Mitsubishi Won’t Join The Honda-Nissan Merger: Report Nissan and Honda are tying the knot, merging two of Japan’s Big Three to form a singular massive, hulking automaker. Yet it seems that, in the marriage, Honda won’t be playing step-parent to Nissan’s kids — first the company struck Renault from the deal, and now a new report says Mitsubishi won’t be coming along… Read more…

Why Cops Tap Your Car’s Tail Lights During A Traffic Stop Next time you get pulled over, in between frantically shuffling through the Wendy’s napkins and totally-still-in-date insurance paperwork in your glove box, take a look in your mirror as the cop walks up. You might see them tap your tail light on their way up to ask for your license and registration. But why do cops… Read more…

You (You!) Can Apply To Become A Dodge Badassador, But You Probably Aren’t Badass Enough As we all know, Dodge owners are the most badass folks out there. Former high school quarterbacks. Cellphone salespeople. Managers at Outback. It’s a high bar, but if you think you’re appropriately badass, you can be part of helping Dodge see big sales in the coming year by applying to join Dodge’s new Badassador… Read more…

The Next Audi RS6 And RS7 Are Getting Another New Set Of Drivetrains, This Time Hybrid V6 And Full EV Audi’s lineup is going through a bit of a revamp right now, and the most exciting Audi Sport–developed RS versions of the mid-sized A6 and A7 are going through final testing right now, both likely to bow later this year. In previous generations the RS6 and RS7 shared the same drivetrains with slightly different… Read more…

We Did It, Folks Nice. Read more…

Toyota Dealers Want The Yaris Back Toyota still makes a lot of models that are relatively affordable. Out of all the vehicles in its lineup, eight of them have starting prices (excluding destination charges) under $30,000. Much like nearly every automaker these days, Toyota doesn’t have any truly small cars to sell anymore, but that may change in the… Read more…

Could Your Zip Code Be Determining Your Plane Ticket Price? Two Senators Think So Spirit Airlines and Frontier Airlines reopened merger talks last October despite the canary-yellow carrier’s financial struggles. A month later, Spirit filed for bankruptcy. Three U.S. Senators publicly questioned on Wednesday whether both low-cost carriers are using customers’ personal information, such as their ZIP… Read more…

You Could Get The First-Gen Lexus GS With A V8 And All-Wheel Drive In Japan Lexus’ sport sedan lineup is a little light these days — the IS and its IS500 F Sport Performance trim is the brand’s only enthusiast-oriented sedan offering. That wasn’t always the case back when sedans like the Lexus GS existed. The GS lasted four generations here in the U.S., and it even got its own… Read more…

Wrecked $1.3 Million McLaren Senna Being Saved By Wrencher Who Bought It For $350,000 It’s never nice to see a rare car trashed in the name of digital content, and for some reason McLarens have been susceptible to this particular torture more than most. After a 21-year-old YouTuber crashed his custom McLaren 570S and another digital creator destroyed a one-of-one Senna last year, the latter is now… Read more…

Wheels Are For Dorks, Your Motorcycle Needs Omnidirectional Orbs Motorcycles are pretty rad, but there are some issues with them, like the fact that they can only turn corners by leaning your meaty flesh sack from side to side, and they can’t easily go backward or side-to-side. No, wheels are over. It’s time for all-electric belt-driven self-balancing omnidirectional orbs. This is… Read more…

Polestar CEO Sees An Upside To Elon Musk’s Political ‘Arrogance’ And It’s His Bottom Line Elon Musk made his ultra-far-right beliefs well known after endorsing Germany’s right-wing AfD party. Elon Musk is also still the CEO of Tesla, and owning Tesla stock or buying one of his cars is directly supporting him. If you happen to be in the market for an electric vehicle and would prefer not to support a Musk… Read more…

Red Bull Soft Launches Return To NASCAR With Trackhouse Partnership There isn’t a team on the NASCAR grid today as adept at making newsworthy announcements as Trackhouse. In addition to fielding a car for four-time Indy 500 champ Helio Castroneves at Daytona next month, the team has announced a strategic partnership with Red Bull for the 2025 season. The fizzy Austrian energy drink… Read more…

Hackers Crack Subaru’s Connected Services To Access Location Data, Door Locks And More If you own a modern Subaru, chances are you’ve heard of Starlink — the company’s connected services suite, which lets you control your car through an app or call roadside assistance to your location. That system, though, has other functionality that you might not know: Storing your car’s location history for the last… Read more…

Stellantis Confirms Ram Will Get A Midsize Pickup To Fight The Toyota Tacoma If you want something less expensive than the Ram 1500, you can probably still find a few Ram 1500 Classics on dealer lots. If you want something from Ram that’s smaller than a full-size pickup truck, though, you’re currently out of luck. Despite being a truck company, Ram doesn’t make a midsize truck. Thankfully, in… Read more…

What’s The Weirdest Unmarked Police Car You’ve Ever Seen? It used to be so easy to spot a copcar in your rearview mirror. The Ford Crown Victoria dominated the police car world, and its design stayed vastly the same for decades. The glowing ambermarker lights that bookended each headlight spoiled drivers by being easily identifiable in your rearview mirror, whether it was… Read more…

F1 Drivers Will Face Month-Long Suspension For Repeated Swearing FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem took a hardline stance against Formula 1 drivers using foul language during race weekends starting last September. For the 2025 season, the FIA revealed amendments to the International Sporting Code on Wednesday, featuring draconian punishments for repeated swearing or criticizing… Read more…

Digital Driver’s Licenses Are Finally Rolling Out In The UK Digital driver’s licenses are finally getting into the hands of drivers across the pond. The UK government announced that later this year, British drivers will be able to have a digital version of their driver’s license that they can access via a dedicated app. Read more…

SpaceX Scraps Flight As Plane Enters Launch Space Seconds Before Liftoff Elon Musk-backed SpaceX was forced to abort a launch just 11 seconds before liftoff after a plane was believed to have strayed into the airspace above the launch site. The Falcon 9 launch on Sunday morning was called off with just seconds to spare while officials waited for the skies above the California launch site… Read more…

Tesla’s Price Hike Is First Sign Of The Impending Tariff War Good morning! It’s Thursday, January 23, 2025, and this is The Morning Shift, your daily roundup of the top automotive headlines from around the world, in one place. Here are the important stories you need to know. Read more…

These Are The Car Maintenance Items You Should Probably Check On As fun as wrenching is, we don’t always want to do every job as soon as it’s necessary. Maybe we don’t have the time, maybe we don’t have the parts, maybe it’s just January out and we simply don’t want to freeze ourselves on the pavement. Regardless, we’re all putting something off, and earlier this week I asked you… Read more…