Porsche's New Flagship SUV Drops EV-Only Plan For V6 And V8 Power

Good morning! It's Friday, February 27, 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, Porsche is scrapping plans for its flagship seven-seat SUV to be EV-only, Stellantis' CEO got a $6.4 million pay package in 2025 as workers received nothing in profit sharing, Brampton is putting the pressure on Stellantis in Canada, and Ford is telling the owners of 15,000 Transits not to drive their vans.

When it comes to electrification strategies, things are changing in the blink of an eye. Porsche's upcoming seven-seat flagship SUV is no longer going to be powered exclusively by electric motors. Instead, the Audi Q9 twin will offer up V6 and V8 options as it looks to take on the likes of the BMW X7 and Mercedes-Benz GLS.

It's expected to be offered in a wide range of configurations, including four-, five- and seven-seat layouts, and it'll sit on Volkswagen Group's Premium Platform Combustion architecture. This is a huge departure from what everyone initially expected from the car, but — to be fair to Porsche — the world is a hell of a lot different than when development first started. From Autocar:

The PPC has been engineered to use a range of six- and eight-cylinder petrol engines, as well as a next-generation plug-in hybrid system. As a result, the K1 is expected to be launched with a choice of set-ups centred on twin-turbo 4.0-litre V8s and 3.0-litre V6s, with power covering a similar spread to the smaller Cayenne's 348bhp-730bhp offering.

Earlier plans had earmarked the K1 as a purely electric model based on the Volkswagen Group's Scalable Systems Platform. However, delays in that architecture's engineering, especially its software, and a slowdown in EV interest (centred on a rapid decline in Taycan sales) have pushed Porsche to instead launch it with combustion power.

Nevertheless, an eventual launch of an electric K1 is still planned, Porsche has confirmed to Autocar. The first K1 models, with petrol and plug-in hybrid power, are expected to be launched around 12 months after the first Q9 models, which are due next year. While the UK is expected to be one of the new Porsche SUV's largest markets in Europe, both the US and China are considered critical to its long-term success.

It's expected that the K1 will be built on the same line as the Q9 at VW's Bratislava plant in Slovakia, which is also where the Cayenne EV is built. Autocar takes this as a sign that there's still a potential for an electric K1 in the future, which I suppose makes sense. 

It's a bit of a bummer that the K1 won't be electric — at least not initially. But, with the way the automotive world is going right now, it makes sense from Porsche's perspective to hold off.

Stellantis CEO Antonio Filosa, who has been at the helm since June of 2025, received €5.4 million ($6.37 million) in total compensation last year. That number actually topped the company's earlier projection that Filosa would earn at least $4 million annually in his first two years as chief executive, and he could actually see his pay rise to as much as $23 million a year starting in 2028 — including bonuses, according to Reuters. That's, of course, if he's a good boy.

Filosa took over for CEO Carlos Tavares, who resigned in December of 2024 and had a pay package of about $14 million in 2025. While Filosa's pay might seem low compared to the Mary Barra's ($29.5 million in 2024) and Jim Farley's ($24.9 million in 2024), it's important to remember how much money Stellantis lost in 2025. While it's not all Filosa's fault, Stellantis did post a massive $26.3 billion loss for 2025, and it meant that United Auto Workers Union members at the company — the people who actually make Stellantis money — received exactly $0 in profit sharing for the first time since 2011. I'm sure that stings. From Automotive News:

Stellantis' contract with the UAW pays $900 for every 1 percent of North American profit margin. For 2025, the company lost $2.2 billion in North America, for a margin of negative 3.1 percent.

[...]

The company's U.S. hourly workers received $3,780 in 2025 and a total of more than $47,000 as their share of profits generated since Fiat Chrysler Automobiles merged with PSA Group to form Stellantis in 2021.

Tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump are among the reasons Stellantis' margin evaporated in North America last year. The company had estimated its 2025 tariff bill to be $1.4 billion.

[...]

There also will be no performance bonus for Stellantis' salaried workers in Italy. "The performance bonus for 2025 will be zero," Italy's FIOM metalworkers' union said in a release.

