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A daily hot lap of headlines from the auto industry and car culture, curated by The Drive’s editors.
Hello and welcome to The Downshift, a daily sweep of the morning’s top headlines from the auto industry and car culture, curated by The Drive’s editorial team. Each story gets a short summary and a link to the original source if you want to dive deeper.
Here’s what’s happening on Tuesday, October 20, 2026:
🪫 General Motors has confirmed that it will close its Brownstown Battery Assembly plant outside Detroit, which most recently handled manufacturing of battery packs and electric drive components for the Corvette E-Ray and Cadillac Celestiq. The site was opened in 2009, and its closure follows GM’s divestment of its battery plant joint venture with Samsung in Indiana back in August, as well as other moves since the start of the year to reduce spending on EVs and prop up gas cars. [Automotive News]
📈 Speaking of which, the data is in, and EVs’ share of the new-car market increased from 6.2% in July to 6.5% in August. Second among brands was, believe it or not, Rivian, which rose in the ranking thanks to its more affordable and long-awaited R2 SUV. [Automotive News]
💎 Mercedes-Benz VP of Product Strategy Christoph Starzynski defended the brand’s “coupe” SUVs in an interview, saying, “I see strong demand for the coupe… [There’s a] fan base for the coupe, you know? Because you actually have a very, very spacious vehicle with a very, very sporty driving behavior… We are happy that we have that car.” [Motor1]
🎹 Hyundai is introducing a Monochrome package for the Elantra N that replaces the sport sedan’s boy-racer vibes with a more understated, sophisticated look. It’s only confirmed for Korea at the moment, though the company does intend to expand it to global markets. [Autoblog]
☸️ Mercedes has moved to patent a yoke-style steering wheel that can expand or retract its diameter through the use of hydraulic or pneumatic spokes. [CarBuzz]
🌏 Volkswagen partnered with Xpeng in China to fast-track EVs to market that the region might actually buy, but it’s not working out. VW had hoped to move about 3,600 examples of its new ID UNYX 08, the product of this collaboration, before year’s end. But it’s only averaged about 270 units every month over five months; unless that trend changes, VW’s due to fall short of its objective by almost a third. [Reuters]
🤝 Foxconn and Mitsubishi Electric will enter into a 50/50 joint venture to co-develop EV platforms for global sale. [Nikkei Asia]
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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.
