Why Fox News wants you to be afraid of electric bikes
Fox News is no stranger to the tactic of fearmongering as a way to stir up its base. But the media network’s latest misdirection campaign attempts to use fear to attack a surprising new target: electric bicycles.
Electric bicycles are essentially normal bicycles but with the addition of a small electric helper motor and a lithium-ion battery for energy storage. They go faster than most pedal bikes while requiring less effort from the rider, which has made them a popular alternative vehicle in cities and suburbs. They’ve found favor as cheaper car replacements for many people. As a type of small EV, or electric vehicle, it’s not exactly a wonder that Fox News would put e-bikes somewhere on its enemies list.
But with a misleading story running last week entitled “How e-bikes are exploding and killing people,” the media giant leaves little room for doubt about just how far they’ll go with misdirection to try and scare people away from the fastest-growing form of low-cost, efficient, and effective transportation.
It’s true: All the long-term trends show that electric bicycle sales are skyrocketing. They’re outselling electric cars in the US, and in some areas, e-bikes are soon set to outsell all cars – gasoline or electric. They’re helping replace the tired image of Americans driving their single-occupant SUVs a mile down the road for a gallon of milk.
That makes them ripe for Fox News to hold up as some form of boogeyman to scare up their base, a group that is famously resistant to change. And e-bikes are exactly the kind of change that Fox News would vilify – a low-cost technology that helps Americans of all socioeconomic levels get around without a clutching dependence on Big Oil and Big Auto.
The basis of Fox News’ attack on electric bicycles is cherry-picked fire data in New York City.
You might have heard about electric bicycle fires in the news lately, as it is a topic that is getting increasing coverage despite the relatively few events. Even with minimal incidents compared to the number of e-bikes rolling around the city, examining any threat to public safety is certainly warranted. Between the dense urban population of NYC and the higher-than-average number of e-bikes used in the city, the issue has become a growing concern.
What you might not know (since it is much less frequently reported) is that most of these electric bike fires aren’t related to electric bikes at all – they’re much cheaper electric scooters. Most of the pictures of these fire aftermaths show charred husks of cheap Chinese e-scooters.
But regardless of the semantics, the underlying concern is this: Why do these batteries catch on fire, and how concerned should the public be?
Why can e-bikes sometimes catch on fire?
So what’s going on here? There are hundreds of thousands of high-quality e-bikes and e-scooters in the US with battery certifications and proper safety protocols. Even so, low-cost e-scooters (and yes, sometimes e-bikes too) have been increasingly imported to the US with low-quality lithium-ion batteries that, in very rare cases, have caught fire. It’s usually when people have used the wrong third-party chargers or have tried to do at-home repairs on the complicated battery systems.
That distinction isn’t overly complicated. It’s not that it requires any significant amount of nuance to understand. But it also isn’t as flashy as a Fox News headline of “How e-bikes are exploding and killing people.”
And it’s not that Fox News doesn’t realize the incredibly small size of the actual risk. A single line admission gets tossed near the very end of the article, presumably in a halfhearted attempt to claim some form of balance: “In the meantime, it’s important to note that the vast majority of e-bikes on the market are safe and reliable when used as intended and maintained properly.”
By Fox News’ own admission, there had been a single fatality in NYC this year from this spate of e-bike or e-scooter fires at the time of publishing.
But even while paying lip service to the small proportion of e-bike fires within the larger e-bike population, the story fails to properly frame the impact of the threat. For instance, did you know that cyclists in NYC are over 10 times more likely to be killed by a car than to be killed by an e-bike fire? In 2021, there was a single e-bike fire fatality compared to 19 cyclists killed by cars in NYC. That same year, there were over 200 pedestrians or micromobility (bike, scooters, mopeds, etc.) riders killed in NYC.
I don’t mean to unjustly minimize the real risk of e-bike fires but rather to justifiably demonstrate how minimal the risk truly is. Just like how there was a spate of Samsung cell phones with lithium-ion batteries catching on fire a few years ago, the actual risk was significantly smaller than the reporting made it feel. Dozens of phones out of millions is a similar ratio to the e-bike and e-scooter scenario now.
Does Fox News actually care about transportation dangers?
