Toyota aims to derail Australia’s EV strategy – they won’t have it
Toyota is at it again. The automaker’s Australian leader reiterated that Toyota would not be going all-electric despite the federal government’s recent initiatives to boost EV adoption, cut emissions from passenger vehicles, and improve the overall well-being of Australians.
Less than two weeks ago, Australia’s government introduced its new National Electric Vehicle Strategy, consisting of three main objectives.
- Increase the supply of affordable and accessible EVs.
- Establish the resources, systems, and infrastructure to enable rapid EV uptake.
- Encourage increased EV demand.
The government says despite Australian buyers’ demand for EVs, its lack of national policy has made them harder than they should be to access. EV sales accounted for only 3.8% of overall car sales last year.
With transportation in Australia on track to be the largest emitting sector by the end of the decade, the country is committed to becoming more competitive globally for EV supply.
New cars in Australia use 40% more fuel than in the EU and 20% more than in the US, making it urgent for government officials to adopt a Fuel Efficiency standard and accelerate its pace toward zero-emission electric vehicles.
Although Australia is planning to limit how much carbon emissions through its new strategy, as of right now, the country is next to Russia as one of the only advanced economies without a Fuel Efficiency Standard.
Australia’s new EV strategy includes discount legislation to enhance affordability, increased access to charging infrastructure, and battery recycling to promote adoption.
Despite Australia’s recent initiatives to increase EV adoption, one automaker is looking to derail the mission in the Land Down Under.
Toyota Australia leader speaks out against new EV strategy
According to the Australian newspaper, Canberra Times, Toyota’s sales boss in the country, Sean Hanley, continues to push for hybrid and fuel cell options.
Despite Hanley claiming he was “not against battery electric vehicle technology,” he says Toyota will lobby for a standard with a generous time frame that will cut pollution without cutting vehicle options. He added:
Through the (Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries), we’ve spoken to the government and I think we have represented the silent voices of hundreds of thousands of Australians consumers who use their cars for leisure, towing, and lots of other activities.
Meanwhile, Behyad Jafari, CEO of the Electric Vehicle Council, shut down these arguments, saying EVs have been proven in other countries and are already becoming popular in Australia with upgraded tech enabling longer range and power. Jafari added:
When we hear those arguments, what we need to pay close attention to is the economic interest of the car company.
As Australia’s largest automaker (and largest automaker globally), Jafari points out Toyota’s reluctance to go all in on EVs is already costing the automaker, saying:
Some businesses haven’t spent time developing electric vehicles and they don’t have a firm enough grasp on the issues.
Greenpeace campaigner Lindsay Soutar says Toyota’s Australians will not put up with Toyota’s call for weaker pollution standards or any delays, claiming:
Toyota has stalled on pure electric cars, opting to promote hybrid and fuel-cell technologies that will lock customers into paying for fossil fuels for decades to come. Pushing for petrol cars in 2023, in the middle of a climate and cost-of-living crisis, is laughable and Australians won’t be convinced.
Despite the comments from Hanley, Toyota is planning to launch its first EV in Australia, the bZ4X SUV, before the end of the year.
Electrek’s Take
For one, Hanley is blatantly wrong in suggesting EVs can’t be used for leisure, towing, and other activities. In fact, they are enabling more of these kinds of activities with more power and zero emissions.
The Australian government is saying Australians are ready to move to EVs – they just don’t have the supply needed. Perhaps if the most prominent automakers in the country accelerated EV production rather than fighting it, it would be a win-win for everyone.
As Jafari points out, Toyota is looking to protect its profits at this point. The automaker is already late to the EV party and wants more time to catch up before governments like Australia implement new laws to promote EV adoption and lower emissions in the transportation sector.
Australia, like the rest of the world, will not be convinced by Toyota’s lobbying. The auto industry is moving to a cleaner future, with or without Toyota.
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KYMCO, a leading Taiwanese scooter maker, has just announced the next step in its growing partnership with US-based electric motorcycle company LiveWire. The long-awaited KYMCO RevoNEX electric motorcycle will now be built on the Arrow S2 platform developed by LiveWire.
The pair of companies showed off the latest design for the RevoNEX electric motorcycle in a joint announcement at the 2024 EICMA Milan Motorcycle Show, with KYMCO Chairman Allen Ko riding the motorcycle out to the center stage in a dramatic unveiling.
The RevoNEX has been years in the making and undergone several key design updates on its circuitous path from concept to hopeful production. While previous versions have skewed much further in the direction of concept bikes, KYMCO’s partnership with LiveWire has allowed the RevoNEX to be reworked on top of an existing motorcycle platform already in serial production.
