Nissan Happy Tuesday! It's September 29, 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, we're looking at Nissan going all-in on hybrids, and Tesla offering FSD in Croatia. We'll also look at the state of Volvo's hiring, and the state of Toyota's sales. If you'd like a recap of the latest auto news sent to your inbox each weekday, you can sign up for Jalopnik's free Morning Shift newsletter here. 1st Gear: Nissan wants to be a hybrid-first brand in North America Nissan The U.S. market has soundly rejected electric cars, an outcome we've long feared, but rising gas prices due to the war on Iran have meant folks don't exactly want gas guzzlers either. The solution? Hybrids, the half-measure powertrain option that's now selling like hotcakes in the States. Now, Nissan is going all-in on them, hoping to make hybrids the company's "primary powertrain" by 2030. From Automotive News: Nissan will blitz the U.S. market with hybrid vehicles to make gasoline-electrics its "primary powertrain" in North America in 2030 by adding new range-extenders and V-6 setups as the brand races to catch leaders Toyota and Honda, Nissan Americas Chairman Christian Meunier said. Nissan's plan calls for localizing production of the Rogue e-Power hybrid in 2028, bringing an e-Power version of the Kicks compact crossover to the U.S. around 2028 and rolling out a series of V-6 hybrid options on its coming line of body-on-frame trucks that launches with the XTerra SUV. Nissan wants hybrids to account for 30 to 40 percent of its Rogue-segment sales "very quickly," Meunier said at a Sept. 28 briefing at Nissan Motor Co.'s global headquarters. I don't envy anyone who works in product planning strategy right now, because it's impossible to tell what the world looks like in 10 years. Will we all have gone in on EVs? Will further relaxed fuel economy regulations make gas vehicles practical again? How the hell do you plan future product when the world itself is so unpredictable? 2nd Gear: Tesla gets clearance to offer FSD in Croatia Jure Divich/Shutterstock Tesla wants very badly to offer its FSD driver-assist software suite in Europe, but thus far the bloc has dodged universally approving the software. Instead, countries have approved it on a case-by-case basis, and now Croatia is throwing its lot in with the supporters. From Reuters: Tesla said on Tuesday that its supervised Full Self-Driving system has been approved in Croatia, with a rollout across the country expected to begin soon, joining a growing list of European countries that have approved the technology. - Dutch regulator RDW approved the system in April, with Belgium and a handful of other countries following suit. Neighbouring Slovenia also approved earlier this month.- RDW is also proposing that the software be approved across the bloc. A safety group and several EU member states have, however, expressed concerns regarding the system's ability to exceed speed limits.- The issue has emerged as one of the most contentious aspects of Tesla's push for a European rollout of FSD, which the automaker has said is crucial to boosting sales and regaining market share amid growing competition from Chinese electric-vehicle makers. CEO Elon Musk's plan to deprioritize cars in favor of AI, robots, and autonomy seems dumb on its face, but remember: Musk thinks robots are cool. Can you really put a price on cool? Because he'd like to, otherwise he's not going to make any money off this endeavor. 3rd Gear: Things are looking grim at Volvo... Peter Dazeley/Getty Images Things aren't looking great at Volvo, where the company has decided it's done hiring white-collar workers. Sure, the company may be going through some totally normal restructuring, but it's never a great sign when a company stops hiring entirely — with Volvo only looking for factory workers now, the effect is similar. From Automotive News: Volvo Cars has imposed a global hiring freeze for white-collar jobs and begun taking a more "restrictive approach" to outside spending, according to an internal memo reviewed by Automotive News. The move comes as the Swedish luxury automaker contends with softening demand in key markets, including China and the United States. Volvo Cars employs about 20,000 white-collar workers globally, including nearly 1,000 in the U.S. and Canada. ... Internal recruitment also is being temporarily paused while the company reviews its approach to talent development, career opportunities and job rotation. The measures are intended to "reduce complexity, create stronger regional synergies and ensure resources are focused on the areas that have the greatest impact on our performance and transformation," the memo said. I wouldn't be surprised if this leads to layoffs, but companies always like to show investors they're growing — it's why LinkedIn is so full of job listings that never message you back. If Volvo isn't even pretending to hire white-collar workers, things must be bad on their books. 4th Gear: ...And they're not great at Toyota either Dogayusufdokdok/Getty Images Toyota, too, hasn't been looking so hot recently. The company has been a laggard on alternatives to pure ICE power, and now it's paying the price as fuel costs rise. Plus, its sales are crumbling in China, as the country's buyers largely opt for domestic vehicles. From Reuters: TOKYO, Sept 29 (Reuters) – Toyota Motor (7203.T), opens new tab said on Tuesday its global vehicle sales and production fell for a second straight month in August, as declines in China, the US and the Middle East persisted after dragging down results in the prior month. - The world's biggest automaker saw global sales fall 6.4% from a year earlier to 790,743 vehicles and production drop 5.9% to 700,860 vehicles.- A 22.8% plunge in China dragged sales down for a seventh consecutive month, as higher petrol prices weighed on demand for hybrid and traditional combustion-engine vehicles. As much as I don't want to be in product planning right now, I also don't want to be Koji Sato. That man has the unenviable job of modernizing Toyota at an incredible pace, if he wants the company to remain competitive. Reverse: Good thing that could never happen again! How many once-in-a-lifetime recessions have you lived through? I think I'm up to three — the Dot Com crash, the housing crash, and the Covid crash — and it seems like we're staring down another. This is probably fine though. The Fuel Up AAA Yesterday I speculated that Trump may actually like the price of gas, given that it ended in a 47 — seemingly his favorite number. Now we're down to a 45, but that's also a number for his presidency. On The Radio: Machine Girl - 'DUMBASS!!' I saw Machine Girl once, years ago, and didn't love them. Now I've warmed, even if some of their vocals are harsher than I'd like.