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America has an SUV problem. Or rather, just a big vehicle problem in general. The land of SUVs and pickup trucks has somehow been tricked into thinking you need a 4,000-pound vehicle to carry 20 pounds of groceries home from the supermarket.

But there’s a better way, and it’s called an electric cargo bike. It will save you money. It will save you time. It will make you more attractive. And it will make you happier. I all but guarantee it.

Now let’s be clear about something. When I say “You don’t need an SUV,” I’m speaking in general terms. It’s true – generally – for most people reading this article right now.

Sure, there are some of you that regularly transport seven people across vast distances on highway and interstates. But most of us don’t. It’s a simple numbers game. Most people in the US live in cities and urban centers. And that’s why you don’t need a massive SUV.

And even for those that do “need” an SUV for certain specific tasks, you don’t need it most of the time. I’d bet dollars to donuts that most people reading this right now who own an SUV do most of their trips in it with just one or two passengers.

For those that really need a car, you probably only need a small hatchback or sedan. But I’m going to make the case for why you probably don’t even need that, or at least not for most of your trips. Especially when you consider just how far electric cargo bikes have come.

Twenty years ago, a cargo bike was a nifty invention and fun to look at, but they cost a fortune and lord help you if you ever had to pedal one up a hill.

But electric bikes have come to the rescue. Electric motors now allow e-bike builders to make cargo bikes that are easier to pedal up hills (or that don’t require any pedaling at all in the case of throttle-enabled electric cargo bikes). Prices are also quickly dropping, meaning you can get a great cargo e-bike for a song. Instead of buying an expensive second car, you can probably get away with one car and one cargo e-bike.

Front-loader cargo bikes have big buckets up front for kids or gear.

There are two main styles of cargo e-bikes: front-loaders and longtails. (Technically there are also cargo e-trikes as well, but we’ll leave three-wheelers for another discussion soon.)

Front-loaders have a big cargo area in the front and are generally more expensive due to the funky frame and complicated steering linkage that front loaders require.

Longtails look more like a normal bike but have loooooong rear ends that are stretched to give more rack and seat space behind the rider.

Longtail cargo e-bikes look more like normal bikes.

Front-loaders are a bit more advanced and can take more time to get acclimated to, as the rider is much farther from the front wheel than they’re probably used to. If you’re new to cargo bikes, a longtail is probably a better place to start.

Both offer great cargo space, they just do it differently.

Can cargo e-bikes actually replace SUVs?

Okay, so cargo e-bikes sound neat and all. But c’mon, can they really replace cars and trucks?

Yes, for most people they can. And you might balk at that, but there’s a reason why I’m confidently correct here.

It’s true because most people don’t use their SUVs to explore to the Amazon. They use them to go buy the stuff they can’t find on Amazon.

Picking up groceries. Dropping off a kid or two at school. Driving to work. These are all normal, everyday tasks that for some reason people think requires heavy machinery. Which is as ridiculous as it is depressing. If you live in a city and you drive a massive car, then you’re probably in the wrong. Unless you’ve got several dozen 2×4’s hanging out the back of that truck or the entire starting lineup from little Jimmy’s T-ball team in your SUV, then you don’t need that massive vehicle.

I’ve actually used cargo e-bikes to carry construction material before, including bags of cement and dimensional lumber. It’s just not that hard.

And I’ve carried multiple passengers on them as well. Three people on a cargo e-bike is pretty standard, though it helps when one or two of those extra souls are also children.

radrunner electric cargo bike utility bike

A reddit commenter in a walkable cities advocacy group recently put it best. As the redditor explained, “Are there viable bikes that can replace the true power and utility of an SUV? Not even close. Are there bikes that can replace what 99% of drivers use their SUVs for 99% of the time? Absolutely.”

You said it, IndependentParsnip31!

Now again, there are going to be those people who say, “But I need my truck, I use it for XYZ that a bike can’t do!”

And I get it. There are some big jobs out there. My sister runs a furniture refinishing business and regularly hauls dressers, desks, and other big things around town.

But then again, maybe you’re just still stuck in that “I need a car to do this” mentality. Did you know there are actually moving companies that work entirely by bicycle? They’ll move your apartment without getting trucks involved.

When there’s a will (and a cargo bike), there’s a way.

Cargo e-bikes save money

Not only can cargo e-bikes do most of what most people use their SUVs and trucks for, but they do it cheaper.

