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Good morning and welcome to The Downshift, or TDS for short, The Drive’s daily news roundup bringing you the biggest automotive headlines from around the world.
The Downshift quickly recaps what’s going on every morning in the car sphere, summarizing news in a couple of sentences along with links to full stories. Hope you had a great weekend—here’s your bulletin for Monday, June 29, 2026.
📉 Toyota’s global sales dropped for a fourth-straight month in May, by 7.4% compared to a year prior, due to continued supply challenges in the Middle East and strong competition in China. [Bloomberg]
📈 Meanwhile, Kia’s sales climbed 4% globally over the same period, and 10% in Europe alone, off the back of high demand for its fuel-sipping hybrids and fully electric vehicles. “Europe is tough and China is growing, but Kia is growing as well,” CEO Song Ho-sung said. [Bloomberg]
🍁 Geely will reportedly begin selling Lotus EVs in Canada next month, for the first time in the country. [Reuters]
💡 All 88 Ferrari Luce examples allocated for sale in China have sold out, at a price of at least $586,000 per vehicle. [CarNewsChina]
🔜 The CEO of Mazda’s Australian division said that a next-generation Miata is still coming, but the company can’t confirm when, and it may be the final purely internal-combustion-engine-powered one ever. [CarExpert]
📜 Tesla has settled a lawsuit resulting from the 2023 death of a 71-year-old woman who was struck by a Model Y operating under the Full Self-Driving system. [Bloomberg]
🔚 NHTSA has closed its investigation into power-steering failure in approximately 376,000 Tesla Model 3 sedans, saying that the automaker addressed the issue in a recall last year. [Reuters]
🚙 New spy shots of the upcoming BMW X5 indicate that the SUV will lose its split-tailgate design it’s had since its inception more than a quarter century ago. [BMW Blog]
💔 Volkswagen and Bosch will reportedly end their self-driving-tech partnership with seemingly nothing show for it, after determining that the product they’d developed thus far is not competitive. The two companies reportedly spent upwards of $1.7 billion on the system to date. [Automotive News]
🏭 Koenigsegg has finally produced the first Gemera for a customer, six years on from its initial debut. [Autoblog]
🏁 Weekend racing results:
- WRC Acropolis Rally Greece: Sébastien Ogier won for Toyota
- 78th 24 Hours of Spa: Ricardo Feller, Thomas Preining, and Bastian Buus won for Lionspeed GP Porsche
- IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge at Watkins Glen: Bryce Ward and Philip Ellis won for Winward Mercedes-AMG
- NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series at Sonoma: Shane van Gisbergen won for JR Motorsports
- MotoGP Dutch Grand Prix: Ai Ogura won for SuperFile Trackhouse
- Formula 1 Austrian Grand Prix: George Russell won for Mercedes
- IMSA SportsCar 6 Hours of Watkins Glen: Jack Aitken, Earl Bamber, and Fred Vesti won for Action Express Cadillac
- NASCAR Cup Series at Sonoma: Shane van Gisbergen won for Trackhouse Racing
- NHRA Drag Racing Summit Nationals Finals: Maddi Gordon won for Ron Capps Motorsport
Got a tip or feedback for The Downshift? Let us know 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.
