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Welcome to Daily Drive for Tuesday, September 16th, 2025.
I'm Kallen Walker in Las Vegas.
Today on the show, a fifth of all auto suppliers
topple into financial distress.
GM shuts down its Chevy Colorado plant for three weeks
due to a part shortage and Ford plans to cut 1,000 jobs
at its German EV plant.
Plus, in the second and final part of our exclusive interview
with General Motors CEO, Mary Barra,
she talks about growing manufacturing challenges
and how hybrids fit into future product plans.
We're gonna be positioned to compete well,
but also be good stewards of our owner's capital
and how we deploy R&D dollars.
Let's run through all the news you need to know
to keep up in the auto industry.
At least 20% of automotive suppliers
are in financial distress.
On top of that, parts maker executives
are more pessimistic about business conditions
than they have been in years.
That's according to two recent studies.
An analysis of the automotive supply chain
by financial analytics firm, Rapid Ratings,
found that about one in five automotive suppliers
were already in financial distress
before the impact of tariffs began to be felt.
It also found that tariffs, as they stand,
could lead to a 23% increase
in the number of distressed suppliers.
Meanwhile, a recent survey by MEMA
found that the average business sentiment
of supplier executives is at its lowest level since 2009.
During the height of the Great Recession,
that's with the exception of one quarter in 2020.
General Motors will idle its mid-sized pickup plan
in Missouri for three weeks starting this month.
The automaker says that's because
of a parts availability issue.
Employees at GM's Wentzville Assembly Plant
will be on temporary layoff
from September 29th through October 19th.
That's according to UAW Local 2250,
which represents workers at the plant near St. Louis.
A person with knowledge of GM's plants
told Automotive News that about 3,800 employees
will be affected
with some stamping and body shop functions continuing.
And Ford says it will cut up to 1,000 jobs
in electric car production at its factory
in Cologne, Germany due to weak demand.
In a statement, Ford said, quote,
in Europe, demand for electric cars
remains well below industry forecast.
It says the factory will switch
to a single shift from January, 2026.
Ford said it would offer voluntary layoff packages
to affected workers.
And those are today's headlines.
You can find more details on all those stories
at AutoNews.com.
In recent days, we've been talking a lot on the show
about automakers slowing EV production and cutting staff.
Last week at Automotive News Congress,
Director of Technology and Innovation Coverage,
Hannah Lutz, spoke with experts
about the state of electrification and what comes next.
In this clip, we'll hear from Elizabeth Krier,
CEO of the Center for Automotive Research
and Jeff Morrison, Senior Vice President
of Global Purchasing and Supply Chain at General Motors.
Here's a piece of their conversation.
So we all know that EV transition has slowed
with reduced federal incentives and shifting policies.
How is the industry responding both for the near term
and then also competitively for the long-term outlook?
Elizabeth, why don't you start us off?
Yeah, I'd like to kind of start with the grounding
of policy and the impact on the market.
So if we think about two years ago or even one year ago,
policy was aligned with the EV transition, right?
Consumer incentives, investment in charging
and manufacturing, there was a willingness
to accept independent state zero mandates
and even penalties if automakers don't meet prescribed
fuel economy criteria and emissions criteria.
Now, fast forward, everything is being recalibrated
and the market is responding.
From a consumer standpoint, EV sales are actually up
this year and particularly this quarter.
There's somewhat of a buy now
before October one mentality.
So we're really gonna have to watch what happens in Q4.
But the reality is that the barriers to adoption,
affordability and infrastructure are still very real.
And without public funding,
those challenges become harder to overcome
and could slow down.
And we know through history, right?
Incentives were never meant to be there full time.
We saw that in Germany, 55% reduction
when the incentive went away.
We saw it earlier this year in Canada.
And so now we're seeing automakers.
We're seeing them pull back on delaying
some of their EV launches,
pulling back on some of the capacity investment.
And meanwhile, China and to a lesser degree,
the European Union, they're outpacing
the US and EV adoption.
And the risk goes beyond just the pace
of EV adoption in the US.
But these countries are also bringing to market
low-cost EVs at a much faster pace.
So the risk to the US is losing the competitive edge
in the next generation of automotive technology.
So, Jeff, how is GM and your suppliers
that you work with really preparing for this change?
So I think the focus is really,
it's long-term planning for sure,
but we wanna have the short-term flexibility
to really meet the market where it's at.