LiveWire uses the S2 Arrow platform for its Del Mar and Mulholland electric motorcycles, with the platform specifically designed as a versatile foundation that would allow a multitude of options for various motorbikes. Now one of those options will be under the KYMCO badge with a unique styling unlike anything we likely would have seen from LiveWire.
“Every detail of the new RevoNEX has been meticulously crafted to bring riders the most unique electric riding experience,” said KYMCO Chairman Allen Ko. “And we are determined to bring the new RevoNEX to consumers in the shortest time.”
When I pressed Mr. Ko on that timeframe, he explained that their target is to follow shortly behind LiveWire’s intended launch of its upcoming Arrow S2-based electric maxi-scooter built in collaboration with KYMCO, which is slated for the first half of 2026. Ko added that he hopes the RevoNEX will be ready to launch by the second half of 2026.
This marks the best chance for KYMCO’s RevoNEX to land on a path to production and further underscores the growing relationship between the Taiwanese scooter giant and the American electric motorcycle maker.
While there’s still plenty of time to wait before a potential RevoNEX production version unveiling and eventual commencement of manufacturing, the future certainly appears bright now that KYMCO has selected an advanced platform that could help realize RevoNEX’s long-awaited vision in a realistic timeline.
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Former President Donald Trump arrives for his campaign rally at the Trump National Doral Golf Club in Doral, Florida, on July 9, 2024.
Joe Raedle | Getty Images News | Getty Images
As Donald Trump celebrated his prospective victory on Election Night at Mar-a-Lago, he was joined by a roster of high-profile supporters. Among them were Elon Musk, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick.
One thing those three people have in common: crypto.
It’s an industry that Trump talked little about until recently but has counted on for large amounts of cash for his campaign and related PACs. Getting that money required him to make big promises pertaining to the crypto industry.
Digital asset markets surged on Election Night, with bitcoin hitting a record of over $75,000, as his victory began looking likely. Crypto-linked stocks like Coinbase and MicroStrategy moved higher as well in after-hours trading Tuesday.
With a Republican-controlled Senate on the horizon, Trump has few roadblocks to putting in place a more pro-crypto platform. Here are some of the things he’s pledged to do:
Strategic national crypto stockpile
In Nashville in July, Trump headlined the biggest bitcoin conference of the year. In his keynote address, the former president said that if he returned to the White House, he would ensure the federal government never sells off its bitcoin holdings. However, he stopped short of proposing a formal federal reserve of digital currency.
“For too long our government has violated the cardinal rule that every bitcoiner knows by heart: Never sell your bitcoin,” Trump said during his keynote speech.
Trump pledged to maintain the current level of bitcoin holdings that the U.S. has amassed from seizing assets from financial criminals.
“If I am elected, it will be the policy of my administration, United States of America, to keep 100% of all the bitcoin the U.S. government currently holds or acquires into the future,” he said.
Currently, the U.S. Marshals Service regularly auctions off bitcoin as well as other cryptocurrencies held in the country’s coffers such as ether and litecoin. These sales can sometimes trigger drops in crypto prices, like earlier this year when Germany began to liquidate hundreds of millions of dollars worth of bitcoin it had seized.
‘On day one, I will fire Gary Gensler’
In public remarks for months, Trump has promised to unseat U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler.
“On day one, I will fire Gary Gensler,” Trump said, referencing the Joe Biden-appointed SEC chairman who has taken an aggressive approach to crypto regulation.
The president does not have the power to fire the SEC chair. Even if Trump were to appoint a new chairman, Gensler would remain a commissioner on the independent agency.
Gensler has brought more than 100 actions against crypto firms during his tenure at the helm of the commission. In multiple interviews, the SEC chair has said he believes much of the industry already belongs under its jurisdiction, and its lawsuits are simply bringing the sector under compliance.
Crypto firms argue that the recent legal battles haven’t given the regulatory clarity the industry has been seeking, and they instead reflect a gross overreach by the commission.
Trump also vowed to create a “bitcoin and crypto presidential advisory council.”
“The rules will be written by people who love your industry, not hate your industry,” he said.
Trump has expressly spoken out about his qualms with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who is widely viewed by the crypto community as an existential threat.
All bitcoin will be mined in America
In June in Palm Beach, Florida, about a dozen bitcoin mining executives and experts sat down with Trump for an hour and a half in a small tea room at the Mar-a-Lago Club. The closed-door session marked the first time the former president took a meeting with the technologists securing the $1.5 trillion bitcoin network by running large banks of high-powered machines.
The intimate gathering brought together a coalition of some of the biggest private and public American miners in the business, including representatives from Riot Platforms, Marathon Digital Holdings, Terawulf, CleanSpark and Core Scientific.
