This 1935 Auburn Supercharged Speedster will be featured at the RM Sotheby’s Hershey sale. Get all the latest auto industry news in the Executive Briefing.
Today’s headlines:
+ The auto dealership buy/sell market completed a record 462 transactions in the trailing 12 months through June, with buyers paying premiums for high-volume franchises. More at CBT News.
+ Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) is calling on federal safety authorities to address misuse of Tesla’s Autopilot and Full Self-Driving systems, citing cases of drivers falling asleep. More at U.S. News & World Report.
+ In a letter to Ford CEO Jim Farley, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy blasted the automaker for its business ties to China, writing that they raise “profound concern.” More at World Auto Forum.
+ Legacy Motor Club named Josh Berry to drive its No. 42 car for the 2027 NASCAR Cup Series season to replace John Hunter Nemechek, who was recently released. More at Yahoo! Sports.
+ In response to shrinking supplies due to global oil market instability, retail giant Costco is now rationing motor oil, with buyers limited to two ten-quart cases per week. More at The Drive.
+ Volkswagen is reportedly studying traditional American-style body-on-frame construction for a new line of midsize pickup trucks and SUVs for the U.S. market. More at Autoweek.
+ Porsche AG announced this week that it has completed the divestiture of its remaining financial stake in both Bugatti Rimac and its parent company, the Rimac Group. More at Car and Driver.
+ According to a report from Automotive News, gasoline hybrids are now the fasting selling vehicles on the market, outpacing EVs and pure gasoline vehicles in the U.S. More at Autoblog.
+ RM Sotheby’s Hershey 2026 auction will showcase a 1934 Duesenberg Model J, 1935 Auburn Speedster, 1915 Mercedes and other significant pre-war automobiles. More at Old Cars.
+ Alexander Rossi turned the first hot laps in the 2028 Dallara IR-28 IndyCar chassis on the Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval, reporting it drives much like the current package. More at Racer.
Photo courtesy of H&H Classic.
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Surprise, surprise, surprise said nobody- from the contents of the Executive Briefings, everything predicted so far is coming true.
On September 4, 2026, the NHTSA opened a federal Audit Query (AQ) AQ26002 into Tesla’s brand-new Cybercab fleet. An AQ is an exceptionally rare, heavy-handed NHTSA administrative tool reserved for severe compliance failures, safety defects, and/or self-certification breakdowns, traditionally triggered only after complaints, crashes, injuries, and blood on the street crosses a red line or requires political attention. The NHTSA rarely issues more than one or two AQs per year.
However, Tesla’s AQ26002 is very diferent. Rather than following any kind of logical, ethical or economical engineering protocol, such as asking the federal government for a legitimate FMVSS “Part 555 Exemption” to run a demonstration test fleet, Tesla’s lawyers self-certified that their paid Cybercabs meet all Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards and deployed them onto public roads without steering wheels, mirrors, pedals, fire extinguishers, or first-aid kits, asserting that existing federal, state, and local taxi safety rules simply “didn’t apply” to autonomous vehicles. I predict the radioactive fallout and fecal matter from this AQ will directly transmorgify somehow into NHTSA’s missing AV FMVSS, the same-old D.C. games where the loophole lawyers and lobbyists of the regulated create their own regulations.
Interestingly, AQ26002 is not the first AQ leveled “against” American robotaxis. Amazon’s Zoox “flunked” its multi-year AQ23001 audit after attempting to “self-certify” and deploy its steering-wheel-free robotaxis in 2022. Once legal billable hours reached critical mass, Zoox lawyers withdrew their FMVSS self-certified safety certifications and secured the first official “temporary” NHTSA FMVSS Part 555 “Commercial Exemption” for a highway vehicle with zero human manual driving controls or safety equipment.
For your information, these Zoox vehicles are still legally required to carry an FMVSS sticker. However, it is a highly specialized special federal waiver called an “Exemption Label”. It informs first responders that the vehicle is essentially a battery-powered legal loophole strategy with specific exemptions and immunities intentionally ducking federal safety regulations dumping all post-crash legal liability onto any unlucky hapless human road users, activating the American loophole lawyer’s traffic ticket and tort system warranties.
The loophole is a badge of honor to these people.
This isnt just about the Ohio lukemia, cancer and crash tax money machine. The national wisdom of the loophole lawyer, the judgement of the ambulance chaser and fake fake safety of billions and billions of imported lithium batteries connected to the internet while letting the internet “fix” safety defects OTA and drive vehicles remotely with human control thousands of miles away or overseas, anonomously, autonomously with the baked in legal immunities of the American loophole lawyer’s green surrender to mandated imported software/battery power. Even Helen Keller can see thru the catastrophic digital illusions of fake human safety, national security risks and ultimate end game…