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After being originally introduced in 2021, yet faltering before the finish line, a federal incentive for electric bicycle purchases is back on the table. If it passes, Americans could receive a $1,500 tax credit for the purchase of an electric bike.

The Electric Bicycle Incentive Kickstart for the Environment (E-BIKE) Act has just been reintroduced to the US House of Representatives by U.S. Representatives Jimmy Panetta (CA-19), Congressional Bike Caucus Chair Earl Blumenauer (OR-03), Mike Thompson (CA-04), and Adam Schiff (CA-30).

Electric bicycle use has seen a steady increase over the last few years as more Americans adopt the light, fast, and efficient alternative form of transportation.

The addition of a battery and assist motor to an otherwise conventional bicycle has helped turn e-bikes into car replacers for many Americans. However, the high cost of e-bikes compared to traditional pedal bicycles has kept them out of reach for many commuters who could use them most.

Electric bicycle prices start at around $600-$800 for budget models, but premium e-bikes can cost as much as 10 times those prices. Thus, an e-bike tax credit has long been seen as a way to help get these effective small-format EVs into the hands of more Americans.

As Rep. Panetta explained:

Many people are looking to get out of their cars and get on to e-bikes not just for recreation, but also for transportation purposes. Although we’re seeing more people on them in our communities, more needs to be done to ensure that everybody across our country has access to an e-bike. By incentivizing Americans to own and use e-bikes, we are allowing them the chance to help improve the quality of life in our communities and tackle the climate crisis in our country.

Lectric XPedition e-bike

The federal tax credit outlined in the E-BIKE Act would cover up to 30% of the cost of a new electric bike, up to a maximum credit of $1,500.

In order to qualify, the e-bike would have to be priced at less than $8,000.

According to PeopleForBikes, “the credit would be allowed once per individual every three years or twice for a joint-return couple buying two electric bicycles. New to this version is this addition of income caps that parallel existing electric vehicle tax credit caps: an annual salary of $150,000 for single filers, $225,000 for heads of households, and $300,000 for those filing jointly.”

The incentive is designed to make electric bicycles more accessible to lower-income Americans, as Rep. Blumenauer explained:

With an e-bike, anyone can be a bike commuter, but the high cost discourages too many consumers. That is why I am so excited about the E-BIKE Act. Let’s get more people off of the highway and into the bike lanes.

ride1up Turris

The E-BIKE Act was originally introduced in 2021 and then was rolled into legislation that ultimately became the Inflation Reduction Act. However, the electric bike incentive was one of many provisions of the proposed legislation that was whittled away in order to garner majority support to pass the bill.

After the former federal e-bike incentive stalled, many cities and states picked up the slack and created their own local incentive programs.

Denver’s e-bike rebate program is, perhaps, one of the most famous in the US, originally offering $400 off the purchase of a new e-bike. The program quickly exhausted its funding before being renewed this year with a slightly lower $300 rebate on new e-bikes. Vouchers will be given out in a half dozen rounds throughout the year, with the first round already being scooped up within 20 minutes of going live.

Colorado will soon be playing catch-up by launching its own e-bike incentive program. Colorado may beat California to the punch with a statewide rebate program, but it won’t be the first. That honor goes to Vermont’s statewide e-bike incentive program. The Vermont program may have helped inspire similar statewide e-bike rebates that are currently being proposed in New York and Oregon.

If you’re looking for some of the best electric bikes in the market at every price range, check out our compilationElectrek has tested more electric bikes than anyone else, compiling detailed articles and videos to cover their features, advantages, and disadvantages.

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HD Hyundai announces lithium phosphate battery pack for commercial trucks

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HD Hyundai announces lithium phosphate battery pack for commercial trucks

HD Hyundai Infracore (HDI) is set to debut a new, 35 kWh lithium phosphate battery pack to power the next generation of electrified commercial equipment.

While the new HD Hyundai lithium phosphate battery isn’t technically out yet (it will officially bow at Intermat 2024 at Paris-Nord Villepinte next month), the battery pack has been in development since back when Infracore was still a Doosan brand.

As of 2021, the first prototypes of the battery were configured with bespoke battery management system (BMS) and thermal protection systems, as well as a flexible design architecture that allows the manufacturer to produce batteries with different voltages and capacities by using different numbers of standardized cylindrical nickel cobalt manganese (NCM) battery cells (that’s actually an NCM pack shown, at top).

The OG Doosan

Battery pack prototype no. 1, developed in-house by (then) Doosan Infracore; via HD Hyundai.

