Hempstead, NY – Consumers are hitting gas in car purchases to avoid the expected increases of the new Trump administration tariffs, which threaten to reverse the recent impulse in car sales.
The main automobile manufacturers, including General Motors, based in Detroit, and Hyundai of South Korea, reported a robust sales growth of two digits in two digits in the first quarter. Japanese brands Nissan, Toyota and Honda reported more modest profits, while the manufacturer of Jeep Stellantis and Ford saw decreases.
President Donald Trump announced last week that he is slapping all foreign vehicles with a 25% tariff from 12:01 am et on Thursday, with an imported car that faces the same liens no later than May 3. The president told NBC News last weekend that “it could not matter less” if car manufacturers increase prices as a result. And on Wednesday afternoon, he is ready to open a vast new front in his current commercial war, with reciprocal tariffs destined to match commercial barriers worldwide, potentially in “all countries.”
The news of the vertiginous import tax range of Trump has accumulated for months before its launch of automotive rates, which stimulates some buyers to go to the concessionaire lots before the prices of the calcium increase.
Nadia Pierre-Toussaint turned through Millennium Honda in Hempstead, New York, on Tuesday after her mother advised him to buy sooner rather than later, and left with the keys of a new Honda HR-V.
“It’s a good idea” Buy Pierre-Toussaint now said. “In the future it will become more expensive.”
The White House estimates that around half of the 16 million cars sold to Americans in 2024 were imported, which means that their tariffs will apply to a wide amplitude of vehicles. And even cars gathered in the United States will probably face tariffs of some kind given the supply of pieces around the world.
Except for any stem or warning of the administration, industry experts say that there is not a single vehicle whose pieces and assembly are based completely in the United States. That means that each car is potentially vulnerable to price increases under new policies, since so far they have been described.
“The cars made in the United States with all US pieces are a fictitious story,” said Wedbush values analyst Dan Iives, NBC News this week.
Cox Automotive forecasts an end to this spring to the “bullfight of Trump” in the purchase of cars that followed the November elections. “The concern among consumers with respect to the future of tariffs and the economy, a new economic uncertainty, is braking the market,” Cox analysts wrote last week.
It is a bit disturbing to come tomorrow and not know what will happen.
Ravel Mejia, General Manager, Millennium Honda, Hempstead, NY
Goldman Sachs estimates that Trump’s automotive rates could increase the cost of a new foreign manufacturing car to $ 15,000. The cars manufactured in the USA. With pieces from abroad they could see prices uploaded for up to $ 8,000, the bank said.
Some car manufacturers have already indicated that they are prepared to increase prices in cars that sell distributors since Thursday.
In a memorandum sent last week, the president and CEO of Hyundai, Randy Parker, warned the dealers that “the current price of the vehicles is not guaranteed and can be subject to changes for the units to the perpetrators after April 2, 2025”.
“We understand that it can be worried about what this means for Hyundai and his concessionaire,” Parker said in a memorandum obtained by NBC News. “We are quickly evaluating the situation and we will communicate any necessary change in our price strategy.”
Automobile dealers have the ability to set the price of vehicles in their lots as they want, although they are often guided by that automobile manufacturers charge them.
Ravel Mejia, the general manager of Millennium Honda, said he had not seen any Honda notice in pricing aluminum from Tuesday morning.
“But anything that comes after the second, if the tariffs come into action, we hope [prices] It will be a little higher, ”he said. Mejia hopes to sell what he currently has in his lot within a month and is preparing to pay more for the next shipment.
“It is a bit disturbing to come tomorrow and not know what will happen,” he said, adding that he does not have many answers for customers who appear with questions about tariff impacts.
Used cars prices could also receive success, if possible cars buyers resist higher costs for new cars and offer the prices of the cheapest.
Floyd Wallace said he would have waited another month or so, but decided to buy a Honda Pilot 2019 at the Mejia dealership now due to rates.
“After looking at it and seeing the price, I thought, this is just around the budget I had established for me,” Wallace said Tuesday. “So I’m going to do it and not wait,” he said, fearing that otherwise he had to pay a few more dollars.
“Before the storm really falls, I want to get in and leave,” he added.
Not everyone is worried. Michael Chen entered the exhibition room seeking to exchange his Honda Civic leased by a prologue in Honda.
“I didn’t see any price increase at this time in the car,” Chen said, “but you know, wait and see.”