The hundreds of dollars per month that your truck or SUV burns in gasoline would equate to probably less than a dollar of electricity to power an electric cargo bike. If you do some serious mileage then you might be looking at as much as two dollars of electricity per month.

And don’t forget the hundreds (or perhaps thousands) of dollars you’ll save each month on parking, insurance, car payments, maintenance, and all the other costs associated with car ownership.

Even the purchase price is usually 10x less. If you go nuts with the best electric cargo bikes out there from the highest dollar manufacturers, you could be looking at expensive $8,000 e-bikes. But if you are more reasonable, there are great options in the $4,000 range and still very good options in the sub-$2,000 range.

Heck, you can even get close to $1,000 if you really try. Take for example the $999 Lectric XP 3.0. It’s not a cargo e-bike (but rather a fat-tire folding e-bike), though it turns into a cargo bike when you add the $110 cargo package. Or add the $74 passenger package to easily carry a second adult rider on the bike.

The RadRunner is another great passenger-carrying e-bike.

Other affordable e-bikes like the Rad Power Bikes RadRunner 2 (or RadRunner Plus shown in the video above) are purpose-built for carrying passengers and offer a comfortable way to bring a friend or loved one on back.

You can even fit two riders on the back of a RadRunner as long as they’re fairly small.

Why drive to dinner in a massive car when you and your wife could zip there on an e-bike built for two? Add a little excitement and adventure into date night!

Look, just think about it

Let’s get real: Most people could do most of their daily travel needs in a city on an e-bike. But because of the world we live in, that doesn’t mean that a car can be totally replaced all the time.

For some people, that means not owning a car and occasionally using a car sharing service for the once-in-a-while Ikea trip or other car-related journey. My wife and I did that for years. If we needed a car for a couple hours here and there, we rented a car for a couple hours. It was waiting on the street corner and that’s where we left it when we were done. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

For others that still use a car somewhat frequently, perhaps that means having one family car but getting an e-bike instead of a second car. And of course, that also means trying to use the e-bike for as many trips as possible.

mate suv electric cargo bike
Some e-bikes can fit several riders and tons of cargo.

If you live at the end of a 3-mile private driveway that connects to a 70 mph six-lane highway, then an e-bike probably can’t be your only vehicle. But you also don’t exist because that’s a silly made-up scenario that the anti-anti-car crowd tends to think is all too common.

In reality, of course there are people that an e-bike won’t work for and of course there are still some cases where a big vehicle may be necessary. But those people and those cases are much fewer and farther between than most will realize. Sometimes it just takes looking at the problem from another angle.

The cargo e-bike angle.

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Global energy giant RWE halts US offshore wind because of Trump

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Global energy giant RWE halts US offshore wind because of Trump

Global renewable developer and energy giant RWE has halted its US offshore wind operations “for the time being” because of the “political environment” the Trump administration has created.

RWE, Germany’s biggest electricity producer, said in March that it had dialed back its US offshore wind activities. But now, CEO Marcus Krebber said in a speech transcript, which he’ll deliver at the company’s Annual General Meeting in Essen on April 30, that its US offshore wind business is now closed (but it wasn’t all bad news): 

In the US, where we have stopped our offshore activities for the time being, our business in onshore wind, solar energy, and battery storage has so far been developing very dynamically. At the start of this year, we reached an important milestone when our US generation capacity hit the 10 gigawatt mark. The construction of a further 4 gigawatts is secured.

He went on to say that renewables have created regional value and jobs, but that the company remains “cautious given the political developments.” RWE has introduced more stringent requirements for future US investments:

All necessary federal permits must be in place. Tax credits must be safe harbored and all relevant tariff risks mitigated. In addition, onshore wind and solar projects must have secured offtake at the time of the investment decision. Only if these conditions are met will further investments be possible, given the political environment.

About half of RWE’s installed renewable capacity is in the US, where it’s the third-largest renewable energy company through its subsidiary, RWE Clean Energy. RWE holds the rights to develop US offshore wind projects in New York, Louisiana, and California.

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RWE paid $1.1 billion for the New York lease area in 2022, where it’s meant to develop the 3 gigawatt (GW) Community Offshore Wind with the UK’s National Grid. Community Offshore Wind was projected to come online in the early 2030s and expected to power more than a million homes.

The developer paid $5.6 billion for the Louisiana lease in the Gulf of Mexico in 2023 as the lone bidder for development rights, and the Canopy Offshore Wind project off Northern California was not expected to be completed for another decade.

