The automotive industry faces significant challenges as the Nexperia crisis disrupts semiconductor supplies for VW and BMW, prompting production slowdowns. RAM announces its entry into the SUV market with plans for a Michigan-made model by 2028, part of Stellantis' $13 billion U.S. investment. Additionally, Jessica Gonzalez from InformedIQ discusses emerging fraud tactics in auto lending, particularly circular bank statement transactions that inflate income and complicate detection. The episode highlights the ongoing struggle against sophisticated fraud in the auto finance sector.
A key supplier to Volkswagen and BMW slows output as the Nexperia crisis intensifies. Ram is getting its first-ever SUV in 2028. Plus, Jessica Gonzalez of InformedIQ joins the show to talk about the latest concerning forms of fraud in the auto lending space.
"Dutch chipmaker nexperia has suspended wafer shipments to its Chinese assembly plant. It's a move that deepens the conflict that's already tightening global semiconductor supplies."
Cars need tiny computer chips to work. When there aren't enough of these chips, it can slow down how many cars are made.
A shortage of semiconductor chips limits the production of modern vehicles, as many cars rely on advanced electronics for safety and performance.
"In Germany, supplier ZF has cut shifts at its main electric drivetrain plant because of component shortages."
In an electric car, the drivetrain is what turns electricity into power that moves the wheels.
An electric drivetrain refers to the components that convert electrical energy into mechanical motion in an electric vehicle, including motors, power electronics, and battery management systems.
"Meanwhile, Bosch is preparing to scale back hours at another facility."
Bosch is a big company that makes many parts for cars, like the brakes and sensors you find inside vehicles.
Bosch is a German multinational engineering and technology company that supplies automotive components such as sensors, brakes, and powertrain systems.
"It's forcing companies such as Volkswagen and Stellantis to scramble for chips"
Stellantis is a large car company that owns brands like Jeep and Ram. It was created when two big companies joined together.
Stellantis is a multinational automotive group formed from the merger of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles and PSA Group, owning brands like Jeep, Ram, and Peugeot.
"Now joining me to talk about RAM's entry into the SUV market"
RAM makes big trucks and SUVs that are popular in the U.S. for their toughness.
RAM is a brand of trucks and SUVs owned by Stellantis, known for its rugged pickup models.
Car
Chevrolet Wagoneer
"And maybe we'll see some Wagoneer-style RAM. We're not sure what we're going to see yet."
The Wagoneer is a big, fancy SUV made by Chevrolet. It’s meant for families or people who want lots of space and comfort.
The Chevrolet Wagoneer is a full‑size luxury SUV produced by General Motors. It competes with other large SUVs like the Ford Expedition and the Dodge Durango.
"And that's really the truck plant and the truck platforms."
A truck plant is a factory where big trucks and SUVs are built, with machines that can handle large parts.
A truck plant is a manufacturing facility dedicated to producing trucks and related vehicles, often featuring specialized equipment for large vehicle assembly.
Cars today use many tiny computer chips for things like engine control and safety systems. When there aren’t enough of these chips, car makers can’t build cars as quickly or cheaply.
A shortage of semiconductor chips that are essential components in modern vehicles, leading to production delays and higher costs.
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Welcome to Daily Drive for Friday, October 31st, 2025.
I'm Kellan Walker in Las Vegas.
Today on the show, a key supplier to VW and BMW slows output as the nexperia crisis intensifies.
Ram is getting its first-ever SUV in 2028.
And the IRS gives auto lenders a break on big beautiful bill reporting rules.
Plus, Jessica Gonzalez of InformedIQ joins the show to talk about the latest concerning forms
of fraud in the auto lending space.
Just knowing that it's out there, knowing it's a trigger,
there's a number of things that you can kind of take in effect.
Let's run through all the news you need to know to keep up in the auto industry.
Dutch chipmaker nexperia has suspended wafer shipments to its Chinese assembly plant.
