Micah Toll is an e-bike industry expert, personal electric vehicle enthusiast, battery nerd, and author of the Amazon #1 bestselling books DIY Lithium Batteries, DIY Solar Power, The Ultimate DIY Ebike Guide and The Electric Bike Manifesto.
The e-bikes that make up Micah’s current daily drivers are the $999 Lectric XP4, the $1,295 Ride1Up Roadster V3, and the $3,299 Priority Current. But it’s a pretty evolving list these days.
You can send Micah tips at Micah@electrek.co, or find him on Twitter, Instagram or TikTok.
Italian electric motorcycle manufacturer Energica had been on a roll before the coronavirus pandemic ravaged Italy and forced nationwide lockdowns. Now Energica is starting up the factory again after certain businesses have received government allowances to resume operations.
The San Diego-based e-bike company Ride1Up has just announced two new models of electric bicycles. The new Ride1Up Core-5 returns a sub-$1k e-bike to the company’s lineup, while the Ride1Up LMT’D offers the highest torque e-bike yet from Ride1Up.
I have frequently written about the benefits of electric motorcycles and how they can play a large role in saving our cities from pollution and congestion. But as beneficial as they are, there are two major factors holding back large scale electric motorcycle adoption: high sticker prices and a general fear/skittishness of motorcycles. That’s why I believe that smaller, urban electric motorcycles like the CSC City Slicker are such an interesting part of the market. They offer the approachability of an electric bicycle or scooter but with high enough speed and power to actually serve as a true city/suburban commuter vehicle.
Oh yea, and they’re ridiculously affordable.
Gogoro is a Taiwanese-based electric scooter and battery manufacturer that has gobbled up market share while competing against traditional gas-powered scooters in its home market. Fans of the company’s electric scooters and novel battery swap technology have long pined for Gogoro to enter the US and Europe. And now Gogoro has announced plans to enter the US market in May under the brand name Eeyo, followed by a European entry later this summer.
But there’s a catch.
Boosted was known as the leader in premium electric skateboards, and even expanded into high-end (and high-power) electric scooters. Thus, news of the company’s bankruptcy and demise came as a shock to their large customer base and to many in the industry.
But now in a strange twist to the Boosted saga, one man has wound up with essentially all of Boosted’s remaining electric skateboard and replacement parts inventory. And he wants to keep the good times rolling.
Xiaomi’s Youpin crowdfunding platform has been used to launch a number of affordable electric bicycles over the last few years. And with each new model, the bikes seem to become increasingly attention-grabbing. Take for example the new Himo Z16 electric bicycle just unveiled for $352.
The Juiced Scorpion has been one of the most highly anticipated electric moped-style bikes of the season. And while the standard Juiced Scorpion has already begun making deliveries, the higher-powered HyperScorpion has eluded pre-order holders for now.
Today is Earth Day, which makes it a great day to reflect on how we can all reduce our individual impact on the environment. Transportation is a massive contributor to climate change, and a particularly effective and fun alternative to single-occupant car trips is a personal electric vehicle like an electric bicycle, e-scooter, or other small electric vehicle platforms.
Cars are often used as a default form of transportation, even when a multi-thousand-pound vehicle isn’t always necessary. Electric cars are certainly an eco-improvement over gas-powered cars, but they still use as much as 10-20x the energy of micromobility alternatives like a personal electric vehicle. By swapping many car trips for personal mobility alternatives, you can vastly reduce your daily energy usage in a meaningful way.
VanMoof’s electric bicycles have a well-deserved reputation for quality and aesthetics — so much so that the design and even the shipping boxes have been imitated by e-bike companies around the world. But to stay one step ahead of the imitators, VanMoof has now announced its next generation Vanmoof S3 and X3 e-bikes. And things have just gotten even better.
Kawasaki first announced its official intentions to develop a Kawasaki electric motorcycle last year during the 2019 EICMA Milan Motorcycle Show. We were in attendance and had the chance to see the original prototype in person.
