Exclusive: Ride1Up Revv1 launched as affordable moped-style e-bike missing in the market

Published

2 years ago

January 18, 2023

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The Ride1Up Revv1 e-bike was just unveiled this morning, rolling out in all of its moped-style electric bike glory. And in doing so, the new e-bike proved once again that Ride1Up is not content to rest on its laurels in the commuter e-bike category, but rather is serious about expanding its reputation for building high-value e-bikes in other market segments as well.

When Ride1Up CEO Daniel Urbino first showed me the Revv1 concept, I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. The bike was such a stark departure from the typical electric commuters we’ve come to know and love from the San Diego-based electric bike maker that it blew my mind.

Urbino explained to me that the goal of the Revv1 was to reach more riders than just its existing base that were interested in commuter e-bikes, such as those that wanted more adrenaline-pumping types of electric bikes. And I get it, but it’s just such a departure for the brand.

Though then again, I guess I should have seen the writing on the wall. Last year Ride1Up revealed its first mid-drive e-bike known as the Prodigy and then followed it up with a beach cruiser meets commuter called the Cafe Cruiser. So the company’s expanding aspirations shouldn’t come as a complete surprise.

What is surprising though is how well Ride1Up seems to have nailed the moped-style electric bike design on their first try.

We often refer to these as SUPER73-style e-bikes, which I think is fair based on that brand’s early success in popularizing the retro-themed electric bike design that bridges moped and mini-bike styles from the 1970s and 80s. And in the process, they’ve created a dedicated community of riders with incredible brand loyalty.

But while we’ve seen SUPER73’s prices slowly walk up over the years, Ride1Up has managed to either keep prices stable or even lower them. And the new Ride1Up Revv1 follows the same strategy with attractive pricing for a slick-looking e-bike.

The Revv1 starts at $1,899 for the front suspension version or $2,399 for the full-suspension model.

The two versions of the e-bike both feature 750W motors and ship in Class 2 mode allowing them to reach 20 mph (32 km/h) on throttle or pedal assist.

In reality, the bikes are actually capable of higher power up to 1,500 watts and a higher top speed of at least 28 mph (45 km/h), but it’s not something that owners can simply unlock on their own. To modify the e-bike for higher speed intended for off-road usage, riders will need to contact Ride1Up support. It’s a move that’s likely designed to make it harder for the e-bike to be souped-up by younger riders or anyone that isn’t ready for that responsibility, and is likely one more chance for support to explain the reason they call it “Off-Road Mode.”

The Ride1Up Revv1 will sport a 52V and 20Ah battery that uses Samsung battery cells and offers 1,040Wh of capacity. That’s one of the largest e-bike batteries we’ve seen in the industry, and should offer exceptional range even when used in throttle-only mode. And let’s get real, most of these moped-style electric bikes spend the majority of their lives in throttle mode.

Front and rear LED lights come standard, including a large motorcycle-style headlight separating a pair of front turn signals. Fenders in the front and rear help shield those 20″ x 4″ fat tires outfitted with what looks like a dual-sport tread for both street and trail use.

The bike uses Bafang’s cast wheels that remove wire spokes (and the spoke maintenance that normally goes with them), and the hydraulic disc brakes further help reduce the Revv1’s maintenance load.

It’s not clear yet what type of suspension will be used in the rear, but both models have a dual crown front suspension fork that helps lend even more motorcycle-inspired vibes to the e-bike.

A planned storage cage accessory will be added in the coming months, allowing riders to add storage into the empty space in the box frame. Foot pegs, a rear rack, and a rear handle are also planned additions to the accessory list.

The moped-style e-bike space certainly isn’t lacking options and variety, but the industry leaders have been fairly pricey. While the Revv1 can’t match the 2,000 watts of peak power offered by e-bikes like the SUPER73-RX, it still provides a highly capable 1,500 watt full-suspension alternative for at least $1,500 less.

