At Least Stellantis' Dealers Think 2026 Is Looking Up

Good morning! It's Tuesday, December 23, 2025, 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, Stellantis' dealers are optimistic about 2026 following a few years of life being rough, Mercedes-Benz is paying out a $150 million settlement over a diesel emissions cheating scandal, California is looking into an incident that left Waymos around San Francisco bricked following a power outage and Amazon's Zooks is recalling 332 vehicles because of a software issue.

Stellantis has had a rough go of it over the past few years, but dammit, its dealers feel the Transatlantic automaker is poised for a big rebound in 2026 with the guidance of its new CEO, Anthony Filosa. So far, Filosa has reversed a lot of what frustrated dealers about his predecessor, Carlos Tavares. He's focused on bringing in a mix of powertrain options and resurrected the Hemi. 

On top of that, Filosa managed to snap a two-year sales decline streak in his first full quarter as CEO, and he achieved the first year-over-year U.S. market share increase for Jeep since 2022. He also ended a five-quarter sales slide for Ram in the spring. 1500 deliveries rose 10% in Q3, as well — a second consecutive quarterly increase for the brand's most important vehicle. I've gotta think the return of the 5.7-liter V8 is a big reason for that sales jump. 

Keep in mind, this dude has only been at the helm since June, so it would make sense that dealers expect the good times to keep rolling into the new year. From Automotive News:

Sean Hogan, incoming chairman of the Stellantis National Dealer Council, is pleased with the company's early progress under Filosa.

Hogan highlighted the automaker's $13 billion investment in U.S. manufacturing, a more effective marketing strategy and the company's hiring of more technical staff to help dealerships.

Hogan said a lot of bold moves made in 2025 will bear fruit in 2026.

"Everything they've done is to lay a foundation for the upcoming years of real success," said Hogan, vice president of Sierra Auto Group, which has two Stellantis stores in the Los Angeles area. "To me, one of the most exciting things too was watching the Hemi come back. That just said that the current Stellantis leadership team, they get it, they get our customers [and] they know what they have to deliver."

Hogan said dealers pushed for Filosa to be selected as CEO. Filosa proved himself to U.S. dealers when he was CEO of the Jeep brand and COO of North America, a role he still holds as well.

[...]

"This is a guy that's going to listen to the dealers," Hogan said. "He gets the product, he understands what he has to do. ... By him retaining his role as the North American COO, that was a big deal to us because that gave us access to him. It enables the dealers to be able to pick up the phone and talk to him, and his focus is where we need it to be, which is product and production."

One big difference between Filosa and Tavares is where they spend their time. The new CEO is based in the Detroit area, whereas Tavares lived in Europe, and that's where he focused most of his energy, according to dealers.

Filosa, on the other hand, said it was a "clear priority" for his team to grow Stellantis in the U.S., Auto News reports. He inherited a company in clear decline, and, for the time being, seems to be righting the ship.

Mercedes-Benz just reached a fat $149.6 million settlement with 48 U.S. states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia to resolve a years-long investigation into an alleged diesel emissions cheating scandal, according to New York Attorney General Letitia James. It'll also provide eligible owners and lessees whose vehicles require emissions repairs with $2,000 payments, and the automaker agreed to adopt a series of actions meant to prevent further misconduct and comply with oversight requirements. These damn German automakers can't help themselves, can they?

In any case, Mercedes says the deal effectively ends its legal issues in the U.S. over Dieselgate, which is a fire that has been burning bright since the scandal was first uncovered at Volkswagen in late 2015. From Reuters:

The states said Mercedes installed undisclosed, unlawful software in diesel vehicles that hid the true levels of pollution and improperly lowered emissions during government testing, but in normal driving conditions, the vehicles emitted up to 30 or 40 times the legal limit.

Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares said the settlement extends to the estimated 39,565 U.S. vehicles that had not been repaired or permanently removed from the road by August 2023.

Mercedes must pay the costs for installing approved emission modification software on each of the affected vehicles and provide participating consumers with an extended warranty and pay consumers $2,000 per vehicle.

A Mercedes spokesperson said the group's bottom-line earnings would not be affected and that "a sufficient provision has been made for the costs of the overall settlement".

[...]

As part of the settlement with the states announced on Monday, the automaker must immediately pay $120 million to the states. A further $29.6 million is suspended and will be reduced by $750 for each affected vehicle Mercedes repairs, takes off the market, or buys back.

The states launched an investigation into Mercedes-Benz in 2020 following Volkswagen's diesel emissions scandal that cost VW more than $20 billion in fines, penalties and settlements after it admitted in 2015 it had cheated emissions tests by installing "defeat devices" and sophisticated software in nearly 11 million vehicles worldwide.

Back in 2020, Mercedes-Benz agreed to pay $2.2 billion to resolve a U.S. government diesel cheating investigation as well as claims that came from a quarter million vehicle owners.

Oh, if you're wondering which two states didn't reach a settlement with Mercedes, it's Arizona and California. Those two apparently reached their own settlements with the company, according to the New York Times. 

The California Public Utilities Commission said it is looking into incidents that left Waymo robotaxis bricked in parts in San Francisco over the weekend after a widespread power outage. As you may have imagined, having dozens, if not hundreds, of cars randomly stop on the street caused a traffic nightmare in parts of the city, and folks are not thrilled about that.

Alphabet's Waymo paused service on the evening of December 20 following a fire at a PG&E substation that knocked out power to about a third of the city — impacting about 130,000 residents and numerous businesses. Now, the regulator is looking into the matter. From Reuters:

"We are aware of outage and are looking into specifics," a spokesperson for the California Public Utilities Commission said in an email to Reuters, referring to Waymo vehicles stalling. The regulator did not provide details of exactly what it was examining.

[...]

Multiple videos posted on social media showed Waymo robotaxis stuck at intersections with hazard lights turned on as traffic lights stopped working due to the outage.

The incident highlighted concerns around the unforeseen situations that can arise for autonomous vehicle operators as they race to deploy driverless taxis across the U.S.

Right now, Waymo is operating a fleet of over 2,500 vehicles in the Bay Area, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Austin and Atlanta. It said it resumed its robotaxi service in San Francisco on Sunday, December 21 — just a day after suspending operations.

Oh, good — more robotaxi screw-up news! Amazon's Zoox is recalling 332 vehicles because of an issue with its automated driving software, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. Apparently, when a Zoox is at or near an intersection, it may cross the yellow center line and drive into or stop in front of oncoming traffic. This could, obviously, increase the risk of a crash, and it really isn't ideal for anybody. From Reuters:

The company has updated the ADS software free of charge, NHTSA added. It had recalled 270 vehicles back in May. It issued a software update to improve how its vehicles track nearby pedestrians and prevent movement when someone is close, following a crash in San Francisco in the same month.

NHTSA in August certified Zoox vehicles for demonstration use and closed a probe, which the U.S. auto safety regulator began in 2022, into whether they had complied with federal requirements.

Gadzoox!

History.com

I think we were too hard on Balloon Boy's parents. I love attention, too, so I really do get it. I hope that kid is doing okay now, because I cannot imagine growing up being the Balloon Boy. If you want to learn more about the whole bizarre situation, head over to History.com.

Friends, we made it. Christmas Eve is tomorrow, which means this is the last "On the radio" before the big day. What better way to end our run than with Nat King Cole's "The Christmas Song"? It's a beautiful song for a beautiful time of year. I hope, no matter what you're celebrating, you enjoy yourself over these next few days. I'll talk to ya real soon.