Ineos Cuts Prices Across The Board To Juice Disappointing Sales Numbers

Good morning! It’s Thursday, August 28, 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, Ineos lowers its prices in hopes more people will buy its incredibly niche vehicles, Toyota continues its hot streak, Europe’s auto industry gets a very rare win, and Ford’s nasty recall issue isn’t going away anytime soon.

Ineos is changing course regarding the prices of its big body-on-frame trucks and SUVs because of lower-than-expected demand. Of course, this comes after a three-month period in which it raised prices following President Trump’s expensive tariff announcements. The British startup builds its vehicles at a factory in France, but it’s particularly reliant on the U.S. market for sales.

Now, the Grenadier will start at $72,600, including destination. That’s down 9.8% from its previous $80,500 starting price. It’s actually still even lower than it was before tariffs, when prices started at $76,700. Ineos raised prices between 4.9% and 11% in April thanks to President Trump’s antics. From Automotive News:

Pricing for the higher Trialmaster and Fieldmaster trims now starts at $80,600 , down 8.9 percent from the previous starting price of $88,500. The Grenadier in Trialmaster and Fieldmaster trims started at $84,700 before the new U.S. tariffs. All prices include shipping.

Pricing for the Ineos Grenadier Quartermaster pickup now starts at $86,000, down 9 percent from $94,500. The Quartermaster started at $85,500 prior to the tariffs, after a price cut from $96,500 in March. All prices include shipping.

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“This adjustment reflects our commitment to meeting the competitive set and ensuring the Grenadier delivers exceptional value in its segment,” the spokesperson said in an email to Automotive News.

Ineos doesn’t release its sales figures, but a spokesperson told AutoNews that U.S. deliveries in the first half of 2025 rose 2% compared with the first half of 2025. When you look at U.S. vehicle registrations, though, the story is more bleak. Those dropped 23% to 331 vehicles in June, and 14% to 2,268 vehicles in the first half of the year.

Inoes makes some interesting vehicles. People always talk about how they wish someone just made a back-to-basics body-on-frame off-roader, like an old Land Rover Defender. Well, that’s what we’ve got here. Maybe these price cuts will work as a shock to the system for the company.

You might as well start calling Toyota DJ Khaled, because all it does is win, baby. The automaker just built and sold a record number of vehicles in July, stretching that streak to a seventh consecutive month. It can thank strong demand in the U.S. and China for the win.

Overall, Toyota’s worldwide sales (including Diahatsu and Hino) were up 4% to 963,796 vehicles in July. It didn’t see wins everywhere, though. Sales dropped 2% in Japan, but that was negated by a 6% jump everywhere else. From Bloomberg:

Toyota and Lexus brand sales in North America were particularly strong, with demand for trucks, SUVs and gas-electric hybrid models leading to a 20% jump. Sales in China rose 5.7%.

The carmaker’s production has also climbed. Global output was up 2.6% to 947,943 units in July, with a domestic slump overshadowed by an increase elsewhere.

Toyota has seen a sales boom in 2025 on strong demand for hybrids and a rush by consumers in the earlier part of the year to buy vehicles ahead of President Donald Trump’s tariffs on imported cars and parts. Japanese cars now incur a 15% duty on imports to the US, a reprieve from the additional 25% rate they had faced, though still a substantial headwind for the industry’s top brands.

It’s not totally sunshine and rainbows for Toyota, though. While it had raised pricing on some models as part of a market adjustment, earlier this month the automaker actually lowered its annual profit guidance because of a $9.5 billion hit to its bottom line thanks to Trump’s tariffs. Now, it plans to see about a $22 billion operating income for the fiscal year that ends in March of 2026. That’s down from the initial forecast of $26 billion. Still, that’s a damn solid year all things considered.

Europe just got a big win, too. Its new car market just saw its biggest gain in 15 months in July as consumers put aside concerns of a sluggish global economy. Registrations climbed 5.9% last month from a year earlier — their steepest gain since April of 2024 — to 1.09 million vehicles, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association. 

It was done mostly on the backs of plug-in hybrids, which made a 52% jump during the month. Sales of fully electric vehicles also rose by over 33% in the month, their best result since January. From Bloomberg:

The data is a boost for the region’s beleaguered industry following a sharp drop in June. European automakers continue to face headwinds as US President Donald Trump’s tariffs disrupt supply chains and Chinese brands led by BYD Co. gain ground with affordable EVs. In Europe, the electric transition remains uneven, with the next big test coming at the IAA Mobility show in Munich next month, where BMW AG, Volkswagen AG and Mercedes-Benz Group AG will seek to boost their EV credentials.

It comes as the European Union continues to push to get the US to lower tariffs on imports. The bloc will seek to fast-track legislation to remove all tariffs on US industrial goods, Bloomberg News reported this week. That’s a key demand from Trump, who has tied the step to a promised reduction in duties on EU cars from the current 27.5% level.

European brands are increasingly pushing toward EVs, but they’ve also warned that the EU’s ban on combustion engines isn’t realistic and is weakening an already fragile industry. The European Commission has somewhat eased the pressure on carmakers by granting them a three-year window to hit stricter carbon dioxide emissions targets that had been due to take effect this year.

Of course, demand for EVs and PHEVs is robust, but regular hybrids continue to be the driving force in the market. Those types of vehicles account for over a third of new vehicle registrations. Strong demand in Germany and Spain lifted the overall numbers, making up for declines in France and the United Kingdom.

Oh, Ford. What are we going to do with you? The Blue Oval is recalling about 500,000 vehicles in the U.S. because of a brake fluid leak issue, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. It comes just a day after it recalled 355,000 trucks for an instrument panel issue, and is just the latest in an incredibly long year of recalls that now number well into the hundreds. 

Anyway, this newest recall includes 2015 to 2018 Edge SUVs and 2016 to 2018 Lincoln MKXs. Both have the same issue, and it’s estimated that one percent of the recalled vehicles will actually have the defect. From Reuters:

A ruptured hose in the brake system might cause fluid to leak, lengthening stopping distances, which increases the risk of a crash, the report said.

Oh, and just to make matters worse, Ford’s also recalling 213,000 vehicles for faulty taillights and 100,000 vehicles for a tear in the airbag that could happen when they deploy. For those keeping score at home, that’s over 800,000 vehicles being recalled today. Get your stuff together, guys.

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