The Drive37%
Downshift: More Drivers Switch to Regular Gas, Toyota's Texas Truck Plant, What If Land Rover Made a Sedan? 16%
By Adam Ismail58%
7/7/2026, 6:12:37 AM
Keywords: Gas Prices, Regular Gas, Premium Gas, Toyota, Ford, Recalls, Rivian, Land Rover, Bentley, Mclaren
BS Summary: This article contains 15 faulty reasoning types, including Unattributed Quote, Framing Effect, and Representativeness Heuristic, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 15.7% saturation with 87 hits. Analysis detected 566 faulty-reasoning hits from 554 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 32% and a BS Rank of 16% (18,416 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 84.10% of the article peer group.
Hello and welcome to The Downshift, or TDS for short, The Drive‘s morning news roundup that compiles the biggest automotive headlines every day from around the globe.
The Downshift summarizes news into short blurbs and fits each one with a link to the original article for the deeper story.
It’s Tuesday, July 7, 2026—here’s what’s happening.
⛽ It’s normal for drivers who typically fill their vehicle up with premium gasoline to switch to mid-grade or regular during periods of high prices, and that’s exactly what’s happening now.
Per a new report, premium gas sales were down 5% over a four-day period late last month, while mid-grade dropped by 2%, and regular increased by 10%.
On average, premium is also selling for 90 cents per gallon more than regular, and experts say that gap could widen to a dollar by year’s end.
Of course, the switch isn’t advisable for all vehicles; while some automakers merely recommend premium for certain models, many high-performance cars require higher-octane fuel, and repeatedly filling up with anything less risks engine damage.
[Bloomberg]
🏭 Toyota is planning a new 2.5-million-square-foot truck plant in Texas that will take over some Tacoma production that’s currently happening in Mexico.
The site is expected to cost $3.6 billion and open by 2030.
[Reuters]
🔧 Ford has announced two completely different recalls for two entirely different Mustang-badged vehicles.
Approximately 68,000 examples of the sports car (that includes the GTD) have been recalled for windshield wipers that may behave strangely in cold weather and only work at their highest setting.
As for the electric Mach-E, that one is more serious; Ford is recalling almost 43,000 SUVs for faulty rear-differential pinion shafts that could fracture, resulting in loss of drive or an inability to park in place if the parking brake is not also applied.
Naturally, the automaker will replace all affected components free of charge.
[Reuters]
💽 In other Ford news, the company has announced a deal with memory-chip-maker Micron to supply its vehicles.
Its cross-town rival GM announced a similar deal last week.
[Reuters]
🏛️ Rivian had a swell second quarter, beating analysts’ estimates, but its sales slid by 9% on Monday after the company announced an offer to sell 75 million shares.
[Reuters]
🌎 Leapmotor vehicles are officially on sale in Mexico, the Chinese automaker announced on Monday.
The brand is beginning with its B10 electric SUV, which is being marketed through Stellantis’ dealer network in the country.
[Automotive News]
🚙 Land Rover could be angling to make the next-generation Range Rover Velar a high-riding sedan or liftback rather than a proper SUV—a surprising turn of events at a time in which sedans are being recast as crossovers, not the other way around.
[Autocar]
⚡ Bentley has announced that its first battery-electric vehicle will be dubbed "Torcal," and it will debut on September 26 in where else but London.
[Automotive News]
🧑🔧 McLaren Special Operations has rebuilt the company’s first-ever road car, the M6GT, using a combination of restored components and new ones created with original molds and designs.
The chassis was derived from the M6A race car, and it’s powered by a Chevy small-block.
[McLaren]
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