Good morning and welcome to The Downshift, or TDS for short.
Tight, light, and right as they say in the biz, TDS unites all the morning’s automotive headlines that matter so you can get caught up with what’s going on in the world. Stories are summarized in a sentence or two, with links.
🔊 Episode 6 of The Drivecast, The Drive‘s new weekly podcast, will go live later today. Be sure to stay tuned whether you listen on The Drive, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.
🚨 Quick housekeeping note: I’ll be taking over TDS on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, with your current host, Joel, sticking around on Tuesdays and Thursdays, to better accommodate our schedules. I’m not as fast a talker, but I promise I drink just as much coffee. With that said, I’ve started sipping mine, so let’s get into it.
🚘 What I’m driving: A Kia K4 Hatchback, which is a funkier version of a car I already like quite a bit. This one is painted a rather standard gray compared to the mint green of the sedan I drove last year; unlike that car, it also has the turbo.
📈 Volvo hasn’t delivered a single EX60 electric SUV yet, but it’s already proven a hit with customers. And boy, could Volvo use one. Order books for the EX60 are open in Europe, but not yet in the U.S. Demand has exceeded Volvo’s expectations to such a degree, per Automotive News, that it’s mulling over keeping the lights on in its Gothenburg, Sweden plant one more week than usual over the summer. It’s “a good problem to have,” according to the automaker’s Chief Commercial Officer, Erik Severinson.
💻 In a bid to keep up with Carvana, General Motors will require dealers for all of its brands—save Cadillac—to join its online used-car platform, CarBravo, or lose factory-backed warranties on the used cars they sell, according to Reuters.
⭐ Speaking of Carvana, Auto News reports that it recently purchased its sixth new-car dealership. Once again, it’s a Stellantis store.
💡 A small number of 2026 Toyota Corollas—86, to be precise—left the factory with misaligned headlights, Autoblog reports, so Toyota has issued a recall.
⛽ The road version of McLaren’s Project Endurance Le Mans hypercar will lack the spec hybrid system that the LMDh racing version uses, according to Australia’s Drive. That will leave it with just the 2.9-liter twin-turbo V6.
🧑⚖️ A class-action lawsuit against Nissan for the automaker’s alleged failure to protect its North American employees from a 2023 data breach that leaked sensitive information, including Social Security numbers, has resulted in a $1.5 million settlement.
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