Photo: Mazda North American Operations
In today's issue:
Mazda swung back to a profit, and its CFO credits the redesigned CX-5 it engineered with its suppliers to cost less
Toyota came within about 1,000 sales of GM in October, and GM is spending $750 million to answer with hybrids
Audi built its last A8 sedan after 32 years, and Maserati's next Quattroporte may not be a sedan either
Filtered from 3,256 items published across 281 sources in the last 24 hours.
BUILT TO A BUDGET
Mazda earned an operating profit of ¥26.3 billion ($167.1 million) in the July-September quarter, up from a ¥7.8 billion loss a year earlier when U.S. tariffs hit the export-heavy brand, per Automotive News. CFO Jeffrey Guyton credited the CX-5's new engineering approach with helping Mazda back into the black; a richer sales mix and a weaker yen also did part of the work. Mazda now expects full-year operating profit to triple to ¥150 billion ($953.2 million).
Mazda brought suppliers into the CX-5's design early: Nippon Steel helped cut 10% of body weight, and Yazaki cut the CX-5's wire-harness variants by 80% so robots can build them. "We've tried to redesign the entire cost structure of the car," Guyton said, per the same report, which calls it a page from China's playbook. The same methods go into the CX-5 hybrid due next year.
Buyers are taking it. CX-5 sales rose 7.9% to 9,689 in October, and Mazda's total rose 25% to 31,446, its second-best October, per Motor1. Mazda says its fiscal year to March is on pace for a U.S. record of 437,000.
The calendar-year record is harder. Mazda sold 424,382 cars in the U.S. in 2024 and 341,714 through this October, per Automotive News. By our arithmetic, beating 2024 takes about 41,300 sales in each of November and December; Mazda's best month this year, September, was 34,519.
MotorTrend's SUV of the Year judges praised the new CX-5's much bigger back seat but left it out of the finalist round, faulting a 15.6-inch touchscreen with no climate buttons or volume knob and the carried-over 187-hp four-cylinder and six-speed automatic. "The engine seems increasingly out of date, and the six-speed is something to recommend against," technical director Frank Markus said. The hybrid arrives next year; for 2027 the gas CX-5 held its $29,990 base price while every other trim went up. Read Automotive News' full story.
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Also worth knowing
Toyota Came Within About 1,000 Sales of GM in October, and GM Is Spending $750 Million on Hybrids to Answer: GlobalData estimates Toyota trailed GM by about 1,000 vehicles in October, a tenth of a point of market share, per Automotive News. GM has led U.S. sales in 94 of the past 95 years, but its sales fell 6.3% to 2.01 million through September while Toyota rose 0.6% to 1.88 million. Hybrids are the gap: Toyota sells 30 hybrid models that make up more than half its U.S. volume, and GM's only hybrids are Corvettes, the Grand Sport X and the ZR1X, as we noted when GM began readying its three-row SUV plant for hybrids. GM's $750 million goes to its Lansing, Mich., plant that builds the Traverse, Acadia and Enclave, and AutoForecast Solutions' Sam Fiorani expects 150,000 to 180,000 hybrid crossovers a year from there starting in 2029. #market
Musk Says Tesla Will Refund Many Cybertruck Deposits Before the Line Shuts in About Eight Months: "The Cybertruck order rate far exceeds our production rate. We will try to make as many as possible before shutting down the line in about 8 months, but will have to return deposits for a lot of people," Elon Musk posted on X, per Business Insider. Musk had already said Tesla would wind down Cybertruck production in Texas around the middle of next year. He said the truck is not unprofitable and that Cybercab output is worth more than the truck's complexity. Tesla has not said how many orders are outstanding, and its website still appeared to take them, per the same report. Tesla sold 38,965 Cybertrucks in 2024, 20,237 in 2025 and 11,586 through September this year, per Car and Driver. #news
Photo: Dllu / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Britain and the EU Both Weigh Looser EV Rules on Wednesday: Britain is expected to cut its 2030 EV sales mandate from 80% to about 60% and extend automakers' flexibilities to 2034 after a Nov. 11 Downing Street meeting, per Automotive News Europe, citing the Guardian; the government says no decision has been taken. EVs are 26.6% of British new-car sales this year against a 33% target. The same day, EU ambassadors take up the 2035 combustion ban, where a Franco-German push to weaken it is meeting resistance from member states worried about Chinese brands; Ireland, which runs the talks, has floated a 90% cut by 2035 with the last 10% offset through fuels and low-carbon steel and aluminum credits, per Automotive News Europe. Chinese brands took a record 14.5% of European sales in September, per Automotive News Europe. #analyst
China's Car Exports Rose 75% in 10 Months, and Its Industry Group Expects Growth to Cool to 10% Next Year: Overseas shipments rose 75% in the first 10 months of this year, and China's Passenger Car Association expects growth to slow to about 10% in 2027 as the EU, Thailand and Brazil add tariffs or quotas, per Automotive News Europe. Exports have been the outlet for a shrinking home market: deliveries in China fell 27% to 1.64 million in October, while exports of plug-in hybrids and range-extended EVs rose 168% to 1.77 million in the first 10 months. #market
Reveals & culture
Audi Built Its Last A8 Sedan in Mid-October, Ending a 32-Year Run at Neckarsulm: Production of the flagship sedan ended after four generations, per Motor1, citing Auto Motor und Sport, and the plant will build the A5 sedan and Avant instead. The Q9 SUV is Audi's flagship for now; a spokesperson said earlier this year that an A8 successor will be presented toward the end of the decade.
