Tariffs & tiny trucks

The big news this week comes in the auto industry, bracing for price increases following President Trump’s 25% tariff on imported vehicles and parts, expected to affect every automaker –– even Tesla. So it’s a convenient time for Hyundai to open a $7.6 billion EV plant in Georgia. In micromobility news, scooter operators and users contend with hostile politics in Australia, England and Lithuania. Parisians vote to pedestrianize another 500 streets while Los Angeles’s crumbling infrastructure is leading to major liability costs.

Meanwhile, Pony.ai becomes the first to get approved for driverless rides in Shenzen, China’s Silicon Valley, Abu Dhabi moves closer to launching flying taxis, and Trevor Milton, founder of Nikola, receives a presidential pardon, raising questions about accountability in the industry. Finally, why do so many state DMVs outlaw tiny trucks?

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What you need to know

What do the Trump auto tariffs really mean? President Trump’s announced 25% tariff on imported vehicles and auto parts is expected to touch just about every auto brand in the U.S. Although Tesla is better-positioned than most because its vehicles are manufactured domestically, it relies on a lot of imported parts; Elon Musk said the impact will be “significant.”

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…Hyundai tries to get on Trump’s good side: Days after announcing a $21 billion investment plan for the U.S. at the White House, the Korean automaker celebrates the opening of a $7.6 billion EV plant in Georgia, which began producing the Ioniq 5 and Ioniq 9 electric SUVs six months ago. The Korean company plans to increase the plant's production capacity by two-thirds, aiming to manufacture 500,000 vehicles annually.

A few bucks is all it takes: Lime and Neuron halt operations in Yarra, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia, following the city government’s decision to increase daily permit fees from $1 to $5 per scooter. The government says the 400% fee hike was needed to cover the $570,000 annual cost of managing the scooter-sharing program, but the companies say the fees made operations infeasible when each scooter was only generating an average of $9.50 of revenue per day.

Operation Pedalfast comes for your e-bike: The police in Leicester, a city of 375,000 in England, are ramping up their crackdown on certain e-bikes and all e-scooters. When they launched “Operation Pedalfast” two years ago, they would give warnings to those found riding electric scooters or e-bikes that have more than 250 watts of power. Now they are seizing them without warning. Just on Thursday the police seized 11 bikes and nine scooters. Leicester is not an anomaly in the UK, where e-scooters are only legal in certain areas through government-authorized trials.

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Helmet requirement might prompt Bolt to bolt: Bolt, the Estonian ride-hailing and micromobility company, says proposed new regulations in Lithuania will force it to shut down its scooter-sharing program there. The new rules would require the service to provide helmets to users. The problem is, Bolt previously provided 1,000 helmets on its scooter fleet in Vilnius and over 90% of them were eventually vandalized or stolen.

Parisians vote for more pedestrianization: Only 4% of Parisians took part in the vote, but 65% of them support a plan to pedestrianize another 500 streets, bringing the total of such streets to 700, a little more than 10% of the city total. The move will result in the loss of 10,000 parking spots.

LA’s liability crisis: Rick Cole, Chief Deputy Comptroller for Los Angeles, notes the rising liability costs the city is facing due to police misconduct and substandard infrastructure. The city is expected to spend over $300 million on liability this year, three times what it spent in 2021.

Robotaxis come to Nanshan: Pony.ai, the Chinese autonomous startup backed by Toyota, obtains Shenzhen's first permit to operate fully driverless commercial robotaxi services in Nanshan District, the tech hub that is often referred to as China’s Silicon Valley. Pony.ai and other robotaxi operators are already offering driverless rides in other districts and cities around China, but curiously this is the first for Nanshan.

Rivian gets into e-bikes: Rivian launches a new micromobility company called Also, focusing on developing electric bikes and scooters. Supported by $105 million in Series B funding from venture capital firm Eclipse, Rivian will retain a substantial minority stake, with CEO RJ Scaringe serving as chair of Also's board.

Trump pardons Nikola founder: President Trump pardons Trevor Milton, a major GOP donor and founder of the bankrupt hydrogen trucking startup Nikola. Milton was convicted in 2022 of securities and wire fraud for misleading investors about the company's technological progress. Not only does the pardon keep Milton out of prison –– he was sentenced to four years but was out on bond while appealing –– but it means he doesn’t have to comply with a court order to compensate shareholders who lost millions on Nikola.

‍One step closer to air taxis: Abu Dhabi is progressing towards launching flying taxi services, with test flights of Archer Aviation's Midnight aircraft scheduled to begin soon, aiming for passenger operations later this year. The wealthy emirate signed a major deal last year with Archer rival Joby. It currently takes an hour-and-a-half to two hours to go between Abu Dhabi and Dubai; the air taxis could do the trip in a half hour.

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What we're reading

The U.S. needs to legalize tiny trucks: Writing in CityLab, Dan Albert wonders what so many state DMVs have against Japanese kei trucks, which have gained something of a cult following among Americans who are looking for trucks that are functional rather than ferocious. They’re far less likely to kill someone than an F-150, and yet state regulators are citing safety as a reason to prohibit them.

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