Good morning! It’s Friday, February 20, 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, Tesla wants to save Cybertruck sales with cheaper offerings that are still nowhere near the price Elon Musk originally gave, Volkswagen workers at its plant in Chattanooga have ratified their United Auto Workers contract, Stellantis is all in on the Hemi Ram to boost profits in 2026 and Aston Martin’s 2025 financial results are looking as bad as its 2026 F1 hopes.
1st Gear: The Cybertruck just got cheaper, but I am unmoved
The Cybertruck has fallen well short of the sales success Tesla CEO Elon Musk had hoped for. Now, in an effort to boost what little sales it brings in, the automaker is introducing a cheaper version of the truck and slashing the cost of the top-of-the-line Cyberbeast from $117,235 to $102,235, including destination. Of course, it’s still nowhere near the $39,990 price Musk promised when it was first introduced many moons ago.
The Cybertruck lineup now starts with the Dual Motor All-Wheel Drive at $62,235, including destination. It undercuts the short-lived stripped-out RWD version of the truck we saw last year. While that might sound like a big win for freaks who still want a Cybertruck, there’s a massive catch: Musk wrote on X, the everything app, that the new price will last just 10 days. After that? Well, who the hell knows? Maybe the price goes up. Maybe this cheap truck is discontinued forever. There’s no way to know what Musk’s curious brain will come up with next. From Reuters:
With the price cut, Tesla looks to be discontinuing its “Luxe Package” for the model that included Supervised Full Self-Driving and free access to its Supercharger network.
Tesla had added the package to its lineup last August when it raised the price of the pickup truck.
The head of Tesla’s Cybertruck program, Siddhant Awasthi, announced his departure from the company in November last year amid slow sales.
Musk has diverted his attention from EV manufacturing to other business lines, looking to transform Tesla into a robotics and self-driving company. Tesla sales have notably sagged as it has introduced fewer new models over the last several years while rivals snatch market share.
Musk’s far-right political rhetoric and the elimination of EV incentives have also alienated some customers.
The broader EV market has slowed since September, when the Trump administration ended the $7,500 federal tax credits.
Price cuts have become a key part of Tesla’s 2026 strategy, lowering entry prices to attract more cost-conscious buyers.
This news comes on the heels of news that the Model S and Model X would be discontinued so that Tesla’s California factory could be used to make humanoid robots. There sure is a ton of strange stuff going on at Tesla at the moment, but as long as the green line on its meme stock continues to go up, I don’t think anyone really cares.
We’ll be sure to check back in a week and a half to see what the Cybertruck’s new base price is and if the Dual Motor All-Wheel Drive still exists.
2nd Gear: Tennessee VW workers ratify historic UAW contract
The United Auto Works union has made it official in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Workers at a Volkswagen plant ratified their union contract with a 96% margin after 18 months of negotiations and two failed previous attempts at unionization. It’s the first major automotive plant int he U.S. South to unionize.
What a beautiful thing to see. Hopefully other auto workers at plans in the South will follow suit soon. From the Detroit Free Press:
[UAW President Shawn] Fain, who was also at the helm of the union during its “Stand Up” strikes against the Detroit Three automakers in 2023, celebrated the contract as another big win for the union, which has its eyes set on organizing more shops across the South.
“Volkswagen workers have moved yet another mountain,” Fain said in a news release. “From having the courage to stand up and form their union, to having the backbone to authorize a strike and hold out for a contract that honors their worth, VW workers are leading the way for the entire labor movement and non-union autoworkers everywhere. Welcome to the UAW family.”
[…]
Volkswagen said the agreement is a milestone for all involved.
“Volkswagen team members in Chattanooga today ratified our first collective bargaining agreement with the UAW. This milestone reflects our shared commitment to competitive wages, strong benefits, and the long‑term success of our employees and operations,” Volkswagen Spokesperson Michael Lowder said. “We look forward to building a strong future together in Chattanooga.”
Employees will see a 20% increase in wages and improvements to their healthcare plan. They’ll also each get a $6,500 bonus for reaching the deal as well as annual $2,550 bonuses for the life of the contract.
Can I get a hell yeah?
