NHTSA Says Robotaxis Need to Stop Holding Up First Responders Already: TDS

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

The Downshift summarizes news items in a few sentences, with links to other sites to get the deeper story. Here’s your bulletin for Thursday, July 9, 2026.

🔊 The latest episode of The Drivecast, The Drive’s weekly podcast, is now live on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts. There was a snag in the episode publishing yesterday, so if you were looking out for it, we thank you for your patience!

🚨 National Highway Traffic Safety Administration chief Jonathan Morrison has called on autonomous vehicle makers to design products that don’t impede first responders. “Let me be clear: the inability to detect and appropriately respond to such ​situations represents a functional insufficiency,” Morrison said in a letter, as the department is reportedly scheduling meetings with vendors this month to address the problem. [Reuters]

📈 China’s domestic car sales may have fallen a staggering 26% compared to June of last year, but its exports are up 80%—a total of 905,000 cars. This echoes the recent success that BYD has found in markets beyond China. [Associated Press]

💷 A group of Aston Martin’s creditors holding more than 50% of the company’s shares have signed a cooperation pact, as concern builds over its debt. [Bloomberg]

⚡ Mercedes has announced an AMG version of its compact sedan, called the CLA45, powered by three axial-flux electric motors that produce 671 horsepower together from a 94-kWh battery. [Autocar]

🎰 McLaren has introduced the 788HS, which it says is the final evolution of the 720S family. The new model has 10% more downforce than the 765LT, weighs 2,789 pounds, and packs 777 horsepower (“788” is a reference to its output as expressed in pferdestärke—I guess “777” just wasn’t a big enough number.) Only 100 coupes and 100 convertibles will be built. [McLaren]

🤖 Mitsubishi, of all companies, is getting into the humanoid robot game, as it plans to deploy them at its factories and also build them in a partnership with a startup called Highlanders Inc. [Automotive News]

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