Kathleen Ligocki, former Ford Mexico CEO, discusses the significance of Mary Barra's rise as GM's first female CEO and its impact on women in the automotive industry. The episode also covers Toyota's $900 million investment in U.S. hybrid production, aimed at meeting growing demand, and Audi's plans for a new electric SUV tailored for American consumers. Ligocki reflects on her career and the evolving opportunities for women in the auto sector, emphasizing the importance of leadership and the legacy of female executives.
As part of Automotive News’ 100 year anniversary, former Ford Mexico CEO Kathleen Ligocki reflects on Mary Barra’s rise at General Motors and what it has meant for women in the industry. Toyota will spend almost a billion dollars to boost hybrid production across the U.S. Audi plans to build a Land Rover Defender rival for the American market.
"And Bosch says it's still filling the effects of the next-period chip crisis at three of its plants."
Cars need tiny computer chips to run many parts. A shortage of these chips has made it hard for car makers to keep up with demand.
The "next-period chip crisis" refers to a shortage of semiconductor chips that impacts automotive manufacturing, causing production delays and supply chain disruptions.
"This is really the first tranche of the $10 billion that Toyota is committed to investing in the U.S. We're talking about 912 million going to be spread across five plants to boost hybrid production because, frankly, Toyota cannot keep up with demand right now for its hybrids and its plug‑in hybrids."
Hybrid production means making cars that can run on both gasoline and electric power, which helps save fuel.
Hybrid production refers to manufacturing vehicles that combine an internal combustion engine with electric motors and batteries.
"We're talking about 912 million going to be spread across five plants to boost hybrid production because, frankly, Toyota cannot keep up with demand right now for its hybrids and its plug‑in hybrids."
Plug‑in hybrids are cars that you can plug into a charger to run on electricity for short trips, then use gasoline if needed.
Plug‑in hybrids are vehicles that can be charged from an external power source and run on electric power for a limited range before switching to gasoline.
"On the environmental side who wanted everybody to go EV. This is their leaning into their strategy, their expanding production, and their strategy is working in the market."
EV means a car that uses only electric power, like a battery‑powered vehicle.
EV stands for electric vehicle, a car that runs solely on electricity stored in batteries.
"But the all hybrid Camry powertrain over 50 miles a gallon, right? That's preest numbers and a really remarkable sedan..."
An all-hybrid car uses both a gasoline engine and electric motors to get better gas mileage. It can sometimes drive on electricity alone for short distances.
An all-hybrid powertrain combines an internal combustion engine with electric motors and a battery pack to improve fuel efficiency and reduce emissions. In Toyota’s lineup, this often means the car can run on electric power alone at low speeds.
"That is now cheap in the marketplace because of where it's positioned against the crossovers and SUVs."
Crossovers and SUVs are cars that sit higher off the ground and can carry more stuff. They’re very popular because they feel like a car but have extra space.
Crossovers and SUVs are vehicles that combine the handling of a car with the higher ground clearance and cargo capacity of an off-road vehicle. They have become very popular in recent years.
"I would imagine they'll do that with Camry because if you get a fuel benefit, when you spread it across that many vehicles..."
Fuel benefit means you spend less money on gas because the car is more efficient.
A fuel benefit refers to the savings in fuel costs that result from using a more efficient powertrain, such as an all-hybrid system. It can significantly lower running expenses over time.
"So I started at GM in 1979. So this was a long, long time ago."
GM is a big U.S. car company that owns several brands, including Chevrolet and Cadillac.
General Motors (GM) is an American multinational automaker that owns brands like Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, and Cadillac.
