Automotive News Daily Drive May 5, 2026

May 5, 2026 | Inside Ford's California Skunk Works; Chinese automakers land in Canada

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Company

Protective Asset Protection

Protective Asset Protection is a company that helps car dealers sell extra protection products. The idea is to create more income for dealers beyond just selling cars.

Company

Toyota

Toyota is the carmaker in this story. They’re talking about building their own AI so they can keep control of how it’s used and protect jobs.

Topic

Ford's California Skunk Works project

“Skunk Works” is a term for a team that moves fast to build new technology. In this episode, Ford is using that kind of approach to develop a new EV.

Term

EV

EV stands for electric vehicle. It’s a car that runs on electricity from a battery instead of gasoline.

Company

Geely

Geely is a big Chinese car company. They own the luxury brand Zeke, which is trying to grow in Canada.

Brand

Zeke

Zeke is a luxury car brand. The hosts mention it because it’s starting to set up operations in Toronto.

Brand

Cherry

Chery is a Chinese car brand. They’re trying to line up dealerships in Canada by meeting with dealer reps and bringing test cars to Toronto.

Topic

Beijing Auto Show

The Beijing Auto Show is a big car event in China. The hosts mention it because Chery brought Canadian dealer reps there to help build relationships.

Company

BYD

BYD is a Chinese car company. They’re planning to open many stores in Canada, but the hosts say you shouldn’t expect cars on lots immediately.

Term

manufacturer plates

Manufacturer plates are special plates that identify a vehicle as being associated with the carmaker. In this context, it suggests the cars were official test vehicles, not regular customer cars.

Term

artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) is computer software that can learn and make decisions based on data. Here, Toyota is using AI internally for training and to help evaluate future partners.

Term

AI clone

An “AI clone” is an AI system designed to act like a real person—based on their information and style. Toyota says it made one for leadership training.

Term

used vehicles

Used vehicles are cars that someone owned before and are being sold again. The hosts are saying people are turning to used cars because new cars cost too much.

Company

Lithia

Lithia is a big dealership company. In this story, it’s included among companies that are selling more used cars to help shoppers afford vehicles.

Company

Penske

Penske is a big company in the car business. Here, they’re being mentioned because they sell lots of used cars.

Company

AutoNation

AutoNation is a big dealership business. They’re mentioned because they’re selling more used cars when new cars get too expensive.

Term

interest rates

Interest rates are the cost of borrowing money. Higher rates make car loans more expensive, so monthly payments go up.

Term

monthly payments

Monthly payments are what you pay each month to finance a car. If they’re too high, some people can’t buy a new car and look at used options instead.

Concept

late model, low mileage used cars

This means used cars that are newer and haven’t been driven much. They cost less than brand-new cars, but they’re still in good shape, so they’re popular when new cars are too expensive.

Concept

auctions

Auctions are where dealers bid to buy used cars from other sellers. The prices can swing around, so dealers watch auction costs closely when deciding how to make money.

Concept

It’s basically a trade-off: sell many cars and make a little profit on each, or sell fewer cars and make more profit on each. When used-car profits are small, the way a dealer buys cars becomes really important.

Concept

trade ins

A trade-in is when you turn in your current car to help pay for the next one. Dealers often prefer trade-ins because they may be able to get the car for a better price than buying it at an auction.

Company

Asbury Automotive

Asbury Automotive is a dealership group whose reported margin changes are used as an example of how tight (but sometimes improving) used-car profitability can be. Mentioning its first-quarter results ties the discussion to real-world financial performance in the retail used-car market.

Company

Carvana

Carvana is a company that sells used cars, mostly through an online-first model. The episode mentions its earnings to show how tough and competitive the used-car business is right now.

Concept

Model T moment

The “Model T moment” is a comparison to the original Ford Model T, which changed how many people could afford cars. They’re saying Ford thinks it has another game-changing idea coming.

Car

Ford Model T

The Ford Model T was an early Ford car that became very important in making cars more common. The podcast uses it as an example of a big “turning point” in car history. The idea is that something new could be as influential as the Model T was back then.

Term

vehicle protection plans

Vehicle protection plans are aftermarket coverage products sold through dealerships to help pay for certain repairs or coverage beyond the factory warranty. They’re a common part of dealer “protection” revenue and can vary widely in what they cover.

