Yes, it’s actually National E-bike Day. Here’s how an electric bike can benefit you
I know it feels like there’s a National Anything Day just about every day. And believe it or not, it’s National E-bike Day today. As we celebrate this fun new holiday, it’s important to remember the impact our daily choices has on the environment. One of the most significant ways to reduce our carbon footprint is to reevaluate our means of transportation. In recent years, electric bicycles have emerged as an environmentally friendly alternative to traditional cars and personal vehicles.
First of all, why is it National E-bike Day? Apparently the never-resting team over at Lectric E-bikes was able to make it official. As they explained:
To celebrate the 4-year anniversary of Lectric eBikes, our company has officially registered May 30th as National E-Bike Day! Yep, you heard that right. Look it up if you don’t believe us! The goal for this holiday is to encourage riders everywhere to celebrate the many benefits of eBiking and opt into electric transportation.
That makes today as good a time as any to take a deeper look into the many benefits of electric bikes, some of which may even surprise you.
Electric bikes help reduce carbon emissions
One of the most compelling reasons to switch to e-bikes is the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), transportation accounts for 29% of total greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. Most of these emissions come from personal vehicles like cars and light trucks.
E-bikes produce significantly lower emissions than traditional cars. They run on electricity, which can come from renewable sources like solar or wind power, which is now overtaking fossil fuel-powered electric generation in many areas. You can even charge an e-bike on solar energy that you generate at home, off the grid.
As more countries transition to renewable energy sources, the carbon footprint of e-bikes will decrease further. When used for short trips and commuting, e-bikes can effectively replace cars, resulting in a substantial reduction in emissions.
Electric bikes are much more energy efficient
E-bikes are much more energy-efficient than conventional cars, using a fraction of the energy to travel the same distance. An average e-bike uses about 0.025 kWh per mile, whereas a traditional car consumes around 0.34 kWh per mile. This means that e-bikes are over 10 times more energy-efficient than cars.
By switching to e-bikes, we can drastically reduce energy consumption and dependence on fossil fuels, promoting sustainability.
Electric bikes help reduce traffic congestion (for everyone)
As urban populations continue to grow, traffic congestion has become a significant issue in many cities worldwide. By replacing cars with e-bikes, we can alleviate this problem.
E-bikes are smaller and more maneuverable than cars, allowing for more efficient use of road space. Additionally, e-bikes can often utilize bike lanes and paths, further reducing traffic congestion. By switching more car drivers to e-bikes, we can create more livable, less congested cities. Even if you don’t personally swap your car for an e-bike, everyone who does so helps to reduce traffic for everyone!
So many health benefits
Cycling, even on an electric bicycle, provides numerous health benefits.
Riding an e-bike can help improve cardiovascular fitness, muscle strength, flexibility, and overall well-being.
Even riding a throttle-controlled e-bike without pedaling provides a marginal upper body workout and helps improve balance, not to mention engaging more areas of the brain associated with fine motor controls.
By incorporating e-bikes into our daily routines, we can not only reduce our environmental impact but also improve our health and quality of life.
E-bikes can save you some serious money!
E-bikes are more cost-effective than cars when considering purchase price, maintenance, fuel expenses, parking, and basically every single other associated cost.
Electric bicycles generally cost less to purchase than cars and have lower operating costs because they require so many fewer resources to manufacture. An electric car battery, which is the most expensive part of most electric vehicles, has enough battery cells to produce 100 or more e-bike batteries.
With no need for gasoline, e-bikes eliminate fuel expenses, and their simpler design requires less maintenance. Moreover, electricity is often cheaper than gasoline, making e-bikes a more affordable option for daily commuting and transportation.
Many quality e-bikes are now available for under $1,500, with many good models now reaching the under $1,000 category. We have an entire list of the best e-bikes for every budget here.
E-bikes increase accessibility and inclusivity
E-bikes offer an accessible and inclusive mode of transportation for people of various ages and physical abilities.
The electric assistance provided by e-bikes enables riders to travel longer distances and tackle more challenging terrain without excessive physical exertion. This makes e-bikes an excellent option for older individuals, people with mobility issues, and those who are new to cycling.
By making cycling more accessible, e-bikes can encourage a broader range of people to adopt this sustainable mode of transportation.
Supporting local economies
Switching to e-bikes can also have a positive impact on local economies. By reducing our reliance on cars, we can decrease the demand for imported oil and support local businesses that provide e-bikes and related services.
Furthermore, as more people adopt e-bikes, there is potential for growth in the e-bike industry, creating new job opportunities and stimulating economic development.
E-bike specific bike shops have begun springing up in many areas, focusing on specialties such as hub motor lacing, battery repair, and other new e-bike related maintenance jobs, creating more employment in local communities.
Urban planning and livable cities
The rise of e-bikes presents an opportunity for urban planners to rethink the design of our cities.
By prioritizing cycling infrastructure, such as bike lanes and bike parking, cities can become more sustainable, livable, and people-centric. This shift in urban design can also encourage more people to adopt e-bikes and other sustainable modes of transportation, further reducing our collective environmental impact.
