A blacked-out variant of the popular LandCruiser Prado has been launched in Japan and Europe – but Toyota Australia has not announced plans to bring it to local showrooms.
0
Toyota Prado customers in Japan and Europe can now order a Matte Black edition – although it is unlikely to come to Australia.
As the name suggests, the limited edition Toyota Prado comes with a matte black grille, fog light surrounds, headlight garnish, mirror caps, roof rails and special badging.
Despite the Prado’s popularity in Australia – where it is the top-selling four-wheel-drive in its class, with more than twice as many sales as its nearest off-road rival the Isuzu MU-X – Toyota Australia says the Matte Black edition is not in its future plans.
“Toyota Australia is continually studying the market for new opportunities to offer exciting new products to Australian customers,” said a spokesperson for Toyota Australia.
“At this stage, however, we have no announcements to make on any updates to Toyota (LandCruiser) Prado.”
Drive understands the Matte Black editions are not a priority for Toyota Australia given the limited interest in its sole matte option sold locally – the Toyota Supra – and the extra customer care required to maintain the special paint finish.
In addition to the exterior bodywork changes, matte black paint has also been applied to the Prado’s 18-inch wheels, which are the 12-spoke design previously fittedto the 2021 LandCruiser Prado VX and Kakadu variants.
Black leather upholstery and wood-grain trim are standard for the limited edition Toyota Prado’s interior.
While the Toyota Prado in Australia is today only available with a 2.8-litre turbo-diesel engine (after the V6 petrol was discontinued in late 2017), Japanese and European customers also have the option of a 2.7-litre turbo-petrol engine.
Launched in 2009, the current generation ‘150 Series’ Toyota Prado was given its most recent facelift in late 2017.
There is now speculation about when an all-new Toyota Prado might arrive in Australia.
Industry observers believe a new generation model is due within the next couple of years, given the current Toyota Prado platform has been around since 2009.
A June 2021 report by Drive suggested the upcoming next-generation LandCruiser Prado could be revealed in 2023, with power coming from aa hybrid 2.5-liter petrol or 2.5-liter diesel engine.
However this timing and these engine details are unsubstantiated speculation. Toyota Australia has not indicated when a formal announcement is due.
Jordan Mulach is Canberra/Ngunnawal born, currently residing in Brisbane/Turrbal. Joining the Drive team in 2022, Jordan has previously worked for Auto Action, MotorsportM8, The Supercars Collective and TouringCarTimes, WhichCar, Wheels, Motor and Street Machine. Jordan is a self-described iRacing addict and can be found on weekends either behind the wheel of his Octavia RS or swearing at his ZH Fairlane.
MultiVersus will be getting a “big overhaul” of its hit detection system, the game’s director has confirmed in a series of tweets.
Tony Huynh tweeted about a new update that had been added to the game which fixed bugs affecting Tom & Jerry, Jake and some of their specific moves. A follower replied and asked whether Finn would be getting a nerf in the future as the character had moves that were too powerful and broke through opponents’ attacks too easily.
Huynh replied that they were planning to look at Finn “in sections” because there is going to be a “big overhaul” of the game’s hitbox and hurtbox systems. The hitbox is an invisible box that shows the range of space an attack can cover, whilst the hurtbox sits on top of a character and determines where they can take damage.
We’ll be looking at Finn in sections, we are working on a big overhaul of our hitbox/hurtbox system so don’t want too many moving parts
Due to not wanting “too many moving parts”, Huynh confirmed that MultiVersus would be overhauling the system slowly, presumably in order to not make things worse before making them better. It remains to be seen exactly what is getting reworked, but it could mean hits are easier or harder to land on opponents depending on which way Player First Games chooses to tweak its systems.
The open beta for MultiVersus was launched at the end of July with the first season expected August 9, but this has now been pushed back indefinitely and a new date is yet to be confirmed.
In other news, Marvel’s Guardians Of The Galaxy almost had a human-sized Rocket Raccoon, with the height taking revisions before being finalized.
Spice Girl Melanie “Sporty Spice” Chisolm has reportedly split from her partner of seven years, Joe Marshall.