Term

FNI solutions

“FNI” is an acronym used in dealership finance and insurance, referring to the F&I department’s products and services. In this context, it’s tied to protection and coverage offerings sold alongside vehicle sales.

Term

limited warranties

A limited warranty is coverage that only applies to certain things and only for a certain period. It’s not a guarantee that every problem will be covered.

Term

guaranteed asset protection

Guaranteed Asset Protection (GAP) is coverage that can pay the difference between what you owe on a financed/leased vehicle and what the vehicle is worth if it’s totaled or stolen. It’s designed to protect the “asset” value from depreciation and loss scenarios.

Concept

EV platform

An EV platform is the shared engineering “foundation” for an electric vehicle—things like the battery layout, power electronics integration, wiring architecture, and structural design. Using a common platform helps automakers develop multiple EVs more efficiently.

Concept

Fail fast, break things, fix it, try again

This is a development style where teams try ideas quickly, learn from what doesn’t work, and improve. The goal is to get to a better final result with fewer surprises later.

Concept

vehicle dynamics

Vehicle dynamics is the engineering discipline that studies how a car behaves—handling, stability, ride/traction balance, and how the chassis responds to steering and braking. The segment says Ford needed vehicle-dynamics people to support the program as development progressed.

Company

Tesla

Tesla is mentioned because Alan Clark previously worked there. The point is that Ford hired him from a more EV-focused company to lead a new project.

Concept

cultural clash

“Cultural clash” describes friction that can happen when teams with different backgrounds, values, and working styles are forced to collaborate. Here, the outsiders from EV startups and tech companies are contrasted with Ford veterans, and the host asks how leadership manages that tension.

Concept

empathy

In this context, “empathy” is leadership behavior used to reduce friction between groups by understanding how others think and what motivates them. The segment frames it as a practical management tool for integrating new tech talent with established employees.

Concept

face-to-face interactions

“Face-to-face interactions” refers to in-person collaboration as a deliberate process choice, rather than relying solely on remote communication. The segment claims this approach improves progress and helps teams understand each other’s perspectives during development.

Company

Dearborn team

“Dearborn team” refers to Ford’s internal group based in Dearborn, Michigan, which is Ford’s historic headquarters area. The segment uses it to illustrate cross-location collaboration for the program.

Company

Ford Motor Company

They’re talking about Ford as a company, not just a specific car. The hosts say Ford feels intense pressure from competitors, and they believe the company’s future depends on what this team builds next.

Term

Newtonian physics

They’re using “Newtonian physics” as a reminder that real-world physical laws still apply. In other words, if something can’t work in a real, physical sense, you can’t build it just because it sounds good on paper.

Term

software in-house

They’re saying Ford is building its software internally. That can help the company coordinate changes faster—like when the battery design changes and the rest of the car needs to be updated to match.

Concept

co-locating everyone under one roof

They’re describing a development approach where different teams sit together in the same place. That way, if one team changes something (like the battery), other teams can quickly adjust their work too.

Term

battery team

They mention the battery team, meaning the engineers working on the car’s battery pack. Changing the battery’s internal cell count can change the battery size and how the whole car runs.

Term

number of cells in the battery

A car battery is built from smaller units called cells. If the engineers change how many cells are in the pack, the battery’s size and electrical behavior change, so the car’s electronics and software must be updated to work correctly.

Term

chassis dyno

A chassis dyno is like a treadmill for a car. The car’s wheels spin on rollers while sensors measure things like power and how the car behaves, so engineers can test changes in a controlled way.

Term

Universal Electric Vehicle Platform

An electric vehicle platform is the main “build plan” for an EV—how the battery, motors, and key structure are laid out. Ford’s UEV platform is meant to be reused across several different Ford EVs so they can be developed faster.

Car

Ford F150

The Ford F-150 is a large pickup truck made by Ford. The podcast is saying a new shared electric-car design could be used on the F-150 too. That would help Ford build electric versions using the same basic technology across different models.

Car

Ford Bronco

The Ford Bronco is an SUV designed to handle rough roads and off-road driving. The podcast says Ford could use the same new electric-car platform on the Bronco as well. This would let Ford apply one EV design approach to more than one type of vehicle.

Car

Ford Mustang

The Ford Mustang is a sports car made by Ford. The podcast is saying Ford’s new shared electric-car design could also be used for the Mustang. That would mean an electric version could be built using the same core EV approach as other Ford vehicles.