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This podcast is brought to you by Proton dealership IT experts in dealership cybersecurity and IT management. Interested in a free cybersecurity compliance or IT consultation? Visit ProtonTex.com. That's PRO, T-O-N, T-E-C-H-S.com. Welcome to Daily Drive for Tuesday, November 18th, 2025. I'm Kellan Walker in Las Vegas, today on the show. Toyota will spend almost a billion dollars
to boost hybrid production across the U.S. Bosch still struggles with production snags despite hopes of chip supply relief. An Audi plans to build a Land Rover Defender rival in the U.S. Plus, former Ford Mexico CEO, Kathleen Legocchi, reflects on Mary Barra's rise at GM and what it meant for women in the industry.
My generation looked up, we couldn't see the sky, but now women can look up and see that you could be at the top of a big company. As a matter of fact, anybody could be at the top of a big company.
Let's run through all the news you need to know to keep up in the auto industry. Toyota is making a big commitment to hybrid production in the U.S.
The automaker will spend $912 million across five plants to boost production of hybrid engines and components. The factories are in West Virginia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Missouri.
The plan is part of Toyota's announced $10 billion in additional U.S. investments in mobility through the end of the decade.
The biggest investment goes to West Virginia for more hybrid engines and trans axles while Mississippi will start building hybrid corollas instead of importing them.
Hybrids and plug-in hybrids have been a bright spot for Toyota and Lexus. They now make up nearly half of the automaker's U.S. sales.
More on this story in a minute with our own Larry Velliquette. While Toyota ramps up U.S. hybrid production, Audi is taking its own steps to get closer to American customers.
The automaker plans to develop a large electric SUV with a range extender specifically for American buyers. And it will be built in the U.S. on Scouts' new body on frame platform in South Carolina.
Sources tell our sibling publication, automobile VOCA, that Audi has shelved the idea of building its own U.S. plant.
Instead, it will lean on Scouts' facility to avoid massive investment costs and U.S. import tariffs.
The move comes as Audi's U.S. sales slip, down 8% this year, and tariffs weigh heavily on the brand's bottom line.
Scouts' factory is expected to start production in late 2027.
And Bosch says it's still filling the effects of the next-period chip crisis at three of its plants. A spokesperson told Reuters that sites in Germany and Portugal remain disrupted after China-curbed exports of next-period parts.
The supply crunch has forced Bosch to send workers home with hundreds now on furloughs across the affected plants.
Bosch says it's watching trade talks closely as Dutch officials travel to Beijing this week to try to ease the standoff.
And those are today's headlines. You can find more details on all those stories at autonews.com.
Joining me now to talk more about Toyota's investment in U.S. hybrid production is Larry Velliquet, who covers the automaker for us at automotive news. Larry Legend, welcome back to Daily Drive.
Cal is so good to be here with you during the week. I feel like I miss you.
All right Larry, so what's driving this effort to lean into hybrid production in the U.S.?
This is really the first tranche of the $10 billion that Toyota is committed to investing in the U.S.
We're talking about 912 million going to be spread across five plants to boost hybrid production because, frankly, Toyota cannot keep up with demand right now for its hybrids and its plug-in hybrids.
They are extremely popular because their interim steps. This was the strategy that Toyota laid out and has kept on for the last ten years much to the consternation of a lot of folks.
On the environmental side who wanted everybody to go EV. This is their leaning into their strategy, their expanding production, and their strategy is working in the market.
And how does building hybrid corollas in Mississippi, instead of importing them, change Toyota's competitive position under tariffs and trade rules?
Well, it makes them cheaper theoretically. It certainly makes them cheaper to build.
If you can make those corollas hybrids, which I don't know if you've driven the new Camry yet.
I have not.
Okay, so Camry, this is going to have the same powertrain as the Camry, right?
And if you look at the new one that we saw in Tokyo, it's not that much smaller than the Camry.
But the all hybrid Camry powertrain over 50 miles a gallon, right? That's preest numbers and a really remarkable sedan, right?
That is now cheap in the marketplace because of where it's positioned against the crossovers and SUVs.
It's a very popular package, Camry. Now you're talking about bringing those corollas in, the hybrid corollas, and probably doing the same thing.
Where they'll just, they'll just probably switch to an all hybrid powertrain with the next iteration.
