Good morning! It’s Tuesday, April 15, 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 supplier infighting on GM’s ability to build its trucks and body-on-frame SUVs, as well as tariff-induced production cuts to the Nissan Rogue. Plus, a data breach that exposed Hertz customer information, and Stellantis investors’ dissatisfaction at their ex-CEO’s pay package.
1st Gear: Price disputes between part suppliers could stop production of the Silverado, Tahoe, Suburban, Sierra, Yukon, and Escalade
When building cars, companies have to manage incredibly far-reaching supply chains — chains that ensnare the globe, spanning pole to pole, and involve more companies than you could possibly imagine. Take GM for instance, where a steering rack supplier is fighting with a tie rod supplier over parts pricing. It’s a niche issue, one the car’s driver will never once consider, but it could stop production of GM’s pickups and body-on-frame SUVs this week. From Automotive News:
South Korean tie-rod manufacturer Primax has stopped deliveries to Nexteer, a steering column supplier for the Chevrolet Silverado, Tahoe and Suburban, as well as the GMC Sierra and Yukon and Cadillac Escalade.
The result is that production of those profit-rich pickups and full-size SUVs could grind to a halt this week, according to a lawsuit filed on April 10 by Nexteer against Primax in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.
The world is full of companies you’ve never heard of, with dumb names and incredibly specific fields of work, and they shoulder the weight of our economy like Atlas. If you ever learn about them, it means there are problems inbound.
2nd Gear: Nissan scales back Rogue production in response to tariffs
The whole idea behind the Trump tariffs is to make imports so prohibitively expensive that companies have no choice but to bring their manufacturing centers here rather than ship finished products in from abroad. This whole approach sort of assumes that the United States is such a necessary market that manufacturers would do anything to avoid abandoning consumers here, but some companies seem content to simply do less business in the States. Take Nissan, which is responding to tariffs by simply making less U.S.-bound cars. From Reuters:
Nissan plans to reduce output of the Rogue by 13,000 vehicles at its plant in Kyushu, southwest Japan, during the three-month period, said the person, declining to be identified because the information is not public. The planned cut is equal to more than a fifth of the 62,000 Rogues sold in the United States in the first three months of this year.
Workers at the Kyushu plant, Nissan’s largest, will work fewer hours from May through July, with production halted on some days, the person said. The plant will continue to operate on two shifts a day, the person added. The automaker will reassess the production situation at a later date depending on the outlook for tariffs, the person said.
In addition to the assumption that the U.S. is a necessary market, the tariff move also ignores why manufacturing moved away from the States in the first place: Pro-worker efforts like OSHA and unions. Companies can’t operate the same way here, paying pennies a day to workers who deal with unsafe machinery and dumping harmful chemicals into local waterways. Here, we have asbestos class-action suits. Modern capitalism runs on the same worker exploitation it always has, the same horrid conditions your grandparents fought back against, only it now happens where you can’t see it.
3rd Gear: Hertz vendor security breach may have revealed customer names, credit card information, social security numbers
If you’ve rented a car from Hertz recently, you may want to get yourself some credit monitoring. The company reported a breach at one of its suppliers that occurred late last year, which released customer information out to whatever group gained access — and whoever they go on to sell that information to.
The company reported a data breach at one of its suppliers that occurred late last year, which released customer information out to whatever group gained access. These groups usually aren’t out for the information itself, but the money that data can pull, so affected customers also have to beware whoever buys their credit card info online.
From Reuters:
The company said Cleo Communications, a vendor that provides file transfer services, experienced an incident where hackers exploited zero-day vulnerabilities within its platform in October and December.
The affected data could include customers’ contact, credit card and driver’s license information, Hertz said in a notification on its website, adding that a small number of those may have had their social security or passport information impacted as well.
This is sort of an interesting hack, in that it actually meets the definition of hacking. Normally this kind of breach is the result of an unsecured database that someone stumbles on, or an underpaid worker giving up information to the local password inspector, but Hertz claims this breach involves a zero-day vulnerability. That’s hacking! That counts!
4th Gear: Stellantis investors don’t want to pay ex-boss Tavares $26 million
Did you know that, once you’re rich enough, you can lose your job and get paid millions anyway? Carlos Tavares left Stellantis last year, but the company is still on the hook to pay him over $26 million for his services — services the company largely thinks didn’t actually help anything, leading to the whole leaving-his-job thing in the first place. Now, the investors are balking at the price tag, and trying to cut it down. From Automotive News:
Stellantis investors are pushing back against a proposed €23.1 million ($26.2 million) compensation package for former CEO Carlos Tavares, who left in December after a year of declining sales and earnings.
…
Tavares’ salary for 2024 — and an additional €12 million in severance and milestone bonuses he is set to receive this year — is drawing ire after he presided over slumping demand in the U.S., model delays in Europe, and clashed with politicians, dealers and unions.
I’ll offer up a deal to undercut Tavares here: I’ll leave any job in the world for just $24 million. You want me to stop writing for Jalopnik? Start and then abandon a Twitch career? For a mere $24 million, I will cease doing any job you like. Email me for my Venmo, let’s work this out.
Reverse: I was specifically told this wouldn’t happen
I remember going to a Titanic exhibit as a kid where they gave you a boarding pass at the beginning with a real passenger’s name on it. At the end of the exhibit, you got to figure out whether you’d lived or died. They also had a little game where you could steer the Titanic away from the iceberg, which was totally rigged because you’d lose no matter what.
On The Radio: Modest Mouse – ‘Fly Trapped In A Jar’
You ever feel like that? Like the people really noticed that they really didn’t want you around, so not a single one of you will ever leave town?
