Good morning! It’s Tuesday, October 21, 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, Volkswagen pauses ID Buzz production in Germany because not enough people want one, the enshittened Tesla Model Y and Model 3 Standard may hurt Tesla’s bottom line, GM took a huge hit in the third quarter and the Alfa Romeo Giulia and Stelvio are going to have to soldier on a little while longer.
1st Gear: ID Buzz production pause proves I’m never wrong
Volkswagen is pausing ID Buzz production for a few days thanks to slowing demand. As it turns out, there aren’t that many people who want to shell out between 60 and 70 grand for an electric minivan with far more style than substance. Admittedly, that style does go a long way.
Production of the ID Buzz and Multivan light commercial vehicle at VW’s factory in Hanover, Germany, was stopped on October 20, and it’ll remain that way through October 24. VW says the pause will allow it to “flexibly adapt production processes to changed market conditions.” You can read that as “not enough people are buying our $70,000 electric minivan with 230 miles of range and work van-like interior materials.” Okay, I know I’m being harsh. The ID Buzz does look fantastic, and it always has. From Automotive News:
“We expect intense competition in the markets to continue in the coming months and are working consistently with our sales partners to improve our market position,” the spokesperson said.
[…]
VW is reducing production capacity and headcount in Germany in response to rising costs, weakening European demand, and intensifying competition from Chinese automakers.
The automaker has been reducing production hours at German factories that build VW, Audi, and Cupra battery-electric cars amid slower-than-expected demand for EVs.
To help boost sales and demand, VW is apparently planning to step up its marketing efforts and create new incentives. The ID Buzz definitely needs some juice. In the third quarter of 2025, VW sold just 2,469 units — bringing its 2025 total to 4,934 sales. That is… not a lot.
People laughed at me for being a day one ID Buzz skeptic, but look who’s laughing now. The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward me.
2nd Gear: Crappier Tesla Model Y and 3 could squeeze profits
Tesla Model 3 and Model Y Standard were supposed to be the company’s cheap offerings, but they’re far from it — only knocking off about $5,000 from their regularly specced counterparts, yet their still-high price tags may not be enough to protect profit margins.
The Austin, Texas-based automaker made the cars cheaper by removing lots of standard features and giving them smaller batteries and motors. It’s a clear effort to boost sales at the expense of profit margins — getting more people around the globe in the driver’s seats of Tesla vehicles. From Reuters:
[They] partially offset the elimination of a federal tax credit in the United States. That credit ended in September, leading to a last-minute jump in U.S. sales that will be reflected in quarterly results. Analysts polled by Visible Alpha expect an 8.5% fall in deliveries for the year, an issue that Musk might address.
Analysts and investors have said the Standard variants are still too expensive. And Tesla is walking a careful line with many of the premium features as well as basic ones stripped out.
The smaller battery and the less powerful motor accounted for about 40% of the price cut, according to estimates from Sam Fiorani, vice president at research firm AutoForecast Solutions. Tesla avoided a deeper cut to the battery in order to offer a range of 321 miles (516.6 km) per full charge on both of the variants.
Over the past few years, Tesla’s gross margin from automotive sales has dropped as it slashed prices and offered incentives to keep rising competition and waning demand at bay. A rapidly aging lineup at CEO Elon Musk’s foray into far-right politics certainly hasn’t helped matters.
I suppose we’ll learn more about the true impact of the Model 3 Standard and Model Y Standard when Tesla reports its quarterly results on October 22, although the vehicles will have only been on sale for a short time at that point. They officially launched on Tesla’s website on October 8.
3rd Gear: GM’s net income plummets in Q3
General Motors’ net income dropped like a rock in the third quarter, falling 57% compared with the same time last year as profits struggled against electric vehicle production changes. It caused the automaker to lower its guidance for what it expects to make this year after taxes and other expenses to between $7.7 billion and $8.3 billion. Previously, it had that number pegged somewhere between $7.7 billion and $9.5 billion. From the Detroit Free Press:
After tax profit expectations rose during the quarter, however, as GM expects to take more money from its core automotive business ― though not enough to entirely offset the load of tariff expenses and electric vehicle production change costs.
