Automotive Toll Yokai spurs several car buyers to buy and buy

Ziggy Duchnowski went on a Saturday morning car shopping along Northern Boulevard in Queens with two goals in mind.

He wanted to find a new small car for his wife, so he wanted to make a deal before the new tariffs were imposed on imported cars, which Trump wanted to affect prices.

“The words on the streets are price now, they're going to shoot,” said Duchnowski, 45, a union carpenter who voted for Trump while holding the hands of two small children.

The 25% tariff on vehicles and parts produced outside the US will have a broad impact on the North American automotive industry. They should come into effect on April 3rd, and will certainly raise prices for new cars and trucks.

It also forces automakers to scramble to coordinate their North American manufacturing operations and find ways to reduce costs to offset tariffs. For at least for now, they're spurring some consumers to buy vehicles before sticker prices rise.

Analysts estimate that tariffs will significantly increase the prices of new vehicles, adding thousands of dollars for entry-level models to more than $10,000 for high-end cars and trucks. The higher the price of a new vehicle, the higher the price of a used vehicle.

All automakers will feel some kind of impact. General Motors builds a large number of highly profitable pickup trucks and sports utility vehicles in Canada and Mexico. Toyota and Honda will make popular SUVs in Canada. Volkswagen is building Jetta sedans, Tiguan SUVs and other popular models in Mexico.

“When tariffs come into effect and people start receiving citations representing these 25% increases, it starts sinking,” said Bill Pacilli, sales manager at Lynnes Hyundai in Bloomfield, New Jersey.

He said nearly half of the cars Hyundai sells in the US are imported from South Korea. “They'll be hit by tariffs in about a month or two,” Pachili said. “Of course, we're worried. The impact of pricing will affect sales volume.”

Alvaro Duarte, an Ecuadorian immigrant who lives in West New York, New Jersey, went to Hudson Toyota in Jersey City, New Jersey on Saturday to replace the electric model with an electric vehicle, fearing prices would rise if they waited.

“Taxes affect everyone,” said Duarte, 37. In his free time, he said he often uses his car to make money as a flex delivery driver for Amazon. “If prices go up, I have to pay more for my car, which is more expensive for me and my family,” he said. “Electric vehicles don't have gasoline and have low maintenance, so I made a change.”

Meanwhile, Abdul Azez, a salesman at Audi Manhattan in New York, said traffic is less painful than usual, suggesting that it is because people living in the neighborhood usually have the means to buy a new car with every choice.

“Overall, I don't think Manhattan dealers will be affected compared to dealers in other states or less busy cities, because in good and even bad economies, there will always be people walking through the doors to buy a car,” Azeez said.

In Ann Arbor, Michigan, customer traffic was fairly normal on Saturday, the last weekend of the month, on a strip of car dealerships west of downtown Jackson Avenue. It was usually a busy time.

However, Tesla's showrooms gathered the crowd. Approximately 300-400 people gathered to protest the political activities of the company's CEO Elon Musk.

Musk leads a cost-cutting initiative known as the Government's Efficiency Bureau, which eliminated thousands of federal jobs and hampered several government agencies, including the Veterans Affairs Bureau and the Department of Education.

Protesters had signs calling for Musk to be fired, urging people to sell Tesla.

“We need to regain basic common sense in this country,” said Harold Blake, 73, a retired man who ran 30 miles from Dearborn to join the protest.

“It's so extreme, what's going on in Washington,” he said. “I haven't lying down on it.”

For an hour, no customers crossed the picket line to enter the Tesla showroom.

Protests were being held in Tesla locations around the world as part of the so-called Tesla takedown movement. Such demonstrations were scheduled for the entire US on Saturday. Others were planned in Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

“I'm scared of what this world is doing to my children and grandchildren,” 67-year-old Kathy Shinne protested outside the Tesla showroom in Miami, saying she had a poster that read, “I'm not careful of Tesla greed.”

It remains unclear how quickly the prices for new vehicles will rise. Most automakers last between 60-90 days with cars and trucks that do not have enough tariffs for dealer lots.

Juan Carlos Fagerlund decided not to wait. He was at a Toyota dealership in North Miami, Florida, and added window tints to the Prius he purchased this month.

He was already thinking about buying a new car, but the possibility of a higher priced urged him to speed up his shopping because he wanted a Prius. The car is made in Japan and is subject to heavy customs duties.

The increase in tariffs is “not the reason we bought them in March,” Fergarund said. “But it definitely was in our hearts.”

Adria Pina, 60, a Dominican immigrant and a New Jersey transit bus driver who lives in Bayonne, New Jersey, has also decided to move quickly. Sitting at a Hudson Toyota dealer in Jersey City minutes after she bought her new car, she said she felt she had just dodged the tariff hole.

“My husband said he felt lucky to have received the transaction just before the duties,” Pina said. “If you don't do this in time, it costs around $10,000. That's a lot of money.”

Salcellors, 57, general sales manager at next door Hudson Nissan, appears not to be overly concerned about the looming tariffs, noting that he has been experiencing the pandemic and other serious economic downturns. But that didn't mean his clients weren't worried.

“Last week we were walking to several customers saying, 'What do you know, I'm not waiting. I'm going to replace my car now before the tariffs get hit,” Sellers said. “I think about 30% of our customers said that.”

Outside of Chicago, Enzo Costa oversees eight dealers as sales director for the family-run Patrick dealer group.

In March, he increased orders for new cars to close stock before prices rose, and his acquisition team bought 30 second-hand cars.

But so far, he has not seen a surge in customer traffic. “On a normal Saturday, we set a schedule of 80 to 100,” he said. “Today we have 75.”

He added that his sales team is urging customers to come to the showroom with their new cars. “All inventory is before customs duties,” he said. “Now you don't have to worry about that. It's something you're heading down the road.”

At Queen's Silverline Auto Group, which sells second-hand Jeep, Cadillac and Mercedes, many of their customers are immigrants or other people who have driver's licenses but don't have a Social Security number. In December, Silver Line sold 35 cars, but the business has been crashing ever since, said salesman Silver Bautista. The company sold just eight cars this month and recently fired four employees.

Bautista said he believes the customers stayed not because of rising prices but because they felt the need to save money.

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

Robert Chiarito, Ryan Hooper, Veronica Zaragobia, Anusha Baiya and Nate Schweber contributed the report.