Stellantis has managed to embarrass itself once again in spectacular fashion. On Ram’s official online merch shop, the truck maker put up an AI-generated t-shirt for sale that prominently featured a Toyota Tacoma.  That’s right, Ram was briefly selling a shirt featuring a competitor’s truck, with the words “Ram Power” printed underneath it.

To be fair, the grille on the truck does say “RAM” on it, so whoever typed the prompt into ChatGPT at least got that part right, but the rest of the truck is unmistakably a previous-generation Tacoma. 

To celebrate America’s 250th birthday, the American flag in the background only has 38 stars, meaning Ram’s version of the USA is apparently different from everyone else’s, or perhaps they know something we don’t. Truly a masterpiece of a shirt.

The shirt was pulled from the web store after Motor1 called it out publicly, but not before the company managed to make a joke out of themselves again. Apparently even their merchandise does not have quality control.

Hyundai and Kia are killing it with hybrid sales in May. Hyundai sold 87,468 vehicles, with hybrid sales up 90% compared to the same month in 2025. Kia sold 80,502 units and posted its best retail sales month ever. Kia’s hybrid volume was up 179%. The Sportage Hybrid was up 171%. The Sorento Hybrid was up 101%.

This explosion of hybrid sales can be attributed to the federal EV tax credit expiring in September 2025, when many buyers realized the current the EV experience doesn’t work for their lives without huge incentives. U.S. EV market share dropped from 7.9% in 2024 to 5.6% in Q1 2026. Hybrid share went from 10.1% to 13.7% over the same stretch.

Unlike EVs, hybrids work for almost everyone. You don’t need a home charger or to plan a road trip around charging stops, and for most part, the internal combustion engine driving experience remains intact. For many buyers, especially value conscious buyers (hello skyrocketing gas prices), hybrids are the right answer.

Hyundai and Kia built cars with this in mind, and now their sales figures are proving it. They are not the first automaker to do so, as Toyota and Honda have been ramping up hybrid production as well. Meanwhile, American car manufacturers like GM, Ford, and Stellantis, have fallen far behind in the hybrid game, a fact that is sure to haunt them over the next few months as gas prices remain elevated.

While everyone was busy arguing about EVs and tariffs, a supply chain crisis quietly set up camp under your hood. AutoZone sent a memo to the industry calling this the largest supply shortage of lubricating fluids in the modern history of America, with supplies down roughly 40 percent. If your car was built in the last decade, this is your problem now.

The U.S. sources roughly half of its imported Group III base oils from the Middle East. Group III is the synthetic base stock that goes into the low-viscosity oils most modern engines require, specifically 0W-8, 0W-16, and 0W-20. The conflict in Iran shut down access to those supplies. Nearly 44 percent of American Group III imports come from three suppliers sitting in the Persian Gulf. Those suppliers are not shipping at normal capacity, and there is no quick replacement waiting in the wings.

Toyota and Nissan have already started rationing. Toyota issued a service bulletin in April warning parts and service managers that Genuine Toyota Motor Oil in 0W-8 and 0W-16 grades faces supply constraints. Nissan followed, limiting 5W-30 supply to 70 percent of last year’s volume and 0W-20 to just 55 percent. South Korean refiners, who might otherwise help fill the gap, also depend on Middle Eastern crude.

The Independent Lubricant Manufacturers Association says this does not resolve itself until mid-2027 at the earliest, with Gulf-sourced Group III oils potentially running dry by June. The oil supply is getting tight and some shops are already stockpiling. Retailers are raising prices ahead of any actual inventory impact, which means consumers are already starting to feel the squeeze even though the real impact comes later.

Automakers have spent the last decade engineering engines around ultra-thin synthetic oils to chase fuel economy targets, creating a dependency on a very specific type of base stock from a very specific part of the world that is prone to conflict. If you are due for an oil change, do not wait.

The Lexus LF-ZC is dead. It first debuted as a concept at the 2023 Japan Mobility Show, promising 600-plus miles of range, 500 horsepower, and a software platform that would bring Lexus into the modern era. The electric sedan was supposed to prove the Japanese giant could build a flagship luxury EV worth buying.

The production version slipped from a 2026 debut to mid-2027, and now it’s off the calendar entirely. Toyota’s official explanation is ‘fluctuations in market demand and the workload associated with vehicle planning and manufacturing.’ New Lexus CEO Kenta Kon, who calls himself a ‘money guy’ and took the top job less than two months ago, is already making clear what kind of CEO he is. The LF-ZC was expensive, uncertain, and competing in a risky flagship EV segment where Toyota has never gone before.

The problem is that competitors are still moving forward. While Lexus retreats, Xiaomi is shipping the SU7 Ultra, BYD’s Yangwang line is expanding globally, and Ferrari just delivered on its Luce EV halo promise (although that has not been well-received so far). Toyota isn’t the only one retreating though, as Acura also canceled the electric RSX before a single one reached a dealer. This is a concerning pattern among legacy Japanese and Western automakers, who are backtracking on their EV plans while Chinese companies continue moving and innovating.

