Good morning! It’s Thursday, February 27, 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 roundup, find out just how much President Donald Trump will spend backtracking on the old administration’s pivot to electric power and see which automaker thinks some tariffs are good tariffs. We also find out why Tesla won’t have to pay out as much if you die while using Autopilot and check on the latest turmoil at Nissan.
1st Gear: Scrapping EV orders and chargers will cost millions
Donald Trump took power for the second time earlier this year and since then he’s set about cutting jobs, projects and schemes to attempt to slash government spending. The cuts have hit foreign aid, jobs at all kinds of transport bodies and adoption of electric vehicles across the U.S. government, but that last one might actually end up losing the government millions of dollars.
Trump backtracked on a commitment to buy electric vehicles at federal agencies and pledged to switch off chargers installed at federal buildings across the U.S. Backtracking on these programs could be more expensive than letting them run their course, it’s emerged, as the fee facing the government to rip up contracts and tear out chargers could surpass $1 billion, according to a report from Politico:
The Trump administration’s effort to shut down thousands of electric vehicle charging stations could ultimately cost the government as much as $1 billion.
The General Services Administration is disconnecting EV stations because the administration does not find them “mission-critical,” as first reported by Colorado Public Radio. Such stations are used to charge the government’s fleet of electric vehicles, which GSA spent $900 million procuring in recent years, according to a former senior GSA official who is familiar with purchasing programs.
GSA doesn’t usually shed assets before their useful lives are over. But President Donald Trump — with the help of billionaire Elon Musk — has begun gutting the federal government and freezing spending, focusing in particular on climate programs. Trump has also taken aim at EV spending, pausing construction of highway charging stations and trying to claw back billions of dollars in grants to build EV and battery factories.
In addition, the government wants agencies to turn away from electric vehicles and begin offloading models that have already been brought into federal service. This could lead to further losses, adds Politico, as the EVs are being decommissioned before they have reached the end of their usable life.
Offloading the 25,000 EVs that were purchased under the Biden administration could flood the second hand EV market, which would push down prices and compound the loss coming the government’s way. All in, jettisoning these models early could lead to a loss of $225 million for the feds.
In addition, there’s the cost of decommissioning electric vehicle charging stations to add into the mix, which Politco says could run to between $50 million and $100 million. Installing these chargers cost around $300 million, which has basically all gone to waste.
For an administration that tried to build itself on efficiency and an end to wasteful spending, the Trump administration is doing a great job at burning taxpayer dollars for seemingly no reason at all.
2nd Gear: Stellantis calls for tariffs on cars with no U.S. parts
There’s one word that’s been inescapable since Trump took office: tariffs. The “Home Alone 2” actor pledged to bring in higher import duties on cars from Mexico, Canada, China and basically every country in the world, and also said he would clamp down on imports of aluminum, steel and other commodities essential for car production.
Most automakers have criticized the tariffs, arguing that they’ll just make the world poor, but Stellantis called on Trump to scrap his plans for tariffs on cars imported from Mexico and Canada. Instead, company chairman John Elkann wants to see Trump clamp down on cars assembled in America using parts sourced overseas, reports Bloomberg:
The chairman of Stellantis NV urged President Donald Trump to refrain from putting tariffs on cars shipped from Canada or Mexico and instead focus on imported vehicles lacking any US parts content.
“The real opportunity” for the administration to boost US jobs and investment lies with closing the “loophole” that currently allows roughly 4 million of those vehicles into the country annually, Stellantis Chairman John Elkann said Wednesday on an earnings call with analysts.
Elkann’s comments mark the latest in the efforts of automakers to move Trump’s focus away from penalizing North America and instead hit companies further afield. What’s more, the push to protect models assembled with parts made in North America is more in line with a trade deal set out by Trump in his last term in office.
During his first term, a free trade agreement negotiated by Trump set parts-content requirements for vehicles that wouldn’t be subject to tariffs. Switching away from this model to a catch-all fee on foreign cars “could result in billions of extra costs for US automakers,” adds Bloomberg.
