In today's issue:

Washington built a wall to keep Chinese EVs off American roads. Waymo did not find a way around it. It read the tariff bill, read what a Jaguar costs, and paid.

The luxury car market is cracking from the middle out: An industry figure granted anonymity told The Drive that "Lamborghini: not selling," "Bentley: struggling since 2024," and Aston Martin sales are "poor" outside the Valhalla, blaming prices that now ask roughly $2,000 more a month on a lease to move into what is essentially the same car. Kelley Blue Book's July report points the same way, with subcompact SUVs, compact cars and midsize cars all posting year over year gains as buyers trade down, per The Drive. Ferrari and Bugatti remain untouched. Three days ago we ran the opposite case, Spyker CEO Victor Muller arguing there are too few cars for the buyers. One of them is wrong, and this week's reveal slate is the test. #analyst

Tesla is winning a market that is shrinking under it: Tesla took 61.5% of US EV registrations in June, up from 50.4% a year earlier, while total EV registrations fell 11%, the ninth straight monthly decline since the $7,500 federal credit expired, per Automotive News, citing Mobility Global. Tesla's own registrations rose 8% to 61,813. Every other brand combined fell 31%, to 38,702. EV share of the total US light-vehicle market dropped to 6.9% from 8.6%. #market

Jaguar Land Rover will build in the US to get on the right side of the tariff: CFO Richard Molyneux confirmed on the August 13 earnings call that JLR will build new Defender-branded models at Stellantis plants in the US, per Automotive News Europe. JLR imports every vehicle it sells in the US, its largest market, paying 10% on UK-built cars and 15% on the Slovakia-built Defender. Moving existing models was never on the table: "We sell circa 30,000 Defenders in the U.S. each year. We can never localize efficiently at 30,000 units, or even at 50,000 units," Molyneux said. #analyst

Stellantis may sell its Brampton plant: Unifor says Stellantis is "seriously" considering closing and selling Brampton Assembly, putting more than 2,000 direct jobs and up to 8,000 supply-chain jobs at risk, per Automotive News. #news

USMCA rewrite could cost automakers billions: Raising the US content threshold to 50% could add at least $2 billion a year per company, while GM alone projects $2.5 to $3.5 billion in tariff costs this year, over 20% of operating profit, per CBT News. #analyst

Toyota's hybrid battery numbers aren't Toyota's: Toyota announced a new hybrid battery generation, but the +20% range and -40% cost figures now spreading across outlets don't come from the company's own release, per Motor Illustrated. #analyst

Gordon Murray built the McLaren F1 sequel, and 64 people get one: The S1 pairs a naturally aspirated 4.2-liter Cosworth V12 making about 681 hp at 12,100 rpm with a six-speed manual and a three-seat cabin built around a central driving position, targeting a weight under 997 kg, per BMW Blog and Carscoops. It trades the five-car S1 LM's fixed wing for active aero and a taller sixth gear, built for distance rather than downforce. This is the car we flagged as an unnamed mystery unveiling on Tuesday.

Lamborghini's Revuelto SV arrives at 1,050 hp, and the record claim comes hedged: The production car makes 1,050 hp and 1,051 lb-ft, reaches 62 mph in 2.4 seconds, tops 214 mph, and generates 80% more downforce than the standard Revuelto, limited to 1,963 cars, per Carscoops. June rumors put it at 1,065 hp, which turns out to be its PS figure. We ran its 1:41.6 Hockenheim lap in the August 6 issue, before the car was revealed, and that time is a production-car record in Lamborghini's press release but only "best-in-class" in the company's own video, with the Mercedes-AMG One's 1:38.563 still the outright road-car benchmark there, per Carscoops. Set that against the luxury warning above and the two agree more than they look: a 1,963-unit halo car is not the lease-driven middle the tipster describes. That is the same top end where Ferrari and Bugatti were called untouched.

Aston Martin's Valen is the most powerful front-engined car the brand has built: 838 hp and 737 lb-ft from a 5.2-liter twin-turbo V12, limited to 150 cars, revealed at Monterey Car Week, per Motor1 and Autoblog. Aston's release claims "the world's most powerful front-engined car from a manufacturer," a title that holds only because the 2023 Dodge Challenger SRT Demon 170, which made 900 hp on E10 and 1,025 hp on E85, is out of production with no successor, per Autoblog.

Koenigsegg finally built the GT1 racer the rules killed: The road-legal CCGT1 makes 1,600 hp and is capped at 70 cars, every one allocated before the public debut, per MotorBiscuit and Car and Driver. The original CCGT was a skunkworks one-off with a 600-hp naturally aspirated V8, retired when GT1 regulations changed just after testing began.