The fiercely private music star has kept her relationship with music exec Marshall, who has also served as her manager, largely under wraps – few photos of them together have been published.
But it’s understood the couple had for some years lived together in North London, co-parenting Melanie’s teenage daughter Scarlett, 13, alongside Marshall’s two children from a previous relationship.
Scarlett is Chisolm’s daughter from her previous longtime relationship, with ex-partner Thomas Starr. The pair split in 2012 after a decade together.
The Sun quotes a source as saying that Mel – who tours regularly as a solo artist and has her first memoir out next month – found it too hard to juggle the relationship with her career commitments.
“Mel has an incredibly busy career between her book deal, DJ-ing and other plans,” The Sun’s source said.
“The little free time she does have is devoted to her daughter Scarlett, and that doesn’t leave much time for a relationship.”
The source said that the split was “amicable” and that Mel is “not afraid to be single if she thinks it’s for the best”.
Melanie C is undoubtedly the most private of the five Spice Girls when it comes to her love life, largely keeping her personal life under wraps since a string of romances with high-profile musicians in the late 90s and early noughties.
Mel briefly dated Robbie Williams, had a relationship with Red Hot Chili Peppers frontman Anthony Kiedis that inspired a song on their album Californicationand also had an on-again, off-again relationship with former Five boy band star Jason ‘J’ Brown.
Meanwhile, Melanie’s Spice Girls bandmate Mel B makes her return to Australian TV tonight as a judge on the season premiere of The Masked Singer. Speaking to news.com.au ahead of the new season, Mel B opened up about her life as a Spice Girl – and whether the group’s long-rumored first Australian tour might ever hit our shores.
A Sydney Mayor who has lashed out at Dominic Perrottet for alleged rugby stadium “pork barreling” has reacted with shock after a grandstand collapsed at the weekend.
A disturbing video shows the moment a railing at a Leichhardt Oval grandstand collapsed under the weight of fans attending a schoolboy rugby match.
A number of fans went tumbling over the stand like dominoes and face planted onto concrete meters below.
Paramedic crews at the game treated some minor injuries but no one was taken to hospital, NSW Ambulance reported.
Inner West Mayor Darcy Byrne, who has campaigned for funding to upgrade the Leichhardt Oval, issued a media release just days before the collapse, accusing the state government of pork barreling for choosing to spend upwards of $300 million to build Penrith Stadium despite numerous commitments to fund suburban sports grounds.
“Dominic Perrottet is happy to spend $300 million in Stuart Ayres seat, to build a shiny, new Panthers Stadium for the exclusive use of one club,” Mr Byrne said, referring to the outgoing trade minister and MP for Penrith.
“But the Wests Tigers, and all of the other senior and junior, men’s and women’s Rugby League, Soccer and Rugby Union teams who regularly use Leichhardt Oval get nothing.”
The Council had plans to use part of a planned $250m slated for suburban sports grounds to upgrade and expand their grandstands.
“I call on Mr Perrottet to explain why this shocking pork-barrelling continues while most footy fans across Sydney get dudded,” the Labor mayor said.
Leichhardt Oval hosts more than 50 games a year across various rugby codes while Penrith Stadium will host just 11 Penrith Panthers games a year.
Mr Byrne took to his social media following the grandstand collapse to share his shock over the dangerous incident.
“The collapse of grandstand seating at Leichhardt Oval today during a schoolboy rugby match was incredibly dangerous,’ he said.
“The footage is shocking.”
Inner West councilor Philippa Scott jumped into the comment section to direct her anger at the state government.
“I am heartened to know that the spectators were sent home with only minor injuries, however I am incandescently angry at how our inner west infrastructure is treated by the state government,” she said.
“We are being smashed by not being a marginal Liberal seat.”
Mayor Byrne said his team are working to make the site safe and will fully investigate the safety risks it raises.
Australia Rugby League boss Peter V’landys this week accused Premier Dominic Perrottet of reneging on his agreement after he redirected funds set aside for sports grounds to flood recovery.
Premier Dominic Perrottet has denied backflipping on his deal to upgrade Brookvale Oval, Leichhardt Oval and Shark Park.
