Land Rover And Stellantis Will Team Up To Build A Defender Pickup In The U.S. – Jalopnik

Good morning! It’s Tuesday, September 15, 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, the Land Rover-Stellantis alliance will spawn a U.S.-built Defender pickup, Waymo has its sights set on Tokyo, the eldest boy of the VinFast empire is named its global chief executive and Stellantis may have a buyer for its shuttered plant in Brampton, Canada.

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Land Rover and Stellantis have some big, funky plans for this tie-up, and the first vehicle they’re apparently going to build together is a Defender pickup truck. It’ll be built in the U.S., allowing Land Rover to avoid the 25% Chicken Tax on imported pickups, and it seems that it’ll be aimed squarely at stuff like the Ineos Grenadier Quartermaster and (to a lesser extent) Jeep Gladiator.

Back in May, Land Rover and Stellantis, two companies that aren’t exactly doing too hot right now, signed a memorandum of understanding to “explore opportunities to collaborate on product development” in the U.S., and it’s slated to be finalized at the end of the year. From Automotive News:

The U.S.-built models would be developed with help from Stellantis, rather than JLR shifting production of its stronger-selling models to Stellantis facilities in the country, Automotive News Europe reported.

The automaker will instead go into “new segments” with Defender-branded vehicles built in collaboration with Stellantis, [JLR CFO Richard] Molyneux said.

[…]

The U.S. has taken on more importance within JLR as sales in China, once its largest market, decline.

No technical details of the deal have emerged. For example, Stellantis doesn’t currently make a unibody truck. The Defender is such a unibody vehicle. It’s also not clear what engines will power the Land Rover pickup. Engines imported from Europe would be subjected to tariffs.

But using an off-the-shelf Stellantis engine might not be suitable for a premium pickup.

The upcoming Defender pickup won’t be the first ever sold in the U.S. market. In the 1960s and early ’70s, British Leyland sold pickup versions of the Series 1 and Series II, trucks that were based on classic body-on-frame Land Rover SUVs.

It makes a hell of a lot of sense why JLR is trying to expand in the U.S. It currently imports all its vehicles here, even though we’re JLR’s biggest market globally. That means it is getting killed by President Trump’s 10% tariffs on UK-built cars and 15% tariffs on EU-built cars.

JLR CEO PB Balaji says the goal is to eventually expand the company’s U.S. business to be the size of its global business. That’s a tall order, to say the least.

Waymo is teaming up with Japanese taxi operator GO and taxi company Nihon Kotsu in order to launch Japan’s first fully autonomous commercial taxi service in Tokyo sometime in 2027. The companies said that they plan to start with a small fleet of vehicles before expanding to about 100 vehicles across key neighborhoods in the city. Of course, the plan is subject to regulatory approvals and ongoing validation of Waymo’s technology and operating model. From Reuters:

Once approvals are secured and the service is ​fully validated, it will operate without drivers and be available through both the GO and Waymo apps, the companies said ​in a joint statement.

“From day one, this will ​be an unmanned service for the public,” Waymo Co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana ‌told ⁠reporters at a joint press conference in Tokyo.

“We’ll grow our fleet responsibly over time, steadily operating until anyone in Tokyo can download an app and take ​a ride.”

The ​announcement marks ⁠the latest step in Waymo’s Japan push after the company began collecting data in ​Tokyo in 2025 using human-driven Jaguar I-PACE ​vehicles, ⁠its first public-road operations outside the United States.

The companies said the service could help address Japan’s driver shortage ⁠and ​its broader population decline.

Waymo isn’t the only company that wants a piece of Japan’s robotaxi pie, either. Nissan has separately been working with British startup Wayve and Uber Technologies on developing their own robotaxis for the country.

VinFast looked from within to find its new global chief executive, and by “within,” I mean within its founder’s loins, because the Vietnamese electric vehicle maker picked Chairman Pham Nhat Quan Anh, the eldest boy of company founder Pham Nhat Vuong, for the position. I wonder how he got the job. Still, it’s not like it’s an enviable position. He must now oversee the loss-making firm as it goes through restructuring and overseas expansion.

The 33-year-old, who was first appointed global chairman in May, will also serve as chairman and chief executive officer of VinFast Vietnam. VinFast is planning to restructure into a more asset-light company as it looks to grow in key markets like Southeast Asia and India. From Reuters:

“Pham Nhat Quan Anh will hold ultimate and ​comprehensive responsibility for all of VinFast’s operations as the company enters a ⁠new phase of growth,” the company said in a statement.

Anh will succeed his father, ​founder Pham Nhat Vuong, as chief executive. Vuong will continue to serve on VinFast’s board.

Anh ​will be VinFast’s fifth chief executive. Previous CEOs include former General Motors executive James DeLuca, ex-Opel chief Michael Lohscheller, and Le Thi Thu Thuy, who led the company through its Nasdaq listing.

