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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 Tuesday, August 25, 2026.
🤷 Polestar told dealers last week that it doesn’t have an answer for why the U.S. government has effectively banned it from the market while allowing its sister brand, Volvo, to continue operating. “In essence, we are currently focusing on getting the attention of (the Commerce Department) to obtain the requested information and to understand the underlying basis for the denial,” Peter Wexler, the EV maker’s head of product, retail network and government affairs, was quoted. [The Wall Street Journal]
🚙 Land Rover has delayed the next-generation Defender by two years, meaning the replacement for the SUV that has been on the market since 2019 is not expected to arrive until the early part of the next decade. Considering its predecessor was sold from 1983 until 2016, that doesn’t seem so bad. [Automotive News]
🤑 Tesla has raised the price of the Cybertruck by $5,000, meaning the standard dual-motor all-wheel-drive model starts at $74,990 and the Premium one, at $84,990. Surveying the longer term, however, the price of the cheapest Cybertruck jumped $15,000 since a limited-time offer in February. [Autoblog]
🍁 The threat of significantly increased tariffs on Canadian vehicles and parts has had a damaging effect on the share prices of multiple Canadian suppliers, including Magna (down 6.6%), Linamar (8.3%), and Martinrea (9.7%). [Automotive News]
😠 Volkswagen Group CEO Oliver Blume and brand boss Thomas Schäfer addressed some 10,000 workers at a company town hall in Germany on Tuesday, discussing a need for the company to “pull together” through its restructuring, and being met with boos from the crowd. [Bloomberg via Automotive News]
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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.