Company

Jim Farley

Jim Farley is Ford’s CEO. Here, he’s talking about how Ford expects this new EV-focused team’s ideas to influence the rest of the company.

Company

Allen Clark

Allen Clark is mentioned as someone who’s more cautious about how well this new EV effort will spread through Ford. It’s basically a debate about whether the ideas will actually scale across the whole company.

Term

trickle down

“Trickle down” here means “spread gradually.” The question is whether what the EV team learns and builds will end up changing how the rest of Ford works.

Concept

prototype

A prototype is an early version of a car that’s built to test ideas before the real production model exists. They’re saying they haven’t seen enough to judge the final truck yet.

Concept

heavily camouflaged

When a car is “heavily camouflaged,” it’s covered up so people can’t easily tell what the final design will look like. The company still tests it on the road to see how it drives.

Concept

vehicle number two three four five on this platform

Companies build several test trucks on the same underlying design so they can try different setups and improvements. The “number two, three, four, five” wording suggests multiple test versions are planned.

Car

Rivian

Rivian makes electric vehicles, including trucks and SUVs. They’re mentioned as another company moving quickly with new electric models.

Car

Volkswagen

Volkswagen is a major car brand. They’re mentioning it as another automaker trying to move quickly with new vehicles.

Car

GM

GM is a big car company. Here it’s mentioned as part of the group of automakers racing to bring new vehicles to market faster.

Concept

speed to market

Speed to market means how quickly a company can get a new car from planning into showrooms. The idea is that faster launches can help them sell more before competitors catch up.

Car

Ford Maverick

The Ford Maverick is a smaller pickup truck. Here, they’re trying to guess whether the new prototype looks more like a Maverick-sized truck than a Ranger-sized one.

Car

Ford Ranger

The Ford Ranger is a mid-size pickup truck. They’re using it as a comparison to figure out whether the prototype is closer in size to the Ranger or to the Maverick.

Concept

mid-compact

“Mid-compact” is a way of describing truck size—bigger than a compact, but smaller than a typical mid-size. They’re saying the new truck might land in a gap between existing categories.

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Welcome to Daily Drive. For Tuesday, May 5th, 2026, I'm Kellan Walker in Las Vegas.

Today on the show, Chinese automakers land in Canada.

Toyota is building its own AI, claiming it's to protect jobs, not replace them.

And public dealership groups lean on used vehicles as affordability pressures mount.

Plus, we get a glimpse of Ford's California Skunk Works project,

where they're developing a new kind of EV.

It's not hyperbole to say the future of Ford Motor Company rides on what Alan Clark and his team do.

Let's run through all the news you need to know to keep up in the auto industry.

Chinese automakers are getting serious about entering Canada.

Zeke, a luxury brand owned by Geely, started hiring for seven senior positions in Toronto

late last month. Everything from sales and marketing to network development and legal.

Cherry's been courting dealers too. The company flew nearly two dozen Canadian dealer reps to the

Beijing Auto Show. And a couple of Cherry's JQ E5 test vehicles have already been spotted

in Toronto with manufacturer plates. BYD says it'll open as many as 20 stores this year with

local partners. But don't expect cars on lots anytime soon. Sales likely won't start until

late this year at earliest. Toyota is building its own artificial intelligence

instead of partnering with tech giants like Google or Huawei. The goal? Protect jobs and

keep manufacturing expertise in-house. Daisuke Toyota, son of Chairman Akio Toyota, says doing AI

themselves helps Toyota understand what works and what doesn't, so they can better evaluate

potential partners down the road. The company even created an AI clone of the chairman for

leadership training. Toyota's comments reveal how the automaker plans to differentiate its AI

strategy as human-centered even as companies worldwide increasingly lean on the new technology

to improve efficiency, cut cost, and shed workers. And with new car prices over $50,000, the top

public dealership groups are leaning on used vehicles as an affordable alternative for consumers.

Penske, Lithia, Sonic, and AutoNation sold more used cars in the first quarter year over year,

but they faced stiff competition from Carvana which sold more than 187,000 vehicles,

over 80,000 more than top-selling Lithia. Automotive news retail reporter Paige Hodder

talked about it with our own Jake Neer. Paige Hodder, welcome back to Daily Drive.

Thanks for having me. How are these public retail groups leveraging their used vehicle

businesses as affordability especially becomes a bigger and bigger concern?

