Welcome to The Downshift, or TDS for short, The Drive’s morning news roundup serving the biggest automotive headlines from around the world.
The Downshift summarizes news items in a few sentences, with links to other sites to get the deeper story. Here’s your bulletin for Tuesday, August 11, 2026.
General Motors and Samsung’s joint battery plant in Indiana won’t involve GM at all, it turns out, as the automaker has decided to sell its 49.99% stake in the $3.5 billion project to its partner, making it fully owned by Samsung. The facility was announced three years ago and is still in development. [Automotive News]
Stellantis decided to bring a Chrysler Pacifica nobody asked for to Roadkill Nights, and it actually looks pretty sick? The VANkulture Pacifica sports a VIS Racing bodykit, 20-inch Vossen wheels, fat track tires, big Rotora brakes, coilovers, matte-metallic red paint to fit it soundly in the SRT family, and…no powertrain improvements whatsoever, aside from a Magnaflow exhaust. So close. [Stellantis]
Car sales within China continue to fall, with July marking the 10th straight month of decline and approximately 21% fewer sales than a year earlier. However, exports by Chinese automakers to other markets soared by 88%, continuing a trend that’s played out through 2026 so far. [Reuters]
Designer David Woodhouse, who previously served at Lincoln and Nissan, has joined McLaren as its Chief Creative Officer. [Ford Authority]
Speaking of which, do you need a new battery pack for your McLaren P1? Fortunately, a company by the name of V Engineering in England has introduced a new battery that is about 50 pounds lighter while also sporting over double the energy capacity of the original unit, specifically for McLaren’s hybrid halo hypercar of a decade ago. It all goes to show how far EV technology has advanced. [Autocar]
A Virginia woman is suing Tesla for $10 million after crashing the Model Y she was test driving into a nail salon because it was allegedly set to “Insane Mode,” which allows it to accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in as little as 3.3 seconds. [Automotive News]
Got a tip or feedback for TDS? Reach out to tips@thedrive.com
The post GM Sells Joint EV Battery Plant to Samsung: TDS appeared first on The Drive.
