After Trump won the US election, his constant threat of high tariffs has been causing difficulties for many automotive giants: high tariffs will undoubtedly impact the global automotive supply chain, leading to rising costs and declining consumer demand for car companies, while also putting pressure on many car companies to transfer their production chains to the United States.
However, facing the threat of Trump's tariffs, one European car company has no pressure - Ferrari.
Is Ferrari an exception?
In order to increase US revenue, Trump had previously promised to impose 10% or 20% tariffs on all goods entering the US, which has raised concerns among many European car companies.
But according to Rella Suskin, a stock analyst at Morningstar, even if the United States imposes tariffs of up to 30% on all goods imported from Europe, it may not affect Ferrari customers' willingness to purchase, let alone force Ferrari to transfer its production lines to the United States.
Ferrari is an exception. No matter what the tariffs are, they will not start production in the United States. Everything (production activities) will be carried out in Maranello, Italy, "said Saskin of Morningstar." Ferrari's situation is that even if the tariffs are 10%, 20%, or 30%, considering their target customers and cars are already expensive, they may easily pass on the cost of tariffs to consumers... This is absurd, but the fact is that
Tom Narayan, a global automotive analyst at Royal Bank of Canada Capital Markets, also agrees with this view, stating that even if Trump fulfills his promise to raise tariffs, Ferrari does seem to be able to easily shift the burden of price increases onto consumers.
Thomas Besson, head of automotive industry research at Kepler Chevreux, said that most analysts and investors believe that this Italian automaker is unique among its European counterparts in this regard, "time will prove everything, but it is likely to be right
Ferrari's stock price has shown strong momentum this year, outperforming many competitors in the European market. Since the beginning of this year, Ferrari's stock price has risen by 34%, significantly higher than Renault in France or Mercedes Benz Group in Germany.
Odo BHF automotive analyst Anthony Dick also said, "We don't expect Ferrari to establish a production base in the United States... for brand reasons, but there are also (possibly more importantly) industry reasons, as this will require the group to establish a supply base locally, which we believe is not feasible
Dick said, "At this stage, it is not clear how tariffs will affect demand, but one can reasonably assume that Ferrari's customers are less sensitive to prices than most customers." He pointed out that Ferrari's other luxury car competitors will also face similar tariff treatment.
Porsche is not so lucky
Like Ferrari exclusively producing cars in Italy, Volkswagen's Porsche traditionally produces luxury models in Germany. But in the eyes of analysts, Porsche, another luxury car brand, is not as lucky as Ferrari when facing tariff pressure.
Kepler Cheeuvreux's Besson said that Trump's plan to impose tariffs could pose a "bigger obstacle" for German Porsche.
Porsche is a bit different, "said Saskin from Morningstar." They can pass on a 10% tariff to consumers, but higher (tariffs), such as 30%, may be more difficult to pass on to consumers
They can leverage their parent company Volkswagen, which does have some idle production capacity in the United States, but they need to invest a considerable amount of capital expenditure to create a production line specifically for Porsche