Wrecking Ball

It seems the chaos is just starting as the industry tries to stay on track despite chaotic moves by a new United States presidential administration.

March 1, 2025

Sebastian Blanco

Illustration: Chris Clonts | Original photos: Ashlynn Murphy (top) and Hermes Rivera.

It is a fool’s errand to make timely comments – in print! – about our current political turmoil. Even so, it feels important to place a marker in the sand to note the ongoing political reign of tariff threats, the upheaval potential of a demolished regulatory state affecting road and vehicle safety, and the damage that cuts to electric vehicle support might do to American automakers attempting to keep technological pace with their global automaker peers. It’s a lot.

The mainstream press is reporting the broad strokes of the industry’s reaction to the new president. Ford CEO Jim Farley said Trump’s erratic threats and changes are adding “a lot of cost and a lot of chaos” to the automotive industry and that a 25% tariff would “blow a hole in the U.S. industry that we've never seen.” Volvo Cars CEO Jim Rowan said that profitability would suffer under any tariffs, whether those are the general 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico (now seemingly canceled after Trump backed down), just-announced 10% tariffs on steel and aluminum or some yet-to-be-spoken-aloud new tariff concept. Industry analyst Sam Fiorani told The Independent the obvious truth that “raising the price of what is among the most important components of the vehicle is only going to raise the prices of an already expensive product.”

It’s a lot.

We all know ─ because we hear it all the time, because it’s true ─ that changes take time in the automotive industry. Pushed by competition and customers, OEMs are discovering just how much faster they can develop new models and technologies. An administration tossing landmine after landmine in their path isn’t going to help.

And what happens in the R&D spaces? How does one accurately make engineering decisions given this level of tumult? Do certain advances in steel technology, for example, have to be postponed because of high supply costs? The industry ─ and consumers ─ saw what happened when chips became difficult to get during the pandemic, but who knows what might happen?

Preparing for an unknown future is part and parcel of designing a vehicle, but I’ve got to imagine that engineering offices around the U.S. are having interesting discussions about what to do that we haven’t seen in ages. If you’ve been in any of these meetings and want to share your thoughts (not trade secrets), please reach out, even anonymously.

I ask for your comments because from what we can tell right now, the people creating the chaos won’t notice or do much to fix problems that may hit the industry. Legendary tech journalist Kara Swisher has covered Silicon Valley and ostensible automotive CEO Elon Musk better than most anyone for the past decade. Asked to assess the potential carnage coming to the American scene, not just the auto industry, she said, “[People like Musk and Trump] don’t care about the consequences of damage. They do not care. They don’t anticipate it.”

‘They don’t care for you,” she added. “You are nothing.”

What is nothing’s response?

Sebastian Blanco is editor-in-chief of Automotive Engineering.