The next-generation 2027 Hyundai Tucson. Photo: Hyundai
In today's issue:
Hyundai is forecast to outsell Ford in a quarter for the first time as Detroit's share hits a record low
GM's new 8.3-liter diesel takes the horsepower and torque crowns from Ford
The Senate delays its vote on a permanent Chinese car ban to win over one holdout
LEADERBOARD SHUFFLE
Cox Automotive forecasts Hyundai Motor Group, which includes Kia and Genesis, will sell 511,421 vehicles in the US in the third quarter, up 6.5%, while Ford falls 7.1% to 504,172. That would be the first quarter Hyundai has ever outsold Ford, per CNBC.
The swap would make Hyundai No. 3 in the US behind GM and Toyota. GM is forecast down 5.2% to 671,706 and Toyota up 2.2% to 642,707, per CNBC.
Detroit 3 brands are forecast to finish the quarter at just over 36% market share, the lowest on record, while Asian brands top half of US sales for a second straight quarter, per Cox Automotive.
Cox pins much of it on hybrids. GM sells a hybrid only in the Corvette, and Ford's hybrids are the Maverick and F-150, while gas averages $4.48 a gallon. "If you don't have vehicles to catch [consumers] where they are, then there are other manufacturers that likely would step into the gap," Cox analyst Erin Keating said, per CNBC.
Ford says it still outsold Hyundai through August and argues the forecast shows how cheap it has become to build in Korea compared with the US, citing tariffs, currency, labor costs and supply chains, per CNBC. Ford's F-Series production has also struggled since two supplier fires last year, per CNBC.
This is a forecast until automakers report third-quarter sales next week. Detroit spent the year adding V8s to its pickups while buyers shopped for hybrids, and Cox's numbers put a price on that bet.
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Also worth knowing
GM's New Diesel Beats Ford's: 555 HP, 1,230 LB-FT: Three days after its Mongoose teaser, GM published the numbers: the all-new 8.3-liter Duramax turbodiesel V8 for the 2027 Silverado HD and Sierra HD makes 555 hp and 1,230 lb-ft, ahead of Ford's 6.7-liter Power Stroke at 500 hp and 1,200 lb-ft and Ram's Cummins at 430 hp and 1,075 lb-ft. It's the first time GM has led the diesel power charts since 2017, per The Drive. It replaces the 6.6-liter Duramax, adding 85 hp and 255 lb-ft. Ford keeps one number: a Super Duty is rated to tow 40,000 pounds on a gooseneck, against 38,000 for GM's trucks, Carscoops notes. #enthusiast
The 2027 GMC Sierra HD. Photo: General Motors
Senate Delays Its Chinese Car Ban to Win Over One Holdout: Sens. Bernie Moreno and Elissa Slotkin put off their fast-track bid for a permanent ban on Chinese vehicles until next week to negotiate with Sen. Rand Paul, the lone objector; the procedure needs unanimous consent, and Slotkin put support at "99 to 1," per Reuters. Sen. Ted Cruz has said the bill would bar companies more than 15% owned by Chinese entities, which could reach Mercedes-Benz and its nearly 20% Chinese shareholding; Moreno says Mercedes would have until 2030 to comply. #news
Waymo Says It Avoided 841 Injury Crashes. Minneapolis Wants a Human in the Seat Anyway.: Waymo's new safety report claims its cars avoided 841 injury-causing crashes over 270 million autonomous miles through June 2026, with 82% fewer injury-causing crashes and 95% fewer serious-injury crashes than human drivers, per Road & Track. Minneapolis's city council is weighing an ordinance requiring a licensed "human monitor" in the driver's seat of every autonomous vehicle, per Jalopnik. #news
VW's Board Meets Today to Decide Whether Audi Gets a US Plant: VW Group's supervisory board meets Sept. 25 to settle whether Audi gets its own US factory or shares Scout's new plant in Blythewood, S.C., as VW pivots its US lineup toward pickups and large SUVs, Automotive News Europe reports. The board approved the broader plan, with 50,000 more job cuts, on Sept. 3, and IG Metall meets management Sept. 30 over whether it breaches a 2024 labor deal. Two North American moves landed the day before: VW told US dealers the ID. Buzz will skip a second straight model year and return in the first half of 2027 as a 2028 model, per Automotive News, and battery unit PowerCo pushed the start of its C$7 billion cell plant in St. Thomas, Ont., from 2027 to 2029, per Automotive News Canada. All of it follows VW's cut 2026 margin forecast. #analyst
Bentley's CEO Says "Predictable Planning" Is Gone: As Bentley unveiled the Torcal, its first EV, CEO Frank-Steffen Walliser said "this predictable planning is honestly gone, and I do not think it will come back," per Motor1, citing Autocar. Bentley will build EVs and plug-in hybrids on the same line and shift output toward whatever customers order, and its revised plan targets an all-electric lineup by 2035 rather than the 2030 goal set in 2020. The Torcal will be its only EV until sometime after 2030, per Carscoops. #analyst
The Bentley Torcal, the brand's first EV. Photo: Bentley
Tesla's Semi Reaches Volume Production With a 2,500-Truck Order Lined Up: Tesla formally launched high-volume Semi production Sept. 24 at a dedicated Nevada plant it says can build 50,000 trucks a year; the first truck came off that line in April, per Electrek. The Semi is not new to fleets: PepsiCo has run hand-built units since late 2022, and the volume truck was redesigned around Tesla's own 4680 cells, per Electrek. The ZET SCALE alliance picked Tesla as primary supplier for 2,500 electric trucks, an order Electrek says would nearly double the number of electric Class 8 trucks on US roads. Production was originally promised for 2019. #news