Photo: Alexander Migl / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
Maserati Will Reportedly Show New Levante and Quattroporte Concepts on Dec. 10, and the Quattroporte May Not Be a Sedan: The two concepts would preview the next versions of both nameplates and a new design direction, per Motor1, citing The Supercar Blog; Maserati has not confirmed them; Stellantis said in October it will present a new plan for Maserati on Dec. 10. CEO Santo Ficili has said the future Quattroporte, in his mind, "is not a sedan," but something between a shooting brake and a crossover. Maserati shipped 7,900 vehicles in 2025, down 30.1%, per Autoblog.
Recalls & legal action
NHTSA Is Investigating Burn Injuries From Side Airbags in 2021-2026 Ford Explorers: NHTSA opened a preliminary evaluation on Nov. 6 after eight owner complaints and four death-and-injury reports filed under its early-warning rules described burns, typically second- or third-degree, to drivers and front passengers when the seat-mounted side airbag deployed in a crash, per NHTSA's opening resume. Some complaints involve police officers in Explorer Police Interceptors. NHTSA estimates the population at 1,236,155 vehicles.
Photo: Elise240SX / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
A Dutch Court Issues a Preliminary Ruling Wednesday on Land Rover's Claim That BYD Copied the Defender: Court-ordered bailiffs seized digital records from BYD's Dutch offices in August on behalf of Jaguar Land Rover, which suspects BYD took apart a Defender to reverse-engineer it for the Ti7 SUV, per Motor1, citing The Times and The Guardian. BYD's lawyers called the search a "fishing expedition," and a preliminary ruling is due in The Hague on Nov. 11. The Ti7 reaches the UK in January from £47,995, about £20,000 below a seven-seat Defender 110.
BYD's Ti7. Photo: S5A-0043 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
Quick links
Wholesale Used-Car Prices Rose 2% From a Year Ago in October: The Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index reached 206.8, up 0.5% from September, against a weak October 2025, per Cox Automotive. Cox's EV index rose 6.6% from a year earlier, while light-truck values fell 4.3% before seasonal adjustment.
Unifor Believes Stellantis Has Sold Its Idled Brampton Plant: Stellantis told the union on Nov. 3 that it still owned the factory, then on Nov. 6 would neither confirm nor deny a sale, which Unifor reads as confirmation, per Automotive News Canada. The expected buyer is Roshel, a Brampton armored-vehicle maker that signed a memorandum of understanding with Stellantis in September. Brampton has not built a vehicle since 2023, and in October a Stellantis joint-venture executive floated sending China-built Jeeps to Canada. The plant built the Dodge Charger and Challenger, per Mopar Insiders; it has 2,200 hourly workers, and Unifor has been without a Stellantis contract since Sept. 20.
Cadillac Brings Super Cruise to Europe in Mid-December: The Optiq, Lyriq and Vistiq get hands-free driving on about 111,000 miles of roads in 16 countries, at up to 81 mph, per InsideEVs.
BMW Will Use Cheaper LFP Batteries in Some Neue Klasse EVs: CEO Milan Nedeljković confirmed the mix; the China-market iX3 30L already uses LFP while the 40L and 50L keep NMC cells, per Electrive.
Yesterday's picks
The U.S. Is the Last Market Where Automakers Make Money, the WSJ Says, and GM's CFO Worries About What Gets Built for It: The U.S. is now "the last true profit engine for the world's carmakers," The Wall Street Journal reported, because Americans buy high-margin pickups and SUVs and keep paying near-record prices: new cars hover around $50,000, and roughly one in five new-vehicle buyers has a monthly payment over $1,000. China, long the path to scale, has sales down more than 20% through September, and Europe, Japan and the Middle East are also sputtering, per the Journal.
Harbinger Raised Another $240 Million After a 2,000-Truck FedEx Order: The medium-duty electric truck maker's Series D was co-led by Tiger Global, the Capricorn Technology Impact Fund and Ridgeline, and brings its total raised since 2021 to more than $650 million, per Electrek. It follows a $300 million FedEx order for 2,000 delivery trucks, which Electrek calls one of the largest binding orders for electric medium- or heavy-duty trucks. Harbinger says the money goes to building more trucks and to energy storage, power generation, autonomy software and defense work.
Honda's Next Electric SUV Is the Alpha, and India Will Be Its Global Production Base: Honda Cars India confirmed the name, a global debut in India on Dec. 2, and that India will be the model's global production base, per Motor1. It grew out of a concept Honda showed at the 2025 Japan Mobility Show and is the first retail Honda to carry the redesigned "H" badge for its EVs, per Autoblog. Specs, price and plans for other markets have not been announced.
Every car, as the shows see it: cars.suspension.news
Worth a listen
One episode from Car Curious, our sister car-podcast platform, picked out of everything the shows published in the last day.
The Man Who Rebuilt the 959: Bruce Canepa & The 800bhp 959 SC! (9WERKS Radio : The Porsche and Car Podcast, also at 9werks.co.uk): At his Scotts Valley, California, shop, Bruce Canepa explains how his 959 SC rebuilds swap the sequential turbos for twin Garretts and the hydraulic suspension for modern springs and shocks, and why simply making the car emissions-legal would have cost about 150 horsepower.
9WERKS Radio
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