Heavy-duty pickup trucks from brands like Ford, Chevrolet, and Ram aren’t considered passenger vehicles under federal regulations. So while an F-150 or Ram 1500 has to meet fuel-economy and crash-safety standards, a Super Duty or Ram HD doesn’t. But the feds aren’t the only ones conducting crash tests.

Because it’s backed by the insurance industry, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) has an incentive to be tough on automakers when it comes to crash performance. Its safety evaluations for light-duty passenger vehicles—encompassing crash tests and performance evaluations of related features like headlights and crash-avoidance tech—already go above and beyond the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) regimen. Now it’s also casting a wider net by testing heavy-duty pickups and other commercial vehicles.

To get things started, the IIHS evaluated the performance of seatbelt reminders and seatbelt pre-tensioners in three Class 3 pickups (signifying a GVWR between 10,001 and 14,000 pounds) and six cargo vans, as well as confirming that seatbelt force limiters and front and side driver airbags are standard equipment. This may seem basic, but federal regulations don’t require any of these features.

The test group included one HD pickup from each of the Detroit Three: a 2026 Chevy Silverado 3500HD, 2025 Ford F-350 SuperCrew, and 2025 Ram 3500. The vans tested (all 2025 models) covered pretty much everything currently available, including a Chevy Express 2500, Ford Transit T250, Mercedes-Benz Sprinter 2500, and Ram ProMaster 2500, along with an electric Rivian Delivery 500 and Chevy BrightDrop 400, even though the latter has been discontinued.

No crash tests were performed, but test drives were conducted to see if seatbelt reminders actually did their jobs. To pass, vehicles needed to have a visible warning light and an audible tone that could be heard over background noise. The IIHS requires warnings to continue for at least 90 seconds, compared to the federal standard of four to eight seconds. This is especially important in commercial vehicles because drivers are likely unbuckling frequently when making stops, the IIHS notes, adding that one of its studies showed that persistent reminders increased seatbelt use by 30%.

The Ram 3500, Ford Transit, Mercedes Sprinter, Chevy Express, and Rivian all failed the seatbelt reminder test. The ancient Express also lacked effective seatbelt force limiters. Everything else was a pass, though. Not a bad start.

The IIHS plans to expand testing to cover other features such as headlights and automatic emergency braking, as well as larger Class 4-6 trucks, helping to close the safety gap with passenger cars and reduce injuries and fatalities. In 2023, 6,535 people were killed in crashes involving medium- and heavy-duty trucks or light vans, accounting for 16% of U.S. road fatalities that year, according to the IIHS. So the insurance-backed nonprofit’s testing program arrives not a moment too soon.

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• PepsiCo is now using autonomous trucks to deliver soda and snacks in the United States.
• The American food and beverage company is using Gatik’s driverless box trucks to ferry products from site to site.
• The Isuzu-branded autonomous delivery vehicles are on the road today in Texas, Arizona, and Arkansas.

Your next bag of Doritos may have been delivered to the local warehouse using a fully autonomous box truck. That’s because PepsiCo, the American food and beverage giant, has partnered with Gatik AI, an autonomous driving technology startup, deploying several driverless box trucks across Texas, Arizona, and Arkansas.

The two companies have entered a multi-year strategic partnership to bring driverless freight into PepsiCo’s North American food and beverage supply chain, marking the largest commercial autonomous freight deployment to date, according to Gatik.

Photo by: Gatik

A total of 41 Isuzu-branded box trucks are currently making driverless deliveries in three American states, with more vehicles slated to join the fleet in the coming months. In Arizona, 35 vehicles roam unattended, with an additional five in Texas and one in Arkansas, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Gatik’s autonomous trucks are mainly used on routes that require few intermediate stops, with repeatability making driving better and safer with each pass. “Many of the routes that we’re operating are very repeatable and so, as the truck gets more history going through, it can become more sophisticated, and it learns as it goes,” said Jim Farrell, PepsiCo’s senior vice president of supply chain, for WSJ.

Some trucks deliver goods from manufacturing facilities to local warehouses, while others go from warehouses to stores. In the latter case, PepsiCo employees are there to meet the trucks and unload them. 

The Isuzu trucks, which are powered by combustion engines, have multiple cameras on the front and back, as well as radar and lidar sensors. Inside, the conventional truck cab retains the steering wheel and air conditioning, but Gatik fitted three big screens that show footage from the external cameras and the computer-vision system.

The main promises of autonomous delivery trucks are their near-perfect on-time scores and the fact that they don’t call in sick. According to Gatik, the driverless trucks in PepsiCo’s fleet have had an on-time delivery score of over 98%. This is particularly beneficial for companies like PepsiCo, especially during busy seasons when qualified drivers may not be readily available when needed.