It's a move that deepens the conflict that's already tightening global semiconductor supplies.
In Germany, supplier ZF has cut shifts
at its main electric drivetrain plant because of component shortages.
Meanwhile, Bosch is preparing to scale back hours at another facility.
The moves underscore how the trade rift between China and the Netherlands
is rippling through automakers' supply chains.
It's forcing companies such as Volkswagen and Stellantis
to scramble for chips and brace for potential production disruptions.
RAM is expanding beyond pickups and into the SUV market for the first time.
Starting in 2028, the brand will build a Michigan-made SUV
alongside a new midsize pickup in Ohio.
It's part of Stellantis' $13 billion U.S. investment plan.
CEO Antonio Filosa says the U.S. remains a key priority for Stellantis
with new products including revived SRT performance models
and the return of the HEMI V8, aimed at strengthening the company's foothold.
Analysts say the move could help RAM keep loyal truck buyers in the family
and fill capacity at plants that once built Jeeps.
And the IRS is giving auto lenders extra time to prepare
for new reporting rules tied to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
Under new temporary guidance, lenders will only need to tell borrowers
how much interest they paid on auto loans in 2025
without having to file the same information with the IRS.
The agency said both lenders and the government need more time to update systems
before full reporting begins in 2026.
The new law lets buyers deduct up to $10,000 a year in interest
on vehicles assembled in the U.S.
though the benefit phases out for higher income earners.
And those are today's headlines.
You can find more details on all those stories at autonews.com.
Now joining me to talk about RAM's entry into the SUV market
is Vince Bond Jr. who covers Stellantis for us at Automotive News.
Vince, my man, welcome back to Daily Drive.
Thank you.
So Vince, why is this move into SUV such a big deal for RAM
and how could it reshape the brand's identity in the U.S. market?
All right, well, going back for a second.
So a few weeks ago, Stellantis announced they were going to invest
$13 billion into their U.S. manufacturing operations.
And one of the things they mentioned was that they're going to get into the large SUVs.
They didn't say what brand.
And so now this week, Antonio Filosa said that RAM is going to get that large SUV.
It's going to be built in Michigan at the Warren Truck Assembly Plant.
And this just represents a major shift for that brand
since they've been established.
I think it was around 2009, 2010, somewhere in there.
But during that time, they've been all pickups and vans.
And so this really kind of expands their footprint well beyond those models.
And maybe we'll see some Wagoneer-style RAM.
We're not sure what we're going to see yet.
But yeah, this really just takes them to a different level,
puts them on par with brands like Chevy and Ford that they do their big SUVs
and pickups under those brands.
And now RAM will do the same thing and try to compete in that area.
So this is a big shift.
Yeah, because you say RAM and Wagoneer,
and we obviously don't know what this thing's going to look like.
But for some reason, Vince, why do I keep thinking Durango?
Like, why do I think this thing is going to somewhat look like a Durango?
And I'm probably completely wrong.
I would just say it's not going to because it's being built at Warren Truck already.
And that's really the truck plant and the truck platforms.
So at some point, I'm pretty sure that I'm guessing right here, I'm guessing.
This is not official.
But I'm assuming the next RAM SUV is going to be on their cellar frame platform
for electrified body-on-frame vehicles.
And my assumption would be that they're also going to shift the Grand Wagoneer
to that platform as well in 2028 when the SUV comes out.
So yeah, it's going to be on this big platform,
not a smaller vehicle like a Grand Cherokee or a Durango.
In your story also, you write that Stellantis is monitoring the Nexperia chip crisis.
What's the automaker saying at this point?
Well, Antonio Filosa, the CEO, mentioned yesterday that Stellantis has a war room
that is doing day-to-day updates on this thing.
They're following it around the clock.
Because as we all saw a couple of years ago with the chip shortage,
that changes everything with production.
Some vehicles have to stop production while they save chips to put to more important vehicles.
And so it's really a disruptive thing.
