Kellan Walker hosts an insightful episode from the LA Auto Show, featuring an exclusive interview with Nissan CEO Ivan Espinosa. Espinosa discusses Nissan's ambitious turnaround plan, including cost-cutting measures and new product launches aimed at revitalizing the brand. The episode also explores Gen Z's unique approach to car buying, highlighting their research habits and preferences in the finance and insurance sector. With significant shifts in the auto industry, this episode provides valuable perspectives on market trends and consumer behavior.
"[112.7s] At a congressional hearing Wednesday, lawmakers and industry leaders warn that Beijing is deliberately driving down prices for critical minerals to undercut US mining and processing projects."
These are special metals that help make things like electric car motors work better. They’re found in small amounts in the earth’s crust.
Rare earth minerals are a group of 17 metallic elements that are essential for many modern technologies, including electric vehicle motors and high‑performance magnets.
"The 2027 redesign adds something Kia has never offered on its flagship crossover, a hybrid."
A hybrid car uses both a regular gasoline engine and an electric motor. It can drive on gas, on electricity, or use both to save fuel and produce less pollution.
A hybrid vehicle combines an internal combustion engine with one or more electric motors and a battery pack, allowing it to run on gasoline, electricity, or both. This setup improves fuel efficiency and reduces emissions.
"The hybrid joins a new turbocharged gas engine and a larger, more premium footprint."
A turbocharger helps a car’s engine make more power by sucking in extra air using the exhaust gases. It’s like giving the engine a boost.
A turbocharger is a forced induction device that uses exhaust gas energy to compress incoming air, increasing engine power and efficiency. It is commonly used in modern gasoline engines.
"we want to step in quickly there. And this is why we are bringing the row with the third generation e‑power"
It’s a newer type of car that uses both gasoline and electric power to drive the wheels, giving better fuel economy and quicker acceleration than older hybrids.
The third generation e‑power refers to a hybrid powertrain that combines an internal combustion engine with electric motors, offering improved efficiency and performance over earlier hybrid generations.
"in terms of electrification, what other options do you have for the D segment?"
Electrification means using electric motors instead of or alongside gasoline engines to power cars, which can reduce emissions and improve efficiency.
Electrification refers to the process of replacing internal combustion engines with electric motors or hybrid powertrains in vehicles.
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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, dot com. Welcome to Daily Drive. For Thursday, November 20, 2025, I'm Kellan Walker coming to you from the LA Auto Show. Today on the show, another fire hits the day
with a damaged novella's aluminum plant in New York. China depresses the prices of rare herbs to spook U.S. investors, and here in LA, Kia shows off the redesign tell you ride. Plus, our exclusive interview with Nissan CEO, Ivan Espinoza, about the company's turnaround plan and the slew of new products it will unleash on the market next year.
You know, the fact that we have these new product lines coming in and having full blast next year is definitely something that's going to help.
Let's run through all the news you need to know to keep up in the auto industry.
A four alarm fire was reported today at the same novella's plant in upstate New York that burned in September.
This comes just weeks before the supplier had said it expected full operations to resume.
A novella spokesperson said it was too soon to know whether the latest incident will delay repairs from the previous blaze.
The person said everyone working at the plant will safely evacuated.
Ford has estimated the September fire and subsequent shutdown could cost the automaker as much as $2 billion.
A Ford spokesperson said the automaker was aware of the fire and working with novellas to get more information.
Experts say China is actively using rare earth pricing as a weapon and US automakers may feel the hit first.
At a congressional hearing Wednesday, lawmakers and industry leaders warn that Beijing is deliberately
driving down prices for critical minerals to undercut US mining and processing projects.
Matthew Sloceter of MP materials said China's slash prices just as US refining efforts were coming online.
We reinvested those profits to build US refining capabilities at mountain pass,
but as we prepared to launch, neo-demium, pre-zio-demium prices, the price of the key commodity,
collapsed to two levels below even China's lowest production cost.
That predatory pricing destroyed incentives to invest and it kept capital scarce.
The auto industry depends heavily on rare earth magnets for everything from EV motors to power steering.
Witnesses said the industry would be the canary in the coal mine if US supplies run short.
In here in LA, Kia is putting a major spotlight on the next gen telluride,
a critical model for the brand and one of its biggest US success stories.
The 2027 redesign adds something Kia has never offered on its flagship crossover, a hybrid.
It's a strategic move as hybrid surge in popularity and arrival big crossovers lean heavily
into electrification. Kia says the telluride remains core to attracting higher income buyers
and growing US market share. The hybrid joins a new turbocharged gas engine and a larger,
more premium footprint. All aim to keep the telluride competitive through the decade.
The new model arrives in early 2026.
And those are today's headlines you can find more details on all those stories at autonews.com.
Gen Z is a growing presence in an auto finance market and mired in an affordability crisis
and in the middle of major technological shifts. How are these young car buyers and owners
navigating it all? Our own page hotter wrote about it on autonews.com and talked about it with
our own Jake near page hotter. Welcome back to daily drive. Thanks for having me.
Okay, so why is Gen Z important to pay attention to if you're a dealer or an FNI manager right now?
