In today's issue:
Lucid Air. Alexander-93 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Lucid's new CEO just made his second major headcount cut this year and shut down an Arizona production shift
Ferrari patented a gated six-speed that works as both a manual and an automatic, ahead of a July 4 reveal
Canada built 64,000 fewer vehicles over the past year while US plants added 44,000, with tariffs the likely driver
SECOND CUT THIS YEAR
Lucid is cutting roughly 18% of its workforce, covering full-time employees, contractors and hourly production workers, per Automotive News and Reuters.
COO Marc Winterhoff is departing alongside the cuts, per Reuters.
The company is also eliminating an entire production shift at its Arizona factory to align output with "anticipated demand," per TechCrunch.
This is at least the second round of mass cuts in 2026, per Automotive News. The new CEO's framing is "simplify the company": two workforce reductions in four months, plus a production shift elimination, reads as a demand story, not the org-chart one the company describes.
Lucid's majority owner, Saudi Arabia's PIF, has kept the company solvent through repeated capital injections. That backstop buys runway, not buyers, and each new round of cuts pushes the break-even timeline further out.
Two headcount cuts in one year at a single-plant automaker point to a demand shortfall that financing alone cannot close. Fewer shifts mean fewer units and a tighter cash-burn window, not a path to profitability.
Also worth knowing
Canada Built 64,000 Fewer Cars While US Plants Added 44,000: Effective tariff rates on Canadian-assembled vehicles now sit at 12-13%, near parity with Japanese and Korean imports, per Carscoops. The data landed on the same day Ford kicked off contract talks with Unifor covering nearly 19,000 Canadian autoworkers, per Automotive News, with union president Lana Payne saying Unifor will not make concessions. Tariffs are now the sector's single biggest cost variable heading into those talks. #analyst
Toyota Starts US RAV4 Hybrid Production as One Dealer Reports 800-Plus Customers Waiting: Toyota Kentucky began assembling the redesigned RAV4 Hybrid on June 22, backed by $2 billion in announced investments, per the Toyota pressroom. One California dealer has more than 800 customers queued despite delivering over 200 units in May alone, per Automotive News, while Kelley Blue Book confirms tight availability nationwide as the Kentucky ramp-up catches demand. It is the mirror image of today's lead: Lucid is cutting shifts because the demand is not there, while Toyota adds one and still cannot build its hybrid fast enough. #market
Hyundai Confirms the Next i20 N Is Hybrid, and the Six-Speed Manual Looks Likely to Go: R&D president Manfred Harrer confirmed to Autocar UK that "an i20 N for Europe is a must," per Autocar India, and the next-gen car will use a petrol-electric hybrid with up to 224kW output, per Drive and Auto Express. A dual-clutch transmission appears more likely than the old six-speed manual: more power, less involvement. #enthusiast
BYD, Chery and Geely Say They'll Build Cars in Canada to Access the EV Import Quota: Canadian Industry Minister Melanie Joly confirmed June 22 that all three automakers expressed willingness to explore joint ventures for Canadian assembly, qualifying them for the country's reduced-tariff EV quota, per Automotive News. Canadian auto output fell 64,000 units in a year; Ottawa may be trading tariff leverage for Chinese factory investment that arrives in place of domestic production. #analyst
Reveals & culture
Following up on Ferrari's July 4 Teaser: A Patent Shows the Gated Six-Speed Can Also Run as an Automatic: A new Ferrari patent describes a gated six-speed fitted with R, N, D, and M buttons, letting drivers toggle between full manual and automatic modes without moving out of gear, per Carscoops. Ferrari last offered a manual on a road car with the 599 GTB in 2012; the July 4 reveal, widely expected to be the 12Cilindri MM, would end that 14-year gap with a transmission that hedges its bets: pragmatic for some buyers, a compromise for others. #enthusiast
Mitsubishi's President Says He Wants the Brand to Be One That Can Build a Lancer Evo Again: Mitsubishi's president stated he wants the brand to reach a point where producing a Lancer Evolution is "possible again," per The Autopian. That is organizational aspiration, not a product announcement, but it is the most direct positive signal on an Evo revival from Mitsubishi leadership in years. #culture
Quick links
Mercedes Is Bringing a 400-Mile Electric Luxury Van to the US: The 2028 VLE-Class, first driven by Car and Driver, claims 400 miles of range and fills the passenger-van slot Mercedes vacated when it dropped the Metris, per Autoblog.
Dealership Buy-Sell Activity Jumped 21% Year-Over-Year to a Record 478 Trailing Transactions: The Kerrigan Blue Sky Index hit 178 and franchise valuations remain near historic highs, per CBT News.
CATL and Octopus Energy Launched "Swaptopus" to Battery-Swap European Electric Trucks: The joint venture targets 30 swap stations across Europe by 2035, aiming to undercut diesel on total cost, per the Financial Times and Electrive.
Xiaomi YU7 GT Completed the First Autonomous Nürburgring Lap in 10:29.483: The lap finished without human takeover or remote intervention, per Electrek and CarNewsChina; The Drive noted the autonomous run is about three minutes slower than the same car's human-driven lap of 7:22.
Yesterday's picks
Two-Thirds of China's Cars Are Now Electric. BMW Is Paying the Price.: Record 66.7% NEV share and a 39% gasoline output collapse, as BMW warns of profit falls and 7,700 job cuts.
Rivian R1T and R1S Class Action Targets Undelivered Hands-Free Driving: Lawsuit alleges Rivian sold trucks on hands-free driving promises it never fulfilled, putting its ADAS marketing under legal scrutiny.
A G7 Hot Mic Caught Canada Quietly Letting In 49,000 Chinese EVs a Year at 6.1%: Canada's secret tariff deal creates a stark policy split with the US, opening real cross-border arbitrage potential for Chinese EVs.
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