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Good morning! It's Monday, October 12, 2026, and this is The Morning Shift, your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. This is where you'll find the most important stories that are shaping the way Americans drive and get around.
In this morning's edition, Tesla is dropping the "Full Self-Driving" branding from its vehicles in Europe for being misleading, Volkswagen Group deliveries continue their freefall as sales dwindle, China and the EU strike a deal on imported Chinese hybrids and UAW President Shawn Fain is getting four more years as the head of the union.
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1st Gear: Tesla caves to EU regulators, drops FSD name
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If you're the type of person who can breathe with their mouth closed, then you assuredly know that Tesla's Full Self-Driving branding for its Level 2 advanced driver assistance software is misleading and gives average consumers far more confidence in the system than they should otherwise have. European regulators agree with that stance, as it turns out, and so to help secure approval for the system in the EU, Tesla is dropping the name.
The system will be called Tesla Assisted Driving in Europe, and it has already started showing up on European websites. Of course, because we live in the land of the free, the U.S. website still calls the system Full Self-Driving (Supervised). From Bloomberg:
Tesla's driver-assistance branding has long been a point of contention with regulators, safety advocates and even some Tesla customers, who say the name gives the impression of full autonomy even though drivers must still be alert and ready to take control of their vehicles. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk has also been faulted by critics for pushing overly aggressive or unfounded claims about Tesla vehicles' capabilities.
[...]
FSD is a significant financial driver for Tesla's automotive business, which typically charges drivers $99 a month for the system. It's also key to Musk's efforts to refashion the carmaker as a tech-forward company pioneering autonomous vehicles and robotics.
Tesla is now seeking to bring the FSD system to Europe, which has been slow to embrace the technology. When Dutch regulators in April approved FSD, they emphasized that it was a more restrictive version than what is used in the US and said in a statement that "a vehicle with FSD Supervised is not self-driving."
The company continues to seek approval in other countries across the continent.
Last year, the California Department of Motor Vehicles actually threatened to suspend Tesla's sales in the state over the same sort of misleading marketing EU regulators are alleging. It never actually came to that, as the state backed down once the company took "corrective action" such as dropping the Autopilot name and specifying when FSD must have driver supervision.
From where I'm sitting, a name like Tesla Assisted Driving is a far better descriptor of what the system actually does than Full Self-Driving, but I'm hardly a safety regulator.
2nd Gear: VW deliveries are a nightmare wrapped in a disaster
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One day there will be some positive news to report about Volkswagen, but today is not that day. The Group's vehicle deliveries fell in the third quarter as it continues to suffer from a disastrous market in China. Year-over-year, sales were down 14% to 1.89 million vehicles, which is less than ideal. That's better than China, though, where they were down 39% in the quarter to 405,800 vehicles.
It isn't just China. Volkswagen saw deliveries drop across all of its regions except Central and Eastern Europe, with Western Europe deliveries dropping 2.8% and North American deliveries dropping 5.8%. From The Wall Street Journal:
"The Volkswagen Group was unable to escape the significant decline in the Chinese total market, particularly in the combustion-engine vehicle business," it said.
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Globally, deliveries of the group's all-electric vehicles fell 4.7% on year to 240,200, with Europe the only region showing growth.
"In our home market, we are seeing a significantly accelerated trend towards all-electric vehicles," said Martin Sander, member of the group's extended executive committee for sales. "The main reasons for this are the currently high fuel prices and the wider range of entry-level models."
We're still a ways away from VW and CEO Oliver Blume's grand restructuring plan taking hold and potentially righting the ship. Until then, it looks like the automaker will have to continue to take on water.
3rd Gear: Europe strikes a deal with China on hybrids that are eating their sales
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China and the European Union have reached a deal that is meant to cut Chinese exports of hybrids to the bloc by more than half. Over four years, the "shared understanding" would "moderate" the export of hybrids and plug-in hybrids to the EU and cut the import of several million cars.
We first reported on the EU's pleas to China about a month ago, and now it seems China is coming through for the bloc. Still, aren't many details on how the arrangement would be implemented. From Reuters:
The understanding came after discussions between [European Trade Commissioner Maros] Sefcovic and Chinese officials including Commerce Minister Wang Wentao over three months, and comes after years of disputes between Beijing and Brussels over soaring Chinese exports, such as cars.
EU leaders will discuss the outcome at the start of their summit in Brussels next Thursday to determine whether the agreement marks the start of a rebalancing of the bloc's trade deficit with China that has swelled to more than €1 billion ($1.12 billion) a day.
