1. Aussie used buyers still run on fossil fuels
New cars are going electric. The used market hasn't got the memo. Petrol and diesel made up more than 93 per cent of used-car sales in September — 240,669 of 258,127 sold, according to Australian Automotive Dealer Association and Autograb data, up 6 per cent on August. Over in new-car land it's a different scene entirely: EVs outsold petrol-only and diesel-only cars for the second consecutive month, up 118 per cent year-on-year per FCAI and Electric Vehicle Council data. The most popular used hybrid was the Toyota RAV4 (1,792 sales), the most popular used EV the Tesla Model Y (857) — and the Ford Ranger remains king of everything, with 13,767 new and used Rangers sold combined in September.
Source: Drive.com.au
2. Avatr's giant range-extender SUV is coming for the Zeekr 9X — and Australia
Another big Chinese luxury SUV has broken cover. The Avatr T09 is a six-seat range-extender plug-in hybrid revealed in China, squarely aimed at the Zeekr 9X and the big-bodied Aussie family SUV segment. It pairs a large 71.2kWh battery with a small petrol engine that acts purely as a generator, and at 5,285mm long it's bigger than a LandCruiser 300. Expected pricing is around $100,000, with Australia expected in 2028 after Avatr's first model lands in the first half of 2027. The luxury land-barge wars are well and truly on.
Source: Drive.com.au
3. Honda's next-gen hybrid system is called… Honda Hybrid
Out with the alphabet soup, in with plain English. Honda has confirmed its next-generation hybrid system will ditch the e:HEV badge in favour of "Honda Hybrid" — an evolution of the e:HEV engine, drive unit and control tech. The official line is that Honda Hybrid will serve as the "communication name," which is corporate speak for: nobody remembers e:HEV, so let's just spell it out. Hard to argue with — sometimes the most obvious name is the right one.
Source: Autoblog
4. Waymo borrows $5 billion to grow the robotaxi fleet
Alphabet's robotaxi arm Waymo has secured a $5 billion term loan — its first-ever debt financing, following a $16 billion equity raise earlier this year. Institutional lenders including PIMCO, Blackstone and Sixth Street are backing the bet. Waymo has now expanded to 15 US cities and is targeting 1 million paid rides per week across 20 cities worldwide by the end of 2026. Meanwhile, Uber and Pony.ai have announced robotaxi testing will begin in London within weeks — the race for driverless streets just got a lot more expensive.
Source: Beinsure
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