I took my e-bike and went undercover as a food delivery rider. Here’s what I learned
In cities around the world, e-bikes, scooters, and motorcycles make up the brunt of the food delivery industry. They serve as the critical backbone, connecting hungry customers ordering app-based food with the restaurants that serve up that savory delight. At least, that’s how it works almost everywhere except North America. So I took a trip to the US and spent a day as a food delivery rider to see what the big hangup is.
If you don’t know me, then hello! I’m an electric bike journalist and YouTuber, or at least that’s my normal day job. But this summer I hung up my keyboard for a day and hopped on an e-bike in South Beach, Miami to try Doordashing during a busy afternoon.
My ride for the day was a Lectric XP 3.0 folding e-bike, outfitted with a cargo package and food delivery bags. It’s a great bike for this type of use thanks to its low entry price (just $999!), its low frame, and its small diameter fat tires that make it easy to cruise rough city streets and hop curbs or potholes when necessary.
I made an action-packed video of my day here, and you should check it out if you want the firsthand experience of food delivery by e-bike (and a little Miami culture at the same time).
My goal for the day wasn’t necessarily to make money, though that was a nice side-benefit of the experiment. This was a job, after all (albeit an “independent contractor” job that allows the food app companies to avoid paying a living wage or benefits).
Instead of money, my main goal was to earn experience and insight into what goes into trying to deliver food by e-bike in the US. [And as a quick note: yes, I’m aware e-bike riders are the main delivery method in New York City. Congrats NYC, you’re the only US city that has mainly figured it out. Some other areas like San Francisco are on their way, but for the most part, the US is a laggard in this regard.]
If my goal had been to earn good money on this adventure, I would have been disappointed. More on that in a moment. But since the experience was my aim, I definitely came out as a winner. See what I learned below.
Delivery riders don’t make much money
In total, my day consisted of four and a half hours of food delivery in the bustling South Beach area, covering the lunch rush from 11:00 to 15:30, chosen to (hopefully) maximize profit. Over that period, I delivered nearly a dozen orders from a wide range of restaurants, smoothie bars, cookie shops, liquor stores, and more.
I raked in a total of US $48.75, or roughly $10.80/hour. That included tips, which in fact were a majority of my earnings. For comparison, the minimum wage in Florida where I was riding is $12/hour.
One of the main issues limiting my income was that the app just didn’t seem to give me many offers to deliver food. There were several periods where I was sitting in a “hot spot” as designated on the map in the app, but it took 30 minutes until I received a low-paying offer, such as $3.50 to pick up a McDonald’s order and deliver it. That was the second issue, that the offers simply paid poorly.
Anecdotal evidence from the experience of other delivery workers shows that these food apps often prioritize delivery car drivers over riders, though the exact reason isn’t clear. The apps won’t admit to this practice, but the workers seem pretty confident in its veracity. After talking about my experience with other Doordash delivery workers, several told me that the low-paying orders I got probably sat around for a while on the app getting passed over by delivery drivers until they were finally offered to me.
Cars don’t make space for you
Where I live in Tel Aviv, bikes share the road. There’s also a large motorcycle and scooter culture, so car drivers are used to seeing two-wheelers on the road, and they generally move over to make space. That’s not the case in Florida, nor much of the US. The only place I’ve seen it in the US is in California, where drivers tend to move over for me when I’m lane-splitting on a motorcycle – though they’re also required to by law.
I found that South Beach in Miami had a decent amount of bike lanes, though they were usually just painted onto the road and thus don’t offer much real protection from cars. A few areas, such as the main beach road, had protected bike lanes separated by physical barriers.
Since I was riding a relatively fast e-bike (up to 28 mph or 45 km/h), I would often slide out of the painted-on bike lane and into the main road, especially when I could travel faster than cars in traffic or other pedal bikes ahead of me in the bike lane. Boy, the drivers did not like that! Forget the fact that the drivers were stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic sometimes – those drivers still seem to hate seeing cyclists blow past them on the road.
