Police offers stand guard near demonstrators blocking the entrance to a Luma Energy facility at the Puerto Rico Electric Authority (Prepa) Palo Seco Power Plant in Toa Baja, Puerto Rico, on Friday June 4, 2021.
Xavier Garcia | Bloomberg | Getty Images
When Hurricane Fiona hit Puerto Rico in September, Felipe Pérez was ready.
Pérez, the owner of local sandwich shop chain El Meson, equipped his stand-alone locations with power generators and water tanks in the event of a prolonged outage like the one after Hurricane Maria, the devastating storm that ravaged the island in 2017.
His business was one of the lucky ones. Many businesses were forced to shut down for weeks after Hurricane Fiona hit. And even for some businesses that quickly got electricity back, “the cost of operations was so high that they would rather close,” Pérez said.
The state of Puerto Rico’s power grid has been a sore spot for many island businesses and residents, leading to backlash against Luma Energy — the company brought in to operate and improve the grid after Hurricane Maria.
The Luma takeover
Luma Energy officially took over control of the island’s power grid in June 2021 for the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, or PREPA. The company, a joint venture between Houston-based Quanta Services and Calgary-based ATCO, was tasked with operating, maintaining and modernizing the island’s beaten-down grid.
Improvements since then appear to have been slow to come, with power outages becoming the norm even before Hurricane Fiona, according to residents and media reports, leading to seemingly growing dissatisfaction with Luma. In September, a Puerto Rico resident told local news station WAPA TV: “Here, you blow out a birthday candle and the power goes out.”
“Since [Hurricane] Maria, they have basically just restrung the wires, they fixed some of the transfer stations, and the basic generation system is still the same,” said Tom Sanzillo, director of financial analysis at the IEEFA. “That means we’re sort of nowhere, and nothing’s really been fundamentally invested in the grid.”
Island residents have also protested due to Luma’s services. In July, about two months before Hurricane Fiona hit Puerto Rico, hundreds of residents marched to Gov. Pedro Pierluisi’s home in Old San Juan, demanding the Luma contract be canceled.
Pierluisi told local newspaper El Nuevo Día that he asked Luma to make some management changes so the company could better handle the situation. Luma didn’t comment on those remarks but has said that the grid — which serves more than 1.4 million clients — had for decades been mismanaged by its predecessor, PREPA, and that “the more than 3,000 men and woman of LUMA are focused on restoring power to every customer impacted by Category 1 Hurricane Fiona and building and transforming the electric system for the future.”
“When we took over about 16 months ago, the situation of the power grid was 60% worse than the worst fourth-quartile utility in the country,” said Shay Bahramirad, senior vice president of engineering asset management and capital programs at Luma Energy.
But while most of the island may have power restored, customers still need to contend with crippling high energy costs.
Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration shows that commercial customers in Puerto Rico on average pay 29.4 cents per kilowatt hour as of June 2022. That’s more than double the U.S. average of 12.9 cents per kWh. Residential customers, meanwhile, pay 27.68 cents per kWh on average, while the U.S. average is around 15 cents per kWh.
Luma’s Bahramirad said the company has “nothing to do with increased electricity costs,” adding that this is primarily a function of higher energy costs around the world. Energy prices have soared this year in part due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
But Sanzillo of the IEEFA thinks this disparity could have been at least mitigated through improvements to the grid’s infrastructure.
“If you had changed considerable amounts of the system, you’d still have high prices — you can’t change everything overnight — but you would have been at least buffered a little bit,” Sanzillo said.
El Meson’s Pérez said he hasn’t received the electric bill for September yet but that he would not pay for “electricity that wasn’t consumed.”
All of this comes as Puerto Rico’s economy struggles to recover. FactSet data shows that Puerto Rico’s real GDP has fallen in nine of the past 10 years. On top of that, Puerto Rico’s population fell 11.8% from 2010 to 2020, while the overall U.S. population grew by 7.4% in that time, according to Census Bureau data.
“The exodus has been tremendous, especially among [young adults],” said Pérez. “The island needs young people who can assume leadership roles on the island.”
The Tesla Cybertruck is in crisis. The automaker is still sitting on a ton of old inventory, which it is now heavily discounting, and it is throttling down production to try to avoid building up the inventory again.
When launching the production version of the Cybertruck in late 2023, Tesla CEO Elon Musk claimed that the vehicle program would reach 250,000 units a year in 2025:
“I think we’ll end up with roughly a quarter million Cybertrucks a year, but I don’t think we’re going to reach that output rate next year. I think we’ll probably reach it sometime in 2025.”
