In today's issue:

Being first was the entire argument. Jeep billed the Grand Wagoneer as the first extended-range EV sold in the US, and the case for spending engineering budget on a heavy, complicated powertrain was that it bridges the gap while buyers stay nervous about range. On the new dates that lead is mostly spent: the Grand Wagoneer still gets there first in November, but the Ram lands in mid-April 2027 against a Hyundai Santa Fe EREV due in the first half of 2027, and Ford and VW are building toward the same idea behind them. A bridge product is only worth the money while the gap is still open, and this one is closing on Stellantis whether or not it hit the dates it gave the public.

VW's Board Approves the Cuts, Defers the Pain: Volkswagen's supervisory board approved 50,000 additional job cuts and a plan to halve its model lineup by 2035, with four German plants (Emden, Zwickau, Hanover, Neckarsulm) losing current production runs between 2031 and 2034, per Automotive News Europe and Motor1. Which plants close, and when, stays unresolved. This is the first thing the board has approved, and the 50,000 needs reading against the 100,000 Blume asked for when we covered his pitch to the board in July. That is not Blume getting half his ask: the board threw that version out 12 to 7, with labour blocking the German plant closures. It came back in modified form and passed unanimously on Sept. 3, a day ahead of the Sept. 4 vote we flagged last week, with Lower Saxony's 20% stake and the 10 employee representatives the bloc he had to win over, per Carscoops. The 50,000 sit on top of the tens of thousands already cut, per Autoblog, which is how a rejected 100,000 becomes an approved plan without the headline number ever being met. #analyst

The Right-to-Repair Bill Everyone Is Talking About Has Not Moved Since February: Local stations ran a syndicated segment this week describing the REPAIR Act as a live bipartisan push to cut repair bills. The congressional record says otherwise: H.R. 1566, sponsored by Rep. Neal Dunn (R-FL-2) with 44 cosponsors, was forwarded from subcommittee to full committee by voice vote on Feb. 10 and has recorded no action since, per Congress.gov. The same Energy and Commerce Committee instead advanced H.R. 7389, the Motor Vehicle Modernization Act, 48 to 1 on May 21, per Congress.gov. CBT News reports the narrower bill makes the 2014 voluntary repair agreement enforceable by the FTC and gives independent shops a standardized interface on 2018-and-newer vehicles, but leaves wireless telematics access to an FTC study running to 2030. That is the part that decides whether an independent shop can finish a repair on a connected car. #analyst

NHTSA Opens an Audit Query on the Cybercab: NHTSA opened a formal audit query on Sept. 4, one day after Tesla began charging riders for Cybercab trips in Austin, per Automotive News and The New York Times. The probe targets how Tesla self-certified a production vehicle with no steering wheel, pedals or mirrors, per InsideEVs, which notes regulators ran the same playbook on Zoox's robotaxi first. The self-certification question is not new, only newly aimed at Tesla. #news

Automakers Ask Congress to Finish What Tariffs Started: The Alliance for Automotive Innovation, representing GM, Ford, Honda and others, sent Congress a letter urging a permanent ban on Chinese-made cars and software before the legislative session ends in January, citing data privacy, per CNET and Transport Topics. No Chinese-branded car is currently sold in the US thanks to existing tariffs and connected-vehicle rules. Two Alliance members would struggle under a proposal that advanced through a Senate committee in July: Chinese investors own nearly 20% of Mercedes, more than that proposal allows, and fellow member Volvo is owned outright by Geely, with the group saying it wants a balanced solution that will not accidentally kneecap its own team, per Carscoops. #news

Volvo's Dealers Are as Unhappy as Its Sales Numbers: Volvo ranked 24th of 32 brands in NADA's dealer sentiment survey, down four spots year over year and 14 spots over five years, while US sales are down 12% this year, per Automotive News and Autoblog. Retailers ranked the brand 27th for strategic confidence. Franchises point to inventory problems, sales programs that change too quickly, and software quality issues on recent cars, per Automotive News. #market

The Cheapest 200-MPH Car Gives Up the 200: In July we led on the $73,495 Stingray as the cheapest validated 200-mph car on sale. The drive reviews are in, and the $5,395 Z51 package drops top speed to roughly 180 mph through a shorter 5.56:1 final drive plus the splitter, wing and brake ducts. Car and Driver would take that trade anyway, writing that it would "lust after the shorter gearing at the exit of every turn"; Road & Track tested a Z51 car at $96,030. The number that made the headline is the one you give up to get the better car. #enthusiast

