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Welcome to The Downshift, or TDS for short, The Drive’s morning news roundup bringing you the biggest automotive headlines from around the world.
The Downshift recaps news briefly, with links to full stories for those seeking more info. A programming note that there will be no edition tomorrow, so have a safe and happy holiday weekend. Here’s your bulletin for Thursday, July 2, 2026.
🔊 The latest episode of The Drivecast, The Drive’s weekly podcast, went live yesterday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts.
📈 Honda sold the number-one vehicle in the U.S. over the first half of 2026, and the top spot belongs to none other than the CR-V. Credit supply shortages for slowing the Ford F-150’s pace, and a generational redesign for doing the same to the Toyota RAV-4. CR-V sales improved 19% year-over-year in May and a whopping 30% in June. By the end of last month, Honda had moved 226,114 examples of the SUV in the last six months. [Automotive News]
🎤 Nissan CEO Ivan Espinosa recently opined on how the automaker lost its way over the past decade, telling Reuters, “Before, it was like, okay, we want volume, volume, volume. This is not a good way of operating a car company.” Espinosa said he’d also prefer to distance the brand from the rental car market. [Reuters]
🔋 Rivian beat its own forecast for production and sales across the second half of Q2, which has allowed it to raise its guidance for the end of 2026. Certainly good news for the EV maker on the heels of the R2’s launch. [Electrek]
🚢 BYD’s total sales have risen again for the second month in a row, but the real story is how the export market is contributing massively to that growth. Overseas sales soared by a staggering 95%, helping to counter a 22% slide in the automaker’s domestic market. [Reuters]
📦 General Motors has inked a deal with memory-chip producer Micron to supply the manufacturer’s vehicles, which is ideal given the soaring cost and depleted stock of memory and storage these days. As someone into building PCs, I wish Micron would continue to sell to me in addition to automakers and AI data centers, but that’s just not the way the world works anymore. [Micron]
🫖 Bugatti has produced a one-of-one Mistral with porcelain trim pieces that also has black outlines that make it look like it jumped out of a manga into real life, weirdly. [Autoblog]
🏁 Weekend races to watch (all times Eastern):
- NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series at Chicagoland: Saturday at 5:30 p.m. on CW
- Formula 1 British Grand Prix: Sunday at 10 a.m. on Apple TV
- IndyCar Grand Prix of Mid-Ohio: Sunday at 12:30 p.m. on FOX
- NASCAR Cup Series at Chicagoland: Sunday at 6 p.m. on TNT
Got a tip or feedback for TDS? Reach out at 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.