And the whole industry is watching to see what's going to happen,
because this is not what we need.
The industry is trying to build momentum right now.
And if we go back to a couple of years ago where we couldn't even produce vehicles
when we wanted to because of this chip shortage,
I mean, this could just be a major weight on the industry at a bad time.
Yeah, it's interesting you say that, Vince,
because ever since I've even started working at Automotive News,
I feel like there's always something.
It seems like the moment you think that the industry can take a breath and just chug along,
boom, something happens.
You have a chip crisis or you have tariffs.
So, I mean, like we always say, the industry is resilient.
But we're interested to see how this Nexperia stuff plays out.
Yeah, definitely.
Like you said, something's always changing.
Presidential administrations, every four years,
automakers almost have to go back to the playing book and rewrite it.
So, we'll see what happens.
Perfect.
Vince Bond Jr. covers Atlantis for us at Automotive News.
Vince, thank you so much for joining me.
Thank you.
Coming up, there's a new form of digital scam in the auto lending space that's harder to detect.
InformIQ's Jessica Gonzalez talks about it next on Daily Drive.
Automotive News Shift podcast brings you the latest on automotive technology,
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We're the new co-hosts of Shift, and we're excited to bring you new conversations
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Welcome back to Daily Drive.
I'm Kellan Walker.
Auto dealers and lenders have battled familiar threats,
synthetic identities, falsified pay stubs and fake employers.
But a harder-to-spot scam designed to outpace traditional fraud detection methods is gaining
ground. Jessica Gonzalez is Vice President of Customer Success and Lending at InformedIQ.
She spoke with Automotive News Senior Retail Editor Dan Shine
about this digitally engineered tactic that is simple but devastatingly effective.
Jessica, welcome back to the F&I Friday edition of Daily Drive.
Thank you so much, Dan. I really appreciate being here again with you.
We talk a lot about fraud when we talk on F&I Friday and it seems like it's always
kind of a whack-a-mole situation where it's just you're trying to keep,
the lenders are trying to keep one step ahead of the scammers out there.
But you've kind of come across something that's a little bit more,
it's not that kind of document-based fraud of like fake IDs or phony employment records,
but something in the digital world that seems a little bit more nefarious and harder to track.
Tell me a little bit about kind of this new kind of scam that you're seeing out there.
Yeah, definitely. So, you know, like you said, it's always whack-a-mole out here.
Fraudsters get more sophisticated, but hopefully we're also getting sophisticated.
The good thing is that we understand the methods that they are kind of approaching these things
and we have the same kind of technology and methods to understand those approaches and then
be able to kind of combat those. So, even though it is whack-a-mole, hopefully that we kind of are
proactive instead of just reactive. We have seen in the last 12 months in the auto finance sector
about 50 billion of net charge-offs associated to fraud or misrepresentation on documents,
as well as proof of income. And so, that's a huge number, right? And it kind of keeps increasing,
not just in auto, but we see it in mortgage, we see it in luxury apartments,
we see it just across the board. But ultimately, you know, they're getting more sophisticated,
trying to understand how to do that. So, the big thing was fraud pay stubs, you know, like you said,
documentary validation. We've kind of gotten a hold of that. It seems like most people either
have a manual way to, you know, combat that or they're using AI technology. And then we kind of
got to the bank statements, self-employed. We're seeing a lot of stuff in commercial now. The
newest trend that we were talking about was circular bank statement transactions. What that
means is that people are inflating their income. So, historically, most lenders want two to three
bank statements and they want those bank statements to prove out that, you know, your deposits match
what you're saying within either a pay stub or a document. So, this is also for self-employed or
gig economic workers. And so, you know, you're trying to give opportunity across, you know,
different sectors as well as different areas within the economy. But you really want to also
make sure that you're addressing some of those, you know, fraudulent behaviors or concerns. So,
what we're seeing is, you know, three or four months prior to purchasing a vehicle,
people are kind of inflating their income. They're making really large deposits into the account
and then taking that account and, you know, saying $2,000, $3,000 and inflating their income
with the anticipation that they're going to have to purchase a loan. You know, people have done this.
