Everything my wife learned from her first 100 miles e-biking to work
My wife has always been bike-curious. As the partner of a mobility journalist and prolific electric bike reviewer, it would be hard for her to avoid them if she tried. But most of her brief experiences with e-bikes comes from joining me on riding trips or the occasional rented e-bike on vacation. She’s the proverbial barefoot kid to my proverbial cobbler.
After beginning a new job this year though, she decided that she wanted to start riding an e-bike to work. Now over 100 miles (160 km) in, I pestered her with a bunch of questions to figure out what a relative newcomer to bike commuting has learned from the experience, both the good and the bad.
Or at least she was 100 miles in when I started writing this. As I’ve worked on this article in between more pressing news over the last few weeks, she keeps pushing that number higher. This morning, I checked her odometer, and she is now pushing 200 miles (around 320 km) – still a newcomer but a much wiser one than she was 200 miles ago.
The reason I was so interested in getting her perspective on switching to an e-bike commute is because as someone whose job it is to be surrounded by e-bikes, it can be tricky for me to maintain the perspective of a new rider.
But now I have the perfect opportunity, as my wife is an excellent case of someone who replaced a car with an e-bike for one of the most common uses: driving to work.
She just started a new position as an elementary school principal this year, and we live just over 2 miles (3.5 km) from her school, which is in the center of our city here in Tel Aviv. Like many big cities, the traffic is awful and finding parking is even worse.
Enter the solution: an e-bike. After searching around, she found one that she really liked (after seeing me test it in one of my Eurobike videos).
So we got her the bike of her dreams, a shiny gold-colored Exxite XS folding e-bike with 20” wheels. It looks great, and she loves that the seat goes low enough for her to rest her feet on the ground at stops – something that makes her feel much more stable and comfortable.
The first thing she told me when I asked how the experience had been so far was that she would never want to go back. We got the bike a few days after school started and so she began the year by taking the bus for the first few days.
The bus wasn’t ideal, but it worked. And when you don’t have a car, the bus looks a lot nicer than walking a few miles.
“It’s hard for me to consider going back to the bus now, that’s for sure,” she explained. “Now I can be on my own schedule, I don’t have to waste time waiting for the bus to show up or sit in traffic with everyone else on the bus just waiting to move.”
As a school principal, she leaves early in the morning. That means the bus trip there had been relatively short at 6-8 minutes (there’s not much traffic at 7:00 AM).
But on the way back in the afternoon, the same trip could easily take 45 minutes due to gridlock traffic.
Now, with her new e-bike, the trip takes just 10 minutes in each direction. It’s not quite as fast as the bus on a wide open road at the crack of dawn, but it’s much faster during traffic on the way home and saves her around half an hour total each day.
Because she can use bike lanes for around 90% of the route, traffic levels don’t impact her trip time on the way home in the afternoon.
Originally fearing that riding a bike to work might be stressful, she actually found it to be the exact opposite.
“The more I ride, the more I get used to it. In the morning it’s actually a relaxing experience. Sometimes I just ride along singing to myself, enjoying the wind in my face. I also like that I’m being active and pedaling a little bit so I get some body movement in before I start the day. It puts me in a good mood each morning.”
While most of her route to work has a separate bike lane with much of it physically separated from cars, there is a section where she has to ride on the side of the road with cars. “That area is a bit stressful, and I have to be sure to pay extra attention,” she admits.
Unlike in North America, throttles on electric bikes are technically not legal here. Many e-bikes still have them and slip under the radar, but local regulations require pedal assist-only and maximum speeds of 25 km/h (15.5 mph).
Her bike is up to code, and so without a throttle, she relies on the varying levels of pedal assist power to impact her speed and effort level. “I like the way I can adjust the power. The other day, it was a chilly morning and I forgot a jacket, so I put the bike in the lowest power level and my extra effort warmed me up.”
Having joined me on many of my frequent e-bike trips in the US, she too has been spoiled by throttle-enabled electric bikes though and wants me to outfit her e-bike with a throttle “just in case” and for days when she’s tired after work and would like the option of cruising along without having to always pedal. People these days… no respect for the rule of law!
Not everything has been an entirely positive experience though, and my wife isn’t shy about telling me what she doesn’t like, either.
“Some days I can carry everything I need in my backpack,” she explained. On other days, when she has more to carry, she hangs a shopping bag from the handlebars, but she doesn’t like that method because it doesn’t feel safe to her.
“I need to add a basket to my bike,” she says to me with a look that implies “you need to add a basket to my bike.”
To be fair, it’s been on my list of things to do. It’s right up there with reviewing a half dozen bike AirTag location tracker holders, installing a ceiling-mounted hanging bike rack, and editing bike videos.
My strong and independent wife also explained that the bike is a bit heavy for her.
Technically speaking, at 42 lb (19 kg), it’s fairly average for the folding e-bike market, but she’s a little lady and I understand what she means.
When she’s got her hands full, I see her sometimes struggling to get in and out of the elevator and hold open the big glass doors to enter the lobby of our apartment building.