How good can one of the cheapest electric bicycles on Amazon be? That’s exactly the question I set out to answer when I bought a Spadger folding electric bike for the cool sum of $420 earlier this year. It may not have much in the way of extra features, but it sure does lower the barrier to entry for anyone looking to get their first e-bike on a budget.
At a time when most people should be staying at home to help contain the coronavirus pandemic, healthcare workers need safe transportation options to their hospitals and clinics more than ever. Electric scooter company NIU has stepped up and created the MoveSafely program with its scooter-sharing partners to provide free rides to healthcare workers.
The first wave of stimulus checks for up to $1,200 are being distributed by the IRS right now. And believe it or not, $1,200 can actually buy some pretty useful electric bikes for yourself or someone in need.
Here are some of the best electric bikes we’ve tested that could be covered by all or part of the $1,200 stimulus check and still leave some cash in your pocket for other essentials.
VanMoof was planning to unveil their highly anticipated next-generation VanMoof S3 and X3 e-bikes later this month. But thanks to a new leak, we’re already getting an early look at the details.
And boy are those details promising, as they show a pair of new VanMoofs sporting a wide array of upgrades. Better, cheaper, faster… Well, not faster. But certainly the first two are true!
Electric unicycles might be a niche corner of the already niche market of personal electric vehicles. But that hasn’t stopped manufacturers from developing some rather impressive designs. The latest comes to us in the form of an incredibly powerful 3,000 W peak electric unicycle known as the InMotion V11.
Unlike the legions of interesting but questionably vaporware concept electric motorcycles floating around the internet these days, the Zero SR/F is a powerful, sporty bike that you can actually find in dealerships. It combines high power with an aggressive ride that is sure to turn a boring commute into an ear-to-ear grinning experience.
Italy’s premier electric motorcycle manufacturer Energica is preparing to return to strong sales figures after being rocked hard by the current coronavirus pandemic.
Now the company’s CEO Livia Cevolini is detailing how she plans to do it.
Even though electric bicycle prices in the West are dropping, with many decent e-bikes found in the sub-$1,000 range, China is still king of the inexpensive e-bikes. So I wanted to see how one of these ultra-affordable e-bikes stood up to the types of e-bikes in the US and Europe.
My goal: Find one of these e-bikes and bring it to the US for testing.
The Italian electric bicycle conversion kit company Bikee Bike has a new lightweight kit known as the Lightest. As the name implies, Bikee says this is the lightest weight e-bike kit on the market, with the mid-drive unit weighing just 1.65 kg (3.5 lb).
Stockholm-based CAKE may have begun with electric dirt bikes, but the company is quickly establishing itself on the road as well. CAKE announced today the launch of its fourth street-legal electric motorcycle, the CAKE Kalk INK SL.
Super73 is all about the laid-back, Southern California style. These electric bikes place an emphasis on the mini-bike styling and give the feel of zooming around town on an electric moped or motorbike. But with many of the full-featured Super73 e-bikes starting at $2k or more, I wanted to see if you could get the same kind of experience on the $1,150 Super73-Z1, which is the company’s entry level model.
Earlier this month we got a sneak peak at the first-ever drag race between a Harley-Davidson LiveWire electric motorcycle and Tesla Model 3 Performance electric car. The original video, shot from the stands, lacked any background info, and the winner of the photo finish wasn’t clear. Now we’ve got the full story behind the race (and we finally know the winner too!).
If you’ve been looking for a high power, long range electric bicycle with an emphasis on the “e” and only a passing reference to the “bicycle”, then this could be right up your alley. The Ukrainian e-bike company Delfast has just announced all-new versions of their high power and long range electric bikes known as the Delfast Prime 2.0 and Partner 2.0.
New York State has had a complicated relationship with electric bicycles and scooters, and nowhere has that relationship been rockier than in New York City. E-bikes and e-scooters have faced legal gray areas and outright bans for years, but the day has finally arrived for these convenient forms of alternative transportation to be legalized.