Glad Monday! It is August 18, 2025, and that is The Morning Shift — your every day roundup of the highest automotive headlines from all over the world, in a single place. That is the place you may discover crucial tales which might be shaping the way in which People drive and get round.
On this morning’s version, we’re taking a look at Tesla’s decline within the UK, in addition to Germany’s negotiating round a U.S. commerce deal. We’ll additionally take a look at how auto business insiders are feeling concerning the future, and the air high quality considerations with EV charging.
1st Gear: Tesla is scrambling to maneuver automobiles within the UK
Tesla’s ship has been taking over water for fairly some time now, as the corporate’s CEO has peeled again his centrist masks and EV patrons all over the world have roundly shunned his private politics. The UK is not any exception, and Tesla is now resorting to determined measures to maneuver automobiles within the nation. From Reuters:
British motorists can now lease a Tesla electrical automobile for simply over half of what they’d have paid a yr in the past, The Instances reported on Monday, citing business sources.
Tesla has been pressured to supply reductions of as much as 40% to automobile leasing corporations to shift extra models, the report stated.
The reductions are additionally because of the lack of space for storing for Tesla automobiles within the UK, the report stated.
Tesla UK is a low-cost quantity play now, aiming to promote extra models relatively than earn more money on every unit offered. There merely is not sufficient area on the island to retailer all of the Teslas that patrons don’t desire in any other case.
2nd Gear: Germany will not make a full tariff take care of the U.S. till automobile import prices drop
Nations all over the world are negotiating shiny new commerce offers with the US’ mad king, and the European Union has come to a minimum of some bits of an settlement. Germany, within the midst of the EU making a deal, does not need to put pen to paper till the U.S. proves it will comply with by on what’s already been agreed. From Reuters:
Germany stated on Monday that the US must comply with by on agreed decrease tariffs on Europe-made automobiles earlier than a wider settlement on commerce might be finalised in writing.
“Particularly, automobile tariffs should be lowered rapidly as agreed. We’re additionally conscious of the appreciable burden on the export-orientated economic system. … Our function right here is to proceed to totally assist the European Fee on this course of,” a German authorities spokesman stated in a press convention.
Automotive exports are huge for Germany, and an agreement-free tariff scenario can be untenable for the nation. No surprise corporations need to different markets, like South Africa, to de-prioritize the US.
third Gear: Auto business of us are bracing for a tough again half of 2025
Automotive Information unveiled a shiny new survey yesterday, through which it requested of us throughout the automotive world how they suppose the remainder of the yr will look. The reply? Fairly universally dangerous. From Automotive Information:
In its preliminary soundings, from surveys accomplished on the finish of the second quarter, the Auto Business Confidence Index returned an total business rating of 55.5.
Throughout the 4 main business parts, monetary companies companies had the rosiest outlook for his or her present and future circumstances and was the one sector to attain above 60. Not surprisingly, suppliers had the least optimistic evaluation of each their companies and the business however had been nonetheless barely above impartial.
Tellingly, all 4 sectors of the business had one thing in frequent: Respondents from every felt much better concerning the business and their firm’s present efficiency than they did about prospects for the approaching six months. Each the provider and franchised seller sector scores for the second half of 2025 had been pessimistic — that’s, beneath a impartial rating of fifty. The listed rating of respondents from the automaker sector had been barely above the midpoint, whereas monetary companies suppliers had been most optimistic about future enterprise circumstances.
Predicting the longer term is hard proper now, given how capricious our management appears to be. Determining how individuals really feel concerning the future, although, is easier: They really feel dangerous.
4th Gear: EV chargers harm air high quality, however not practically as a lot as gasoline
EVs are a obligatory half-measure in the direction of maintaining our planet liveable, however they don’t seem to be good. Their weight sends extra tire particles out into the world, their lithium provide chains might be fraught with human rights violations, and so they nonetheless do not get round the entire concern of a automobile being a horribly inefficient approach to transfer a single particular person. Now, there is a new concern: The chargers themselves pollute close by air. From Automotive Information:
A whole lot of public quick chargers are popping up throughout the U.S. to serve electric-vehicle drivers in search of a cleaner different to gasoline-powered automobiles. However they arrive with a stunning threat: Charging stations create air air pollution.
Whereas EVs contribute vastly much less to air air pollution than combustion-powered automobiles, fast-charging stations are what a latest examine referred to as an “missed supply of air air pollution.”
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The emissions are possible tied to the followers utilized in direct present quick chargers’ energy cupboards. Whereas they assist hold gear cool, the latest examine signifies they possible have the unintended aspect impact of kicking up particles from tires, brakes and dirt into the air.
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Gasoline-powered automobiles are nonetheless a way more potent well being threat, each due to their emissions and gasoline stations’ environmental influence, stated Joe Allen, an air high quality skilled and professor on the Harvard T.H. Chan College of Public Well being who was not concerned within the examine. Analysis exhibits fueling stations are main sources of unstable natural compounds, a class of chemical substances that features the carcinogen benzene, whereas inside combustion automobiles produce smog-forming pollution. Greenhouse gasoline emissions additionally adversely have an effect on well being because of their affect on local weather change.
Can we simply attempt trains and busses? Simply give it a shot. I know we’re not followers of these on this nation, however perhaps we won’t knock them till we actually attempt them.
Reverse: Croatoan
Sooner or later in my life, I heard a wholly cheap clarification of the place the Roanoke settlers went. Luckily, I cannot bear in mind what it was, so I get to dwell within the actuality the place it is some creepy mystical factor.
On The Radio: the Mountain Goats – ‘Southwood Plantation Street’
I could not inform you why, however as we speak is a Tallahassee day. Please tune your listening accordingly.