As the Trump administration lets key electric vehicle tax credits expire and former President Donald Trump's legacy tariffs continue to weigh on imports, the American auto industry is entering a turbulent final quarter of 2025, caught between the pressure to absorb rising costs and the need to preserve consumer demand.
President Donald Trump's renewed push for aggressive tariffs — aimed at bringing manufacturing back to US soil — has created an unexpected internal fracture within the US auto industry. Detroit's Big Three automakers—General Motors (GM), Ford Motor Company, and Stellantis—are caught between rising costs and political pressure and are forced into uneasy standoffs with their own suppliers.
Europe's plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) market is bracing for significant disruption as the European Union prepares to tighten carbon emissions calculations beginning in early 2025, with full enforcement set for 2026. The shift, driven by a more stringent emissions algorithm, is already triggering an end-of-year sales surge in PHEVs as automakers race to meet current targets before the new rules take effect.
Since taking the helm of Hyundai Motor Group five years ago, Chairman Eui-sun Chung has steered the South Korean automaker to new heights, vaulting past global rivals to become the world's third-largest car manufacturer. His leadership has been defined by bold investments and aggressive market expansion. Now, as the global auto industry enters a phase of profound disruption, Chung is doubling down once again.
A fatal crash involving a Xiaomi SU7 electric sedan in the southwestern city of Chengdu has raised new questions about the safety of electronic car doors, after reports that the vehicle's doors failed to open following impact.
When global automakers fled Russia in the wake of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Chinese car companies moved in with astonishing speed, flooding the market with affordable vehicles and quickly dominating the country's roads.
Long known for its disruptive innovations in electric vehicles, Tesla is now undergoing a deeper transformation, one that extends far beyond cars. As artificial intelligence (AI) reshapes industries and geopolitical tensions disrupt global supply chains, Tesla's recent move toward lower-priced EVs signals a broader organizational pivot: a long-term strategy that places AI, robotics, and semiconductor self-reliance at the core of its future.
Tesla has rolled out new, lower-cost versions of its two best-selling vehicles—the Model 3 and Model Y—under the "Standard" badge, both starting under US$40,000. While the move helps fill a gap left by delays to Tesla's next-generation vehicle platform, it also underscores a deeper strategic pivot: away from hardware-centric upgrades and toward an intensified focus on artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics.
