All the cool suburbanites are already taking their kids to school, loading up at the farmers’ market, and making deliveries on clever and capable cargo e-bikes, but the new Momentum Cito E+ from Giant raises the cargo bike bar even higher — and makes leaving the car at home easier than ever.

Momentum is a new brand of “lifestyle” e-bikes from Giant Group designed to deliver premium features to customers while still hitting that $3,000-4,000 market “sweet spot.” Their latest bike, the all-new for 2024 Cito E+ utility bike, does just that, coming to market with a premium battery, Bluetooth technology, a suite of high-end safety features, and a $3,200 starting price.

Premium battery

Getting the most out of your e-bike often means getting the most out of your battery — and Momentum absolutely gets that. The Cito E+ ships with a 780 Watt-hour Panasonic battery pack with 22700 cells that have been optimized for e-bike use.

Compared to other ebike batteries with similar power ratings, the Momentum’s Panasonic battery promises to be lighter and more durable, with superior IPX7 weather protection, thermal regulation, and other safety features built-in (in fact, Panasonic was the first e-bike supplier to score a UL safety rating for its batteries).

The battery is easily removable for charging at home or in an office, but it can be charged while it’s in the bike, too. Either way, charging won’t take long — from 0 to 80% of charge (approx. 60 miles) of range is available in 3.5 hours, while a full (75 mile) charge takes less than 5 hours.

Connected cargo bike

As our test rider highlights in the video (above), the Momentum Cito E+ uses a proprietary battery management system, or BMS, to monitor the battery pack for maximum efficiency and reliability down to the individual cell level.

The BMS uses Bluetooth connectivity to transfer battery health data, state of charge, and other important information straight to the RideControl app, which enables the bike’s owner to get an in-depth look at the overall state of their e-bike and provides valuable diagnostic data to both the technicians tasked with servicing the bike and Giant themselves, to help develop even better e-bikes in the future.

That connection to Giant Group is a huge potential benefit to Momentum Cito E+ buyers, by the way, as it gives them access to support from more than 1,200 brick and mortar Giant dealers across the US alone (above).

That’s a serious advantage that online-only bike brands simply can’t match.

Safety first … and maybe second, too

Momentum’s commitment to safety doesn’t stop at the battery. The Cito E+ features confidence-inspiring 4 piston hydraulic disc brakes and a heavy duty suspension for predictable handling even under heavy loads — important if you have to suddenly haul the bike down from its electronically assisted 28 mph top speed with precious kids and cargo on the back.

LED head and taillights with a lever-activated taillight ensure Cito E+ riders will be seen, too, helping you stay safer after hours.

Accessories and add-ons

Momentum’s Cito E+ offers a comprehensive selection of accessories to help optimize it for each rider’s unique use case — whether that’s hauling up to 132 lbs. of cargo on the rear rack and 33 lbs. on the optional front basket (shown, above), or adding 2 Thule Yepp Maxi seats and getting the little ones to school five times a week.

You can find out more about the Momentum Cito E+ and the brand’s available accessories by clicking here.

Momentum Cito E+ gallery

FirstElement Fuels has opened the world’s first large-scale hydrogen fueling station for heavy-duty commercial trucks just outside the Port of Oakland.

FirstElement is calling their new filling station, which opened to the public this week for tours and demonstrations, the first of its kind. Located near the Port of Oakland, the company claims its hydrogen pumps can “fill” a truck’s hydrogen tanks in as little as ten minutes, which works out (in their math) to as many as 200 trucks per day.

As for customers, the company says there are 30 Hyundai Xcient semi trucks using the fueling station currently, as well as a number of Nikola hydrogen fuel-cell-powered trucks.

A ceremony to mark the station’s opening was held Tuesday, and was attended by state officials including Liane Randolph, chair of the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and Tyson Eckerle, clean transportation advisor for Gov. Gavin Newsom’s business development office. Primary funding for the Oakland station was provided by CARB and the California Energy Commission.

Eckerle notes that the US federal government is handing out $8 billion to jump-start what it calls the “hydrogen economy,” and expects sufficient funding to build up to 60 more hydrogen truck stations like this one in California – which would, theoretically, be enough to serve 5,000 trucks and 1,000 buses.

