New Tariffs Could Add Up To $15,000 Per Vehicle

Good morning! It’s Friday, May 2, 2025, and this is The Morning Shift, your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. This is where you’ll find the most important stories that are shaping the way Americans drive and get around.

In this morning’s edition, we’re checking out just how much money Trump’s tariffs could add to new car prices as well as what Ford is doing to ease customers’ financial pain in this time of uncertainty. We’re also looking at Mercedes-Benz’s plan to build another model in the U.S. and Tesla’s dreadful April in France.

Let’s end this week with a bang.

An economic analyst group in Michigan says that, after President Trump’s latest executive orders, imported vehicles will see a price increase between $2,000 on the low end and $15,000 on the high end because of tariffs. Anderson Economic Group began looking at the costs of tariffs imposed on a number of vehicles in the U.S. as soon as Trump signed his first tariff executive orders. Its new estimates include changes Trump made on April 29 that were meant to give automakers who built vehicles in the U.S. a bit of a break.

Here’s how the group sees tariffs shaking out for customers. From the Detroit Free Press:

• Lower impact: These are vehicles assembled in the United States with substantial U.S. parts content. The estimated tariff costs will be $2,000 to $3,000 per vehicle. Examples: Honda Civic, Honda Odyssey, Chevrolet Malibu, Toyota Camry Hybrid and Ford Explorer.
• Medium impact: Vehicles in this group will pay a tariff of $4,000 to $8,000. Some Jeep and Ram truck models are in this category, as are the Chrysler Pacifica van, BMW X3, Ford Bronco Sport and Volkswagen Jetta. Some vehicles assembled in Texas, such as the Chevrolet Suburban and GMC Yukon large SUVs, will see a tariff of just under $8,000, a reduction from the previous estimate of $11,000 in tariffs before Trump adjusted the tariffs.
• High impact: These are mostly full-size luxury SUVs, some all-electric vehicles and cars assembled in Europe and Asia. The tariff impact on these vehicles will be $10,000 to $12,000, with some EVs and European and Asian luxury vehicles having an estimated tariff exceeding $15,000. Mercedes G-Wagon, other Mercedes sedans, Land Rover and Range Rover vehicles, some BMW models and the Ford Mach-E, fall into this group.

To be fair, not everyone agrees with these estimates. General Motors, for example, said, “The calculation on the large SUVs overstates GM’s tariff exposure on those vehicles. It is almost guesswork.” Though, GM didn’t say how much they expect tariffs to impact large SUVs.

Anderson says that Trump’s April 29 tariff announcement reduces levies for some vehicles assembled in the U.S., but it doesn’t totally eliminate tariffs from any of the vehicles it studied. “For vehicles assembled in other countries, including those assembled using substantial U.S. content, the new policy does not significantly reduce the cost of the automotive tariffs,” the company said.

Ford is extending its employee-pricing-for-all discount through at least July 6, as pricing uncertainty brought on by President Trump’s tariffs threatens automakers and the affordability of their cars.

The Blue Oval’s “From America, For America” employee discount campaign first launched on April 3, and it was meant to end on June 2. However, it’s now set to run through — at the very least — the first week of July. It’s good news for customers who are looking to buy before prices get unmanageable for the general public. From Automotive News:

“The campaign has resonated deeply with the public,” Rob Kaffl, Ford’s director of U.S. sales and dealer relations, said in a statement. “Customers know Ford delivers when it counts, and so far, the program has delivered double-digit sales increases and strong expected share growth over the last month.”

The discounts exclude Raptor performance variants and 2025 Expeditions, Super Duty pickups and Lincoln Navigators. While the savings will vary by model and trim level, Ford’s A Plan typically allows employees to pay less than the dealer invoice price.

[…]

Ford also said it will continue its offer for free home electric vehicle charger installation through the July 4 holiday weekend. The original program was slated to run through the end of 2024 before being extended multiple times.

The much-needed extension comes as Ford considers raising prices across the board in the coming weeks. Apparently, it told dealers back in the middle of April that unless Trump made “material changes to the tariff policy,” the automaker may “need to make vehicle pricing adjustments in the future, which is expected to happen with May production.” That relief may have come with Trump’s April 29 announcement that he was cutting back on some automotive tariffs, but it’s hard to tell if that’ll really move the needle enough for Ford.