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Source: Gatik

Properly disposing of used car batteries is important. Whether lead-acid or newfangled lithium-ion, batteries contain toxic and potentially flammable chemicals that can leak if not handled properly. Three recent incidents around the country show that not everybody is aware of this fact.

This past Friday, a City of Rio Bravo, Texas, garbage truck was damaged after a trash container full of car batteries was emptied into it, reports the Laredo Morning Times. A city official told the paper that the damage to the truck was “significant,” but did not go into the details, instead focusing on the need for a specialized mechanic to work on the truck in order to prepare residents for a potential disruption in trash pickups while the truck was out of service.

Garbage trucks squeeze their cargo in large hydraulic compactors. That’s not a good thing when batteries are involved, as crushing them can release chemicals that are an ignition source away from combustion.

That’s exactly what happened earlier this week in Roseville, California. On Wednesday officials in the Northern California city, near the state capital of Sacramento, released a video of lithium-ion batteries catching fire in the back of a garbage truck. They asked residents not to toss these batteries in the trash. Sacramento Fire officials told the local CBS News station that these fires can also release toxic gas, and they happen very quickly.

“Once you see a lithium-ion battery rupture inside the back of a trash truck, the chain reaction happens so quickly and so violently that it causes the fire to expand very rapidly,” Justin Sylvia of Sacramento Fire said.

The same day the City of Roseville released its PSA, the fire department of Troy, Michigan, reported a garbage-truck fire caused by lithium-ion batteries. The driver dumped the truck’s contents in order to prevent the fire from spreading from the bin into the truck itself, according to a Facebook post. Firefighters found a lithium-ion battery among the debris when extinguishing the blaze, which they judged to be the cause.

Incidents like these are nothing new—Gothamist reported on a spate of battery fires in New York City garbage trucks in 2024—but the fact that there were three of them in the span of the week is decidedly not good. Instead of becoming the cause of one of these news stories, always dispose of car batteries at designated recycling points like parts stores and household hazardous waste drop-offs. There’s a reason batteries have that label of a tiny garbage can with a slash through it.

Welcome to The Downshift, or TDS for short, The Drive’s morning news roundup bringing you the biggest automotive headlines from around the world.

The Downshift recaps news briefly, with links to full stories for those seeking more info. Happy Friday, here’s your bulletin for May 29, 2026.

Mitsubishi will launch a midsize pickup truck for North America with Nissan’s help and revive its Pajero SUV for international markets, the automaker announced Friday. The truck is likely to be derived from and built alongside the Nissan Frontier—giving Mitsubishi a route to U.S. production, which it currently does not have—and the company is still deciding whether the new Pajero will be offered in the States. [Automotive News]

GM has unveiled the Hummer X concept, a more off-road-oriented spin on the big EV with removed body panels, making it almost look like the company’s electric take on the Jeep Gladiator. [General Motors]

Now, for some recall news. Honda and Acura are recalling just shy of 100,000 Accord and TLX sedans for faulty front passenger-seat weight sensors, which could lead to unintentional airbag deployment. [Reuters]

Stellantis, too, is recalling some cars—419,000 examples of the Jeep Grand Cherokee and Grand Cherokee L, to be precise, starting with the 2022 model year—for side airbags that may not deploy on time after a collision. [Reuters]

And, finally, Lucid is recalling just over 2,000 2024 and 2025 model-year Air sedans for an issue with the inverter, which could result in a loss of drive power. Lucid says it will replace the inverter in affected vehicles. [Reuters]

AC Cars is back with a new Cobra coupe powered by a 5.0-liter Ford V8, as is tradition, making up to 800 horsepower. [Autocar]

Ferrari, which has been very successful in the World Endurance Championship since it launched its 499P hypercar, says it will only stay in the series if it can continue to build its car completely in house, as opposed to being forced to adopt the LMDh ruleset, which mandates a spec hybrid system and other predetermined supplied components. [Motorsport.com]

Weekend Races to Watch (all times Eastern):

• WRC Rally Japan: All weekend long on Rally.TV
• NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series at Nashville: Friday at 8 p.m. on FS1
• NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series at Nashville: Saturday at 7:30 p.m. on CW
• MotoGP Italian Grand Prix: Sunday at 8 a.m. on MotoGP Video Pass
• IndyCar Detroit Grand Prix: Sunday at 12:30 p.m. on FOX
• IMSA Detroit Grand Prix: Sunday at 4 p.m. on NBC
• NASCAR Cup Series at Nashville: Sunday at 7 p.m. on Amazon Prime Video

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