Toyota has built decades of goodwill on reliability, and Lexus has a loyal customer base. But the next generation of luxury buyers is watching who delivers and who flinches, and now Lexus (and Toyota) have flinched. The LF-ZC was supposed to start a new chapter, but the same careful culture that makes Toyota so reliable may just cause them to fall behind.

Over the last decade, the American automotive industry went completely rabid for crossovers and SUVs. Between 2014, when utility vehicles first edged past sedans in US registrations, and 2025, their share climbed from 36 percent to over 62 percent of new retail registrations, according to Experian Automotive. Sedans fell to roughly 18 percent of sales. Ford dropped every passenger car but the Mustang in 2018. GM axed the Cruze, the Impala, the Buick LaCrosse, and the Cadillac CT6 the same year. The reasons were valid: SUVs and crossovers have higher seating positions, AWD traction, and more cargo space.

Now, the cracks are showing in the crossover’s reign. In Q1 2026, the Toyota Camry briefly overtook the RAV4 as Toyota’s best-seller in the US for the first time in several years. The Honda Accord surged 21.9 percent. The Corolla climbed 12.8 percent. Karl Brauer, executive analyst at iSeeCars, called it bluntly: “There’s become kind of an SUV fatigue that everyone is experiencing from consumers to car designers to rental agencies.” There’s also an affordability factor. Cox Automotive data, as of April 2026, puts the average compact car at roughly $27,590 versus $37,514 for a compact SUV, a gap that lands harder when the average new-vehicle transaction has climbed north of $50,000.

There’s also a generational shift underway. An Escalent survey of 1,054 US teens aged 14 to 19, published in February 2026, found 51 percent imagine themselves driving a sedan in the future, against 31 percent who picked SUVs. Young buyers are averse to driving what their parents drive, and odds are, most of their parents are currently driving crossovers and SUVs.

The sedan’s comeback will likely heavily feature fastback and liftback designs, which include a sloped roofline, a hatchback opening instead of a trunk lid, and improved aerodynamic efficiency that matters for EV range or just general fuel efficiency. The BMW 4-series Gran Coupe, Audi A5, and new Dodge Charger are examples of liftback sedans that have shown up in the market in recent years, and that body style is resonating with buyers as it improves cargo space and accessibility. Coupled with AWD availability in these sedans, the crossover’s value proposition starts to wane. Even Honda has shown a fastback sedan concept that appears to be a preview of the next-generation Accord, indicating that even longstanding sedan nameplates will be evolving into more practical, desirable body styles to win back buyers.

There are some caveats to all of this. The Camry’s Q1 sales surge was partly inflated by a deliberate RAV4 inventory shortage, and most of the “sedan comeback” still lives in surveys and product announcements, not showroom floors. The thin profit margins that pushed automakers out of sedans have not been solved. That said, the SUV-fatigue in the auto industry has created an opening, economic pressures made comparably affordable sedans look smart again, and a generation of teens raised in crossovers have decided they wanted something different. Make no mistake: the sedan isn’t dead yet.

The numbers are ugly. Dodge sales dropped roughly 28 percent in 2025, falling from about 141,700 units to just 101,927. What stings more is which vehicle kept the lights on. The Durango, a three-row SUV riding a platform that dates back to 2011, accounted for more than 81,000 of those sales and actually grew about 37 percent that year. That means the oldest, least “Dodge” product in the showroom is now carrying the entire brand while the halo muscle car, the new Charger, flounders. For a company whose whole personality runs on performance theater, getting bailed out by a fifteen-year-old family hauler is a quiet admission that something went sideways.

The buyer math is why the muscle-first bet was always going to hit a wall. Survey after survey pegs the muscle-car crowd at roughly 80 percent male, median age around 51, and culturally conservative. Loyal, yes, but a finite group that’s slowly aging out. Dodge loves to brag that it pulls the youngest, most diverse buyers in the segment, and that’s true if you only stack it against Mustang and Camaro. Those are all shrinking ponds. Meanwhile the rest of the industry spent fifteen years piling into crossovers and SUVs that sell to absolutely everyone: families, commuters, first-time buyers, women, every income bracket you can name. A brand built on “loud, fast, and menacing” is more or less choosing to sit out the segments where the real volume lives.

When Dodge did try to broaden, it missed badly, and it missed in two opposite directions. The electric Charger Daytona was supposed to drag the muscle identity into the future. Instead it spooked the gas-loving faithful and never won over EV shoppers, moving a measly 7,421 units in 2025 before cratering to roughly 346 in the fourth quarter once the federal tax credit vanished.

