Detroit — It’s definitely not 2009 downtown, judging by the unapologetic muscle flexing at this year’s Detroit Auto Show and what that portends for the next few years.
Gone is the environmental sanctimony from the hometown automakers that affirmed the worldview of Detroit’s federal paymasters who financed the industry’s government-induced bankruptcies then or investment incentives more recently. Gone, too, is the obeisance to critics, the tortured logic justifying the billions spent developing electric vehicles not enough consumers actually want to buy.
What a difference a new administration in Washington can make — and how quickly — if it’s willing to use existing levers of power to reshape the bellwether U.S. auto industry in months, not years. Never mind that it cost General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. shareholders billions in charges to account for lowered expectations for their respective electric vehicle businesses.
The regulatory whiplash now favoring internal combustion engines over electric powertrains risks regionalizing a business that has long sought industrial scale and geographic reach to reduce costs, boost profit margins and grow market share. Instead, we have the makings of a Detroit retreat into “Fortress Midwest” and the prospect of increasingly selling to ourselves.
For now, the D3 and rivals operating in the United States have a green light to double down on popular, gas-powered trucks and SUVs thanks to eased emissions standards, looser fuel-economy rules and the reversal of taxpayer incentives to buy EVs and build the batteries powering them.
As much as auto show organizers deserve credit for injecting new energy and new experiences into the event, a sense of reduced ambition (and expectations) from the hometown players looms. Ford CEO Jim Farley declared the age of globalization over — the corresponding run of what defined the formerly named North American International Auto Show. That’s not an insignificant observation by the leader of a multinational automaker.
For decades, Detroit and its competitors in Germany, Japan and South Korea chased the global industry ideal to plant their brand flags in new, often unfamiliar markets. Now some of that is being unwound, accelerated by China’s auto tech offensive, its push into Europe in sales and production and the reversal of regulations in the United States.
The impact of the shakeout is clear: Detroit Three stands at the show are overflowing with full-size pickups and SUVs, but little else that might interest would-be buyers who can’t afford them. Anyone looking for an electric Cadillac Escalade IQ Premier Sport? It’ll only set you back $150,630.
“Fundamentally, it’s our destination,” GM CEO Mary Barra said earlier this week of electric vehicles. What she wouldn’t say, citing her own lessons learned, is when that destination would be reached.
If the 2026 Detroit show, coming at roughly the 12-month mark of the second Trump administration, carried a tagline, it would be “Return of the Golden Age” — when Detroit V-8s ruled, when gas was (comparatively) cheap and when foreign competition (this time from an ascendant China) was a theoretical threat that could be stymied. Until it can’t be.
Didn’t work in … pick your decade … and it probably won’t work this time — eventually. Not as Japanese and South Korean rivals claim more U.S. market share. And not as Chinese players quicken the industry’s product development metabolism, offer lower-cost vehicles and seek to dominate advanced automotive technology at high-profile shows like CES in Las Vegas.
On one level, ya’ gotta’ credit Detroit for having the honesty to return to its roots, an unmistakable message of this year’s auto show opening to the public Saturday at Huntington Place. On another, it’s smart to ask where this detour from the real world will lead and whether it’ll be good.
Near-term, it probably will be, as customers lured by the prospect of cheaper money pile into Detroit’s profit-rich trucks and SUVs. That’s one reason why shares in GM, for example, are trading in the $80-some range. Another is that Detroit’s cutting its losses and narrowing its ambitions in the capital-burning electric-vehicle business to navigate opportunities in the Trump-era regulatory rollback.
“This is the most profitable market in the world,” said Ford Executive Chair Bill Ford. “Everyone wants to be here. Everyone wants to win here — so do we.”
Competitive fever in this town is rising, driven by racing. Starting in March and for the first time ever, Ford and GM will go head-to-head in the most prestigious racing series on the planet. Each plans to field Formula One teams in a bid to score points, burnish their brands, and develop technologies that could be deployed in production vehicles.
In F1, GM and Ford, with its long racing pedigree, are demonstrating ambition by committing time, their credibility and lots of money to compete with the best in the world — more than can be said for comparatively narrow and increasingly expensive vehicle lineups fielded in their home market.
Ford’s Farley, a race-car driver himself, earlier this week claimed a “passion for off-roading” as the Blue Oval showcased new special editions like the new Bronco RTR to broaden the lineup, to claim more share (especially from Jeep) and to fatten profit margins.
Stellantis NV, parent of the Jeep and Ram brands, is reviving its fabled Hemi engine after a hiatus attributed to federal emissions rules and the fines that often accompany them. Prominently displayed at the show: the 6.2-liter Supercharged Ram TRX, a beast that is unapologetically what it is.
All of this Golden Age Revisited moxie could come at a potential cost: what will happen to the profit boom after the deregulatory Team Trump leaves office? And how competitive will Detroit be in reaching the electrified “destination” of Barra’s telling?
After attending CES earlier this month, a former GM executive-turned-industry consultant offered an uncomfortable possibility: “CES is where technology leaders signal what’s coming in the next decade, not how to protect the last one,” Michael Dunne, principal of Dunne Insights LLC, wrote in his newsletter reporting that he did not see Detroit automakers at the tech show.
“With Detroit absent, the audience draws its own conclusions. In 2026, China threw down the gauntlet. Detroit did not even show up to contest territory in its own backyard.”
@DanielHowesTDN
Daniel Howes is senior editor/business & columnist for The Detroit News.