We are now in 2025, and Tesla is expected to currently be selling the Cybertruck at a rate of about 25,000 units a year – a tenth of what Musk predicted.
Earlier this month, we reported that Tesla began the second quarter with 2,400 Cybertrucks in inventory, valued at over $200 million.
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This is a real problem for Tesla as many of those Cybertrucks are older 2024 model year units not eligible for the federal tax credit, and even some ‘Foundation Series’, which Tesla stopped building in October 2024 – meaning that Tesla is sitting on some 6-month-old trucks in some cases.
Tesla is now offering deeper discounts on the new inventory of Cybertrucks. The discounts can go as high as $10,000, but the average one is closer to $8,000, which is more than the tax credit:
Despite Tesla’s efforts, the automaker has only reduced its Cybertruck inventory by about 100 units since the beginning of the month.
Tesla is now further throttling down production of the Cybertruck at Gigafactory Texas, according to a new report from Business Insider.
According to two Tesla workers speaking with BI, the automaker has reduced its Cybertruck production teams and now operates at a fraction of its original capacity. It also moved some Cybertruck production workers to Model Y production at the plant.
One of the workers said:
“It feels a lot like they’re filtering people out. The parking lot keeps getting emptier.”
When it comes to the Cybertruck program, it sounds like Tesla is lowering production even further.
Last week, Tesla launched a new version of the Cybertruck in an attempt to boost demand, but it has been poorly received due to the automaker’s removal of many essential features.
Electrek’s Take
There are a lot of other automakers that would have already given up on the Cybertruck ith these results, but not Tesla. Musk is not one to admit defeat easily.
However, Tesla is running out of options.
The new Cybertruck RWD was a desperate attempt, and I doubt it will work. Now, it sounds like Tesla is further throttling down production – virtually confirming that the new trim didn’t help.
The next step would be a complete production pause.
Again, I don’t think Musk wants to admit defeat, but at some point, it’s inevitable.
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LiveWire, the electric motorcycle brand spun out of Harley-Davidson, has officially launched a new line of electric motorcycles tailored for law enforcement and security use. The move marks another example of electric two-wheelers expanding beyond consumer markets and into professional and government fleets.
The company’s new LiveWire fleet program debuted with its electric motorcycle models adapted to include law enforcement-specific features like sirens, emergency lighting, and reinforced mounting points for gear. They are designed for urban patrol duties, security, and events where agility and low operational noise are critical.
As LiveWire explains, the electric drivetrain offers several advantages over traditional gas-powered police motorcycles, including lower maintenance needs, reduced operational costs, and near-silent operation. Those can be strategic advantages for many law enforcement departments. Instant torque and quick acceleration also give officers a performance edge in dense urban environments.
Additionally, the lack of a clutch and the ability to operate the motorcycle entirely with just the right hand and right foot, as opposed to a traditional motorcycle requiring the use of both hands and both feet, make the bikes ideal for reducing rider fatigue during long shifts and for low-speed operation like motorcade duty.
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Departments will be able to configure bikes with a range of custom options through LiveWire’s fleet division. The fleet program highlights benefits such as regenerative braking for improved efficiency, customizable ride modes, and short recharging times allowing officers to quickly recharge during shifts if needed.
The initiative comes at a time when interest in electric police vehicles is rising. Several major cities have already begun integrating electric vehicles including e-bikes into their fleets to reduce emissions and lower fuel costs. LiveWire’s dedicated police motorcycles could help fill a niche where traditional gas-powered motorcycles are too noisy, high-maintenance, or costly for modern policing needs. That’s exaclty what we’ve seen in the past when the original Harley-Davidson LiveWire electric motorcycle was already drafted into police department use years ago.
For now, LiveWire’s police models are targeting agencies across North America, but given the growing global demand for greener fleets, it’s likely we’ll see broader adoption if the program proves successful.
Electric motorcycles have also proven popular among police departments and security forces both in the US and around the world.
As electric vehicle technology continues to improve and charging infrastructure expands, it’s all but inevitable that more police and security fleets will gradually transition to electric models.
The combination of lower operating costs, easier maintenance, and environmental benefits makes electrification an increasingly practical and attractive option for public safety agencies.
Current battery technology, which generally provides around 100 miles (160 km) of range, positions these electric motorcycles ideally for urban law enforcement roles. This urban setting is precisely where their strengths become most apparent. Quiet operation, zero emissions, and significantly reduced maintenance costs make electric police motorcycles particularly beneficial for high-mileage city fleets.
