If you’re eyeing a new Jeep Wrangler or maybe a Dodge Ram, perhaps even a Chrysler Voyager, then you were smart to not take advantage of the “America’s Freedom of Choice” program rolled out earlier this year. That “Freedom of Choice” really just meant you couldn’t get employee pricing and any number of other discounts the various Stellantis brands are offering. The choice, as often is the case, was an illusion.
No more! CDJR Parent company Stellantis is going to make some much-needed and consumer-friendly changes to its employee pricing. It’s Friday here at The Morning Dump, and I generally try to be positive on Fridays, so I’m going to “compliment sandwich” the news a bit. Do you know the compliment sandwich? This is where you say something critical in between two pieces of good news. For example, Jason woke up this morning and said to me:
Your eyes are roughly in the same place on the top of your head, if you bug me about image credits one more time I’m going to melt all your frisbees, you generally don’t smell that bad.
[Editor’s Note: Matt made this quote up. I work remotely from Matt, and have no idea how bad Matt smells on a day-to-day basis. I suspect it’s pretty significant, though. – JT]
The middle part of this news sandwich is going to be a layer of cheese, which is the sudden realization on the part of Tesla’s board that maybe they need to do something about Elon Musk. Above that, a thin slice of roast beef that’s tariff impacts, and my sense that a recession is maybe coming.
Then some sweet, sweet soft bread in the form of a One Lap of America update.
America’s Freedom Of Choice, Now With Less Choice, Which Is Actually Better
If you’ve ever been to The Weiner Circle in Chicago’s Lincoln Park neighborhood, then you know better than to ask for ketchup. It’s possible to get a hot dog made your way there. You just have to be willing to absorb an incredible amount of abuse from the sausage shop’s employees. It’s one of the few places where yelling at customers is a perk of the job.
As an employee of an automaker, you probably shouldn’t yell at buyers, but one of the perks is the so-called “employee pricing.” This varies a lot by automaker, vehicle, and how many rings out you are from an actual employee. If you know someone who works for an automaker, you should at least be able to get a “friend” discount, which could be worth anywhere from $500-$1000 off a vehicle.
The innermost ring of employee pricing brings you closer to something like “invoice pricing,” which is how much a dealer, in theory, pays the manufacturer for a car. As with anything in this crazy, mixed-up world, invoice pricing may not always be precisely what an automaker pays, given other discounts and programs. That caveat aside, somewhere close to invoice pricing (which is lower than MSRP) is what you should be shooting for.
Both Ford and Stellantis offered employee pricing as a way to take advantage of panic-buying ahead of tariffs, and it’s been working out great for Ford so far. Stellantis doesn’t release monthly sales numbers, so we’ll have a clearer idea of how successful it was later. Ford extended the plan and Stellantis joined them, but also doubled down, as The Detroit News reports:
Stellantis NV told retailers that its “Employee Pricing for All” program will continue for this month, and those discounts can now be used on top of select other vehicle incentives.
The pricing program, originally named “America’s Freedom of Choice,” was set to expire Wednesday, and now shows an end date of June 2 on the carmaker’s brand websites. It previously allowed customers to choose between the employee price or current cash incentives on a particular model, but is now “stackable” with other offers, dealers were told. A few select models and trims are excluded from the renewed employee offer, which also doesn’t apply to fleet customers.
I’m not sure how much of this has trickled down to dealers, so I picked a random CJDR dealer in Tomball, Texas, and it’s offering up to $20,000 off Ram 1500s right now. That’s not bad. The Ram 1500 Lone Star MSRPs for $57,880, but you can roll out of there with one for $43,462 before the usual fees. It’s not clear if this is pre- or post-stacking, though, so it might be even better. A quick perusal of dealers shows a ton of discounting, so it’s not a terrible time to buy.
Why are some automakers doing this? Market share. If you sense the economy is going to be in bad shape, then it’s a good time to grab more of the market at the expense of profits (the inverse was the main strategy during the pandemic). This works for automakers with less exposure better than for those with high-tariff exposure, in theory, because the impacts will be lower. Ford’s U.S. production is more robust than Stellantis’s, which means Stellantis might be banking on USMCA exceptions to hold up a little longer.
