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It’s the last day of the month, and we’ve got the one and only Steve Greenfield of Automotive Ventures hopping in as a co-host! Today, we’re talking about President Trump saying that the Mexican and Canadian tariffs are back on and more tariffs are coming for Chinese imports. Plus, Ford is closing regionals centers for stocking and distributing EVs and OpenAI has released its latest model, ChatGPT 4.5.

Show Notes with links:

• The U.S. will impose an additional 10% tariff on Chinese imports next week, doubling the 10% duty placed earlier this month. President Trump also confirmed 25% tariffs on Mexican and Canadian goods will take effect March 4, citing a lack of progress in combating fentanyl smuggling.
  • The Mexico and Canada tariffs were previously delayed for 30 days, but Trump says no further reprieve will be granted.
  • China has retaliated against previous U.S. tariffs and is expected to do so again.
  • Beijing has not made an offer to curb fentanyl-related exports, which Trump’s administration sees as key to lifting tariffs.
  • Xi Jinping seeks a broader trade agreement but has yet to propose terms that would satisfy the White House.

• Ford Motor Co. is scrapping its plan to stock and distribute electric vehicles (EVs) through regional inventory hubs, a pilot initiative that faced resistance from dealers. The automaker initially aimed to store unsold EVs at 21 “rapid replenishment centers” across the U.S., delivering them to dealerships within two weeks of a customer order. However, slow adoption and logistical issues prompted Ford to revert to a traditional wholesale model.
  • Dealer resistance played a key role, as the separate sales process made EV inventory less visible to consumers.
  • Inventory visibility issues meant unsold vehicles weren’t listed on dealer websites or third-party marketplaces like Cars.com.
  • Dealer complaints included a lack of window stickers and limited trim/package comparisons, making it harder to sell EVs effectively.
  • Ford executive Mike O’Brien stated: “We think the pilot, from an operational perspective, was a big success. That being said, we listen to our dealers. It is a little tricky to have two different [sales] methodologies.”

• OpenAI has officially launched GPT-4.5, its largest and most knowledgeable model yet, though it falls short of being a frontier model. The new system improves upon GPT-4’s computational efficiency by 10x and reduces hallucinations, but its performance lags behind OpenAI’s latest o1 and o3-mini models.
  • Trained with synthetic data, GPT-4.5 uses OpenAI’s new supervision techniques alongside traditional fine-tuning and reinforcement learning.
  • It will be exclusive to ChatGPT Pro users, at least initially.
  • OpenAI CEO Sam Altman hinted at GPT-5 arriving as soon as late May, integrating the new o3 reasoning model.

Join Paul J Daly and Kyle Mountsier every morning for the Automotive State of the Union podcast as they connect the dots across car dealerships, retail trends, emerging tech like AI, and cultural shifts—bringing clarity, speed, and people-first insight to automotive leaders navigating a rapidly changing industry.

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