While cycling always offered this benefit, the huge increase in two-wheeled commuters created by the influx of easy-to-ride e-bikes has jumpstarted this effect in US cities.
Environmental justice
The benefits of e-bikes extend beyond individual users and can contribute to broader environmental justice.
Communities that disproportionately suffer from the negative impacts of air pollution, often lower-income and minority neighborhoods, stand to gain from a reduction in vehicle emissions.
By promoting e-bikes and improving cycling infrastructure, we can work toward more equitable and healthy urban environments for all.
As we celebrate National E-bike Day and consider the future of our planet, the case for switching to electric bicycles becomes increasingly clear. E-bikes offer a sustainable, cost-effective, and inclusive alternative to traditional cars and personal vehicles, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, alleviating traffic congestion, and promoting public health. By embracing e-bikes, we can create more livable cities, support local economies, and advance environmental justice.
The transition to electric bicycles is not only an individual choice but also a collective responsibility. By advocating for better cycling infrastructure and supporting policies that promote e-bike adoption, we can accelerate the transition to a greener, more sustainable future. On National E-bike Day and beyond, let’s commit to making e-bikes a central part of our journey toward a cleaner, healthier, and more equitable world.
They may not be for everybody, but they are for many. And each person who replaces car miles with e-bike miles is having a positive effect on our cities, our society, and our world.
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In a high-tech move that we can all get behind and isn’t dystopian at all, the City of Barcelona is feeding camera data from its city buses into an advanced AI, but they swear they’re not using the footage to to issue tickets to bad drivers. Yet.
Barcelona and its Ring Roads Low Emission Zone have earned lots of fans by limiting ICE traffic in the city’s core. The city’s latest idea to promote mass transit is the deployment of an artificial intelligence system developed by Hayden AI for automatic enforcement of reserved lanes and stops to improve bus circulation – but while it seems to be working as intended, it’s raising entirely different questions.
“Bus lanes are designed to help deliver reliable, fast, and convenient public transport service. But private vehicles illegally using bus lanes make this impossible,” explains Laia Bonet, First Deputy Mayor, Area for Urban Planning, Ecological Transition, Urban Services and Housing at the Ajuntament de Barcelona. “We are excited to partner with Hayden AI to learn where these problems occur and how they are impacting our public transport service.”
Currently operating as a pilot program on the city’s H12 and D20 bus lines, the system uses cameras installed on the city’s electric buses to detect vehicles that commit static violations in the bus lanes and stops (read: stopping or parking where you shouldn’t). The Hayden AI system then analyses that data and provides statistical information on what it captures while the bus is driving along on its daily route.
Hayden AI says that, while it photographs and records video sequences and collects contextual information of the violation, its cameras do not record license plates or people and no penalties are being issued to drivers or owners of the vehicles.
So far so good, right? But it’s what happens once the six mont pilot is over that seems like it should be setting off alarm bells.
Big Brother Bus is watching
The footage is manually reviewed by a Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona (TMB) officer, who reportedly reviewed some 2,500 violations identified by AI in May alone. But, while the system isn’t being used to issue violations during the pilot program, it easily could.
And, in fact, it already has … and the AI f@#ked up royally.
AI writes thousands of bad tickets
When AI was given the ability to issue citations in New York City earlier this year, it wrote more than 290,000 tickets (that’s right: two-hundred and ninety thousand) in just three months, generating nearly $21 million in revenue for the city. The was just one problem: thousands of those drivers weren’t doing anything wrong.
What’s more, the photos generated by the AI powered cameras were supposed to be approved only after being verified by a human, but either that didn’t happen, or it did happen and the human operator in question wasn’t paying attention, or (maybe the worst possibility) the violations were mistakes or hallucinations, and the human checker couldn’t tell the difference.
In OpenAI’s tests of its newest o3 and o4-mini reasoning models, the company found the o3 model hallucinated 33% of the time during its PersonQA tests, in which the bot is asked questions about public figures. When asked short fact-based questions in the company’s SimpleQA tests, OpenAI said o3 hallucinated 51% of the time. The o4-mini model fared even worse: It hallucinated 41% of the time during the PersonQA test and 79% of the time in the SimpleQA test, though OpenAI said its worse performance was expected as it is a smaller model designed to be faster. OpenAI’s latest update to ChatGPT, GPT-4.5, hallucinates less than its o3 and o4-mini models. The company said when GPT-4.5 was released in February the model has a hallucination rate of 37.1% for its SimpleQA test.
I don’t know about you guys, but if we had a local traffic cop that got it wrong 33% of the time (at best), I’d be surprised if they kept their job for very long. But AI? AI has a multibillion dollar hype train and armies of undereducated believers talking about singularities and building themselves blonde robots with boobs. And once the AI starts issuing tickets to the AI that’s driving your robotaxi, it can just call its buddy AI the bank to send over your money. No human necessary, at any point, and the economy keeps on humming.
But, like – I’m sure that’s fine. Embrace the future and all that … right?
SOURCES: Hayden AI, via Forbes, Motorpasión.