GM warned last week in an Oct. 14 8-K filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that unused electric vehicle production equipment and canceled supplier contracts would cost it $1.6 billion in the third quarter.
In a letter to shareholders, GM CEO Mary Barra said that the company’s rightsizing efforts in China and the highest third-quarter market share since 2017 allowed the company to raise its full-year guidance.
Barra also added a thank you to President Donald Trump’s latest bout of tariff relief and gestured to GM’s plans to bring further production capacity back to the U.S.
“I also want to thank the president and his team for the important tariff updates they made on Friday,” Barra’s letter said. “The MSRP offset program will help make U.S.-produced vehicles more competitive over the next five years, and GM is very well positioned as we invest to increase our already significant domestic sourcing and manufacturing footprint.”
*eye roll*
GM warned investors that it could lose billions due to higher import tax for vehicles and the materials required to make them.
Yet the production changes to produce fewer-than-expected electric vehicles hit GM hardest in the quarter. The elimination of the $7,500 federal tax credit tallied among Barra’s concerns that “near-term EV adoption will be lower than planned.”
All in all, GM reported $1.32 billion in net income, compared with the prior year’s quarter of $3 billion, and total revenue was also down 0.3% to $48.49 billion. Oh, and before income and taxes were down 18% to $3.38 billion. There was some good news, though: sales were up 8% in Q3. I guess that’s something.
4th Gear: Alfa Romeo Stelvio, Giulia have no choice but to keep living
The ancient Alfa Romeo Giulia and Stelvio, which have been in production with very few updates since 2015 and 2016, respectively, will have to soldier on until at least 2027. You can thank the cancellation of their all-electric replacements for this news. Their new replacements, which will have both electric and gas-powered drivetrains, will “offer customers a wider choice,” according to CEO Santo Ficili. From Automotive News:
The market for larger EVs has cooled in Europe, while plug-in hybrids have made a comeback this year. Ficili said Alfa Romeo “has already written” its future product plan under the assumption that ICE and EV models will coexist for a longer time that initially forecast.
[…]
The Tonale, which was launched in 2022, has received a mild face-lift with a bolder front, and engines are updated to the Euro 6e emissions standard. The car is offered with a 1.5-liter 173 hp mild-hybrid powertrain, a 1.3-liter 266 hp plug-in hybrid and in some markets a 1.6-liter 128 hp diesel engine.
Under Stellantis’ Dare Forward 2030 plan unveiled by former CEO Carlos Tavares in 2022, Alfa Romeo was going to launch only full-electric models starting in 2025 and switch to 100 percent electric sales by 2030.
In August, Alfa’s sales were actually up 37% in Europe to 41,200 vehicles, thanks to the tiny Junior crossover. It sold 23,092 of the little things in the month. The Tonale, while the automaker’s second-best-selling vehicle, saw a 42% sales decline.
News is much bleaker in the U.S., thanks in part to tariffs put in place by President Trump. Alfa saw a 30% sales decline through September to 4,778 vehicles. Tonale sales were down 23% to 2,109, Stelvio sales were down 37% to 1,501 and Giulia sales were down 32% to just 1,168 vehicles. Ouch.
Tonale production was suspended for two weeks between September and October because of slow demand, and production of its sister model, the Dodge Hornet, ended in July.
Reverse: Oh, how little things have changed
History.com
From the looks of it, the U.S. and its citizens will be in conflict with the goons who run it until we’re all a burning husk. Who the hell knows what the next few years hold? If you want to learn more about this massive protest, head over to History.com.
On the radio: The 1975 – The 1975
There’s a chill in the air, which means it’s time to dust off my copy of The 1975’s “Being Funny In A Foreign Language.” If you haven’t heard this album before, please take 43 minutes and listen to it all the way through. It’s genuinely a zero-skip album.