The Juiced Scrambler may compare well with the hardtail version of the Revv1, but there too the Ride1Up version has some significant advantages such as the larger battery and more sophisticated lighting.

This is definitely new territory for Ride1Up, which is something that the company’s founder Kevin Dugger doesn’t deny:

“Electric mopeds are not my first choice in micro-mobility, but they are a fun and unique way to experience the e-bike revolution. They offer options and a ride experience that traditional e-bikes (or bikes) don’t. The Revv1 turns more heads than any e-bike I have ridden and is a perfect all-surface option for cruising. We want all of our models to be the best-in-class, and the Revv1 is no exception. Looking forward, we plan to bring our model of quality, style, and direct to consumer prices to a wider audience of riders.”

To me that sounds like Ride1Up has its sights set on even more product expansions. And that’s a pretty exciting prospect for a company that’s had some serious hits on its hands so far.

What do you think of the Ride1Up Revv1 e-bike? Let’s hear your thoughts in the comments section below!

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Environment

Amazon and Nvidia say all options are on the table to power AI including fossil fuels

Published

2 hours ago

April 26, 2025

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Amazon and Nvidia say all options are on the table to power AI including fossil fuels

Anton Petrus | Moment | Getty Images

OKLAHOMA CITY — Amazon and Nvidia told a room of oil and gas executives this week that all options are on the table to power artificial intelligence including fossil fuels such as natural gas.

The tech and energy industries gathered in Oklahoma City at the Hamm Institute for American Energy to discuss how the U.S. can meet the growing energy needs for AI data centers.

The Big Tech companies have invested mostly in renewable power in an effort to slash their carbon dioxide emissions, but they are now navigating a changed political environment. President Donald Trump has ditched U.S. commitments to fight climate change as he seeks to increase fossil fuel production, particularly natural gas.

There is now growing public acknowledgment from the tech industry that gas will be needed, at least in the near term, to help fuel AI.

“To have the energy we need for the grid, it’s going to take an all of the above approach for a period of time,” Kevin Miller, Amazon’s vice president of global data centers, said during a panel discussion Thursday. “We’re not surprised by the fact that we’re going to need to add some thermal generation to meet the needs in the short term.”

Amazon remains focused on slashing its carbon emissions, Miller said. It is the largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy and is investing in advanced nuclear and carbon capture technology to reduce the environmental impact of its energy consumption, the executive said.

But those advanced technologies will not come online until the 2030s and Amazon needs steady and secure power now, Miller said.

“We’re very explicit that meeting customers’ demands for capacity is first and foremost in our priority list, and so having access to power is first and foremost what we focus on,” Miller said. “And we have a goal to be net-zero carbon as a company by 2040 and are very focused on that.”

Nvidia is also focused on environmental impact but wants “all options on the table” as AI faces an energy crunch, said Josh Parker, the chipmaker’s senior director of corporate sustainability.

“At the end of the day, we need power. We just need power,” Parker said at the panel. “We have some customers who really prioritize the clean energy, and some customers who don’t care as much,” the executive said.

Anthropic co-founder Jack Clark called for data center developers to be realistic about the energy sources that are currently available. Anthropic estimates that 50 gigawatts of new power is needed by 2027, equivalent to about 50 nuclear reactors. AI demand can help drive the development of “new and novel sources” of power over the longer term, he said.

The idea of using coal, however, was met with unease. Trump recently signed an order that aims to boost coal production, citing demand from AI. The Amazon and Nvidia executives did not answer directly when asked during the panel whether they thought coal had a role play in powering AI.

“You have a broader set of options than just coal,” Clark said. “We would certainly consider it, but I don’t think I’d say it’s at the top of our list.”

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Environment

Global energy giant RWE halts US offshore wind because of Trump

Published

17 hours ago

April 25, 2025

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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.

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Environment

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

Published

18 hours ago

April 25, 2025

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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.