“We won’t give up. We’re going to make sure the fans will get the facilities,” Mr V’Landys told 2GB radio this week.
A tense 24 hours of negotiations on Tuesday night had the ARL boss and the government tussling over whether the grand final would be moved from Sydney to Queensland.
Mr V’landys said in a radio interview at the weekend negotiations were ongoing and that a decision on the grand final would be made on Monday.
“We’re still negotiating with the NSW government, we don’t accept the excuse they’ve given us,” he said.
“The (ARL) commission will meet on Monday to decide the strategy it’s going to use … we don’t want to punish the NSW fans because the government isn’t meeting its commitments.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) ripped the Inflation Reduction Act Saturday for doing little to fight inflation and not enough to help Americans struggling to afford health care, child care and housing.
“According to the [Congressional Budget Office] and other economic organizations that have studied this bill, it will have a minimal impact on inflation,” Sanders declared on the Senate floor to open debate on the 755-page bill, which will raise taxes on corporations, fight climate change and reduce some prescription drug costs.
The line of criticism echoed what Senate Republicans have said for days in pointing to a Penn Wharton analysis concluding the bill will have a negligible impact on inflation.
Sanders argued the Democratic bill falls far short of what is needed when Americans are growing increasingly disillusioned with government and a tiny fraction of wealthy individuals and families own a hugely disproportionate share of the nation’s wealth.
He pointed to the lower standard of living many younger people know and expect compared to their parents’ generation, the daunting cost of housing for people starting out in the work world and the stagnation of wages.
“This legislation does not address any of their needs,” Sanders said. “This legislation does not address the reality that we have more income and wealth inequality today than at any time in the last hundred years.”
He complained the bill doesn’t address the fact that CEOs of major corporations make 350 times as much as their workers, or do more to improve a health care system.
“This bill does nothing to address the systemic dysfunctionality of the American health care system,” he charged.
He also noted the bill “as currently written does nothing” to address the nation’s rate of childhood poverty, a pointed reference to Sen. Joe Manchin’s (DW.Va.) opposition to including an extension of the expanded child tax credit — which expired at the end of last year — in the bill.
He said the bill also fails to address the nation’s affordable housing crisis.
“Yup, you guessed it. This bill does nothing to address the major housing crisis that we face or build one unit of safe and affordable housing. Just another issue that we push aside,” he grumbled.
But Sanders’s biggest complaint is legislation doesn’t give Medicare enough authority to negotiate lower prescription drug prices.
He said “the good news” is the bill would allow Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry but the “bad news” is the provision does not go into effect for four years, at which time only 10 drugs will be covered.
“This provision will have no impact on the prices for Americans not on Medicare. Those prices will continue to rise uncontrollably,” he said.
Sanders announced he will offer an amendment that would require Medicare to pay no more for prescription drugs than the Department of Veterans Affairs.
He said that proposal would save Medicare $900 billion over the next decade.
In a floor speech Wednesday, he said he would use that money to lower the Medicare eligibility age to 60 and extend Medicare benefits to cover vision, hearing and dental care.
Sanders told reporters earlier Saturday that he plans to offer three other amendments to the bill related to prescription drugs and Medicare.
One amendment would expand Medicare to provide dental, vision and hearing benefits, another would provide $30 billion to establish a Civilian Conservation Corps to combat climate change, and a fourth would expand the $300 per month Child Tax Credit for the next five years.
His arguments, however, are largely falling flat with Democratic senators who say they won’t vote for any amendments that could jeopardize the support of Manchin and fellow centrist Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.).
A Democratic senator said Schumer has urged colleagues not to offer amendments to the bill that could upset the carefully crafted compromise he reached with Manchin and Sinema after weeks of negotiation.
One Democratic aid said Sanders’s insistence on voting on his amendments would delay final passage of the bill.
But Schumer has limited leverage over Sanders, who as chairman of the Budget Committee, has the official role of managing the floor debate on the bill, which is being moved under special budgetary reconciliation rules to circumvent a GOP filibuster.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who played a major role in crafting the prescription drug compromise with Sinema, pushed back against Sanders’s criticism.