Fortunately, I didn’t experience aggressive enough driving to the point of fearing harm, though such accounts are sadly numerous among cyclists in the US. It can be dangerous riding a bike with cars in the US, partially due to the lack of proper infrastructure and partially due to drivers just seeming to be surprised at seeing a bike sharing the road with them. And while road rage against cyclists accounts for a smaller segment of the injuries and deaths than good old-fashioned distracted operating of heavy machinery, it’s still an important consideration.
These lurking dangers are something that cyclists simply have to keep in mind. The road is ours too, but we can’t afford the same disregard that drivers have been permitted. We always have to be on the lookout for those that aren’t on the lookout.
Being a bike delivery rider is harder than it looks
I was surprised at just how difficult the job was. I’m a hard worker, I’ve worked plenty of manual labor jobs, I served in the military, and I’m no stranger to getting my hands dirty. But I still have a newfound respect for the job performed by delivery riders.
It’s not just the effort – sure, I was on an electric bike, but I was often pedaling hard to make my battery last as long as possible. I had a second battery but only swapped it after nearly four hours of working. Riding a heavy bike with non-aerodynamic food bags in a city with cars trying to wipe you out isn’t easy. And I did it on a nice, sunny day. Imagine this in the rain, snow, or brutal heat.
Then there’s the mental stress. You’re constantly on your toes for orders. When you get one, you have to rush wherever it sends you, fight your way to the food, then use a crappy map with a vague dot to find your destination for delivery. The address may be there, or it may just be wrong. And you’re being timed with a delivery deadline that is nearly unachievable. If you don’t rush to make it on time, you’ll be dinged with fewer future delivery offers. But you better not break a traffic rule – car drivers love to cite that as a reason for endangering cyclists on the road. “He blew through a stop sign back there, why should I give him space when I pass?”
Then you’ve got to find a way to lock your bike so it won’t get stolen, locate your customer, not get stabbed if it’s a bad part of town, then hurry back for the next order – all for as little as three bucks. Delivery riders on e-bikes have faced an alarming increase in assaults, either for cash or to steal their e-bikes. I always carry protection, and I think it’s a good idea for e-bike delivery riders to consider it while working.
Another surprise was that I sometimes had to do people’s shopping. Doordash gave me a type of limited credit card when I signed up, and twice I had to shop for things people ordered on Doordash.
The first was at a liquor store, where I had to buy some guy’s booze and then scan his ID when I got to his apartment. The second was a CVS order where someone needed a pink hairbow immediately, so they ordered it for delivery.
CVS stores aren’t known for being easy to find things, let alone a single hairbow. And I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a liquor store in Florida, but booze is apparently the state bird, and these things are like a Costco of alcohol. Good luck finding a specific bottle of obscure champagne and getting on your way by the deadline.
A second battery definitely makes things easier
If you’re going to do delivery work on an e-bike, having a second battery is a good thing to consider. I tried to go easy on my first battery and make it last, but there were times that I throttled at full-speed comfortably knowing I had a spare battery in case I drained my first one.
The downside is there usually isn’t a good place to lock a second battery on a bike – unless you have a dual battery e-bike – and so I kept my spare battery in one of my two food bags. I was constantly worried someone would steal it while I was handing off a delivery, so I always rushed back so as not to leave my bike unattended very long.
You should always tip your delivery rider
If you’re one of those people who says “I shouldn’t tip because their company should pay workers fairly instead of me paying their wages” then you’re 50% correct and 100% a jerk.
Yes, companies should pay workers fairly. But they don’t, at least not in the US. Until then, service workers who are not getting an hourly wage (like food delivery riders) depend on those tips as real income. They’ve got families to feed and bills to pay, just like you.
Over half of my earnings for the day came from tips. Without those tips, I would have earned around $5/hr just from the base pay.
So please tip your delivery rider. I always did before, but now I tip even better. And when it’s raining outside or rockets are falling, I tip delivery riders even better than that.
These people do hard work that is not made any easier by society, road infrastructure, or pretentious jerks wondering why their burger is 2 minutes late from a delivery rider sporting a fresh dog bite.