3rd Gear: Stellantis all in on the Hemi for 2026
Stellantis has some high hopes for 2026, and its hoping that its Hemi V8 can fuel those ambitions. It believes it has the right product formula to drive volume and grow retail sales by 25% this year — mostly on the back on the Ram 1500 V8 and redone Jeep Cherokee hybrid, as well as the Dodge Charger Sixpack. Of course, that shouldn’t be too difficult, since sales were pretty awful in 2025. Basically, the company is trying to undo all of what former CEO Carlos Tavares did. From Automotive News:
The company curbed its electric ambitions and discontinued its plug-in hybrid portfolio in North America as it adapts to a friendlier regulatory environment and focuses on giving consumers choice.
The goal: win back customers and turn around years of lagging sales.
At Stellantis, the “customer is back at the center of our business strategy,” new CEO Antonio Filosa said during a Feb. 6 call outlining the company’s preliminary second-half financial results.
[…]
The company’s product plan, he said, is being “driven by demand rather than command.”
To that end, Filosa said the company is looking to sell 100,000 of the 1500 pickups with the 5.7-liter Hemi in 2026, an option that was dropped from the lineup for the 2025 model year in favor of the inline-six Hurricane engine family.
Stellantis’ goal to grow retail share by 25 percent equates to 1.15 million U.S. retail sales this year, executives told dealers this month at the NADA Show in Las Vegas. It will be a steep climb in an overall market that analysts largely expect to be flat or down from 2025, but executives say it would be a return to territory it occupied a few years ago.
[…]
Stellantis’ retail sales goal isn’t impossible, said Sam Fiorani, vice president of global vehicle forecasting at AutoForecast Solutions.
Stellantis logged its seventh annual sales decline in a row in the U.S. last year, though there were signs things were picking up toward the end of the year. It ended 2025 with two consecutive quarterly sales gains in the U.S., and North American vehicle shipments rose 39% in the second half from a year earlier. Overall, its market share was up from 7.6% to 8.2% in December, year-over-year.
People yearn for the Hemi V8, and Stellantis clearly knows that.
4th Gear: Aston Martin? More like Aston Fartin’, because these number stink
Aston Martin is having a terrible time right now, both on the road and on track. It’s new power unit partnership with Honda in F1 is going, uh, poorly, and the automaker has just issued another profit warning. Apparently, adjustied earnings before interest and taxes for 2025 will be slightly lower than the low end of analysts expectations, and those were already looking at. a loss of about $250 million (£184 million). From Bloomberg:
[Lawrence] Stroll has struggled to turn around debt-laden Aston Martin since rescuing the maker of the Vantage sports car in 2020. The company has repeatedly had to raise money and has issued a series of profit warnings, with Stroll’s efforts to add more models struggling to gain traction.
More recently, tariffs in the US, its biggest market, have taken a toll. In October, the company put its model plans under review in a bid to cut costs.
The update came ahead of the full release of Aston Martin’s results next Wednesday. Wholesale deliveries dropped nearly 10% to 5,448 last year, it said.
It did free up £50 million today by agreeing to a deal with the F1 team to sell the right to use its name in perpetuity, however. So, that’s something. This deal does sound a bit like Lawrence Stroll wants to shore up the naming rights for his car in case something bad happens to Aston Martin, the brand, but what do I know.
It did free up £50 million today by agreeing to a deal with the F1 team to sell the right to use its name in perpetuity, however. So, that’s something. This deal does sound a bit like Lawrence Stroll wants to shore up the naming rights for his car in case something bad happens to Aston Martin, the brand, but what do I know. It comes after a 2024 deal between the F1 team and Aston that gives the team naming rights through 2055.
Reverse: Luxury Lanes
History.com
After all these years, I still like the idea of wide lanes. It’s luxury. Imagine all the fun you could have with all of that space? Anyway, if you want to read more about this Seinfeld epsisode and the history of adopt-a-highway programs, head over to History.com.
On the radio: Etienne Daho – ‘Week end à Rome’
You may have noticed (but probably didn’t) that I’ve been out for the past week. Well, I was in Paris celebrating my engagement to my fiancée, which meant I was not blogging. It was a lovely and incredibly car-free time. Anyway, at dinner one night we heard this song and were immediately taken by it. You’ve gotta have a listen. Say what you will about the French, but they certainly know how to groove.
