In today's issue:

A CEO who calculates her own fine before the regulator does isn't complaining about unfairness in the abstract. She's telling investors the zero-emission trucks aren't moving fast enough to dodge the bill Daimler built them to avoid.

VW confirms a US-built pickup, again: Following up on VW Ousts Its US Chief, a VW source now tells Reuters the US overhaul includes a domestically built pickup, per AutoGuide and Just Auto. This would be a VW-brand truck, separate from the Scout Terra that VW Group already has coming from its $2 billion Blythewood, South Carolina plant, targeted for 2027 production. VW pitched an Atlas Tanoak pickup concept in 2018 and never built it. #analyst

A third of premium SUV buyers now buy mainstream instead: Nearly a third of premium SUV owners defected to mainstream brands in H1 2026, per CBT News citing J.D. Power. The satisfaction gap between premium and mainstream brands shrank to 29 points, down from 66 in 2008, while premium brands now spend 7.3% of MSRP on incentives against mainstream's roughly 6%. #market

Japanese automakers bet on US plants for reasons beyond tariffs: Toyota and Honda are expanding US and North American manufacturing, and the driver isn't just tariff avoidance, it's ambition to grab share as China's dominance grows elsewhere, per Automotive News Europe. #analyst

FTC quietly narrows its dealer discrimination enforcement: The FTC will no longer pursue disparate-impact discrimination claims against dealers under its Section 5 policy, per CBT News. ECOA disparate-treatment enforcement stays in place, but the standard that flagged unintentional bias in lending patterns is gone. #news

Rezvani's Corvette-based hypercar hits 1,560 hp: The Beast X applies Rezvani's twin-turbo treatment to the Corvette E-Ray, more than doubling the donor car's 655 hp, per Carscoops. Only five will be built, priced at roughly twice a loaded ZR1X.

Mitsubishi resurrects its VR badge on a car it didn't design: The ASX VR-e wears Mitsubishi's rally-era badge on what is a rebadged Foxtron Bria, styled by Pininfarina, with a 57.5 kWh LFP battery and 400 hp, per Autoblog and Drive.com.au. It launches in Australia later this year to compete with the BYD Dolphin and MG4.

A Kia dealer took parts off a customer's Telluride to fix someone else's car: A Lake Charles, Louisiana owner says her dealership pulled parts from her Telluride while it sat in for service, per Autoblog.

California's emissions authority is under threat, again: The Clean Air Act waiver that lets California set stricter rules than federal law, and that most automakers build to anyway, faces a fresh challenge, per Autoblog.

The UK puts £130 million behind zero-emission vehicle tech: Nearly £130 million ($175 million) in funding was announced, with almost £65 million from public money and the rest from industry, per Automotive News Europe.

Western Europe's car market keeps growing while the economy doesn't: Passenger vehicle sales rose 4.6% year over year in July to nearly one million units, a sixth straight month of growth, per Just Auto.

Yesterday's picks

Ford Reverses Course, Plans a $25,000 SUV and a Four-Door Mustang: Ford showed dealers a real four-door Mustang Mach 4 prototype in Las Vegas, the first physical version since a 2024 rendering, aimed at under $40,000, per Carscoops and Autoblog.

American EV prices are going up while the rest of the world's come down: Global average EV prices have fallen 9% since 2020 to about $37,000 before subsidies, while hybrids rose 16% to about $39,000, per a Mobility Global study reported by Nikkei Asia and cited by Autoblog. Chinese manufacturing scale and a 37% drop in lithium-ion prices did most of that. America went the other way this year. (Disclosure: our editor is one of the drivers quoted in the Wall Street Journal piece cited below.) With the $7,500 federal credit expired, average EV lease payments climbed from a July 2025 low of $538 to $707 as of June, against $607 for a non-EV, per Edmunds data cited by the Wall Street Journal. The gap is policy, not battery cost.

Dodge and Alfa Romeo recall 48,777 SUVs over twisting seat belts: The recall covers 40,386 Dodge Hornets and 8,391 Alfa Romeo Tonales whose rear seat belts can twist in the retractor and fail to hold an occupant in a crash, with no warning light to signal it, per Autoblog, which traces the finding to FCA US flagging the retractor to Stellantis Europe in April 2026. It is the company's second seat-belt recall in eight days, after 1.5 million Ram 1500s worldwide over rear buckle anchors. → If you own one: Check NHTSA.gov for your VIN status and have the belt webbing inspected at your next dealer visit.

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