$5,000 in tariff costs added on a $25,000 car

Volkswagen will list "added import fee" on vehicle price stickers to reflect tariff cost

From CNN's Chris Isidore

Volkswagen has told its US dealers that cars it imports from Europe and Mexico will now break out the cost of the 25% tariffs imposed this week on the stickers that consumers look at when shopping for a car.

While Volkswagen does make the electric ID.4 and the gasoline powered Atlas and Atlas Cross Sport for the US market at a plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which together made up about a third of its US sales last year. But other models will be hit with the tariffs on imported vehicles that went into effect early Thursday. It imports the Volkswagen Jetta, Taos and Tiguan from a plant in Mexico, and other models from Germany.

“We have our dealers’ and customers’ best interests at heart, and once we have quantified the impact on the business we will share our strategy with our dealers,” a VW spokesperson said in a statement. The “extra import fee” plans were first reported by Automotive News.

Keep in mind: VW’s US dealers have a 50- to 60-day supply of new-vehicle inventory, and those vehicles, and those already in the United States and in transit to dealers, will not be hit with the 25% tariff, and thus will not have the fee added to its sticker price.

The tariffs could add thousands of dollars to the cost of all imported vehicles. For example the Taos small SUV has a manufacturer’s suggested list price of about $25,000. Tariffs can be somewhat lowered by the value of the American parts used to build a vehicle in Canada and Mexico but the Taos has only about 15% US content, according to US government data. So the Taos could be hit with about $5,000 in tariff costs.

The situation remains fluid, but VW told Automotive News that the tariffs have caused anxiety among dealers and consumers.