He hailed it as a major victory because it would set an important precedent of empowering the government to negotiate with the pharmaceutical industry.
“I think there is a reason big PhRMA is fighting this so hard. They know once you put negotiation into law, embedded into law, there will be no turning back. That’s what this all about,” he said, he referring to the pharmaceutical industry’s trade association. “This is a seismic shift between government and this lobby.”
ANALYSIS: It is ironic that the nearest town to the Tiwai Point aluminum smelter is called Bluff.
Kiwis could have been forgiven for rolling their eyes at the announcement last week that the smelter’s majority owner, Rio Tinto, is now in talks with power companies about extending the life of the smelter beyond its latest supposed closure date at the end of 2024.
Rio Tinto had previously threatened to close the smelter in 2021 and before that in 2013, only to announce a reprieve – first in return for a $30 million government hand-out and then a sharp reduction in the price that its major power supplier, Meridian Energy , charges the smelter for electricity.
In 2000, against a backdrop of aluminum prices slumping well under US$2000 (NZ$3170) a tonne, Rio Tinto chose to terminate a contract that would have guaranteed it power until 2030 at a price understood to be about $55 a megawatt-hour (5.5 ca kilowatt-hour).
READMORE: * Aluminum smelter starts talks with power firms to keep smelter open beyond 2024 * Meridian sets out conditions for ’10 to 20 year’ deal with aluminum smelter * Negotiations to yet again ‘save’ aluminum smelter may face extra complication
Seemingly indifferent as to whether the smelter stayed open or not, it then succeeded in driving a grumpy Meridian down to a price understood to be about $35/MWh in its current contract.
Jarden analyst Grant Swanepoel says the smelter saved about $120 million a year for four years by “holding a gun to the head” of Meridian.
But this time the game of brinkmanship will play out under somewhat different circumstances.
Aluminum prices are currently trading at a much more healthy US$2500/tonne and Rio Tinto has clearly signaled that it would like to keep the smelter open beyond the end of 2024, which will simply not be possible unless it secures a new power deal.
There has been speculation that an agreement is most likely to be struck at a price of $60 to $80/MWh, with billions of dollars potentially at stake over where exactly in that band it lands.
A price at the top end of that band would raise the prospect that Rio Tinto might have been better off never ripping up its original power contract, and instead letting it run through to 2030.
But Swanepoel believes such schadenfreude is unlikely, as its own modeling suggests it would be in Meridian’s interests to still do a deal at a price anywhere above about $62/MWh.
The smelter consumes about 13% of New Zealand’s total electricity supply, which means that if it did close, the excess supply would force down wholesale electricity prices in at least the short term, which is the last thing Meridian should want to see.
But it might be in Rio Tinto’s interests to do a deal even if Meridian insisted on a significantly higher price, which is why negotiations could provide a merry dance.
Barry Harcourt/Stuff
It wouldn’t make sense for Meridian to turn its back on a power price above $62 a megawatt hour, analyst Jarden believes.
The negotiations should be underpinned by how much Meridian could earn for power from its Manapouri hydro scheme if it didn’t sell that power to the smelter, and how much aluminum smelters might need to pay for power overseas.
But working out what those prices may be over the life of a contract is no simple matter.
The smelter has more competition for power since national grid operator Transpower completed an upgrade of its transmission network between Clutha and Upper Waitaki ahead of schedule in April, allowing more power from the lower South Island to be diverted north.
Meridian has also been working on a plan that could potentially reassign all of the power the smelter currently consumes to the generation of “green hydrogen” for use in the transport industry, though chief executive Barclay has said it is not a case of “either or ”.
Australian oil and mining giants Woodside Energy and Fortesque have expressed interest in the hydrogen opportunity.
Significantly perhaps, Meridian generation manager Guy Waipara says both companies have been given an indication of the price Meridian would need to charge them for its power to make that scheme work, and he notes they both remain interested.
Globally, cheap gas appears ancient history and the price of generating power from new renewable plant is now rising for a change, in part due to strong demand for wind turbines from Europe in the wake of Russia’s war on Ukraine, potentially also weakening Rio Tinto’s hand .
