Good morning! It’s Wednesday, April 9, 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 taking a look at analyst estimates for 2025 car sales, as well as the attention the FBI has turned on the recent Tesla Supercharger explosion. We’re also looking at Volkswagen EV sales and Google’s changing in-car offerings.
1st Gear: Analysts are scrambling to figure out what’s next for the car industry
This was supposed to be a banner year for automotive sales in the U.S., but that’s sort of gone out the window with all the new tariffs. Now, analysts are trying to figure out what happens next — and they don’t all agree. Automotive News compiled the 2025 expectations from six different analysts in the wake of the Trump tariffs, and here’s what they said:
Telemetry: Sales will decrease by 1.8 million vehicles in U.S. and Canada
Bank of America: Potential for auto ‘demand destruction’
Cox Automotive: Modest decline will occur
Morningstar: Tariffs a ‘massive overhang’ on auto sales
Morgan Stanley: Bear case now looks like best case
GlobalData: Never expected tariffs to take effect
Most of these analysts are predicting millions of U.S. sales to evaporate, with estimates ranging between a 5% and 15% hit to what was expected for the year. With new retaliation from China on the horizon, we’ll see if the numbers can even stay that high.
2nd Gear: Tesla supercharger explosion has the FBI’s attention
A Tesla Supercharger installation in Washington exploded on Tuesday. Officials reportedly suspect a bomb, so in accordance with the Trump administration’s commitment to treating any anti-Tesla activism as domestic terrorism — up to and including sending vandals to serve their sentences in foreign nations — the Federal Bureau of Investigation is now taking over the case of the exploded Supercharger. Reuters has the story:
“We are aware of the incident and are working with our partners to determine exactly what happened,” the FBI told Reuters in an email. It did not provide details.
The police department in Lacey, where the incident occurred, said in a Facebook post: “This morning at 1:34, officers were dispatched to a malicious mischief after receiving multiple calls reporting a loud noise in the Sleater Kinney area.”
Now, listen, who among us hasn’t had to talk to the cops about mischief after some loud noises in the vicinity of Sleater-Kinney? For me it’s usually Bikini Kill or L7.
3rd Gear: Volkswagen’s EVs are doing great in Europe, rough in China
Volkswagen’s EV sales climbed by 112% in Europe during the first quarter of 2025, but dropped by 37% in China over the same period. Why? Well, it’s tough to definitively say. Total VW sales in China dropped in Q1, but not enough to explain such a swing in EVs. Other European automakers have struggled in the nation recently, but 37% is a hell of a drop. Volkswagen, for its part, seems to be laying the blame at the feet of its product offerings — promising to update them. From Reuters:
Volkswagen said it expected sales of its battery-electric cars to pick up in the coming months as it launches new versions of key models such as the ID.3 and ID.4X.
At the Shanghai Auto Show in April, the carmaker will premiere the first series production model of a new Audi brand to be launched this year, and showcase three VW electric models coming out in 2026, one by each of its joint ventures with FAW, SAIC, and JAC.
As with everything, tariffs will likely throw a massive wrench in these numbers shortly. VW may not be subject to the same retaliatory tariffs from China as American automakers, but it’ll have to make up its extra costs from North America somewhere. Our little trade spat will have global ramifications.
4th Gear: Google is changing its in-car offerings to avoid antitrust suits
In addition to the Android Auto beloved by green-texters the world over, Google also maintains an entirely different software platform called Android Automotive. Auto mirrors your phone apps to your infotainment screen, while Automotive is your infotainment — it’s an operating system built for cars to run on. This latter product is getting the eye from German regulators for anticompetitive behavior, and Google is now offering to clean up its act before any new regulations pop up. From the Wall Street Journal:
The company said it would license the services contained in its Google Automotive Services business—which includes Google Maps, Google Play and Google Assistan—as separate stand-alone versions to let car makers with in-vehicle infotainment platforms curate services from rival providers instead of choosing a package from Google, according to the Bundeskartellamt.
The regulator added that Google offered to remove contractual terms that incentivizes customers to use its services over competing products such as ensuring that Google’s products are set as default on those platforms.
It seems Google wanted to bundle its services with its OS, forcing folks who wanted the latter to take the former. If you’re getting echoes of U.S. v. Microsoft, well, it sure sounds a lot like what’s happening to Google right now — only Google seems to be contractually pushing Automotive users to go with Maps, rather than simply offering it as a default.
Reverse: Ulysses S. Grant, street racer
Ulysses S. Grant was repeatedly arrested for speeding, even while President. He became the first president ever arrested:
That was the assertion of retired Washington D.C. police officer William West, who claimed in an interview with The Sunday Star on September 27, 1908, that he arrested Grant in 1872. Grant, West said, enjoyed racing in speed contests with his friends on 13th Street, which set a bad example for other residents.
An abolitionist and a racer? I’m starting to like this Grant guy.
On The Radio: Fall Out Boy — ‘Sugar, We’re Goin Down’
In honor of the stock market recently. Going down, down, in an earlier round, indeed.
