Photo: Dwight Burdette / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0
In today's issue:
Pep Boys changes hands for $700 million while a $300 million dealer roll-up collapses
Nevada gives Tesla the 5,000 robotaxis it cut to 10 back in July
NHTSA escalates its GM V8 engine probe to nearly a million trucks
THE MONEY MOVES TO THE SERVICE BAY
Mavis bought Pep Boys' tire and auto-service business from Icahn Enterprises for $700 million in cash, effective Aug. 20, per Motor1. Nearly 800 Pep Boys locations join a network the companies say now tops 4,400 stores across the US and Canada.
Icahn kept the real estate under those stores, plus AAMCO Transmissions and Precision Tune Auto Care, so what changed hands is the service network, not the property.
Mavis got to 4,400 locations the way roll-ups usually do, by spending years buying regional tire shops. Pep Boys, founded in 1921, keeps its name on the buildings.
Foundation Automotive ran that same playbook on dealerships and lost. Debt passed $300 million, a creditor took control of the stores, and CFO Derek Slemko told a North Dakota federal court "We are insolvent," per Automotive News.
Foundation grew from two Canadian stores in 2019 to more than 30 locations by 2022, then sold or closed at least 19 of them from December 2024 onward. It runs seven today.
Two roll-ups, the same debt-funded playbook, opposite endings. The difference is what each was buying: Mavis bought the work cars need, and Foundation bought the transaction that puts them in driveways.
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Also worth knowing
Ford Puts a Geely Platform Under Its Next European SUV: Ford will build a new SUV on Geely's electrified GEA platform at its Valencia, Spain plant, part of a proposed joint venture, per Automotive News. Geely is pitching the same "China Speed" starter kit, engineers included, to Renault. #analyst
Nevada Gives Tesla the 5,000 Robotaxis It Trimmed to 10 in July: The Nevada Transportation Authority approved permits Thursday letting Tesla, Waymo and Uber deploy a combined 8,000 driverless vehicles over the next 12 months, per TechCrunch. Tesla's share is up to 5,000 vehicles in Clark County, per Teslarati. That is the figure its original application sought, before the state capped the fleet at 10 in July, per Electrek. Waymo is the one already carrying paying passengers, running Zeekr-built Ojai vans in three US cities, per InsideEVs. #analyst
Ford Cut the Raptor's Price by Deleting Its Options: Ford took $4,010 off the 2027 F-150 Raptor's starting price, per Car and Driver. The catch: the equipment Ford stripped out, including the head-up display and the 14-speaker Bang & Olufsen stereo, comes back as a $4,120 Equipment Group 801A option. Optioning the truck to last year's spec costs more than the cut saved, per Carscoops. #market
Automakers Are Quietly Backing Out of Battery Joint Ventures: EV demand shortfalls are pushing automakers to renegotiate battery capacity and risk-sharing deals, per Automotive News. GM sold its roughly 50% stake in a $3.5 billion Indiana joint venture on Aug. 11, one of several similar retreats industry-wide. #analyst
Reveals & culture
Bugatti Gives the Veyron a Wheel It Can Actually Buy Tires For: Bugatti's La Maison Pur Sang division rebuilt a one-off Veyron in the Tourbillon's Rouge Rembrandt and the Chiron's Petrol Blue, per Bugatti's newsroom. The real change is underneath: a reworked Machiavelli wheel design, 20 inches front and 21 inches rear, that lets a Veyron run tires in Chiron sizes.
Photo: Bugatti
Genesis Drops the G70's V6 Days After Revealing Its Flagship: NHTSA VIN submissions and EPA fuel-economy filings for the 2027 G70 list only the 300-hp 2.5-liter turbo four, with the 365-hp twin-turbo 3.3-liter V6 gone, per Car and Driver, which found the documents. Genesis would not confirm the change, and rumors put 2027 as the sedan's last year. That would have the brand retiring its entry sports sedan the same week it unveiled the GV90.