On top of that, the power industry’s regulator, the Electricity Authority, could potentially torpedo any supply deal at the cheaper end of the spectrum, after it estimated last year that the average household was paying $200 more than it needed to for power each year because of the smelter’s cheap supply deal.
Supplied
Aluminum prices have oscillated between just under US$1,500/tonne and nearly $4,000/tonne over the last few years, and currently sit at a healthy US$2,500/tonne.
There will be several other moving parts to the negotiations.
For example, Swanepoel says all the power companies now see a “plethora of opportunities” to develop new wind farms in the South Island, in the wake of an overhaul of Transpower’s transmission pricing regime.
Then there are the varied possible impacts on power demand and supply of the Government’s potential multibillion-dollar investment in a pumped hydro scheme at Lake Onslow in nearby Otago.
And it might be wrong to assume human factors couldn’t come into the equation.
Rio Tinto might be left red-faced by any new power deal that meant its original decision to tear up its 2030 power deal was in retrospect unwise.
But Barclay has reported receiving plenty of feedback from shareholders who believed the company caved too easily and completely in its negotiations with the smelter in 2021.
Swanepoel believes the upshot may be a 10 to 20 year power deal for the smelter that would see the price of power linked to inflation and perhaps the aluminum price, and that would also build-in more incentives for the smelter to cut production when electricity was in short supply.
“That is much fairer to both sides,” he says.
He suggests a model might be a deal Rio Tinto struck last year with Iceland’s national power company, Landsvirkjun, to power its aluminum smelter in Straumsvik on Iceland’s Reykjanes Peninsula, which in 2020 Rio Tinto had also threatened to shut down.
Instead of a straight price for power, Landsvirkjun received a confidential rate linked to the US consumer price index and partially linked to global aluminum prices.
Elden Ring is without a doubt the frontrunner for GOTY at this point, but it’s been fairly locked at its $89 price point since it launched months and months ago, but that all changes today. It’s available for $62 including free shipping from Amazon right HERE. It’s only the PS5 version of the game, with the Xbox version still being quite a bit more expensive.
We gave the game a 9.5/10 in our review and said: While it feels like the impact of Breath of the Wild is waning as the open world genre starts to stagnate again, Elden Ring stands out as not only an achievement in FromSoftware’s hall of fame, but also as an open-world RPG. Elden Ring is without a doubt, FromSoft’s most ambitious undertaking yet, and like Dark Souls before it, I believe it will leave a permanent mark on both the open-world genre and the games industry in general.
The game also has a 96 on Meteoritic currently which is not only the best for the year, but also goes close to being the best game of all time in the eyes of the reviewers on Metacritic.
It’s expected that the game will get an expansion at some point, but this hasn’t been revealed or even hinted at in terms of a release date yet, but there’s no better time than now in this current gaming lull to jump in and play the game.
WE LOVE BRINGING YOU THE BEST GAMING AND TECH BARGAINS. WE MAY GET A SMALL PERCENTAGE OF THE SALE THROUGH AFFILIATE PARTNERSHIPS
Australia rediscovered their winning feeling on day nine of the Commonwealth Games as Kurtis Marschall successfully defended his gold medal in the men’s pole vault to conclude a day on which the nation added a further nine golds to their tally.
While Australia stalled on day eight in Birmingham, the golds came with a rush from early until late on Saturday, moving onto 59 in the medal table, nine ahead of nearest rivals England who reached the half century mark with two days of competition remaining.
Marschall joined the great Steve Hooker – the man who inspired him to take up the sport – in winning back-to-back pole vault titles after clearing 5.70m to beat the English duo of Adam Hague and Harry Coppell, who took silver and bronze respectively .
Earlier Ollie Hoare evoked memories of Australian legend Herb Elliott with a remarkable last stride triumph in the men’s 1500 meters to end a 64-year drought in the race. The 25-year-old timed his run to perfection at Alexander Stadium when setting a new Games record of 3:30.12.
Jemima Montag started the Australian momentum in the 10km walk, crediting her resilience to the genetics she inherited from her grandmother Judith, a holocaust survivor. A gold medalist in the 20km walk on the Gold Coast four years ago, she put in a title-winning performance in a race confined to the track and to 10km on Saturday.