The Hornet was the mirror image, as it was a slightly restyled Alfa Romeo Tonale aimed squarely at the mainstream crossover shopper, entering a sensible with a vehicle that promises the exact opposite of sensible. It managed about 9,365 sales, down more than 50 percent, sunk by pricing that didn’t fit its slot and a non-established nameplate. The Charger EV was too weird for the believers, while the Hornet was too boring for the brand and too risky for practical compact crossover shoppers who associated Dodge with powerful, tire-squealing cars, not family movers. Together they show just how little room Dodge has to move.

The clearest proof of the trap is the great walk-back now underway. After Stellantis bled a staggering net loss of roughly $26 billion in 2025, much of it tied to a mistimed EV push, the company hauled Tim Kuniskis back into the building. He promptly stuffed the Hemi V8 back into the Ram, fired the SRT division back up, and has all but confirmed a supercharged Hellcat is headed for the Charger. This is the guy who publicly called killing the Hemi “a huge mistake.” Strip away the spin and it reads like a confession. The EV-and-crossover experiment flopped, so Dodge is sprinting straight back to the loud V8 identity that happens to be both its only durable equity and the very thing fencing in its audience. Even the new gas Charger leans on a turbocharged inline-six in its volume trims instead of a proper V8, which is an odd hand to play for a Mopar muscle car and risks pleasing nobody completely.

The lineup Dodge rolled out at Stellantis’s May 21 Investor Day, the centerpiece of the new “FaSTLAne 2030” plan, embodies The Dodge Dilemma. The brand’s fix for not enough appeal is to bolt an SRT badge onto everything in its lineup.

At the top of the lineup will be the Copperhead SRT, a clay-model halo coupe pitched as the Viper’s spiritual heir, towering Superbird-style wing and all, reportedly packing a blown V8 with no EV version and maybe even a manual. It’s a love letter to the diehards and it widens the funnel by precisely nothing.

The smarter reveal was the GLH, which resurrects the old 1980s “Goes Like Hell” badge and which Kuniskis flat out compared to the Hornet, but developed “the way we should have done it the first time.” Picture a roughly 300-horsepower muscle hatch that splits the difference between a hatchback and a crossover, riding on the cheaper new STLA One architecture. The GLH is also getting an SRT variant.

Here’s The Dodge Dilemma boiled down to one line. The brand can’t grow without watering down the only thing that makes it interesting, and it can’t stay pure without shrinking toward a devoted but finite crowd. Going all-in on muscle juices the base and the headlines, but it just reconfirms the ceiling. Chasing crossovers and EVs goes after volume, but it strands twenty years of hard-won equity. The GLH points at the one road that might actually work, affordable performance aimed at younger and more diverse enthusiasts, the lone spot where Dodge really does punch above its weight. But the reflex to staple an SRT badge onto it, and onto everything else, gives the game away. This is a brand that still hasn’t decided whether it wants to be a disciplined, profitable niche player or a full-line automaker it no longer has the sales to support. Until it answers that question, every new launch is going to keep slamming into the same wall Dodge built for itself.

GM pulled the covers off the Hummer X this week. Two of them. A truck and an SUV, both midsize electric vehicles, unveiled at the grand opening of GM’s new Advanced Design Pasadena Studio in Southern California. Yes, GM already said they’re not going into production. But these concepts prove that GM knows they have a problem.

GM does not have a credible answer to the Wrangler. They don’t have a credible answer to the Bronco either. The Blazer name came back as a front-wheel-drive crossover that shares more DNA with a Chevy Traverse than it does with anything that ever went off-road. There’s a Trailblazer overseas built on the Colorado platform that GM has chosen not to bring to the United States. Meanwhile, the Wrangler and Bronco are sitting on dealer lots with real trail credibility and aftermarket ecosystems that have taken years to build. GM has no SUVs that compare right now.

So what do you do when you have a gap that big and no near-term production answer? Apparently, you build a concept and open a design studio in Pasadena.

What is the Hummer X?

The truck comes in at 207.3 inches long, nearly 10 inches shorter than the current Hummer EV. The SUV is 188.3 inches, more than a foot and a half shorter than the production Hummer EV SUV. The current Hummer is a $100,000 slab that’s too wide for most garages and too heavy to be fun anywhere except a wide open desert. These concepts at least look like something a human being could use.

The off-road numbers are genuine. The SUV gets 37-inch Goodyear tires, beadlock wheels, Multimatic shocks, removable fender flares, and 13.2 inches of ground clearance with a 44-degree approach angle and 46-degree departure angle. The truck steps down to 35-inch rubber and 12.5 inches of clearance. For reference, the Bronco Raptor tops out at 13.1 inches of clearance.

