BMW downplays US tariff fears as car stocks hit multi-year lows

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GeneralCommand4459@reddit

I was wondering would the tariff apply to a car made by an American company in another country but destined for sale in the USA? For example a Ford built in X and then sold in America?

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Even if it doesn't apply directly, it will likely increase the price indirectly since foreign vehicles it competes against will be more expensive. Plus, materials and components are not all sourced domestically; it will cost more to get chips and such to the factory, which will make the price of the vehicle increase.

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RevolutionarySeat134@reddit

All the components. Typically the domestic market raises prices to just under the tarrif like what happened with steel. The car makers are about to eat a 15% cost increase on all their raw materials.

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deleted_by_reddit@reddit

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Lone_K@reddit

Like it'll be 15% when companies have to worry about margins lol try >20%

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Drzhivago138@reddit

It's my (limited) understanding that Canada and Mexico are already covered under USMCA.

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Thats_Debatable@reddit

Does that matter if USMCA is gutted? Something we're having conversations about at my company today.

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Uptons_BJs@reddit

This is just cope TBH.

The US is a net BMW exporter, if the US slaps massive tariffs on other countries cars, and they slap on retaliatory tariffs, it would wreck BMW's model.

PS: The interesting thing here is that initially, BMW thought that the whole crossover craze would be a north america only phenomenon. So they built their crossover factory in the carolinas and exported the X series to Europe and other markets. Turns out, the crossover craze went global.

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hughcifer-106103@reddit

It will wreck GM and Ford models too. Stellantis might get hit the hardest. Be prepared to say bye bye to Jeep and Ram if Donald does what he says he’ll do.

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Mental_Medium3988@reddit

they are gonna wreck the us automotive industry by removing incentives for evs, removing funding for fast chargers, stop r&d as much as possible all to save the internal combustion engine and prop up fossil fuels. thats gonna destroy them outside the us and leave them uncompetitive when evs become so much cheaper to produce.

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Legendver2@reddit

And America will deserve it

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Mimical@reddit

Unlike prior elections where most people didn't vote for the president; you can genuinely say that most Americans wanted this.

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Arc_Ulfr@reddit

Honestly, look at the global data for elections in other countries, like France and UK and Japan: everyone in power lost support, regardless of political leaning or policy.

This has pretty much confirmed with me the fear that everywhere, regardless of local politics, culture, or education system, a large chunk of voters are so shortsighted and intellectually lazy that they will blame the people in power for things the latter had no control over. Unfortunately, the stakes here in the US were just so much higher than elsewhere. But make no mistake, elections this year highlighted a deep flaw in humans as a whole, and I am utterly stumped trying to think of a way this flaw could be addressed so that it doesn't cause the same problems in the future.

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deleted_by_reddit@reddit

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The3rdbaboon@reddit

Reap what you sow.

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GinNTonic1@reddit

Isolationism doesn't work. Didn't we learn that in grade school history classes?

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hughcifer-106103@reddit

The only thing we were supposed to learn were the letters U, S and A! The rest is all woke shit!

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cloudofevil@reddit

It will wreck everything. Lots of parts in the supply chain the average person doesn't think about. For example, nearly all natural rubber comes from SE Asia so regardless of where the tire is produced it's going to be more expensive which will roll into the cost of the car.

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TheSexyKamil@reddit

Genuine question, does anything still use natural rubber?

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cloudofevil@reddit

Yeah, most of the body plies are made with natural rubber. Some higher load range tires will even use it as the cap tread.

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hughcifer-106103@reddit

So you’re telling me the massive tires people put on their lifted RAM 2500 diesel trucks, which are already really expensive will get even more costly along with the repair and parts used to modify the things to roll coal?

Hmm.

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deleted_by_reddit@reddit

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College_Prestige@reddit

Couldn't have happened to a better group of people

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AmNoSuperSand52@reddit

Be prepared to say bye bye to Jeep and Ram

I guess there is a silver lining to this election after all

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Dileth@reddit

And nothing of value will be lost

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RichardNixon345@reddit

Be prepared to say bye bye to Jeep and Ram if Donald does what he says he’ll do.

Given Tavares' 'market savvy' this will happen independent of any outside inputs.

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Bombaysbreakfastclub@reddit

if the U.S.

When*

You mention inflation and everyone hates it. Mention tariffs and people loves it.

🫠

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ycnz@reddit

Can the people who love it add and subtract?

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xt1nct@reddit

I bet half of those people don’t understand how tariffs work. I’m a software dev at a manufacturing company. We have most manufacturing capacity in China. Last time we got hit with tariffs it was annoying because we had to make constant price adjustments.

The industrial manufacturers we supply were all bitching, but we just raised our prices across the board to cover the tariffs.

Same thing will happen again and equipment will just get more expensive.

These costs will eventually raise the prices of everything that uses that equipment.

Additionally, we can’t just move the manufacturing capacity to US. It takes years to find space, move/buy equipment, hire people etc. But that will still increase the cost of production people in US make a lot more, space is more expensive.

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Abdrew_Greebski@reddit

I think there's a good chance that if Europe engages in retaliatory tariffs, they will provide exclusive for EU based OEMs as it wouldn't be beneficial to hurt themselves.

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KSoMA@reddit

The retaliation thing is exactly why German automakers lobbied so hard against EU tariffs against Chinese cars, they were scared of China pretty much making German cars unsellable. No reason the same can't happen here.

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usernamesherearedumb@reddit

EU levies a 10% tariff on US cars. Seems like turnabout is fair play? Not that I want to pay 10% extra in taxes, but I get it.

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WhiteNamesInChat@reddit

They could easily just retaliate and bump it to 20%

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usernamesherearedumb@reddit

And then we do the same. Then they go higher. Then we do. Eventually, even politicians will figure out the whole thing is stupid, and they go back to zero.

