Happy Wednesday! It’s September 10, 2025, and this is The Morning Shift — your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. This is where you’ll find the most important stories that are shaping the way Americans drive and get around.
In this morning’s edition, we’re looking at the distressed state of European automakers, as well as Americans’ preference for gasoline. We’ll also look at the Lexus ES’s reported replacement on Kentucky production lines, and Stellantis’ dreams of demand for the Pacifica, Voyager, and Charger.
1st Gear: European automakers are wary of their future
The global auto market is in a weird place right now. Everyone’s transitioning to new tech, China is becoming a global player, and the United States is becoming an increasingly protectionist market — not to mention an increasingly broke one. All this has left Europe in a bind, and it seems automakers are dreading the future. From Reuters:
Whisper it quietly, but beneath the buzz of shiny new car models and bright lights at Europe’s largest car show, the industry sector is worried that their party is over.
Prices and profits in key market China are in decline, demand is tepid in Europe and U.S. tariffs have created an uncertain outlook, putting the focus on cost-cutting as the global market is reshaped.
“The party we have been celebrating in the automotive industry for decades is over in its current form,” said Oliver Blume, CEO of both Volkswagen,
Europe’s biggest carmaker, and its luxury division Porsche AG.“Now it is about reorientation.”
We’re only seeing the very beginning of how tariffs will hit American citizens, so the next few years will be very interesting for automakers. Modern cars are already unaffordable for many, what happens when we all have to spend twice as much on groceries? Will it be worth sending cars to the U.S. at all?
2nd Gear: Americans don’t want to give up their gas
The state of EV infrastructure is ever-improving in the U.S., but it’s apparently still not good enough for the majority of buyers. Maybe it’s the car centric nature of our civilization, the sheer size of our manifest destiny sprawl, but you can pry gasoline out of America’s cold dead hands. From Automotive News:
Electric vehicle charging in the U.S. is improving, with more stations, higher power and greater reliability. Yet most Americans remain wedded to gasoline vehicles, unlike their European counterparts, who are more open to an electric future, a new study says.
The U.S. added 37,000 charging points — a 19 percent increase — and boosted average charger power 52 percent from June 2024 to June 2025, Here Technologies and SBD Automotive said Sept. 4. But for most U.S. buyers, combustion fuel remains king.
In a survey conducted as part of the report, 57 percent of U.S. consumers said they were most likely to choose a gasoline powertrain for their next vehicle, followed by 32 percent for hybrids and 10 percent for battery-electric. The remainder chose hydrogen.
Honestly, even one percent of American buyers sounds way too high for hydrogen. You’re telling me nearly 3.5 million people are interested in that? I don’t believe you.
3rd Gear: Toyota will build EV crossovers in the U.S.: Report
Yesterday, a report came out saying that Toyota was planning to discontinue Lexus ES production in the United States. I speculated that it would be to make room for more Toyotas, and what do you know? New reporting says we’ll build two new EV crossovers in Kentucky: One based on the RAV4, the other on the Land Cruiser. From Reuters:
Toyota Motor will start making two battery-powered sport utility vehicles at its U.S. Kentucky plant and will end production of a luxury Lexus brand model at the site, a person familiar with the matter said.
The electric vehicles the Japanese automaker plans to build in Kentucky will be based on the RAV4 and the Land Cruiser, according to the person, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak publicly.
…
The next-generation Lexus ES sedan, due next year, will be manufactured in Japan and exported to the U.S., the person said, adding the change is not related to U.S. import tariffs.
Saying this move is entirely unrelated to tariffs is unconvincing, since replacing a luxury-oriented sedan with likely lower-priced, more popular crossover offerings from the more budget brand is a smart tariff move. It’s likely a smart non-tariff move too, though, so this could have been in the works long before the trade war.
4th Gear: Stellantis still sees demand for Canadian cars
President Trump wants to bring auto manufacturing back to the U.S., regardless of whether that’s economically feasible for global companies to pull off. He’s shown particular ire towards Canada, which he thinks should be a U.S. state for some reason, but it seems Stellantis is undeterred. The company is doubling down on Canadian production, adding shifts at the factory that makes its minivans and Chargers. From Automotive News:
Stellantis’ assembly plant in Windsor, Ont., will be returning to three shifts from two in the first quarter of 2026.
“In anticipation of increased demand for the products built at the Windsor Assembly Plant … Stellantis confirms that it will be returning the plant to a three-shift operation in early 2026, honouring a commitment made during 2023 Unifor negotiations,” Lou Ann Gosselin, company spokeswoman, said in an email to Automotive News Canada Sept. 9.
The assembly site is the sole producer of Chrysler minivans and the Dodge Charger.
Unions add yet another wrench to automakers’ plans, since they can’t exactly change production between nations on a whim. Do we think Trump remembered unions exist when he decided to dive headlong into trade war?
Reverse: Typical Britain, stepping on our freedoms
Drunk driving wouldn’t even be illegal in the U.S. for another 13 years, because we have freedom here.
On The Radio: The Fontaines – Paul Newman
This song has been almost entirely scrubbed from the internet, but there are two studio sessions that remain on YouTube. It’s not even on the band’s Bandcamp any more, and the Internet Archive doesn’t have the page archived that far back. I swear a studio version of this song exists, because I have a rip of the original music video, but I wonder if anyone else out there has access to it. Does anyone need a full-time indie music archivist?
