Electrek

Between increasingly extreme weather, rising electricity demands, and the rapid expansion of data centers, energy independence is starting to look less like a talking point for doomsday preppers and more like sound planning. That shift in thinking is driving more homeowners than ever towards solar-plus-battery energy solutions like the industry-leading Tesla Powerwall – but Powerwall isn’t the only game in town, anymore.

UPDATE 05OCT26: added the EcoFlow DELTA Pro.

Six Flags Magic Mountain is putting its parking lots to work with a new 12.37-megawatt (MW) solar installation – California’s largest solar carport. It’s expected to generate enough electricity each year to offset the annual power use of both the amusement park and neighboring Hurricane Harbor Los Angeles.

As if to prove that there may not be money for universal childcare or nationalized healthcare but there is ALWAYS more money for war, the US Department of War has awarded Amprius a $75 million grant to convert a civilian EV battery production line to churn out high-energy-density batteries for military drones.

BYD’s full-size flagship electric SUV is off to a strong early start, with more than 10,000 units sold in its first three months on the market.

Lucid (LCID) delivered 3,806 vehicles in the third quarter, down 7% from a year ago. It built only 2,954, a 38% cut from the previous quarter and its lowest production since early 2025.

The automaker says that’s on purpose. New CEO Silvio Napoli is selling down the unsold cars Lucid piled up in the first half of the year, and Q3 is the first quarter of 2026 in which it delivered more vehicles than it built.

A disguised Hyundai SUV has been spotted out testing, giving us an early look at what’s thought to be the IONIQ 4, or possibly the IONIQ 1.

We’ve got a bunch of official Prime Day sales packed into today’s weekly Green Deals kickoff, starting with the Velotric Fall Prime Day Sale with up to $550 e-bike savings that has given us the first discount on its Summit 2 Hybrid Mixed-Terrain e-bike for $1,999. Right behind that we have Lectric’s Better-Than-Prime Sale with up to $694 e-bike bundle savings + price cuts, like the XPeak2 Off-Road Fat Tire e-bike at a new $1,299 low. There’s also four exclusive Anker security camera and smart lock deals, like the EufyCam S3 Pro 4K Solar Security 2-Cam Kit with HomeBase 3 at $420, as well as EcoFlow’s latest flash sale that has dropped the 3,072Wh DELTA 3 Ultra Power Station to $1,199, and a special Buy 2 get $200 off Segway e-bike promotion that can score you up to $2,200 total savings – plus, some other popular sales running right now. You can also find the hangover deals from last week collected together in our latest Electrified Weekly roundup edition here.

Head below for other New Green Deals we’ve found today and, of course, Electrek’s best EV buying and leasing deals. Also, check out the new Electrek Tesla Shop for the best deals on Tesla accessories.

Kia’s electric van might look even cooler as a dump truck. The PV5 was made into a dump truck, and it works.

Toyota will invest around $1.3 billion, the largest in Argentina’s automotive industry to date, to produce a new electric vehicle at its site in Buenos Aires.

Gas cars are now a minority of the world’s new car sales. Gasoline-only vehicles made up 49% of global new-vehicle sales in the first half of 2026, down from 73% in 2021, according to Mobility Global data first reported by Nikkei.

It’s the first time on record that they’ve been under half. But there’s a catch: most of the cars taking their place still have a gas tank.

The Lucid Cosmos is out testing in California traffic. A camouflaged prototype of the midsize SUV was photographed on Highway 101 in Morgan Hill, about 40 miles south of Lucid’s headquarters in Newark.

The four photos show the sub-$50,000 SUV from the rear and the side. They come two months after Lucid pushed the Cosmos launch back to the second half of 2027.

The IONIQ 3 has received more interest than any Hyundai vehicle in the UK ever. Starting at about $25,000, Hyundai’s electric hatch undercuts much of the competition.

LiveWire’s smallest electric motorcycle is about to take on a new role, and it could prove to be one of the most important ones yet. The LiveWire S4 Honcho Street has now met the Motorcycle Safety Foundation’s (MSF) criteria for use in rider training programs, opening the door for new riders to learn the ropes – and potentially earn their motorcycle endorsement – without first learning how to operate a clutch and gearbox on a gas-powered motorcycle.

Volkswagen Group is going through some tough times these days. Labor disputes, increased competition in China, and a few market misses on big swings are all playing a part, but that doesn’t mean the EVs themselves aren’t great – and with all the big rebates and incentive offers on Audi, Porsche, and Volkswagen EVs this month, they’re definitely worth a look.

The logistics experts at 3PL provider YMX know a thing or three about running an efficient fleet, but even they are feeling the nationwide shortage of qualified yard operators. To help keep the goods moving and the wheels turning, the company is turning to self-driving, zero-emission yard trucks at customer sites as part of a new pilot with AI startup Outrider.

After months of delays, missed delivery windows, and increasingly impatient reservation holders, Rivian spinout ALSO is finally putting its electric bikes into the hands of actual customers.

Decommissioning humanoid robots that are packed with proprietary tech is a tricky thing – you want to make sure none of the expensive raw material goes to waste, but you also need to make sure no one else gets a hold of your tech. The solution? Have your robots hurl themselves into a vat of molten steel, Terminator 2-style.

Elon Musk says the main thing holding back Tesla Robotaxi’s night hours is that the cars have a hard time seeing pets in the dark. His example was “grey kittens on grey tarmac.”

That’s a low-light, low-contrast detection problem, which is the textbook weakness of cameras and the exact thing lidar and radar handle. Musk has spent years calling those sensors a “crutch” and a “fool’s errand.”

The Ride1Up Roadster V3 is, for all intents and purposes, is a budget-focused daily driver urban bike. It’s not really a gravel bike. Maybe if you stand back a bit and squint, you could give it a bit more of a gravel bike interpretation. But ultimately, it’s a lightweight, affordable urban e-bike with decent multi-role tires that I mostly use for cruising around bike lanes and city streets.

So naturally, yesterday I took it on a 38 km (24 mile) ride where I spent most of the time off-road.

In a record-setting commercial truck deal, international shipping giant FedEx has placed an order for 2,000 all-electric box trucks from American startup Harbinger in a deal that’s reportedly worth more than $300 million – but the ROI could be much higher.

Swedish heavy equipment brand HUDDIG has given its 1370 hybrid wheel loader platform a major battery upgrade for the new model year, boosting its battery capacity from 44 kWh to fully 61 kWh – an impressive, 40% upgrade!

With the new EV3 now arriving at dealerships, Kia is throwing some extra savings into the mix with up to $10,000 off in customer cash on select EVs.

Detroit-based energy company DTE Energy has completed construction of a 100-megawatt (MW) solar farm near Coldwater, Michigan, that will help Ford power its home-state factories with cleaner electricity.