Ford Is Cutting German Jobs Due To Slow EV Sales

Happy Tuesday! It’s September 16, 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 Ford’s low EV demand in Europe, as well as Nissan’s struggles to meet demand for EVs in Japan. We’ll also look at an investigation into Tesla door handle failures, and Stellantis’ latest big recall. 

Over in Europe, Ford makes a couple of EVs based on Volkswagen’s architecture. Unfortunately for Ford, the two electric crossovers don’t seem to be selling. In response, Ford will now lay off up to 1,000 workers on the line in Germany to cut costs. From Automotive News:

Ford Motor Co. said it will cut up to 1,000 jobs in electric car production at its factory in Cologne, Germany, due to weak demand.

“In Europe, demand for electric cars remains well below industry forecasts,” Ford said in a statement. “Ford will therefore switch production at the Cologne plant to single-shift operation from January 2026,” resulting in the job losses, the company said Sept. 16.

Ford said it would offer voluntary lay-off packages to those affected at its Cologne electric vehicle center.

The automaker builds the Explorer electric SUV and Capri electric crossover at the Cologne plant. Both are based on Volkswagen Group’s MEB platform that is also used by the VW ID4 and ID5.

I could take or leave the Capri, but the Explorer pictured above is actually a pretty sharp-looking crossover. I certainly prefer it over the Explorer we get here. 

The new Nissan Leaf is incoming, and it has the potential to be a pretty fantastic little EV. That is, of course, if Nissan can actually build it. New reports in from Japan say that battery supply is an issue, and that Nissan won’t be able to make as many Leaves as it would like. From Reuters:

Nissan Motor has reduced its production plan for the new model of its Leaf electric vehicle by more than half for September-November owing to delays in battery procurement, the Nikkei business daily said on Tuesday.

Lower than expected battery yields at a Nissan affiliate had caused the revision, the Nikkei said, adding that the Japanese automaker planned to release the new EV model by the end of the year.

The newspaper did not specify the original or revised production targets but said that the output plan has been cut by up to several thousand vehicles a month at its Tochigi plant in eastern Japan, where the new version of the Leaf is made for the U.S. and Japanese markets.

I need Nissan to get its suppliers together on this one, because I personally want to see the Leaf on our shores. Specifically, I need to know how it looks once it’s slammed on turbofan wheels. I think there’s real potential there, and I want to see someone do that. 

Tesla is under NHTSA’s crosshairs again, this time for door handles on 2021 Model Y crossovers that may simply stop being door handles under the right conditions. The handles can fail when they don’t get proper voltage from the car, even without any warning on the dash saying something’s wrong. From Reuters:

The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on Tuesday it had opened an investigation into about 174,000 Tesla Model Y cars from the 2021 model year over reports that electronic door handles can become inoperative.

NHTSA said it had received reports citing an inability to open exterior  doors, including after parents exited the vehicle to remove a child or to place a child in the rear seat before starting a trip.

…

NHTSA said it has nine reports of parents being unable to open doors on 2021 Tesla Model Y vehicles. In those reports, parents were unable to reopen a door to regain access to the vehicle and in four instances parents resorted to breaking a window to regain entry into the vehicle.

The agency noted that Tesla vehicles have manual door releases inside, but children may not be able to access or operate the releases even if the vehicle’s driver is aware of them.

NHTSA said its initial review suggests this condition appears to occur when the electronic door locks receive insufficient voltage from the vehicle. The agency said repair invoices report replacement of the vehicle’s low voltage battery after incidents, but no owners reported seeing low-voltage battery warnings prior to exterior door handles failing.

Now, I’m just a simple country automotive journalist, not some big-city engineer, but that sounds pretty darn bad. Sure, there’s an emergency release, but that doesn’t work when the car’s only occupant is an infant. Are electronic door handles really worth all this hassle, just for whatever tiny aero benefit they provide?

Tesla may be under investigation, but Stellantis is on the next step of the process — issuing recalls. The company is putting the word out to owners of 53,000 Giulias and Stelvios, which have fuel pumps that can overheat and fail while the car is running. Worse yet, the company doesn’t seem to have a fix ready to go. From Reuters:

Chrysler-owner Stellantis is recalling 53,849 vehicles in the U.S. over potentially faulty fuel pumps, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) said on Tuesday.

The recall covers certain 2017-2018 Alfa Romeo Giulia and 2018-2019 Alfa Romeo Stelvio vehicles, the auto safety regulator said.

The vehicles had fuel pumps that may contain components vulnerable to heat, which could lead to reduced fuel supply and sudden power loss, and increase the risk of a crash, the agency said.

NHTSA said the remedy for the issue is under development.

A fuel pump failure while your car is in motion doesn’t sound fantastic. In fact, it sounds quite the opposite. Hopefully Stellantis can look to the aftermarket, to whatever solutions have been cooked up to add power to the Giulia, and get a solution together in short order. 

In the first years of the 20th century, however, that industry was a mess. There were about 45 different car companies in the United States, most of which sold only a handful of cars each year (and many of which had an unpleasant tendency to take customers’ down payments and then go out of business before delivering a completed automobile).

Damn. What was that like? Anyway, time to check on my Lordstown preorder. 

Sometimes you run into a guitar tone that immediately makes you know you’re going to love a song. This is one of those times.