So from a supply chain standpoint,
we wanna make sure with our partners,
we can support ICE versus EV at whatever mix that is
for our great vehicles that we have in both,
at the same time ensuring that we meet the customer
where they're at at that point in time.
We're really proud of the work that we've done
from an EV supply chain standpoint
to really build out the ability to do batteries
all the way back to critical minerals and processing
here in the US.
And I think that that work continues
and that will continue to evolve.
And then from an ICE standpoint,
we wanna be able to work with our suppliers
to really have that flexibility
and try to industrialize them in a way that
we can help mitigate some of that uncertainty
risk between the ICE and EV labs.
Jeff Morrison is Senior Vice President
of Global Purchasing and Supply Chain at General Motors.
Elizabeth Krier is CEO of the Center
for Automotive Research.
They spoke with our own Hannah Lutz
at Automotive News Congress,
along with Elaine Buckberg,
Senior Fellow at Harvard University's
Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability.
You can hear more from that conversation
on this week's episode of SHIFT,
a podcast about mobility,
available now wherever you get your podcast.
Coming up, the second and final portion
of our exclusive interview with General Motors'
CEO, Mary Bara.
That's next on Daily Drive.
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Welcome back to Daily Drive.
I'm Kellan Walker.
On yesterday's show,
we brought you the first part
of Automotive News's exclusive interview
with General Motors CEO, Mary Bara.
She sat down with her own Lindsey Van Hully
and Nick Bunkley after last week's
Automotive News Congress,
where she gave a keynote interview
on stage earlier in the day.
In the second and final part of the conversation,
Bara talks about how shifting policies in Washington
are affecting GM's manufacturing strategies
and product plans.
Now on stage downstairs, you talked about,
you mentioned like a couple of decision points
over the last few years that you kind of would
go and see how things are going
and then just decide what the market's telling you.
Can you talk a little bit more
about what that might mean?
I'm not gonna get into what the specific models are,
but as we were planning a new program,
how many different versions of the vehicle did we do?
We had those choices that we could make,
but we didn't have to make them the minute
we started the program.
And so we literally told the team,
hey, tell us when you need this decision from us
to keep it on track.
And they came in and we had a lot more information
a year, 15 months, 18 months later,
to say, okay, with this information,
this is the decision.
And I think that kind of shows the agility
that we've developed at General Motors of,
it's not just here's the plan,
go execute and don't pay attention
to anything else that's happening around you,
but let's continue to be able to address.
There was a point in time in my career
where we'd work on the portfolio plan going forward
and we would do it, it was an annual process.
Trust me, it's not an annual process anymore.
But again, I'm proud of how we can sense and respond
and make those decisions as we go forward.
And I guess on the other side of,
if you're able to produce and sell ice,
Silverado's and Tahoe's and Escalade's
and the things that generate the profits
that have supported a lot of the company over the years.
And is that also a positive for the company?
I think that's a huge positive to continue
to serve the market from a heavy duty,
light duty trucks for both Chevrolet and GMC,
the Silverado and the Sierra,
as well as our full size utilities
with the Tahoe and Suburban and Escalade and the Yukon.
And also we have a strong franchise
from a crossover perspective.
When you think about the Chevy Traverse
and the Buick Enclave and the GMC Acadia.
So we are well positioned and even in our small cars
when you look at the Chevrolet Trax,
Trailblazer and the Buick Enclave and Invistia.
So I think we're really well positioned
with our internal combustion engine platform.
And it is a huge opportunity for us
to be able to sell more of those
as the regulatory environment changes.
So again, we'll make the adjustments we need to
to respond to the market as we continue on our journey.
We believe growing EV sales, albeit at a different rate.
And maybe give you a chance to have the EVs
be a little more profitable by the time that that people.
Exactly, we're not stopping our work
on continuing to improve profitability.
So it's a great point.
You know, you talked a minute ago
about waiting to get to that point
where you have to make a decision
and how that is happening much faster.
How much more complicated
has product planning gotten right now?
Is there a lot more frequent pivots,
a lot more changes in a plan that made sense 18 months ago
that maybe doesn't fit where the demand is going now?
Well, I think, you know, if you go back
when you say 18 months ago, that was, you know,
we were on a path where we were working
to a 2030 goal with fairly stringent emission standards.
In fact, even with the previous administration,
I was, you know, making sure they understood
my view was they were getting ahead of the customer
with where the regulatory environment's going.
