, but especially in this day and age, it seems
like it's really hard to predict a year into the future, let alone three.
And I would imagine in many instances, those plans could change.
What are some of the challenges?
I know it's something you want to do to give them as much heads up as possible.
But could that be difficult to look that far out?
Well, I think we have to first start with the fact that our suppliers are usually
contracted with Ford for more than three years.
So they're expected and we're expected to perform at some level.
The forecast does provide an estimate.
But what's key is that we're talking real time and that we're making adjustments
as we see the market making adjustments.
And we're talking about how we react in the event we need more capacity.
So it's really critical that we use that as a guide and that we have our finger
on the pulse with our suppliers real time.
So we're really excited about the tool.
It allows them real time feedback.
We have other engagements with them where we're giving them more feedback
specifically on discrete details in that report as well.
But it is a it's one tool of many that we're sharing with our suppliers.
I know maybe one of the bigger pain points for the supply base in recent years
and it's not just a Ford problems.
Everybody throughout the industry, the pivots in terms of electrification
and a lot of money spent to tool up for EVs that are no longer in the pipeline.
Can you just walk me through just the fact that this industry has changed course
pretty drastically over the past few years?
How do you sort of repair those relationships and build back trust
given what's happened the past few years?
Well, I think the electrification was something that everyone went all in on,
not just Ford.
And what I mean by that is the suppliers went all in on it too, right?
Like they can choose not to participate in electrification, but we all
chose to go in that direction.
Unfortunately, the market didn't respond like we would have expected.
What I would also tell you is that again, it's unique on a case by case basis.
We have some suppliers that had minimal impact.
We have others that it was quite substantive for them and we have to sit
with them and understand how do we reutilize that capital?
Can that capital be used on a new program?
Is there other ways that we can remedy some of the hardships that our suppliers had?
Also, you know, as we go into multi-energy vehicles, right?
When we're maybe pivoting a bit back towards ice, we also have our hybrid,
but we're still going to have electrification.
If we think about it, the things we're doing in the UEV space.
So it allows us to still utilize that capital.
If suppliers are in those programs or could be in a derivative in the future.
Speaking of UEV, I wanted to ask about that.
You have we have the first products launching next year, $30,000 midsize pickup.
And Ford's talked a lot about bringing a lot of the supply works in-house
because you guys are building this product in a new different way than what
some of the other models, how they're produced.
And I'm wondering maybe what are some of the conversations with suppliers?
I toured the UEV Development Center in Long Beach last week
and we got to see some of the work and how the company's hoping it speeds development.
How do you deal with the supply base if you are trying to bring more work
in-house and maintain a positive dialogue with them?
Well, when we talk about bringing work in-house,
we're really talking about the engineering design and development,
but we still need suppliers to manufacture the physicals for us.
And in fact, they may also have other ways that we can do things
that we're doing in-house that we need their input on.
So it's critical that we continue to partner with them,
whether we choose to do the engineering in-house or that they're building the product for us.
So the voices of the suppliers are critical for our success on the UEV.
And then again, future derivatives or even our current product portfolio that we have,
I would say we're reinventing in some ways the way we do work.
We're also looking at bringing the suppliers in some cases on new technology in earlier
than we have in the past and in other cases, maybe later in the product development process.
So it's really unique with a plan for every part.
And we're really doing that on the UEV program,
where perhaps on some of our legacy products,
we're doing things in the same milestones versus what we do on that program.
I just want to pivot and talk about Novellis.
It seems to be a pretty difficult situation. It has been since the fire.
I'd just love to hear your perspective.
Since September, what has that been like?
I'm sure you and the team have been working hand in hand with Novellis.
Take us through, how does one deal with a Black Swan event like that when it pops up out of nowhere?
Well, we have a lot of challenges in the supply chain that we're dealing with in this uncertain world.
We've had a decade of disruptions.
This is one, and I'm sure there will be many more to deal with.
And so what I would say is, first, it involves us bringing all the right people together with the right skills.