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thegooddoctorben@reddit

Not before Great Depression II.

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kobrons@reddit

The us levies a 25% tariff on commercial vehicles like pickup trucks. I'd say that pretty much makes it even.

But BMW builds their us bound cars in the us anyway.

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I_Am_Very_Busy_7@reddit

Honestly, I think if anything, this is realistically him trying to posture into getting bilateral trade deals, which is a lot of what it was the last time. I’m not defending the dude, not even close, can’t stand him, but it’s basically long been a negotiating tactic. And now that countries know he was willing to do it, such as with steel during his previous term, I think it’s kind of a “fuck, he may just be nuts enough to do it to us” debate internally in respective foreign trade commissions. I think you’ll see a lot of back and forth but I have my doubts we’ll actually be tossing these all over the place. At least, I hope I’m correct, as much as I would prefer we just free trade everything and let people buy whatever they want.

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uglybushes@reddit

Our cars are so ugly we arnt worried about people buying them

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Clover-kun@reddit

BMW's biggest sellers, the X3 and X5, are both made in South Carolina. I don't think they're worried about tariffs

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4N8NDW@reddit

Considering BMW has a manufacturing plant in the US, I think their concerns are mitigated. We will lose the low volume German built cars.

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Imakeshittycardesign@reddit

They have a plant in Mexico where they make the G42 currently and where they plan on making the Neue Klasse cars for the US.

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Educational_Fox6899@reddit

I was about to say my m240 was built in Mexico.

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Cockeyed_Optimist@reddit

My F30 335i was made in South Africa. Took its sweet time getting shipped to Hawaii (four months).

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Ceramicrabbit@reddit

That's a low volume car the high volume cars for the US are the X models that are built in Spartanburg SC

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Educational_Fox6899@reddit

So? I was just echoing that BMW builds cars places other than Germany and the US.

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Ceramicrabbit@reddit

Oh I didn't understand that

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dontbeslo@reddit

3-series as well

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4N8NDW@reddit

the BMW Spartanburg manufacturing plant in Greer, South Carolina, had the highest production volume of the BMW plants worldwide,[7] producing approximately 1,500 vehicles per day.[8] The models produced at the Spartanburg plant are the X3, X4, X5, X6, X7, and XM SUV models.

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DazMR2@reddit

If there are reciprocal tariffs then the X cars become a lot more expensive in other countries and will impact sales. If BMW moves some manufacturing back to Europe or South Africa then there will be job losses in the US factory.

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4N8NDW@reddit

US profits are a lot higher than Africa or Europe. And yes retaliatory tariffs will be implemented, they always are. Tarrifs see stupid and hurt the economy. Aside for national security reasons, there is not a good reason to have tarrifs.

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ahorrribledrummer@reddit

Right but how many electronic components in those cars come from East Asia?

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4N8NDW@reddit

Many!

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MarcoJumpstart@reddit

Yeah, makes sense. Mexico's plant setup is pretty ideal for supplying the US market. Neue Klasse from there should be interesting

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ShiftBMDub@reddit

Parts are going to be a bitch though

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Borealisamis@reddit

Parts HAVE been a bitch. Still waiting for parts for 2024 x5 recall. Same shit as Honda and all others. But yeah let’s start blaming tariffs as it’s the in thing to do

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AmNoSuperSand52@reddit

I think people are saying that it will be even worse

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ShiftBMDub@reddit

Err, imagine complaining about a supply line issue and thinking tariffs won’t do anything…I used to think people couldn’t be this intellectually disabled until yesterday. Congrats!

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funnyfarm299@reddit

I toured the plant in Spartanburg last year. The tour guides stated all the parts suppliers were located within 50 miles of the factory.

Admittedly this doesn't mean every part is actually made there, but I imagine the vast majority of them are.

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Furryyyy@reddit

Even if the parts are assembled in the US, any raw materials coming from outside the country are getting slapped with that tariff.

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puskunk@reddit

Yeah the only thing coming from out of country is engines and transmissions. Don't know if it's changed but some plastics come from Alabama and glass from Illinois.

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goaelephant@reddit

Plus, auto parts are subject to different duties/tariffs/quotas/etc. than actual automobiles.

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ukcats12@reddit

For now.

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ShiftBMDub@reddit

They press the body panels in America everything else comes from overseas.

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Recoil42@reddit

Not really, no. Parts are produced domestically, in most cases. Not for everything, but definitely for most things. (All of this is silly talk though, because EU tariffs are non-viable in the first place.)

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ShiftBMDub@reddit

So you’re buying OEM BMW parts made in America for something like an E46?

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4N8NDW@reddit

You are correct. Most of the suppliers aren’t US based so parts will be more expensive for manufacturing and maintenance/repairs.

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deleted_by_reddit@reddit

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BlazinAzn38@reddit

Assembly plants but not every piece or raw material for said piece comes from within the US

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4N8NDW@reddit

Level playing fields for all US manufacturers….they also need to import their raw materials from China.

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BlazinAzn38@reddit

Yes and will cause car prices to increase

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4N8NDW@reddit

Yes…that’s what Tariffs do.

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Carl-99999@reddit

The only possible benefit to the Orange Asshat winning is that the CAFE standards will probably go away, possibly promoting more hot rods?

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secretlyrobots@reddit

I like breathing air, so I personally would not be in favor of eliminating CAFE standards

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AmNoSuperSand52@reddit

To my knowledge, CAFE only tracks gas mileage and not emissions. There’s other EPA policies for emissions

That being said idk why any person would want CAFE to be gone, unless they prefer cars having worse gas mileage

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Drzhivago138@reddit

CAFE standards will probably go away

What makes you say that?

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