In conclusion
I still firmly believe two-wheelers are the only correct way to deliver food in cities. I’ve never seen a car deliver food where I live, and it’s the same for every European city I’ve ever ordered food in, with the exception of car-loving Germany.
Why we need slow-moving 4,500 lb (2,000 kg) vehicles to deliver a sandwich in a city is beyond me. In a city environment, food arrives faster on a bike, it requires less energy, and it’s better for the air we breathe. Everyone wins.
But there are some serious problems here too. These riders are doing critical work for very little pay and even less respect. They sometimes risk their lives, yet if they ever get hit by a car, there’s no one offering health insurance to heal them. And on top of all that, the delivery apps seem to prioritize car drivers instead of bike riders, further limiting their ability to earn a living wage.
I’m not saying I have all the answers here. But I do know that work needs to be done to improve this system. And I also know one other thing: now I’m hungry.
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Environment
YASA just destroyed its own record for power density with its state-of-the-art axial flux motor
Three months after declaring an unofficial world record achievement in power density for an electric motor, YASA’s latest axial flux prototype has shattered that previous benchmark. The axial flux motor specialist is touting another unofficial world record, achieved with an even lighter design.
If you haven’t heard of YASA, we recommend checking out this unique company, which is doing some extraordinary things with electric motors. Over the past 16 years, YASA has evolved in tandem with its technology, revisiting and refining traditional designs dating back to the 1820s by optimizing them with modern components and materials. The result is the axial flux motor – a genuinely viable alternative to conventional radial motors used in most EVs today.
YASA motors have been integrated in production vehicles like the Koenigsegg Regera and the Ferrari Stradale SF90 hybrid. In 2023, we saw the first implementation of YASA’s axial flux motors in a Mercedes vehiclee, the Vision One Eleven concept, after the German automaker acquired the company in 2021.
By late 2024, we saw Mercedes’ first integration of YASA’s axial flux motors into its AMG.EA architecture featuring 800V capabilities and support for dual and tri-motor systems. At the time, YASA said each of its axial flux motors offers four times more torque and double the power of nearly all current tech on the market.
Over the summer, YASA proved the tremendous power of its axial flux motor during real-world trials, achieving an unofficial world record in power density. Now, just a few months later, YASA is touting a lighter motor that delivers significantly more power, declaring yet another unofficial world record.
YASA’s axial flux motors could be a game-changer
To understand the latest milestone recently achieved by YASA, you need to look at the data from its last record-setting trial, which included a 13.1 kg axial flux prototype. As we reported in July, that version was able to achieve a peak rating of 550 kW (738 hp), equating to a power density of 42 kW/kg.
An unofficial world record.
Most recently, however, YASA has been testing a lighter axial flux motor prototype, weighing in at 12.7kg, on a more powerful dynamometer. The latest trials delivered a 750 kW (1000+ hp) short-term peak rating, resulting in a power density of 59 kW/kg – a 40% increase from initial testing and another unofficial world record.
According to YASA CEO Joerg Miska, that’s also triple the performance density of the top radial flux motors currently available in the industry.
Peak power aside, YASA’s latest axial flux motor has the makings of something truly special. The company reported that it estimates the continuous power of its latest prototype to be “in the region of 350kW-400kW (469 hp-536 hp).”
That’s quite impressive when you consider the limited weight and size of such an electric motor and even more exciting when you think of the possibility of four of them (or even two) powering future EVs. YASA founder and CTO Tim Woolmer spoke to the achievement:
On behalf of the entire YASA team, I’m proud and excited to so quickly follow up on the already remarkable results of our initial testing with this incredible result. To achieve a 750 kW short-term peak rating and a density of 59 kW/kg is a major validation of our next-generation axial flux technology. It’s proof of what focused engineering innovation can achieve. And this isn’t a concept on a screen — it’s running, right now, on the dynos. We’ve built an electric motor that’s significantly more power-dense than anything before it – all with scalable materials and processes. This motor will bring game-changing technology to the high-performance automotive sector.
