How I flew halfway around the world with an electric bike (legally)
Have you ever tried flying with an electric bike? It’s surprisingly hard since those big lithium-ion batteries are usually not allowed in your checked luggage or in your carry-on. But that just made me even more determined to figure out a way to do it.
Electric bikes are a fast growing and fun way to get to work, get exercise, or just get around and have fun. While often used for transportation or utility, electric bikes are also great for recreation. That means many people want to travel on vacation or for work with an e-bike. But those big lithium-ion batteries pose a problem since they are too large for air travel.
Or at least most of them are.
Nearly all airlines will allow batteries up to 100 Wh of capacity, and many allow batteries up to 160 Wh. That’s not very much, and is usually the size of a chunky portable cell phone charging battery. By comparison, a typical e-bike battery ranges from 300-700Wh.
And so to find an e-bike I could take on a plane, I had to cheat. I had to find an unusual e-bike that would actually fit the bill. And boy, did I!
The JackRabbit’s battery measures in at 36V and 4.2Ah, or around 151 Wh. It’s not much, only enough for around 10 miles (16 km) of range per charge. But it’s also just $199 to snag a second pocket-sized battery, which is what many people do to extend their range.
If you guys haven’t seen my review of the JackRabbit, you’ll want to check that out.
It may look oddly proportioned, and it is, but it’s also fun to ride and amazingly convenient for a city dweller thanks to its mere 11 kg (25 lb) weight.
It was originally designed for students to navigate college campuses, and so it favors a small, lightweight, relatively inexpensive ride that works well in an urban environment.
Plus it’s the perfect e-bike for traveling by plane since it slips just under the regulations to allow it to be legally transported on passenger aircraft.
So to travel halfway around the world on a recent trip, I loaded up my JackRabbit e-bike (technically a form of seated scooter, also known as micro e-bikes) and its battery for the trip.
JackRabbit knows that many people use their e-bikes for travel, and they’re also common on private aircraft or boats as a way to get around once you land at a small airstrip or port. For that reason, the company created a travel bag perfectly sized for the JackRabbit.
The bag is just $125, which is actually pretty good for a travel bike bag. My main bike bag that I use for larger bikes cost around 5x as much (though it also has wheels) and hard armor. The JackRabbit travel bag may be lightweight and small, but it is reinforced in the areas where the axles and other hard points touch the bag. That means it is still small enough to fold up into something the size of a lunchbox.
I loaded up my JackRabbit in the bag, though I found it was a very tight fit. It took some serious jiggling, but it finally worked its way in.
The trick seemed to be to get the bike most of the way in, then hold the bag up on end and do a bit of wiggling and bouncing.
I had to remove the battery to keep it in my carry-on, since the batteries aren’t allowed in checked bags. Just to be safe, I also ran the battery to empty before the flight and also put a piece of tape over the battery contact.
From there, I simply checked in the bag like any other piece of checked luggage. That’s basically what it looks like, and I even managed to stuff about a week’s worth of laundry into the bag too (once the bike gets squeezed in, there’s still lots of negative space around the frame where your laundry can go).
I tossed an Airtag into the bag just to follow it along through the airports, which was useful since I also brought it on a several-day trip that had me passing through 5 or 6 different airports.
Once I made it to my final destination, which was a solid 7,000 or so miles (12,000-ish km) away from where I started, I unpacked the bike and charged up the battery. A couple hours later I was ready to rock and roll, riding away on my e-bike halfway around the world!
If I tried this with larger e-bikes that have higher capacity batteries, I’d have to ship the battery separately and go through a hazardous goods process.
I’ve done it before but it’s super complicated, costly and more of a hassle than most people will ever want to put up with. For those cases in the past I had to become a certified hazmat shipper, believe it or not.
Being able to simply drop your e-bike off at the check-in counter and pick it up at baggage claim is a pretty awesome perk of a small battery e-bike. You may not be traveling very far on a charge, but if you’re using the bike as a way to get around the city, then a shorter range likely isn’t a big problem. And worst case scenario: you just bring a spare battery. The more, the merrier!
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The French are saying “non, merci” to Tesla, as sales crashed to just 700 units in May – a level not seen in more than three years.
The Model Y changeover was clearly not the problem.
