In today's issue:

Geely is posting record revenue off a shrinking home market, which is an export story wearing an earnings costume. Which number you lead with decides whether this is a good quarter or a soft half, and the chairman handoff lands the same day either way, which is either coincidence or an admission about where the growth actually lives now.

Waymo Just Got Its Biggest California Expansion Yet: Following up on Washington Keeps Chinese EVs Out. Waymo Imported 2,600 of Them, the California Public Utilities Commission approved Waymo's largest service-area expansion to date, stretching its operating footprint across 18 districts from Sonoma to San Diego, per Electrive. The state approval runs against federal pressure: NHTSA administrator Jonathan Morrison wrote on July 8 that the agency had found "a clear pattern" of autonomous vehicles interfering with police, firefighters and paramedics, and that "emergency scenes are not rare or extreme 'edge cases,'" per The New York Times, which also reports three federal recalls since December against three in the prior 22 months, while Waymo more than quintupled its fleet to nearly 4,000 cars. #news

Germany's Car Industry Just Posted Its Lowest Headcount Since 2005: German automotive employment fell by 42,300, or 5.8%, over the past year to 691,500, the lowest since 2005 and a faster decline than any other German industrial sector, per Reuters. Parts and accessories suppliers were cut hardest at 7.6%, against 6.1% at the manufacturers themselves, so the tier that supplies everyone is shrinking faster than any single badge. #market

The UK's Biggest EV Battery Gigafactory Just Shelved Its Expansion: AESC has paused plans to grow its Sunderland gigafactory after talks with Jaguar Land Rover stalled, per The Guardian. It follows Northvolt's collapse, Britishvolt's failure, two cancelled gigafactories from Automotive Cells Company (co-owned by Stellantis, Mercedes-Benz and TotalEnergies) and SVolt abandoning a German plant, so the pause reads less like one stalled deal than like Europe's battery build-out running out of road. #analyst

California Just Put Self-Driving Trucks on the Road: California lifted its ban on heavy autonomous vehicles, and two companies already hold DMV permits to test on public roads with a safety driver aboard, per InsideEVs. #news

The Man Who Pushed Toyota to Build the Prius Has Died: Hiroshi Okuda, the first Toyota leader from outside the founding family since 1967, died August 8 at 93, per Automotive News. He ran the company from 1995 and is credited with pushing the Prius to production in 1997, a year ahead of its original timeline, per The Drive. Under him Toyota's overseas deliveries climbed from 2.48 million to 3.06 million while domestic volume fell, which is the same trade Geely is making at the top of this issue, thirty years later. #enthusiast

Kia and Hyundai Mobis Will Pay $11.5 Million Over How They Recruited Foreign Engineers: US District Judge Leigh Martin May approved an $11.5 million class-action settlement for Mexican engineers who said they were recruited under false pretenses to work in Georgia, in a case that named Hyundai Mobis, Kia Georgia and a staffing agency, per CBS News Atlanta. It settles rather than sets precedent, but it puts a number on getting cross-border recruitment terms wrong as automakers lean harder on foreign engineering staff to hit US production timelines.

Nearly 23,000 Evenflo Infant Seats Can Sit a Baby Too Upright: Evenflo is recalling 22,981 Revolve180 LiteMax NXT rotating infant seats made before April 1, 2025, because a miscalibrated level indicator means they do not meet certain federal performance requirements, per Consumer Reports. Evenflo says the problem surfaced in post-production testing after a notice from NHTSA. Consumer Reports' own testing found the recline angle sat too upright for infants under three months, an angle that can let a baby's head fall forward and block the airway. No injuries have been reported. → If you own one: The non-rotating LiteMax NXT is not affected. Check your model against Evenflo's recall page; registered owners get notified from September 1, and the free repair kit is still being finalized.

Toyota's Quickest SUV Can Lose Its Stability Control: Toyota is recalling the bZ Woodland because electronic stability control can shut off, undermining a system mandated in every new US vehicle since 2012, per Autoblog. → If you own one: Check with your dealer for the ESC software fix and avoid disabling any stability aids in the meantime.

A 1935 Duesenberg Closed Out Monterey: The 1935 Duesenberg SSJ Special Speedster of collector Harry Yeaggy took Best of Show at the 75th Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance, closing Monterey Car Week, per Hagerty. The Concours says its lifetime charitable donations have now passed $50 million, per PR Newswire.

Mahindra Closes Formula E Season on a Double Podium: Nyck de Vries finished P2 and Edoardo Mortara P3 at the London E-Prix finale, locking Mahindra into third in the teams' championship, per Autocar India.

Marcus Ericsson Wins IndyCar's Chaotic Markham Debut: The inaugural Ontario Honda Dealers Indy at Markham started a day late after the street circuit wasn't ready, then delivered a chaotic finish anyway, per americancarsandracing.com.

JD Power Says the Premium-vs-Mass-Market Satisfaction Gap Is Closing: JD Power's latest APEAL study finds owners of mass-market vehicles are closing the satisfaction gap with premium-brand owners after 90 days of ownership, per Automotive News.

SAIC's Overseas Sales Jump 72.5% as MG Pushes Into Europe: SAIC sold 142,000 vehicles overseas in July, up 72.5% year over year, with year-to-date overseas volume at 876,000 units, up 52.1%, per chinaevhome.

Yesterday's picks

To Purists, Ferrari's EV Was a Betrayal. Someone Paid $40 Million for It.: Chassis 0 of the Ferrari Luce, the brand's first electric car and a car we covered from the day Ferrari unveiled the Luce, sold for $40 million at RM Sotheby's Monterey auction Saturday night, 36 times its $1.1 million pre-sale estimate, per Electrek. RM Sotheby's ran it without reserve and waived the buyer's premium.

GM cuts 350 jobs to retool a plant it promised to EVs: GM will lay off 350 workers at Lansing Grand River Assembly and Lansing Regional Stamping effective January 14, ahead of a $1.25 billion retooling, per Automotive News. The money is not new: GM committed that same $1.25 billion to Lansing in 2023 for future EV production under its UAW contract, and took a $500 million Energy Department grant a year later to electrify the plant. What it is now retooling for is the next-generation, gas-powered Cadillac CT5, per Autoblog. Affected workers are expected back as retooling finishes, some by late 2027. It is the plant-level version of the reversal we covered when GM brought gas Cadillacs back after a $10.9 billion EV reality check.

Porsche is leaving VW's emissions pool to buy compliance from a Chinese rival: Porsche's fleet averaged 130.2 grams of CO2 per kilometer last year against an EU limit of 93.6, dragging up a group average that already sat at 100. So Porsche is exiting Volkswagen Group's own emissions pool and pooling with Chinese EV maker Xpeng instead, per Autoblog. VW CFO Arno Antlitz has guided to 400 to 500 million euros in annual CO2 penalties from 2025 through 2027, as much as 1.5 billion euros (about $1.7 billion) in the worst case, at 95 euros per gram over the limit per vehicle. The compliance trade is the story here rather than the fine: a VW brand is now paying a Chinese competitor, one that sold roughly 19,000 cars in Europe last year, to carry its emissions math.

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