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

The Story

Plus, Waymo has its sights set on Tokyo, the eldest boy of the VinFast empire is named its global chief executive and more.

Land Rover Add Jalopnik on Google: Preferred Source Google Discover 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.

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.

Creativetan/Shutterstock 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.

Why It Matters

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.

CarMotion Daily’s Take

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. Watch this space over the coming weeks. Markets rarely reward single announcements — execution over the next two to four quarters is what closes the gap between press release and customer. How this lands depends less on the announcement itself and more on the rollout, dealer support, and after-sales story behind it. Specifics on pricing, availability, and regional rollout will tell us whether this moves from headline to delivery. Independent verification and follow-up coverage from rival outlets tend to firm up the picture within days.