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Good morning and welcome to The Downshift, or TDS for short.
Tight, light, and right, TDS gathers the latest automotive news from around the globe and puts it in one place. Stories are summarized in a single sentence accompanied by a link for those seeking more information.
The first cup of coffee is gone and I’m already onto the second so let’s get into it.
🚘 What I’m driving: Headed into the weekend with the 2026 Hyundai Palisade Hybrid and am digging both the design and functionality along with the premium materials. Truly curious how the market will react to a $60,625 Palisade.
🐏 Ram CEO Tim Kuniskis finally confirmed what we all knew: the Dakota nameplate is returning on the automaker’s midsize pickup; that midsize truck is set to arrive in 2027 and is expected to cost about $40,000 with multiple powertrains on deck including both a gas and plug-in hybrid option.
👨💼 GM CEO Mary Barra is reportedly testing the automaker’s new Chief Product Officer, Sterling Anderson, as her potential replacement as CEO when retirement time comes; Anderson was previously at Tesla and led the Model X and Autopilot teams during his tenure with Musk.
😼 Just in time for the holidays Stellantis has started taking orders for the 2026 Dodge Durango SRT Hellcat, which never died despite the final special edition models.
🔋 The 2027 Dodge Charger Daytona debuted and it arrives with a Tesla-like NACS charge port rather than the current car’s CCS port.
‼️ Ford’s recalling 272,645 vehicles including the F-150 Lightning, Mustang Mach-E, and Maverick pickups due to an integrated park module that could fail to lock into place causing the vehicles to roll away after being put into park.
🚘 The 2026 Honda Accord debuted with a price of less than $30,000 and a larger touchscreen standard across the lineup.
🦵 As promised at the eleventh hour Rivian began rolling out a new software update, 2025.46, that adds Kick Turn and the Rad Tuner features to second-generation R1 Quad models; the update also brings Universal Hands-Free Driving assist that enables the system to work on 3.5 million miles of road along with Rivian Digital Key functionality that enables second-generation R1s to have the car key added to a smartphone’s digital wallet.
🚗 Kia announced the 2026 K4 Hatchback will cost a value-packed $26,085 when it arrives next year.
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As Director of Content and Product, Joel draws on over 15 years of newsroom experience and inability to actually stop working to help ensure The Drive shapes the future of automotive media. He’s also a World Car Award juror.