And that means engineering, materials planning, logistics, manufacturing,
and of course, all of those disciplines at Novellis and really partnering together
to ensure we're solving all the right problems real time.
But I would also say it's not just about Novellis.
It's about all of our other suppliers that contribute to Novellis and their success.
We have tollers. We have stampers. We have our stamping plants.
We have our manufacturing center.
So all of these suppliers and providers in the ecosystem are logistic providers.
They all play a critical role.
So this does take a large village to ensure that we're success.
We have communication real time, the right rhythm and meetings.
And so we've been successfully doing that.
We're getting momentum.
We've brought on another shift, as you know, on the F-150.
We see the mill restart on schedule, which we're planning here at the end of May.
And then the key will be qualification and all of the next steps
to bring that material into market successfully.
And in the event that that doesn't happen on time, we have a plan B.
So we're confident about our plan.
The key is that we keep doing what we're doing and doing it really well.
We communicate frequently and often.
And we get that rhythm that I described with the team.
If you take me behind the scenes a little bit over the period,
what was the process like?
Did you create war rooms where I'm sure there were late nights and early mornings?
And maybe even in particular, you guys have had to find different ways to source aluminum.
Any crazy lengths the company went to to achieve that?
Yeah, I think in problems like Novalis or any type of Black Swan event,
you have to bring together all the right experts and brainstorm, you know,
and also ensure you understand what the true problem is.
And what I would tell you is all of the things that you said are true.
There's many late nights.
There's war rooms.
We have databases.
We have meetings.
We have governance.
And we do that with the routines each and every day to ensure that we support our plants,
our supply base, because they're all relying on
the success of Novalis, securing the right material, having substitution,
all of these things make the right ingredients to support our production and our factories.
Decade of disruption you mentioned.
I'm wondering, you can't look into a crystal ball, but moving forward,
what are some of the biggest challenges you see on the horizon the rest of 2026 into 2027?
Well, I think it first starts with having the right folks on the forward team, and we do.
So if we don't have the right team, we're not going to be able to deal with these challenges
that we have.
So that's number one.
So we now have the right people on the bus.
The second thing is looking ahead.
We have a war on data.
Do we have the right data?
Do we know what the data tells us today, what it tells us tomorrow,
what it historically told us, and how are we using that data?
So these things are critical.
We have the right people and we have data.
We have command of the data.
And these are the things that are going to tell us about those
preventative opportunities or even predictive opportunities for us to get ahead of in the
future.
Imagine AI, maybe a big piece of some of that.
Absolutely.
Gotcha.
Liz Dore, thanks so much for joining.
Thanks so much, Mike.
Ford's Liz Dore spoke with our own Michael Martinez.
That's Daily Drive for today.
I'm Jake Nier in for Kellan Walker.
Thanks to our own Hans Grimel, Naoto Akamura,
and Lawrence Eilif for their reporting for today's podcast.
We also had reporting from David Kennedy of our sibling publication, Automotive News Canada.
You can get the latest news on Ford's supplier relationships, Honda's EV strategy,
and everything happening in the auto industry at AutoNews.com.
Come back tomorrow for a conversation with AutoPay plus CEO Robert Steenberg
about why he says lowering interest rates won't solve the auto industry's affordability problem
and what dealerships should do instead.
I'm not really making it on the front end of the car anymore.
So the only place you have left to go is parts and service.
And that's why I see the manufacturers pushing so hard on the dealers to get them back for
a minimum of two or four service visits to get some of the dealing money back.
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 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
Honda’s first loss since going public in 1957 is tied to EV write-offs, as the automaker scraps its 2040 combustion-free goal and pivots to hybrids. The show then shifts to North American trade friction: Canada’s review centers on getting rid of section 232 tariffs, with USMCA side-letter limits and a 12.5% effective vehicle tariff rate. Ford’s Liz Dore discusses supplier relations—buyer directories, Ford Horizon, scorecards, and real-time adjustments—plus how Ford is planning multi-energy vehicles and handling disruptions.
