Car Prices Are Only Climbing From Here

Good morning! It’s Monday, April 14, 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 looking into the effects of tariffs on car prices, as well as Polestar’s reprioritization away from China. We’ll also take a look at the possibility of a renewed semiconductor shortage, and the odd tale of French motorcyclists panic-buying Harley-Davidsons. 

Cars are too expensive, but tariffs are about to make everything a whole lot worse. It’s still not clear exactly how bad things will get, given that the Trump administration changes its mind on tariffs every 15 minutes, but the most recent word is that auto tariffs are here to stay — and here to raise prices on the entire new market. Automotive News has the details: 

Many of the lowest-priced vehicles sold in the U.S. are assembled in other countries, making them particularly vulnerable to new tariffs of 25 percent on imported autos.

That has dealers such as Lance Iserman concerned.

…

“That’s not going to help our new-car volume,” said Iserman, CEO of Morrie’s Auto Group in Minneapolis, with 31 dealerships in the upper Midwest. “That’s going to put people back on the sidelines or move them to used vehicles.”

More buyers being pushed into the used market means an increase on prices for used cars — it’s an increase in demand on stagnant supply. That supply will only drop in years to come if these tariffs persevere, as fewer new cars become used, and the problem will just get worse. 

Polestar is in a weird place right now, standing neither as a performance offering nor a Volvo offshoot for EV testing. It’s just sort of a vague, indistinct thing, that keeps making beautiful cars without doing much to explain why those cars aren’t badged as Volvos. Now, the company is rethinking its approach to the Chinese market, to give itself a bit of economic breathing room as it hones in on positioning in Europe. From Bloomberg:

Electric vehicle brand Polestar is scaling back its presence in China, running down its store network and exiting a sales and marketing joint venture with a local company.

Polestar Chief Executive Officer Michael Lohscheller said the Swedish-origin carmaker, which is part of billionaire Li Shufu’s auto empire, has decided on a different set up in the world’s largest vehicle market.

With the whole “spinoff brand for EVs” thing seemingly off the table, given that Volvo is bullish on EVs itself, perhaps Polestar should go back to its performance roots. Give me amped-up EVs in Swedish Racing Green with that beautiful styling. Go after Porsche. You can do it, Polestar. 

Remember our old friend from a few years back, Chip Shortage (emphasis on the second syllable, soft G)? We haven’t heard from Mr. Shortage in a minute now, with supply chains finally restabilizing after everyone just sort of gave up on combatting COVID-19 in any meaningful way, but it seems he may make another trip stateside soon. This time, though, Chip has a new raison d’etre: Tariffs. From Reuters:

U.S. President Donald Trump on Sunday said he would be announcing the tariff rate on imported semiconductors over the next week, adding that there would be flexibility with some companies in the sector.

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“We are taking a look at Semiconductors and the WHOLE ELECTRONICS SUPPLY CHAIN in the upcoming National Security Tariff Investigations,” he posted on social media.

This likely won’t end with a full-blown shortage like we saw in 2020, but it’ll certainly raise prices on semiconductors. Remember paying above MSRP for a graphics card? Well, don’t be surprised if that starts to happen again — only the inflated price won’t be a markup, just the price on the listing at NewEgg. 

Yeah, I didn’t think I’d ever see a sentence like that either. The French — with their striped shirts and long cigarettes and fancy little European scooters — are buying Harley-Davidson motorcycles. In a panic. This trade war has done more than mess with our economy, it’s thrown us into some sort of bizarro parallel reality. From Reuters:

Sales are brisk at the Villiers-Sur-Marne Harley-Davidson dealership outside Paris, where French bikers reckon they had better hurry if they want the American motorcycle of their dreams before trade war puts them out of reach.

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Motorcycles were on a list of American goods due to be hit by EU tariffs announced this week in response to Trump. After Trump rowed back on some of his tariffs, the EU suspended its levies but said they could still kick in if negotiations fail.

This, more than anything else, tells me we’re in the Terran Empire universe. This is the kind of off-the-wall decision-making of a writer’s room short on ideas and even shorter on time, and there’s no way it ends well for anyone. My apologies in advance to the Orions. 

Fun fact: The Dust Bowl was the last major climate catastrophe to affect American domestic food supplies, and nothing like it will ever happen again! Just don’t read the news. Any news.

“Shake And Tremble” is the first track in my summer-vibes playlist, appropriately titled “And The Living’s Easy.” Sublime does not feature in the playlist. In fact, most of my playlists are named after songs that aren’t in the playlist — my “songs about seasons of television” playlist is entitled “Pictures That Give Pleasure To Your Eyes,” despite not containing “2112” by Rush, and my “songs about radiation therapy for cancer” playlist is titled “Ash And Dust” without being besmirched by actually containing Imagine Dragons. My brain is huge and my playlists are too powerful for you, traveler.