Micah Toll

Walmart has long offered an interesting array of low-cost electric bicycles. Some of the bikes have even dipped down into ultra-budget territory with prices below $400. It can be a good option for those that want the utility of an electric bicycle but don’t have a lot of spare cash. But while Walmart is known for its super cheap e-bikes, the company has never offered higher-end e-bikes with nicer features like mid-drive motors. At least, not until now with the launch of Kent’s new mid-drive electric bike.

With average national gas prices passing $5 per gallon in the US, there’s no time like the present to find a cost-effective alternative to driving. And if that money-saving alternative happens to be fun, efficient, healthy, and better for the air your kids breathe, then all the better.

In fact, considering how much gas costs right now and how big many American cars are, you’d be surprised how few stops at the gas station it would take to buy you a brand spankin’ new electric bicycle that could replace many of your local trips. Plenty of people have saved thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars by replacing their cars or trucks with e-bikes. Could you be next?

The wonderful thing about Alibaba is that you can find just about any type of vehicle under the sun, especially electric vehicles. Want to explore the seas? Have an electric boat. Want an entire backyard train set to drive your friends around your sprawling property? Here’s your own train. Storming a Normandy beach? How about an electric Willys Jeep?

But when it comes time to mount up on your own electric steed and hit the highway for some midlife crisis motorcycle fun, you’re going to want to turn your attention to this awesome electric motorcycle that earned a coveted spot as this week’s Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week.

Los Angeles-based micromobility company Bird is looking to trim down, at the cost of hundreds of jobs. The shared electric scooter company has reportedly let go 23% of its employees in its latest round of layoffs.

REI has just launched two new models of e-bikes as part of its new “Generation e” line of electric bicycles. The new e-bikes were unveiled under REI’s Co-op Cycles bicycle line and are known as the Co-op Generation e1.1 and Generation e1.2 e-bikes.

One little Swiss microcar (technically a quadricycle) has made a disproportionately sized splash. The pint-sized four-wheeled electric vehicle known as the Microlino may be petite, but it’s got a long line forming out the door counting over 30,000 reservation holders. And today the company officially opened its configurator to let those early adopters begin building their own Microlino vehicles ahead of full-scale production.

German automotive manufacturer Porsche isn’t sitting in the slow lane when it comes to expanding the company’s reach in the electric bike market. Porsche’s latest power move in the two-wheeled EV industry just saw it buy up Fazua, an innovative electric bicycle drive manufacturer.

While the Golden City is far from perfect and certainly has its own fair share of problems (name one that doesn’t), San Francisco is known to lead on many social issues. And the latest move from SF will soon see it giving out dozens of free electric bicycles to delivery drivers to be used as delivery e-bikes.

For those who haven’t yet had the pleasure (or misfortune) to discover it, I happen to write a weekly column showcasing some of the weirdest and most awesome electric vehicles I can find on the eclectic Chinese shopping site Alibaba. I’ve actually bought some of the weird EVs I’ve found, as have some of my more misguided readers who disregarded my advice not to do something dumb like me and fork over real money for what sometimes looks like imaginary vehicles.

But this time one of my enthusiastic readers has even outdone me, finding something awesomely weird that I haven’t even featured yet, and then taking a several thousand-dollar leap of faith on it. So without any further ado, check out his wild-looking 6,000W standing electric ATV…thing.

… and they actually look fun enough that I’ve got a half a mind to enroll in my local police academy, if it comes with a standard-issue patrol trike. The Trikke Positron, which is the trike’s official name, is an all-wheel-drive standing electric scooter that very well could have criminals scratching their heads, at least if they weren’t already cuffed behind their backs.

I’ve set foot on just about every budget electric scooter on the market, and it’s not very often that I get to see something genuinely innovative and new. But that’s exactly what the ANYHILL UM-2 electric scooter delivers: a novel innovation in the form of a pop-up removable battery hidden below the deck.

Electric bike manufacturer Evelo is back with a brand-new model known as the Evelo Galaxy SL. The updated model is designed as a comfort cruiser that should be ideal for a wide range of riders.

Every time I think I’ve seen the electric scooter envelope pushed as far as it can go, someone comes along and builds a bigger envelope. This time that someone is California-based electric scooter company Voro Motors, which is prepared to break the internet (and perhaps a few bones) with a pint-size 65 mph (105 km/h) seated electric scooter known as the Voro Motors RoadRunner Tronic.