Sefcovic said he believed the two sides had achieved a very good result.
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Chinese Commerce Minister Wang told Sefcovic that China was not the root cause of the EU's problems, but a partner in solving them, according to the Chinese ministry.
The two sides also reached understandings on reducing Chinese import duties on some €4 billion of EU exports, including car parts, olive oil and footwear, and on smoothing China's granting of export licences for rare earths and permanent magnets, Sefcovic said.
EU governments are alarmed by the sharp rise in car imports from China as their own carmakers lay off workers, notably at Volkswagen where 100,000 job are going. Imports of plug-in hybrids into the EU increased 86% in the year to September, with a 20% decline in prices. More than half of these vehicles are now from China, while for 2025, China's share of plug-in hybrid electric vehicle imports was 30% in value terms.
China and the EU's dispute over cheap Chinese EV exports, resulting in EU tariffs in 2024, has clouded bilateral ties, and has since broadened to include Chinese measures against EU brandy, pork and dairy, as well as Chinese restrictions on exports of rare earths and critical minerals.
Paris and Berlin are among the hardest hit by Beijing's measures, with France accounting for 90% of EU brandy exports to China and Germany heavily exposed in dairy.
China and the EU said in a joint statement that they would continue to discuss price undertakings as an alternative to tariffs. That being said, even with tariffs, Chinese EV exports have started to increase again this year.
4th Gear: Four more years of Fain
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The United Auto Workers rank and file have made their voices heard, and they've decided to re-elect President Shawn Fain and his allies to another four years of leadership in what turned out to be a rather easy election for the 57-year-old. I can't say I'm shocked. I mean, the guy did deliver them a contract with Ford, General Motors and Stellantis back in 2023. From The Wall Street Journal:
While official results weren't available, tallies posted by Fain's campaign showed his garnering about 68% of the vote as of Friday afternoon. A UAW spokesman said official results would come later.
UAW Vice President Mike Booth, who ran on a ticket opposing Fain, told The Wall Street Journal that there is no doubt about the outcome.
Fain faced five challengers, including a UAW vice president with whom he had feuded. Fain's allies defeated top UAW officials whom Fain viewed as impediments to his agenda for vice-presidential slots and other key roles.
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Fain had clashed with another UAW vice president, Rich Boyer, who unsuccessfully challenged Fain for the top job. He also feuded with the person who signs the checks for union expenses, Secretary-Treasurer Margaret Mock. Boyer and Mock didn't immediately return a request for comment.
Fain, a former Chrysler plant electrician from Kokomo, Ind., had been a virtually unknown staffer at the union's Detroit headquarters when he narrowly won the top job in a runoff election in 2023. He was part of a hastily arranged "reform" slate meant to steer the union past a corruption scandal that sent two former UAW presidents to federal prison.
It was the first time the storied union allowed its members, rather than a cadre of insiders, to directly vote on its president and top leaders.
Fain will now turn his attention to 2028 contract talks with the Big Three automakers. UAW priorities will include seeking to restore benefits such as traditional pensions and winning protections against artificial intelligence and automation that replace factory jobs.
Reverse: Don't fly experimental amateur aircraft
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It's always a tragedy when someone as talented and brilliant as John Denver dies suddenly, but it's even more awful when they die in a dumb, stupid way. John, my guy, what were you doing in that thing? I mean, have you guys seen the contraption Denver was piloting? It's wild he ever thought that was a good idea. It's a damn shame, and if you want to learn more, head over to History.com.
The Fuel Up
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I've got some good news for you fine folks to start your weeks off: fuel prices are down ever-so-slightly from where they were over the weekend, but it's not like they've come a long way off of the record highs we've been seeing. That's evidenced by the fact that WTI Crude Oil futures and Brent Crude prices were sitting at $94 and $107, respectively, at the time of publication.
Here's where national average prices stand right now, according to AAA:
AAA
This all shakes out to the average price of a gallon of regular gas staying virtually the same overnight, according to AAA. While Regular did technically drop a fraction of a cent, the average price remained $4.36. Diesel, for its part, was actually down an entire cent to $6.27.
On the radio: Jenna Maroney - Tennis Night in America
Last night, I was lucky to make up for coming home from my two-week Greek vacation by seeing the "30 Rock" 20th Anniversary show at Radio City. It was... amazing, and you'll have to take my word for it because the show wasn't recorded. A real highlight was — without a doubt — Jane Krakowski's musical medley of all the songs she performed on the show. Of course, "Tennis Night in America" is among my favorites, but it really is just so hard to choose.