Spyker's comeback car has three pedals and no paddles: The C8 Preliator XXV makes 800 hp and 738 lb-ft from a 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 on an all-new aluminum structure, limited to 25 cars at roughly 2,100 assembly hours each, per Motor Illustrated. No paddles and no automated assist: "You decide when to shift," founder Victor Muller said. The Autopian saw the car in Long Beach with its dash top and A-pillar trim not yet fitted, was told it was developed in four months, and met the crypto investor now behind the brand, per The Autopian.

Czinger drops the roof on a $2.75 million, 1,250-hp hypercar: The 21C Spyder keeps the coupe's output, adds a new 3D-printed brake and suspension system, and will be limited to 30 units, per Autoblog and Autocar UK.

Porsche revives the slant nose for one GT2 RS owner: The one-off Flachbau RS, built by Sonderwunsch and Manthey on a customer's 991.2 GT2 RS, sheds 70 lbs and channels the 935 "Moby Dick," per Carscoops.

NHTSA widens its probe into Ford timing belts that shred at 70,000 miles: Regulators upgraded an investigation opened in December 2025 into 1.0-liter Ford engines. The upgraded probe covers 2014-2017 Fiestas and 2015-2018 Focuses with manual transmissions, plus 2018-2021 EcoSports and 2016-2018 Focuses with automatics, per CarComplaints. NHTSA found the wet timing belt can disintegrate and clog the oil pump pickup screen, starving the engine, with failures around 70,000 miles against a 150,000-mile replacement interval, and it happened to owners who followed the oil maintenance schedule. → If you own one: The pickup screen cannot be inspected or cleaned without pulling the engine, so treat a low oil pressure warning as a stop-driving event rather than a scheduling prompt.

Porsche is reportedly winding down the Taycan by 2030: German magazine Wirtschaftswoche reports the phase-out is agreed with the works council but not yet formalised, per Autocar. Deliveries peaked at 40,960 in 2023 and fell to 16,339 last year, with 6,219 in the first half of 2026. Porsche declined to comment; CEO Michael Leiters said in July that "in the short term, we are not planning to discontinue the Taycan." This puts a date on the chopping-block reports we ran in the July 15 issue.

Land Rover will sell you the truck that won Dakar: The road-legal Defender Dakar takes the Octa's 4.4-liter twin-turbo V8 to 626 hp and 553 lb-ft, more than the 390-hp race car was allowed, on 35-inch tires and Bilstein dampers, per Autoblog. It keeps Flight Mode, which slips the transfer case clutch mid-air to protect the driveline on landing, per MotorBiscuit.

Cadillac's V-One Concept is an 830-hp track car, not a road car: The single-seater translates Cadillac's IMSA and WEC prototype into a bespoke track-focused machine, per Autoweek. It keeps the race car's naturally aspirated 5.5-liter V8 and hybrid system, and because it answers to no series rulebook it makes 830 hp against the racer's 671, per Motor Illustrated. It debuted at The Quail.

Ferrari's CZ26 is another one-off nobody else can buy: Based on the SF90 Stradale, the CZ26 was built for a single US client through Ferrari's Design Studio, per Ferrari Media Centre.

Tata Motors' profit fell 80% despite rising revenue: Q1 profit dropped to Rs7.75 billion ($81.2 million) even as revenue climbed 9.3% year over year, per Just Auto.

Magna is done betting everything on EVs: The supplier is selling its lighting and rooftop systems business and repurposing plant capacity beyond automotive, per Automotive News.

Yesterday's picks

McLaren and Porsche Both Un-Killed the Manual This Week: McLaren's McL 6GT pairs a mechanical manual gearbox with a V8, rear-wheel drive and a carbon-fiber monocoque, the brand's first stick shift since the 1992 F1 and a real gearbox rather than the gated dual-clutch Ferrari has been calling a manual, with a production version due in the second half of 2028, per Carscoops and Automotive News Europe.

China is exporting cars faster than there are ships to carry them: Chartering a large car carrier hit $70,000 a day in June, up from $42,500 at the end of last year, as China's exports run toward a forecast 10 million vehicles this year against just under 600,000 in 2019, per the Wall Street Journal, citing shipbroker Clarksons and research group Mobility Global. The global carrier fleet has grown about 40% and still cannot absorb the volume, so up to 4 million vehicles a year now leave China inside shipping containers, and BYD has built its own fleet of eight carriers.

New-vehicle inventory keeps shrinking even as sales climb: Inventory fell to 75 days' supply in July even as sales climbed 8.5%, with Toyota, Lexus and Honda running the tightest lots while Stellantis still works through excess stock, per CBT News.

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