Good morning! It’s Monday, May 4, 2026, 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, Elon Musk’s $158 billion 2025 compensation package from Tesla is far less than meets the eye since he missed every goal, President Trump says he’s raising tariffs on European-built cars to 25%, Volkswagen believes EV profits will lag behind their ICE counterparts until 2030 and Ford is coming in hot with recall number 34 of the year.
1st Gear: Musk should have achieved something if he wanted his $158 billion
Over the weekend, you probably saw a headline or a tweet about Elon Musk’s 2025 compensation package hitting an eye-watering $158 billion. Here’s the thing, though. It’s fugazi. A fake. A farce. It’s not real. He didn’t get it. The man got a big fat zero from the company this year because he failed to meet any of the goals set out for him in the $1 trillion stock award pay package about six months ago. This is particularly funny because, as we’ve reported, even if he didn’t meet all of his goals, there was still a chance he could make some money with the way the package was structured. The dude missed on everything… badly.
In Tesla’s own regulatory filing, it said there was a “significant disconnect” between what the company reports as Musk’s total compensation in a given year and “the value actually realized.” I don’t totally understand the point of doing something like this, but I also don’t get a lot of the choices Musk and Tesla decide to make. In any case, here’s why Musk got a big fat zero from Tesla in 2025. From Bloomberg:
[T]he unprecedented pay package awarded last year consisted entirely of equity award grants. It was structured so that the CEO will only cash in if Tesla’s stock soars and the company achieves various operational milestones.
Since Tesla didn’t reach any of the market value or operational targets set last year, Musk’s total realized compensation was zero. He hasn’t earned a salary from the company for years.
The total compensation figure included the maximum grant date fair value attributed to the award Musk received last year, assuming all performance conditions will be achieved. Tesla reported that fair value at around $132 billion.
The remainder of the total compensation — just over $26 billion — is the grant date fair value attributed to an interim award that Tesla’s board approved for Musk in August. Musk ended up forfeiting that payout in April of this year, due to the reinstatement of a 2018 compensation package.
I don’t want you to worry too much about Elon, though. He’s still doing just fine. He’s still the world’s richest man with a $788.7 billion net worth, according to Forbes. However, it is down a bit from a peak of $839 billion. Perhaps we should start a GoFundMe. I’ve got a hunch he’s going to be alright, considering how much his net worth has ballooned in just the last two years. In 2024, it stood at $195 billion.
I’m sorry if I’ve made you angry this morning. I’ve made myself angry, as well.
2nd Gear: Trump wants to up EU vehicle tariffs from 15% to 25%
It’s very rare that I feel bad for multi-national mega-corporations, but for the love of God, they must be so tired. President Trump said that he’s going to increase tariffs on cars and trucks built in Europe from 15% to 25% this week, alleging that the bloc hadn’t complied with its trade deal with Washington. As you may have guessed, European politicians and trade groups are none-too-pleased. Some economists over there are calling on Brussels and the German government to “finally show some backbone” and impose retaliatory tariffs.
Perhaps Trump has finally overplayed his hand, but I sort of doubt it. The dude seems to kind of just get away with everything. From Reuters:
“Based on the fact the European Union is not complying with our fully agreed to Trade Deal, next week I will be increasing Tariffs charged to the European Union for Cars and Trucks coming into the United States,” Trump wrote in a social media post.
“It is fully understood and agreed that, if they produce Cars and Trucks in U.S.A. Plants, there will be NO TARIFF.”
Trump told reporters the higher tariff would force European car makers to move production to the U.S. more quickly.
“We have a trade deal with the European Union. They were not adhering to it. So I raised the tariffs on cars and trucks to 25%, that’s billions of dollars coming into the United States, and it forces them to move their factory production much faster,” he said at the White House.
The European Commission swiftly rejected Trump’s claim that Brussels was not complying with last summer’s trade deal and said it would keep its options open to protect EU interests if Washington breached the terms of the agreement.
Trump fired off the tariff post amid escalating tensions between the U.S. and the EU over the war in Iran and European countries’ refusal to send navies to open the Strait of Hormuz. Trump this week threatened to reduce U.S. troop levels in Germany, Italy and Spain, after German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said the U.S. was being “humiliated” by Iran in talks to end the conflict in the Middle East.
Last year, Trump imposed a 25% global tariff on automotive imports, but he reached a separate deal with the EU in August to bring that number down to 15%. In exchange, the EU agreed to get rid of duties on U.S. industrial goods like autos and accept U.S. safety and emissions standards for those vehicles.
So far, automakers have been absorbing the brunt of tariff costs, but I don’t expect that trend to last forever. Automakers like Bentley and Porsche have raised their prices to help cover added tariff costs, so I won’t be surprised if others soon follow suit. In the end, the consumer is the one who really gets hurt by all this. No, I’m not saying we should cry for Bentley and Porsche owners, but if you think it won’t trickle down to more mainstream automakers, you’ve got another thing coming.
3rd Gear: Volkswagen isn’t hopeful for EV profit parity this decade
Volkswagen has little faith that its battery-powered vehicles will reach profit margin parity with its combustion-engine vehicles until it introduces its next-generation SSP architecture near the end of the 2020s. It says it has narrowed the profitability gap with updates to the MEB Plus platform, but it only gets 70 to 80% of the way there, CFO Arno Antlitz said. SSP should make them “fully comparable.” From Automotive News:
Within VW Group, the Scalable Systems Platform (SSP) will replace existing BEV architectures including MEB, MEB Plus and the PPE platform used for higher-end models such as the electric Porsche Macan, Audi A6 E-tron and Q6 E-tron.