I’ve been an electric bike proponent for well over a decade. My love affair with e-bikes began when I discovered their utility as car replacements (and has led to me living essentially car-free since high school). But I learned more about their usefulness as I dove deeper into the fitness and recreational aspects of e-bikes. Now, after a recent trip around Iceland, I have gained a whole new appreciation for electric bikes as tourist wheels. And here’s why you should definitely consider renting an e-bike on your next vacation.

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 the West Coast Electric Highway adding electric bicycle chargers to its electric car charging stations, new e-bike belt drive products from Gates Carbon Drive, a review of the super-affordable Luna Eclipse folding belt-drive full-suspension fat tire e-bike, a new seated electric scooter from Fucare, USPS testing electric mail bikes, a flying electric water taxi and lots more.

When it comes to electric cars on China’s largest online shopping site Alibaba, you can find just about anything. And that variety has kept me in business, so to speak, by finding the weirdest and most fun ones out there for my weekly Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week column. That often means funny-shaped electric vehicles or sometimes odd mashups that take to the sea or even the sky. But sometimes it’s not what is added to a vehicle that makes it special, but rather what is suubtracted. And that’s the case this week, where this funky little electric car seems to have had the rear end torn off without anyone noticing.

I recently wrote an opinion piece about how the United States Postal Service (USPS) could look to solve its gas-guzzler truck problem by following Europe’s example of delivering mail with smaller electric cargo bikes. As it turns out, the postal service has already been testing this out, and the little electric mail bikes look pretty snazzy too.

When Giant Group’s new “lifestyle-inspired” electric bike sub-brand Momentum unveiled the Voya E+ 3, it did so at a positively mid-range price of $2,400. That brought it in below the fancier mid-drive e-bikes in most bike shops but well above the value-oriented direct to consumer e-bikes. Considering it has one wheel solidly in each camp, let’s see how it competes against the rest of the industry.

Standing electric scooters that can zip around the city at 20 mph (32 km/h) sure are convenient, but what do you do when your feet get tired and beg for a rest? Apparently you pop a squat – at least if you have a seated scooter, that is. And the new Fucare HU3 Pro seated electric scooter offers just that: a speedy yet comfortable riding position in a compact and affordable vehicle.

UK-based premium electric bicycle maker Gocycle is redesigning the company’s retail model in a move to bring more value to both its retailers and its customers. The good news for the latter group is that the new model means much lower pricing on Gocycle’s most premium (and most expensive) fourth-generation e-bikes known as the G4 line.

Crowdfunding is a common way for many small companies to get their start, and is especially common in the light electric vehicle industry for e-bike and e-scooter companies. But let’s face it, crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo are still erroneously synonymous with scams in the minds of many.

Believe it or not, many of the biggest names in electric bicycle companies these days actually got their start on those platforms, proving that just because a company is pre-selling e-bikes doesn’t mean they won’t deliver.

Energica, known for its sport-inspired electric motorcycles that offer all three levels of charging speeds, has just unveiled its newest model known as the Energica Experia Green Tourer. The comfort-oriented electric motorcycle combines a large battery with fast charging to create a bike that can go the distance and then keep on going.

Stockholm-based Candela, the world leader in hydrofoil electric boats that fly above the surface of the water to consume significantly less energy, has just unveiled its newest electric watercraft: the Candela P-8 Voyager. Designed to replace traditional water taxies and commercial passenger watercraft that have conventionally relied on combustion engines for power, the P-8 Voyager is preparing to usher in a brave new world for maritime transportation.

Mother Nature may be beautiful, powerful, and mystifying, but it’s Father Time who eventually catches up with all of us. We start out young and eager on our cute little red tricycles, our parents giving us an early push. We grow into kids on our first real bike, then progress toward power as we mount our first motorcycle. The years pass as we hop from bike to bike, invariably chasing just a bit more power or speed. The horsepower grows. The torque climbs higher. The sun ages our leather riding gloves until the lines begin to match those on our faces.

And one day, without fail, Father Time catches us all. We end up right back on a trike, savoring the stability of three wheels to give our old, broken bodies one last wind-in-our-face highway thrill. But if your social security hasn’t been as good to you as you had hoped, it might be time to give up the dream of a brand new chromed-out Harley Tri-Glide and instead look at something more like a $500 Chinese electric trike. And boy, do I have just the trike for you!