In today's issue:

Filtered from 3,932 items published across 306 sources in the last 24 hours.

Toyota is both building the car and learning Waymo's system from inside its own plant, which is what Honda lost when Cruise closed. Read Automotive News' full story.

Audi Has Reportedly Been Promised a Tariff Cut for Its Georgia Plant: Our Oct. 25 lead on Audi's Georgia plant said it does nothing for Audi's tariff bill before the early 2030s. That may change first: the Trump administration has promised Audi tariff relief to secure the $4 billion plant, with the Commerce Department expected to agree to a rate of around 10%, down from the 15% Audi pays on imports from the EU, two sources told Automotive News. Audi had pushed for 7.5%. U.S. officials also told Audi a broader relief program is coming for automakers making significant U.S. investments, and other announced investments would qualify, the sources said. Commerce and Audi did not comment. Tariffs cost Audi about €1.2 billion ($1.4 billion) in 2025, since it imports every U.S. vehicle from Europe or Mexico, and VW Group's supervisory board has yet to approve the plant. #analyst

Rivian Says the R2 Was Its Best-Seller Last Quarter. Cox Automotive's Estimates Put It Third.: "We had great results with R2 becoming our best selling vehicle by volume in the third quarter," CEO RJ Scaringe said as Rivian raised the bottom of its 2026 delivery forecast to 67,000 to 70,000, per just-auto. Cox Automotive's estimates, reported by Autoblog, have 3,456 R2s sold from July through September, behind 8,469 commercial vans and 5,582 R1Ss, the same figures behind Rivian passing every U.S. EV brand but Tesla on Oct. 21. Rivian delivered 19,248 vehicles in all, and Cox's four model estimates add up to within nine of that, so the two counts differ on the mix, not the total. Revenue rose 38% to $2.16 billion and the net loss narrowed to $913 million from $1.17 billion. #market

Volkswagen Has Paused Work on the Electric Golf Because It "Can't Afford" It Right Now: "We simply can't afford this work right now," Thomas Schäfer, head of VW's volume brands, wrote in an internal memo, after the Wolfsburg plant fell €300 million short of its cost-cutting target, per Automotive News. The memo landed a day after VW Group's €5.9 billion third-quarter operating loss. The ID. Golf was expected around 2030, and VW calls the pause temporary, with no date for restarting, per Motor1. VW's works council said the pause would not delay the launch and called the spending freeze "yet another sign of how strained the group's financial situation is," per Automotive News. The gas Golf's production moves to Mexico in 2027. #analyst

An Electric Dodge Charger Costs More Than Twice as Much to Lease as the Gas One: The $60,690 Charger Daytona Scat Pack works out to about $1,486 a month on Dodge's own lease calculator, against about $733 for the $55,690 gas Scat Pack two-door, so a 9% price gap becomes a 103% lease gap, per CarsDirect figures reported by Autoblog. The reason is resale value: a September dealer bulletin has the EV keeping 40% of its value after three years at a 12.5% rate, against 67% and 5.4% for the gas car. #market

Honda Says the Civic Type R HRC Is "In Development for the U.S. Market": It stops short of confirming the car will be sold here, but Honda is bringing the concept to the SEMA Show in Las Vegas next week, per Road & Track. Honda has not said what changes beyond a new front bumper, rear wing and fender winglets. Honda's HRC parts for the Civic Type R go on sale in March.

Car and Driver Calls the Rogue Hybrid the Best Nissan on Sale, After a Drive Next to RAV4s: Car and Driver called the 2027 Rogue Hybrid the best Nissan on sale after a drive at which Nissan supplied hybrid Toyota RAV4s for comparison, per Car and Driver. Its e-Power system, the first sold in the U.S., uses a 1.5-liter three-cylinder only as a generator for two electric motors, with 225 hp, a Nissan-quoted 6.4 seconds to 60 mph and an EPA-estimated 38 mpg combined in SR trim.

First Drives of BMW's New Gas 3 Series Are In, and the M350 Comes Close to an M3: Car and Driver called the 2027 car better, not just different, and singled out its steering, per Car and Driver. Motor1 called the 437-hp M350 xDrive "the closest there has ever been to an M3 without the M badge," per Motor1, while Road & Track found it quick but "all business," leaving the drama for the coming M3, per Road & Track. It rides on a different platform from the electric i3 sold alongside it, Motor1 lists the M350 at 4,169 pounds, and both Car and Driver and Motor1 flagged air vents that adjust only through the touchscreen. The 3 Series and i3 arrive near the end of the first quarter of 2027, from $51,250 for a 330 to $67,250 for the M350, including destination.