While these prototypes still have a way to go before reaching scaled production, this latest achievement offers real-life evidence that the technology works and could change the way OEMs approach powertrain design. YASA’s Chief of New Technology, Simon Odling, said it best:
The early results are extremely encouraging. The motor’s performance on the dyno has exceeded even our most optimistic simulations. As well as its incredible peak power and overall power density, we estimate this new motor will be able to deliver all-important continuous power in the region of 350kW-400kW. This is real hardware, in real life, delivering real data – and it’s performing beautifully.
YASA’s team of engineers is already deep into the validation process of this latest axial flux prototype motor, promising further details of its development in the near future.
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America’s heartland is full of rural communities that are miles away from its major cities, both geographically and culturally – but that doesn’t mean these more sparsely populated regions can’t reap the benefits of electrification. In fact, EVs offer rural drivers even more benefits than they do to city-dwellers!
“An electric lifestyle would be a boon to our rural heartland,” wrote the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Maria Cecilia Pinto de Moura. “Rural communities across the country have their own distinguishing characteristics, but certain shared characteristics such as driving distances, the type of vehicles driven, and socio-economics are factors which contribute to this larger potential to benefit from vehicle electrification.”
Pinto de Moura went on to outline five ways rural and country drivers could benefit from going electric – but that was in 2021, and a whole lot has changed in the nearly five years since.
As such, I thought it was high time we revisit some of the reasons EVs could be a great fit for rural lifestyles, see if we could uncover any new ones, and outline the reasons we think rural drivers should rush to embrace electric vehicles in the coming calendar year.
1. More miles means more savings
When you hear that line about, “the average American drives 30 to 40 miles a day,” remember that in towns like Wellington, Ohio, or Colfax, Washington, 30 miles is a grocery run. Each way. So when people trot out that old line about range anxiety, what rural drivers actually hear isn’t reassurance. It’s dismissal — a suggestion that they drive too far for an EV to work, when nothing could be further from the truth.
A recent study by Rural Climate Partnership found that rural drivers spend an average of 44% more on fuel than city dwellers, and that the top 3.6% of rural drivers — the “supermilers” who rack up the most miles — could save over $4,000 each year by switching to electric fuel.
2. Electric trucks have arrived
Country guys and gals love their pickups, and arguably the single biggest difference between the EV markets of 2021 and 2025 is the proliferation of electric trucks and SUVs ready to help haul, chore, camp, and tow.
Why not save your expensive horses from breathing in gas and diesel exhaust. Haul ’em with your quiet new EV, instead!
3. Home charging just works
With only about 45% of rural counties having access to DC fast charging, public charging still isn’t as visible as many first-time EV buyers might like, but it’s far better than it used to be — and improving fast. Still, that’s not the real EV advantage. Home charging is.
Unlike many apartment-dwelling urban drivers, most rural owners can charge right at home. More than 80% of rural households have a driveway or garage that are ideal for overnight Level 2 charging, and many already have a 240V outlet, keeping setup costs (if there even are any) to a minimum.
Plug in before bed, wake up to a full battery every morning, and do it for pennies on the dollar, especially with off-peak rates.
4. Lifesaving battery power
If disaster strikes and you lose power, many electric trucks have the ability to power your home and appliances with the energy stored in their massive batteries – either from the truck itself, or through a V2X home battery system. If you live in an area prone to extreme weather events, the ability to keep medication refrigerated can be a literal life-saver!
5. EVs are more affordable than ever
It’s been a few years since a working class guy could reasonably expect to get a new pickup for less than $50,000. And, while much has been made of the “high cost of electric vehicles,” the truth is that thanks to killer lease deals, new tax incentives, and companies like Ford Pro and TRC that are willing to help you find even more funding to help pay for them, EVs can often be had for less than a comparable gas model.
As such, getting behind the wheel of an ultra-powerful, ultra smooth-running electric pickup truck from your favorite brand is easier than ever.
