Even Dealers Think New Cars Cost Too Much

Happy Tuesday! It’s January 20, 2026, 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 looking at the unaffordability of modern cars, except those with sharp angles and Italian branding. We’ll also look at Canada’s plans for Chinese EVs, and Mazda’s plans for its own electrification. 

Car prices seem to always keep climbing, no matter how far out of reach they get for the average commuter. It now costs $50,000 to get yourself into an average point-A-to-point-B vehicle, despite the people who need those vehicles getting broker by the day. Now, even dealerships are saying something has to give. From Automotive News: 

Dealers in the fourth quarter were feeling good about their business, but their mood had sunk a bit from the third quarter, according to the latest data from the Automotive News Auto Industry Confidence Index.

Dealers scored their present performance with a 62.3, which was still favorable but down 5 points from the third quarter. It was the lowest rating among the four industry segments polled.

Dealers told Automotive News that consumer affordability was a problem.

“Dealers face significant challenges as rising interest rates make monthly payments less affordable, tightening consumers’ budgets and reducing showroom traffic, while shifting consumer behavior pushes buyers toward online research, price comparisons, and digital-first shopping that intensifies competition and compresses margins,” Jeffrey Iwanowski, managing partner of Monroeville Kia in Pennsylvania, wrote in response to the Automotive News survey.

Dealers are quick to lay the blame at financiers’ feet, rather than throwing it at the automakers, but it’s likely a collaborative effort. Those long finance terms are only necessary because the cars themselves cost so much. 

Yet, when cars get really expensive, suddenly they sell like gangbusters. At least that’s how it’s been going for Lamborghini, which sold nearly 11,000 cars in 2025 — a record for the company. From Reuters:

Italian luxury sports carmaker Lamborghini said on Tuesday it delivered 10,747 vehicles worldwide in 2025, slightly improving on its prior-year performance and achieving an all-time record.

Lamborghini, part of Germany’s Volkswagen group, attributed the strong performance to its hybridisation strategy and solid results across all regions, with Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region leading with 4,650 cars delivered, followed by the Americas with 3,347 and Asia Pacific with 2,750 deliveries.

What these two stories tell us, together, is a tale of wealth inequality. The highest-net-worth individuals hold an increasing percentage of total wealth, while the workers hold less and less. If you’re wondering why your car payment is getting ever tighter, but your boss keeps buying Lambos, it’s that. 

Canada is opening its borders to Chinese-built EVs, but with an eye towards an automaker that’s not exactly local to the country: Tesla. Sure, Tesla makes cars in China, but it’s an American company first and foremost. Tesla’s been struggling in China recently, and opening cars from those factories up to new markets would be a boon for the automaker — except that its cars are too expensive to qualify for many of the import slots. From Reuters:

Tesla is poised to be one of the first automakers to benefit from Canada’s move to remove 100% tariffs on Chinese-made EVs, thanks to its early efforts to ship cars from its Shanghai plant there and its established Canadian sales network, experts say.

Under the deal announced last Friday, Canada will allow up to 49,000 vehicles to be imported annually from China with a tariff of 6.1% on most-favoured nation terms. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said the quota could rise to reach 70,000 vehicles within five years.

However, under one clause in the agreement, half of the quota will be reserved for vehicles under 35,000 CAD ($25,189). Tesla model prices are all above that number.

Don’t expect this to be the thing that stops Tesla from circling the drain. Well, the car side anyway. The stock side will continue to do numbers, even as the sales that theoretically underpin that stock dwindle into nothing. The economy is fake and also made up. 

Mazda hasn’t exactly been bullish on EVs, but the company swears it has one coming to market. Someday. That day is just getting ever more distant, according to a new report that pushes the EV’s launch into 2029. From Automotive News: 

Mazda is reportedly delaying the launch of its first dedicated electric vehicle by at least two years to 2029 and will focus instead on hybrids, becoming the latest carmaker to shift gears amid changing regulatory and incentive policies in the U.S. and Europe.

The automaker, based in Hiroshima, Japan, is a latecomer to full-electrics. It will start production of its first dedicated EV in 2029 at the earliest, Japanese media reported Jan. 19.

The company had planned to introduce the vehicle in 2027 but had wavered in recent months given mounting market uncertainty triggered by tariffs and a rollback in EV incentives and emissions regulations. New EV registrations in the U.S. fell 49 percent in November following the repeal of federal tax credits in 2025, hitting legacy brands harder than EV leader Tesla.

Mazda is a smaller automaker, and its boat is being battered about by the winds of consumer behavior the same as any other company. Unfortunately, consumer behavior is currently rejecting EVs because of charging hassles and an increasingly hostile regulatory environment in the U.S. and increasingly laissez-faire regulatory environment abroad. This is a good sign for our continued ability to breathe air. 

Y’know, I’d never really thought about the sensation of biting off a bat head. The blood and guts of it all. I personally don’t think I’d want to do that. 

I got my first tattoo this past weekend! My very own tattoo of the seventh shield, still wet on my skin. Well, it’s been a couple days, but there was a time when it was wet.