Global auto shipments were up slightly during Q1 ’25 and many OEMs reported increasing shipments of L2 ADAS, however outlooks for the rest of the year are uncertain primarily due to tariffs.
Several OEMs reported significantly lower Q1 profits including BMW, Toyota, Honda and Nissan. Rivian cut Q2 delivery guidance due to tariffs and Ford hiked the price of the Mexico built Mustang EV and other models in the US market. Bosch and other tier1’s are in talks with the Trump administration on car parts tariffs.
GM Q1 sales were up 2% y/y. EV Share increased to 12% in US making them #2 behind Tesla. The impact of tariffs still remains fluid. GM remains committed to adding features to Super Cruise and the integration of the Cruise team into their operations has been successful. GM will release more details of its L3 offerings later this year. Super Cruise reached 230K fleet size in Q1.
Ford Q1 profit exceeded expectations, but revenue declined 5% y/y. Supply chain disruptions could impact production and overall market pricing is seen rising around 1% in 2H. Tariff uncertainties have a potential impact to earnings of $2.5B in 2025 with cost savings offsets of $1B (including price increases). Blue Cruise has reached 370M miles driven and Ford is on track for L3 and evaluating L4. Ford has a program to incentive dealers to sell renewal subscriptions for Blue Cruise. L3 is being done by a different team and will be branded differently.
Geely reported record quarterly sales volumes and revenues of 72.5B Yuan, up 25% y/y, and profits up 264% as Chinese OEMs continue to gain share in their domestic and other worldwide markets.
Continental’s Q1 results showed a slight drop in automotive sales but the automotive group turned profitable on better pricing. Continental is planning to spin-off its automotive group. Autonomous Mobility represented almost half of its Q1 orders, including a major award for an advanced surround radar system from a North American customer. Despite a roughly 1% increase in WW vehicle production in Q1, Conti is projecting a 1-3% decline in overall vehicle production volumes in 2025 due to tariffs, with the biggest decline in North America. Commercial vehicle production is also projected flat to slightly down in North America.
Robotaxi rollouts continue to scale up from multiple companies as you see in some of the news stories below – volumes are still relatively small, but gaining momentum, although the L2+ passenger car market remains where the sensor and compute volume is for the foreseeable future.
Martin Booth
DVN USA Representative
[email protected]