It is true that NYC has seen approximately one dozen deaths due to lithium-ion battery fires in micromobility vehicles in the last few years. And there have been legitimate, balanced reports from other news organizations about e-bike fires. In the same period, though, many hundreds of pedestrians have been killed by cars and trucks in the city. Thousands of pedestrians are killed by cars in the US each year. Often dozens per day. Dozens.
But that doesn’t play into the Fox News narrative, and so it doesn’t get coverage. It also doesn’t get included for reference to understand the size of the e-bike fire risk.
That’s because when you tell people the truth, that you’re between 10 to 30 times more likely to die by being hit by a car while walking around the city than from an e-bike battery fire, it doesn’t promote the right type of fear for Fox News. It shows that the true villain isn’t the e-bike but rather the car.
The truth doesn’t scare people away from effective, low-cost alternative transportation. Instead, it shows the very fact that Fox News wants to hide: that e-bikes aren’t the problem – cars are. E-bikes, in fact, are the solution. Steps are being taken to reduce battery fires, but even if they weren’t, a drastic increase in e-bikes used to replace cars would still save lives by reducing fatalities. It’s simple math.
If Fox News cared about saving lives or protecting people, it wouldn’t pander fear about NYC’s single-digit deaths per year from lithium-ion batteries in micromobility vehicles. It would highlight the city’s hundreds of deaths per year from cars killing pedestrians. But you won’t hear about that because the goal isn’t to save lives. It’s to use fear and misdirection in an attempt to resist a changing transportation paradigm that is slowly shedding our nation’s dependence on Big Oil and Big Auto.
Fear keeps people hooked, and Fox News is well practiced at wielding it. When someone peddles that fear in an attempt to prop up a boogeyman, we should always ask ourselves why.
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More than $14 billion in US renewable and EV investments and 10,000 new jobs have been scrapped or put on hold since January, according to a new analysis from E2 and the Clean Economy Tracker. The reason: growing fears that the Republican-majority Congress will pull the plug on federal clean energy tax credits.
In April alone, companies backed out of $4.5 billion in battery, EV, and wind projects right before the House passed a sweeping tax and spending bill that would gut the federal tax incentives fueling the clean energy boom. E2 also found another $1.5 billion in previously unreported project cancellations from earlier in the year.
Now, with the Senate preparing to take up the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” E2 says over 10,000 clean energy jobs have already vanished.
“If the tax plan passed by the House last week becomes law, expect to see construction and investments stopping in states across the country as more projects and jobs are cancelled,” said Michael Timberlake, E2’s communications director. “Businesses are now counting on Congress to come to its senses and stop this costly attack on an industry that is essential to meeting America’s growing energy demand and that’s driving unprecedented economic growth in every part of the country.”
Ironically, it’s Republican-led congressional districts – the biggest beneficiaries of the Biden administration’s clean energy tax credits passed in 2022 – that are feeling the most pain. So far, more than $12 billion in investments and over 13,000 jobs have been canceled in GOP districts.
Through April, 61% of all clean energy projects, 72% of jobs, and 82% of investments have been in Republican districts.
Despite the rising number of cancellations, some companies are still forging ahead. In April, businesses announced nearly $500 million in new clean energy investments across six states. That includes a $400 million expansion by Corning in Michigan to make solar wafers, which is expected to create at least 400 jobs, and a $9.3 million investment from a Canadian solar equipment company in North Carolina.
If completed, the seven projects announced last month could create nearly 3,000 permanent jobs.
To date, E2 has tracked 390 major clean energy projects across 42 states and Puerto Rico since the Inflation Reduction Act passed in August 2022. In total, companies plan to invest $132 billion and hire 123,000 permanent workers.
But the report warns that momentum could grind to a halt if the House tax plan becomes law. Since the clean energy tax credits were signed into law, 45 announced projects have been canceled, downsized, or closed entirely, wiping out nearly 20,000 jobs and $16.7 billion in investments.
What’s more, Trump’s Department of Energy announced today that it was killing more than $3.7 billion in funding for carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) and decarbonization initiatives. Eighteen out of 24 projects were awarded through DOE’s Industrial Demonstrations Program (IDP), which was made law in the Inflation Reduction Act. It aimed to strengthen the economic competitiveness of US manufacturers in global markets demanding lower carbon emissions, while supporting US manufacturing jobs and communities.
