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Diesel set records on both sides of the Atlantic in one week: the US average crossed $6 a gallon on 10 September, Belgium's official maximum reached €2.407 on the 12th, Germany passed €2.50 at Sunday noon, France averages €2.31 and Britain is at 190p. Refining, not crude, is the driver: Brent closed at $104.61 while the EIA sees US distillate stocks below their five-year low into 2027.

Daimler Truck Defence and PGZ have agreed to assemble Mercedes-Benz truck diesels in Kalisz, Poland, from 2027, growing to more than 1,000 engines a year from kits of over 700 parts. The 7 to 15 litre six-cylinders, 326 to 625 hp, are the units used in the Unimog and Zetros and will power vehicles PGZ companies build for the Polish armed forces, chiefly Jelcz trucks that currently use Iveco engines. No Mercedes trucks are part of the deal.

The Chery-JLR Freelander 8 holds the Guinness record for the highest altitude reached by a hybrid car: 6,002.33 metres in Tibet on 22 August 2026, 22.28 metres above the BYD Fang Cheng Bao 5 mark from July 2024. Its 1.5-litre generator kept 80 percent of its output on half the oxygen and a two-speed rear axle put up to 8,000 Nm through the wheels. A petrol Porsche 911 reached 6,734 metres in 2023.

Ferrari has revealed the 296 GT Modificata, a track-only special built in very limited numbers for its Club Competizioni GT customer programme. Based on the 296 GT3 Evo but freed from any racing rulebook, its V6 makes 730 hp, 130 more than the GT3 racer, and Ferrari says it laps Fiorano three seconds faster. It even has two seats, so owners can take a coach or a passenger along.

Lexus put an updated LS on sale in Japan on 10 September 2026, priced from ¥14.14 million to ¥18.05 million and offered only as the 359 hp LS500h hybrid. The 422 hp twin-turbo LS500 and the entry-grade are gone, so the cheapest LS now costs ¥3.03 million more. The shell gains a reinforced centre tunnel and resin-damped braces. Europe lost the LS on 1 October 2025; the United States gets 250 final Heritage Edition cars.

Ugo Ugochukwu won the 2026 FIA Formula 3 title at the Madring on 13 September with Campos Racing, 159 points to Freddie Slater's 145, after entering the final round 15 points behind. McLaren had signed the American at 13 and released him in November 2025 after a winless, 16th-place season. Slater is the first driver in Audi's F1 programme. The title is worth 30 super licence points and is Campos' first drivers' crown.

Toyota is recalling 8,521 electric C-HRs in the United States because a battery ECU programming error can let regenerative braking overcharge a nearly full pack and shut down the drive system. The cars were built between 6 February and 10 July 2026 at Takaoka, the plant that also builds Europe's C-HR+, and Toyota says not all of them were sold in America. The fix is a dealer software update, with owner letters due on 18 October.

Ford's Transit City, a 56 kWh electric van built by Jiangling Motors in Nanchang, went into production on 31 August and the first batch of around 1,000 is bound for Europe, priced from €35,990 net in Germany and A$50,000 in Australia. Ford exported 184,000 vehicles from China in 2025 while Changan Ford sold 99,400 there, and Jim Farley pledged deeper Jiangling ties days before Washington's letter objecting to Ford's Chinese partnerships.

China exported 7.153 million vehicles between January and August 2026, up 66.7 percent and already past the 7.1 million it shipped in all of 2025, according to CAAM. August alone saw 1.01 million exports while domestic sales fell 24.2 percent and petrol car sales at home nearly halved. Chery leads passenger car exports with 1.32 million, ahead of BYD, which is reported to have ordered ten more 9,200-car ships for delivery between 2027 and 2029.