Montag wears a gold bracelet honoring her grandmother, who died shortly before last year’s Tokyo Olympics. With an aunt, she went through her old love letters from her after the Tokyo Olympics, having them translated, to piece together more about her grandmother’s extraordinary resilience from her.
Jemima Montag crosses the finish line at Alexander Stadium. Photograph: Dean Lewins/AAP
“In some letters and journal entries, she wrote about just trying to make it through the next hour and next day, and [to] meet her dad at the gate with a piece of bread,” she said.
“What I take from that is… she teaches me to take one step at a time and it also puts things into perspective. Towards the end of the Holocaust, they marched through snow and cold for days on end in little sandals and hardly any clothing. She and her sister took waistbands and tied their wrists together and said, ‘We are getting through this together or not at all’.”
Melissa Wu is someone used to combining well. Competing in her fifth Commonwealth Games, the diving champion added another remarkable flourish to her resume by partnering Charli Petrov, a 14-year-old who is half the age of Wu, to gold in the 10m synchronized platform event. Maddison Keeney and Anabelle Smith also performed beautifully, twisting and turning and landing their dives perfectly to beat a talented field in the 3m synchronized springboard.
On the bowling green in Leamington Spa, Ellen Ryan and Kristina Krstic won a thriller and were later joined by Aaron Wilson, who was a dominant 21-3 victor over Northern Ireland’s Gary Kelly. “It’s absolutely amazing to get the job done. I’m over the moon at the moment,” Wilson said.
At Arena Birmingham, Alexandra Kiroi-Bogatyreva completed a full set of medals for the Games with a gold medal in the clubs final of the rhythmic gymnastics while in table tennis Yang Qian won gold in the women’s 6-10 class when too strong for compatriot Lei Lina in the end. There was also cause for joy in team events as well, with several medals to be decided in the final two days of competition.
Charli Petrov and Melissa Wu dive for gold. Photograph: Dave Hunt/EPA
The Diamonds defeated England in the netball and will play Jamaica, their conquerors in a pool game on Thursday, in the final on Sunday, while Australia’s cricketers will clash with India in a blockbuster final at Edgbaston Stadium after proving too strong for New Zealand.
Both beach volleyball teams will fri for gold after strong semi-final performances. So, too, the men’s hockey team, who have progressed to the decider on Monday.
But amid the joy there were some disappointments. Eleanor Patterson claimed the high jump world championship a fortnight ago, but she had to settle for a silver medal after jumping a height of 1.92m, three centimeters from the gold.
The difficult tour experienced by sprinter Rohan Browning continued when he tripped and fell in a heat of the 4x100m relay, ending Australia’s hopes of success.
The federal government is “very, very” confident its climate bill enshrining a 43 per cent emissions reduction target will pass the Senate.
The bill to lock in that target, based on 2005 levels by 2030, on the way to net zero emissions by 2050 passed the lower house on Thursday, 89 votes to 55 with the support of the Greens and crossbench independent MPs.
It is headed to the Senate where it will first go to a committee inquiry, which will hear evidence on the proposal’s impacts.
The committee is due to report back to parliament by the end of August before it goes to an upper house vote.
The government needs the support of the 12 Greens senators and one independent senator, likely David Pocock or Jacqui Lambie, to pass.
Minister for Climate Change and Energy Chris Bowen said he has been talking to the senators crucial to the eventual vote.
“But I’m very, very confident it will pass the Senate. Very, very confident,” he told the Nine Network on Sunday.
“Australians would expect a government of grown-ups to get on with the job and talk to people of goodwill to make sure that we have a good, solid climate bill.”
Opposition Nationals leader David Littleproud said while the Coalition believed in reducing emissions, it did not believe legislation was needed to do that.
“Once you legislate, you open up the pathway for activists to weaponize it in the courts,” he told Nine.
“We’re committed to reaching that net zero by 2050 but there is no linear line and we have got to be honest with people about how we get there, and who pays for it.”
The Coalition plans to update its reduction target beyond its commitment in government to a 26 to 28 per cent cut in emissions and is weighing up a policy to back nuclear power before the next election.
0