If you’re a German carmaker, the best you can probably do right now is delay tariff pricing for as long as possible.
Tariff-Related Car Cost Estimates Range From $2,000-$15,000
“Shipping ports are empty across the United States. Nothing is coming in. Businesses have cancelled the remainder of their 2025 orders.”
(h/t FreightWaves)
— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) May 2, 2025 at 5:56 AM
There’s an article in the Detroit Free Press this morning that puts the range of cost increases related to tariffs at anywhere from $2,000 to $15,000, which is quite the distance:
Anderson Economic Group started analyzing the costs of tariffs imposed on a variety of vehicles sold in the United States as soon as Trump signed his latest executive orders on auto tariffs, Patrick Anderson, CEO of the consulting firm, told the Detroit Free Press.
The firm’s new estimates include the changes Trump made on April 29 intended to provide some relief to automakers who assemble vehicles in the United States but use foreign parts in them. The order provides a small break on tariffs for two years to allow automakers time to re-source parts from domestic suppliers.
“The adjustments provide significant and beneficial softening of the cost impact of these tariffs, at least for US-assembled vehicles,” said Anderson, who is the lead author of this study. “However, the cost is still substantial for most American cars and trucks.”
In these situations, it’s often the suppliers who get squeezed to keep costs down. Unfortunately, these particular tariffs might cause suppliers more issues than anyone else. It’s possible that automakers try to avoid upsetting the president and don’t raise prices in the near term. Can that last forever? I don’t think so.
I am an armchair economist at best, and I’ve never worked in government, just politics. It’s much easier to work in politics because you can just make promises and leave it to someone else to try and fulfill them. The actual governing is much harder. This is all to say, I don’t know what will happen.
The current environment worries me. Our economy has proven to be enormously robust and, if a bunch of trade deals are made, I think we might be alright. Non-governmental employers seem to have learned the lesson of the past when it comes to shedding employees too early, so employment numbers haven’t retreated yet.
I just don’t know how long we have. No one knows how long we have. If something isn’t fixed, and soon, I fear we’ll see a cascading effect of layoffs and cutbacks tied to key areas of employment. Specifically, I worry about trucking, warehouse/logistics, shipping, and tourism. If a recession comes, and I hope it doesn’t, we might end up calling it the “truckers recession.”
Ok, enough doom-posting.
What To Do About Elon Musk
Oh, great, Tesla CEO Elon Musk. No one ever gets worked up about that guy.
When a company has a”Key Man Risk” it usually means the person who runs the company is so essential to the underlying value that losing him (or her) is possibly existential. There’s a weird inverse risk with Elon Musk in that, by making his personality and actions so controversial, there’s a secondary risk within the company of his sticking around.
Somehow it works for Musk, or as our buddy Patrick George put it in The Atlantic:
It’s a rare thing to shoot yourself in the foot and win a marathon. For years, Elon Musk has managed to do something like that with Tesla, achieving monumental success in spite of a series of self-inflicted disasters. There was the time he heavily promoted the company’s automated factory, only to later admit that its “crazy, complex network of conveyor belts” had thrown production of the Model 3 off track; and the time a tweet led him to be sued for fraud by the Securities and Exchange Commission; and the time he said that the Tesla team had “dug our own grave” with the massively delayed and overhyped Cybertruck. Tesla is nonetheless the most valuable car company in the world by a wide margin.
The title of that piece is “Tesla’s Remarkably Bad Quarter Is Even Worse Than It Looks” and the general view is that his luck is finally running out. I’m not so sure, but there was a big piece in The Wall Street Journal yesterday indicating that the Tesla Board of Directors–heavily populated by Musk’s family and friends–at least had the conversation about finding a replacement for him if he kept up his many sidequests.
