Welcome to the Daily 5 report for Thursday, Feb. 27.
Korean automaker Kia is launching a slew of electric vehicles in various global segments, including this sharp-looking PV5 people mover.
But, as our Hans Greimel reported today, Kia is holding off on sales in the U.S., the company's biggest overseas market, because the PV5 will be manufactured at a dedicated EV plant in South Korea and could be subject to hefty tariffs.
We aren't just talking about threatened new tariffs from President Donald Trump. We're talking about the 25 percent so-called "chicken tax" tariffs that have kept imported light trucks and commercial vans such as the PV5 out of the U.S. for the better part of 60 years.
As Greimel wrote, this tariff has been levied since 1964 in retaliation for European tariffs on imported American chicken. The move helped secure the Detroit brands' grip on pickups and other work vehicles, which have become a perennial cash cow for them. With this tariff, and the threat of additional tariffs, would Kia still try to bring such a vehicle to the U.S.?
"It's a very difficult question. As you may know, the United States has a very special chicken tax for commercial vehicles," CEO Ho Sung Song said, noting that the Korean-built PV5 would face the 25 percent tariff. "At this moment, I don't consider volume for the United States."
In another Kia-related story today, Hyundai Motor Group's solid-state batteries won't be ready for Kia electric vehicles until around 2030 at the earliest, the carmaker's global product planning chief said in another story by Greimel.
Spencer Cho said the complexity of the next-generation battery technology is more challenging than many players in the industry appreciate, Greimel's story says. Hyundai Motor Group pools its R&D efforts to share technologies among the Hyundai, Genesis and Kia brands. It is working in-house on its own solid-state battery technology, Cho said.
As we previewed in this space yesterday, this story by Gail Kachadourian Howe features a major new player in the Texas dealership acquisition market: the Lavin family office, William Gabriel Capital, along with business partner Bobby Ward.
William Gabriel Automotive Group bought Frank Kent Country, a Chevrolet-GMC store in Corsicana, Texas, from Frank Kent Motor Co. This is William Gabriel Automotive's first majority-owned dealership, Howe's story says. The family office has $90 million to $100 million in capital liquidity available for automotive acquisitions, according to its website. The site lists Texas and several other states as preferred markets.
Meanwhile, we now have three global automakers in CEO limbo at the same time: Stellantis, Lucid Motors and Nissan Motor Co., which continues to be the focus of stories such as this one from Bloomberg.
Nissan CEO Makato Uchida could be out when the troubled automaker announces a management shake-up on March 12, according to Bloomberg, but other sources told Reuters that Uchida is likely to hang on to his job.
The speculation will no doubt grow between now and March 12, but the management uncertainty cannot possibly help a company with as many challenges as Nissan.
Looking ahead to Friday, look for more coverage of the auto affordability conundrum that faces consumers and the dealerships that try to sell them new cars.
That's it for today. Have a great rest of your day.
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— Philip Nussel, online editor
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