March 6, 2026 | Cox Automotive’s Erin Keating on dealer outlook; Chrysler CEO Chris Feuell leaves Stellantis

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Welcome to daily drive for Friday, March 6th,

2026. I'm Jake Near and Detroit in for Kellan Walker.

Today on the show, Chrysler CEO Chris Vuel has left Stolantis, the Iran conflict threatens global automakers, especially Asian brands, and

Ontario is courting Korean automakers to build a Canadian plant.

Plus, Cox Automotive Executive Analyst Aaron Keating joins the show to talk about the company's latest dealer sentiment survey

and what this year's tax refunds might mean for new and used vehicle sales.

I'm still a betting woman that maybe May and June and July start to show us some interesting follow-on trends because

higher income households tend to file later, so and they're getting benefit a lot from these new exemptions.

Let's run through all the news you need to know to keep up in the auto industry.

Chrysler CEO Chris Vuel has left Stolantis for personal reasons. Dodge CEO Matt McAllier will now oversee both Chrysler and Dodge.

Vuel joins Stolantis in September 2021 and also led Alpha Romeo in North America.

Under her leadership Chrysler dropped the 300 sedan and became a minivan-only brand.

Chrysler sales rose 29% in the fourth quarter and were up 1% for all of 2025. The brand plans to launch a

refreshed Pacifica this year with design elements from the Hellsian concept.

The war in Iran is threatening global automakers, especially Asian brands, according to Bernstein Equity Research,

Toyota accounts for 17% of Middle East sales, Hyundai for 10% and Cherry for 5.

Chinese automakers who dominate Iran's market face the biggest direct hit,

but Bernstein says the greatest risk is rising oil prices from disrupted tanker shipments

through the Strait of Hormuz. That could crash auto sales well beyond the Gulf,

hitting gas-dependent automakers like Stolantis, hardest. And Ontario Premier Doug Ford and

Federal Industry Minister Melanie Jolie are courting Korean automakers to build a Canadian

assembly plant. Korean brands sold nearly 250,000 vehicles in Canada last year, capturing 13%

of market share, that's according to the automotive news data center. Only GM, Ford and Toyota

sold more than Kia alone. Ford says he's ready to roll out the red carpet for them.

Well, there's 200 and roughly last count I had 230,000 cars. Anyone who sells 230,000 cars needs

to open a plant here. Meanwhile, Jolie is tying a $12 billion submarine contract to auto investment.

Obviously, because the procurement process is now in its final mode, I can't comment what's going

on. But I'll be clear, we want a car plant. Joining me now to talk more about that story is Greg

Lason, automotive news Canada's digital and mobile editor and host of the automotive news

Canada podcast. Greg, great to have you here on Daily Drive. Oh, it's good to be here.

All right, so you were there at the next star plant opening where this all unfolded.

South Korea's trade minister was literally sitting right in front of Doug Ford on stage.

So I'm curious, you know, what the atmosphere was like in the room. It didn't seem like this

very public courtship is gaining any real traction with Korean officials.

I mean, in the room itself, it was pretty muted. I think everyone's sort of walking on eggshells

when it comes to any auto investment in North America. Essentially, no one wants to upset Donald

Trump or upset trade negotiations between Canada and the United States. So there was no outward

applause or approval of this. Is it gaining traction? I don't know if it's gaining traction

or momentum, but I will say, you know, as a basketball coach, I can see the full core press

is being employed. Melanie Jolie, our industry minister was also there. She is pulling no punches.

It is essentially as blunt as it comes. We want an auto plant and Ford, who in the past,

has already spent 500 million dollars on a battery plant, another five billion dollars on a

battery plant in Windsor. They are on board with whatever it takes to land an auto investment

in Ontario. There hasn't been one here in decades, and this is as close as we've ever been,

even if they are just words and a courtship. So interesting. Now, Hyundai Canada CEO Steve

Flamon gave a pretty diplomatic answer when you asked him at, uh, and Canada Congress,

basically saying, we'll see where it goes when it comes to this issue. Given that Hyundai

already has four North American plants and global overcapacity is an issue, how realistic do you

think it is that Ontario's pressure campaign actually results in a new assembly plan?

