Micah Toll

The list of weird yet awesome electric boats on Alibaba seems to grow every week. Fortunately for us, we’ve managed to stumble upon another oddball offering in the form of an inflatable electric houseboat. And if you ask me, it’s perfect for the latest edition of the Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week series.

Yeah, I thought the same that you did when I first started covering the Babymaker 2. Here’s a new e-bike from some bike bros that’s got more of a provocative name than actual substance.

But I was wrong. Because after getting the chance to spin the pedals on the Babymaker 2 and put some good honest miles on the bike, I realized that this is actually a very nice e-bike for a certain segment of the population. And not just the keg stand segment.

Black Friday update: it is now priced at $1,499!

Remember Honda’s Motocompo from the early 1980s? It was a tiny little gas-powered motorcycle designed to fit in the trunk of small car and give drivers a way to extend their reach into a city. Based on new trademark filings for a “Motocompacto”, it looks more likely than ever that Honda could be resurrecting it as an electric motorbike.

Here at Electrek we cover all sorts of electric vehicles, from cars and trucks to planes and trains. But one type of electric vehicle outsells all others combined many times over: the humble electric bicycle.

Oops, I did it again. I bought another quirky, cheap, yet kind of awesome-looking electric vehicle on the Chinese mega-shopping site Alibaba. This time it was a five-seater electric boat.

Here’s how it happened.

Club Car is one of the country’s biggest golf cart makers, and now the brand has just unveiled a slick new line of high-end electric vehicles that are more like open-air electric cars. Just don’t call the Club Car Cru a “car.”

The Himiway Big Dog is a new “cargo” bike from Himiway, a popular electric bike brand that has expanded its product line considerably over the last year. While I’m not sure this bike qualifies as a true cargo bike by most definitions, it’s definitely a fun little utility e-bike that cruises more like a mini-moped.

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 Amazon getting in hot water for selling kits to hot-rod electric bikes, reviews of interesting new electric bikes, Erik Buell’s electric motorcycle starts taking reservations, there’s an upcoming electric Kawasaki Ninja motorcycle, and lots more.

This week’s Podcast is again sponsored by Gates belt drives and their new Moto X5 Belts.

For anyone who thinks the worst part of stand-up paddleboards is the paddling, you’re going to love this week’s Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week entry. Apparently, all it takes to ditch the paddle is a $300 SUP conversion kit that turns a paddleboard into an electric surfboard.

A new electric bike has just been unveiled that is sure to turn nostalgic riders into the coolest big kid on the block. Meet the FLX Menace, which has an unmistakeable resemblance to a certain classic bicycle from the 1960s.

Fat tire electric bikes are all over the place these days. Full-suspension fat tire e-bikes are a bit rarer. But full-suspension fatties that can hit 30 mph (48 km/h) on throttle-only riding – that’s a unicorn right there. But that’s exactly what the KKBike K26S offers.

Motorcycle industry legend Erik Buell announced his new electric bike and motorcycle brand FUELL back in early 2019. Now just one pandemic later, the motorbike visionary is finally ready to roll out the FUELL Fllow electric motorcycle… for reservations, that is.

Electric bikes, which provide motor assistance to make pedaling easier, have seen surging popularity over the past decade as a fun and efficient alternative form of transportation. One of the biggest successes of the e-bike movement has been creating new riders out of drivers that wouldn’t have otherwise considered switching from a car to a pedal bike. Now, a new study is showing just how much more efficient (and fun) e-bikes are than pedal bikes.

KYMCO unveiled updated versions of its two high-performance electric motorcycle prototypes at the EICMA Milan Motorcycle Show, giving riders a taste of what’s to come from the major two-wheeler manufacturer.

The electric unicycle crowd is a pretty passionate one. It’s not rare to see you folks in my comment section, lecturing me about how your EUC goes farther and faster than whatever e-bike I’m covering that day, all for a fraction of the price. And I’ll admit, the ability to ride an electric vehicle to your destination and then just pick it up to carry it inside like a briefcase does have its appeal. So I figured I’d give the InMotion V5 a test, as it’s supposed to be a very beginner friendly wheel.

Electric motorcycles are being used by VIPs and in all-electric motorcades to escort delegates from the international community attending the annual G20 Summit.

The long-awaited SONDORS Metacycle electric motorcycle is now beginning deliveries nationwide in the US, according to the latest update from the company.

It’s a tale as old as time, humans finding ways to boost the speed of their rides. Cars get chipped. Motorcycles get aftermarket sprockets. Hell, back in the day horses probably got fed “the good carrots.” Now one of the latest forms of speed hacking has targeted electric bikes, and Amazon is getting raked over the coals for helping provide the goods to illegally hot-rod those e-bikes.

Each week I dig around in the bottom of the barrel of China’s weirdest shopping site, dragging to the surface a funky electric vehicle to laugh either with and/or at. They’re usually fairly underpowered things, coasting by on their good looks and charm. But this week, we’ve got the opposite: a vehicle so ugly that not even its mother could love it but that can haul so much that it doesn’t even care.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is your big boy. And it’s perfect for this week’s Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week.

One of the coolest things about electric bikes is just how diverse the industry has grown, with so many different types and styles of e-bikes. But even with over a decade in the industry, nothing could have prepared me for just how awesome it would be to test out the Mod Easy Sidecar electric bike from Mod Bikes.

I waited for this day for nearly two years, biding my time until I would finally get a chance to throw a leg over the SONDORS Metacycle electric motorcycle and ride off into the sunset with the twist of a wrist.

I never quite got that sunset, but an overcast LA morning was the next best thing I could wrangle up on short notice. The SONDORS team let me take out an early production Metacycle to get a sense of how the bike rides and whether or not it lives up to the long-building hype.

Kawasaki took to the EICMA Milan Motorcycle Show to unveil a trio of electric motorcycles, with Electrek front and center to see the action live. The Kawasaki Ninja EV and Kawasaki Z EV were revealed as traditional battery electric motorcycles, while the company also unveiled an HEV hydrogen-powered concept motorcycle.

I’ll spare you the uninspired cliché about “Team Green going green,” and we’ll just get to the bikes.

Honda took to the EICMA Milan Motorcycle Show today to unveil its first European model with an electric drivetrain, the Honda EM1.

As the cars on US roads grow larger and heavier every year, perhaps going electric simply isn’t enough. To take back our cities from massive trucks and SUVs while simultaneously promoting affordable and efficient electric vehicles, New York-based startup Wink Motors thinks it has the answer.