A price board with a four in front of it. Photo: Artaxerxes / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 (2008)
In today's issue:
August becomes the first month on record to hold above $4 a gallon every single day
Rivian's CFO walks out the door just as the cheaper R2 starts ramping
AMG turns its hottest compact badge electric and claims a Nurburgring segment record
PUMP FICTION
The national average for regular sits at $4.09, a cent below last week, but August became the first month ever to stay above $4 every single day, per AAA.
AAA expects the month to close as the most expensive August at the pump on record, passing the previous August high set in 2022, per AAA.
Traders sold crude down to $79.62 this week on reports that Iran, Oman and the US were nearing a shipping arrangement, then bought it straight back to $83.51 by late Thursday after Iran fired on a vessel near Oman and Trump rejected terms tied to reviving the June ceasefire, per OilPrice.
It keeps recovering because the barrels are not moving. The Strait of Hormuz is technically open and the US has cleared mines from the shipping lanes, but only five commodity vessels crossed on Tuesday against roughly 130 a day before the war, per OilPrice.
Public EV charging did not move at all, holding at 42 cents per kilowatt hour, per AAA.
A reopened strait that nobody will sail through is not a reopened strait. The war premium is landing on the gallon and not on the kilowatt, which is the strongest argument an EV salesperson has had all year.
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Also worth knowing
Rivian's CFO exits mid-ramp: Claire McDonough is stepping down October 30 after nearly six years as Rivian's CFO, per TechCrunch and InsideEVs. The exit lands exactly as Rivian races to scale the cheaper R2, which arrived alongside a cut profit target and 300 job cuts. #analyst
BYD switches on its 10,000th flash charger: BYD marks its 10,000th flash-charging station on Friday at its flagship site in Longhua, Shenzhen, per ChinaEVHome. The 1.5-megawatt network went up in roughly five months and leaves BYD halfway to a 20,000-station target by year end, per Electrek. To answer the obvious durability question, BYD ran 350 flash-charge stops across 18,000 miles in nine days and then tested the pack, per InsideEVs. Charging speed stopped being the constraint in China while it is still the argument everywhere else. #market
Photo: BYD
Honda shoots down its own Nissan truck rumor: A day after Automotive News reported Honda-Nissan cooperation "could yield" body-on-frame SUVs, Honda called the idea "purely speculative," per Motor1 and AutoGuide. Honda currently sells zero body-on-frame models. #analyst
Waymo's own drivers are getting hurt: Test drivers for Waymo and Zoox logged more than two dozen sprain, pain, and whiplash injuries in 2024 and 2025 from hard braking and other sudden movements, according to OSHA filings reviewed by TechCrunch. The autonomy is smooth enough to sell riders on; it's rough enough to hurt the people supervising it. #news
Reveals & culture
AMG's hottest compact badge is now electric: The new Mercedes-AMG CLA 45 4MATIC+ opens for orders with three axial-flux motors making a peak 500 kW (680 hp), and Mercedes claims a segment record at the Nurburgring Nordschleife of 7:32.070, per Mercedes-Benz Media. The saloon starts at 66,420 euros before VAT and 79,039 euros with it, the Shooting Brake slightly more, per autoevolution. The 45 badge spent two decades meaning the most powerful four-cylinder you could buy, and AMG has already shipped an electric GT 4-Door that pretends to be a V8. #enthusiast
Photo: Mercedes-AMG
The Esprit returns, and it will not only be a V8: Lotus CEO Feng Qingfeng told investors on an August 27 earnings call that the revived Esprit, codenamed Type 135 and due in 2028, will add a V6 alongside the confirmed hybrid V8, per Autocar. The V8 targets more than 1,000 hp under a 1.5-tonne kerb weight, slotting between the Emira and the electric Evija, per AutoGuide. Both are built at Hethel, with the V6 drawing on Horse Powertrain, the Geely and Renault joint venture. #enthusiast
Photo: Lotus
A one-off Ferrari targets $757,000: Niels van Roij Design hand-formed a 2009 Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano into a shooting brake, a 15,000-hour aluminum rebody that Broad Arrow Auctions will sell at Zoute Concours in early October with an estimate of $525,000 to $757,000, per Motor1. #enthusiast
The CX-90 is bruising owners' knees: The Autopian documents a recurring complaint that the CX-90's outer dashboard vents, wrapped to meet the door, jut straight into the arc of a knee swinging in, a packaging quirk nobody flagged before it shipped. #culture
Legal action
NHTSA closes its Nissan Rogue tie rod probe with no recall: A two-year investigation into bent tie rods on 250,000 2021 Rogues ended without action, with regulators attributing many incidents to pothole impacts and other abnormal loads rather than a defect, per Autoblog and CarComplaints. Owners with ongoing steering complaints are on their own; the federal file is shut.
Quick links
Ford cuts Maverick's fun-trim prices, kills its cheapest EcoBoost: The 2027 Lobo and Tremor get sizeable price reductions while the XL and Lariat trims go hybrid-only, per Car and Driver.
Ram undercuts the Ford Transit by $8,400: The 2027 ProMaster City starts at $39,995 including destination, per Motor1.
CDK Global names a new CEO: Sudhakar Ramakrishna succeeds retiring CEO Brian MacDonald effective October 5, per CBT News.
Volvo pushes new safety alerts over the air: Select EX90 and ES90 models gain animal, pedestrian, and roadwork warnings plus Apple CarPlay Spatial Audio via an OTA update, per CBT News.
Yesterday's picks
The Accord and CR-V Are Going Hybrid-Only, and Regulation Isn't Why: A supplier memo cited by Automotive News has the gasoline-only Accord running through March 2030, with the next redesign, expected around 2028, moving to an upgraded version of Honda's two-motor hybrid system, and the CR-V on the same path, per Motor1 and AutoGuide.
VW's Sept. 4 Reckoning: CEO Oliver Blume is pushing for deeper cuts ahead of a supervisory board vote set for Sept. 4, per Automotive News Europe. The board rejected an earlier version of his restructuring plan 12-7 in July, after Blume's 100,000-job cut proposal went to the board, the cuts under discussion run to as many as 100,000 jobs and four shuttered plants, and Emden, Zwickau, Hanover and Neckarsulm still have no confirmed production plans past 2030, per CBT News.
August Sales Hold, Barely: Cox Automotive expects a 16.3 million SAAR in August, matching July's pace, but total volume is projected to fall 8.5% year over year to 1.35 million units, largely because the month has fewer selling days, per CBT News.
Worth a listen
One episode from Car Curious, our sister car-podcast platform, picked out of everything the shows published in the last day.
209. The Pile Up: Brain Buster 39 (Car Krush): The hosts walk through a vintage Chevrolet inline six that carried the name 'blue flame,' connecting obscure engine trivia to real project stories and van-buying decisions.
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