GM Is Going All-In On V8s And Diesels As Fuel Prices Soar To Record Levels

Good morning! It's Friday, September 18, 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, General Motors is rolling out two all-new V8 engines as gas and diesel prices rise on a daily basis, Credit Acceptance has reached a $710 million settlement with 40 U.S. states over predatory auto loans, Stellantis is almost certainly throwing in the towel on its Brampton plant, and Volkswagen is recalling over 200,000 cars for steering wheels that whiff off when you're driving.

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General Motors isn't worried about seemingly ever-increasing fuel prices as it forges ahead with revamped diesel and small-block V8 engines for its redesigned Chevy Silverado and GMC Sierra, even as the competition leans more heavily into hybrid power plants. The automaker just introduced two new sixth-generation small-blocks: the 5.7-liter L76, which makes 402 horsepower and 428 pound-feet of torque; and the 6.6-liter L78, which puts out up to 481 hp and 501 lb-ft of torque. They'll be offered alongside the TurboMax four-popper and turbocharged Duramax 3.0-liter diesel. All are paired with a 10-speed automatic transmission.

At a time when diesel breaks records daily, and gas is approaching its 2026 high (and well on its way to breaking its all-time high that was set in 2022), it seems a bit odd that there's no hybrid offering in GM's 1500 series pickups. Hell, the only hybrid GM currently builds is the Corvette, but the company is unbothered. From Automotive News:

For Silverado and Sierra buyers, GM sees its diesel powertrain as having some advantages over a hybrid option, including driving range. The redesigned pickups' Duramax engine allows more than 900 miles of highway driving on a 34-gallon tank.

I should note that a 34 gallon tank of diesel would cost about $220 to fill today, but that's none of my business.

"If you look at the performance and efficiency but also raw performance and range, hybrids really don't do it," [GM President Mark] Reuss said. "It's a bit different adding a hybrid system to an existing powertrain and trying to get the efficiency out of it like that."

The Duramax engine for the redesigned Silverado and Sierra is largely identical to the previous generation, with its ratings of 305 hp and 495 pound-feet of torque unchanged.

Meanwhile, the returning TurboMax engine has been enhanced, adding 40 hp over the outgoing trucks, to new ratings of 350 hp and 455 pound-feet of torque. The 2.7-liter TurboMax is geared toward customers who use the Silverado or Sierra as a day-to-day vehicle and might not need the towing power of a V-8 or desire the range offered by diesel.

[...]

The new engines and pickup redesigns come at a critical moment for GM. It needs the profits from its high-margin pickups to compensate for the import tariffs it's paying and the $11 billion in write-downs it took over the past year on investments in electric vehicle manufacturing.

[...]

"We spent effort and time on EVs, and we will continue to do that. But we never let our foot up off the throttle on our naturally aspirated V-8s or any of our powertrain lineups," said Mark Dickens, GM's executive chief engineer for full-size trucks and SUVs. "Fundamentally, these engines didn't happen overnight. This is years of development that's gone into these engines."

The engines were in development before the Trump administration moved to slash fuel economy standards, GM executives said.

CEO Mary Barra says EVs remain GM's "North Star," but with all of this money being poured into big ol' V8s and gas-powered pickup trucks, it's hard to imagine an all-EV future is anything more than a general idea and a nice platitude at this point.

Credit Acceptance — one of the country's largest subprime auto lenders — has agreed to pay a $710 million settlement with 40 U.S. states and Washington, D.C. to resolve charges it drove thousands of borrowers with low incomes and low credit scores into predatory auto loans it knew they couldn't afford or be able to pay back. The settlement also resolves claims that the company helped dealerships push buyers to purchase add-on products like vehicle service contracts as well as insurance they didn't need or were never told about.

Many borrowers ended up defaulting or having their vehicles repossessed, according to the group of states. It's always nice when people get held at least somewhat accountable for their wrongdoings. From Reuters:

Credit Acceptance will forgive $634 million of debt owed by more than 55,000 borrowers who took out loans ​between November 2015 and November 2025, pay $60 million in restitution to thousands of other borrowers, and pay a $15.5 million penalty, New York Attorney General Letitia James said.

The Southfield, Michigan-based company also agreed to change its lending practices. It will warn ​borrowers in advance when their loans carry historically high risk of default, waive 95% of sums owed ​if those borrowers default within 12 or 18 months, and refrain from suing to collect the debt or selling the ‌debt ⁠to others.

"CAC preyed on consumers in New York and across the nation with false promises of affordable loans, only to exploit them with outrageous interest rates that ruined their credit and cost them their cars," James said in a statement.

In one alleged instance, Credit Acceptance awarded a $260-a-month loan to a mother of two ​though she made just $950 ​per month. The company ⁠collected $8,400 from her, and her vehicle was repossessed twice, court papers show.

[...]

Thursday's settlement also resolved a lawsuit in Manhattan federal court that James and the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau filed against Credit Acceptance in January 2023.

The CFPB withdrew ⁠from ​that case in April 2025, calling its withdrawal "consistent with principles of ​justice and fairness." That agency has curtailed much of its enforcement activity during U.S. President Donald Trump's second White House term.