The volume-production Tesla Semi. Photo: Tesla
Subaru Brings Back a Base Impreza at $24,595: The 2027 Impreza adds a base trim starting at $24,595, per Subaru's pressroom. Subaru had dropped the base trim for 2026 and made Sport the entry point, per Motor1. #market
Reveals & culture
Brabus Chopped the Roof Off a G 63. It Costs Over $1 Million.: The 900 Rocket Edition Cabrio, shown at the Monaco Yacht Show, gets a 4.5-liter twin-turbo V8 making 888 hp and a two-piece electric soft top built from more than 500 new parts. It reaches 62 mph in 3.7 seconds, and the car shown costs €1,059,980, about $1.21 million, with German VAT, per Motor1. Brabus is building 10 of them. #enthusiast
The Brabus 900 Rocket Edition Cabrio. Photo: Brabus
A One-Owner Acura NSX Zanardi Edition Just Sold for $628,000: No. 22 of the 51 Zanardi Editions Acura built for the US in honor of Alex Zanardi, still with its original owner and 23,000 miles, sold on Bring a Trailer on Sept. 23 after 68 bids. #enthusiast
NSX Zanardi Edition No. 22. Photo: Bring a Trailer
An Audi A6 E-Tron Went 831 Miles on One Charge: Rally driver Miko Marczyk drove an A6 Sportback e-tron 1,338 km (831 miles) across Poland on a single charge, a Guinness World Record for production cars and about 72% past its 777 km (483-mile) WLTP rating, per Motor1. It beats the 748.8 miles a Lucid Air Grand Touring covered in 2025, per Carscoops. #enthusiast
Miko Marczyk and the record-setting A6 Sportback e-tron. Photo: Audi
Friday Fun: Weird Wheels
A Glass-Box Kit Car From the Designer of the Aston Martin Lagonda: The Hustler Holiday 4 came from William Towns's Hustler kit range, which offered 13 models by 1976, and runs on Mini and Metro subframes with a British Leyland A-series engine. This one was finished by its original owners in 1994, had covered 15 miles between 2020 and 2024, and may be the last one left. YouTube's Roadtrip Revivals got its 1275 GT Mini engine running and drove it to the French coast and back the same day, through a split fuel filter and a blown clutch slave cylinder, per motorbiscuit.
The Hustler Holiday 4. Image: Roadtrip Revivals / YouTube
Quick links
Ford's First Bronco Raptor Just Sold for $105,000: Serial number 00001, with 99 miles on the odometer, sold on Bring a Trailer on Sept. 24 after 36 bids. The same truck brought $350,000 at a 2022 Barrett-Jackson charity auction benefiting the National Forest Foundation and Outward Bound. A new one runs around $80,000.
Bronco Raptor No. 00001. Photo: Bring a Trailer
Stellantis Freezes White-Collar Hiring After a 2,000-Engineer Surge: The freeze hits Auburn Hills headquarters after Stellantis added more than 2,000 engineers in 2025 to address quality problems, per Automotive News.
JD Power Sees September Sales Up 2.6%, but Q3 Still Trails Last Year: JD Power and GlobalData project September sales of 1.33 million, up 2.6% year over year, with EV share falling to 7.9% and hybrids at 17%; the quarter is projected at 4.09 million, down 0.5%, per CBT News. Cox Automotive's own forecast has September up 6.5%, so the two disagree on the size of the month, per Cox.
Recalls & legal action
BYD Recalls 183,000 Cars in China Over Faulty Brake Lights: A defect can make the brake lights come on at random in Qin and Tang models built between 2014 and 2022 and sold in China, per Carscoops.
Yesterday's picks
Feds Probe Comma.ai's Hands-Free Kit After Three Deaths: NHTSA's Office of Defects Investigation opened a preliminary evaluation on Sept. 21 into comma.ai's aftermarket driver-assist devices and its openpilot software, an estimated 30,000 units, after five crashes in which equipped cars reportedly struck stopped or slow-moving vehicles in their lane, per Ars Technica and Road & Track. Three people died in two of the crashes, and 11 others were injured across four of them; regulators will also examine modified "forks" of openpilot, per TechCrunch.
Honda Plans Its Biggest SUVs Yet, and a $2.5B Plant That Could Build Them: A three-row Acura flagship, internally labeled the Acura XL, is scheduled to start production in September 2029, and a "Pilot XXL" nearly 8 inches longer than today's Pilot follows in the first quarter of 2032 on the same platform, per Automotive News, citing a person briefed on the plan and a Honda planning document.
China's Retail Sales Fall 22% Through Sept. 20: Passenger-vehicle retail sales hit 878,000 units from Sept. 1-20, down 22% year over year even as NEV penetration reached 67.9%, per the China Passenger Car Association data cited by chinaevhome.com.
Worth a listen
One episode from Car Curious, our sister car-podcast platform, picked out of everything the shows published in the last day.
Work Together, Thrive Together, Build a Business You Can Sell [THA 504] (Remarkable Results Radio Podcast, also at remarkableresults.biz): The industry average repair shop never sees 54% of its customers a second time; this episode is about the retention habits that turn one-off visits into a business somebody would buy.
Remarkable Results Radio Podcast
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