Different versions of the Infracore battery have been in used in the company’s 1.7 ton mini electric excavators since 2023. And they’re not alone. HD Hyundai currently offers LFP battery packs in 5.8, 8.8 and 11.7 kWh power capacities – but these news ones that are set to bow are expected to be much bigger.

Like, “big enough to power a commercial truck,” bigger.

Coming to an electric truck near you

Tata Daewoo’s C-segment truck which feature the new Infracore LFP battery pack; via HD Hyundai.

HDI recently confirmed that it will supply battery packs for Tata Daewoo Commercial Vehicle’s medium-duty electric trucks, and announced that the two companies will work together to expand Korea’s electric commercial offerings.

The official HDI release cites data from market research platform, Markets and Markets, that projects the global electric commercial vehicle market to grow from the 529,400 units sold in 2023 to more than 2.1 million units by 2030.

“We have been able to pioneer the EV market with on our proprietarily produced battery pack technology,” says HD Hyundai Infracore CEO, Seung-hyun Oh, “Based on such success, we plan to gradually expand the vehicle types applied with our battery packs and extend our supplier base to emerging countries and other regions.”

The new battery packs are intended to, “offer a value-oriented and robust solution for companies operating in the construction, industrial and marine sectors,” according to Power Progress (formerly Diesel Progress). We’ll have more when Hyundai lifts the veil in Paris.

Electrek’s Take

Hyundai Concept X at CES2024
Image by the author.

If their sprawling, interactive display at CES didn’t already convince you, Hyundai is serious about electrifying job sites around the world. Yes, they’re also working on hydrogen – but their concerted push to become global EV leaders is very real.

Construction companies like Caterpillar and Deere should would do well to learn the lesson Toyota and Honda learned the hard way in the 90s: underestimate the Koreans at your peril.

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Daily EV Recap: An autonomous EV that can drift

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Listen to a recap of the top stories of the day from Electrek. Quick Charge is now available on Apple PodcastsSpotifyTuneIn and our RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players.

New episodes of Quick Charge are recorded Monday through Thursday and again on Saturday. Subscribe to our podcast in Apple Podcast or your favorite podcast player to guarantee new episodes are delivered as soon as they’re available.

Stories we discuss in this episode (with links):

Tesla wants to bring ‘private 5G’ to its EVs and Optimus robot

Volvo makes its last diesel car and puts it in a museum

Elon Musk says Tesla Optimus robot should cost ‘less than half of a car’

Hyundai reveals ambitious $50 billion investment to secure a top 3 spot in the EV market

Ghost ride the whip! Geely shows off AI chassis performing fully-autonomous drifting 

Listen & Subscribe:

Share your thoughts!

Drop us a line at tips@electrek.co. You can also rate us in Apple Podcasts or recommend us in Overcast to help more people discover the show!

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You’re reading Electrek— experts who break news about Tesla, electric vehicles, and green energy, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow Electrek on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our YouTube channel for the latest reviews.

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Ahead of sentencing, SBF team argues for 5-6 years in jail because FTX customers will get money back

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Ahead of sentencing, SBF team argues for 5-6 years in jail because FTX customers will get money back

Government exhibit in the case against former FTX CEO Sam Bankman-Fried.

Source: SDNY

While prosecutors are requesting that FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried spend 40 to 50 years in prison for his crimes, the defense team is urging the judge to consider a sentence that’s roughly 90% shorter.

Bankman-Fried’s fate will be announced in Manhattan on Thursday morning by Judge Lewis Kaplan, who presided over the monthlong trial in November. Bankman-Fried was found guilty of seven charges tied to the collapse of crypto exchange FTX and the roughly $10 billion of customer deposits that went missing.

The hope for Bankman-Fried’s team is that Kaplan takes into account the increased likelihood that FTX customers will be able to recoup most, if not all, of the money they lost when the exchange spiraled into bankruptcy in 2022.

Lawyers representing the bankruptcy estate of FTX told a judge in Delaware last month that they expect to fully repay customers and creditors with legitimate claims. Bankruptcy attorney Andrew Dietderich, who works with FTX’s new leadership team, said “there is still a great amount of work and risk” ahead in getting all the money back to clients, but that the team has a “strategy to achieve it.”

It was a potentially dramatic change in the narrative surrounding FTX’s collapse 16 months ago. At the time, it was believed that many thousands of customers — reportedly up to a million — collectively lost billions of dollars that would be unrecoverable due to the lightly regulated and unsecured nature of the crypto industry. Those clients faced the real possibility that the vast majority of their money had evaporated, just like in other cases of hedge funds and lenders that failed during the so-called crypto winter of 2022.

