Land Rover Teams Up with Stellantis to Build a U.S.–Made Defender Pickup

Good morning, folks! It’s Tuesday, September 15, 2026, and you’re reading The Morning Shift – your quick‑fire roundup of the biggest automotive headlines that matter to anyone who drives, rides, or just dreams about cars.

First up: a Defender pickup is apparently on the drawing board. Land Rover and Stellantis, two brands that have both been feeling the pressure lately, signed a memorandum of understanding in May to “explore opportunities to collaborate on product development” in the United States. The plan? Build a Defender‑branded pickup right here on American soil, which would let Land Rover dodge the infamous 25 % Chicken Tax that usually hits imported pickups.

The idea isn’t just a gimmick. The new truck would sit somewhere between the rugged Ineos Grenadier Quartermaster and the more lifestyle‑oriented Jeep Gladiator – a sweet spot for buyers who want premium off‑road capability without paying a premium for a foreign‑built vehicle.

According to Automotive News Europe, the collaboration will be more about co‑development than moving existing JLR models into Stellantis plants. JLR CFO Richard Molyneux said the company wants to “go into new segments” with Defender‑branded vehicles built alongside Stellantis. The timing feels right, too: sales in China – once JLR’s biggest market – are slipping, so the United States is suddenly a lot more important.

What we don’t know yet are the gritty technical details. Stellantis doesn’t currently produce a unibody pickup, and the Defender is a unibody design. It also isn’t clear which powertrain will end up under the hood. Importing a European‑made engine would bite back with tariffs, yet slapping a mass‑market Stellantis engine onto a premium Land Rover could undermine the brand’s cachet.

Historically, Land Rover isn’t new to the U.S. pickup scene. In the 1960s and early ’70s, British Leyland shipped body‑on‑frame pickups based on the Series I and Series II Land Rovers to the States. This new effort, however, would be the first modern, premium pickup the brand hopes to sell in large numbers.

Why the rush? All of JLR’s vehicles are currently imported into the U.S., meaning they’re taking a hit from former President Trump’s 10 % tariff on UK‑built cars and a 15 % tariff on EU‑built cars. CEO P.B. Balaji has said the goal is to grow the U.S. business to the size of JLR’s entire global operation – an ambitious, perhaps even audacious, target.

Second gear: Waymo eyes Tokyo. In a separate story, Waymo announced a partnership with Japanese taxi operator GO and local firm Nihon Kotsu to launch Japan’s first fully autonomous commercial taxi service in Tokyo, slated for 2027. The plan is to start small, then scale up to around 100 driver‑less cars across key neighborhoods – subject, of course, to regulatory approval and successful technology validation.

Waymo’s co‑CEO Tekedra Mawakana told reporters the service will be “unmanned from day one,” available through both the GO and Waymo apps. The move is part of a broader push after the company began collecting data in Tokyo in 2025 with human‑driven Jaguar I‑Pace vehicles.

Third gear: VinFast keeps it in the family. Vietnamese EV maker VinFast promoted the founder’s eldest son, Pham Nhat Quan Anh, to global chief executive. At 33, he inherits a company that’s still loss‑making but is restructuring toward a more asset‑light model, targeting growth in Southeast Asia and India. He’ll also stay on as chairman and CEO of VinFast Vietnam, succeeding his father, founder Pham Nhat Vuong, who will remain on the board.

That’s the scoop for today’s Morning Shift. Want more headlines delivered to your inbox each weekday? Sign up for our free newsletter and stay in the driver’s seat of the industry’s biggest stories.