Yeah, so the affordability crisis isn't new. Car prices are high. They're not necessarily

going up, but they're still high and they're also not going down. Interest rates are still high.

Those are also not going down anytime soon. And that translates to pretty high monthly payments.

And that's created a scenario where there's this bubble of consumers, potential car buyers,

who might have been ready to get that entry-level new vehicle, who just can't afford it anymore.

And so that's kind of a trend I've been tracking across the industry, which is like,

what are those buyers doing now that they've kind of been priced out? And that's turning to

used cars, particularly late model, low mileage used cars. And that's something the public

dealership groups really see and see as an opportunity. They have giant supplies of used

vehicles and they have a lot of opportunities to move those around in different ways that

a smaller dealership group might not like they can really leverage their scale to get those cars to

the people who are really looking for them, for the people who want something that's not to hold,

the people who genuinely would have bought a new car if it was $10,000 cheaper. And so are really

looking for something nice and are sometimes willing to put down some money to get something nice,

but just not as much money as a new car. And so the word opportunity really came up a lot in

the dealership group, the public dealership groups earnings calls last week as, you know,

we've got these used car operations, there's a lot of demand for used cars right now,

and they want to make sure that they're taking advantage of that opportunity.

And I assume that that forces them to figure out how they're going to source these used vehicles,

right? Whether it's going to be auctions, whether it's going to be trade ins,

how are they thinking about that? Yeah, so it's a kind of a volume versus margins game.

And so, you know, it's numbers or profit, you can sell a lot, a lot of used cars,

or you can try and target the cars that you're going to make the most profit off of.

You know, different public dealership groups are taking, you know, different approaches.

But you know, one thing that came up in a lot of the calls is like,

they do make more money on trade ins than they do at the auctions, you know, because often they're

paying very competitive prices for the trade ins. They kind of have a captive person. They

have an advantage in that conversation. And they all acknowledge that they could go to the auctions

and clean up a bunch of vehicles and bring them out and try and sell them. But they,

you'd have to sell a lot of them to make up the profit margins that you could get on some of

these trade ins. And so there was a real focus on maximizing profit by focusing on trade ins in

a time when, you know, used vehicle margins are not giant, you know, they've been tightening for a

little while. And that's stabilizing. And, you know, Asbury Automotive even saw their margins go

up a little bit in the first quarter. But it's still kind of a tight game when you have to be

strategic about, you know, where you're getting those cars to make the most of them.

And then I also have to wonder about what the competition looks like in that case between

these public retail groups and the used only retailers as well, especially as

the public groups get more and more sort of interested in playing in that space.

Yeah. So there's, you know, no mistaking that the used vehicle market is really competitive right

now. And the publics know that. And, you know, one of their biggest competitors is Carvana,

who also just reported earnings. Carvana had a really good quarter, you know, for

six straight quarters, they've grown their sales by over 40%. You know, for comparison,

a lot of the publics saw fewer sales year over year or much smaller gains. You know,

Carvana sold in the first quarter over 180,000 used cars. Lithia was the public

dealership group that sold the most used cars and they only sold like 105,000. So just far behind.

And so, you know, Carvana even came up in a couple of the earnings calls. Like it's

a competitor that the dealership groups are very aware of. And, you know, Carvana has a lot of

brand recognition in the way the dealership groups, you know, just don't. I don't know that

most people would know what Lithia is, Lithium Motors. If you don't work in the industry,

but people know about the car elevator. But, you know, one of the analysts I spoke to for the story

said, you know, that, again, that trade-in line is a real advantage for the publics because it is a,

you know, a sourcing line that Carvana doesn't have. You know, Carvana is going out and trying

to convince people to sell them their car. And that structure, that system has kind of just

built into the franchise dealership model. You know, people come back and they're like,

well, if I'm getting a new car, I have no use for this old one. So why don't you take it? And

even if they're not getting maybe the most competitive price, that's like a really seamless

process. They can build it into their loan. There's a lot of like really attractive parts

about trading in your car. And we've already established they also make really good profit

margins on those trade-ins. So as the public dealership groups look to compete with someone

like Carvana, I think we'll really see them leaning on their trade-ins and really trying

to be strategic about making use of that advantage. Paige Hotter, thank you so much for joining us

on Daily Drive. Thanks for having me. Coming up, our own Michael Martinez takes us inside Ford's

Secretive California Skunkworks, where a team isolated from Dearborn is building what Jim

Frally calls Ford's next Model T moment. That's next on Daily Drive.

