Good morning! It’s Wednesday, March 26, 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 checking in with Nissan to see how it’s planning to turn around its fortunes, and seeing how the world’s biggest EV seller managed in 2024. Plus, we’ll see how America’s big three are hoping to avoid Trump’s tariffs and find out which electric truck maker is on the rocks.
1st Gear: Nissan speeds up product development to boost sales
There are no two ways about it, Nissan is struggling right now. The Japanese brand’s lineup is aging, sales are faltering and a last-ditch attempt to turn around Nissan’s fortunes by merging with Honda was called off. The company could now rush through the development of up to 10 new models in order to bolster interest in the stagnating automaker.
Nissan’s sales in the U.S. have been floundering and dealers reported a 70 percent drop in profits last year. Refreshed versions of models like the Rogue and Armada may have interested a few folks, but the automaker is now considering a more aggressive revival of its range in America to bolster sales, reports Automotive News.
The automaker argued that success in America was “critical” to securing the company’s future, and executives added that new products would be “central to our efforts.” As such, Nissan will work to speed up the development and rollout of 10 new cars in for the U.S. by “early 2027,” as Automotive News explains:
“Today, developing a car takes us about 55 months,” Ivan Espinosa, who becomes Nissan’s CEO April 1, said. “By [platform and design sharing] and other changes in the development cycle, we want the first car in a family to be developed in 37 months, with subsequent models in the same family done in 30 months.”
The refreshed lineups could include a new Nissan Leaf EV, which will move away from its hatchback origins to become a crossover. Nissan will also roll out a new electric crossover that could be built at the brand’s Canton, Missouri, factory following a $500 million investment in U.S. manufacturing.
The new products are also joined by a new CEO at Nissan, after “car guy” Ivan Espinosa was named as the successor to Makoto Uchida. The new boss could pave the way for revived talks between Nissan and Honda over a merger, after it emerged that Honda called for the old Nissan boss to step down in order for discussions to proceed.
2nd Gear: BYD sold $10 billion more cars than Tesla
Chinese automaker BYD doesn’t offer a single car for sale here in America, and it doesn’t look like that’s going to change anytime soon as tariffs on Chinese imports ramp up under president Donald Trump. This hasn’t been a barrier to meteoric growth for the brand, however, and it’s now emerged that the EV maker sold $10 billion more cars than arch rival Tesla in 2024.
BYD offers its budget-friendly EVs in markets like China, Europe and Australia, where sales have been flourishing in recent years. In fact, sales surpassed $100 billion for the world’s biggest EV seller last year after rising 29 percent over the course of 2024, reports Bloomberg.
The bump in shipments for BYD saw it sell $107 billion worth of cars last year, compared with the $97 billion that second-place Tesla managed over the course of the year. Record deliveries for BYD beat analyst expectations and helped net income rise to $5.5 billion, as Bloomberg adds:
While BYD also sells about the same number of EVs as Tesla — 1.76 million in 2024 versus 1.79 million — when all of its other passenger hybrid car sales are included, it’s much larger. BYD’s total deliveries last year climbed to 4.27 million, almost as much as Ford Motor Co.
What’s more, the growth at BYD isn’t slowing and it seems primed to scoop up disgruntled Tesla owners around the world looking to offload their EVs. In the first two months of 2025, BYD’s sales were up 93 percent compared with the same period last year and it reported shipping 623,300 units around the world.
Over the course of the year, the automaker is targeting sustained growth and sales of 5.5 million vehicles this year. The growth won’t be limited to BYD’s native China, and the automaker is targeting overseas sales of more than 800,000 units this year.
3rd Gear: Big three could be exempt from Trump’s tariffs
Since president Donald Trump took office in January, he’s done his utmost to upend America’s place in the world. To do this, he’s kicked off a trade war with the country’s closest allies, ramped up tariffs on Chinese imports and gone so far as to praise Russian leader Vladimir Putin. The biggest threat to American autos in this cacophony of awful is the tariffs Trump proposed.
Trump piled tariffs on Chinese imports, called for tougher controls on the movement of aluminum and steel into the U.S. and increased taxes on automotive imports from almost every country. The moves could shake up the American automotive landscape, but the hit on American industry may not be as harsh as first feared.
America’s big three automakers, Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, may avoid the worst of Trump’s tariffs when they come into full force on April 2, reports the Detroit Free Press. A set of sector-specific tariffs impacting the auto industry could be excluded from the new levies that come into force next month, the site adds:
“Not all tariffs are included that day,” Trump said, referring to April 2. “For instance we’ll do some — as you know we’ve already done steel and aluminum and that’s at a 25% level and we are going to be doing automobiles, which you’ve known about for a long time. We’ll be announcing that fairly soon. Over the next few days, probably.”
While the United Auto Workers union previously argued that tariffs could be good for American industry, that’s not a view shared by Ford, GM and Stellantis. Instead, the three giants have “continually been communicating” with the Trump administration to try and skirt the worst of the impending tariffs.
The news isn’t enough to calm many industry insiders, however, as they say the auto industry isn’t free from the tariff threat until Trump explicitly says so. Such a statement probably won’t come until the day the tariffs come into force, leaving many insiders on the edge of their seat for a little while longer.
4th Gear: Another electric truck maker bites the dust
The electric truck market is proving to be a particularly difficult sector to break into. Sure, the F-150 Lighting is trickling off the production line and Rivian is shifting more trucks each year, but Tesla’s attempt is struggling and electric truck startups just keep failing. Now, EV maker Bollinger is the latest to bite the dust.
A lawsuit filed this week claims that EV startup Bollinger is insolvent and paused production of its vehicles, reports the Detroit News. The company is now reportedly facing challenges from suppliers and even its former CEO and founder, who filed the suit against the company:
Robert Bollinger, who started the electric vehicle outfit in 2015 and served as CEO until last year, alleges his former company owes him about $10.5 million and wants a receiver to be appointed to manage and distribute the firm’s remaining assets to creditors.
The company began producing its electric commercial trucks last year, with the electric chassis cab called the B4 launching first ahead of a larger model due for release in 2026. The automaker had initially planned to launch with a consumer-focused off-roader, but pivoted to commercial trucks. Production of the B4 was contracted to Roush Enterprises, adds the Detroit News, but this is now on hold.
On The Radio: City and Colour – ‘Comin’ Home’
I’m not sure what’s going on with my Instagram adverts these days, but it’s turning up some real throwbacks. There have been ads for new BMX bikes, which I was obsessed with until I was about 15; bands heading out on 15- and 20-year anniversary tours for some pretty formative albums; and musicians I’ve not thought about in years releasing new music.
City and Colour falls into the latter camp, as I saw them supporting a band about 12 years ago and was instantly hooked. The obsession didn’t last though, and I kind of forgot about them until yesterday, when my latest Instagram throwback ad threw them into my face. Thanks, I guess.
