In today's issue:

China is calling this a recall, but the mechanical release was already in every one of these cars. What regulators decided is that drivers could not find it, which makes the label the fix and the flush-handle styling the defect.

Canada's Tariff Deal Died at Midnight: Following up on Canada's tariff landing at 15%, tentatively, talks collapsed and the US imposed 50% tariffs on a wide range of Canadian goods effective Aug. 22, with Prime Minister Mark Carney vowing retaliation, per Automotive News and NBC Philadelphia. The tentative auto-tariff relief from last week's deal is now void. #news

Hyundai and Genesis EV Owners Get 20% Off Fast Charging: Two stackable 10% discounts cut Ionna's $0.39/kWh base rate to $0.31/kWh, one running through Sept. 30 and one open-ended, per InsideEVs and Autoblog. No app or promo code is required, but the discount applies only through the brand's own app or Plug & Charge, not the on-site card readers. #market

Nissan Bets Five Trucks in Two Years Can Match "China Speed": Nissan will reorganize 80% of its global nameplates into three families and launch five new US-built, body-on-frame Nissan and Infiniti trucks within two years, per Automotive News. #analyst

BMW Pushed Spider-Man Ads to Dashboards, No Opt-In Required: BMW ran a two-week movie promotion on infotainment screens across more than 70 countries, and owners are calling it ad-supported hardware in a car they already paid for, per Motor1. #news

Toyota Is Building the Celica Itself This Time: Toyota Executive Vice President Yuki Nakajima told media at Rally Japan that the company is making the Celica, with the revival expected for 2028, ending a hiatus that began when the coupe left the US after the 2005 model year, per MotorTrend and Hemmings. Unlike the BMW-derived Supra and the Subaru-derived GR86, the evidence points to an in-house Toyota car, with a 2.0-liter four and hybrid power the likeliest combination.

Toyota Says Nobody Has Actually Bought a GR GT: Toyota told Carscoops that Senior VP Andrew Gilleland's "sold out" remark described the level of interest at The Quail, not a closed allocation, saying "we have not presold any of the GR GTs" and that it remains "a ways off from making any decisions about who will be able to buy one." We reported the first allocation sold out on Tuesday, so the correction matters: the roughly 200 to 250 US cars are still in play, and Toyota has opened a handraiser page.

Dodge Tries a Third Time to Fix Durango Spoilers That Fly Off: Stellantis is recalling 74,578 model-year 2021-2023 Dodge Durango SUVs after earlier campaigns in late 2021 and early 2023 failed to keep rear spoilers attached, per Autoblog and Motor Illustrated. Stellantis opened a fresh investigation in March 2026 after spoilers kept detaching on vehicles that had already been repaired; the cause this time is a factory fit issue, with spoilers set too close to the roof and tapped every time the liftgate moves. → If you own one: Check NHTSA.gov for your VIN now; this is the third spoiler campaign on the same generation.

Hyundai's First Full Strike in a Decade Has a Robot Clause: Forty thousand workers walked out in South Korea on Friday, seeking a retirement age above the current 60, a larger fixed share of pay, and binding consent over any deployment of AI or humanoid robots on assembly lines, per KBB and Automotive News. US buyers are unlikely to feel it, since the action is a single day so far and dealers hold healthy supply, but Hyundai holds a controlling stake in Boston Dynamics and plans to run its Atlas robots at its Georgia plant before the decade is out.

California Is the First State to Regulate the Tires You Buy: The California Energy Commission unanimously approved its Replacement Tire Efficiency Program this week, setting rolling-resistance floors that phase in from 2029 and tighten in 2033, per Car and Driver and Carscoops. The commission estimates the rules add about $1.50 per tire in the first phase and $6.50 from 2033, and competition, off-road and winter performance tires are exempt, which is why the coverage split between calling it restrictive and calling it a non-event.

3.2 Million US Cars Are Under Orders to Park Outside: Automakers issued 17 separate "park outside" fire-risk recalls in the first seven months of 2026 alone, per Carscoops.

A Quarter of Drivers Just Turn Off Their Safety Tech: 25.9% of owners with adaptive cruise control never switch it on, and only 27.3% regularly change drive modes, per Carscoops, from a Censuswide survey of 1,350 UK motorists.

Waymo Hands Over Documents in Federal Child-Collision Probe: Waymo's responses to NHTSA's questions arrived entirely redacted, citing confidential business information, per TechCrunch.

Yesterday's picks

Pep Boys Sells for $700 Million. The Money in Cars Is Moving to the Service Bay.: Mavis bought Pep Boys' tire and auto-service business from Icahn Enterprises for $700 million in cash, effective Aug. 20, per Motor1. Nearly 800 Pep Boys locations join a network the companies say now tops 4,400 stores across the US and Canada.

Nevada Gives Tesla the 5,000 Robotaxis It Trimmed to 10 in July: The Nevada Transportation Authority approved permits Thursday letting Tesla, Waymo and Uber deploy a combined 8,000 driverless vehicles over the next 12 months, per TechCrunch. Tesla's share is up to 5,000 vehicles in Clark County, per Teslarati. That is the figure its original application sought, before the state capped the fleet at 10 in July, per Electrek. Waymo is the one already carrying paying passengers, running Zeekr-built Ojai vans in three US cities, per InsideEVs.

NHTSA Escalates Its GM V8 Probe to Nearly 1 Million Trucks: NHTSA upgraded its investigation into GM's L87 6.2-liter V8 to a full Engineering Analysis, its most serious defect probe level, now covering 997,743 trucks, per GM-Trucks. Nearly 7,000 owners told GM their engines failed again even after a prior repair, per AutoGuide. → If you own one: Check your VIN against the NHTSA engineering analysis and keep every repair record if your engine has already been "fixed" once.

Worth a listen

One episode from Car Curious, our sister car-podcast platform, picked out of everything the shows published in the last day.

EP110: Car Photographer Reimo on Estonian Car Culture and more! (50to70): Reimo breaks down how Estonian regulations force hot rod builders to add fenders to their open-wheel cars for inspection, revealing a completely different regulatory world that shapes what car culture looks like across Europe.

More from Suspension

Suspension is the daily email that makes you the most informed car person in the room.