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Welcome back to Daily Drive. I'm Kellan Walker. Automotive News recently got a rare look inside

Ford's California Skunk Works, a secretive operation where 350 people are developing

what CEO Jim Farley has called Ford's answer to the Chinese and the company's next model team moment.

Aaron Michael Martinez got the tour and he spoke with Aaron Jake near about it.

Michael Martinez, welcome back to Daily Drive.

Thanks, Jake.

So you recently got a rare look inside Ford's California Skunk Works. I'm curious how Ford

is approaching this compared to how they usually operate.

Well, they're approaching this in a completely different way and it goes from the top down.

Jim Farley said from the beginning he did not want his key card to work on the office building.

He did not want to have access to the building because they wanted to keep them so far away

from Dearborn, both literally and figuratively, they wanted to give them the opportunity to

build this vehicle and this EV platform like a startup. Fail fast, break things, fix it, try again.

So you see a real difference in terms of the co-location of some of the teams, in terms of the

makeup of some of the teams, and really in terms of the fact that working at Ford, being a company

veteran, is almost a disadvantage here because as the development process has gone on, they've needed

the Ford folks, they've needed the vehicle dynamics, the plant manager operation type people

to come in and help them, but everybody who works at Ford needs to interview

to get on this team and it's not a given that they make it.

So we got a chance to talk with Alan Clark who Ford poached from Tesla about four years ago.

He's in charge of this Skunk Works team and he shared some thoughts about how they are interviewing

the Ford folks. We interview everyone from Ford that's allowed to work on his program

and that's very uncomfortable if you're a middle manager that has people and you're

basically going to have someone say, I reject your offer, this person doesn't have the subject

matter expertise or is not a good fit here and that is something I've had to make all my leaders

really comfortable doing. You talk about how he was poached, but you also write in the article that

most of the 350 people working there were also poached from EV startups and tech companies.

How is Clark managing the cultural clash between these outsiders and Ford veterans?

Yeah, as we've seen time and time again over the past decade or so when a legacy automaker tries to

incorporate a lot of new tech focused talent doesn't always work and Alan Clark mentioned that

he's seen a ton of friction between these two teams, but interestingly he says

almost as important as everything they're doing in this building is the psychology

of how they do it and how they do it together. So he says he tries to lead with empathy.

And you create empathy by understanding people's mindset. It's also by forcing face-to-face

interactions. He says he'll call up the Dearborn team to bring them to Long Beach, California

to draw on whiteboards and talk and debate and yell at each other and vice versa. He brings

his California team to Michigan to Kentucky where they will be building the first vehicle on this

platform and he's interesting. I thought it was a fascinating conversation. He said you never make

more progress than when you are sitting down face-to-face as humans and it helps you understand

each other better and that's how he's trying to smooth out the friction between those two sides.

That being said, there is this idea of earning your right to exist in this space. In fact,

that's one of the team's cultural commandments. What is the pressure like for this group?

It's tremendous pressure. You've heard Jim Farley refer to this as Ford's next model team moment.

They've used words like moonshot or step change and costs and efficiency in terms of what this

product will be. This is their answer to the Chinese which Farley has said is an existential

threat to the company. It's not hyperbole to say the future of Ford Motor Company rides on what

Alan Clark and his team do and he recognizes that. He said there's tons of pressure. He admits it

but he also said it's a cliche but he said hey you can't make a diamond without pressure and you

talk about the change in culture. Those 12 cultural commandments I thought were also very

interesting. It's listed in the lobby of the building. There's phrases like fight silos and

anybody who knows anything about Ford Motor Company knows it's been a very siloed company at times.

