Welcome in, today is Wednesday, September twenty-third, and we begin with Automotive News, and a plant-closure warning out of Mercedes-Benz. Mercedes-Benz has warned workers that two German plants could close unless the company secures cost reductions. That is per Automotive News, which reports the warning came from the automaker's production chief and was framed around staying competitive globally. Once a plant footprint is on the table, the calculation shifts for everyone downstream: suppliers modelling German volume, works councils heading into cost talks, and anyone forecasting European capacity. Industry reaction leans skeptical that labour cost is the binding constraint. A recurring counter-argument holds that the competitiveness gap owes more to rivals' vertical integration, and to years of capital routed toward shareholder returns rather than engineering, so wage benchmarking reads to some as a pretext. Some frame shifting output to lower-cost European geographies as a margin fix rather than a competitiveness fix, and read domestic plants becoming the adjustable variable as a pattern across German automakers, not one company. Following our earlier report on August's European sales table, the full registration picture is in. New-car registrations rose four point six percent last month, to roughly eight hundred thirty-five thousand vehicles, on a fifty-two percent surge in battery-electric sales. That pushed electrified powertrains past half the European market for the first time, according to Automotive News. The same reporting puts Chinese brands at a record share, more than doubling their August volume in Europe to just under ninety-eight thousand cars, with plug-in hybrids helping several of those brands grow while sidestepping EU tariffs aimed at imported full-electric and extended-range models. A majority mix rewrites product planning, dealer stocking and residual assumptions at the same time. Reaction leans toward retiring the stalled-transition framing as a planning tool, with the live question being where value migrates next. A contrarian strand argues the continental headline hides several divergent national markets. Also today, trade politics. SupplyChainBrain, citing Reuters, reports a coalition including General Motors, Toyota, Volkswagen, Ford, Hyundai, Stellantis and Tesla has written to President Trump, urging him to, in the letter's words, keep the door firmly shut to Chinese automakers seeking to sell, import or manufacture vehicles in the United States. That account notes an existing rule already bars Chinese automakers from selling or building passenger cars there, alongside one hundred percent tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles. The White House said it is working with American automakers while safeguarding national and economic security. Coming before a scheduled Trump and Xi summit, the letter is a bid to set the terms carmakers will plan against. A recurring counterpoint draws on Europe, where tariffs reportedly failed to hold Chinese share down and instead pulled production inside the bloc. Staying with Volkswagen. Following our earlier report on the impairments booked against Porsche, Automotive News frames the brand that was long the group's most reliable profit driver as now its biggest problem, and a roadblock for chief executive Oliver Blume's restructuring plans. That read rests on two figures. The stake was written down by six billion euros, leaving Porsche carried at ten billion, against goodwill of eighteen point eight billion in twenty twenty-two, the year of its listing. And the same reporting has Porsche's margins falling below Skoda's, the detail that goes at the group's premium-margin logic rather than just its guidance. Enthusiast reaction leans toward calling this a product-ladder problem rather than a brand-strength one, with several arguing the revenue sits in the attainable volume models and that pushing prices up-market has thinned that base. Now, a few more headlines moving the trade today. WardsAuto reports Boston Dynamics has begun testing its Atlas humanoids at Hyundai, on repetitive and heavy tasks, with component assembly targeted for twenty thirty. Automotive News reports sales of United States-built vehicles in Canada have hit a new low as tariffs reroute sourcing, with Mexico gaining fast and Subaru shifting essentially all Canadian supply to Japan. Automotive World reports California has signed six bills to speed electric-vehicle adoption and charging, positioning the state to sustain uptake whatever happens to federal incentives. Electrek reports Toyota will build its first extended-range EV in China from spring twenty twenty-seven, targeting two hundred thousand units that year and roughly double that in twenty twenty-eight. And finally, Just Auto reports the Czech Republic is now the seventh European country to recognise the Dutch vehicle authority's approval of Tesla's Full Self-Driving system.