Much of the government’s successful case against Bankman-Fried hinged on convincing the jury that the defendant had stolen billions of dollars worth of FTX customer money to make risky bets at Alameda.

For months, as FTX has wound its way through a Delaware bankruptcy court, new CEO John Ray III and his team of restructuring advisors have been clawing back cash, luxury property, and crypto, as well as tracking down missing assets. They’ve already collected more than $7 billion, and that doesn’t include valuables like $26 million in gifts and property to Bankman-Fried’s parents, or the $700 million handed over to K5 Global and founder Michael Kives, who invested FTX cash in companies like SpaceX that have since increased in value.

Bankman-Fried’s defense team has asked the court for a sentence in the range of 63 to 78 months. Beyond the fact that he’s a “first time, nonviolent offender,” attorneys for the FTX founder largely lean on the argument that Bankman-Fried’s risky bets paid off and the bankruptcy estate expects to fully repay FTX customers.

It’s a story that Bankman-Fried was trying to sell as he awaited trial.

“FTX US remains fully solvent,” Bankman-Fried wrote in a Substack post on Jan. 12, 2023, while he was under house arrest at his parents’ home in Palo Alto, California. He said the exchange “should be able to return all customers’ funds.”

Prosecutors recommend a prison sentence of 40-50 years for Sam Bankman-Fried in FTX fraud

One key asset in FTX’s portfolio is its stake in artificial intelligence startup Anthropic. Late last week, FTX’s bankruptcy estate struck a deal with a consortium of buyers to sell the majority of its Anthropic holdings for $884 million. Under Bankman-Fried’s leadership, FTX invested $500 million in the startup in 2021 before the boom in generative AI. The company’s valuation hit $18 billion in December 2023, which would put FTX’s roughly 8% stake at about $1.4 billion.

During Bankman-Fried’s trial, Kaplan denied the defense’s request that it be permitted to say that FTX’s investment in Anthropic was a smart bet.

‘Still guilty’

Renato Mariotti, a former prosecutor in the U.S. Justice Department’s Securities and Commodities Fraud Section, told CNBC that the more money the estate is able to recover for clients, the better for Bankman-Fried.

“If true, that is relevant and the judge is required to consider victim restitution at sentencing,” Mariotti said. “But even if victims weren’t harmed, he is still guilty of the offense.”

Mariotti said he expects the sentence to fall somewhere in between what the prosecution and defense are asking, predicting it will be “at least 20 to 25 years.”

Joseph Bankman and Barbara Fried arrive for the trial of their son, former FTX Chief Executive Sam Bankman-Fried, who is facing fraud charges over the collapse of the bankrupt cryptocurrency exchange, at Federal Court in New York City, U.S., October 26, 2023. 

Brendan Mcdermid | Reuters

In addition to the Anthropic gains, FTX customers can look at the rebound in crypto for signs of optimism. Bitcoin is trading at close to $70,000, up from less than $17,000 at the time of FTX’s collapse.

In September, the bankruptcy team released a status report showing that FTX had $3.4 billion worth of digital assets, with over $1.1 billion coming from its investment in crypto coin Solana. In the defense’s letter to the court filed last month, attorneys note a sizable increase in the value of FTX’s Solana stake, saying that as of Feb. 26, the estate saw a roughly $4 billion increase over the last six months thanks to the token’s appreciation.

Solana fits into a category of so-called “Sam coins,” a group that also includes Serum, a token created and promoted by FTX and Alameda. Solana saw a huge run-up of late, climbing more than eightfold since the end of September.

Meanwhile, FTX’s bitcoin stash, which was worth $560 million at the time of the September report, when the coin was trading at around $25,000, has seen a significant uptick as well. Bitcoin’s value has increased by around 180% since then.

For FTX customers, being made whole, according to a judge’s ruling, means getting the cash equivalent of what their crypto was worth in November 2022. In other words, they’re not seeing any of the upside of FTX’s investments or being given virtual coins that would allow them to cash out at higher valuations.

Braden Perry, who was once a senior trial lawyer for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, told CNBC that Bankman-Fried faces at least 70 months in prison based on his base level offense, number of victims, sophisticated means and leadership role — even if there’s no monetary loss to the victims. The massive losses that were originally expected would suggest 30 years to life, Perry added.

Don’t miss these stories from CNBC PRO:

Sam Bankman-Fried set to testify at fraud trial in what experts deem a major gamble for the case

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