Just as they've done with Camry and now with RAV, I would imagine they'll do that with Camry because if you get a fuel benefit, when you spread it across that many vehicles, you get a nice cost benefit.
It's a winning combination. Good stuff. Larry Velliquette. Thank you so much for joining me, sir.
Carol, always great to be here.
Coming up, former Ford Mexico CEO, Kathleen Legocchi, joins the show to talk about women and leadership in the auto industry
and what the rise of Mary Barra at GM meant for her and her colleagues. That's next on Daily Drive.
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Welcome back to Daily Drive. I'm Kellen Walker.
As part of our 100th anniversary at Automotive News, we're running essays from industry experts and insiders about some of the biggest developments and through lines from the past 100 years.
Kathleen Lagaki was the highest ranking female executive in the global auto industry during the late 90s and early 2000s.
Among the positions she held were CEO of Ford Mexico, marketing vice president for Ford North America and Ford global vice president of customer service.
She was also CEO of Tower Automotive.
Her success helped pave the way for the ascension of Mary Barra in 2014 as the first female CEO of a major automaker.
On Wednesday, she will have an essay on autonews.com about Barra's rise at General Motors.
She spoke with her own handlets all about it. Here's a piece of their conversation.
Our guest today was the highest ranking female executive in the global auto industry during the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Kathleen Lagaki was CEO of Ford Mexico, marketing vice president for Ford North America and Ford global vice president of customer service.
She was also CEO of Tower Automotive. Her success helped pave the way for the ascension of Mary Barra in 2014 as the first female CEO of a major automaker.
Hi Kathleen, thanks for joining me.
Hi Hannah, how are you doing?
Good, thank you.
I listened to that introduction and it makes me feel old.
Well, it should make you feel accomplished.
So give me some background. When did you start working in the auto industry and what were you doing?
So I started at GM in 1979. So this was a long, long time ago.
I was a factory foreman in Kokomo, Indiana at Delco Electronics and this was before there were supervisors or team leaders or any of the more appropriate kind of names.
We were foreman at the time and I was assigned to a really tough plant in Kokomo on second shifts foreman.
And I have to say it's where I fell in love with the car industry. I absolutely loved manufacturing.
Yes, and you stuck with the industry. What were the opportunities for women at that time?
You know Hannah, when you look back, if you looked at the very top of GM, the first woman, Catherine Cleary, had been named to the board in the early 70s.
And Betsy Anchor-Johnson had been named as a VP in 79 of environmental activities.
But when you looked around my world, which is where most of the women were, none of the heads of divisions were women, none of the VP's were women.
In our division, none of the directors were women. There were a few managers and staff areas.
But you really, you were lucky to get your foot in the door, right?
It was common to be in a meeting with 50 people and be the only woman because haven't helped that they would assign as close to each other, right?
We were strewn around kind of. So we really, I mean, when we looked up, we maybe aspired to be managers and directors, but we didn't envision a future like exist today where a woman could become a CEO of major car company.
At the time, I mean, you mentioned that there were not many women and you were kind of scattered around the company.
Was there, were there any ways for you to come together and connect and form some sort of community?
Not that nothing formal. And so we did get to know each other with individual because there weren't very many of us.
So we'd reach out and have coffee or get together after work, but everything was important.
As a matter of fact, honestly, for the first, I'm going to say 15 years I was in the business.
There was nothing formal like the employee resource groups that exists today, which is wonderful for so many.
I think it really helps keep talent together and gives the company sounding boards for all of these different perspectives, but know at the time everything was informal.
So we basically drank in bars.
Can really connect out. Not that that's a bad thing, but that's what we did.
So, you know, years later, Mary Mara, I checked the helm at General Motors, that was in 2014.
What was the reaction of the industry and in particular of women in the industry?
We started with women. We were like, finally, yay!
Those of us who came ahead of Mary even felt like a little responsible. We were so proud of her.
