In today's issue:

Filtered from 4,099 items published across 303 sources in the last 24 hours.

The CX-70 arrived as a 2025 model, a year after the CX-90 replaced the CX-9 as the start of Mazda's push upmarket. Mazda says the merger is "simplifying the lineup and giving customers more intuitive choices based on how they shop today." The choice it removes is the cheaper five-seater: a buyer who wanted the base CX-70 now pays for a Premium Sport or takes a third row. Read Automotive News' full story.

Ford's Sub-$30,000 Fathom Pickup Will Back Up a House Without a Wall Inverter: The electric truck, due in 2027 on Ford's Universal EV Platform, puts the inverter inside one of its five main modules and can send more than 10 kilowatts of AC power to a home, per MotorTrend. Ford expects its new Home Power Station to cost about half as much as its first bidirectional charger, and the backup panel at least 60% less than the first-generation hardware, per Electrek. Ford has not priced either. The F-150 Lightning's original setup cost $5,205 before installation, and MotorTrend estimates the new one at around $2,500. #market

Mercedes Now Expects Its Car Business to Earn 2% to 3% on Sales, Down From as Much as 5%: Mercedes cut its guidance on Oct. 27, citing a tougher market in China and higher fourth-quarter costs, partly for materials, and now expects group earnings before interest and tax to be roughly flat from a year earlier instead of up significantly, per Automotive News. Core car sales fell 8% in the third quarter. Automotive News puts it after outlook cuts at Volkswagen Group, which led our Sept. 19 issue, and BMW, and says the squeeze strikes at a strategy built on selling fewer, more expensive cars such as the S-Class, Maybach and G-Class. Full third-quarter results come Oct. 28. #analyst

Kia Keeps the 2027 EV6 at $37,900 and Takes $10,000 Off Leftover 2026 EV9s: The carryover EV6 holds every price from the 2026 model, which Kia cut by $5,000 a few months ago, with the base standard-range car rated at 237 miles, per Electrek. To clear inventory Kia is offering $10,000 customer cash on the 2026 EV9, $5,000 on the 2026 EV6 and $1,500 on the 2027 EV3, which starts at $29,890. #market

First Drives: Audi's Q9 Undercuts the GLS, and Reviewers Split on Its Third Row: Car and Driver found a smooth, quiet ride and comfortable front seats, but a flat third-row seat with little legroom once the second row slides back, per Car and Driver. The Drive called the third row adult-friendly, per The Drive. Audi expects 65% of Q9s to be sold in North America. Edmunds called the 591-hp V8 SQ9 close to the Mercedes GLS 63 in performance for tens of thousands of dollars less; the 429-hp V6 Q9 starts about $6,000 under a GLS 450, per Edmunds. We covered the Q9's pricing in July.

Toyota Put Five of Its Trucks and SUVs on Snow Tracks for SEMA: The Snowhunter concepts, led by Toyota's CALTY design studio in Ann Arbor, swap the wheels on a Tundra, Tacoma, 4Runner, Land Cruiser and Sequoia for white snow tracks, with lift parts from TRD and racks for skis and gear, per AutoGuide. Toyota says they are one-off builds and not street-legal.

GM Filed a Patent for an Inline-Six That Can Change Its Compression Ratio: The patent application, filed last year and published last week, adds gears and links between the pistons and crankshaft so the engine can vary its compression and let exhaust gases expand further for more work, and it is drawn for the longitudinal layout used in rear-drive cars, trucks and SUVs, per Autoblog. GM has named no vehicle for it.

GM Is Moving Its Stock Listing to Nasdaq on Nov. 17: GM keeps its ticker and joins Walmart, Hilton and Palantir in switching from the New York Stock Exchange; CFO Paul Jacobson called Nasdaq "a natural home for our listing as we grow," per Automotive News.

Volvo Pushes XC60 Production in South Carolina to January: CEO Hakan Samuelsson put the start of its best-selling U.S. model at the Ridgeville plant near Charleston in January, a month later than the previous target of early December, per Automotive News. Friday's lead on Volvo's third-quarter loss had the Charleston start only as the first quarter of 2027. The plant can build 150,000 vehicles a year and builds about 30,000 now.

Federal Regulators Are Reviewing a Petition Claiming Ford's 7.3-Liter Godzilla V8 Can Wear Out Its Camshaft: NHTSA opened defect petition DP26011 on Oct. 23 to decide whether to investigate camshaft and lifter failures in the 7.3-liter gas engine in 2021 and 2022 E-350s and 2021 F-59 and F-750s, per NHTSA's opening resume. The petitioner alleges that oil pressure of about 6 psi at low idle wears the lifter rollers and cam lobes until the engine fails, and that Ford raised idle speed to about 1,000 rpm in a software update without a recall. The agency estimates 54,787 vehicles are covered and lists one reported incident, with no crashes or injuries, per NHTSA. A petition review is not a recall.

Audi Tells 9,048 Q4 E-Tron Owners to Stop Charging Past 80%: The 2024 and 2025 Q4 e-tron and Q4 Sportback e-tron recall covers a battery fault that could lead to a fire; the root cause is still under investigation and no fix is ready, so owners are told to limit charging to 80% until one is, per Motor1. Audi knows of no fires in its own cars. A similar Volkswagen ID.4 recall with the same charging limit covers 22,524 vehicles, per the same report; VW said it would start capping those cars at 80% around Oct. 27, as we noted Oct. 18.

Yesterday's picks

Japan Will Cut Its Top EV Subsidy by 40% Because the Money Is Running Out: From Jan. 1, 2027, the maximum purchase subsidy for a battery-electric car falls from 1.25 million yen to 750,000 yen, for a plug-in hybrid from 800,000 yen to 480,000 yen, and for a kei EV from 550,000 yen to 440,000 yen, per Electrive, citing NHK. Demand ran ahead of plan after Japan raised the subsidies in January 2026, and the cut is meant to stretch what is left of the fund. Japan's EV sales rose 88.6% from a year earlier to 16,074 in September, per the same report.

China Clears VW and Xpeng to Test Self-Driving Cars on Public Roads, Months After Freezing Robotaxi Licenses: VW's China unit started Level 3 testing in Hefei, and Xpeng's robotaxi business got approval for Level 4 trials across Guangzhou, offered by invitation code at first, per Automotive News. China suspended new robotaxi licenses in April after an incident involving Baidu self-driving cars in Wuhan and opened an industrywide safety review. Bloomberg reported in July that approvals had resumed, but few companies have announced one since. VW's is a road-test permit, not approval to sell: only two models in China, the Deepal SL03 and Arcfox Alpha S, have Level 3 market access, and VW's first Level 3 system could reach customers in the second half of 2027 at the earliest, per ChinaEVHome.

Toyota Wants to Sell $1.7 Billion a Year of Its Next Engines to Other Automakers, While Mazda and Subaru Build Their Own: Toyota projects €500 million ($561.8 million) in outside orders for its powertrains in 2026, climbing to around €1.5 billion ($1.68 billion) in 2032, figures Chief Technology Officer Hiroki Nakajima gave investors at an Oct. 9 technology workshop in Europe, per Automotive News. It is the same workshop where Nakajima laid out Toyota's plan to run its Arene software in 50 models, which we covered Oct. 17.

Worth a listen

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

New Porsche, Mazda Safety, Passport Trailsport Review (Car Stuff Podcast, also at bleav.com): Mazda's safety team explains how its cars try to avoid a crash and how the restraints work in milliseconds when they can't, and the hosts drive the 2027 Honda Passport TrailSport, which gains 1.38 inches of ground clearance.

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