Musk denied it, but I’m less interested in whether or not it’s true. If it leaks to the press and is reported by someone like the WSJ then there’s enough credibility from the source that it could be true. Who is that source? As with the RJ Scaringe drama lately, when you see an article like this in the press, it’s usually because someone wanted it to be in print.
As always, the question is: Who? I’m sure Musk is trying to figure that out if he doesn’t already know.
It’s Charger Daytona Vs. Ioniq 5 N In One Lap This Year
One Lap of America is one of those events I eventually have to do, combining a road trip across the country with a bunch of different kinds of automotive tests at different facilities. This year’s event will have multiple EVs, including a Dodge Charger Daytona from Stellantis and an Ioniq 5 N from Hyundai in the Alternative Fuels class.
Here’s how Hyundai, which is also providing support vehicles, describes it:
Created by the late legendary automotive journalist Brock Yates, One Lap is widely regarded as the toughest street-legal car challenge in North America, a true endurance test of participants and their machines. Amateur and professional drivers alike compete in stock and heavily modified vehicles of every description, battling it out in a series of scored challenges, including timed events at road courses, drag strips, skid pads, and autocross courses. In between tracks, competitors safely travel thousands of miles around the country, proving the mettle and durability of the vehicles and the teams that drive them. The event’s route and tracks change every year. This year, 86 teams from all over the country will compete in 17 scored events over the course of eight days. Tracks include Virginia International Raceway and NCM Motorsports Park.
“One Lap of America has a hard-earned reputation as the country’s most grueling street-legal motorsport competition for drivers and their cars. But it’s not only demanding for competitors, it’s also a singular test for our event staff and support vehicles,” said event organizer Brock Yates Jr. “Safely logging thousands of miles in between long days timing and scoring events requires vehicles that have the right mix of space, comfort, reliability, and intuitive tech. These Hyundai SUVs aren’t just welcome, they are essential.”
If anyone is going this year, let us know in the comments.
What I’m Listening To While Writing TMD
I just got turned on to the great Augustus Pablo, so please enjoy “King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown” and jam your way straight into the weekend.
The Big Question
What would you take on One Lap of America, understanding it has to be both tracked and road-tripped?
Lead photo: Depositphotos.com/Platinum CDRJ
I definitely feel like replacing Elon Musk was a rumor the board put out simply to gauge what the market reaction to that type of news would be since it is widely believed Musk leaving would crash the stock.
America’s Freedom Of Choice, Now With Less Choice, Which Is Actually Better
“You have the right . . . to free speech . . .
But you’re not actually dumb enough to try it.”
-“Know your Rights,” The Clash
“War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.”
-“1984,” George Orwell
“Freedom of choice is what you’ve got.
Freedom from choice is what you want.”
Devo, “Freedom of Choice”
What To Do About Elon Musk
Send him to the nunnery. Oh sorry. That’s Maria. But that movie had Nazis so that’s how Elon came to mind.
Why though? You’re dumping all of your pre-tariff stock for very little profit, and you’re eventually going to be left with a bunch of post-tariff stock that’s crazy expensive and also won’t be able to sell for much profit, especially since you’ve already saturated your target market with your heavily discounted vehicles.
I can see chasing market share if you’re looking to benefit from economies of scale going forward, but all signs point to more massive shortages of products in the next few months, so you’d be much better off holding on to what you have so you can sell it for massive profit when no one else has anything available. That’s exactly what they did during the COVID-19 supply chain issues, so why not do the same during the TRUMP-25 supply chain issues?
Tesla is between a rock and a hard place. Musk going full-on fascist means he is a liability that limits any real growth. On the other side, Tesla’s value is 99% a bubble that was inflated by Musk’s ability to produce massive amounts of hot air.
Take away Musk, and Tesla could become a real company. However, their stock price would then also reflect that of a real car company. One company has shown no ability to produce new products that would allow it to maintain its position in an ever more competitive market. Especially when the Orange SA enthusiast Musk funded pulls all of their carbon offset income and the subsidies that are vital to selling their products.
Now if I had posted this here as intended rather than the article on the Singer..