Read more: Trump admin halts $5 billion NY offshore wind project mid-build


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Trump’s memecoin dinner contest earns insiders $900,000 in two days

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Trump's memecoin dinner contest earns insiders 0,000 in two days

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump and his allies have raked in nearly $900,000 in trading fees over the past two days from the president’s $TRUMP cryptocurrency token, according to Chainalysis, a blockchain data company. 

The surge came after a Wednesday announcement in which the top 220 holders of the token were promised dinner with the president.

“Have Dinner in Washington, D.C. With President Trump,” reads a message on the front page of the Trump coin’s website. The event, which is black tie optional and hosted at the president’s private club in the Washington area, is scheduled for May 22, with a reception for the top 25 holders. A “VIP White House Tour” will take place the following day, the site says. The website also hosts an active leaderboard displaying the usernames of top buyers.

The $TRUMP memecoin jumped more than 50% on the dinner news, boosting its total market value to $2.7 billion. It was met with fierce criticism from some of Trump’s political opponents who said the move was further evidence that the president was using crypto to enrich himself. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., a prominent Trump critic, wrote on X that the sale was “the most brazenly corrupt thing a President has ever done. Not close.”

Roughly 80% of the $TRUMP token supply is controlled by the Trump Organization and affiliates, according to the project’s website. Since its launch in January, trading activity has generated about $324.5 million in trading fees for insiders, Chainalysis found. These fees are generated through the token’s built-in mechanism that routes a percentage of each trade to wallets controlled by the project — wallets that, according to the website, are linked to the coin’s creators.

Memecoins, often referred to as meme tokens, are a subset of digital assets that use blockchain technology and derive their value largely from internet culture, memes and social media hype rather than from an underlying utility or asset. The originators of memecoins can make fees when their coins are bought and sold.

They have grown in popularity in recent years as speculative assets, with some coins including dogecoin and fartcoin amassing total market values in excess of $1 billion.

Most of the $TRUMP supply remains locked under a three-year vesting plan, with coins gradually becoming available over time. Lockups like these are meant to protect investors by preventing insiders from cashing out all at once — a scheme commonly known in the crypto world as a “rug pull.” Vesting schedules aim to give retail buyers confidence that early holders won’t overwhelm the market and tank the token’s value.

Still, the dinner contest is being viewed by critics as an unusually explicit attempt to monetize presidential access. 

As CNBC reported Friday, Democratic Sens. Adam Schiff of California and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts are urging the U.S. Office of Government Ethics to investigate whether the promotion constitutes “pay to play” corruption.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment. The company behind the memecoin also did not respond to a request for comment.

Delaney Marsco, the director of ethics at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit focused on campaign finance and government accountability, told NBC News the coin and dinner contest amounted to an unprecedented ethics breach — though it is unlikely to be illegal.

“Criminal conflicts of interest statutes don’t apply to the President,” she said. “That has allowed him to go against decades of of norms that every modern president since Carter has adhered to, which is to divest your financial interests, rid yourself of your businesses, and kind of go in to the presidency with a clean financial slate so that no one could accuse you of manipulating policy decisions or using your position in order to enrich yourself.” 

“The fact that he is not barred by the law from having these financial interests like this meme coin allows him to engage in a lot of seemingly corrupt activity. It has the appearance of a pay to play, so the President is apparently selling access to himself,” Marsco added.

Molly White, an independent crypto researcher, told NBC News that the leaderboard only shows top $TRUMP holders — and then only by their chosen screen name, making it difficult to identify who is paying to potentially join the dinner.

Schiff and Warren have cited public reports showing that some $TRUMP investors have ties to foreign exchanges or received funds from crypto platforms banned in the U.S., including Binance.

White also noted that at least one top $TRUMP owner has an account on Binance, a cryptocurrency company that doesn’t allow American users.

Trump was elected with significant help from the cryptocurrency industry, which poured tens of millions of dollars into the 2024 election, outpacing corporate donations from traditional sectors like banking and oil. After opposing digital assets during his first term, Trump pivoted in 2024 to campaign as a champion of cryptocurrency, casting Democrats as hostile to innovation and as advocating for tighter regulation. 

The $TRUMP token itself offers no product or service, according to the project’s website. It is part of a broader push by the Trump family into digital assets, despite the market’s volatility and regulatory risks.

In addition to the $TRUMP and $MELANIA meme coins, the family is backing World Liberty Financial, a decentralized finance venture that has raised $550 million across two token sales since last October. Buyers are barred from reselling their tokens and receive no share of profits — but a Trump-affiliated entity is entitled to 75% of net revenue, including token sale proceeds.