You know, just from Matt's standpoint alone, you know, I talked to Lana Payne about this,

head of Uniforce, she admits there's overcapacity that there's available production elsewhere.

I've talked to auto forecast solutions about this. They also say it's probably unrealistic.

So I don't know, you know, one of the things an insider told me was if the goal of the Ontario

and federal governments are to lure Hyundai here to build electric vehicles, which might be

something different because one in four vehicles globally are electric. So if the idea is to

build electric vehicles here and export them, that might be a play. But here's the thing.

The federal government here just offered up 49,000 electric vehicle spots to Chinese brands.

And so Hyundai might say, well, what's in it for me if you're going to sell my competitors vehicles?

So there just continues to be more and more hurdles and roadblocks and things in the way to get

this to happen. I never even thought of that issue of the Chinese EVs until someone in the inside

brought it up. So it's possible that the whole idea is for electric vehicles to be built here,

exported globally, not necessarily to the United States. Remember, we've got the critical minerals,

the battery factories. It's not lost on me that LG Energy Solutions owns the next star plant in

Windsor. That's a Korean company. So there are a lot of breadcrumbs that would lead me to

believe it's possible and it's plausible. I don't know if anyone pulls the trigger at Hyundai to

come here yet, given all of the other factors. Fascinating stuff, Greg. Really appreciate you

digging into this for us and we'll be watching this as it develops if it does. Thanks so much for

joining us here on Daily Drive. Coming up, dealers are feeling optimistic about a spring sales

bounce despite economic headwinds. We'll talk with Cox Automotives Aaron Keating about the company's

latest dealer sentiment survey. That's next on Daily Drive.

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question is are you? Welcome back to daily drive. I'm Jake Near. Cox Automotive's latest

dealer sentiment index shows dealers facing a cloudy outlook as they come down off a difficult

end of 2025. But there's optimism ahead. They're expecting a spring sales bounce fueled by higher

tax refunds and improving February numbers. Interest rates, political climate and affordability

remain top concerns. Automotive news senior retail editor Dan Shine spoke with Cox Automotive

executive analyst Aaron Keating here at our Detroit office about what dealers are thinking going

into spring. Aaron, thanks so much for joining us coming from sunny Atlanta to cold jury Detroit.

So sad I heard it was sunny over the weekend and I always prefer to join you guys when it's sunny.

We saw the sun briefly. We want to talk about the Cox sentiment index. The most recent one.

It's maybe mimicking the Detroit weather. It's a little doom and gloom out there. It's a little cloudy.

What's going on with dealers? I mean, it is, but they are seeing that the sun shines coming

their way, right? It's key to remember the timing of the survey. This was done towards the end

of January beginning of February. So a little bit before some of these headlines have come out

recently around some global conflicts and such that might start to change some opinion. But

most of them were feeling, of course, coming down off of last year. Fourth quarter was a little

bit difficult. January is always sort of a slower time whether it was a major impactor. But

February, you know, to be honest, we've just started to see some of the results and they sort of

match what their optimism was that February sales started to pick up. And so they do see that

that spring bounce as usual is something to be optimistic about. Yeah, there was a little

optimism they call it. They do talk about that spring bounce. People are getting tax refunds.

Right. And they expect them to go buy a car or use car new car. Yeah. And the refunds are higher.

I mean, we're already seeing them come in around 10% higher than they normally are at this

at this time already. What are some of the headwinds that dealers are kind of siding when they

talk to you for this study? Yeah, I mean, the economy, the political climate still is up there.

That was something that actually stood out to me as I kept looking through the numbers because

I know we talked about them a little bit, but that the political climate has actually climbed up.

And I think that's really pointing to that fatigue, consumers and dealers in the general

public has around the headlines, just consistently driving our mood. Consumer sentiment has been volatile

over the years. So that's, I think they're struggling wrapping their heads around tower consumers

responding to these headlines and what that mood indicator really means for their business.