I'm sorry to interrupt. So, this is like a digital wallet, you know, as opposed to an
internal bank. It's like they're making, they're kind of like padding these accounts, like in a
Venmo or a Cash App. Okay. Yeah. They are padding the account. So, you hear about this kind of like
a mortgage, right? Like in a much bigger scale where, you know, you don't want to see large
deposits, right? So, if you go purchase a house that are like, don't make any large purchases,
don't put a lot of money in your account, that's not traceable, all of that good stuff. And what
it seems like is that now they're kind of taking that in a smaller scale and doing that with bank
statements. So, you know, kind of what the trends is, is that, you know, knowing what those high
risk indicators are, we're also seeing correlation with high risk employers. So, a lot of people say,
like, how are you combating this? Because, you know, it's a car, it's not a mortgage. Do you
want to really take out six bank statements versus, you know, two or three that you're
already historically doing? What we're really saying is that be proactive about what you're
doing. The good news is that this is an issue. It does, the rate of loans that are going to go bad,
it increases by 400%. So, if you do see circular bank statement transaction, the likelihood that
it is going to go bad is very, very high, but it's not at the high rate of what you're seeing for
bank statement and pace of misrepresentation. So, just knowing that it's out there, knowing it's a
trigger, there's a number of things that you can kind of take in effect. So, looking at high risk
employers, looking at occupation associated to what is that income, having a data network that
allows you to see proof of income that has already been submitted. There's also a lot of correlation
between income that was stated and then stated, you know, in two months later. So, they stated it
was 50,000. They come back two months later and they're stating it's 100,000 income. You're seeing
a lot of that high correlation and then that's kind of where they're making these kind of padded
bank statements, if you will. And then part of the scam is that they pad it and then as soon as
they get to okay, that money is rerouted or withdrawn or, you know, sent elsewhere, you know,
from that digital wallet. Exactly. So, they put the money in, they pad the account, and then they're
taking the money out to use that same money. And then it's kind of just like writing a check,
if you will, right? Associating accounts and then writing that until it's due. And then, you know,
they may have a credit card that they're making all of their other expenses on, making that their,
you know, inflated income for this associated account. Putting all their money in one account,
transferring it over, using maybe a credit card on the side, that's not going to hit when they're
also getting their credit pooled for an auto finance. So, they're just kind of playing with
pockets of money and then trying to show that they don't have debt and that they have a higher income
than associated. Is this kind of an individual thing or is this more of like a ring, an organized,
you know, ring syndicate that might be kind of perpetrating these acts? We see both. Of course,
the syndicates, the kind of higher rings are the ones that we worry about the most. What is good
news is that the syndicates, the larger ones, are using kind of recycled bank statements as well,
in addition to padding these. So, what we're seeing is real bank statements, transactions,
but then also adjustments on them. And so, you know, what helps out is that, you know,
when you talk about synthetic and fake IDs and creating these accounts, when you do it a larger
scale, if you do have a network of income, like informed, you're able to identify those
abnormalities and kind of what we call data collisions. So, employee ID or even Zelle
transactions that shouldn't occur, so that even though it is more likely that they're going to go
to loss, the larger ones, you won't be hit with 10 accounts going to loss, right? Maybe just one
account that goes to loss. So, at an individual level, we are seeing it and then there are have
occurrences that we have identified for a larger scale. When we talk about auto lending, is the
end game getting a vehicle that they kind of steal or is it just getting the money, the loan
that they don't really qualify for? At the individual level, they're seeing it's kind of
getting a vehicle that they don't qualify for, which results in that net charge off kind of
almost immediately, you know, defaulting. And then in the larger scale, it is being able to get a
vehicle and then offload those vehicles. So, what you're seeing in the, you know, larger scale
syndicates, you're seeing that they're actually offloading the vehicles themselves. So, no
intention also to pay, but also to take the vehicle and then go. You know, whenever it's
an individual one, you're not getting hit with as many losses at that level, but you're also
most likely can recover the vehicle. So, your losses, you know, take a less impact versus if
you're doing a large scale, their intention is not only to fraudulently purchase the vehicle,
but also make as much money as possible, which means more losses for the lender.
