Rival e-bike brands find creative solutions for nearly bankrupt VanMoof’s e-bikes
VanMoof’s current financial woes can ironically be traced back to the company’s forward thinking and innovative designs. But now that future for these costly and complicated e-bikes is uncertain while the brand teeters on the edge of bankruptcy, other e-bike companies are coming up with equally innovative solutions for them.
We reported earlier this week that VanMoof, a leading Dutch e-bike maker, had stopped taking orders on its site. At the time the company put up a facade that all was well and that the pause in orders was simply to catch up with demand.
But the proverbial wheels fell off the e-bike later in the week when we learned that VanMoof applied for and received a postponement of payment from a Dutch court and was temporarily closing its stores in Europe.
The move doesn’t mean that the company is currently bankrupt, and in fact is a strategy designed to prevent a looming bankruptcy. But in practice, many companies that reach this stage never find the funding necessary to remain afloat and ultimately are forced to declare bankruptcy.
That could be a disaster for the thousands and thousands of VanMoof customers who rely on the company to keep their high-tech electric bikes working.
Now other rival e-bike companies have stepped up with creative solutions.
Blurby Bike, makers of the self-proclaimed “lightest e-bike made in the EU”, are offering VanMoof riders up to 1,000 euros of trade in value for their e-bikes when buying a new Blurby e-bike.
With Blurby’s models priced at between €1,899 and €2,499, that’s a pretty sizable chunk off of the purchase price.
The company explained to Electrek that they hope to be able to stockpile enough VanMoof bikes to service those still on the road.
Another VanMoof rival, Belgian-based Cowboy, has come up with a clever solution to helping VanMoof riders continue to unlock their e-bikes even without a functioning smartphone app. Currently, VanMoof bikes require owners to unlock their bike either directly from the app or with a digital key, which is created by the app.
Cowboy created an app that allows VanMoof owners to generate and save their own digital key, which can be used in place of one created by a VanMoof server.
Riders will need to grab the app now though since it requires an initial connection to the VanMoof server to fetch their current keycode. If the server goes offline, existing Bikey App users can continue to unlock their bikes, but it will no longer be possible for new users to activate it.
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![Day 1 of the Electrek Formula Sun Grand Prix 2025 [Gallery]](https://i0.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2025/07/54629423281_6315c46dff_k.jpg?resize=1200,628&quality=82&strip=all&ssl=1)
Today was the official start of racing at the Electrek Formula Sun Grand Prix 2025! There was a tremendous energy (and heat) on the ground at NCM Motorsports Park as nearly a dozen teams took to the track. Currently, as of writing, Stanford is ranked #1 in the SOV (Single-Occupant Vehicle) class with 68 registered laps. However, the fastest lap so far belongs to UC Berkeley, which clocked a 4:45 on the 3.15-mile track. That’s an average speed of just under 40 mph on nothing but solar energy. Not bad!
In the MOV (Multi-Occupant Vehicle) class, Polytechnique Montréal is narrowly ahead of Appalachian State by just 4 laps. At last year’s formula sun race, Polytechnique Montréal took first place overall in this class, and the team hopes to repeat that success. It’s still too early for prediction though, and anything can happen between now and the final day of racing on Saturday.
Congrats to the teams that made it on track today. We look forward to seeing even more out there tomorrow. In the meantime, here are some shots from today via the event’s wonderful photographer Cora Kennedy.
Stay tuned for more!
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The numbers are in and they are all bad for Tesla fans – the company sold just 5,000 Cybertruck models in Q4 of 2025, and built some 30% more “other” vehicles than it delivered. It just gets worse and worse, on today’s tension-building episode of Quick Charge!
We’ve also got day 1 coverage of the 2025 Electrek Formula Sun Grand Prix, reports that the Tesla Optimus program is in chaos after its chief engineer jumps ship, and a look ahead at the fresh new Hyundai IONIQ 2 set to bow early next year, thanks to some battery specs from the Kia EV2.
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Tesla has launched its new Oasis Supercharger, the long-promised EV charging station of the future, with a solar farm and off-grid batteries.
Early in the deployment of the Supercharger network, Tesla promised to add solar arrays and batteries to the Supercharger stations, and CEO Elon Musk even said that most stations would be able to operate off-grid.
While Tesla did add solar and batteries to a few stations, the vast majority of them don’t have their own power system or have only minimal solar canopies.
Back in 2016, I asked Musk about this, and he said that it would now happen as Tesla had the “pieces now in place” with Supercharger V3, Powerpack V2, and SolarCity:
All of these pieces have been in place for years, and Tesla has now discontinued the Powerpack in favor of the Megapack. The Supercharger network is also transitioning to V4 stations.
Yet, solar and battery deployment haven’t accelerated much in the decade since Musk made that comment, but it is finally happening.
Last year, Tesla announced a new project called ‘Oasis’, which consists of a new model Supercharger station with a solar farm and battery storage enabling off-grid operations in Lost Hills, California.
Tesla has now unveiled the project and turned on most of the Supercharger stalls:
The project consists of 168 chargers, with half of them currently operational, making it one of the largest Supercharger stations in the world. However, that’s not even the most notable aspect of it.
The station is equipped with 11 MW of ground-mounted solar panels and canopies, spanning 30 acres of land, and 10 Tesla Megapacks with a total energy storage capacity of 39 MWh.
It can be operated off-grid, which is the case right now, according to Tesla.
With off-grid operations, Tesla was about to bring 84 stalls online just in time for the Fourth of July travel weekend. The rest of the stalls and a lounge are going to open later this year.
Electrek’s Take
This is awesome. A bit late, but awesome. This is what charging stations should be like: fully powered by renewable energy.
Unfortunately, it will be much harder to open those stations in the future due to legislation that Trump and the Republican Party have just passed, which removes incentives for solar and energy storage, adds taxes on them, and removes incentives to build batteries – all things that have helped Tesla considerably over the last few years.
The US is likely going to have a few tough years for EV adoption and renewable energy deployment.
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