Auto File-Tesla’s deja vu dive, and Nissan ejects Uchida

March 11 (Reuters) - By Nick Carey, European Autos Correspondent

Greetings from London!

With the pace of global events, it feels like it has been far more than a week since the last Auto File.

U.S. President Donald Trump imposed tariffs on Canada and Mexico on Tuesday, then pulled back on auto tariffs when it became clear they would raise prices on pickup trucks popular in red U.S. states, postponing them by a month.

That only took us to Thursday.

Since then, we have been reminded how much investors do not like chaos, especially when the man elected promising lower inflation and a golden age for America refuses to rule out a recession because of his tariffs.

Fears of a downturn have shaved $4 trillion of the S&P 500’s peak last month, so like everyone else, the auto industry will need to buckle up for what could be a wild ride.

Which brings us to today’s Auto File…

• Tesla stock takes a pounding

• Nissan boots Uchida

• Toyota’s new smart China EV

Back on Elon’s Tesla rollercoaster

When it comes to Tesla, history does tend to repeat itself.

Not exactly, mind you.

We have seen rollercoaster highs and lows for the stock before, so the company’s recent dive after a post-election spike in market capitalization to $1.5 trillion feels kind of familiar.

The EV maker’s market cap has now dropped below $715 billion and investors are arguing over whether it is still overpriced at that level.

Viewed through a historical lens, Tesla’s stock price has never made sense. For instance, way back on… um, Friday, when Tesla was worth $845 billion, its market cap was still bigger than the next nine most-valuable major automakers combined.

Those automakers collectively sold about 44 million cars last year, compared to Tesla’s 1.8 million.

Tesla’s perceived value has come down to its future promise, such as the driverless vehicles Elon Musk has promised every year since 2016.

The other part of Tesla that investors have valued is Musk himself. Seen as a visionary by his fans, many investors got upset when he wandered off to play with a shiny new toy, as he did after buying Twitter in 2022.

Investors are now increasingly worried that aside from the possible sales implications of Musk’s embrace of far-right parties that he is spending altogether too much time taking an axe to U.S. government departments instead of leading Tesla to a brave new future.

Tesla has bounced back before, so could easily do so again.

But Musk’s declaration on Monday that he is running his businesses "with great difficulty" while working for Trump is unlikely to soothe frazzled investor nerves.

Recommended reading:

• Scania scores some non-Northvolt batteries

• Pre-election Tesla protests in Portugal

• Porsche SE’s $21.7 billion loss

Nissan shows Uchida the door

Ever since Nissan’s bid to merge with fellow Japanese automaker Honda collapsed last month, CEO Makoto Uchida had looked like a marked man.

So, it came as little surprise that the company ousted Uchida on Tuesday, replacing him with chief planning officer Ivan Espinosa in a bid to revive the company’s fortunes.

Among traditional automakers Nissan is seen as a major legacy automaker, having never fully recovered from the years of crisis and management turmoil sparked by the 2018 arrest and ouster of former chairman Carlos Ghosn.

Uchida had led the company since late 2019 and under his watch, the company has found itself with too few EVs to compete in China and too few hybrids to compete in the U.S. market.

Espinosa had been seen as a potential replacement for Uchida and has managed Nissan's global product strategy and portfolio. He has been in his current role since April 2024, part of a shake-up aimed at accelerating the Nissan’s pivot to EVs.

He now faces the daunting task of getting Nissan back on track.

Toyota’s new smart China EV

Toyota has started selling a $20,000 smart electric car in China with advanced features similar to Chinese rivals as it ramps up efforts to regain share in the world's largest auto market.

Toyota has had limited success so far with previous EV models in a hugely competitive market dominated by local players such as Chinese EV giant BYD.

Toyota and Chinese partner, state-owned Guangzhou Automobile Group (GAC), had first unveiled the Bozhi 3X at last year’s auto show in Beijing.

The joint venture said more than 10,000 orders had been received within an hour of the launch.

BYD upped the ante in a long-running price war in China's EV market last month when it started offering advanced driving-assisted features on several models, including those priced below $10,000, for free.

Another tough year for Volkswagen

Volkswagen expects another challenging year in 2025 as it juggles ramping up EV sales, slashing costs, and navigating a tangled web of trade tensions as it seeks to streamline its European operations and catch up with cheaper, faster rivals in China.

The automaker faces deep changes in its two main markets, China and Germany, with earnings in China forecast to fall up to 1 billion euros as it races to develop new models, and major cost cuts in Germany that should net savings of 1 billion euros this year.

Asked about tumbling U.S. stocks amid investor fears of a Trump tariff-fueled recession, CFO Arno Antlitz said during the company’s annual results conference that Volkswagen could only focus on what is within its control.

Fast Laps

China's car sales inched up 1.3% in the first two months of 2025 versus the same period in 2024, as an expanded customer subsidy program spurred auto demand.

Chinese EV maker Xpeng is considering investing up to 100 billion yuan ($13.80 billion) in humanoid robots, state media reported its CEO as saying.

Volvo Cars may move some vehicle production to the U.S. depending on tariffs, but still plans to export its European-made EX30 SUV model to the United States later this year.

Volkswagen will focus the sales strategy for its 20,000-euro EV due out in 2027 in Europe, its brand chief said.

The United Auto Workers said workers overwhelmingly approved a first contract at a battery manufacturing joint venture between General Motors and South Korea's LG Energy Solution.

Indonesia's car sales rose 2.2% in February, the first growth since June 2023, amid a growing shift to EVs driven mostly by Chinese brands.

Think your friend or colleague should know about us? Forward this newsletter to them. They can also subscribe here.