And do these scammers typically use stolen or synthetic, you know, ID, or are they
posing as themselves? Once again, the personal one is
themselves. And then the larger scale ones, it's going to be a synthetic ID. And like I said,
they're purposely kind of creating them. So, the same premise of synthetics ID that they're
creating fake identities and doing, you know, it's actually helping them because they're making
somebody look like they have true intention to purchase other things. So, what we're seeing is
that this credit line also has other purchases on it. It's not just an auto finance. So,
it's even harder to detect because, you know, they have bank statements, they have, you know,
savings accounts, they may have other credit cards, like I said, because they're using credit
cards to also put away this other money and then associating to padding in the accounts.
We're also seeing kind of transactions where we're seeing credit cards that are being paid off
and then using that extra money to go and pad the account. So, kind of a transfer of credit card
debt as well. And so, like I said, that all makes the synthetic IDs look really real to others,
especially if you're, you know, used to looking at credit lines and saying, okay, there's a good
history, somebody, there's a transaction that looks like they paid off their credit card this
month. And so, you're seeing things that would be associated to potentially a good buyer that
makes it even riskier. And finally, what can auto lenders and dealers look for to kind of spot ward
off this scam before it really takes root there? So, like I said, the data is still reading. What's
great is that, you know, identifying the trends as soon as possible. So, having a ability to see
network of what is happening in the industry is really critical. And then, like I said,
understanding some of those trends. So, there's easy things to implement once you realize what
the trends are. Like I said, we're seeing high-risk employers coming out of this. And so,
understanding what those are, what are the keys so that you can just do a quick trigger so that
you're making your staff aware that they can actually, you know, take into consideration
those. So, it's just really knowledge of the trends. There's other proactive things that you
could do. Like you said, it's whack-a-mole out there. So, you know, somebody will come up and
say, let's start, you know, addressing this. I always advise people just don't swing the pendulum
too far right, too far left. Just be aware that, you know, this is occurring. It's not a huge amount
of occurrence at the moment. When it does happen, it is associated to a much higher risk of fraud.
Like I said, 400% more likely to go default. But, you know, being aware of the high-risk employers,
putting in those proactive ones. There's other indicators as well that you can look for.
And then really having that network and industry standards of letting you know what is going on
out there, making sure your portfolio is being addressed and looked at from that perspective
is important. Jessica, always great insights from you and a little bit troubling, scary scenario
that you kind of laid out for us. But I really appreciate your time and look forward to talking
to you again soon. Thank you so much. I appreciate it, Dan. Have a great one. Jessica Gonzalez is
Vice President of Customer Success and Lending at InformedIQ. She spoke with our own Dan Schein.
That's Daily Drive for today. I'm Kellen Walker. Thanks to Automotive News Executive Producer Jake
Neer, as well as our own Vince Bond Jr. and John Hutter for their reporting for today's podcast.
You can get the latest news on finance and insurance, the nexperia chip crisis,
and everything happening in the auto industry at autonews.com. Come back over the weekend for
a special edition of Weekend Drive about this week's Japan Mobility Show. We'll hear from our
own Hans Grimo and Larry Beliquette from Tokyo about the highlights and some of the lowlights.
These are the lengths to which Mazda thinks it needs to go or imagines going in the future,
maybe, in order to keep the rotary engine alive and relevant. It's a real modern-day science
project they've got on their hands there. 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 dailydriveatautonews.com
or leave us a 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.
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