Together, these projects have created new streams of revenue for Trump and his inner circle at a time when regulatory oversight of cryptocurrency has weakened sharply under his administration.

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Drive Electric Earth Month, continues this weekend, get your EV Qs answered

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Drive Electric Earth Month, continues this weekend, get your EV Qs answered

It’s that time of year again, time for events across the country to show off electric vehicles at Drive Electric Earth Month.

Drive Electric Earth Month is an offshoot of Drive Electric Week, a long-running annual tradition hosting meetups mostly in the US, but also occasionally in other countries. It started as Drive Electric Earth Day, but since not every event can happen on the same day, they went ahead and extended it to encompass “Earth Month” events that happen across the month of April. It’s all organized by Plug In America, the Sierra Club, the Electric Vehicle Association, EV Hybrid Noire, and Drive Electric USA.

Events consist of general Earth Day-style community celebrations, EV Ride & Drives where you can test drive several EVs in one place, and opportunities to talk to EV owners and ask them questions about what it’s like to live with an EV, away from the pressure of a dealership.

This month, there are 158 events registered across the US and 1 in Mexico (including one online webinar about things to consider when purchasing an EV).

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Events have been happening all month, but the biggest weekend is this upcoming one, APril 26-27.

One really neat event was the Asheville event, which showcased the resiliency of EVs in an area devastated by Hurricane Helene, which was made more severe by climate change. That event was attended by the Rivian R1T which famously got dragged 100 feet submerged in mud and came out running fine.

But the bulk of the events happened on the weekends surrounding Earth Day, April 22, so there were several last weekend and will be even more this upcoming weekend.

There are plenty of events in the big cities where you’d expect, but Plug In America wanted to highlight a few of the events in smaller places around the country. Here’s a sampling of upcoming events:

  • Big Island EV – Cruise and Picnic in Waimea, HI on April 26, 10am-1pm – EV drivers will congregate in various places around the Big Island (Kona, Waimea, Waikoloa and Hilo), then drive up Saddle Road to the Gil Kahele Recreation Area on Mauna Kea for a potluck and a chance to talk about the experience of owning EVs on the Big Island.
  • Santa Barbara Earth Day 2025 and Green Car Show in Santa Barbara, CA on April 26-27, 11am-8pm – This is part of Santa Barbara’s Earth Day celebration, which routinely attracts 30,000 participants and is one of the longest-running Earth Day celebrations on the planet. The Green Car Show includes ride & drives and an “Owners Corner” where owners can showcase their EVs and attendees can check them out and ask questions.
  • Earth Day’25 – EV’s role in a sustainable future in Queretaro City, Mexico on April 26, 9am-4pm – The sole Mexican event, this is a combined in-person/online seminar at the Querétaro Institute of Technology.
  • Norman Earth Day Festival in Norman, OK on April 27, 12-5pm – Another municipal Earth Day festival, with hands-on activities for kids to learn about the environment. A portion of the parking lot reserved for an EV car show for EV owners who pre-register to show off their vehicles.
  • Oregon Electric Vehicle Association Test Drive & Information Expo in Portland, OR on April 27, 10am-4pm – This one is at Daimler Truck’s North American HQ, and will have several EVs for test drives, owner displays (including DIY gas-to-EV conversions), and keynote presentations by EV experts. They’ll even have a 1914 Detroit Electric EV available for test rides!
  • And, we at Electrek want to give a shoutout to Rove’s EV Drive Days in Santa Ana 10am-3pm April 28 – ROVE is the company behind the “full-service” EV charging concept that we’ve talked about several times here on Electrek, and we like what they’re doing for EV charging. They’ve hosted a few community events, and this is their contribution to Earth Month.

Each event has a different assortment of activities (e.g. test drives won’t be available at every event, generally just the larger ones attended by local dealerships), so be sure to check the events page to see what the plan is for your local event.

These events have offered a great way to connect with owners and see the newest electric vehicle tech, and even get a chance to do test rides and drives in person. Attendees got to hear unfiltered information from actual owners about the benefits and trials of owning EVs, allowing for longer and more genuine (and often more knowledgeable) conversations than one might normally encounter at a dealership.

And if you’re an owner – you can show off your car and answer those questions for interested onlookers.

To view all the events and see what’s happening in your area, you can check out the list of events or the events map. You can also sign up to volunteer at your local events, and if you plan to show off your electric car, you can RSVP on each event page and list the vehicle that you plan to show (or see what other vehicles have already registered).


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