Credit Acceptance denied any wrongdoing in the settlement, and it won't record additional charges beyond the amounts it previously disclosed. Its CEO, Vinayak Hegde, called the deal "constructive, ​customer-focused and ⁠consistent with the direction of regulatory expectations in our industry."

Stellantis Canada CEO Trevor Longley told staff members that the automaker has exhausted all of its options when it comes to its currently empty Brampton Assembly Plant. After months of looking for possible uses for the Toronto-area facility, which could become the first major automotive casualty of the U.S.-Canada trade war, the transatlantic automaker says it has come up empty.

Longley pointed to market and trade conditions, tough regulatory requirements, and affordability pressure for the company's decision to pursue selling the plant to Canadian defense contractor Roshel. The Unifor auto union, as you may have imagined, is not thrilled with the update. From Automotive News:

"While each option was carefully reviewed, none provided a sustainable long-term business case that would support continued operations at the facility," he wrote to employees in a letter obtained by Automotive News Canada.

[...]

Stellantis confirmed that it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Roshel that could lead to the sale of the plant on Sept. 11, the same day contract talks with auto union Unifor broke down.

The union is "not accepting" the company's decision to offload the plant, which will cause widespread job loss in the supply chain and threaten Canada's wider industrial base, Union President Lana Payne, told reporters in Toronto Sept. 17.

"This would make Brampton the first auto plant to fall in this trade war. And when plants close, they rarely, if ever come back," she said.

Payne said there is "no substitute" for high-quality auto jobs, including the alternative proposed by Roshel, which would undercut wages and benefits of workers at the plant and all but eliminate the network of supplier plants that feed Brampton.

Roman Shimonov, CEO of Roshel, told Automotive News Canada in a statement that the company's plans for Brampton would create 2,000 jobs at the plant with "first consideration" given to Brampton Stellantis workers. The locally headquartered company is vying for a contract worth up to $5 billion to build light utility vehicles for the Canadian Armed Forces.

Unifor represents about 2,200 workers at the Brampton plant and many more in the supply chain. Local suppliers that support Brampton employ about 8,000, according to the union.

[...]

The tentative defence contract — which has yet to be awarded — would mean two to three vehicles built daily on an existing chassis and powertrain, compared with 500 to 1,000 cars per day with a full supply chain across tooling and raw materials, he told Automotive News Canada.

Payne has looked to the Canadian government to act, saying that selling the plant during a trade war and in the middle of collective bargaining is "indefensible."

Canadian Industry Minister Mélanie Joly said Sept. 16 that Ottawa will exert "maximum pressure" on Stellantis to assign a product to the plant, or claw back funds it awarded the company to retool its Canadian facilities in 2022.

Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada spokesperson Riyadh Nazerally told Automotive News Canada that the government continues to engage Stellantis and Unifor on a path forward for Brampton, but did not address when the union should expect a direct response to Payne's request.

Payne says the union is continuing to weigh its next steps after putting bargaining on hold. Technically, its contract with Stellantis expires on September 20, but the union isn't likely to be in a legal strike position for several weeks. That's when a coalition process is completed, and a strike vote is held.

The Volkswagen Groups is recalling 208,724 vehicles in the U.S. for bad steering wheels that fly off while you're driving, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The last thing you want is a steering wheel that whiffs out the window while you're driving. From Reuters: 

Affected vehicles include certain 2018 Tiguan, 2018-2019 Atlas, and ​2019-2021 Audi Q3 ​vehicles.

The steering rack bolt in the ‌vehicles ⁠might corrode and break, causing a potential loss of steering control, which can ​increase ​the risk ⁠of a crash, the auto safety ​regulator warned.

As part of ​the ⁠recall remedy, dealers will replace the right-side steering ⁠rack ​mounting bolt, free ​of charge.

People who have those cars probably love their mother-in-laws.

History.com

I find it disgusting that the title of "largest parking lot in the world" isn't held by a U.S. property. That's just wrong. The fact that it's actually in Canada is just salt in the would. That parking lot should be in Paramus, New Jersey, attached to the Garden State Plaza. Lord knows it could use the extra spots. Real ones know what I mean. Parking there is a nightmare. Anyway, if you want to learn more about this Canadian parking lot, head over to History.com.

Fuel prices continue their meteoric rise as global fuel supply chains continue to be completely biffed. Don't worry, though, it's only expected to get worse! Ya know, there's a sick part of me that thinks the Trump family took out some sort of Kalshi bet that Republicans would lose the midterms, and now he's trying to tank their chances. In any case,  WTI Crude Oil futures and Brent Crude prices are still stratospheric, sitting at $103 and $105, respectively, at the time of publication.

Here's where national average prices stand right now, according to AAA:

History.com

This all means the average price of a gallon of regular gas jumping 3 cents overnight to $4.47, according to AAA. Diesel was also up another 5 cents overnight to $6.45 — another all-time record. One day this trend will end, but it won't be tomorrow.

Happy Beabadoobee album drop day to all who celebrate. I've been waiting for "Plyon" for a minute now, and it's finally here. The second I'm finished up with The Morning Shift, you best believe I'll be jamming out.