I think that's a dangerous point in a situation like this.
And so obviously there's been some reassessment
of not only what we build, but where we build it
in this past period of time.
But again, I think we're more able to look
at what's happening in the marketplace.
We're learning a lot from our EV customers,
looking at all that information.
And again, we've become much more agile
and flexible at being able to respond
and make whether it's not 180 degree decisions,
but it's a 10% tweak here, a 20% tweak there.
Obviously are looking at a longer runway
for internal combustion engines.
You've said that EVs remain the North Star.
Hybrids have been on the table,
and I wonder sort of how they fit into the plan
going forward as part of that broader powertrain mix.
Well, we've said, we haven't announced specifics,
but we said we will launch some hybrids,
but I think we have to stay focused on the fact
that it wasn't even 10 years ago,
there were a lot of hybrids in the market
and the sales went up and the sales went down.
What we have also seen from plug-in hybrids,
there's a lot of data, people buy a plug-in hybrid
and they never plug it in.
And so I think there's still a lot to learn
from a hybrid perspective.
And you also have to step back and understand
then that vehicle has two propulsion systems on it.
So that inherently makes it more expensive.
So we're gonna do the right hybrids
that we think are important for our portfolio,
but I also think we have a very strong EV portfolio
and a very strong internal combustion.
And in some cases, our regular internal combustion engine
gives you better fuel economy
and overall driving experience.
So we're gonna continue to,
I think we're gonna be positioned to compete well,
but also be good stewards of our owner's capital
and how we deploy R&D dollars.
How do you look at that demand curve for hybrids?
And you talked in the past about how it went up
and then went down.
We're still seeing a lot of demand for them right now.
Do you see that carrying on for a few more years?
Do you think that your hybrids would arrive on time for that?
Is that something that you think you'll be able to launch
into that curve?
I think we'll have them at the right time.
And I think there's still a lot to learn.
So it's obviously one of the areas we're watching closely.
But we've had hybrids in the past,
we understand the technology.
So we're very capable of doing this.
You mentioned engines.
And I wanna ask about the V8 situation that's happening now.
And I wanna ask it, I think through,
just looking across the industry,
GM is not the only automaker that has had recalls
and trying to work through warranty issues
and problems with the big engines.
And I'm wondering when you think about maybe a higher level,
is there, do you see anything that links those?
Is there something, whether it's,
COVID and engineers working from home
or maybe a shift to EVs,
where the focus hadn't been on engines entirely?
Is there something that you think links that
or there might be some contributing factor
across the industry when it comes to the issues
that are coming up?
And I don't have the information to pinpoint it
on one specific thing.
I think what we're doing now, because everything,
the engines are very complex,
transmissions are complex, the vehicles complex,
is we're working hand in hand with our suppliers to drive
to make sure they're leveraging
and using the same type of process control
that we use, sharing, lessons learned, et cetera.
So we're really working with their supply base
and then working across the company as a top priority
to make sure, because one of the things we've seen
with quality issues is once you have one,
just the cost of repairing is much higher.
We're working on all aspects of it,
but I can't pinpoint and say it's because of this
or because of that.
I think there's a lot of complexity in our business.
I just can tell you what we're doing at GM
and we're looking at all facets of it.
We've had a couple very specific issues
that ended up being large from the population
because in some cases we didn't have the right ability
to say, okay, when exactly was the change made?
So we've got it, we're always gonna do the right thing
for our consumer.
But I would say as I look across our quality systems,
I have a lot of faith in them.
We've had some, I'll say a couple special clause
type issues that we're doing the right thing
for the customer.
And I know that you're investing,
you mentioned this earlier
in developing that next generation of the V8.
And when you look at how that work is happening
and really from the quality perspective,
kind of how you're working now ahead of that launch
to get the launch correct, the quality correct
to deliver the engine that you want
for customers right off the bat.
Well, that's exactly what we're doing.
We always, anytime we learn something
from something that we have in the field,
we make sure we not only make sure
in the next version of it's gonna be fixed,
but we do what we call a read across
and we do that across the globe.
And also our engineers to get into and say, okay,
this happened, what could be something
that might be related to that?
So I'm really proud of that process
because it's one thing to have a problem,
it's another thing to have it the second time.
So that's the work the team does by standard process.
So Emily, when you look at gasoline engines
versus EV powertrains for a long number of years recently,
the shift obviously has been to spend more resources
across the industry in electric powertrains
and not as much in gasoline engines.
