Bentley warns its car sales to US still frozen amid tariff cut confusion
The British luxury carmaker Bentley has said sales to the US remain frozen as customers wait for lower tariffs from the UK’s trade deal – with no sign yet of when the rates will start.The UK last week agreed a 10% tariff on 100,000 car exports to the US as part of a limited trade deal with Donald Trump.That would be significantly below the 25% extra levy imposed by the US on the rest of the world, but neither government has yet detailed how the deal will work in practice.Frank-Steffen Walliser, Bentley’s chief executive, said the wait for lower tariffs was “super-harming the business at the moment – nobody is moving”.Manufacturers still have no idea when the lower tariffs will be implemented or how the 100,000 cars allowed into the US at the lower tariff will be shared out among UK carmakers.
British manufacturers exported about 102,000 cars to the US in 2024.Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), Britain’s biggest automotive employer, said on Tuesday it needed to find out if UK car parts would be subject to the lower tariffs and warned it lacked detail on complex rules of origin, which determine how cars qualify as British.“The worst thing what can happen to a running business is the announcement of lower tariff,” Bentley’s Walliser said on Tuesday, at an automotive conference run by the Financial Times.“[It] means all your customers say: ‘Oh, no worries, I don’t buy a car now.’”Bentley has kept prices steady since the tariffs were introduced, partly by rushing to ship more cars to the US before the levies kicked in, as well as running down existing stocks.
That strategy is running out of time.“We need the feedback within the next two, three weeks, to keep this going, Walliser said.Keir Starmer visited JLR last Thursday to announce the trade deal.Adrian Mardell, the carmaker’s chief executive, told Tuesday’s conference: “The scale and sudden application of US tariffs on the auto sector, affecting, of course, both cars and parts, had an immediate and significant financial impact.”JLR makes most of its models, including the Range Rover, in the UK.
It still faces the extra 25% tariff, plus the 2.5% pre-Trump levy, on its Defender model, which is made in Slovakia.The EU has not agreed a trade deal with the US.The company was one of the British manufacturers in line to be most affected by the tariffs before the trade accord was announced, and executives were considering steep job cuts to make up for declining sales.The UK’s ambassador to the US, Peter Mandelson, said the deal saved jobs at JLR that had been due to go within days.
Mardell said JLR had not planned “imminent” redundancies, and declined to say how many jobs might have been at risk without an agreement,Sign up to Business TodayGet set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morningafter newsletter promotionBefore the tariffs, the company had otherwise been in good financial health,JLR said on Tuesday it made profits of £2,5bn in the financial year to the end of March,That was up 15% year on year and the best profit before tax in a decade, excluding exceptional costs.
JLR went through a difficult period at the start of the decade, with a series of strategic missteps, including expanding too quickly in China,However, the first three months of 2025 represented the 10th quarter of profit in a row,Mardell said the US would be a growth market for JLR in the future, although he said the company had no plans to build cars in the US – the ultimate goal of Trump’s tariffs,Other carmakers with EU factories are still struggling with the levies,Lynn Calder, the chief executive of Ineos Automotive, expressed frustration at the lack of a trade deal between the EU and the US.
The chemicals conglomerate Ineos, owned by the billionaire Jim Ratcliffe, opted to build its Grenadier off-roader in France, meaning it is still liable for 27.5% tariffs on a key market.Calder said: “Where is Europe? I don’t know.Europe is as uncompetitive in every industry than it has ever been in my lifetime.”
No smartphone means no cheap bus fares for teens | Brief letters
I am delighted about the campaign to reduce smartphone usage among under-14s (‘The crux of all evil’: what happened to the first city that tried to ban smartphones for under-14s?, 7 May) but in West Yorkshire, where I work, we have run up against structural issues that make this impossible. The cheapest young person’s bus fares are only available via an app, which requires a smartphone. You can buy a monthly bus pass on a smartcard, but only in person and at limited locations. If your child needs a smartphone to get the bus to school, any hopes of not buying them one fall at the first hurdle. Phil SageSkipton, North Yorkshire Regarding children’s appetites increasing after watching junk food ads (11 May), I wonder if there is a similar effect when Saturday Guardian readers look at the Feast supplement
Australia has been hesitant – but could robots soon be delivering your pizza?