The Wrangler-Sized Hole in GM’s Lineup

This is really what the Hummer X is about. The body-on-frame off-road SUV segment is having a moment. The Bronco came back from the dead and it worked. The 4Runner has been a sales staple for decades. The Wrangler has a religious following. These aren’t niche vehicles, and GM is watching all of it from the sidelines with a Blazer EV that nobody asked for.

The Hummer nameplate carries weight in the off-road market, and downsizing it into a mid-size electric off-roader that could actually compete with the Bronco and Wrangler on price and usability is the second most logical thing GM could do with it. The most logical would be to give it an internal combustion engine, but I digress.

The current Hummer EV is a halo vehicle for people with long driveways and fat wallets. A $55,000 to $65,000 Hummer X that fits in a normal garage and can actually run trails would be a different conversation entirely.

The problem is that’s not what GM said this is. They called the Hummer X a rolling laboratory for future technologies, manufacturing techniques, and design ideas rather than a preview of a production vehicle. Which is the polite way of saying they don’t know how to build it yet, or more likely, they have perceived risk in entering this competitive segment and are afraid of losing money.

If GM is serious, the path is simple to describe and hard to execute. Competitive price point, enough range that buyers aren’t nervous heading somewhere remote, and enough lead time to start building the aftermarket ecosystem the Wrangler and Bronco have spent decades cultivating. That last one is the part nobody talks about and the part that matters most. The removable fender flares and modifier-first design philosophy of these concepts show GM understands the customer. Whether GM actually develops an answer to the Wrangler and Bronco, or keeps showing concepts at studio openings is the only question that matters now.

Ferrari just unveiled their long-rumored, ambitious EV known as the Luce (loo-chey, not loose), and the entire automotive industry had to pick their jaws up off the floor. Designed through a partnership with LoveFrom, the design collective led by former Apple designer Jony Ive, the Luce is the most aerodynamic Ferrari in history. It’s also ugly as hell.

Let’s get the basics out of the way. The Luce is a four door performance EV, with a ridiculous power output at 1,035 horsepower, which propels it from 0-60 in 2.5 seconds. It has a top speed of 193 mph. It’s built on an 800 volt electrical architecture with a 122 kWh battery pack and can fast charge at 350 kW, but will have a range of under 300 miles on the EPA cycle.

The Luce is perhaps the most livable Ferrari ever, with a roomy interior and AWD, if you’re into daily-driving a $650,000 vehicle, that is.

The elephant in the room is the design. I will preface this by saying I am a big fan of Apple’s industrial design, which was pioneered by Jony Ive before his departure to form his own design collective called LoveFrom. Ive has a reputation for developing minimalist, design-focused electronics that function as nicely as they look.

That said, he has not designed a car before, and it shows. Whatever design philosophy his team tried to bring to the Luce’s exterior has failed miserably. It’s missing passion. It has no Ferrari DNA, resembling an amorphous blob that is somewhere between a sedan and a hatchback, with the high floor that’s a necessity in EVs lending to awkward body proportions that look far closer to a Nissan Leaf than any prior Ferrari model.

Up front, you’d be forgiven for thinking this was an electric Honda. It has that same kind of bland, soulless design that Honda used for the Prologue. The side profile is no better: squint, and you might see the sweeping silhouette of a Lucid Air. Open your eyes a little more and you’ll notice the profile has the same awkward shape that has plagued the Toyota Prius for years. Best to just keep your eyes closed and pretend it was all a nightmare.

It’s not all nightmarish though. The interior looks quite nice, with a good blend of tactile controls, screens, and quality materials. Unfortunately, until now, nobody has purchased a Ferrari for the interior quality alone. Ferrari is supposed to create sexy, Italian sports cars with personality. This lacks any personality whatsoever, and is the opposite of sexy, yet it still costs around $650,000.

How this made its way through product planners, designers, and the executive team is nothing short of a mystery. Is it all a publicity stunt, or are Ferrari’s executives trying to expand the definition of their brand, targeting ultra wealthy individuals who want to experience a Ferrari without actually experiencing a Ferrari?

My assumption is the latter—Ferrari is no longer tied to FCA/Stellantis, meaning there is no volume brand (if Maserati could be considered that…) that they can use to amortize the cost of Ferrari development by adding Ferrari-developed powertrains and components to a much more popular car. It’s possible they want to expand into new territory and take on Maybach, Bentley, and Rolls Royce to fund continued development of their real performance cars. After all, controversial design for high end products seems to be in—just look at some of the travesties that BMW had developed recently, or the new Mercedes AMG GT 4 Door.

Maybe there’s a reason for all of this. Maybe Ferrari needed a car that could appeal to a slightly wider audience, so this EV technology could be used in a future sports car that is truer to their heritage. Maybe they want to transform themselves into an ultra-luxury brand that isn’t just a sports car maker. Maybe they wanted it to be ugly for the headlines.

In any case, the Luce has left us all scratching our heads and wondering: what the hell is Ferrari doing?