Executive Director Jason Walsh of the BlueGreen Alliance said in a statement in response to today’s DOE announcement:
The awarded projects that DOE is seeking to kill are concentrated in rural areas and red states. American manufacturers are hungry to partner with the federal government to bolster US industry. The IDP saw $60 billion worth of applications during the program selection process, a ten-times oversubscription.
President Trump claims to be a champion of American manufacturing, but today’s announcement is further evidence that he and his Secretary of Energy are liars.
Read more: Global energy giant RWE halts US offshore wind because of Trump
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A Tesla prototype was spotted at the Fremont factory in California, sparking speculation that it’s the new “cheaper Tesla”, but it looks like a regular Model Y.
A drone operator flew over the Fremont factory this week and spotted a Tesla prototype with light camouflage on the front and back ends.
The vehicle is making a lot of people talk on social media and the media as many think it could be a new “affordable model” coming to Tesla.
Other than the camouflage, the vehicle looks just like a regular Model Y:
It’s likely one of two things: a new “stripped-down Model Y” or a Model Y Performance.
Model Y Performance is the only version that Tesla hasn’t launched since the design changeover earlier this year.
The “stripped-down Model Y” is what will replace Tesla’s upcoming “affordable models.”
We have been reporting on this new vehicle program from Tesla for a while now.
It came to life just over a year ago as a pivot for Tesla after CEO Elon Musk canceled two cheaper vehicles that Tesla was working on, commonly referred as “the $25,000 Tesla”. Those vehicles were codenamed NV91 and NV92, and they were based on the new vehicle platform that Tesla is now reserving for the Cybercab.
Instead, Musk saw that Tesla’s Model 3 and Model Y production lines were starting to be underutilized as Tesla faced demand issues. Therefore, Tesla canceled the vehicles program based on the new platform and decided to build new vehicles on Model 3/Y platform using the same production lines.
We previously reported that these electric vehicles will likely look very similar to Model 3 and Model Y.
In recent months, several other media reports reinforced that, and Tesla all but confirmed it during its latest earnings call.
Considering this looks like a regular Model Y, it could be the new cheaper and less feature rich Model Y:
Some people are claiming that this vehicle looks smaller than the Model Y, but it’s difficult to tell as the black camouflage on the ends can confuse the eye.
It looks like a very similar size when it passes near other Tesla vehicles:
What do you think it is? Let us know in the comment section below.
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![Lumina hopes this 32-ton dozer makes them the Tesla of heavy equipment [video]](https://i0.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2025/05/lumina_2.png?resize=1200,628&quality=82&strip=all&ssl=1)
San Francisco-based founder Ahmed Shubber wants to emulate Elon Musk’s success in the electric construction equipment world – and he hopes his new, 32-ton electric bulldozer is enough to make the world sit up and take notice.
Since launching his company, Lumina, in 2021, Shubber has raised more than $8 million and grown the company’s global (!?) headcount to 26 people. That fruit of that team’s labor is the machine seen here. Dubbed “Moonlander,” the first-of-its-kind prototype occupies the physical footprint of something like a Caterpillar D6, but packs the blade and performance of the larger, more powerful Cat D9.
“A D6 could not push that blade,” David Wright, Lumina’s head of UK operations, told the assembled media at the Moonlander’s launch last week. “We can have that blade full of material, full dozing seven to nine cubic meters of material, for eight to 10 hours.”
Moving all that mass takes a lot of power – but getting that power back into the Moonlander’s batteries won’t take a lot of time, thanks to the machine’s 300 kW charging capability.
“Even if you spend all morning heavy dozing and you’re a bit worried about how much juice you’ve used — well, your operators are going to take a union-mandated lunch break, right?” asks Wright. “Plug it in, and in 30 minutes, you’ve put 50% of power back in again.”
Shubber says Lumina is working to raise from $20-40 million for its Series A round to develop the company’s next electric equipment asset: a 100-ton electric excavator called Blade Runner. And, in a truly Tesla-like fashion, Shubber says he’s on track to hit an ambitious $100 million revenue target sometime in the next 24 months.
And, of course, the Blade Runner will feature state-of-the-art autonomous operating technology (because: of course it will).
We’ll see how that unfolds in 2 year’s time, I guess. In the meantime, check out this Lumina promo video for Moonlander, below, then let us know what you think of Shuber’s take on an electric job site in the comments.
Lumina ML6 electric dozer video
SOURCE | IMAGES: Lumina; via Business Insider, Earthmovers Magazine.
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