Happy Tuesday! It’s November 11, 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 a data breach at Hyundai, as well as dealers’ climbing new-car inventories. We’ll also look at BYD’s goals for 2026, and the latest from the Tesla exodus.
1st Gear: Hackers accessed Hyundai’s systems, which held 2.7 million social security numbers
Hyundai is dealing with another data breach, but this one is months old — and affected customers are only hearing about it now. Why? Well, the investigation into what data was accessed has taken months. Turns out, it’s not good. From Forbes:
Hyundai is alerting millions of customers about a data breach that exposed Social Security numbers and driver’s licenses. The breach, which occurred in February but is only now being disclosed, represents the automotive giant’s third major security incident in as many years.
…
Think of Hyundai AutoEver America, or HAEA, as the digital nervous system for Hyundai, Kia and Genesis operations in North America. This California-based company manages everything from the software that enables remote car features to the computer systems dealerships use to process your purchase.
Between February 22 and March 2 of this year, hackers broke into these systems and roamed freely for nine days before being detected. That’s like a burglar having unsupervised access to a bank vault for over a week. Plenty of time to identify and steal important data.
…The exposed data includes:
- Full name
- Social security number
- Driver’s license information
With massive, connected systems like these, a breach is almost inevitable — someday, someone will gain unauthorized access. Maybe it’ll be something out of a “Mission Impossible” movie, or maybe a dealer employee will just lose their laptop with the login saved. Regardless, the best way to ensure your data is safe is to make sure the fewest possible people actually have it.
2nd Gear: New cars are just sitting on dealer lots
Dealership software provider Lotlinx tracks how many cars are in the inventories of dealers that use the software, and it’s a good source to see how many cars are sitting around on dealer lots — and for how long. According to the company, dealers are now sitting on months’ worth of cars that just aren’t moving. From Automotive News:
New-vehicle inventory in the U.S. rose to 3.14 million to start November with some mainstream brands’ supplies crossing the 100-day threshold, including several Stellantis brands.
Inventory rose sharply from 2.8 million a month earlier, according to Lotlinx, which estimated supply also rose to 70 days from 67 days the previous month.
A year earlier, new-vehicle inventory stood at 3.03 million, representing a 67-day supply, Lotlinx said. Inventory levels generally rise at the end of the year in part because of model changeovers and to cover for upcoming holiday production stoppages.
EVs have the highest supply, which makes sense with the loss of the federal tax credit, but hybrid supplies are up from last month too. Are people battening down the financial hatches in preparation for the AI bubble popping and taking the entire U.S. economy with it? Maybe!
3rd Gear: BYD is targeting 1.6 million sales outside of China in 2026
BYD isn’t planning on slowing down any time soon. The company is estimated to sell a million cars outside China in 2025, and it wants that number to go up next year — way up. For 2026, the company is targeting 1.5-1.6 million sales in Europe, North America, and other Asian markets. From Reuters:
Chinese electric vehicle maker BYD aims to sell up to 1.6 million vehicles abroad next year, doubling down on overseas expansions with high double-digit growth from 2025, Citi said in a report on Tuesday.
Overseas sales guidance of 1.5-1.6 million vehicles is up from an expected 900,000 to 1 million vehicles sold outside China in 2025, “with growth driven by new model launches,” the Citi note said, citing a meeting with BYD management on Tuesday.
BYD’s “overseas sales mix is balanced across different regions, with Europe, North America and ASEAN accounting for one-third of total 2025 overseas sales respectively,” according to Citi.
BYD management also expects a decline in capital expenditure in the fourth quarter from the previous quarter, followed by a significant decline in 2026, “considering vehicle and battery production capacity should be able to meet demand,” the report said.
BYD is the first company we’ve seen raise its sales expectations in the face of U.S. tariffs, but it’s unlikely the company is simply ignoring them. It’s likely BYD expects the bulk of those sales to come from Europe and Asia.
4th Gear: Another bigwig leaves Tesla
Yesterday, Cybertruck project lead Siddhant Awasthi left Tesla with a LinkedIn post. Later that same day, Model Y program manager Emmanuel Lamacchia did the same thing — jumping ship from Tesla unexpectedly. From Reuters:
Tesla’s best-selling Model Y’s program manager, Emmanuel Lamacchia, announced his departure on Sunday after nearly eight years, marking another high-profile exit from Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company.
The departure came hours after the head of Tesla’s Cybertruck program, Siddhant Awasthi, also said he was leaving the company. Awasthi, who started his career at Tesla as an intern eight years ago, played a key role in bringing the stainless-steel pickup to market and recently took over the Model 3 program.
Lamacchia joined Tesla in 2018 and has spent over four years overseeing the Model Y program, managing its production and international rollout across multiple factories.
Heading up the best-selling car in a few nations ought to bolster Lamacchia’s resume — he’ll be fine — but this isn’t a great sign for Tesla. An exodus of project leads likely means they don’t see much of a future with the company, and we already know its underlying finances aren’t looking great.
Reverse: Journalism used to be a real profession
Remember when journalism could just be doing drugs and writing about racing and America? We should bring that back.
On The Radio: Broken Social Scene – ‘Lover’s Spit’
Normally I go for the Broken Social Scene tracks with Emily Haines on them, but this one’s an exception.