3rd Gear: Tesla won’t pay as much if you die while using Autopilot
The rollout of Tesla’s long-promised self-driving capabilities has been far from smooth. The automaker first been promised autonomous driving more than a decade ago, but its cars are only fitted with advanced driver assistance tech that still requires your complete attention and its tech repeatedly made headlines when deadly crashes occur. And trust me, they do occur.
Where the blame lies in crashes involving Autopilot and Full-Self Drive is a contentious topic, but Tesla has now managed to fight in court to ensure that it doesn’t pay out as much if people die in its cars. In a Florida court, Tesla was able to convince judges that they should limit the damages it should pay in wrongful death lawsuits, as Reuters reports:
The 4th District Court of Appeal in Palm Beach overturned a judge’s decision from 2023 that said a jury could award punitive damages, not just compensatory damages, in the lawsuit filed by the estate of Jeremy Banner.
Punitive damages are designed to punish intentional misconduct and gross negligence, and they can be much larger than those for compensatory damages, which account for medical expenses, lost income and other factors.
The appeals court said the evidence in Banner’s case “indicates Tesla’s Autopilot features were ‘state-of-the-art’ and complied with all industry and regulatory standards.”
Banner, 50, was driving a Tesla Model 3 when he was killed in 2019 in a crash near Miami. His Tesla drove at full speed and struck the underside of a tractor-trailer that turned onto a road in front of his car, court records show. The crash sheared the Tesla’s roof.HERE
Tesla’s Autopilot system was blamed for Banner’s death, but Tesla claimed that he didn’t heed the warnings of the system while it was running. The appeals process came down in Tesla’s favor, with judges arguing that the automaker “cannot be liable for failing to provide technology that it did not advertise and that did not exist,” Reuters adds.
4th Gear: Nissan preparing to reshuffle executives
Nissan is facing a real tough time of things right now, with its ageing lineup and dwindling sales hitting profits across the board. A revival was on the cards when merger talks with Honda were announced, but those broke down almost as soon as they started. Now, the automaker is looking for real change at the top to help its fortunes, which could lead to the departure of its CEO.
Nissan is reportedly preparing to reshuffle its executive board, report Automotive News. The reshuffle will see Nissan shake-up in its top ranking officials as soon as next month, which could also see the automaker replace its CEO, Makoto Uchida:
Nissan directors are gauging interest in potential candidates to replace Uchida, the 22-year company veteran who has been CEO since late 2019, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Other sources told Reuters that Uchida is likely to hang on to his job.
Nissan is due to announce the management streamlining on March 12 but Uchida is not expected to resign as part of the announcement, the sources said.
Uchida is battling to keep his job following dismal earnings and the collapse of talks to combine Nissan with Honda. Nissan and Honda ended merger talks to forge a $60 billion car company earlier this month. The deal, which the automakers had been discussing since December, was ultimately sunk by Honda’s proposal to make Nissan a subsidiary, sources have said.
The revelation comes just days after Honda revealed that the door would still be open to a merge with Nissan, provided its CEO stepped back. Both parties have also shared that they are open to finding partners to future-proof their companies, so could this be the move that revives a Nissan/Honda merger? Only time will tell.
Neutral: It’s only testing
But let me congratulate Lewis Hamilton on his eighth world title!
Joking, I am, but Ferrari are looking sharp in the first half of pre-season testing. Hamilton topped the timings in this morning’s running and his new teammate Charles Leclerc was also looking sharp yesterday.
Mercedes also set some quick times and you’d be daft to bet against Red Bull, despite the car looking a bit of a handful and the team racking up less laps than its rivals.
There’s still another 12 hours of on-track testing to go, and we won’t know the real form of all ten teams until qualifying in Melbourne in a few weeks time. Personally, I’m hoping for a super close fight between McLaren and Ferrari at the sharp end of the grid, but I’d be lying if I said the prospect of a three-way fight with Red Bull as well didn’t make me think this could be the best F1 season in years.