Take away all the EPA derived credits and EV incentives and the value would have never gotten where it is. Not hating the player as much as the game in this case. Just sucks that this turd of a human managed to play it so well. Hollywood should be ashamed for propping him up so long.
Everyone should be ashamed for propping him up and excusing his behavior. It was clear from the beginning that he was a fraud, and he has clearly been a sociopath supporting right-wing extremism for many years. But the shallow, faux-libertarian tech bro veneer is attractive in financial circles because it supports the infinite growth, oligarchy fantasy they share.
I wouldn’t even give Musk credit for playing the game well. The system is set up to create monsters like Musk and Trump; the odds mean they were going to happen eventually.
CT5-V Blackwing. Perfect car for the trip, imo.
First thing that popped into my head as well.
I would very much like to drive and perhaps own the last of the manual trans black wings. I like the DFM delete in the manual, but still kind of worried the truck 6.2 issues wont spill over to these.
Cadillac runs their own engines exclusively in that series and doesn’t share them across other GM brands, from what I remember.
Looked up the Chrysler dealer down the street. $21k off a Daytona (it is still $61k).
Still got 2024 Wagoneers rotting on the lot despite $17k on the hood.
I just realized I’ve yet to see a Wagoneer S on the road anywhere. $18k off those by the way.
And yes, I’d love to do One Lap if I ever had the resources for a proper car and the ability to just go off and drive cars for fun.
Those discounts are only just bringing the prices down to what they should’ve been from the get-go, pre-haggling or anything. It’s still a terrible deal.
They are also mostly ad fodder. You have to do a lot of shucking and jiving and qualifying for loads of different things to get anywhere near that number once you actually step foot in a Stealership. I had one actually say, hey where do we need to be on price to make a deal, and I simply said, let’s start with writing the price up to match the advertised price on the screen. He had the gall to say, hey we have to make some money on the deal….and I said that I had to make a quick call to the BBB for false advertising….then he said it was an online price, so I suggested he stop the deal now, and even though it did not say what he claimed, I would happily go on my phone and start the deal. Might bypass him, but he managed to get the price to what was advertised.
If, for some unknown and inexplicable reason you desperately want to buy any Stellantis product, literally just pick from the thousands of gently used examples that dealers would do anything to get rid of.
Thanks to their insane depreciation you’ll get an even better deal than a new one with all the incentives and you’ll enjoy the exact same nonexistent build and engineering quality.
Why do I have to click to “unlock the instant price”? Why did you not just show me the actual asking price? Oh right, because it won’t show any sort of pricing it will just take me to a ‘sign up for our spam and eventually get a non-answer from an inside sales rep at some point’ page.
“Come on in so I can waste your time and try to get you to talk monthly payments on a four square sheet”
I’ve thought about clicking the “Buy” button on Toyota “Smartpath” dealer sites a few times, just to see what happens. If I can actually buy the car depicted for the price that is listed on there, I’d be pleasantly shocked.
My guess is the car isn’t actually available, and the price is not reflecting the TruCoat that comes from the factory.
I’ve dealt with the same smart price dealer twice, it was as advertised… Sorta, until you get to extended warrantees, paint protection, service plans… Still beat the shit out of the other place I tried though.
Jerry Lundegaard: Yeah, but I’m saying that TruCoat. You don’t get it, you get oxidation problems. It’ll cost you a heck of a lot more than $500.
—————————————–
Jerry Lundegaard: See, they install that TruCoat at the factory. There’s nothing we can do about that.
[Customer ready to shout]
Jerry Lundegaard: but I’ll talk to my boss.
Irate Customer: These guys here. These guys. It’s always the same! It’s always more!
Most of the manufacturers actually won’t let dealers advertise below a certain price before a customer submits their info, the idea being it makes it fairer for the customer.
It is all a game (and it is dependent on the dealer personnel being trained to do the job and not just fire off a templated “Thank you for your interest in the! What time would you like to test drive?”) but the OEMs are complicit in it too.
We won’t tell you what it costs until you give us your info… and that’s ‘fairer for the customer’?