All well and good, but …

What if it’s already too late for hydrogen?

MAN Trucks CEO, Alexander Vlaskamp, said it best when he said that it was “impossible” for hydrogen to effectively compete with BEVs.

He’s right – on a level playing field, there is absolutely no reason to believe hydrogen has any kind of future. But we don’t operate on a level playing field, and comments like Eckerle’s, along with an $8 billion federal budget and a number of supposedly genuine industry experts touting its usefulness as a fuel, mean we have to take hydrogen seriously (at least, for now).

Even so, it seems like the tide of public opinion is already starting to turn against hydrogen. Outlets that may never have questioned a manufacturer’s claims about a hydrogen-fueled vehicle a few years ago now seem more than willing to call those claims out. Here’s just one example:

Producing hydrogen itself can be very dirty. Most hydrogen produced today requires methane, which is a fossil fuel and a strong greenhouse gas contributor. The industry is working on production alternatives, including carbon capture and storage from the burning of methane, or quitting methane altogether to make green hydrogen, using an electrolyzer to split water’s hydrogen and oxygen.

Both alternatives are prohibitively expensive without government subsidies.

RUSS MITCHELL, AOL/Los Angeles TIMES.

So far, it’s not clear that FirstElement’s claims about either the sustainability of its hydrogen or the practicality of its filling station will convince many battery electric absolutists.

Take the company’s hydrogen production process as an example. FirstElement says that its supplier, Air Liquide in Las Vegas, uses natural gas as “feedstock” for its hydrogen. It buys biogas to blend with natural gas in order to create hydrogen – and that, because the gas used is more than 60% renewable, the hydrogen qualifies as “green.”

FirstElement hydrogen production

Additionally, the claim of 10 minute fast fills should come with an asterisk or two. That’s because FirstGreen is using new “cryopump” technology from Bosch Rexroth to allow for filling at 900 bar (15,000 psi). While that seems like more enough to push 100 kg into a tank in about ten minutes, cryogenically cooling hydrogen is an energy intensive technology that requires a lot of electricity to function properly. Electricity that it says will come from the stored hydrogen.

In fairness, however, Bosch has some ideas here to help station owners maximize the usefulness of all that electricity.

“Cold is like gold,” says Dave Hull, regional vice-president, Bosch Rexroth. “You’ve got all this cold energy. All my career I worked to get rid of heat. You can take that energy and run a whole station’s refrigerators for Rock Star energy drinks, or air conditioning. Bosh has a whole division of heat pumps and building technologies.”

Whether or not that added efficiency adds up to actual energy and cost savings, rather than a lifeline for the gas industry and tier 1 auto suppliers like Bosch however, remains to be seen. Meanwhile, hydrogen costs continue to rise.

Platts last assessed California’s retail hydrogen price at $33.48/kg Jan. 4, 2023, which is the weighted average hydrogen price offered at retail fueling stations across the state. The price has risen 112% from when Platts began the assessment in September 2021, according to S&P Global Commodity Insights data.

SP GLOBAL

Despite the high cost of hydrogen (“green” hydrogen is more expensive, still), Shane Stephens, one of FirstElement’s founders and its chief development officer, remains undeterred.

“We, at FirstElement Fuels, have a lot of confidence the market is coming,” says Stephens. “We see the regulations on the horizon, the OEMs and fleet owners are going to have to respond to that, especially when it comes to goods movement, and hydrogen and fuel cells are the best – if not only – solution that will work for many of those use cases.”

Electrek’s Take

As a light vehicle fuel – despite the efforts of Hyundai, Toyota, and (more recently) Honda – things aren’t going well for hydrogen. As a fuel for massive semi trucks and even bigger heavy equipment, however, it might stand a chance against current battery technology.

But battery tech isn’t stagnant, and lighter, better, faster charging battery news that used to come every year, and then every month, now seems to be coming every week – and I’d argue that you’d be foolish to assume batteries that are twice as energy dense at half the weight won’t be here well ahead of California’s 2035 ICE ban.

But that’s just me. You guys are smart. Head on down to the comments and let us know what you think.