Corvette's Hybrid Hypercar Stops Faster Than It Should: The Corvette ZR1X ran 0-150-0 mph in 14.0 seconds with its 1,250-hp hybrid powertrain, per Car and Driver. It still trailed the Lucid Air Sapphire's 25.7-second 0-200-0 run by 6.1 seconds in a separate test, per Carscoops.
Recalls & legal action
NHTSA Escalates Its GM V8 Probe to Nearly 1 Million Trucks: NHTSA upgraded its investigation into GM's L87 6.2-liter V8 to a full Engineering Analysis, its most serious defect probe level, now covering 997,743 trucks, per GM-Trucks. Nearly 7,000 owners told GM their engines failed again even after a prior repair, per AutoGuide. → If you own one: Check your VIN against the NHTSA engineering analysis and keep every repair record if your engine has already been "fixed" once.
Honda Sensing Class Action Targets Five Model Lines: A proposed class action alleges Honda's front sensor cameras cause Honda Sensing safety features to malfunction across the 2018-2025 Odyssey and Pilot, 2022-2025 Civic, 2023-2025 HR-V, and other models, per CarComplaints. The suit is in early stages with no settlement yet on the table.
Quick links
Tesla Semi's European Debut Gets a Date: Tesla will reveal European Semi specs and launch plans next month at IAA Transportation, its first real commitment after years of delay, per Electrek.
Jeep's Cheapest Special Edition Costs $80: The 2027 Wrangler Smoky Mountain adds blackout trim and heated seats to the Willys for $80 more, per Motor1.
One Complaint Triggered a 13-Car BMW Recall: A single 2025 X3 owner reporting a suspiciously light steering wheel sent BMW combing production records, resulting in a recall covering just 13 cars, per Autoblog.
Mazda's Next CX-30 Won't Arrive Until 2031, and Tariffs Are Why: CEO Masahiro Moro told Japan's Chugoku Shimbun the next-generation CX-30 slips to fiscal 2030, which runs to March 2031, citing US import tariffs, raw-material costs and economic instability, per Car and Driver. The current car went on sale for 2020, so it will run more than a decade.
Waymo Built Its Own Chip to Beat Tesla's Reaction Time: Waymo's new 5nm ASIC delivers over 1,000 trillion operations per second for sensor processing, with compute power up 20 times over eight years, per CBT News.
Yesterday's picks
Canada's Tariff Lands at 15%, Tentatively. One Undecided Rule Halves the Bill.: Ottawa and Washington reached a tentative deal on Aug. 18, hours before a fresh wave of US duties was due, and both sides were still finalizing it a day later, per Automotive News Canada. Trump told reporters "subject to the finalization of documents, we have a deal with Canada," while Carney went only as far as "significant progress," per Carscoops.
China's Car Market Is on Pace for Its Worst Year on Record: New passenger-vehicle sales fell 25% to 1.35 million in July, a seventh straight monthly decline, putting the world's largest market on course for its first double-digit annual drop; the steepest on record so far is 8%, in 2018, per Automotive News. GM has discontinued Chevrolet in China after more than 20 years, the brand having fallen from a 2014 peak of 767,000 units to below 9,000 in 2025, per Just Auto. Exports are the release valve: 5.35 million passenger vehicles shipped overseas in the first seven months, up 73%.
Genesis Reveals the GV90, and Yes, the Backwards Doors Are Real: Genesis' first full-size flagship SUV packs a 123.5kWh battery, seating for up to seven, and what the brand calls the world's first independently opening hidden B-pillar coach door, per The Drive and Genesis newsroom.
Worth a listen
One episode from Car Curious, our sister car-podcast platform, picked out of everything the shows published in the last day.
FWD vs RWD vs AWD: We Finally Settle It (MartiniWorks Podcast): The hosts land on tire choice mattering more than drivetrain layout, and make the case that a rear-drive car on winter rubber beats all-wheel drive on the wrong compound.
Suspension is the daily email that makes you the most informed car person in the room.