President Trump lowers the rates on European cars to 15%, but it will still cost you – Jalopnik

Good morning! It is Thursday, September 25, 2025, and this is the morning shift, your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from all over the world, in one place. Here you will find the most important stories that make Americans drive and make ends meet.

During the edition of this morning, the US officially reduces the rates on vehicles made to 15%in Europe, considering Groot-Britain car suppliers in Stutten while Jaguar-Land Rover is struggling to come back online, Carmax sees a large dip in the second quarter of income and the ZOX of Amazon Wil Regulatory.

The US officially lowered the rates for car -import on vehicles made in the European Union to 15% – retroactively on 1 August. That is a lower than the 25% levy that they previously had on top of a preceding 2.5% tax. The relocation confirms the conditions of a framework agreement that the two parties struck at the moment almost two months ago.

The order will help to alleviate some tensions between Washington and Brussels, because both parties work by ironing the details of the trade agreement they have announced during one of Trump’s golf courses in Scotland. In any case, here is a more detailed view of the agreement, from Bloomberg:

The changes set in the submission contain a list of exemptions for sectors, including aircraft, aircraft parts and generic pharmaceutical drugs plus ingredients, as well as “non-available natural resources” such as cork and certain metals and ores, from 1 September.

Most new rates come into force for EU goods sent from 1 September, but the aid for cars and parts depends on the EU that introduced legislation to lower the rates on American industrial goods and some non-sensitive agricultural products.

The block followed through that promotion on 28 August and is currently the implementation of its concessions, so that the Trump administration is the new car in -taart.

[…]

As part of the schemes in the trade agreement, the EU is confronted with a rate ceiling of 15% on most exports. That percentage does not stack on top of existing industry -specific rates, and the EU expects it to also cover with future sectoral levies that can be introduced on drugs and chips.

Not every detail has been smoothed. The two parties have not made much progress when reducing rates for steel and aluminum, both of which are confronted with 50% export tasks.

However, do not expect that this will be a very relief on your wallet. We recently reported that – although car manufacturers eat tariff costs for the time being – they will probably not do this long. That 15% will come from your end, buddy.

The British government apparently considers a slight rescue operation of the suppliers of Jaguar-Land Rover after a cyber attack that has closed production until at least October. The three British factories of the Automaker produce around 1,000 vehicles a day, and with all closed, the company loses around $ 68 million a week – while many of the 33,000 employees are told to stay at home.

Now the government is looking for ways to keep companies further through the supply chain up while JLR gets his nonsense. It is not a good situation in England, I will tell you so much. By Reuters:

Schedules taken in the consideration include the government components of the suppliers to enable them to survive until JLR resumes production, according to a BBC report.

Another option was to provide loans to suppliers supported by the government, the BBC said, although it added that the idea was not popular with suppliers.

[…]

The Business and Trade Select Committee of the British Parliament will hear on Thursday from companies in the Supply Chain of JLR.

Tata Motors Finance Chief PB Balaji told the Commission chairman Liam Byrne in a letter on Tuesday that JLR collaborated with her delivery partners to prioritize payments to “those with the greatest need”, adding that JLR was planning to arrange any outstanding payments “in the coming weeks”.

He said that JLR “was fully authorized to make decisions that best reflect the interests of her business and commercial partners” in the letter published by the committee.

A few days ago we reported that it was quite possible that things would not be fully in use of JLR after Christmas. I don’t have to tell you how catastrophic that would be for a company that was already struggling and the electric suppliers.

Nobody has more money and used cars are becoming very expensive. Perhaps that is the reason why Carmax reported less sales of used vehicles and lower sales in his tax second quarter that ended on 31 August. The company’s net result decreased by 28% to $ 95.4 million, while sales fell to $ 6.6 billion year after year. That is apparently among the expectations of analysts.

In general, Carmax sold 199,728 shop vehicles in the quarter. That drops by 5.4% of the same time last year. It has achieved another 138,302 vehicles for the same period, a decrease of 2.2%. By Automotive news:

“Although this was a challenging quarter, we continue to trust our long -term strategy and the strength of the profit model we have built,” said Bill Nash, Carmax CEO in a statement.

The company wants to remove at least $ 150 million in sales, general and administrative costs in the coming 18 months, he said.

[…]

Carmax bought 293,000 vehicles from consumers and dealers in the quarter, with 2.4 percent year after year. Of that total, it bought 262,000 from consumers, a decrease of 2.7 percent and 31,000 vehicles from dealers, an increase of 0.2 percent.

Based on Perhicle, Carmax earned $ 2,216 on every retail sales, a decrease of $ 53 from 2024. The margins were slimmer in wholesale vehicles: only $ 993, but they rose $ 18.

Amazon’s ZOX is looking for broader permission from American supervisors to release his self -driving vehicles on our roads. The company is reportedly asks for exemptions from American vehicle safety standards for field vehicles managed by an autonomous driving system without a human operator on board, according to the submission of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. By Bloomberg:

The exemption that ZOX is looking for would enable the company to operate no fewer than 2500 self -driving cars on American roads. An earlier approval only included vehicles designed for research and demonstrations.

ZOOX said it works closely with NHTSA through the new exemption process of the agency.

The request shows how self-driving vehicle developers move to take advantage of Trump administration movements to erase regulatory barriers that have set historical obstacles for autonomous vehicles that are designed to be driven by a computer instead of a person. These rules have previously drawn up companies, including ZOX, General Motors Co. and Tesla Inc. Those self -driving cars have designed without foot pedals or steering wheels.

In August, the Ministry of Transport granted ZOX an exemption from federal vehicle safety standards for vehicles described in earlier regulatory archives such as “Bidirectional, equipped with a automated driving system, and was missing traditional driving controls.”

The company’s latest request is looking for exemptions from standards with regard to functions such as windscreen wipers, Defog systems and collision protection equipment.

In the summer, ZOX opened a robotaxi production facility in California. The plan is that it ultimately builds 10,000 of these vehicles per year in the factory.

History.com

Personal. I prefer the 15 speakers, 1,170-watt Burmester audio system that came to the Mercedes-AMG GT63S E-performance that I was just testing, but I am sure this was good too.

I think we all need a little steel -like than in our lives. What is a better time to start now? Locking, people, we are approaching the end of the week.