In May, VinFast unveiled ​a restructuring plan that would transfer manufacturing assets worth about $530 million to a purchaser group ​that would also take on about $6.9 billion in debt, as the automaker seeks to reduce future capital ‌requirements.

The ⁠complexity of the deal and the involvement of investors with ties to Vingroup and Vuong has raised concerns for some analysts and shareholders.

VinFast reported a rise of nearly 42% in first-quarter revenue but posted a wider net loss. It has received ongoing financial support from ​Vuong, the founder and ​chairman of Vingroup, Vietnam’s ⁠biggest conglomerate and VinFast’s parent company.

Anh is a graduate of Singapore Management University and held a number of senior roles at VinFast ​and other Vingroup companies before becoming chairman of VinFast Auto. He ​will remain ⁠as chief executive of VinMetal, a steel producer within the Vingroup conglomerate.

Further keeping things in the family, Pham Nhat Minh Hoang, Vuong’s second son, and the Roman Roy of the family, was named the global chief executive officer at VinFast-linked taxi firm GSM, and Nguyen Quoc Tuan appointed global chairman. GSM is planning a Hong Kong listing in 2028, and it plans to purchase about 1 million EVs and 4 million e-scooters from VinFast between 2026 and 2030.

Stellantis says it has a tentative deal to sell its currently closed Brampton Assembly plant in Canada to Roshel, a weapons manufacturer. While the news might be good for the automaker, which has struggled to figure out what to do with the plant, it quickly drew criticism from the Unifor automakers union that has urged it to reopen and invest in the facility.

In a statement, Unifor said that it was at an impasse in collective bargaining negotiations with Stellantis after 10 days of talks, due in large part to the disagreement over the future of the plant. Conversely, it has already come to agreements with Ford and General Motors. From The Detroit News:

“The persistence of the company’s proposal to close and sell the Brampton plant has hindered the bargaining process,” the union said.

A sale would “threaten the wages, pensions and other benefits of Unifor members” who had worked at the plant before it closed and had sought to return, the union said. It added that there “is no economic substitute for automotive assembly in Canada.”

The facility most recently made the Chrysler 300, Dodge Charger and Dodge Challenger sedans before production ended in late 2023. Workers and union officials had been awaiting the retooling and reopening of the plant to build a next-generation Jeep Compass last year, but that never happened as the company switched up its North American product strategy amid high U.S. tariffs on Canadian goods. Still, Unifor said it was assured by the company that Stellantis planned to invest in new programs for the plant.

Stellantis spokesperson LouAnn Gosselin confirmed Friday that the company has entered a memorandum of understanding with Roshel to take over the plant. The Canadian defense manufacturer designs and builds armored vehicles.

“Following consideration of a number of potential opportunities, Stellantis believes that Roshel represents a strong path to restoring sustainable operations at Brampton Assembly, preserving the site’s strategic role in Canada’s advanced manufacturing sector and helping to avoid a prolonged period of inactivity,” a statement said. “For more than 100 years, Stellantis has invested in and grown with Canada, and we remain committed to supporting Canadian jobs, innovation and the long term competitiveness of the country’s automotive sector.”

Unifor says there won’t be a tentative settlement in talks without a “suitable resolution for union members who are part of Local 1295 at the Brampton facility. A spokesperson said that unless there’s a resolution, “formal contract talks between Unifor and Stellantis are paused until further notice.”

History.com

I’m just glad nobody really learned their lesson from the entire 2008 financial meltdown, and even more thrilled that none of the stakeholders were even held responsible in any meaningful way. Surely this will not embolden them to do something similar down the line. Surely not. Anyway, if you want to learn about Lehman Brothers’ collapse, head over to History.com.

Friends, when it comes to fuel prices, it would seem that we are both on the runaway train and tied to the tracks at the same time. As we reported yesterday, Houthi rebels successfully attacked the East-West pipeline that Saudi Arabia uses to get around the Strait of Hormuz, forcing the Saudis to shut it down and take 4% of the world’s oil offline. Compounding this with everything going on in the Strait, and you get WTI Crude Oil futures and Brent Crude prices sitting at $103 and $107, respectively, at the time of publication.

Here’s where national average prices stand right now, according to AAA:

AAA

What all this means is the average price of a gallon of regular gas was up another cent overnight to $4.33, according to AAA. Diesel was also up another 4 cents overnight to $6.27 — a new all-time record. I don’t know when this ends, but it’s not tomorrow.

I saw Charli xcx perform at the Barclays Center last night as a representative of the “Straight Guys Supporting Their Fiancée” contingent of the crowd, and damn, what an amazing show. Of course, I’m joking — I wanted to go just as badly as she did, because Charli rocks, and I like “Music, Fashion, Film” more than “Brat.” See her if you can, because this tour is sick as hell.