China Could Ditch EV Subsidies

Happy Wednesday! It’s October 29, 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 possibility of China abandoning its EV subsidies, as well as the general distaste for Elon Musk’s proposed trillion-dollar payday. We’ll also look at Mitsubishi’s new destination fees, and yet another Ford recall. 

China’s rapid EV development has been powered by government cash, making the country one of the strongest competitors in the segment — if not the outright strongest. Now that it’s attained that position, though, it seems China is looking to turn off the money tap. From Reuters:

China has sent a clear signal that it is willing to pull the plug on subsidies for its electric vehicle industry after years of big-ticket government support fuelled a boom that has left the world’s second-largest economy saddled with vast oversupply, prompting it to push into global car markets.

Top policymakers omitted electric vehicles from their list of strategic industries in their recent five-year development plan for 2026-2030, the industry’s first exclusion in more than a decade

Analysts say the move is evidence the Beijing considers the industry to be mature and no longer requires the same level of financial support, leaving its development up to market forces.

But they say the omission should not be seen as a sign that the EV industry has fallen out of favour, despite it becoming a poster child for excessive competition that even President Xi Jinping has criticised. Instead, it reflects a strategic decision to allocate resources to other technologies where China seeks to enhance its capabilities, especially in light of global trade and security tensions.

It’s always kind of funny when Americans deride China for being some sort of communist hellscape, when the actual real-life nation is here saying “let the free market sort it out.” You know how much communist hellscapes love the free market. 

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, wants more money. He wants a trillion dollars, in fact, and his car company is pushing investors to approve a pay package for that much money. Sensible folks, who see how little Musk actually does for Tesla on the day to day, are against this plan. From Reuters:

Tesla critics hope to block the stratospheric compensation proposed for CEO Elon Musk but face an uphill fight.

Investors in the electric vehicle maker will decide on November 6 whether to approve the pay package that is potentially worth $1 trillion – likely the largest-ever CEO compensation agreement. Tesla’s board is pushing for shareholders to approve the plan, with Chair Robyn Denholm warning on Monday that Musk could leave if the deal is rejected.

Meanwhile, longtime skeptics of the company’s corporate governance, including Democratic U.S. state leaders and union officials, have launched a campaign to vote down the offer. Several have tried and failed to block earlier record payouts to Musk, including his $56 billion compensation plan for 2018 that investors reapproved last year amid legal challenges that remain.

The critics hope the results this time will be different, and also aim to reject all three Tesla directors who are up for reelection.

“The idea that another massive equity award will somehow refocus a man who is distracted is both illogical and contrary to the evidence,” Democratic New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, a frequent doubter of Musk, said on Monday. DiNapoli controls the vote of 3.3 million shares in Tesla through the state’s pension retirement system, or 0.1% of the company. “This is not pay for performance. It is pay for unchecked power,” he said.

Tesla is in an unenviable position here, because the company’s stock valuation isn’t at all tied to its economic performance — it’s all based on Musk’s cult of personality. If Musk doesn’t get his pay package, he leaves; if he leaves, the stock tanks but the company’s underlying finances could actually improve. Not a great position to be stuck in, as another exec at the carmaker. 

Speaking of automaker in unenviable positions, we have Mitsubishi. The company has positioned itself as a low-cost competitor in the United States, but that position is tough to maintain in the face of import tariffs — something the Japanese carmaker now has to contend with. From Automotive News:

Sales-challenged Mitsubishi Motors has the highest destination charge among mainstream automakers based outside the U.S.

The Japanese importer on Oct. 1 hiked its shipping charge by 8.5 percent — or $150 — to $1,745.

That tops the industry’s 2025-model average of $1,549 and all major automakers except Stellantis, Ford Motor Co. and Porsche, according to data from Edmunds. It’s about 25 percent more than Toyota and Nissan charged buyers over the past year.

Mitsubishi retailers and industry watchers say the sky-high fee risks crimping one thing the brand desperately needs: new-vehicle sales.

Hopefully this doesn’t spell the end of Mitsubishi in the United States, with it going the way of Suzuki, but anything’s possible. Who knows how long these tariffs will last?

It’s a day ending in Y, so Ford is issuing another recall. This time, 175,000 Expeditions, Navigators, and pickups could lose their moonroof wind deflectors. From Reuters:

Ford is recalling nearly 175,000 vehicles in the U.S. as their moonroof wind deflectors could detach, the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on Wednesday.

The recall covers Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator SUVs, and F-series pickup trucks, NHTSA said.

Am I in a Ford recall time loop? Is Ford? What’s happening? What day is it?

Luckily, we’re not primed for an economic catastrophe that will make the 2008 crash look like a bull market. We’re definitely not over-invested in AI to the point where it makes up a massive percentage of our GDP, despite the product not making anyone any money. This is totally fine and it’s not all going to come down like a particularly precarious house of cards. 

The Fratellis are never a bad time. I woke up in such a “Costello Music” mood, and that’s always a sign of a good day to come. Or, at least, a day that can be made good through proper infusion of The Fratellis.