They might seem young to some of the people out there working in the industry but they're a growing
market and becoming a really important presence. You know, a good chunk of Gen Z still can't drive
but more and more of them are getting their driver's licenses. And on the like older age, you know,
a lot of them are getting their first like salary job, you know, graduating college and getting
enough money to like consider buying their first non clunker, their first non like
guy down the street kind of car. And so if you want to be really active and proactive about meeting
this new kind of market and this new kind of car buyer where they're at, like they're definitely
someone to pay attention to. And you mentioned this new kind of car buyer. Sometimes I'm a little
bit wary of generational like dividing lines, but it does seem for you're reporting that Gen Z has
some unique habits. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, so I think the first thing that,
you know, what really drew me into this story was a report released from FICO recently that took
a look at credit score changes across the generations. And you know, one of the big headlines there
was that Gen Z on average had seen their credit scores dip a little bit. And I think it's,
you know, surprised to people who have been paying attention to affordability challenges across
industries, but also student loans like it's all like a tough time and a lot of ways to be a young
person, especially graduating college and, you know, entering the workforce. So they're a cautious
set of buyers. They're, and a really affordability aware is the sense that I got from the experts I
spoke to. You know, one of the things we talk a lot about on the F and I B is price shock. You
know, you bought a car a couple of years ago. You might be expecting a three or four hundred dollar
monthly payment jokes on you. It's eight hundred dollars. Yeah. But like one of the big trends is like
Gen Z is looking at things online before they go to the dealership. They're using those little
like build my deal payment calculators. They're not surprised to see the payment. And they've
done a lot of research and a lot of planning ahead of time to come to a payment or some type of
deal that they want to get to. But on the other hand, I think a lot of people would make assumptions
that people who grow up with phones and technology might be, you know, like some of millennials
interested in completing, you know, the entire process online. And that is really not showing up
for the Gen Z buyers that we have right now. I think part of that might be that a lot of them
are buying their first car. But from the experts I spoke to in the surveys that have been
conducted, you know, Gen Z wants to come into the dealership. They're going to have done a lot of
research ahead of time. They're probably going to know what car they want to buy. And they're
probably going to know how much they want to put down and what their payment will be. But they
want to come and talk to you. And that, you know, speaking with one of my finance advisor sources,
like that is a real opportunity. You know, a lot of the research that they do ahead of time
introduces them to the idea of these ancillary protection products, like tyron wheel protection
or service contracts, that kind of stuff. So more than just like the loan. So then they've already
done the research they've heard of these products. And they want to sit down with you and sort of
talk through what makes sense for me. And you know, they're aware that repairs are expensive. So
they're interested in that kind of stuff. And so there's a real opportunity with Gen Z to not be
dismissive and not say like, oh, these, you know, cheap young buyers, they don't have enough
money to think about this kind of stuff. No, there's a real opportunity to sit down with them, treat
them like any other car buyer that would come into the office and really say, like, how can we help
you get the monthly payment that you came in expecting? And what products might also meet your needs?
The story is called Gen Z car buyers use research and digital tools to make deals in the F and I
office. That's from our own page hotter. You can find that on auto news dot com page.
Thanks so much for joining us on daily drive. Thanks for having me. Coming up our exclusive
interview with Nissan CEO Ivan Espinosa. That's next on daily drive.
The centennial of automotive news comes once and with it a book worthy of the milestone produced
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in a marker for the road ahead. Alongside historic moments, it offers fresh reflections from
today's leaders on the forces reshaping the business, including an essay from Kathleen Ligaki,
the highest ranking female executive in the global auto industry during the late 1990s and early
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Welcome back to Daily Drive. I'm Kellen Walker.
Avon Espinoza parachuted into the CEO position in April, just as Nissan's earnings were cratering
and the Japanese carmaker was bracing for a big tear of hit. Now, he is speeding through
the revival plan he unveiled in May to slash $3.2 billion in cost, Shutter 7 of 17-global factories,
cut about 20,000 jobs and reduced production capacity. Our own Hans Grimel sat down with Espinoza
for an exclusive interview as part of our talk from the top series at Automotive News.
Here's their conversation. Thank you very much, Mr. Espinoza, for sitting with us today and talking
with the annual talk from the top interview session. I'd like to just review some of the topics
that we covered today and maybe we'll start off with the U.S. expectations for sales this year
and next, where do you see the volume going? Well, this year we're basically flat and we're
expecting to keep performing well in the retail side. So, we have reprioritized the mix of our
business. Two reasons. One was first the tariffs came in. So, the low end of our product that is
coming from Mexico. We had to adjust the carflow. The volume was reduced and we were focusing more
on U.S. build product. So, this is one of the changes that we're doing. The second is the
the mixing between retail and fleet. So, we are focusing a lot more on healthy retail business
and we have almost one point of market share grown versus last year, which is a good trend
and we have reduced also the fleet. There's a healthy fleet which we still want to
participate on, but we've been a bit more selective on the fleet deals that we get trying to
improve the overall business situation. What do you see the sales going next year? I know that
one of the issues with the dealers in the United States is the stair-step incentives and the push
for volume. You expect that to end up driving a volume in a positive direction from here? Yeah,
we want to continue healthy growth to the extent possible. We don't want to keep growing volume
for volume sake. I think in the end, it's a balance and this is what we have done already this
year, trying to balance more healthy business even if our absolute sales look like, you know,
reducing the business itself is better. So, this is what we want to do and we want to start growing
from there with a healthy, healthy base. And next year you see growth maybe increasing a little bit.