And, you know, affordability is, we're never going to stop talking about that, I feel like,

but that is a concern for them is making sure that they can find the right vehicles for the right

customers at the right prices because that's still a concern of consumers. Is it simple as to say

that a tax refund is going to make someone go buy a car? They're still, we still got to pay for

the insurance, which is very high gas prices may be going higher. Is it really that much of a

panacea to all the kind of the economic doldrums that people kind of feel themselves are in?

Yeah, it's a great question because I do think that our instinct is to say, well, you get a windfall,

you want to go spend it, but we do know we're working with a consumer who has been struggling with

affordability. We also know that most consumers when they're looking for cars are typically shopping

by monthly payment. So they're not always actually taking into consideration the total cost of ownership

TCO. So even though we know insurance and price of gas and everything is continuing to go up,

in that moment when they're looking at that payment, they're typically more focused on what

that monthly payment is. And that has been what's been really stuck because of the interest rates.

And it's starting to come down a little bit more. What the tax refunds do typically do is they

show up and use cars, right? And we're seeing this. Manheim is going really proactive right now.

We're seeing a lot of business turn in manheim, which means that dealers are getting excited. They're

getting new used vehicles into their inventory because they know they're about to get the rush,

the spring bounce. But we do know, again, coming off this consumer, having been a little bit more

economically challenged last year, there's a good chance that some of those refunds are going to go

to paying off debts from Christmas or going towards helping pay for other things in their households

that they've needed to catch up on. I think the two places we're going to see it is, yes, for sure,

it might help with some down payments in used cars or at least getting them a little bit towards

their service and maintenance. I think that's really where I would advise dealers to look, you know,

keep a real strong eye on who's coming through your service lanes, not just to make sure that you're

getting the best bang for your buck on the RO, but also is there good equity mining you can do

there to sort of flip people into new vehicles. And then the last thing I would say about tax refunds,

which I think is really interesting is that the increase is hitting disproportionately

higher income individuals as well in certain geographies because of the salt exemptions.

So I'm still a betting woman that maybe May and June and July start to show us some interesting

follow-on trends because higher income households tend to file later. So, and they're getting

benefit a lot from these new exemptions. So it should be interesting and hopefully maybe it will

string out a little bit longer than it normally does, you know, fingers crossed for the dealers.

Interest rates always a topic. There's probably going to be some change at the top of the fed.

How big a factor is that in, again, affordability is one kind of, just one more piece of the puzzle

that maybe will push that consumer who's been on the sidelines for a while into a showroom.

It's a big impact. I mean, we do know when we did our quarterly call in December that

the number of weeks it takes for annual income to purchase a vehicle really hasn't changed

all that much over 13 years, 10 years. What's really doubled is that household interest burden

on the loan. So any push in the right direction on interest rates is certainly going to help the

industry because they will, you know, even a point is a huge deal for consumers. But interest rates

are still high and the fed fund rates don't always translate immediately to what the auto loan

rates are going to be. So it's a little bit more complicated than just saying, you know, if fed

fund rates are lowered, auto loan rates are lowered. But we're optimistic that auto loan rates

would keep coming down this year. Well, you kind of mentioned earlier that I think could be a factor

that might impact sales is this, you know, new war, whatever conflict going on over in the

Middle East. It would seem to me that, again, you have people who have been on the sidelines because

of the instability of a number of things, the economy, tariffs, and the, you know, the

milks, you know, eggs, whatever it might be. And so they've, you know, I have really gone on

bought a car now. There's more instability in for how many knows, how many weeks this may come.

But gas prices might go up. They're expected to go up, which is like another household burden

that maybe they don't want to. How do you think that could factor into what we see in the coming

months in, you know, in the showrooms and the sales? Yeah, I think a little bit will depend as we've

seen since the beginning of last year on the cycle of headlines, I would say, are we flipping,

almost every day with what we're hearing? I think we do have to take into consideration how sort

of head on a swivel type of action can really create chaos for the customers and really put them

in the paralysis by analysis, if you will. If it's a little bit more of a drawn out process,

I could see people starting to normalize the news in the background and still making the decisions

they have to make. I mean, a lot of the times people really just need engines and four wheels to get

to where they need to go. And we're sitting on vehicles and operation out there that are really old.