I mean, the idea that she could break such an important barrier for so many in a tough industry, right?
Autumn's not easy for anybody to make it to the top.
It was just, we were so excited, but you know what?
This was a bigger milestone than just for women. I mean, if you go back at the time, you know, Mary was the fifth CEO in five years.
And she was an insider after outsider. She was an engineer after years of finance people.
And she not only was an engineer, she grew up in the plant, she ran supply chain, she'd run global engineering, she'd had a stint in a jar during the bankruptcy.
So, she touched a lot of parts of core line functions in the company, not just staff areas, which is often where women would rise at the top, but then not the very top, right?
They'd stay because they didn't have the line experience that was needed.
And so, she competed against some other insiders who were pretty capable, and the board chose Mary.
I'm sure the skeptics were wondering how long she would last given that the, you know, the half-life of any automotive CEO is measured in now, second, some days.
But boy, if you'd bet against Mary, would you have been wrong? She turns out she was exactly what GM needed, because she had the knowledge of an insider.
But maybe because women are never fully insiders, she had the commitment, she could see what was wrong at GM. She knew the company had to change.
She had to stabilize leadership, and she had to transform the company, and she had the benefit of her experience at GM to hit the ground running.
But also the perspective to come from a different place than maybe a traditional leader would have come.
Yeah, you mentioned that many of the previous leaders before her had finance backgrounds. She's an engineer, and she also did a stint in human resources.
How do you think that kind of shaped her career? How do you think that trajectory shaped her leadership?
I think it prepared her to be a CEO. I mean, if you were to ask what an ideal prep for any industrial CEO coming up through major line functions and running major parts of the organization is critical.
And sometimes that's a P&L, and sometimes an automakers, that's major line functions.
Now, I think her stint in HR was an interesting one, because it was during GM's bankruptcy. So she had a direct relationship with a series of very tough external constituencies during that process, but also with the board of directors.
And I think that that gave her exposure in a different way to the board that gave her a leg up when they were considering CEO candidates.
And how has Mary Mara continued to be a trailblazer since then since she took the helm?
Well, well, where she's had over a decade. So she's been a CEO longer than most 75% of her fellow S&P 500 CEOs.
And so it's an amazing track record. But she really tackled some of the major issues. One of the problems with an insider CEO, right, always, is do they own so much of the past that they can't transform, right?
That's always the question boards ask actually. And that's why sometimes they bring in an external person if they want something transformed, but then the person has a learning curve.
But Mary tackled the toughest issue. She tackled GM's kind of sprawling portfolio.
She exited, you know, unprofitable businesses, geographies, I mean, Opal and Vauxhall and Australian New Zealand and Russia and India.
And she looked at brands. I mean, she wasn't even afraid of trying new things and like some of the mobility services.
And then if they didn't meet their plan, like Maven and Cruze Robotaxi, not afraid to say you know what we're going to reorient there, too.
And she used that more importantly, she used those resources and that focus to really steer GM toward the future of what the company could be.
Investing in future technologies, investing in EV, investing in autonomous. I mean, you look at where GM is today.
It's the broadest EV lineup in North America, plans to invest a billion dollars in graphite and lithium vertically integrating into those critical materials in the supply chain,
forged an alliance with LG Calm, right, per cathode, higher top-talented batteries to drive down the cost, which is one of the major issues without subsidies, how can EVs be more affordable.
And then introducing the next gen Isopwatch Cadillac, they've always introduced new technology and Cadillac.
And the Cadillac Esk Lake that's coming in in the 2028, is going to have their next gen, you know, eyes off technology.
And so this is just, and this is just the beginning, this is just what they've announced. There's more cool stuff to come.
So it's wonderful. I think that what happens to so many automakers is they spread themselves so thin.
And this is why some of the startups have been able to make inroads is that they really have been focused in terms of really gaining traction.
And GM has been able to both keep the breadth that they need, right. I mean, they still are big in the Americas. China is a little more of a challenge, but still important in China.
