A Ram truck at sunset - StellantisHappy Thursday! It's June 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, we're looking at Stellantis' plans for Ram and Maserati, as well as Waymo's latest big recall. We'll also look at dealers' used-car inventories, and the ways they're working around the problem. Read more: Never Jump Start A Modern Car Without Checking For These Things First1st Gear: Stellantis wants Ram to overtake Jeep in sales volume...A Ram Rampage truck - StellantisStellantis' biggest brand in North America right now is Jeep, but the company wants to change that. With new products and new pushes for volume, the conglomerate wants Ram to take that top spot. From Automotive News: Ram is about to haul its biggest load yet.In a major landscape shift for Stellantis, the automaker projects that the truck brand carved out of Dodge in 2009 will surpass Jeep as its North American volume leader by the end of the decade. It's targeting 2030 sales of 825,000 for Ram — 60 percent more than last year — versus 740,000 for Jeep.Stellantis plans to more than double the size of Ram's lineup over that period, expanding into several new segments after U.S. sales fell to a 12-year low in 2025.Ram finally intends to punch back against Chevrolet, Ford and Toyota with compact and midsize pickups, and the brand will establish itself in the full-size SUV space with the beefy Ramcharger. It's also working to single-handedly revive the small van segment with the Promaster City and catering to street truck enthusiasts with the muscular Rumble Bee lineup.With such an aggressive product plan, Ram is expected to have little trouble leapfrogging Jeep, the brand long positioned as the star of the automaker's North American portfolio and the centerpiece of many Stellantis dealerships.Out of that lineup, I'm most interested in the smaller Rampage truck (though the Dakota seems neat too). So long as it comes in red, and I can drive it straight into the path of a tornado, I'm happy. 2nd Gear: ...while Maserati could become a partnershipA Maserati McPura Cielo - StellantisBut while Ram is poised to be Stellantis' new volume mover, Maserati... isn't. In fact, the latter brand is doing so badly that Stellantis is now looking into partnerships — getting another company to buy in to try and help the automaker out. From Reuters: Stellantis (STLAM.MI), opens new tab is in talks with two potential partners for cooperation on its struggling luxury brand Maserati, the automaker's Chief Executive Antonio Filosa said on Wednesday during a hearing at the Italian parliament.Stellantis will soon decide which partner to choose, the CEO added.AdvertisementAdvertisementFun fact: Maserati is still around! You can go out and buy a brand new car from it right now. It's not all 2008 GranTurismos, there are in fact newer options. 3rd Gear: Waymo recalls 3,900 cars for plowing into construction zonesWASHINGTON, DC - JUNE 8: A Waymo autonomous Jaguar I-PACE vehicle is driven on a road on June 8, 2026 in Washington, DC. Waymo is still in the testing phase and is not yet operating commercially in the region. (Photo by Kevin Carter/Getty Images) - Kevin Carter/Getty ImagesWaymo is selling its autonomous cabs as being safer than human drivers. One would think that such a claim would preclude the car driving headlong into a construction zone with full confidence in its decision-making, but one would be wrong. Anyway, Waymo is recalling 3,900 cars for doing just that. From Reuters:Alphabet self-driving unit Waymo is recalling nearly 3,900 robotaxis in the U.S. because a software issue could cause the vehicles to enter a closed freeway construction zone and continue driving.It is the second recall by Waymo in just over a month.The latest recall, filed with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), stems from more than a dozen incidents since early April in California and Arizona in which Waymo autonomous vehicles (AVs) did not recognise and drove past ramp closure signs into pre-planned freeway construction zones and freeway lanes with active construction work.I'm very openly and loudly anti-autonomous cars. This hits the first part of my distaste for them, my distrust of the tech, but even this recall can't fix the risk these cars pose to hundreds of thousands of taxi-driving jobs. We can't keep automating people out of work if we're not going to provide some alternative way to put food on the table. 4th Gear: Dealers are running low on lease returns, and turning to buying cars that come in for serviceOttawa, Ontario, Canada-July 19, 2025: A "Mopar Express Lane service center" at a dealership features garage bays and vehicle spa advertisements at 1255 Johnston Rd. - teshail/ShutterstockUsed car inventories come in no small part from lease returns, three-year-old cars that end up back on dealer lots ready to be resold. Unfortunately for dealers, those lease numbers still haven't recovered from Covid, which is tough for dealers that still need to sell to ever-broker car buyers. The solution? Dealers are buying cars back from their own customers, by making offers to owners who come through for oil changes. From Automotive News: With new-vehicle prices continuing to rise beyond many customers' budgets, used-vehicle departments have become especially crucial to many dealership groups' bottom lines and to fulfilling increasing demand.But having a profitable used-vehicle operation can be difficult when good inventory is scarce. The new-vehicle production crunch during the COVID-19 pandemic complicated that. But there is a glimmer of light on the horizon: About half a million more leased vehicles are expected to return to lots this year, with the bulk arriving in the second half, though the increase will still put overall lease returns far below pre-COVID levels."We were accustomed to like 4 million units of off lease prior to COVID, and now we're looking at 2.5 [million] and then maybe like 2.9 [million] for next year, so we're still off by a lot," said Ivan Drury, director of insights at Edmunds.Still, dealers can't wait for those vehicles to return to boost inventory. In the meantime, dealers' relationships with their customers, from trade-ins to buying from the service lane, continue to be key for successful used-vehicle departments.AdvertisementAdvertisementThe average car on U.S. roads is 13 years old, which means half of them are even older. The average car buyer can't afford a new car, so used sales like these are crucial for people who just need to get to work on a budget. Reverse: RIP to those guysRemember when the news had a live countdown of how much oxygen was left in the Titan, meanwhile they'd long since been turned into a fine mist on the seafloor?The Fuel UpAAA chart of fuel prices - AAAWe're back under four dollars! Meet the new world, same as the old world. On The Radio: illuminati hotties - 'MMMOOOAAAAAYAYA'Someone in the YouTube comments described this as sounding like the theme song to a Cartoon Network show from the early 2000s, and they're bang on. AdvertisementAdvertisementWant more like this? Join the Jalopnik newsletter to get the latest auto news sent straight to your inbox, and add us as a preferred search source on Google.Read the original article on Jalopnik.
