Specter of Auto Tariffs Spurs Some Car Buyers to Rush Purchases

Ziggy Duchnowski spent shopping on Saturday morning along the Northern Boulevard in Queens with two goals in mind.

He wanted to find a new small car for his wife and hoped to conclude an agreement before the new rates that President Trump is imposing on imported cars and trucks influence prices.

“The word on the street is that the prices will disappear now,” said Duchnowski, 45, a carpenter of the Union that voted for Mr. Trump, holding the hands of his two young children.

The rates – 25 percent on vehicles and parts produced outside the United States – will have a large impact on the North American car industry. They should come into force on April 3 and are sure to increase the prices of new cars and trucks.

The car manufacturers will also strongly regulate their North American production operations and climb to find a way to reduce costs to compensate for rates. And at least for now, they are stimulating some consumers to buy vehicles before the prices of the stickers jump.

Analysts estimate that the rates will significantly increase the prices of new vehicles, adding a few thousand dollars for entry-level models to $ 10,000 or more for high-end cars and trucks. It is likely that even higher prices for new vehicles will push used cars prices.

Each car manufacturer will warn a sort of impact. General Motors builds a large number of highly profitable sports trucks and vehicles in Canada and Mexico. Toyota and Honda produce popular SUVs in Canada. Volkswagen assembles the Jetta sedan, the Tiguan SUV and other popular models in Mexico.

“Once the rates come into force and people begin to receive quotes that represent these increases of 25 %, it is then that it will begin to sink,” said Bill Pacilli, manager of the sales of Lynnes Hyundai to Bloomfield, New Jersey

Almost half of the cars that Hyundai sells in the United States is imported from South Korea, he said. “They will be affected by the rates in about a month or two,” said Pacilli. “Of course we are worried. Any effect in the prices will affect the volume of sales.”

Alvaro Duarte, an Ecuadorean immigrant who lives in West New York, New Jersey, went to Hudson Toyota in Jersey City, New Jersey, Saturday to exchange his gas car for an electric model, fearing that the prices would have increased if he had waited.

“The rates affect everyone,” said Duarte, 37 years old. In his free time, he said, he often uses his car to earn money on the side as a delivery driver Amazon Flex. “If prices increase, I have to pay more for my car, and this is more expensive for me and my family,” he said. “I made the change because with electric cars there is no petrol and less maintenance.”

Meanwhile, an Audi Manhattan seller in New York, Abdul Azeez, said that traffic was no longer BRISKER than usual, and suggested that people who live in the neighborhood usually have the means to buy new cars every time they choose it.

“Overall, I don’t think that Manhattan retailers will be affected compared to retailers of other states or the less committed cities, because even in the good economy, bad economy, there will always be someone who walks in the door to buy a car,” said Azeez, 24 years old.

In Ann Arbor, in Michigan, on the strip of car dealers west of the center of Jackson Avenue, customer traffic was quite normal for a Saturday the last weekend of the month, generally an intense period.

But a Tesla showroom attracted a crowd: about 300 to 400 people gathered to protest against the political activities of the company’s CEO, Elon Musk.

Musk directs the cost reduction initiative known as the Department of Efficiency of the Government, which has eliminated thousands of federal jobs and has passed out several government agencies, including the Department of Veterans’ affairs and the Department of Education.

The demonstrators brought signs asking for Mr. Musk’s fire and urged people to sell their Teslas.

“We have to recover some common sense in this country,” said Harold Blake, 73 years old, a pensioner who led Dearborn to participate in the protest at 30 miles.

“It’s so extreme, what’s going on in Washington,” he said. “I’m not taking it lying down.”

Over the course of an hour, no customer has crossed the picket to enter the Tesla showroom.

Protests were taking place in the places of Tesla all over the world, as part of the so -called Takedown movement of Tesla. More than two dozens of demonstrations of this type were scheduled on Saturday in the United States. Others were scheduled for Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

“I am terrified for my children and grandchildren for what this world is coming,” said Kathy Sinnes, 67 years old, while protesting out of a Tesla showroom to Miami and keeping a poster that said: “Tesla’s greed will not lend”.

It is not clear how soon the prices on new vehicles will increase. Most of the car manufacturers have cars and trucks without sufficient rates on lots of the dealer to last 60-90 days.

Juan Carlos Fagerlund has decided not to wait. It was in a Toyota dealership in North Miami, Florida, to add a window coloring to a Prius that he had purchased this month.

Although he had already thought of buying a new car, he said, the highest prices potential pushed him to accelerate his purchases, above all because he wanted a prius. The car is made in Japan and will be subject to a heavy rate.

The tariff increase “was not entirely why we bought in March,” said Fagerlund. “But it was definitely in our mind.”

Also Adria Pina, 60 years old, Dominican immigrant and bus driver in transit of New Jersey who lives in Bayonne, New Jersey, has decided to move quickly. Sitting in the Hudson Toyota dealership in Jersey City a few minutes after buying a new car, he said he felt he had just dodged a tariff hole.

“My husband said we were lucky that we got an agreement before the rates,” Pina said. “If we hadn’t done this in time, it would have cost us about $ 10,000 more. It is a lot of money.”

Sal Sellers, 57, head of the general sales of Hudson Nissan next to him, did not seem excessively worried about the looming rates, observing that he had crossed the pandemic and other serious economic recessions. But this did not mean that his customers were not worried.

“Last week, we had a couple of customers who walked saying:” You know what, I’m not waiting. Now I will change my car before the rates hit, “said Mr. Sellers.” I would say that about 30 percent of my customers said it. “

Outside Chicago, Enzo Costa supervision eight dealers as sales director for the Patrick Dealer group of family owned.

In March, he said, he increased his orders for new cars to complete his inventory before prices increase and his acquisition team purchased 30 used vehicles – about three times the usual number.

So far, however, he had not seen a peak in customer traffic. “On a normal Saturday, we set 80 to 100 appointments,” he said. “Today we have 75.”

He added that his sales team urged customers to consider the new cars to come to the showroom. “Everything in the inventory is pre-heater,” he said. “You don’t have to worry about this hour. It’s something along the way.”

At the Silver Line Auto Group in Queens, which sells used jeeps, Cadillac and Mercedes, many customers are immigrants or other people who have licenses for drivers but not social security numbers. In December, Silver Line sold 35 cars, but since then business crashed, said a seller, Silver Bautista. The company sold only eight cars this month and recently fired four employees.

Bautista said he believed that customers are nessing not because of the increase in prices, but because they felt the need to save money.

“They don’t care about rates,” Bautista said. “People are worried about being deported.”

Robert Chiarito, Ryan Hooper, Verónica Zaragovia, Anusha bayya AND Nate Schweber Contributed relationships.