Of course, any price increases wouldn’t impact vehicle inventory that is already on dealer lots, and a Ford spokesperson told AutoNews that vehicles produced in May would arrive no earlier than the end of June.

Mercedes-Benz is planning to start production of a new vehicle at its plant in Tuscaloosa, Alabama in 2027. It’s the latest in a series of investments the company is making to appease President Trump’s automotive tariff mess.

Right now, there’s no word on which vehicle it would be adding to its Tuscaloosa plant. The only clues we really get about the model are that it’s a “core vehicle segment” that would “deepen its commitment to the U.S.” From Reuters:

Mercedes this week pulled its earnings guidance amid tariff uncertainty. The automaker is facing hurdles in all its major markets, from Trump’s tariffs, to competition from fast-moving rivals in China and new CO2 emissions targets in the European Union.

[…]

Trump’s 25% levies on automotive imports have rocked the global automotive industry, although this week he offered a reprieve on some elements of the tariffs.

An analysis released by the Center for Automotive Research in early April found that the 25% auto tariffs would increase costs by about $108 billion for automakers in the U.S. in 2025.

As it stands, the German automaker’s Alabama facility is already quite busy. It produces the GLE, GLE Coupe, GLS, Mercedes-Maybach GLS, EQE SUV, EQS SUV and Mercedes-Maybach EQS SUV for worldwide sales.

If we were to keep the SUV theme going, I wouldn’t be terribly shocked if the new model it produces in Alabama was the GLC crossover — an incredibly important car for the U.S. market.

Tesla managed to register just 863 new vehicles in France in April. That’s its lowest total in over two years and another sign that folks across Europe (and most of the world) are rebuking what the Austin, Texas-based automaker and its CEO, Elon Musk, stand for.

April sales dropped 59%, according to the French industry association, Plateforme Automobile. It’s arguably just a continuation of what Tesla has been going through in France: its sales in the EU’s second-biggest EV market have fallen 44% through the first four months of 2025. From Bloomberg:

Tesla started delivering its redesigned Model Y sport utility vehicle to European customers in early March after changing over production lines at assembly plants around the globe, including in Germany. That transition process cost the company several weeks of output and contributed to its worst quarterly sales since 2022.

The poor April performance is likely to reinforce concerns that Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk is alienating would-be customers in Europe through his work for US President Donald Trump. The Tesla CEO has been a top adviser for an administration waging a global trade war and rethinking alliances including the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

It’s not just France, either. Tesla’s sales across Europe fell 37% in the first quarter of this year, which is somehow even steeper than the 13% drop it suffered in worldwide sales.

On this date in 1918, General Motors made the wise decision to buy Chevrolet. Over 100 years later, it’s hard to imagine one without the other, but that wasn’t always the case. From History.com:

GM had been founded a decade earlier by William C. “Billy” Durant, a former carriage maker from Flint, Michigan, whose Durant-Dort Carriage Company had taken control of the ailing Buick Motor Company. On September 16, 1908, Durant incorporated Buick into a new entity, General Motors, which by the end of that decade had welcomed other leading auto manufacturers–including Oldsmobile, Cadillac and Oakland–into its fold. In 1910, with GM struggling financially, stockholders blamed Durant’s aggressive expansionism and forced him out of the company he founded. In November 1911, he launched Chevrolet Motor Company, named for his partner, the Swiss race car driver Louis Chevrolet. Flashback: GM’s 50 Millionth Car Parade On November 23, 1954, General Motors celebrated their 50 millionth car by throwing a massive parade in Flint, Michigan – the home of Chevrolet’s Motor Division. The celebration featured bands, dancers, floats, and the 50 millionth car itself, a gold-plated Chevrolet Bel Air Sport Coupe.

Congrats, friends. You’ve made it through another pain-in-the-butt week. As a treat for your bravery, you get a free 3 minutes and 34 seconds to listen to The Cure. I wish it was longer, but that’s the best I can do. Enjoy!