But the technology leadership that GM has in some of these important new technologies is really critical for the company's future.
And Mary has been unafraid to try things and invest in these new areas.
You know, it was a big deal for women in the industry in 2014, but now more than a decade later, how has she motivated women in the auto industry and even beyond?
So, you know, when you look at Mary, Mary's more than just a top female CEO. She makes all the top leader lists, right, of industries.
And she's one of the people, like, if you're president, I don't care which party you are. She's one of the CEOs you call.
She's one of the most influential CEOs on the planet because she owns one of the most important companies on the planet.
And she's proved herself over a decade to been able to navigate. I mean, everyone knows this is a hard industry.
This isn't for folks who like an easy path. And she's been able to steer the company through all this.
And so she's at the top of her game in all of those things. She's built a very diverse board.
She's the chair of that board. She's guiding the government piece of it as well.
And so I look at what she's been able to do, not just as a female CEO, which is wonderful, but as a CEO of a major company on this in this world.
And she is having impact across such a broad platform.
Yeah, that impact is really broad, as you said, and really clear, is there one way in particular that she has inspired you, especially?
You know, it's interesting. In the first case, when somebody breaks through such an important glass ceiling, it's an inspiration for so many because it changes for several generations of women, the definition of what is possible.
So my generation looked up, we couldn't see the sky, but now women can look up and see that you could be at the top of a big company.
As a matter of fact, anybody could be at the top of a big company.
I hope that some people take away is that it's talent and drive and capability and opportunity that gets you there.
And so as a woman in the car business for over 40 years, being a small part of that legacy makes me feel really proud.
The other thing I have to say is, you know, for all of us, what inspires me is Mary continues to have impact.
And I think for all of us, even though I'm post my CEO career, but I serve on boards, I watch what leaders like Mary are doing to leave them a legacy, whether you have a broad global platform, like someone like Mary does, or any of us, any of us in your audience, look around.
So I think that we all have impact on helping other people reach their potential, reach for the stars, become who they really could be.
And that's what inspires me still. It's one of the reasons I stayed in the car business, I like cars, you know what I mean.
But I didn't, I stayed in the business for the people in the car industry.
And I love the fact that it's rough and tumble, I love the fact that it's a little bit, it could be a little bit crazy to be in it.
I also love the fact that it has impact on consumers lives, on their personal identities, on the economies, on the jobs that it spins off.
I mean, on so many different things. And so when I look at someone like Mary, continuing to have impacted her level, it inspires me to continue to have impact at mine.
Well, great. Thank you so much, Kathleen, for talking about Mary with us. And for writing the essay in our Centennial book, we really appreciate your time.
Thanks a lot. And good luck Mary, we're all still watching and cheering for you.
You can read Kathleen Legocchi's essay as part of our Centennial anniversary at Automotive News on Wednesday on AutoNews.com.
It will also appear in our Automotive News Centennial Coffee Tablebook, which you can pre-order now until November 21st.
The book will ship in late December. Copies are limited.
That's daily drive for today. I'm Kellan Walker.
Thanks to Automotive News executive producer Jake Near, as well as our own Larry Velliquette for his reporting for today's podcast.
We also had reporting from Berkhard Rhearing of our sibling publication Automobile Voka.
You can get the latest news on manufacturing investments, supply chains, and everything happening in the auto industry at AutoNews.com.
Come back tomorrow for a conversation with Stefano Marzani of Amazon Web Services about connected vehicles, their dependence on cell phone service, and what happens when they drive into cellular dead zones.
Think about an assistant that was going to tell you, hey, I know that tomorrow you got to go there.
And there may be some blind spotarias for cellular connectivity, so why don't we prepare some of the content you may enjoy for that trip?
We'd love to hear from you. Let us know what you think of the show on the topics we cover today.
Send us an email at DailyDrive at AutoNews.com or leave us a voicemail at 313-444-2774.
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