Global EV Sales Are Still Rising, Even Without America’s Help: TDS

Welcome to The Downshift, or TDS for short, The Drive’s morning news roundup bringing you the biggest automotive headlines from around the world.

Every item in The Downshift includes a link you can follow for the deeper story. Here’s your bulletin for Thursday, August 13, 2026.

🔊 The latest episode of The Drivecast, The Drive’s weekly podcast, went live yesterday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts.

📈 Global sales of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids rose 9% in July compared to a year earlier, per analytics firm Benchmark Mineral Intelligence, even though in North America specifically, EV sales have slumped 27% over that same period due to the end of federal incentives. [Reuters]

💵 Over the last six months, the average price of a new EV in the U.S. had been decreasing. That ended in July, when the average rose 1.2% over the previous month and 1.6% year-over-year. This directly correlates to a reduction in automaker incentive spending. [Electrek]

📱 Mercedes’ Chief Software Officer, Magnus Östberg, has announced he will leave the company at the end of August. Östberg joined the company in 2021 and shaped MB.OS, the automaker’s latest operating system that debuted on the new CLA. [Automotive News]

🏁 Meanwhile, Merc CEO Ola Källenius is talking up the upcoming AMG GT Black Series that has been spied testing at the Nürburgring, saying, “Sometimes you must allow the engineers to go crazy, and the next car like that is in the making,” and adding that the new track-focused supercar “will be insane, and it will be something completely different that nobody expects.” [Autocar]

🚙 Jeep has introduced a new Grand Cherokee variant, called the Laredo Upland, that adds all-terrain tires and off-roady trim pieces at a more affordable price point than the Overland or Trailhawk. [Stellantis]

🪫 General Motors’ and LG’s Ohio battery plant has been shut down for the past seven months due to a reported lack of demand, but production is finally expected to resume there next week. [Reuters]

🏎️ The Cadillac F1 team has announced that Marcin Budkowski will replace Graeme Lowdon as team principal. [Racer]

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