Imagine landing at JFK or LaGuardia after a fun but taxing vacation, and instead of hailing a two-hour cab ride or asking your brother-in-law to come and get you, you take to the skies in an eVTOL. You’re back on the ground in 15 minutes for a short trip back home to bed. What a time to be alive. eVTOL developer Archer Aviation is making this dream a reality alongside its business partner, United Airlines, offering travelers to NYC a new map of air taxi routes to travel to and from NYC airports.
As you may or may not already know, Archer Aviation ($ACHR) is a Santa Clara, California-based aviation developer specializing in designing and developing electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, particularly for use in urban air mobility (UAM) networks such as air taxi services.
Archer remains one of the more exciting eVTOL developers we follow and stays relevant on our news beat with steady announcements of new partnerships with companies worldwide to develop and implement networks of sustainable air travel using its flagship Midnight eVTOL aircraft.
One of Archer’s long-standing partners has been Stellantis, which signed an agreement to become the exclusive manufacturer of Archer’s eVTOL technology at a new facility in the US, specifically Covington, Georgia. Last summer, Archer announced that a new US facility had completed construction, and Midnight eVTOL production was scheduled to begin in early 2025.
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In addition to Stellantis, plenty of other big names have invested in Archer and/or signed agreements with the eVTOL specialist, including Boeing and ARK Invest. Aviation companies like Southwest and Soracle in Japan have signed ventures to establish eVTOL air taxi networks in major metropolitan areas like Tokyo, Los Angeles, and Chicago – the latter of which comes via a landmark agreement with Signature Airlines signed in June 2024.
Another partner is United Airlines, which is working alongside Archer to establish a new eVTOL air taxi network around the NYC metropolitan area, connecting Manhattan to several nearby airports. You can see the NYC air taxi route map below:
Source: Archer
Archer unveils eVTOL air taxi routes coming to NYC
Archer Aviation unveiled the initial route map for air taxi operations in NYC this morning alongside details of its ongoing partnership with United Airlines. The pending air taxi network includes vertiports at JFK, LaGuardia, and Newark Airports around NYC and a presence at regional airports and three helipads in the city itself.
Per Archer, the goal is to provide travelers with a new, safe, and sustainable method of transportation in which they can visit a nearby heliport and fly 5 to 15 minutes in a Midnight eVTOL to their destination as opposed to potentially sitting in hours of NYC traffic. Archer founder and CEO Adam Goldstein elaborated:
The New York region is home to three of the world’s preeminent airports, serving upwards of 150 million passengers annually. But the drive from Manhattan to any of these airports can be painful, taking one, sometimes two hours. We want to change that by giving residents and visitors the option to complete trips in mere minutes. With its existing helicopter infrastructure, regulatory support and strong demand, I believe New York could be one of the first markets for air taxis in the United States.
Thanks to its partnership with United, Archer said its future passengers can book air taxi flights in NYC as an “add-on” to their existing itinerary. As an example, the eVTOL developer said a customer would be able to take a Midnight eVTOL, which is designed to transport four passengers plus a pilot, from a vertiport downtown to the Newark Airport in less than ten minutes, then go through security and board their commercial flight as normal, saving tons of time along the way.
Source: Archer
As a long-term investor and customer in Archer’s eVTOL technology, United Airlines intends to work alongside its partner to help make these air taxi routes around NYC a reality. Andrew Chang, Head of United Airlines Ventures, also spoke:
At United, our focus is on driving innovation, reimagining the future of air travel and enhancing the customer experience every step of the journey. Our strategic collaboration with Archer will be key to our efforts to build and optimize the infrastructure – such as real estate development, air space management, and safety and security protocols – necessary to bring advanced air mobility to our customers.
Here is the full list of planned vertiports for air taxi travel around the NYC metropolitan area:
Major Airports: John F. Kennedy International Airport, LaGuardia Airport, Newark Airport
NYC Helipads: East 34th Street Heliport, Downtown Skyport, West 30th Street Heliport
Regional Airports: Westchester County Airport, Teterboro Airport, Republic Airport
The NYC network is a part of Archer’s more extensive plans to establish eVTOL air taxi travel across populated and traffic-dense areas in the US, including additional networks in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Archer shared it is currently working through the final stages of FAA approval to get those routes up and running.
A representative for the company shared the following update when asked when we might see Archer air taxi operations in the New York City area:
We’re taking a step by step approach for any new market we’re launching in, starting with a few aircraft on a few routes. We’ll ramp commercial operations upon receiving Type Certification from the FAA. We’re in the final stages of FAA type certification for Midnight, and once complete, we’ll be ready to begin commercial operations. We will start slowly, with a “crawl, walk, run” approach with Midnight’s roll-out. In the U.S., we’ve identified New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco as our initial markets.
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