Good morning! It’s November 12, 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 McLaren’s planned model lineup expansion, GM’s reported deadline to remove China from its supply chain, Boeing delivering its highest number of planes since 2018, and Tesla hitting a new sales low in China.
1st Gear: McLaren to launch a new model every year through 2028
McLaren has an ambitious few years ahead as the luxury automaker plans to launch a new model every year through 2028. The W1 hypercar will be launched next year, followed by a new two-door coupe in 2027. The final new model, slated for 2028, will be a four-door performance SUV. From Automotive News:
McLaren’s first four-door offering will be a V-8-powered performance SUV and could be the British sports car maker’s new entry model.
The coupe-like utility vehicle, code-named P47, is one of multiple new models McLaren will deliver in the next three years, the automaker said during a Nov. 11 global dealer meeting at the McLaren Creation Centre in Bicester, England, northwest of London.
According to a retailer who attended the meeting, the five-seater hybrid SUV has the side profile of a Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT but is bigger.
A clay model of the all-wheel-drive vehicle sat on 24-inch wheels.
“The SUV is sculpted and muscular,” a dealer told Automotive News while asking not to be identified because information on the vehicle is not public. “It has presence and won’t get lost in the exotic SUV segment.”
It’s not surprising that McLaren is following the likes of Porsche, Lamborghini and Aston Martin by producing an SUV, especially after the automaker’s acquisition by Abu Dhabi investment firm CYVN earlier this year. The four-door models tend to be more approachable daily drivers for wealthy buyers and sell like hot cakes as a result.
2nd Gear: GM wants suppliers to ditch China from their supply chains
The economic uncertainty provoked by President Donald Trump’s tariff war against China has prompted General Motors to sever its supply chain ties with China. The Detroit automotive giant has directed thousands of its suppliers to remove Chinese companies from their supply chains by 2027. From Reuters:
GM executives have been telling suppliers they should find alternatives to China for their raw materials and parts, with the goal of eventually moving their supply chains out of the country entirely, the people said. The automaker has set a 2027 deadline for some suppliers to dissolve their China sourcing ties, some of the sources said.
GM approached some suppliers with the directive in late 2024, but the effort took on fresh urgency this past spring, during the early days of an escalating U.S.-China trade battle, the sources said. GM executives have said it is part of a broader strategy to improve the company’s supply chain “resiliency,” the sources said.
Geopolitical tensions between the two superpowers have left car executives in triage mode throughout 2025. U.S. President Donald Trump’s on-again, off-again tariffs and bouts of industry panic over potential rare-earth bottlenecks and computer-chip shortages have auto companies rethinking their ties to China, long an important source of parts and raw materials.
Considering we’re less than a year into Trump’s second term, no company can be sure that tariffs will remain at their current levels, as the President can seemingly adjust the percentage on a whim. GM appears to be taking a stance of distancing itself from the trade war as much as possible.
3rd Gear: Boeing on pace for its highest plane delivery total since 2018
Boeing is having an unbelievable comeback year despite all odds. While the aircraft manufacturer largely has the Trump administration to thank for sealing its largest order ever and signing off on a non-prosecution order over its two fatal 737 Max crashes, the company delivered 493 planes this year. From Reuters:
The company is on track to have its highest annual delivery total since 2018, when it delivered 806. Boeing’s annual delivery totals tumbled the following year, when the 737 MAX was grounded following two crashes that killed 346 people. It was the beginning of a series of production safety and quality crises, as well as the COVID-19 pandemic, which destabilized Boeing’s output.
Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg has focused the company’s commercial airplane division on improving production quality in 2025. The company recently was approved by federal regulators to increase 737 output to 42 jets per month, from 38.
The company still trails European rival Airbus, which delivered 585 airplanes in the first 10 months of the year.
Boeing was ordered to slow production to a crawl after a door plug blew out of a 737 Max over Portland, Oregon in January 2024. Since that point, the planemaker has not only pushed to return to pre-incident figures but also to surpass its previous production rates and make a dent in its lengthy backlog of orders.
4th Gear: Tesla sales in China plummet to a three-year low
Tesla seems unable to catch a break as its decline continues. The electric automaker only sold 26,006 vehicles in China last year, the lowest monthly total in three years. Tesla can’t keep up with China’s domestic manufacturers, such as BYD, which are quickly becoming global brands in their own right. From Reuters:
Sales fell 35.8% from a year earlier, down from September’s figure of 71,525 when Tesla began deliveries of the Model Y L, a longer-wheelbase and six-seat version of its best-selling Model Y SUV until now only available in China.
Its exports of China-made vehicles rose to a two-year high of 35,491 units last month, however, data from the China Passenger Car Association showed on Monday.
Tesla’s share of China’s EV market shrank to just 3.2% in October, down sharply from 8.7% the previous month and its lowest in more than three years.
There are plenty of routes that Tesla could take to reverse course, such as releasing a new model that isn’t an electric pickup truck with body panels that just fall off. Instead, Tesla’s shareholders decided to approve a trillion-dollar pay package to keep Elon Musk as CEO. He could address these critical issues, but his record says otherwise.
Reverse: Explosives are the worst tool for dead whale disposal
It’s been 55 years since the most bizarre decision ever made by a state’s department of transportation. A dead 45-foot sperm whale washed ashore on an Oregon beach on November 9, 1970. Three days later, the Oregon Highway Division decided to blow up the whale with a half-ton of dynamite.Â
The blast showered onlookers with blubber. A parked car was destroyed by a falling piece of whale carcass. The seagulls that highway engineers hoped would feast on the remains were scared away. It was an unmitigated disaster. KATU’s coverage of the blast was remastered in 2022 to commemorate the 50th anniversary. Be sure to check out the station’s interview with the story’s reporting team 50 years later.
On The Radio: Destiny’s Child – Bills, Bills, Bills
We can all relate to this classic from Destiny’s Child, as President Trump promises to give out $2,000 tariff dividends. After spending the early days of his second term gutting the federal government, he’s no longer concerned with balancing the budget and paying off the national debt. Trump’s trying to pay us with our own tax dollars.