VW aims to cut costs by 20 percent with SSP compared with today’s MEB platform, while also enabling fully software-defined vehicles through the integration of Rivian‘s electronic architecture. The rollout of SSP has been delayed from its original 2026 target, with the company now guiding to a launch before 2030.
The platform will underpin a wide range of future models, including the electric successor to the VW Golf. Skoda is also expected to use SSP for an electric Octavia replacement early in the next decade.
High production costs for BEVs remain a key challenge for automakers as they expand their electric lineups to meet tightening CO2 regulations in Europe. Combustion-engine vehicles continue to deliver stronger margins, forcing automakers to balance BEV sales volumes against profitability.
Another issue VW faces with its current platform setup is the fact that it’s not able to meet EU CO2 emission reduction targets in 2025, 2026 or 2027. It’ll face penalties between $468 million and $586 million every year because of it. Pricing is also an issue, with the cars being sold far cheaper than they really should be in order to drum up demand.
4th Gear: Ford didn’t tighten seat bolts on 180,000 vehicles down quite enough
Oh, Ford. You silly goose. What are we going to do with you? The Dearborn-based automaker just issued its 34th recall of the year, and this time, 180,000 Broncos and Rangers are impacted because the automaker didn’t tighten the front seat bolts correctly. Because of that, they can loosen over time, which isn’t exactly ideal. Luckily, there haven’t been any accidents or injuries related to the issue, but there have been a handful of warranty claims. From CarBuzz:
Specifically, the recall covers 2024 through 2026 model-year vehicles, affecting 179,698 trucks and SUVs in total. Here’s what you need to know about the problem, and how Ford will fix it.
Per NHTSA documents, one or more of the seat frame height-adjust pivot bolts could become loose or dislodged in the frame. This is part of the pivot joint in the front seats, either the driver or passenger side. Since the rear seats have no such adjustments, they are unaffected. The recall report states that Ford’s seat structure supplier “initiated a process to check the torque” of the aforementioned seat bolts, but apparently, that check “disrupted the curing of the adhesive patch on the threaded fastener….”
It’s not uncommon to use adhesives like Loctite on threaded fasteners to help ensure they don’t work loose. The recall documents make no mention of the kind of adheasive used, but the takeaway is this: checking the torque of the bolts after installantion apparently caused the adhesive to not do its thing. As the bolts are subjected to the weight and motion of people climbing into and out of seats, they can work loose. Obviously, loose seat bolts present a safety risk, especially in a crash.
If this sounds familiar, there was a previous recall (NHTSA 25V721) issued last October for the same problem. That recall covered 163,256 Broncos from 2021 through 2023. Ford continued to study the issue and decided to expand further, hence the new recall that now includes Ranger.
The good news is that Ford already has a fix in place, and it’s about as straightforward as you might imagine. Owners of affected vehicles will stop in at a Ford dealer to have the front seats removed and inspected. If any bolt “fails inspection” it will be replaced. Presumably, a failed inspection will be anything that’s loose. Dealer notification on recalled vehicles is already underway. Specific owner notification should start in July and be completed by July 17.
For those keeping score at home, this is — again — Ford’s 34th recall of 2026. That puts it miles ahead of its next-closest competitors, Stellantis and Toyota, which have 12 apiece. It’s not clear yet if we’ll reach the 153 recalls Ford hit in 2025, but we’re on a good pace. At the very least, I think we’ll clear the over-12.3 million vehicles recalled in 2025. Right now, we’re sitting at 9,812,890, and it’s only May 4.
Reverse: This sucks
History.com
The most annoying dork you know owes his personality to this guy, who is, of course, British. If anyone says this to you today, you should be legally allowed to pop them in the jugular, and if you’re reading this and thinking about how YOU were going to say “May the Fourth be with you,” just stay inside. Ugh. Anyway, if you want to learn more, head over to History.com.
The Fuel Up
I’ve got a little bit of good news, if you could even call it that. Gas prices are still climbing, but the rate of increase has slowed dramatically from what we were seeing last week. The thing is, I’m not sure that’s going to last. President Trump says the U.S. Navy is guiding ships through the Strait of Hormuz, Iran claims it hit a Navy vessel with two missiles, but the U.S. is denying this happened. It’s a goddamn mess. All of this has caused WTI Crude Oil Futures and Brent Crude to recoup any losses they saw in recent days, with both currently sitting at about $102.27 and $110.68, respectively, at the time of publication.
What this all boils down to is the fact that we’ve hit another new record for the average price of a gallon of gas in 2026, as prices rose another cent overnight to $4.56, according to AAA. We’re now just 56 cents away from the all-time high of $5.02 set back on June 14, 2022.
Here’s where national average prices stand right now, according to AAA:
AAA
On the radio: Sean Kingston, Justin Bieber – ‘Eenie Meenie’
And suddenly, I’m 13 years old again at a middle school dance. What a time to be alive. When will the music industry be brave enough to retvrn to music like this? It’s long overdue, clearly, because there’s nothing on earth that sounds like this anymore. That’s a damn shame if you ask me.
