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Hello and welcome to The Downshift, or TDS for short, The Drive‘s morning news roundup that gathers the biggest automotive headlines from around the world.
The Downshift summarizes stories into a few sentences and adds links for those seeking more detail. We hope you had a great weekend—here’s your bulletin for Monday, August 17, 2026.
🚙 The sixth-gen Jeep Cherokee only just arrived for the 2026 model year, after the previous generation lasted from 2014 to 2023. But Stellantis is already planning to replace it with a successor in 2029 that will be built at the company’s Belvidere Assembly plant in Illinois—rather than Mexico, as the current SUV is—and use the newer STLA One architecture. [Automotive News]
🕹️ Porsche North America CEO Timo Resch said in an interview that while the company’s manual transmission and hybrid powertrain are not currently compatible, he “wouldn’t be surprised if at some point [Porsche engineers] come up with a solution.” [Road & Track]
🐂 On that subject, if you’re a Lamborghini collector who is waiting for Sant’Agata to jump on the manual bandwagon that so many other high-end automakers have, you probably shouldn’t hold your breath. CEO Stephan Winklemann said in Monterey over the weekend that manuals are “mostly for collectibles, and today we don’t have any plans” to offer a three-pedal car. [CarBuzz]
🚨 Toyota is recalling its still very new bZ Woodland battery-powered SUV/wagon due to the risk of an electric short that could disengage electronic stability control and illuminate the brake lights at the same time, even if the brakes are not being used. [Autoblog]
🤑 Ferrari Luce “Chassis 0” clad in a bespoke white paint job sold at a charity auction in Monterey over the weekend for $40 million, proving that no matter how deeply some very vocal people hate something, there will always be someone out there willing to throw titanic amounts of money at it. [Reuters]
🏁 Weekend race winners:
- NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series at Richmond: Kayden Honeycutt for Tricon Garage
- NASCAR Cup Series at Richmond: Joey Logano for Team Penske
- IndyCar at Ontario: Marcus Ericsson for Andretti Global
Got a tip or feedback for TDS? Reach out to tips@thedrive.com
Backed by a decade of covering cars and consumer tech, Adam Ismail is a Senior Editor at The Drive, focused on curating and producing the site’s slate of daily stories.
