Trump’s new auto tariffs will likely drive up car prices by thousands of dollars

President Donald Trump’s steep new tariffs on imported cars will likely jack up prices for U.S. buyers of both foreign and locally made vehicles, according to Wall Street analysts.

Trump on Wednesday said he will slap 25% tariffs on imported passenger vehicles and light trucks, as well as on key auto parts including engines, transmissions and powertrain components.

Prices that consumers pay on the lot could increase by $4,000 to $15,000 per vehicle, depending on how much of the car is imported, according to several analysts’ estimates.

The tariffs will kick in at midnight on April 3, and Trump has said they will be “permanent.”

There are some caveats: Importers of cars covered by the North American trade deal known as the USMCA will only face the tariff for the “non-U.S. content” of their vehicles. And those USMCA-compliant auto parts will be tariff-free until the Trump administration creates a process to apply the piecemeal tariffs.

While Trump’s tariff agenda has been a wellspring of uncertainty for Wall Street, many analysts were quick to warn that his latest step could have major impacts to the auto industry.

They scrambled Thursday to get investor clients estimates of that exact impact.

Trump’s move “represents a profound disruption to the global automotive model,” wrote Bernstein analyst Daniel Roeska, estimating an unmitigated sector-wide tariff impact of about $6,700 per vehicle.

Loop Capital’s Rick Paterson warned consumers should brace for “sticker shock” as imported vehicle prices increase up to 25%, and even some local manufacturers raise prices “under that higher umbrella.”

Guggenheim’s Ronald Jewsikow estimated vehicle cost increases between $6,000 and $7,000 per unit, adding that “actual price increases to the consumer needed to offset the tariff are likely higher.”

Goldman analyst Mark Delaney believes a 25% tariff on imported cars could raise the price by $5,000 to as much as $15,000. Locally made vehicles would see their prices increase as well because of parts tariffs raising costs to make the vehicle by up to $8,000, he said.

Bank of America sees an increase of at least $4,500 per vehicle.

Analysts see disproportionate impacts on different carmakers. Bernstein’s Roeska and Dan Levy of Barclays both singled out Elon Musk’s Tesla as being the most insulated from the potential harm of the tariffs, due to its domestic production.

Musk is Trump’s largest campaign donor and has taken a major role in his administration as the head of the government-downsizing initiative DOGE. As Tesla’s stock has sunk by double digits so far this year, Trump and others in his administration have openly praised the carmaker.

Musk said Wednesday night that Tesla is not entirely shielded from the new tariffs.

“To be clear, this will affect the price of parts in Tesla cars that come from other countries,” he wrote on X. “The cost impact is not trivial.”