Step on toes, earn your right to exist like you said and the interesting one I thought was Sir Isaac

Newton decides and we asked about that and they said well that's really just a reminder that the

only real limit is physics. We can't do things if it doesn't physically work based on Newtonian

physics so it's a cheeky little reminder to the team. It's so interesting. I'm also interested

in the fact that Ford is developing all the software in-house for the first time. What did

you see in terms of how they're set up differently to make that work? It's a simple idea but it's

the idea of co-locating everyone under one roof from the start of the development to the end. You

have some marketing folks there, you have engineering, design, supply chain, everybody coming together

and sitting next to each other so for example we talked to the battery team who said throughout

this development they're changing the number of cells in the battery and that affects the size of

the vehicle, the size of the battery, how things operate so when they realize they need to change

the number of cells they can walk down the hall to talk to the electronics, the software team and

say hey we need you to tweak the rest of the vehicle to match and it's a decision that gets

made instantaneously versus bureaucracy and needing to fly in a team for a review and a sign-off so a

lot of testing they have a ton of different labs from battery labs to a full chassis dyno that they

can run cars through in different temperatures and different grades of pavement so they can test

and like I said earlier fail fast and break things and make adjustments on the fly versus

the typical red tape that any legacy automaker has to go through. As you're talking and as I'm

reading your article I get why they're doing this and what makes it powerful to have this sort of

isolated operation working on this but what keeps coming to my mind is what happens when it's ready

to come back to Dearborn? What happens when all these folks that are in a completely different

culture have to present what they've done and obviously that's speculative we don't know yet

but what are your thoughts and what did you gather about how Ford plans to incorporate this culturally

in the future? Well apparently they're already sort of filtering down ideas and concepts and

ways of working and the team in Long Beach said there's no secret sauce with the UEV platform the

Universal Electric Vehicle Platform that this first vehicle and others will ride on they said this

can be applied to F-150 or Bronco or Mustang or any other Ford product it's not just because it's an

EV what we're doing you can do with your vehicle lines and sort of clean up the bureaucracy and

speed time to development and time to launch and Ford wants to do that. Jim Farley was speaking

on Ford's first quarter earnings call a few weeks ago and said that the true gift of this team

will be how it filters down to the rest of the company we don't know what that means yet

and I'm sure there's going to be speculation on Wall Street that hey Ford why not just make this

the company or spin this off as its own separate company to do EVs or whatever and there may be

talk of that in the future but for right now Allen Clark for one is sort of laser focused on

landing the plane so to speak and making sure that they do earn their right to exist. Well you

just mentioned that that Farley seems to be pretty optimistic about what this is going how

this is going to trickle down to the rest of the company but you write that Clark is a little more

cautious about that what's what's his take. Well his take is don't count your chickens basically

they haven't done anything yet yeah we're hearing all sorts of praise from Farley on earnings calls

and some of the other executives saying hey you guys are going to love this truck when you see it

this is going to revolutionize our operations but we haven't seen it yet that's the point I will

say Jake it was cool we got a very scripted though but a quick glimpse of a prototype

driving behind us as we were walking from one building to the other heavily camouflaged so you

couldn't really see the design details but it did look like a small truck but the point is

we're not going to know if this company succeeded until the truck launches and vehicle number two

three four five on this platform and you got to keep in mind too that as this is Ford's answer to

the Chinese the Chinese aren't going to stop other automakers Tesla, Rivian, GM, Volkswagen

they're not stopping either in increasing their efficiency and their speed to market so maybe

this is a good first step but maybe five years from now it'll already be obsolete we just don't

know and I think Alan Clark's trying to level set a bit. So before I let you go you said you

saw a heavily camouflaged model when you turned around and saw it did were you thinking more hey

is that a Maverick or is that a Ranger? So in the few seconds sneak peek that we got I'll say it

looked more Maverick size than Ranger size if you're trying to give some type of bulk park comparison

now I don't know if our listeners should just think hey this is going to be an EV Maverick

I don't know that it'll be that similar but talking size they claim it's a mid-size but

I'd say it's a lot smaller than today's Ranger. A mid-compact maybe new segment. There you go.

Michael Martinez this is fascinating we'll talk a little bit more about this on weekend drive

this week as well and I really appreciate you doing this and talking to us about this

really interesting sneak peek. Thanks Jake. That's Daily Drive for today I'm Kellan Walker.

Thanks to our own Paige Hodder and Hans Grimel 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 Chinese brands entering North America, Ford Skunk Works project

and everything happening in the auto industry at AutoNews.com. 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 us a voicemail at 313-444-2774 and if you enjoyed the podcast

remember to like, leave a review and subscribe so you never miss an episode.

0:00

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May 5, 2026 | Inside Ford's California Skunk Works; Chinese automakers land in Canada

manufacturer plates

vehicle number two three four five on this platform

GM

mid-compact

About this episode

Original notes