Elon Musk, Tesla, Don’t Want Trump To Mess Up Vehicle Emission Standards

Good morning! It’s Friday, September 26, 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, Tesla is rightfully worried the Trump Administration is going to mess up vehicle emissions standards, Volkswagen is cutting EV production at its German factories, Jaguar-Land Rover is bringing some of its operations back online and BMW (and Toyota) is recalling nearly 200,000 vehicles because of an engine starter issue.

Tesla is asking the Trump Administration very nicely not to repeal vehicle emissions standards or the long-standing findings that greenhouse gas emissions endanger human health. Of course, Tesla and its CEO, Elon Musk, would have a lot to lose if Trump and his White House did away with these standards.

Earlier this week, Tesla said that the Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to repeal the standard “…would give a pass to engine and vehicle manufacturers for all measurement, control, and reporting of GHG emissions for any highway engine and vehicle.”

On the flip side of the coin, a group representing nearly all other automakers — including your favs like General Motors, Toyota and Volkswagen — asked the EPA to roll back aggressive vehicle emissions limits that are trying to force the industry to build more and more electric vehicles. Not a great look, guys! From Reuters:

Tesla stands to lose billions of dollars in regulatory credits sold over the coming years as a result of the Trump administration’s dismantling of green vehicle rules.

Last year, Tesla said it received $2.8 billion in global revenue from earning regulatory credits for selling zero-emission EVs, and from selling those credits to other automakers seeking to meet vehicle emissions targets.

[…]

The EPA’s proposed action “undermines the stability of this program, diminishes the value of performance-based incentives that electric vehicle manufacturers accrue under the standards, and creates an uneven playing field – reducing the inducement for investment in vehicle innovation,” Tesla said.

[…]

In July, the administration told automakers they face no fines for failing to meet fuel efficiency rules dating back to the 2022 model year.

Trump in June signed a resolution of disapproval under the Congressional Review Act to bar California’s landmark plan to end the sale of gasoline-only vehicles by 2035.

This is one of those classic “broken clock is right twice a day” scenarios, I fear. Despite the fact Trump and Musk were spotted together at Charlie Kirk’s weird megachurch memorial service, I doubt that was enough to undo the fact that Trump called him a drug addict and Musk said the President was in the Epstein files. In any case, I’ve got a real feeling Tesla is going to lose this battle. 

Volkswagen is cutting production at its German factories that build VW, Audi and Cupra electric vehicles because of slower-than-expected demand for EVs and U.S. tariffs. That’s, uh, not a great sign for a company that already isn’t doing too hot to begin with.

Still, VW Group is benefiting from growing EV sales. VW itself was the top-selling EV maker in Europe in August. It even beat out Tesla, but the overall pace of growth has been far slower and less predictable than what was initially anticipated. It has left factories that were expensively retooled to build EVs with a hell of a lot of excess capacity. From Automotive News:

VW’s factory in Zwickau will halt production for a week starting Oct. 6, due to weak demand for the Audi Q4 E-tron. The model is being hit by U.S. tariffs and Germany’s push to soften the European Union’s ban on new combustion-engine car sales.

Work will also be suspended at VW’s Dresden plant during the first week of the autumn holidays in October, a VW Group spokesperson said. “The company is adjusting its production schedule to the current market situation,” the spokesperson said.

VW’s Emden plant, which builds the VW ID4 and ID7, has cut back employee hours and is also expected to shut down factory lines for several days, Bloomberg reported.

[…]

The EV production pauses follow broader capacity cuts across VW’s factory network due to weak demand. In Hanover, output of the ID Buzz and T7 Multivan will stop for five days during autumn holidays.

VW’s Osnabrueck plant is shortening each production week by at least one day through year-end and will add a shutdown week in October as cabriolet demand remains soft, German business newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported.

The automaker is ending production of the VW T-Roc Cabriolet, Porsche Cayman and Porsche Boxster at the Osnabrueck plant and said in December said it was exploring alternative scenarios for the site’s future use.

A slowdown like this isn’t entirely unexpected. It sort of reflects VW’s plans to reduce production capacity and headcount in its home country in response to rising costs, weakening European demand and intensifying competition from Chinese car companies.

At the end of last year, we reported that VW’s management and labor leaders agreed to cut capacity in Germany by more than 700,000 units and reduce its headcount by 35,000 workers by 2030. 

There may be a very dim light at the end of the tunnel for Jaguar-Land Rover’s cyberattack SNAFU. The British automaker is apparently restarting some of its operations and is working to clear a backlog of payments to suppliers as quickly as it possibly can. This is vitally important. As we reported, these suppliers are in jeopardy of going under if nothing is done. From Automotive News:

JLR said some systems were online, including the ones that control the supply of parts worldwide and the financial system that controls the wholesale of vehicles. It also said capacity for processing invoices for suppliers had increased.

“The foundational work of our recovery program is firmly underway,” a JLR spokesperson said on Sept. 25. “We are now working to clear the backlog of payments to our suppliers as quickly as we can.”

JLR’s three factories in Britain that together produce about 1,000 cars a day will remain closed until Oct. 1, the automaker has said. Its factory in Slovakia, which builds the Land Rover Defender, has also been hit.

Right now, the automaker is losing about $68 million per week, and many of its 33,000 staff members have been told to just stay home. 

It’s going to take a Herculean effort to pull JLR out of this. The automaker — especially Jaguar — felt like it was circling the drain before this whole mess started. Now that it has, well, let’s just say that I hope things are up and running soon.

196,355 vehicles, the vast majority being BMWs with a smattering of Toyota Supras built between 2019 and 2022, are being recalled because of a potential short circuit in the starter that may cause an increased risk of a fire, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Apparently, the engine starter relay can corrode. That, in turn, could cause the relay to overheat and short-circuit. When that happens, there’s an increased risk of a fire. From CBS News:

NHTSA said in its notice that BMW of North America was recalling certain 2019-2021 BMW 330i, 2019-2022 BMW Z4, 2020-2022 BMW 530i, X3, X4, Toyota Supra, 2021-2022 BMW 430i, 430i Convertible, and 2022 BMW 230i vehicles, and that letters would go out to owners from November 14 to inform them of the issue.

[…]

“Owners are advised to park their vehicles outside and away from structures until the remedy is complete” NHTSA said in its notice of the recall on Friday. “Dealers will replace the engine starter, free of charge.”

This is terrible news for anyone who tries to cope with the fact that their Supra is just a BMW underneath.

History.com

I guess that’s impressive, but Drake probably would have been better off flying. In any case, you can learn more about his journey over at History.com.

Babes, it’s Friday. If a little upbeat Dwayne Gretzky Paul Simon cover doesn’t get you hyped up for the weekend, I don’t know what will.