Jensen's Interceptor Returns With Nearly 1,000 HP and a Manual: The 2026 Interceptor GTX packs a supercharged 6.8-liter GM-derived V8 making 960 hp (safe to 1,200 hp), a bonded aluminum chassis with hand-formed panels, and a sequential manual gearbox, per Motor1 and Carscoops. Future road cars could add four doors and four seats. #enthusiast

This Restomod Elise Costs Nearly Half a Million Dollars: Analogue Automotive's VHPK strips a Series 1 Lotus Elise to under 600 kg (1,323 lbs), centers the driver, and charges £350,000 (about $472,500) before tax for one of just 35 units, per Road & Track. #culture

Polestar Narrows Its Losses on the Way Out of the US: Polestar slightly grew sales and significantly reduced operating losses in the first half, with US restructuring adding costs, per Electrive. The restructuring is the connected-vehicle rules doing their work: those restrictions are forcing the Geely-owned brand out of the US market, per Carscoops.

NIO Turns a Profit for the Third Quarter Running: NIO delivered 107,658 vehicles in Q2, up 49.4% year over year, with revenue up 69.1% to 32.1 billion yuan (about €4.1 billion), per Electrive.

The Counterfeit Airbag Count Reaches 11: NHTSA has tied an 11th death to illegally imported Chinese airbag inflators after an Aug. 27 crash in Dallas, the first involving a Chevrolet Equinox; the previous 10 deaths and three severe injuries involved Chevrolet Malibu and Hyundai Sonata models, per Road & Track. We covered this thread when the toll stood at 10, and again when eBay banned airbag sales last week. What is new is the agency's final decision, which says autopsy and police reports establish that inflators labelled DTN60DB ruptured and directly caused the deaths. Critically, these are not factory parts: every case involved an original driver airbag inflator swapped for one of these units during a repair, in what Automotive World calls NHTSA's first import ban in over two decades. → If you own one: If your used car has been in a crash with an airbag deployment since 2020, NHTSA urges an inspection, and says a vehicle found with a DTN60DB inflator should not be driven until it is replaced.

Seat Won't Say It's Dying, Won't Say It's Living: Seat says no final call has been made on its future, but called further investment "increasingly challenging" and confirmed a "gradual phase-out" is one option on the table, per Carscoops, days after sister brand Cupra posted 33% growth to Seat's 17% decline.

Read today's issue end to end and the same tension keeps surfacing. Stellantis pushes its range-extenders back, VW halves a model range and books 50,000 more job cuts, and Ford is bringing the Lightning nameplate back as a range-extender rather than the electric truck it cancelled. Meanwhile NIO posts a third straight profitable quarter, Polestar narrows its losses on the way out of a market it is being pushed from, and the loudest thing Western automakers did this week was ask Congress to lock the door permanently. The retreat and the lockout are the same story told from two ends: the companies asking for the deadbolt are the ones whose own electric programs keep sliding to the right.

Yesterday's picks

Ford Wants 100,000 Fathom Sales. Only Tesla Has Ever Hit That With One EV.: Ford is targeting 100,000 Fathom electric pickup sales in the truck's first year, a number no automaker but Tesla has ever sold of one EV model in a single year in the US, per InsideEVs citing the Wall Street Journal.

Honda Tells Suppliers to Cut Prices Up to 30%: Honda aims to save 1.5 trillion yen ($9.4 billion) by 2030 and has instructed suppliers to cut prices up to 30% on pressed, electrical and software-defined-vehicle parts to compete with Chinese rivals, per a Reuters review of internal documents carried by Automotive News Europe. Honda shares fell 2.5% on the news, per CBT News. The squeeze lands days after Honda and Nissan dropped their merger but kept the software partnership.

500,000 Battery Tests Say the Degradation Panic Was Overblown: Aviloo, which sells battery diagnostics, compiled 500,000 battery health checks across 20 popular EVs and found most models still hold a median 90% to 94% of capacity at 150,000 km (93,000 miles), with the Hyundai Ioniq 5 and Mercedes EQA tied at the top and only the small-battery Mini Cooper SE, Nissan Leaf and Renault Zoe under 88%, per InsideEVs and the Financial Times. Tesla's Model Y (90.3%) and Model 3 (88.9%) landed in the middle to bottom of the pack.

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

Thierry Sabbagh on the future of Nissan (Motor Mania Podcast): Thierry Sabbagh, Nissan's COO, explains how the automaker made fast logistics decisions during supply chain chaos and what price the company paid, while laying out the brand's engineering and market bets through 2027.

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