Well, the manufacturers aren’t really thinking in the sense of what it costs for the end customer, they already suggested their price in the MSRP and from there it’s on the dealer to get it sold. This is a few years old but a decent recap of why you’re not just going to see an actual ‘best price’ online. Part of the idea is it should help avoid bait-and-switching since you can’t advertise a lowball price that you can’t actually get when you get there, not without careful disclosure. Similarly, the form submissions mean in theory you’re an engaged prospective customer, much like if you walk on the lot and ask what’s the best price.
David Carr will be piloting the Charger and Andy Hollis in the Ionic N. I worked with David at FCA in vehicle dynamics and he’s very quick! Andy is a multi-time SCCA Solo champion and has been in the hunt for overall wins in the past. They will actually make for an exciting face off in the alternative fuel class.
I’ve run 4x before. 2010 in a turbo E30 (4th overall), 2015 in a turbo FR-S (DNF), 2019 in a 1M (7th overall), and 2021 in a GT500 (6th overall). Its a really fun and exciting event!
I just checked on F150 pricing, a 4X4 crew cab 2.7L in XLT trim is still 50K+ even with employee pricing. I cannot imagine making that kind of financial commitment while our economy is in the process of imploding.
While I will NEVER own another Chrysler product again, that orange and white Daytona is scratching me where I itch.
Add a nose cone and big wing.
who leaked the Musk rumor? probably Musk himself. now he gets more press denying the rumor and bashing WSJ. Plus the stock gets a bit of a bump.
Voting him out would be the worst thing to do. He still would have all his stock and the price jumps back up. it’s a win/win for him.
Let him go down with the ship.
I like your thought process, but the concept of fiduciary duty dictates they at least look into it.
They probably won’t pull the trigger on it (though they should) because let’s face it, they really haven’t been operating in the stock holders’ best interest for quite a while now anyway (a $56 billion dollar pay package? Really???).
Supporting 14 kids with frickin’ crazy names is expensive as hell.
Yeah, you know childcare really is expensive when even Elon has to lug that one kid all around the white house…You pay for daycare for the first dozen, the 13th gets the baker’s dozen discount, but the 14th…Hey, wanna some and see Daddy pretend he’s working…again?
The stock price will absolutely tank if he’s gone, which is why they’ve put up with his nonsense as long as they have. Tesla isn’t priced as a car company, they’re priced as a tech company that is going to come up with some sort of magical breakthrough that will change all our lives. If the guy everyone is counting on to come up with that breakthrough is gone then they’re just a car company and will have to be priced accordingly.
I’m not saying anything I just wrote makes any sense, but that’s the corner the board finds themselves backed into. I’m sure it couldn’t happen to a nicer group of people. 😉
This is why the company should be fully allowed to fail. I just wish someone would use their wealth(amazon) to build a better charging network. I hate the idea of unregulated pricing on those things being almost fully in the hands of Elon in any way.
Where does Amazon charge all those electric delivery vans?
I’m here for the pancakes. The picture promised pancakes. Are there no pancakes?
You’ll get nothing and like it!
Love that movie. Ted Knight was a gem.
YES CHEF!
There are no pancakes. The pancakes are a lie.
On the next episode of Is It Cake!
James Murdoch is on the Tesla BOD. Daddy Rupert owns the WSJ. Jus’ sayin’.
For One Lap, a blown jellybean Roadmaster wagon on bags. Slam it for the track, jack the rear for the drags. Lots of room for tires and parts. Plus it can tow its own trailer. Use a lot of off the shelf 9C1 parts or their modern equivalent.
I recently saw almost the exact car you described here, except it had scissor doors. No pix, sadly.
Gullwing doors on a slammed one would be awesome.
I saw a clean, white Roadmaster jellybean wagon for sale the other day while walking my dog. I thought about it all day, but it was gone the following day.
Does the one lap have any unpaved portions or track days on dirt? That would add some fun.
They have in the past, but not this year. Seeing a Lamborghini Diablo sliding on a dirt oval is something I’ll never forget.