A Scottish Startup's Quattro Tribute Swaps the Famous Five-Cylinder for a 10,000-RPM V8: The Audacious IV puts the look of the short-wheelbase Audi Quattro, on an original Quattro shell or a carbon-fiber body, over the underpinnings of a 2006-2008 Audi RS4, keeping its 4.2-liter V8 and six-speed manual, per Autocar. The V8 comes supercharged at 600 or 750 bhp, or in a version that revs to 10,000 rpm, and the company claims 200 mph. Fifty will be built in Edinburgh from £350,000 before tax, with the first delivery late next year.

GM Will Pay $220 Million Over Claims It Sold Drivers' Data That Insurers Used to Set Rates: Attorneys general from 35 states and Washington, D.C., said GM sold drivers' location and driving-behavior data from its Smart Driver program to brokers without permission, and that insurers used it to set and sometimes raise rates, per Automotive News. GM must now get drivers' express consent before collecting or sharing that data, and a spokesperson said the settlement reinforces privacy steps it has already taken. "People bought a car, not a tracking device," Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield said.

Nissan's U.S. Sales Rose 10% in September as Its China Sales Fell 62%: U.S. sales climbed 10.4% to 75,401 and Japan rose 17.7%, but global sales fell 10.2% to 249,759 on a 61.6% drop in China, per Nissan's September figures reported by Autoblog. Exports from Japan to North America rose 52.7%.

Hyundai's Third-Quarter Net Profit Fell 24%, and It Cut Its Full-Year Target: Net profit fell 24.2% to 1.93 trillion won ($1.44 billion) even as operating profit rose 5.5%, per just-auto. Global wholesale volume fell 11.3%, with domestic shipments down 27.2% after strike-related plant closures, and Hyundai cut its full-year wholesale target to 4 million vehicles from 4.16 million and its operating margin outlook to 5.5% to 6.5%. North American retail sales rose 3.2%.

Someone Stole Mate Rimac's Bugatti Chiron From His Factory, and He Chased It Into Austria in a 911: Rimac had left the keys inside. The thief left a company building in Croatia with about an hour's head start, and Rimac's team fed the car's live telemetry to police through a group chat until Austrian police stopped it, per Motor1. Rimac says he chose not to press charges, and the company will no longer leave keys lying around.

Yesterday's picks

Ford Made $2 Billion as Truck Buyers Shrug Off $4 Gas. Its EVs Lost $1.1 Billion.: Ford earned $2.0 billion in net income in the third quarter on revenue of $49.5 billion, down 2%, and raised the low end of its full-year adjusted operating profit forecast to a range of $10.5 billion to $11 billion, per Ford. Net income was 16% lower than a year earlier, per Automotive News.

Volkswagen Group Posted a €5.9 Billion Operating Loss, Its Biggest Quarterly Loss Since 2015: The operating loss was more than double the €2.6 billion analysts expected, and a company spokesperson said it was the largest since the fourth quarter of 2015, when VW booked charges for the diesel emissions scandal, per Automotive News. CFO Arno Antlitz said about €8 billion of it came from special items, part of the €10 billion in one-time charges, including a €6 billion write-down of its Porsche stake, that VW warned of on Sept. 18 when it cut its 2026 margin forecast to 1%. He added that the operating margin before them was just 3.8% after nine months, "not enough in the long term." VW's Chinese joint ventures lost €113 million in the first nine months, against a €744 million profit a year earlier.

Used EVs Now Sell 13 Days Faster Than Used Gas Cars, and Cost More: One- to five-year-old used EVs took an average of 41.9 days to sell in September, 10% faster than a year earlier, while used gas cars took 54.8 days, 19.9% slower, per iSeeCars data reported by Road & Track. The average one- to five-year-old used EV sold for $32,533, up $2,896 in a year, or $579 more than the average used gas car; a year ago it cost $2,227 less. The Audi Q4 Sportback e-tron, Toyota bZ4X and Lexus RZ 300 were among the 10 fastest sellers, while the Cadillac Escalade iQ and GMC Sierra EV were among the slowest, per AutoGuide.

Worth a listen

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

Inside Rivian’s Software Strategy with Chief Software Officer Wassym Bensaid (InsideEVs Plugged-In Podcast, also at insideevs.com): Rivian software chief Wassym Bensaid explains why the company writes its own software on fewer, central computers, and why he says even the cheapest R2 "will just keep getting better" after you buy it.

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