The Fed’s new rate hike further complicates efforts to address the vehicle affordability crisis, Hyundai’s CEO warns Washington about China, and a new study finds self-driving artificial intelligence treats pedestrians unequally. After their planned merger imploded, Nissan and Honda formalized a partnership to co-develop standardized electronics and software for next-gen vehicles from 2029, aiming to compete with Tesla and China through shared investment and faster development cycles. BMW’s dashboard ads for the latest Spider-Man movie sparked a backlash from its customers, exposing tension between revenue goals and premium brand positioning. VW Group CEO Oliver Blume threatened a shareholder showdown to force through job cuts affecting 100,000 workers, and a last-minute deal with labor and regional officials averted a crisis, though Blume faces union resistance ahead. European automotive suppliers eliminated 104,000 positions in 2024-25, while creating just 7,000 new jobs, and Germany’s workforce shrank to its lowest level since 2005. Automakers including Geely and Xiaomi are at the front of China’s humanoid boom, but the technology remains too slow and error-prone for most manufacturing tasks. Tesla launched its camera-only Cybercab without human controls into a robotaxi market dominated by Waymo’s multi-sensor approach.