Happy Monday! It’s July 7, 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 how Elon Musk’s new political party is affecting Tesla stock, as well as the latest updates on tariff talks between the EU and the United States. We’ll also look into a new NHTSA investigation into Ram trucks, and the possibility of Nissan letting Foxconn run one of its factories.
Elon Musk has a political party now, and Tesla investors aren’t happy
Tesla stock has been trading relatively flat recently, largely buoyed by Elon Musk’s promise to step away from his efforts to kneecap the federal government and return his focus to building cars. Of course, now that Musk has announced that he’s using that free time away from DOGE to simply attempt a different method of kneecapping the federal government, it seems the investors are none too happy. From Reuters:
Tesla shares fell nearly 7% in premarket trading on Monday after CEO Elon Musk’s plans to launch a new U.S. political party reignited concerns about his commitment to the company’s future as it struggles with declining sales.
Musk unveiled the ‘America Party’ on Saturday after openly sparring with Donald Trump over the U.S. president’s tax-cut and spending bill.
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Musk’s political move comes days after Tesla posted a second straight drop in quarterly deliveries, piling pressure on its stock as the company grapples with fierce competition and an aging vehicle line-up.
As of this writing, Tesla stock is sitting at $292.10 — already working its way back up from the today’s low of $290.63. That’s still nearly a 7.5% drop, but it seems that the premarket traders are more pessimistic on Musk than the regular-hours folks. Surely that has nothing to do with premarket traders largely being experienced day-traders and large-scale investors looking for returns, while business hours traders are more likely to be weird nerds knowingly and intentionally buoying Musk’s eccentricities with their own wallets.
The EU is scrambling to put together a U.S. trade deal
The United States needs money, and President Donald Trump has decided that it’s time for America’s allies and trading partners to pay up. That includes the European Union, which faces the threat of massive “reciprocal” tariffs when the pause ends on Wednesday. Other countries have sorted out their own deals with the States, but the EU block doesn’t have ink on paper yet — and its automakers are getting worried. From Automotive News:
Some European Union automakers and capitals are pushing for an agreement with President Donald Trump that would allow for tariff relief in return for increasing investment in the U.S., according to people familiar with the matter.
Member states were briefed on the status of trade negotiations on July 4 after a round of talks in Washington this week and were told that a technical agreement in principle was close, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The EU has until July 9 to clinch a trade arrangement with Trump before tariffs on nearly all of its exports to the U.S. jump to 50 percent. Trump has imposed tariffs on almost all U.S. trading partners, saying he wanted to bring back domestic manufacturing, needed to pay for a tax-cut extension and stop other countries from taking advantage of the U.S.
Notice that little tidbit, snuck into the last sentence of the third paragraph, buried in the middle of a list of three? Let me cut out the rest of the sentence for clarity: “Trump has imposed tariffs on almost all U.S. trading partners, saying he … needed to pay for a tax-cut extension.” You don’t think that’s your taxes being cut, do you? No, no, that’s a tax cut for the people who could buy every Miata on Facebook Marketplace without blinking an eye.
NHTSA is investigating 1.2 million Ram trucks after 6 deaths
In a break from the organization’s usual Ford investigations, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is looking into someone else for a change: Stellantis, and 1.2 million of its Ram trucks. From Reuters:
The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said on Monday it opened a recall query covering about 1.2 million Stellantis’ Ram trucks over concerns related to the transmission.
The auto safety regulator said impacted vehicles displayed issues related to the brake transmission shift interlock, which may lead to them rolling away.
The investigation itself, NHTSA action number RQ25003, has a bit more information. The investigation affects 2013-2018 Ram trucks, all the way from 1500 to 5500. It’s specific to trucks with a column-mounted shifter, which may have an issue where the truck can be shifted out of Park without needing a foot on the brake pedal. That’s not great, and NHTSA says the issue under investigation is tied to 14 incident reports and six deaths. If you’ve got an affected Ram, just be careful — and ensure that you keep your foot on the brake.
Nissan’s retreat offers a factory up to Foxconn
Nissan has been looking to slash costs, and that includes scaling back its production capacity. Ivan Espinosa, the company’s shiny new CEO, has promised to shutter seven plants globally — a plan that apparently includes the Oppama plant, right near Nissan’s Yokohama base of operations. Now, though, there may be hope for the plant’s continued survival: Foxconn. From Automotive News:
Under the discussions, Foxconn would use Nissan’s Oppama assembly plant in Japan, a key factory that is seen as a primary target for shutdown, Japan’s Nikkei and other local media reported July 6.
The partnership would be part of a wider cooperation in EVs and possibly incorporate a joint venture, the Nikkei said, citing a Nissan source it didn’t identify. The goal would be to transfer some of Oppama’s unused capacity to Foxconn, thereby avoiding the need to close it.
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In a statement, Nissan said the report was “not based on an official announcement from Nissan.” One person familiar with Nissan’s management plans said a tie-up, like the one reported by the Japanese media, does little to address Nissan’s short-term challenges, which includes massive overcapacity in Japan, an impending earnings blow from U.S. tariffs, cash burn and debt.
Yikes, person familiar with Nissan’s management plans. Not mincing words, are we? Hopefully Nissan can get its house in order, but it seems only time will tell.
Reverse: The Megatron research facility begins
Remember when the first Michael Bay “Transformers” movie just casually dropped that the entire Hoover Dam was a coverup to hide the existence of Megatron? And that only by reverse-engineering Megatron were we able to develop microchips? Those movies were wild for more reasons than just complicated CGI.
On The Radio: Ginger Root — ‘No Problems’
I was so tempted to put all of “SHINBANGUMI” in here — and you should watch it all if you have the time — but “No Problems” is as good a start as any. Ginger Root is just a good time.
