Daily Recap: Friday, April 24, 2026
45 episodes · If you only listen to one: MP 1693: The Week In IndyCar Listener Q&A April 24 2026, The Marshall Pruett Podcast
Stellantis is concentrating EV investment in four core brands after writing off $26 billion and posting negative cash flow of $5.4 billion last year. Used car inventory has fallen to 1.95 million units, the lowest level in the V-Auto data set going back to 2019, as the 10–15 million vehicles never built during the pandemic-era chip shortage continue to bite into available supply.
Stellantis Concentrates EV Investment in Four Core Brands After Massive Losses
After absorbing nearly $2 billion in Trump-era tariffs on top of last year's losses, Stellantis is funneling its remaining EV budget into its four biggest brands: Ram, Jeep, Peugeot, and Fiat. The rest of the portfolio drops to smaller, market-specific allocations, a retreat from a true global EV push toward defending the highest-volume nameplates.
"After writing off $26 billion in EV investments, eating almost $2 billion in Trump tariffs, and posting negative cash flow of $5.4 billion last year, it just doesn't have enough money to feed all of them, so it's going to concentrate its investments in its four biggest brands: Ram, Jeep, Peugeot, and Fiat."
Episode Spotlights
On Ford's truck and portfolio refresh running through 2029:
"By 2029 Ford will refresh 80% of its North American portfolio by volume and 70% of its Global portfolio by volume. This includes the first vehicle on the Universal Electric Vehicle platform, a mid-sized pickup truck, and the next generation F-150 and F-Series Super Duty."
On used car inventory hitting a seven-year low:
"We have hit the lowest level of used car inventory since at least 2019. That's as far back as the V-Auto data set goes. We are under 2 million used cars in inventory, 1.95 million and a 37-day supply of inventory."
By contrast, new-car inventory sits at a 79-day supply, more than double the used market.
Episode 248: Jill Gregory, COO of TWG Motorsports and President of Andretti Global
Jill Gregory, two days into her second year running TWG's multi-series portfolio (IndyCar, NASCAR, Formula E, IMSA, plus the Cadillac F1 entry), on the playbook for absorbing legacy race teams without breaking what works:
"We are not coming in as the parent company air quotes to tell you how to do something or change everything... How do you take the best of what's already happening and then provide that standard of excellence, that operational discipline that just makes each team do what they do best and do it better and maybe that'll be invisible to the fans."
The worst starts to an F1 season ever
Matt and Tommy place Aston Martin's 2026 disappointment in historical context, drawing pointed parallels to the McLaren-Honda 2015 reunion: hyped pairing, picking Honda over Mercedes, Fernando Alonso at the wheel, and a pre-season completed in single-digit lap counts. The Honda partnership chose hype over the proven engine in both cases. In 2015 it cost McLaren years.
"They also had Mercedes engine, the best engine for the new rules, and were like, no, let's go with the Honda. And they had Fernando Alonso... It's almost like they should have just gone with Mercedes on Aston Martin, but they did not."
If You Only Listen To One
MP 1693: The Week In IndyCar Listener Q&A April 24 2026
Pruett opens with a tribute to Jim McAleon, the late Long Beach Grand Prix president whose fingerprints, per Pruett, are also on Arlington, Detroit, and the upcoming Washington D.C. street race. The episode traces how one organizer's playbook (festival atmosphere, music, food, drifting alongside the headline race) became the template for how IndyCar's iconic street events run today. Listener questions on race-start procedure and officiating standards round it out with the kind of inside-baseball context the weekly news cycle rarely covers.
"The imprint of Jim is on Long Beach in the same way that it is on Arlington and Detroit and what we expect to see in Washington DC... this thing started off as a street race in a very seedy Long Beach area, developed into a world-class Formula One race, really took off as a [CART] IndyCar series race, evolved into a Champ Car event, and then moved into what we know today as the IndyCar series."
By the Numbers
Most-Mentioned Cars
Mention counts across today's episodes; not every car here appears in a dedicated story section.
| Car | Mentions |
|---|---|
| Ford Mustang | 6 |
| Dodge Charger | 6 |
| Volkswagen Golf | 5 |
| Chevrolet Camaro | 5 |
| Chevrolet Corvette | 5 |
| Porsche Cayenne | 5 |
| Land Rover Range Rover | 4 |
| Ford Falcon | 4 |
Trending Terminology
Mention counts across today's episodes; not every term here appears in a dedicated story section.
| Term | Mentions |
|---|---|
| hybrid | 4 |
| horsepower | 4 |
| supercharged | 4 |
| PPF | 4 |
| manual transmission | 4 |
| recalls | 3 |
45 episodes. 699 car mentions. 3075 terms explained. Browse every episode with searchable annotations and plain-language term definitions in the Car Curious app.