Less than four hours after Trump’s roundtable wrapped, the former president took to social media to extol the virtues of the bitcoin mining business.
“Biden’s hatred of Bitcoin only helps China, Russia, and the Radical Communist Left. We want all the remaining Bitcoin to be MADE IN THE USA!!! It will help us be ENERGY DOMINANT!!!” Trump posted on Truth Social shortly after his meeting.
Since then, Trump has on multiple occasions reiterated the sentiment.
“If crypto is going to define the future, I want it to be mined, minted and made in the USA,” Trump declared in Nashville.
“We will be creating so much electricity that you’ll be saying, ‘Please, please, President, we don’t want any more electricity. We can’t stand it!'” he added.
Fed rate cuts
In August, Trump said that, if elected, he would lower interest rates.
The Federal Reserve, which guides the country’s monetary policy, sets the benchmark rate. It also, by design, operates independently from the White House.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell in September decided to slash rates by a half point in its first easing campaign in four years.
Rate cuts and the easing of monetary policy historically dovetails with a surge in crypto prices since it makes it cheaper to borrow money.
LiveWire, the electric motorcycle company spun out of Harley-Davidson, is flexing the versatility of the company’s S2 Arrow powertrain with the unveiling of an electric maxi scooter.
A maxi-scooter is a type of large, powerful scooter designed for comfortable riding. Unlike traditional urban-oriented scooters, maxi-scooters typically have more powerful motors that make them suitable for highway travel. They tend to feature a more robust frame, larger wheels, and extra storage space, along with more premium amenities such as windshields, comfortable seating, and often more advanced tech features. LiveWire is likely to lean into all of those opportunities by leveraging its existing electric motorcycle S2 Arrow powertrain for the new design.
The S2 Arrow powertrain was first unveiled during the launch of the LiveWire S2 Del Mar. The powertrain includes the structural battery, electric motor, and the associated control hardware. LiveWire demonstrated the platform’s flexibility by quickly launching a second model, the S2 Mulholland, on the platform.
Now LiveWire is making a major leap to fully realize the platform’s broad appeal for designing diverse models, using it as the backbone for its upcoming electric maxi-scooter slated for launch in the first half of 2026.
With the success of electric maxi-scooters like the BMW CE-04, LiveWire has surely been looking closely at how the segment could leverage the performance of its versatile e-motorcycle platform.
LiveWire won’t rely only on its own platform to bring the electric maxi-scooter to market, but also on the expertise of KYMCO, a leading Taiwanese scooter company that has long dominated the market with its wide range of scooters, both gasoline and electric-powered.
“LiveWire is an iconic leader in electric solutions for urban mobility, explained KYMCO Chairman Allen Ko. “We are excited to partner with them as LiveWire embarks on the development of a S2-based electric maxi-scooter.”
KYMCO became an early investor in LiveWire and the two companies are now strengthening their relationship with increased collaboration on multiple electric motorbike models.
“The collaboration has been very smooth,” said LiveWire CEO Karim Donnez in an interview with Electrek. “We’ve found the KYMCO team very easy to work with.”
Donnez explained that the two companies have continued to strengthen their work together, with the hemispheric separation between them allowing the unique opportunity for nearly 24-hour progress. Plans are in the works for a geographic exchange of employees to further integrate the teams and allow more seamless collaboration between the two companies.
And the fruits of that cooperation are already showing with the unveiling of the updated KYMCO RevoNEX electric motorcycle, which has been redesigned based on the S2 Arrow platform. Assuming LiveWire’s electric maxi-scooter makes it to market first, the RevoNEX would become the fourth model launched on LiveWire’s S2 Arrow foundation.
Early responses have been largely positive to LiveWire’s release of concept images of its upcoming electric maxi-scooter on social media.
LiveWire’s branding and marketing has always sought to distinguish itself from the brand’s Harley-Davidson roots, allowing the young motorcycle company to emerge from behind H-D’s shadow and largely do its own thing, focusing on a different type of rider with distinct demands and desires.
The inclusion of a powerful electric maxi-scooter in the lineup is likely to help underscore that independence, with LiveWire continuing to focus on a younger, more urban audience that increasingly sees two-wheelers less as an identity and more as a lifestyle, merging fun riding with utilitarian commuting.
It’s of course far too early to tell how the bikes will ultimately be received. We’ve yet to see LiveWire’s electric maxi-scooter concepts in the flesh, indicating there’s likely still some significant design time left in the development cycle. But one thing is already for certain: LiveWire is increasingly doing its own thing and the company wouldn’t have it any other way.
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