Robots zipping down footpaths may sound futuristic, but they are increasingly being put to work making deliveries around the world – though a legal minefield and cautious approach to new tech means they are largely absent in Australia.Retail and food businesses have been using robots for a variety of reasons, with hazard detection robots popping up in certain Woolworths stores and virtual waiters taking dishes from kitchens in understaffed restaurants to hungry diners in recent years.Overseas, in jurisdictions such as California, robots are far more visible in everyday life. Following on from the first wave of self-driving car trials in cities such as San Francisco, humans now also share footpaths with robots.Likened to lockers on wheels, companies including Serve Robotics and Coco have partnered with Uber Eats and Doordash, which have armies of robots travelling along footpaths in Los Angeles delivering takeaway meals and groceries
AI firms warned to calculate threat of super intelligence or risk it escaping human control
Artificial intelligence companies have been urged to replicate the safety calculations that underpinned Robert Oppenheimer’s first nuclear test before they release all-powerful systems. Max Tegmark, a leading voice in AI safety, said he had carried out calculations akin to those of the US physicist Arthur Compton before the Trinity test and had found a 90% probability that a highly advanced AI would pose an existential threat. The US government went ahead with Trinity in 1945, after being reassured there was a vanishingly small chance of an atomic bomb igniting the atmosphere and endangering humanity.In a paper published by Tegmark and three of his students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), they recommend calculating the “Compton constant” – defined in the paper as the probability that an all-powerful AI escapes human control. In a 1959 interview with the US writer Pearl Buck, Compton said he had approved the test after calculating the odds of a runaway fusion reaction to be “slightly less” than one in three million
Paul McCartney and Dua Lipa among artists urging Starmer to rethink AI copyright plans
Hundreds of leading figures and organisations in the UK’s creative industries, including Coldplay, Paul McCartney, Dua Lipa, Ian McKellen and the Royal Shakespeare Company, have urged the prime minister to protect artists’ copyright and not “give our work away” at the behest of big tech.In an open letter to Keir Starmer, a host of major artists claim creatives’ livelihoods are under threat as wrangling continues over a government plan to let artificial intelligence companies use copyright-protected work without permission.Describing copyright as the “lifeblood” of their professions, the letter warns Starmer that the proposed legal change will threaten Britain’s status as a leading creative power.“We will lose an immense growth opportunity if we give our work away at the behest of a handful of powerful overseas tech companies and with it our future income, the UK’s position as a creative powerhouse, and any hope that the technology of daily life will embody the values and laws of the United Kingdom,” the letter says.The letter urges the government to accept an amendment to the data bill proposed by Beeban Kidron, the cross-bench peer and leading campaigner against the copyright proposals
‘Tone deaf’: US tech company responsible for global IT outage to cut jobs and use AI
The cybersecurity company that became a household name after causing a massive global IT outage last year has announced it will cut 5% of its workforce in part due to “AI efficiency”.In a note to staff earlier this week, released in stock market filings in the US, CrowdStrike’s chief executive, George Kurtz, announced that 500 positions, or 5% of its workforce, would be cut globally, citing AI efficiencies created in the business.“We’re operating in a market and technology inflection point, with AI reshaping every industry, accelerating threats, and evolving customer needs,” he said.Kurtz said AI “flattens our hiring curve, and helps us innovate from idea to product faster”, adding it “drives efficiencies across both the front and back office”.“AI is a force multiplier throughout the business,” he said
Leave them hanging on the telephone | Brief letters
Regarding dealing with cold callers (Adrian Chiles, 7 May), it’s irritating I know, but if you don’t mind your phone being inaccessible for a few minutes, why not say: “Hang on, I’ll go and get him/her”, and then leave your phone until the caller rings off? At least you will have wasted some of their day.Robert WalkerPerrancoombe, Cornwall Re fostering a love of reading in children (Letters, 6 May), one of my fondest memories of my teaching career was story time in the infant class in a local village school. Most of the children came quite a distance on buses. They adored Michael Rosen’s poetry. There were many afternoons when it was home time and they would shout: “Please read another Michael Rosen one, Mrs Mansfield, the driver won’t mind waiting
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