Tesla Is Using Social Media Pressure To Push For FSD Approval In Europe
Happy Wednesday! It's October 7, 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 we're looking at Elon Musk's social media pushes for FSD in Europe, and Porsche's plans to raise prices. We'll also look at Honda shuffling its U.S. production, and Nissan's terrible horrible no good very bad sales year.
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1st Gear: Elon Musk is on Twitter, blaming the EU for traffic deaths as it hasn't yet approved FSD
Elon Musk decided that Tesla is an AI and robotics company, rather than a car company. Of course, the company still makes its money from selling cars, so Musk is doing his best to push for the company's singular AI-ish product — the FSD software suite — wherever possible. Right now that means Europe, where the software has yet to see complete approval by the bloc. From Reuters:
Elon Musk's company has pushed regulators directly to reduce the rigor of safety reviews, submitted its own research making bold crash-reduction claims, and used social media to mobilize Tesla enthusiasts to demand speedy approvals.
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But Tesla's campaign is built on faulty company safety research that can't support the company's claims to officials or the public, according to seven traffic-safety researchers who examined its methodology for Reuters.
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During that Netherlands review, Tesla repeatedly sought to scale back the intensity of the regulator's examination, and it pushed – with some success – to set the terms and methods of its evaluation and testing, according to a Reuters review of correspondence between the automaker and the regulator, which has not been previously reported.
FSD needs these flawed safety reviews because the software is inherently compromised by its reliance on suitable hardware: Computer vision, a poor substitute for the LiDAR scanners used by the more competent autonomy developers. If Tesla could show regulators that FSD was safer than human drivers without resorting to massaged numbers and pressured regulators, it certainly would. The fact that the company is resorting to such underhanded methods is telling.
2nd Gear: Porsche wants to raise prices by 20% on its fanciest models
Earlier this week, we talked about how Porsche wants to increase profitability by cutting costs. Today, the company is looking at raising prices on its priciest models by 20%. Charging more for less is a good long-term move for a business's health, right? From the Wall Street Journal:
Porsche plans to make its cars even more exclusive while continuing to cut costs and streamline its operations as it targets higher profitability in coming years.
The German sports-car maker said ahead of an investor event Wednesday that it will offer more higher-end vehicles and aim to increase the average selling price of these models by about 20% to 330,000 euros ($371,596).
By 2030, it plans to launch at least one "brand-defining" new product every year, it said.
This isn't about price changes on the highest trims of the Macan — though I wouldn't be surprised if those prices crept upward too — but about models like the 911 Dakar and Sport Classic. There's a real market for selling expensive paperweights to rich jerks who will never drive them, so those jerks can eventually trade the cars around to each other for tax write offs, and that's where Porsche sees its future. When no one else can afford your sports cars, you have to cater to the few folks willing to shell out incredible amounts of money every year for the latest shiny toy. This is a sign of a good and healthy economy, by the way.
3rd Gear: Honda wants to make as many CR-Vs in the U.S. as possible
Honda has a new CR-V in the works, but it's not coming out yet. Instead, the company is putting its U.S. production resources towards manufacturing ever more of the existing model — to the point of cutting off planned production of the Civic in Indiana. From Automotive News:
Honda has delayed production of the next-generation CR-V by three months and canceled plans to build the next Civic sedan in Indiana, a supply chain source told Automotive News.
Start of production for the redesigned CR-V has been pushed to April 2027, said the person, who asked not to be identified because the information has not been made public. Honda also has reduced first-year volume planned for the crossover by 6.7 percent, to 41,315 units.
The adjustments come as Honda recalibrates its North American manufacturing footprint to account for robust hybrid demand.
When you make something that sells in huge volumes, and international trade gets uncertain, you need to shore up local production fast. Dealers only have 17 days worth of CR-Vs on their lots, and Honda wants to bump those numbers up especially if factories will be paused in the future to retool for a future generation of the car, it's good to get inventory on hand now.
4th Gear: It's shaping up to be a bad year for Nissan sales
Nissan has been doing its best to turn things around under CEO Ivan Espinosa, but the company isn't out of the woods yet. Its 2026 sales are looking rough, and catching up to even last year's numbers would require some herculean efforts. From Automotive News:
The automaker delivered 1,932,725 vehicles worldwide in the first eight months of 2026 — 9.2 percent less than in the same period last year, according to figures released Sept. 29.
That puts the company on pace for a full-year total of 2.9 million. The last time Nissan fell short of 3 million in a calendar year was 2003, when it sold 2.968 million vehicles.
Reaching 3 million by the end of 2026 would require selling nearly 267,000 a month from September through December, a 29 percent jump from Nissan's August pace.
Good luck, Nissan. Please last long enough to service a GT-R in the event I win the Powerball and get to buy one. Also, build that T-top Z while you still can. What, is it gonna hurt your numbers? If things are this bad, you may as well get weird with it and throw stuff at the wall.
Reverse: The War On Terror begins
Much like victory in the War On Drugs decisively going to Drugs, can we say that the War On Terror was won by Terror yet?
The Fuel Up
It seems like even the markets have lost the ability to predict anything beyond the next five minutes, and gas prices are just bouncing around wildly. Today they're stable. Yesterday they went up. The day before, they went down.
On The Radio: St. Vincent - 'Birth In Reverse'
I'm pretty sure Annie Clark and I wouldn't get along if we ever met — especially after what she did to Sleater-Kinney — but I woke up with "Birth In Reverse" stuck in my head and now it's your turn.