Are you at GM or in general in the industry,
are you seeing that change more
where people are going back more toward combustion engines
or was that always happening?
Well, I can't speak to what everyone else is doing.
I think we had regular engine programs,
we have great engines in our vehicles.
And so it was really a focus of how do we continue to improve
from a performance perspective, from a emissions perspective.
And we had very specific programs that we had planned to do
because even in the previous regulatory world,
we still planned on having these vehicles
into the 2035 timeframe.
And there's a lot of time between now and then there was
and there still is for us to,
so I've stopped the world of predicting
what's going to happen.
But so we were making the right investments already
knowing that we were gonna have another decade
and potentially that might be longer,
but I think we had already made those plans
and we feel good about where we're at
from investing in an internal combustion engine
technology perspective.
You know, to close, you've talked on stage
about this being a complicated time,
but also an exciting time in the industry.
You know, there's the shift to electrification,
a lot of the work that GM is doing around software
and autonomy.
You know, when you take a step back
and you think about all of the different areas
you're investing in and the things you're working on,
what do you see as the biggest growth areas for GM?
You know, when you look at where you want
the company to be, what are you focused on now
that you think are the biggest areas really
where that's gonna happen?
Well, I would say a couple of things.
One, first of all, it's all on a car.
So it all starts with having beautifully designed vehicles
with the right technology, right safety,
the right attributes and feature functionality.
But with that, I'm very excited about what software can do.
I think the vehicle, we're at the early days
of the vehicle is a software platform
and how do we continue to add things to it
that make the customer's life easier?
We can do things unique with having the information
and what's happening in the vehicle.
So there's so many things I'm excited.
I'm not gonna share our future product roadmap,
but I'm excited about many of those things
and then ultimately with autonomy.
You know, very proud of SuperCruise.
It's award-winning driver assistance technology.
We've integrated, as we set out to do last fall
when we made the announcement
that we were not gonna continue
in the robo taxi business,
but having integrated plan with our cruise team
and the GM team.
So I'm excited about autonomy
and how we're gonna continue to add features
on our way to full autonomy.
So I think those are a couple of things
I'm really excited about.
But again, it all starts when someone buys a car.
And if I could just ask also on those topics
for a big portion of our audience,
the dealers, how do you think of the franchise network
fitting into your talking about all the software
and autonomy and things that on the surface
don't necessarily seem to involve
that transaction that's happened
for so many years at the dealership like it used to.
How does that, how do you work with that?
I think a lot of, I mean, SuperCruise as a technology,
it's a technology on a vehicle
and ABS was a technology that went across the industry
and across all vehicles.
I mean, I think as I reinforced it's
nothing happens to you sell a car
and there are very strategic partner
in selling vehicles, servicing customers,
making sure they have a phenomenal experience.
I'm proud of our dealers across the board
that we continue to outperform
from a sales service and satisfaction perspective.
So I think our dealers are gonna continue
to be an incredibly important key partners
in the future of gel motors.
Mary Bar, thank you very much for joining us today.
Thank you very much, appreciate it.
That's Daily Drive for today.
I'm Kellan Walker.
Thanks to Automotive News executive producer Jake Neer
as well as our own John Irwin,
Lindsey Van Hully and Hannah Lutz
for their reporting for today's podcast.
You can get the latest news on electrification,
supply chain and everything happening
in the auto industry at AutoNews.com.
Come back tomorrow for a conversation
with Hyundai Motor Group executive chair, Yusun Chung.
Our government and US government,
they are working closely
and the visa regulation is very complicated
and I hope we can make it together a better system.
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About this episode
General Motors CEO Mary Barra discusses the evolving landscape of automotive manufacturing and product strategy, emphasizing the need for agility in decision-making amid shifting market conditions and regulatory environments. She highlights the challenges faced by suppliers and the impact of financial distress in the industry. Barra also addresses the role of hybrids in GM's future plans, the importance of internal combustion engines, and the company's commitment to electric vehicles. The conversation reflects on the balance between innovation and market demands as GM navigates a complex automotive landscape.
In the second and final part of Automotive News’ exclusive interview with General Motors CEO Mary Barra, she talks about growing manufacturing challenges, how hybrids fit into future product plans and more. A fifth of all auto suppliers topple into financial distress. Plus, experts discuss the state of electrification amid shifting federal policies and sluggish demand.