- President-elect Donald Trump announced 25% tariffs on all goods coming from Canada and Mexico, a move that would hit automakers hard.
- They would impact the Chevrolet Equinox EV, which General Motors makes in Mexico.
- The crossover is an affordability breakthrough for the EV market—but it’s threatened by Trump’s tax and tariff policies.
Americans have been clamoring for an affordable, long-range electric car for years. Elon Musk shelved plans for a $25,000 Tesla—one that isn’t a moonshot robotaxi, at least. But General Motors finally made one in 2024.
The automaker just launched the Chevrolet Equinox EV, a compact crossover with up to 319 miles of range and a starting price of $27,500, once you factor in the $7,500 federal incentive for electric purchases. Between its healthy EPA range rating, manageable price and solid technology, it’s one of the best values the EV industry has ever seen—a vehicle with the potential to convince a lot more buyers on the fence to take the plunge into EVs.
The 2024 Chevrolet Equinox.
But not if President-elect Donald Trump has anything to say about it. His policy proposals around tax cuts and tariffs threaten to dull this EV breakthrough—or even erase it altogether.
Trump on Monday announced that, on his first day as president, he would sign an executive order to “charge Mexico and Canada a 25% Tariff on ALL products coming into the United States.” Seeing as the U.S. auto industry relies heavily on manufacturing and supply chains in both neighboring countries, such a policy would wreak havoc on Ford, General Motors and a slew of other manufacturers. Many cars and their component parts would get more expensive to import, squeezing margins for automakers and likely jacking up prices for American drivers.
Honda makes the extremely popular Civic in Canada, where Toyota also churns out RAV4s. Ford makes its Maverick pickup south of the border. All of Tesla’s EVs sold in the U.S. are made in California or Texas, but between 20% and 25% of their parts content (measured by value) originates in Mexico, per government filings. The tariffs would hit the Equinox EV, too, as GM produces it at its Ramos Arizpe plant in Mexico.
Its $35,000 price point would be harder for the automaker to reach while actually turning a profit. GM currently loses money on its EVs and has assured Wall Street it expects profits to trickle in soon.
The 2024 Chevrolet Equinox EV.
The $7,500 EV tax credit is key to the Equinox EV’s value proposition. Trump wants to do away with that too in order to pay for tax cuts, Reuters reported earlier this month. Not all that many electric cars qualify for the full incentive, which requires both vehicles and their batteries to be made in North America. Battery components for qualifying vehicles also can’t be traced back to China, a tough proposition given that country’s utter dominance over EV supply chains. Ford’s Mustang Mach-E, also made in Mexico, isn’t eligible. But the Equinox EV is.
If Trump manages to enact these tariffs and kill the tax credit, the Equinox EV may get a whole lot more expensive for consumers. (A GM spokesperson didn’t return a request for comment on the impacts of the tariffs and tax credit.) It’s a shame because the little Chevy is, in many ways, the affordable EV America has been waiting for.
Photo by: Chevrolet
The 2024 Chevrolet Equinox EV.
Affordability has always been a key barrier keeping EVs from going truly mainstream, right up there with concerns around charging infrastructure and range. While prices have come down over the years as battery costs declined and manufacturers scaled up, they haven’t dropped enough for everyday Americans. In October the average new EV changed hands for $56,902, per Kelley Blue Book. The going price for a Tesla was $56,705. These are not exactly prices anybody can stomach.
There were affordable electric options before, but they always required serious compromises. The Chevy Bolt EV and Bolt EUV could be had for under $30,000 and sold in large numbers because of it, but they were kneecapped by sluggish charging speeds. In InsideEVs’ testing, the Bolt took a whopping 54 minutes to go from 25% to 75%.
The Nissan Leaf is a hatchback, a body style that’s fallen out of favor.
The stalwart Nissan Leaf suffers from so-so range, slow charging speeds and a weird, outmoded charging connector. Plus, like the Bolt EV, it’s a hatchback, a body style Americans have shunned in favor of crossover SUVs. The Equinox EV fixed many of those issues, delivering a relatively inexpensive EV that people might actually line up to buy. Indeed, in the Equinox EV’s first full quarter on the market this year, GM sold nearly 10,000 of them.
We still don’t know if these policies will come to pass. Trump will surely face pushback from the auto industry—maybe even from his new buddy Musk—as far as the tariffs are concerned. And carmakers are already urging him to keep the tax credit in place. If all goes according to plan, the EV market won’t keel over and die. But the road to affordability could prove longer than the industry once imagined.
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