So, when we will see it, the U.S. turnaround in terms of absolute growth. I think next year we
should be in a position to grow our sales because of the products that we are bringing. So,
we will be launching the next generation row with the E-Power system next year. We will also have
a full year of Centra, which is being rolled out now. And we're also increasing towards the end
of a fiscal year, our capacity of a frame product in Kyushu. So, this will help us drive
more QXAD and Armada sales globally and of course in North America. So, this should position
ourselves to have a bit better performance in terms of sales. You see, like a percent growth
of one, two percent. I don't have a number to give you. Now, we're discussing those details as we
speak with the team. But, you know, the fact that we have these new product lines coming in and
having full blast next year is definitely something that's going to help the full blast. I like
that. Yeah, that's a good way of describing it. And looking out to 2030, we talked a little bit
about the hybrid strategy and the need for more hybrids there. What kind of hybrid lineup do you
think you'll see in the US in 2030? Well, we're starting with the C segment, which is a segment that
has hybridized very quickly. So, today, the segment is probably 70% ICE and around 30% hybrid. So,
we want to step in quickly there. And this is why we are bringing the row with the third generation
power. Then we will also see offers in the D segment and eventually also in the lower end.
There are segments that are more prone to pay for these systems and that they have the capacity
to pay for them. And there are segments that are a bit more price sensitive. So, we are looking
at the speed very carefully. So, the D segment, because there's a bit kind of a bigger margin,
bigger price tag. Exactly. You know, the absolute price is larger. So, the percentage the
customer has to pay to get access to these technologies is less so of a smaller car. Is the
third generation e-power powerful enough for a big D segment vehicle? Well, we have other solutions
available as well. We're considering what's best. In this segment, of course, you have towing,
you have many other things. So, power is important. And this is one of the reasons why we still offer
our V6 in Pathfinder. And we are considering what's the best technical solution for that. I see,
in terms of electrification, what other options do you have for the D segment? Well, you could do a
V6 hybrid, for example. There's several things. You know, Nissan is a very capable company when it
comes to power training development. That doesn't sound like an e-power, though. Is that an e-power
solution? Not necessarily. Again, what we're looking at is to give the best solution for customers,
yeah. So, let's see. And for now, C segment and smaller applications for e-power work wonderfully
well, we're looking what's the best choice that we could bring for customers in the larger
applications. That's something that would be brought in from a partner then, or not necessarily,
again, it could, but not necessarily. That's interesting. Okay. And then by the end of the decade,
let's say, how many, what's the, how many of the makeup of hybrids in the line-up, the couple?
Well, we should see offers in, as I said, in the C segment, in the D segment and likely in the B
segment, because we see it's moving very quickly on those two segments, particularly C and D. We
see the hybridization accelerating very quickly. So, we should be positioned before end of a
decade to have offers on hybrid on those segments. And it would require localization of the hybrid
production as well. Well, yes, yes and no. There's combinations you could imagine. So we, of course,
you can assemble the car, the full car in the U.S. and import the hybrid powertrain. Or we could
think of localizing if the business case makes sense. We have the capability. We have our
facility there. So we have the capability and the speed would be quick because we have the
facilities available. Okay. And right now, the foreign exchange rate makes it very lucrative,
I guess, or positive, I guess, to export from Japan. But is there a certain exchange rate at which
it becomes, you've kind of triggered as a tripwire where it becomes less, you know, localization
becomes in the United States becomes imperative? Well, we were monitoring. The good thing is in our
biggest vehicle line, which is the road. We have manufacturing in both Japan and the U.S. So
this gives you the best because you can hatch and you can react and you can adjust. And we will
continue to have that flexibility. We intend to continue with that flexibility for the future.
Yeah. Okay. Sounds like you're very busy with getting this company back on track. But yeah,
you've got a good plan in place and it's making good progress. So best of luck. Thank you.
Thank you. Yes, we're doing our best and everyone is engaged behind this. So thank you.
That's daily drive for today. I'm Kellen Walker. Thanks to automotive news executive producer
Jake Nier, as well as our own Michael Martinez, Molly Boygon, Jack Wallsworth, and Paige Hodder for
their reporting for today's podcast. You can get the latest news on auto maker executives,
supply chains, and everything happening in the auto industry at autonews.com.
Come back tomorrow for a conversation with Skyler Chadwick from Cox Automotive,
discussing the company's recent service industry study. Convenience is trumping
dealership loyalty. As we see customers deflate from going to the dealership and going to these
general repairs. We'd love to hear from you. Let us know what you think of the show when 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 podcast from remember to like, leave a review, and subscribe
so you never miss an episode.
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