But as far as that, like they seem like they've been very quiet.

They have.

And look, the Detroit automakers, I think, are quiet for one reason and one reason only.

And it is Donald Trump.

He will publicly shame.

Those executives and those companies, if they don't, you know, to use his words, fall in line.

And so you run a lot of risk of negotiating in the media and criticizing Donald Trump on in the media.

If you say they built a new plant somewhere in Canada or maybe bought the Brampton assembly plant, they still need that deal and they still need U.S. suppliers.

Greg, when I read that to you, what do you think?

I think there is some truth to it in that it's very bad for Canada if tariffs are raised to 50%.

There's no question.

Um, has the government done nothing? That's not entirely true.

I mean, Ford just retooled in Oakville.

Uh, Stellanten retool- Stellantis retooled in Windsor.

All of that got some government money.

Yeah.

What will the auto industry think of that?

Look, when it's 25%, I'm gonna give you some context.

The, the CEO of Honda Canada said that's unsustainable.

And then we heard Trevor Longley, who is the CEO of Stellantis Canada, say, "Tariffs are never going back to zero." So somewhere between zero and 25% is workable.

Now, I asked someone yesterday, I said, "Why is Canada agreeing to 15%?" And they said, "We wanna know the same answer." Now, I think the answer is theater.

I think it is ego to, you know, sort of massage Donald Trump and allow him to think he got his win while also getting it down.

I think the auto industry can sustain and manage 4%, 5%, even 10%, because right now things have kinda gone along okay in the last 18 months under the current system.

And does that mean, Greg, that we start as a province, as a country, looking at other automakers from around the world to, to get them to invest here in Canada?

How come there's no trucks on the, on the Gordie Howe Bridge? How come we don't, we're not seeing as many trucks on the Gordie Howe Bridge? That is why, because there are contracts behind the scenes, um, that would probably be expensive to, to either break or then pay for the, or pay for the Gordie Howe Bridge toll.

Correct.

So, [clears throat] excuse me.

Taking Stellantis, uh, individually, the union that represents the Stellantis in-house drivers in Michigan, uh, UAW Local 212, they have suggested that they were paying northward of 400,000 US monthly to have the in-house Stellantis trucks cross the Ambassador Bridge until they cut a sweetheart deal, which dropped that down to about $160,000 a month for unlimited crossings.

And it's going to take 60 days to get out of that contract if they do break it.

Now, to give you some perspective, that's nearly 3 million US in savings per year that the Ambassador Bridge cut a deal with the Stellantis in-house, uh, trucking company, if you believe what the union posted on its Facebook page, which I happen to do, and confirmed with a, a member at the office there.

Yeah, it just sounds like, you know, Greg, they're working out some kinks here, but people should per- perhaps check their credit card statement.

Oh, 100%.

Can you break it down, your latest story about how important it is that for the auto industry, does bridge get open? Yeah, I mean,

right now, 5,000 trucks a day in 2025 cross the Ambassador Bridge.

A majority of those carrying, or not a majority, but a lot of those carrying auto parts, finished auto vehicles, not just into the United States, but into Canada as well.

And we've talked about this before, that parts sometimes cross international borders up to seven times before they're finally installed in the vehicle on the lines.

And when you're using the Ambassador Bridge, which, by the way, I used yesterday to go to the Tiger game, and trucks were lined up onto I-75 coming into Canada.

Time is money.

Money is time in the auto industry.

Despite that, we still are seeing quite a bit of trade going on still.

And what should we make of this, Greg?

You should make of this that affordability might be back on the docket for an automaker that used to command that segment.

I mean, this is the company that gave us the K car.

When the chips were down for this company, they came up with an affordable vehicle.

You know, you remember the ads? If you could find a better vehicle, you know, we'll give you this one for free.

Lee Iacocca in the minivan.

I just feel like it is 1980 all over again with the announcement of, Affordable vehicles on the way, a refreshed minivan on the way, Chrysler not going anywhere.

You know, is this Stellantis just kind of, you know, realizing that there are a lot of people out there that cannot just go and buy these cars for all these thousands of dollars and that they might do better, they might sell more if they are able to offer a vehicle that's at a lower price?

But Honda has now officially said we are suspending the proposed EV plant indefinitely.

Yeah, I mean, this is no surprise.