Last week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk claimed that the company has “no demand problem” and that even though Europe is its weakest market, “everyone is struggling in Europe, there’s no exception.”
We have already produced a report to demonstrate that this is not true, but we are now receiving more data from May, which highlights Tesla’s growing problems in Europe.
France has just released its car registration data for May, confirming that the auto market is down 12%. However, Tesla’s sales were down even more than the rest of the market.
Tesla delivered only 721 vehicles in France in May – down 67% compared to the same period last year.
In Q1, Tesla blamed its poor performance on the lack of Model Y availability due to the design changeover, but it doesn’t have this excuse in Q2, which is now tracking below Q1 in Europe.
May was Tesla’s worst month of deliveries it has had in the last three years. It’s also even worse than any month of deliveries in the first quarter, despite the new Model Y now being in full production in Gigafactory Berlin and available in France.
Electrek’s Take
I’ll write a more comprehensive post about Tesla’s sales in Europe once we have data from more countries in May, but it’s not looking good.
Tesla blamed its terrible performance in Q1 on the Model Y changeover, but we are past that in Q2. Yet, April was worse than January, and now, it looks like May is going to be below February in the whole of Europe.
The only positive market so far is Norway, and that’s probably due to some of its large existing base of owners in the country updating to the new Model Y, but it will be interesting to see if it’s sustainable through out the rest of the year. I doubt it. Tesla benefited from the Model Y changeover, but I expect the brand damage will also be felt in the popular EV market.
This result in France in May is particularly interesting because it is even worse than April. I literally have to go back to Q2 2022 to find a quarter when Tesla had a worse second month of a quarter in France.
It is starting to look like demand collapse.
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Tesla still has no plan to make things right for millions of car owners with its ‘HW3’ system, more than four months after it finally admitted that the hardware won’t support self-driving.
At this point, the automaker is just hoping they buy new cars.
We are approaching the 10th anniversary of Tesla’s promise and sale of self-driving capability that still doesn’t exist.
The Tesla FSD Timeline
In 2016, Tesla announced that all vehicles produced thereafter would become capable of “Full Self-Driving” with future software updates.
At that time, Tesla was producing its vehicles with a new self-driving hardware suite called “HW2.5” – consisting of cameras, a radar, and a self-driving computer.
CEO Elon Musk warned at the time that the system might need an eventual computer upgrade to achieve full self-driving capability, which he said Tesla would provide for free.
In March 2019, Tesla began building cars with a new “HW3” computer and started upgrading HW2.5 cars to the new system.
In early 2023, Tesla still hadn’t delivered on its self-driving promises, but it started producing new cars with a new HW4 suite, which included a much more powerful computer and new cameras.
At the time, the automaker claimed that this new hardware suite would just enable Tesla to push self-driving capabilities further and that HW3 vehicles would still achieve “unsupervised self-driving capabilities” with upcoming software updates.
Tesla HW3 reaching its limit
A year later, we started to report that Tesla appeared to be reaching the limits of the HW3 computer.
It took almost another year before Musk finally admitted that HW3 will not be able to support full self-driving capabilities and that Tesla will need to upgrade the computers.
Musk said on January 29th:
I mean, I think the honest answer is that we’re going to have to upgrade people’s Hardware 3 computer for those that have bought full self-driving, and that is the honest answer and that’s going to be painful and difficult but we’ll get it done. Now I’m kind of glad that not that many people bought the FSD package.
We are now more than four months after this statement, and Tesla has yet to reveal a plan to make things right for HW3 owners, some of whom paid up to $15,000 for the FSD package, and some purchased it as long as nine years ago.
As we previously reported, the HW4 computer, as it exists, can’t be installed in HW3 vehicles. It doesn’t have the same camera connectors and overall format.
Tesla has previously talked about a new HW5 computer to be used in the Cybercab unveiled in October 2024, but it’s unclear if that new computer will be able to be retrofitted inside HW3 vehicles.
Electrek’s Take
I think that if Tesla had deployed FSD without selling it as “full self-driving” and promising capabilities, it would be a celebrated leading ADAS system.
Instead, it’s becoming one of the most significant liabilities ever.
Tesla has delivered millions of vehicles with HW3, which it said would all be capable of self-driving, and hundreds of thousands of those vehicle owners bought the FSD package.