6. Energy independence and American jobs
At the risk of sounding like a paranoid red hat, rural Americans are proud Americans – just like rural Canadians are proud Canadians. Unfortunately, every gallon of gas burned in their pickups and SUVs came from oil drilled, refined, and traded on global markets — and that means supporting the oil business and economies of nations whose values don’t always align with, or maybe are even outright hostile to theirs.
Switching to an EV can help more of that money right here at home, especially as more and better battery recycling efforts come online and newer battery and anode/cathode chemistries are developed, reducing dependence on rare Earth metals, cobalt, and even lithium.
Even better, thanks to the rapid expansion and dramatically reduced costs of wind and solar power, you can power your EV with energy that is 100% Made in the USA, that doesn’t support foreign oil interests even indirectly, and which creates good-paying construction and maintenance jobs for local workers.
What am I missing?
There are obviously more reasons to go electric than these, from lower cost of ownership to saving the planet to absolutely killer burnouts that would make the one-tire-fire era IROC Camaros hang their 305s in shame – but I think those kind of fade into the background as being appealing to all, instead of being especially appealing to rural drivers.
That said, it’s been a long time since I was back in Ohio, so maybe I’ve forgotten what it’s like. You guys are smart, head on down to the comments and let me know what I missed!
Original content from Electrek.
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Honda’s electric SUV is on a roll. The Prologue was the third best-selling EV in the US in August, trailing only the Tesla Model Y and Model 3. Even with the federal EV tax credit now expired, Honda is still offering nearly $17,000 off the Prologue.
Honda Prologue registrations surge with huge incentives
As the $7,500 credit expired at the end of September, automakers rolled out steep discounts, many topping five figures with combined incentives.
The Honda Prologue has been one of the most discounted EVs over the past year or so. Last month, buyers could score up to over $20,000 in combined savings, including a $7,500 credit, $9,500 in financing bonuses, trade-in offers, and 0% interest for six years.
According to the latest registration data from S&P Global Mobility (via Automotive News), the incentives helped propel the Honda Prologue to become the third most popular EV in August.
A total of 138,457 EVs were registered in the US in August, up 24% from a year ago. Honda Prologue registrations surged 81% to 9,005 vehicles, the data showed.
Honda’s electric SUV had more registrations than the Chevy Equinox EV in August, and it’s based on the same GM Ultium platform. However, the Equinox is still outselling the Prologue through September.
Since some automakers don’t report monthly or US sales numbers, the S&P Global Mobility data offers a snapshot of sales performance.
The Prologue was yet again one of the most discounted models, with incentives of $12,704 in August, according to Motor Intelligence. Last August, Prologue incentives were just $5,813. Honda’s gas-powered CR-V had just $2,016 in incentives in August.
Although the $7,500 credit expired on September 30, Honda is still offering generous incentives for Prologue buyers and lessees.
The 2025 Honda Prologue is available with up to $16,550 in lease cash in most states. The offer includes $5,000 in lease bonus cash, $8,250 in Honda lease cash, and a $3,3300 loyalty or conquest bonus. Honda is offering the deal until November 11. Or, you can opt for 0% APR financing for up to 60 months.
2025 Honda Prologue trim |
Starting Price* | EPA Range (miles) |
| EX (FWD) | $47,400 | 308 |
| EX (AWD) | $50,400 | 294 |
| Touring (FWD) | $51.700 | 308 |
| Touring (AWD) | $54,700 | 294 |
| Elite (AWD) | $57,900 | 283 |
Although the Acura ZDX will not return for a 2026 model year, Honda is planning to launch the 2026 Prologue. We have yet to learn prices, but we could see it priced slightly lower due to the loss of the $7,500 EV credit.
Hyundai announced earlier this month it’s reducing 2026 IONIQ 5 prices by up to nearly $10,000 on some trims. The 2026 Hyundai IONIQ 5 now starts at under $35,000. Hyundai is offering leases as low as $289 per month right now. Will Honda match it?
Want to see the Prologue in person? You can use our link to find Honda Prologue models near you (trusted affiliate link).
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