This news has been first delayed and then it trickled out a few weeks ago from the Nikkei publication in Japan that it was going to be suspended indefinitely.

Who is surprised, really? I mean, everything we build in Ontario in terms of auto, for the most part, is sent to the United States.

And in the United States, Donald Trump has rolled back EV incentives.

He has rolled back or is at least trying to roll back fuel efficiency standards and regulations.

So, of course, there is a broader focus by the consumer to buy internal combustion engines.

What about the other story from earlier this week, Greg, about Unifor targeting Ford in the negotiations? This, I would think, would be a very different negotiation this time around after the union made tremendous gains last time.

And yeah, this seems like one of the big issues that we're trying to deal with with the U.S. to try to get a deal done and get rid of some of these tariffs at least.

Vince, that he could just move an entire industry back to the United States.

And look, anyone that's in auto, covers auto, works in auto, knows that it's just not going to happen.

I had someone reach out to me overnight on X saying, well, what's stopping Honda from just moving to the United States now? And I said, I don't know, billions and billions of dollars in cost? I mean...

Look, it's not going to happen.

They're not going to move the entire industry back to America.

Donald Trump wants to keep what he has.

What do you make of this?

It's looking sleek from the front.

Yeah, I think so.

I mean, I'm not a huge fan of the new look, but I know where they're going with this.

It's kind of got that bow tie grill that spans across the entire front.

I'm not a huge fan of that.

I do like the lighting.

I do like the headlights.

Babe Ruth pointing to the outfield.

So are we seeing prices go up in the last several weeks?

Yeah, they've been on the rise.

I mean, slightly last year, almost 3% in 2025, but they're starting to climb and they're climbing because We just want more expensive vehicles.

We want more bells and whistles.

We want more toys, all the fun stuff.

So there's a couple things at play.

One, I mean, tariffs are playing a role in all of this.

Will they have designs ready to go, Greg, on cheaper vehicles? Okay, if we do need this and we do need to get cheaper models out there with these Chinese EVs coming in, we can bring this into production in a very short time.

right.

It drives me insane on Fridays.

It's always something.

Last week, Ochoa laying off $700.

This week, Stellantis getting out of the battery game.

It's endless right now in this industry.

But yes, I was surprised.

Any auto announcement is like, is this good or bad? Is this good or bad? What can you, I guess, talk to us or tell us about whether this is is this good news? Is it bad news or will it be irrelevant to the auto industry?

We're doing the whole, like, says sources things, but what are you expecting from today? Yeah,

I think what's been reported is fairly accurate.

We're going to see a change to the electric vehicle sales mandate, which means automakers will not have to sell a certain number or a certain percentage of sales need to be electric vehicles.

Instead, they just have to make... more fuel efficient cars and the government's going to bring back the electric vehicle sales rebate and so then that should increase sales as well.

But what they're doing is essentially forcing automakers to build and sell more fuel efficient less emitting vehicles and so this is what's called the corporate average fuel efficiency or cafe sounds really cool right the united states has this europe operates under this now canada is going to do this but here's the catch what's that name again it is the corporate average fuel efficiency or cafe oh cafe i like that it's not a coffee it's not a coffee What's going to happen is the government will look at all of the vehicles and automakers sold and say, what was your average fuel efficiency? So in the United States, that needs to be around 49 miles per gallon.

And look, I know we talk in liters per kilometer driven, but nobody talks like that.

49 miles per gallon.

We need the market to shift and we need infrastructure.

What do you make of this?

I think it's a compromise.

I think I was on your show earlier this week saying that Kearney had some off ramps that he could use to get out of this pickle that he was in.

And this is the compromise.

It's allowing 49,000 Chinese made electric vehicles into Canada.

It is keeping a tariff on at only 6%.

But the flip side of that coin is it probably annoys Donald Trump because they are trying to keep Chinese vehicles out of North America because they undercut the market, which would then undercut manufacturing here.

Do you have any predictions perhaps how they're going to react or what this could look like in our region?

Why did they decide to do this?

Well, we're seeing the market turn to gasoline-electric hybrids.

So they're sort of shunning the plug-ins and going toward the gasoline-electric hybrids.

These are the ones where you don't have to plug them in.

They're generating electricity as you drive them.

Now, they don't give you as much range on your battery.

They don't charge... by plugging them in, but they still save you money.

That was