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A new report from global energy think tank Ember says batteries have officially hit the price point that lets solar power deliver affordable electricity almost every hour of the year in the sunniest parts of the world.
The study looked at hourly solar data from 12 cities and found that in sun-soaked places like Las Vegas, you could pair 6 gigawatts (GW) of solar panels with 17 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of batteries and get a steady 1 GW of power nearly 24/7. The cost? Just $104 per megawatt-hour (MWh) based on average global prices for solar and batteries in 2024. That’s a 22% drop in a year and cheaper than new coal ($118/MWh) and nuclear ($182/MWh) in many regions.
Ember calls it “24/365 solar generation,” and it’s not just a theoretical model. Cities like Muscat, Oman, and Las Vegas can hit that steady power mark for up to 99% of the hours in a year. Hyderabad, Madrid, and Buenos Aires can reach 80–95% of the way there using that same solar-plus-storage setup with some cloud cover. And even cloudier cities like Birmingham in the UK can cover about 62% of hours annually.
“This is a turning point in the clean energy transition,” said Kostantsa Rangelova, global electricity analyst at Ember. “Around-the-clock solar is no longer a distant dream; it’s an economic reality of the world. It unlocks game-changing opportunities for energy-hungry industries like data centres and manufacturing.”
This is an enormous opportunity for sunny regions in Africa and Latin America. Manufacturers and data centers could also tap into solar-plus-storage and skip long waits (and big bills) for new grid connections.
It’s not a silver bullet for grid-wide reliability, but it lets solar carry much more of the load, especially where sunshine is abundant. Batteries also help avoid costly grid expansions by allowing up to five times more solar to plug into existing connections.
In 2024 alone, global battery prices dropped 40%, which helped drive down solar-plus-storage costs by 22%. Record-low tenders from countries like Saudi Arabia point to even cheaper options coming soon.
Real-world projects are already online: The UAE built the world’s first gigawatt-scale 24-hour solar facility. Arizona is already home to solar-powered data centers. And as battery tech keeps improving, round-the-clock solar could become the backbone of clean energy systems in the world’s sunniest places.
Read more: This solar canopy cools wastewater and powers a city utility
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The Honda Prologue continues to surprise, ranking among the top ten most leased vehicles (gas-powered or EV) in the US in the first quarter. It was the only EV, outside of Tesla’s Model Y and Model 3, that made the list.
Honda Prologue EV ranks among most leased vehicles
After launching the Prologue in the US last March, Honda’s electric SUV took off. In the second half of the year, it was the second-best-selling electric SUV, trailing only the Tesla Model Y.
The Prologue remains a top-selling EV in the US this year, with over 13,500 units sold through May. That’s not too bad, considering it only sold 705 through May of last year.
According to a new Experian report (via Automotive News), Honda’s success is being driven by ultra-affordable lease rates. In the first quarter, nearly 60% of new EV buyers in the US chose to lease, up from just 36% a year ago.
Three EVs ranked in the top ten most leased vehicles, including the Tesla Model Y, Model 3, and Honda Prologue.
Tesla’s Model Y and Model 3 took the top two spots, while the Honda Prologue ranked number seven. Those who leased Tesla’s Model 3 paid $402 per month, Honda Prologue lessees paid $486 a month.
Given the average loan rate was $708 a month for those who bought it, it’s no wonder nearly 90% chose to lease. Under 9% chose to buy, while less than 2% paid cash.
The discounts are piling up, but for how long?
To give you a better idea, the average monthly payment for a new vehicle lease in the US in the first quarter was $595.
With over $20,000 in discounts, Honda’s luxury Acura brand is selling a surprising number of EVs in the US. The nearly $65,000 Acura ZDX is sold for under $40,000 on average in May, according to Cox Automotive’s EV Market Monitor report for May.
The trend is primarily thanks to the $7,500 federal EV tax credit, which is being passed on to customers through leasing.
With the Trump administration and Senate Republicans aiming to kill off federal subsidies, the savings could soon disappear. If the Senate’s recently proposed bill is passed, the $7,500 credit would expire within 180 days. It would not only make electric vehicles more expensive, but it would also put the US further behind China and others leading the shift to electrification.
Some automakers, including GM, are expected to continue offering the incentives. “GM has been very competitive on the incentives on their end, and that is not scheduled to end.”
After outselling Ford, GM’s Chevy is now the fastest-growing EV brand in the US through May. Chevy is starting to chip away at Tesla’s lead, largely thanks to the new Equinox EV, or “America’s most affordable +315 range EV,” as GM calls it.
According to Xperian, those who leased a new Chevy Equinox EV in Q1 paid $243 less than those who financed it. The electric Equinox stood out in Cox Automotive’s EV Market Monitor report with an average selling price under $40,000, even without incentives.
The Chevy Equinox EV remains one of the most affordable EVs on the market. Starting at just $34,995, the base LT FWD model offers an EPA-estimated range of 319 miles.
Looking to test out some of the most popular EVs for yourself? With Honda Prologue leases as low as $259 per month and Chevy Equinox EV leases starting at just $289 per month, the deals are hard to pass up right now while the incentives are still here. You can use our links below to find models in your area.
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