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Have you ever sent an R/C car ripping across the dirt or asphalt and wondered what it would be like to shrink down and ride inside of it? Well, don’t be silly, that’s impossible. But don’t give up hope, either! The Little Car Company has done the next best thing: They’ve scaled one up so that you can get that same thrilling experience without going all Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. Meet the new Tamiya Wild One MAX Launch Edition.

If you’re not familiar with Tamiya, that’s the Japanese model company that just might be single-handedly responsible for the R/C craze that exploded in the 1980s. Many of today’s leading engineers and designers got their start tinkering with Tamiya models and R/C cars, and the term “Tamiya Standard” has become an industry byword for quality to which others aspire.

Now one of the company’s most popular models, the Tamiya Wild One R/C car originally launched in 1985, is headed to the big leagues thanks to a licensing deal with The Little Car Company. It’s not the first time the company has reproduced scaled versions of popular cars to create reincarnated electric versions, but they’re usually shrinking them down instead of scaling them up. This time though, they’re working backwards. And that means the Tamiya Wild One MAX is ready for a significant upgrade.

UK-based The Little Car Company first unveiled plans to supersize the Tamiya R/C car a few years ago, but compared to earlier renders, the company has just unveiled a new version with several key design changes. It will now become part of a 100-unit Launch Edition for the upcoming open-wheeled fun-mobile.

tamiya wild one max little car company

The Little Car Company spent the last few years refining the design by using feedback from early reservation holders and its larger community. Major changes to the 500 kg (1,100 lb.) vehicle include replacing the original trailing arm front suspension with more sophisticated and higher performance dual-wishbone suspension, as well as smoothing the turrets that hold those coilover shocks for better visibility.

Many early adopters who put down the first deposits requested a two-seater setup instead of the classic single-seat design, and their wishes have been answered thanks to the inclusion of two Cobra bucket seats complete with four-point harnesses.

The Tamiya Wild One MAX Launch Edition is said to hit a top speed of 60 mph (96.5 km/h), which puts it at around 50% faster than the original R/C version. It also has a much larger battery, to the tune of 14.4 kWh. But in keeping with the original R/C car, the battery will be removable for charging outside of the vehicle, if necessary. In order to achieve that feat, the battery is divided into eight sub packs that are approximately the capacity of a Gogoro removable battery or large e-bike battery.

It’s all part of making the car as fun and as usable as possible, explained The Little Car Company’s CEO Ben Hedley:

We are absolutely thrilled to be one step closer to revealing our Tamiya Wild One MAX Launch Edition. Whilst there have undoubtedly been a few hurdles along the way with industry-wide supply issues, our team have done a tremendous job of bringing an R/C car to life at full size , and I couldn’t be prouder of them.

I want to thank all our Tamiya deposit holder community, who have provided us with some invaluable contributions and suggestions for how we can make the Wild One MAX the best possible vehicle. We have listened to every single one of them since the first unveiling and have taken their ideas on board. Their feedback has helped us develop a new type of vehicle which illustrates that electric cars can be fun, without having to rely on brain-scrambling acceleration. By simplifying the design and reducing weight, this car is a perfect example of not requiring 500 horsepower to make an enjoyable drivers’ car. We are incredibly excited to show you the finished car and can’t wait for everyone to experience it for themselves.

Speaking of making the car more usable, when asked if they would prefer a street-legal version of the Tamiya Wild One MAX, 95% of early reservation holders responded yes. To allow on-road operation, The Little Car Company will release the Launch Edition of the vehicle with a “road legal pack” in the UK and EU that qualifies the vehicle under L7e quadricycle regulations.

For US customers, the company is initially eyeing an LSV version, though is also exploring other options that wouldn’t require it to be limited to the rather slow 25 mph (40 km/h) speed from current LSV regulations in the US. Kit cars that could be assembled by the owner (just like the original Tamiya R/C cars!) and other options are being floated.

Performance testing on the vehicle is currently underway ahead of production slated for 2024. According to the company, a public unveiling will be coming later this year along with confirmed performance figures, range, and pricing.

Electrek’s Take

This project is positively steeped in nostalgia for anyone who grew up in the ’80s and enjoyed cars. Growing up as a ’90s kid myself, I have fond memories of playing my dad’s Tamiya Hornet R/C car, which was released in 1984, just a year before the Tamiya Wild One that has now graduated into The Little Car Company’s amazing creation unveiled today.

My biggest remaining questions are around pricing, power, and range – and those are also the three key figures that haven’t yet been released.

I’m guessing the vehicle won’t come cheap. For comparison, The Little Car Company’s slick-looking scaled-down Aston Martin DB5 (seen below) is priced at between £39,000–£90,000, which is around US $48,000–$112,000 or €45,000–€103,000, depending on the performance level.

Keep in mind though that the top end DB5 model has James Bond-style miniguns that pop out of the headlights along with other spy kit like an oil slick, rotating license plate holder, etc. So perhaps we’ll be looking at the lower end of that price range for the Tamiya.

But let’s just say that anyone who buys one of these cars isn’t hard up on cash. They’re likely a collector of finer things, and these big-little cars look pretty darn fine. With high-end lifted golf carts going for tens of thousands of dollars, I could see an adult-sized R/C car making some stiff competition.

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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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