Micah Toll

Students around the US are now heading back to college, but there’s one thing many of them won’t be able to bring with them: electric bikes and e-scooters. Several campuses are joining a growing movement in higher education, banning these efficient transportation alternatives.

The field of swappable batteries for electric motorbikes is booming, and Honda is trying to play catchup with its own design. The Honda Mobile Power Pack e: (MPPe:) is headed to Indonesia as the company makes a play for greater international market share.

This week on Electrek’s Wheel-E podcast, we discuss the most popular news stories from the world of electric bikes and other nontraditional electric vehicles. This time that includes new moped-style e-bikes from Electra, e-bikes and the right to repair debate, e-bike vans coming to NYC, sustainable replacement for e-bike boxes, ordering e-bikes from Indiegogo and more.

Most of the fun and oddly-shaped electric vehicles we’ve found for the Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week column have been rather slow, urban-style vehicles. That’s true whether it’s a tiger-shaped bus or a Cinderella carriage. But this supercheap electric car somehow got an extra serving of power before it left the factory, helping it achieve highway speeds.

For some electric scooter riders, modest speeds of 15-20 mph (24-40 km/h) are plenty. For others who want to travel on larger roads or cover farther distances on their scooter commutes, faster speeds are necessary. It’s those types of riders that Nanrobot had in mind when they rolled out their latest model, the Nanrobot N6.

Campers are a popular way to travel with the family, and smaller versions for bike camping have popped up too. But what if you want to go cabin camping with your dog in areas that don’t have car access – or cabins? If you’re handy, you could just build a wooden cabin to bring along with you on an electric bike.

We’ve seen electric bicycle drivetrains in a number of small-format vehicles, but the Old Town Sportsman BigWater ePDL+ 132 brings e-biking to the kayak market. The ePDL+ 132 is basically a pedal-assist system for a kayak, though it also offers pedal-free operation that effectively turns it into a tiny electric boat.

Electric car charging stations are becoming ubiquitous across many cities in the US. But with electric bikes vastly outnumbering electric cars, should we be considering charging stations for these more popular light EVs? In China, e-bike charging stations are already commonplace. Perhaps we can learn something from them.

One of the major advantages of riding electric bikes is that the extra electric assist means you don’t have to worry about weight penalties as much. Pedal bike designers have to minimize weight to make the bike less grueling to ride, but e-bike manufacturers can add in more comfort features without making the bike harder to use. That often means more suspension and larger tires. Or in the case of the Engwe X26 electric bike, the company opted for an extra helping of both.

The AYRO Vanish, an electric mini-truck designed and built in Texas, has just completed homologation to receive its street-legal status in the US and Canada.

A number of troubling developments point to serious financial troubles for SONDORS, the company behind a wide range of electric bicycles as well as the Metacycle electric motorcycle (and an ill-fated three-wheeled electric car, but that’s another story).

As electric bikes become increasingly popular in cities across the US, some in the media are trying to wrap their heads around this reported “electric bike craze.” But make no mistake, this isn’t some short-lived enthusiasm or a passing fad. This widespread adoption of e-bikes by young and old alike is merely the first signs of a paradigm shift.

That’s right, welcome to the future.

The Royal Dutch Touring Club (ANWB), the largest cycling association in the Netherlands, has announced that it will no longer insure fat tire bikes due to their extremely high chance of theft.

It’s no secret that most electric bikes come from China. Sure, there are high-quality e-bikes built in Europe and even a few in the US. But not the ones with the price tags that make you go, “Honey, how can we afford not to?!” And that’s exactly the story of my latest weird little e-bike purchase. Say hello to the Mihogo Mini, an ultra-low-cost electric bike direct from China.

A recent string of anti-e-bike articles in the New York Times has attempted to spread fear around the increasingly popular transportation method of electric bicycles. But it’s not just the typical e-bikes you see students riding to class or adults cruising to work on. One of the main e-bike targets of late has become electric balance bikes, or what the NYT referred to as “motorcycles for children.”

However, instead of fearing these rider training tools, we’d be better advised to embrace them and encourage more parents to put their kids on one.

If you want a real Mercedes G-Wagon to show everyone that you’ve got more money than time spent off-road, go for it. But if you have neither money nor time off-road, then I’ve got a quirky little alternative for you. Behold, the Chinese electric knockoff of a G-Wagon!

If you’ve only ever heard of one electric bike brand in the US, it’s probably Rad Power Bikes. There are more Rads on American roads than any other e-bike out there. And now the company is announcing a major new milestone: hitting 600,000 e-bikes sold.

Canadian electric scooter maker Apollo says its new Rover, just launched today, is the “future of urban mobility.” And considering the company is known for making innovative models that have helped push the industry into that future, it may be worth a second look.

Ride1Up has long focused on effective yet affordable commuter-style e-bikes, though has expanded its lineup lately to cover an increasingly wide range of models from electric cruisers to e-mopeds. Now the company is putting some love and attention back into the commuter side of things as it updates one of its top-selling models, the Ride1Up 700 Series.

The Backfire Zealot X electric skateboard isn’t just fast and powerful. In addition to both of those traits, it’s also got another fun trick up its sleeve that will have you getting noticed everywhere you go.

Yamaha has been around longer than just about anyone in the electric bike space. In fact, they just celebrated the 30-year anniversary since launching the first production electric bike in the world. But don’t think that an old dog can’t learn new bike tricks. Because just like how Yamaha Power Assist Bicycles keeps pumping out innovative new e-bikes and drivetrains, now the company is launching an entirely new sales model bringing direct-to-consumer selling into its operations.

If you haven’t considered battery swapping as the future of electric motorbikes, then the last few days should give you reason to consider. With companies like Gogoro leading the way and KYMCO hot on their heels, now Vammo is launching its own battery-swapping stations for electric motorcycles.

It looks like Taiwanese motorbike maker KYMCO is ready to take its battery-swapping IONEX electric scooter platform global, starting with Thailand. The news comes to us in the form of a recently announced Thai partnership set up around the company’s battery-swapping system.

The darling of India’s electric scooter industry, Ola Electric, just held a major product unveiling as part of its Customer Day event. In addition to launching its impressively updated electric scooter line with new models, the company also showed off four electric motorcycle concepts.