I guess we'll see what the rest of 2026 holds, but I know that if I were a Stellantis employee, I wouldn't be feeling too great right now. 

The city of Brampton, Canada is turning up the pressure on Stellantis to do something with its now-idled assembly plant. The City Council just unanimously voted to rezone the land under the plant at the north end of the city exclusively for vehicle production and related manufacturing. While I don't know much about Canadian zoning code, it's apparently a pretty unusual course of action to take, meant precisely to dial up the pressure on the automaker to commit to the plant. It also complicates redevelopment of the site, which is currently zoned for general industrial use, endangering any possible sale Stellantis could try to make.

In fact, the city is so serious about this, the mayor told Stellantis to go fu*k itself in the most Canadian way possible. From Automotive News:

"If Stellantis thinks they can go and build condos there, they can fly a kite. This is for auto jobs," Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown said in council Feb. 25.

[...]

Facing union and government pressure, the company maintains that it has plans for Brampton, but has not laid out any details.

Vito Beato, president of Unifor Local 1285, which represents hourly Stellantis workers in Brampton, said the city zoning changes safeguard the plant and give members further confidence that the automaker will "step up."

The rezoning "shouldn't be an issue" for Stellantis, but will help hold the company to the commitments it has made to workers, Beato said in council.

"The history that that plant has given us, it's generational. ... This is personal for us. That's our livelihood."

[...]

After 40 years building vehicles in Brampton, the automaker said it shares the city's interest in preserving the plant and protecting manufacturing jobs

"We are actively evaluating future product opportunities for the facility to ensure that any potential investment is sustainable and supports a long‑term commitment to our employees, suppliers, and the broader community," company spokesperson LouAnn Gosselin said in an email.

In December of 2023, Stellantis idled Brampton to embark on a two-year retooling project to switch the plant over from producing Dodge muscle cars to the next-generation Jeep Compass. However, in February of 2025, the company stopped work at the site, saying it was reevaluating its production strategy. In October, things got really bad when it said the Compass would actually be built in Illinois as part of a response to President Trump's tariffs. It left the plant without a product and a deeply uncertain future.

God love ya, Ford. The Blue Oval is recalling 15,965 2025 Transit vans because the brakes can go out, which is a bit less than ideal for people who are fans of stopping their vehicles. Apparently, some vans built between January 21 and April 25 of last year were assembled without a cotter pin that secures the brake booster pushrod to the brake pedal. Because of that, the two components can separate, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. From USA Today:

Ford identified the issue after the company's Critical Concern Review Group reviewed a warranty report in which the owner of one of the cars described warning lights coming on the dashboard.

The dealer technician then inspected the brake pedal assembly and found the cotter pin that holds the brake pedal push rod onto the pedal was missing. A cotter pin was then installed.

By Jan. 5, the company had identified three reports describing the missing cotter pin and retainer clip on 2025 Transit vehicles. It's not clear what has caused the issue, but it appears the part may not have been installed during the assembly process. The root cause of the issue remains under investigation, the company said.

The company said it's not aware of any injuries or incidents related to the issue.

Owners are being asked not to drive their vehicles until the remedy has been completed. Dealers will inspect and repair the brake booster assembly as necessary, free of charge, the notice states. Owner notification letters will be mailed by March 2, 2026.

So far this year, Ford has issued 11 recalls (second place is Hyundai with 5), impacting nearly 5 million vehicles thus far. The largest one, by a wide margin, was a recall impacting certain vehicles' brake lights and braking systems that we told you about yesterday, which covered nearly 4.4 million trucks and SUVs on its own.

History.com

Why do you think every house in New Jersey is slightly crooked? I kid, but it is funny that they had to recruit a British guy to figure out how to actually save the tower — something that wasn't done until 1999. If you want to learn more about it, head over to History.com.

I'll admit I've never been a huge Bruno Mars fan, and I don't really know where the hell he's been for the last 10 years (outside of Silk Sonic), but I've gotta admit it: This song is an absolute bop. I know it's a bit early in the year, but it's definitely got Song of the Summer potential.