And so people are just, you know, there is demand out there. The question is going to be,

will automakers be impacted as far as getting vehicles here? Will gas prices drive them more

towards the hybrids, which we already anticipated anyway? And are there enough affordable hybrids out

there? Will we actually see that organic pickup in EV adoption? Because gas prices go so high.

And because there's really good deals to be had on used EVs and newer EVs, even without the tax

credit. So I think those are the couple things that I would be looking for. But at the end of the day,

you know, we know our US consumers are a quirky bunch and when they need a car, they go looking for

one and dealers are often the best place to go help you figure out, what can you put in your driveway

today for the right price? I would be remiss if I didn't ask at least one service and parts

question. Again, we know the forecast is kind of a flat sales for new vehicle growth.

So that may be put a little more impact, a little more attention, focus on surface

of parts and their profitability. How important is that back end of the dealership going to be in

2026? It's the little or big engine that could. I think that every automaker I've talked to and

every dealer I've talked to, the focus is on fixed stops. And it's because both of them win

fixed stops is doing well. You know, it's not just a dealer profitably part of the equation.

The automakers are also certainly invested in making sure that's happening. And there are a ton

of vehicles and operations that need the work. And there is a competitive environment out there for

dealers with independent shops, repair shops and collision repair shops and things like this. And so

I think that the dealers are really focused. And the ones that I've spoken to are just continuing to

ask like, what do we need to be thinking about? How do we need to be bringing these customers into

our service lanes? How do we focus on convenience and pricing comparison and things like that? So

I think it's going to be a big engine that could and that they're all going to be focused on it

for the year. So I think the next dealer's time comes out in June, I want to say. What do you

expect? We'll be talking about in June. It's a good question. I love being asked if I have that

crystal ball, huh? You know, I think that we're probably going to see that the spring balance did

happen and did help and did keep sales going, at least set a normalized pace. What I'm really

hoping is that we're not going to have as much volatility and so that they see that the spring

went okay and that they're feeling decently confident going into the summer and that we can see

some sustained growth. But we may see some pushback because of consumer sentiment. And if the new

Fed comes in and doesn't necessarily do anything with interest rates or there becomes someone

rambling there, we should expect I think for the foreseeable future political climate economy

and market conditions stay in those top five factors that are the dealership. Not the weather's

not the weather this time. Hopefully, geez, because otherwise we're opening up a whole other

can we're politically discussing. But yeah, I think that the top five factors are going to continue

to swirl around as the top five factors. It's just a matter of how, you know, the severity of one

over the other. Great. Well, the index is always a great window into the dealership and seeing what

what the folks are thinking about. So we really appreciate you coming on and talking about it.

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me, Dan. Good to see you. That's daily drive for today.

I'm Jake Near in for Kellen Walker. Thanks to automotive news journalists Hans Grimal and

Vince Bond Jr. for their reporting for today's podcast. We also add reporting from Greg Lason

of our sibling publication Automotive News Canada. You can get the latest news on dealer sentiment,

the Iran conflict, and everything happening in the auto industry at autonews.com.

Come back over the weekend for our weekend drive edition of the show. Our own Larry Velliquette

and Michael Martinez talk about the biggest stories from the past week, including impacts of

the Iran conflict on global auto supply chains, as well as Ford's efforts to use its new battery

business to spin profits out of costly EV investments. I'll admit I was on this podcast a couple

weeks ago talking about how when automakers do things beyond auto making, it tends not to work out

very well. But I will say this seems like to me the best idea they have is opposed to just letting

a plant sit idle or taking an even bigger loss than the 21 billion dollars are already losing

on EVs here. We'd love to hear from you. Let us know what you think of the show and the topics

we covered today. Send us an email at dailydriveatautonews.com or leave us a voicemail at 313-444-2774.

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