Good morning and welcome to The Downshift, or TDS for short.
The Downshift is The Drive’s morning summary of all the auto industry headlines you need to know. News is summarized with a few sentences, including links to dig deeper if you wish. It goes great with a warm beverage of your choosing, especially as the snow’s falling, like it is outside my window right now.
🚨 This is the last Downshift of 2025. Starting tomorrow, myself and other members of The Drive begin taking some time off for the holidays. You can still expect new stories and reviews on the site through the last week of the year, but regular activity for TDS will resume the week of Jan. 5. Also, shoutout to our friend and colleague Joel, who normally does these, but went in for back surgery yesterday. Here’s to a speedy recovery, boss!
As for you reading this, thank you for caring about what we do and also for reading TDS this past year. We started this daily news roundup halfway through 2025, and it’s quickly become a staple of the site; that couldn’t have happened without you. Have a happy holiday season and a great start to 2026. Now, let’s get into it.
🏃➡️ Renault says its Filante long-distance EV concept traveled for 626 miles at an average speed of 63 mph, using the same 87-kWh battery pack that powers its Scenic E-Tech SUV. The prototype reportedly had 11% charge remaining in its pack by the end of the test, which should’ve been enough to take it past 700 miles. Given its radical design and featherweight (by modern standards) 2,200-pound curb weight, this isn’t a vehicle we’re likely to see mass-produced, but like Mercedes’ efficiency concepts, hopefully some of the R&D from its creation will find its way into making future EVs better.
💰 Mercedes has settled with 48 U.S. states to resolve a long-running investigation into alleged emissions tampering for diesel vehicles, to the tune of $150 million. As part of the deal, the automaker will pay eligible owners and lessees $2,000 if their vehicle required emissions repairs, per Reuters. The company says this should finally be the end of U.S. legal activity over its Dieselgate-related matters.
🔎 Officials from the California Public Utilities Commission are investigating how Waymo robotaxis failed to navigate San Francisco during this past weekend’s blackouts that took many traffic signals offline.
🔩 Toyota is recalling 55,405 Camry Hybrid and Corolla Cross Hybrid vehicles for a loose bolt in the hybrid system’s inverter that “could lead to a loss of motive power or could lead to a fire when the vehicle is on,” per the manufacturer’s own bulletin. The recall remedy is still being decided, Reuters reported, citing the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. I’m no powertrain engineer, but I’d guess tightening that bolt might be a good start.
💺 The Lucid Gravity don’t-call-it-a-minivan electric SUV has had its first recall, covering just 66 vehicles. Apparently, their driver’s and passenger’s seat-back covers were mixed up at the factory. That wouldn’t be an issue if it didn’t impede the proper function of the side airbag system.
⚡ Ford is developing a new “universal” electric vehicle platform, specifically targeting smaller and cheaper vehicles, but the automaker’s European arm isn’t yet sure if it would be an ideal fit for its market, Automotive News has reported. That sounds odd on the face of it, but then again, Ford did recently make a deal with Renault to borrow its EV architecture on that side of the pond.
🎮 The Hyundai Elantra N TCR race car will come to Gran Turismo 7 in an update next month, the automaker has announced. PlayStation’s driving sim launched with no new Hyundai performance models back in 2022, but that begun to change over the past year with the addition of the Ioniq 5 N and Elantra N road car.
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