Musk claims that Tesla only needs to replace the computers in the vehicles of those who bought FSD. That’s not true as Tesla promised that all vehicles delivered since 2016 would be capable of achieving full self-driving, and now that this is not true, it negatively affects the value.
Either way, even for those who bought FSD, Tesla has no plan for the retrofit yet. It’s a mess.
There are already several lawsuits related to Tesla’s self-driving claims that now include this situation with HW3, in addition to lawsuits specifically about the issue.
I think we are going to see billions of dollars in settlements over this, but it is going to take years. In the meantime, I doubt we can count on Tesla to do the right thing.
HW3 vehicles are barely getting any FSD updates now, and the current version is light years away from what was promised: unsupervised self-driving. Making things right should be Tesla’s top priority, but instead, Tesla is shifting its focus from delivering its promised capabilities in consumer vehicles to an internal fleet providing a ride-hailing service in a geo-fenced area with teleoperation support.
At this point, it is becoming ridiculous to believe that Tesla will deliver self-driving capabilities in almost 10-year-old vehicles, with or without hardware retrofit. It appears that Tesla is hoping that HW3 owners will change vehicles.
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Zhengzhou Nissan has launched a new, plug-in pickup in the Chinese market called the Z9. It’s the same size as the Nissan Frontier Pro, offers over 35 miles of all-electric range, and pricing starts at just $16,600.
* in China.
Positioned as the electrified sibling of the domestically-built Nissan Frontier Pro, the Zhengzhou Nissan Z9 is essentially a Chinese-market version the Frontier Pro, and it’s spec’ed and priced accordingly, with the as-yet undisclosed price of the Frontier Pro expected to come in a bit higher than the Z9.
That’s less interesting. What’s more interesting is that the Z9 offers 35 miles (60 km) of range on the base, 17 kWh battery, at a price that significantly undercuts even the Slate EV’s $28,000 pre-$7,500 incentive price tag – and that incentive is far from a sure thing.
What’s more, if you feel like spending a bit more, you can get a Zhengzhou Nissan Z9 equipped with a 32.85 kWh battery that’s good for almost 85 miles (135 km) of all-electric range. And even that extended-range model, at ¥168,900 (about $23,400) is still price-competitive with the Jeff Bezos-backed Slate EV.
In short, it’s bound to be a winner.
It’ll sell, but it won’t sell here
With excitement surrounding the Kia Tasman, Slate, and other, similarly affordable light-duty pickups building on the success of the Ford Maverick hybrid, it should come as no surprise that Nissan has international ambitions for its newest electrified pickup.
“In alignment with our ‘In China, For China, Toward the World’ strategy for electrification and smart transformation, Nissan will fully support ZNA’s ‘off-road strategy,’” explained Stephen Ma, Chairman of Nissan (China) Management Committee and President of Dongfeng Motor Co., Ltd. “We are working to strengthen our research and manufacturing capabilities, further advancing our presence in the core markets of pickups and off-road vehicles, with the ultimate goal of achieving global expansion.”
It’s exciting stuff, but with all the recent troubles it’s been experiencing, it’s doubtful that Nissan will bring either of its new, Chinese-built mid-size pickups to the US (electrified or otherwise).
“The mission of the new generation of Chinese automotive professionals is clear – to ensure that made-in-China cars are driven across the world. ZNA will utilize its dual-brand and dual-channel advantages to expand its global footprint,” Mr. Mao Limin, Executive Vice President of ZNA, at the Z9’s launch. “We aim to be one of the top exporters of pickups within three years and to reach a sales milestone of 100,000 units.”
That said, Nissan Hardbody fans shouldn’t lose hope quite yet. If Nissan is able to find a new savior in Toyota, a Taco-based BEV pickup with a new LEAF/Ariya-type front fascia might make more sense than you think.
Electrek’s Take
I’ve already written out my own comeback plans for Nissan, and this new Chinese truck doesn’t really fit into them. Like many of you, I’m of the belief that a PHEV isn’t an EV – but I do see their value as “lilypad” cars, and the two Lightning owners I know? Their last F-150s were hybrids.
SOURCES: Zhengzhou Nissan; side-by-side image via Carscoops.
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