In today's issue:

Two automakers hit the same tariff whiplash this week and chose opposite paths. One signed a labor contract, the other may sell the factory instead of reopening it.

Chinese Brands Beat Their Whole 2025 in Europe by July: Chinese brands sold 813,096 vehicles in Europe from January to July, passing their 812,452 for all of 2025, and took a record 11.2% share in July against 5.6% a year earlier, per Dataforce figures cited by Automotive News Europe. The growth is led by plug-in hybrids, up 201%, and full hybrids, up 137%, the powertrains the EU's 2024 tariff on Chinese EVs does not cover. That is the gap we wrote about when Europe started coming for Chinese plug-in hybrids, and Brussels is now considering extending the tariff to cover them. #market

VW's Own Labor Chief Calls the Profit Targets Fantasy: Volkswagen is weighing the closure of four German plants and up to 100,000 job cuts, and IG Metall chief Christiane Benner, who also sits on VW's supervisory board, now says the company's profit targets aren't realistic, per Autoblog. Correction: this originally called Benner "VW's own labor chief"; she chairs Germany's IG Metall union and separately holds a supervisory-board seat, she isn't a VW executive. #analyst

Tesla Sets a Cybercab Launch Date: Tesla has started sending invitations for a dedicated Cybercab launch event in Austin on September 3, per Teslarati. The two-seat Cybercab has no steering wheel and no pedals, and is built to run in the Robotaxi fleet alongside the Model Y, which has carried driverless passengers for more than a year. #news

Mazda's China-Only EV Gets Lidar and a $23,800 Price Tag: The refreshed CX-6e now handles highway and urban driving with minimal input and opens presales in China at roughly $23,800, per CarNewsChina. #enthusiast

Hennessey Sold 71 Manual Hypercars in Four Hours: Every one of the 71 build slots for the $2.5 million Blackbird was gone within four hours of its August 19 debut at The Quail, and 60 had sold before the car was shown publicly, per Motor1 and The Supercar Blog. It runs a naturally aspirated 6.2-liter V8 targeting 800 to 850 hp with a six-speed manual and no other gearbox option.

Mercedes-AMG's Electric Baby SUV Loses Its Camouflage: The electric AMG GLA will run three axial-flux motors under Mercedes' new grille design, per Carscoops.

LG Energy Solution Redirects Battery Capacity to AI Data Centers: Slower EV demand and shifting US policy are pushing LG Energy Solution toward energy-storage batteries for AI data centers, per Automotive News.

Cadillac Tops J.D. Power's Tech Study, for Innovation: Cadillac ranked highest overall and highest among premium brands for innovation in J.D. Power's 2026 US Tech Experience Index, scoring 641 on a 1,000-point scale against Genesis at 559 and BMW at 524, per Auto Remarketing. The study's broader finding cuts the other way: passenger screens were among the most problematic technologies measured, and 35% of owners who have one say they have never tried to use it.

Yesterday's picks

China's Biggest Recall Ever Comes Down to One Part, and Tesla Owns Most of It: China's SAMR recall covers 4.3 million vehicles across 11 automakers, and Tesla accounts for 2.98 million of them across the Model 3, Model Y, Model S and Model X, the largest single share, per Carscoops citing Reuters.

Canada's Tariff Deal Died at Midnight: Following up on Canada's tariff landing at 15%, tentatively, talks collapsed and the US imposed 50% tariffs on a wide range of Canadian goods effective Aug. 22, with Prime Minister Mark Carney vowing retaliation, per Automotive News and NBC Philadelphia. The tentative auto-tariff relief from last week's deal is now void.

California Is the First State to Regulate the Tires You Buy: The California Energy Commission unanimously approved its Replacement Tire Efficiency Program this week, setting rolling-resistance floors that phase in from 2029 and tighten in 2033, per Car and Driver and Carscoops. The commission estimates the rules add about $1.50 per tire in the first phase and $6.50 from 2033, and competition, off-road and winter performance tires are exempt, which is why the coverage split between calling it restrictive and calling it a non-event.

The week in attention

How many separate outlets ran a headline naming each company over the last 7 days, across the 560+ sources we monitor. Press releases and Reddit are excluded, so this counts what got written about, not what got announced. A few brands whose names double as ordinary English words are not counted yet.

Bugatti: 21 outlets this week, about 8 in a median week.

Shelby: 17 outlets this week, about 10 in a median week.

Geely: 29 outlets this week, about 18 in a median week.

Quieter than usual: Renault Group (16 outlets against about 28), Rivian (16 outlets against about 22).

Most covered overall: Volkswagen Group, Hyundai Motor Group, Stellantis.

Worth a listen

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

Driven Radio Show #366: Doug Kay of To All The Cars I've Loved Before (Driven Radio Show): Brett Hatfield and Mark Groves get Doug Kay talking about the podcast he built by asking neighbors about their cars, the guest he still counts as his best in Kat DeLorean, John DeLorean's daughter, and the pop-up headlight habit that carried him from an RX-7 to a 240SX to a Miata, then to another Miata twenty years later.

Where this one got written

Today's issue came together at Motoring Coffee, a car enthusiast coffee shop in San Francisco with a Porsche 356 parked on a rug in the middle of the room. Not a bad place to read about a plant closing.

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