On a happy Friday note, if you want some chuckles, go look up The Weiner Circle clips with Jack McBrayer and Triumph the dog.
Smigel, McBrayer, and Conan are true national treasures, all of them. Especially at the same time.
Triumph makes me laugh every time. (+1)
I’d be happy taking my own car to One Lap of America, because I’ve road tripped and tracked it and it does fairly well at both outside of riding a bit rough. But in an ideal world I feel like I’d go for a BMW M8. It’s powerful, track capable, and very comfortable. Bimmer diehards criticize it for not being unhinged enough to be a true M car, but in this case I feel like that would be a benefit since you’re living with it for thousands of miles.
A GT spec 911 or Turbo/Turbo S would work too…and while those German reliability gremlins would worm their way in sooner or later I feel like it wouldn’t be until much further down the line. If the Car Wizard is to be believed a lot of those inevitable issues are as much age related as they are mileage related.
Anyway the rumor about trying to oust Musk as CEO has always been that most of the Tesla board has done hard drugs with him and that he’s kept evidence of it as collateral…kind of like Keith Raniere of Nxivm infamy. That being said, with that fresh in our minds now it’s not hard to imagine that that’s the least of those freaks’ worries…especially with Musk’s Epstein connections.
So I guess we’ll see…but I certainly wouldn’t put money on him being gone anytime soon. I think he’s going to take the ship down with him because he’d rather do that than admit he was wrong about something.
There’s something to be said about not hating your life for the ~3500 road miles. The recipie for success is BIG power, AWD, and approachable limits. A Turbo S is a solid choice.
I was initially going to say an LC500 but you can’t really track those because they don’t have adequate cooling
“Truckers” Recession misses things by a few letters.
Yup
Employee pricing? I thought the 13th Amendment outlawed this kind of stuff.
We have convicted these employees of aiding and abetting Stellantis.
Well then, hangin’s too good for ‘em!
Even employee pricing is overpriced for Chrysler shit LOL
Nice take on the Musk Conundrum (or Musk Paradox….trying to guess what Harvard Business Review will label this in 15 years when we’re all doing a post mortem. On the companies, that is. Musk himself will life forever in a jar next to Walt Disney.)
Most normal people live in a feedback loop. One that often leads to a lot of anxiety, probably more than ever before. But if you add just a sprinkle of intense genius, plus a few neurodivergent traits, and surround yourself with sycophants and money…that loop is basically gone. Everything he does is both great at horrible at the same time. It’s like a Schrodinger Cat of benevolence and malevolence. Neither he, nor most of the people around him, can determine which is which because they’re all perfectly blended.
We ran a Lemons race and our livery was a fictional company called “Conundrum…The Drum Set You Can’t Figure Out”. I thought is was funny and clever, seems the public just thought it was stupid.
The public is dumb.
I like dry humor and dad jokes, so this is aces.
Our other one was “Simpottyco,… the toilet that gets you”
yeah but have you seen the public recently?
It’s so optimistic of you to assume that the debrief of these times will be in any kind of published form and not just consist of chitchat around the fire after a hard day of scavenging canned goods and hunting and/or staving off rats.
I want to take something weird. If Aptera would let me take their vehicle, I would go for that. Ideally, I want to do it with something that has zero business being a road trip vehicle or track vehicle and see how I do. Maybe a Polaris Slingshot, no roof. Just make sure I really feel unprepared for a large portion of the event.
Ariel Atoms have competed. Drivers and co-drives suffered on the transits, as expected. Also, very little room for stuff and you’re not allowed a support vehicle.
I didn’t realize Ariel Atoms had competed. Good on those drivers for giving it a go despite all that. And I figure I am not going to be competitive with whatever I drive, so I may as well do something weird.
Alternative to my previous idea: cargo van. It misses the mark on my goal of something ill-suited to all aspects, but it is particularly ill-suited to the track.
This is always the rub. Nothing I want is ever included in these promotions.
Whoa. I had been assuming your eyes were front-facing. What sort of aerial predators did you evolve to watch out for?