Sometimes you want to help her, but hey, ultimately you have to let them learn on their own.
She’s also discovered the importance (and hassle) of locking a nice-looking electric bike to keep it from falling into thieves’ hands.
“I have to pay attention to where I lock it and always find something sturdy to lock to. Especially since it looks so good, I think it attracts attention.”
I set her up with two locks: a Foldylock Forever (which I think is one of the highest security bike locks in existence) as well as a super loud ABUS Alarmbox 2.0 motion-activated alarm.
From what I can tell, she doesn’t really take the time to set the alarm very often, but at least the folding lock would seriously slow down potential thieves.
There’s also the apparent hassle of charging, which frankly surprised me that she considered it a downside, but this is a judgment-free zone.
“I have to remember to charge the battery fairly often. One time I forgot several days in a row and by the end of the week, the battery meter was down to the red on the way home. I didn’t run out, but I was worried it would and that got me stressed. I don’t want to have to pedal the bike without electricity because it feels pretty heavy that way.”
Then there’s the speed issue. “It only goes up to 25 km/h and that makes me feel uncomfortable in the sections that I have to ride on the road because I’m slow compared to the cars. Or even in the bike lane on long straight sections, I wish I could go faster and arrive even quicker.”
To be fair, many electric bikes around here have been modified to go faster than the 25 km/h Euro-limit, and so she is one of the few rule followers, often even getting passed in the bike lane.
She’s not done with the complaints either, as I’ve apparently opened Pandora’s bike box here. “I also don’t like that I can’t really wear a skirt or dress without it sometimes flying up and everyone seeing my underwear. Or long flowing things like a shawl or my kimono that I’d be worried about getting caught in the wheels.”
Those aren’t problems I’ve ever personally considered, but that’s why it’s interesting to hear diverse perspectives.
The bike has fenders, but they have their limit. “Once I was riding and had to go through a puddle, and it splashed me. Now I’ve learned to pick my feet up when I go through a big puddle. Some of these things wouldn’t be that big of a complaint normally, but I’m going to work and I’m the school principal so I have to look professional.”
I assumed we were near the end, but I was wrong. As she continued, “I noticed I also really should wear sunglasses more often because a few times I forgot and a bug flew into my eyes.”
Then there’s the weather. “When it’s hot here, in the morning, it can still be nice to ride to work, but by the afternoon it can be quite hot on the trip home in the sun.”
Now that the temperature is cooling off though, she seems to enjoy the crisp weather during a ride.
Fortunately, that was the end of her list of disadvantages.
Just kidding, it continues.
“There are some red lights that are incredibly long to wait at, especially when there aren’t many cars on the road early in the morning. So I’ve started just checking that the road is empty and then going through.”
Technically, that puts her in the category of cyclists that car drivers like to think are responsible for the destruction of society and the slow tailspin our world is taking into the abyss, but I get her point.
In my opinion, it’s silly that she sits there at a red light, counting 100 seconds pass by, while the road is empty in both directions and most of the city is still asleep. If you drive a 4,000-pound piece of heavy machinery, waiting in the name of safety is a good idea so you don’t accidentally run someone over that you didn’t see. If you drive a 40-pound bike and have perfect 360-degree vision around you (and lack the physical ability to compress a pedestrian or cyclist into a pancake), then slipping through a red light on an empty road has an argument to be made.
But for the most part, the experience has been overwhelmingly positive for her. And she enjoys setting a good example.
“Because we live in a city, most of my staff already come to school by bike, bus or by walking. But even more have switched to biking since I started, and I’ve also seen many of my teachers start wearing a helmet after they see me arriving to school wearing my helmet. I’m also looking into installing a bike room at my school so students and staff have a secure, guarded area to lock their bikes safely.”
We’re just starting to get into the rainy season, so we’ll see how well she holds up as the weather gets wetter. The few days it rained so far, she quickly discovered the plastic-bag-over-the-saddle trick. But she still has the bus as a backup for the days that it’s absolutely pouring outside.
Maybe we’ll be back here after the winter to report back on her first 500 miles (800 km). Until then, let’s hear what tips or discoveries you’ve learned from your own experience biking to work. Sound off in the comment section below!
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For years, Tesla has been the go-to EV recommendation for “normals” looking for a painless, low-effort experience from their first electric cars. In light of questionable recalls and its CEO’s recent involvement in controversial politics, however, people are starting to distance themselves from the trailblazing company.
All that begs the question: what should we recommend to EV noobs now?
Despite early quality issues and ongoing service headaches, the groundbreaking S3XY lineup of EVs have always had a secret weapon in the form of the Tesla Supercharger network.
That network of dependable high-speed chargers, paired with solid app integration that makes it easy for Tesla drivers to find available chargers just about anywhere in the US, gave the brand a leg up – but no more. By opening up the Supercharger network to brands like Ford, Hyundai, Kia, and others, Tesla has given away its biggest competitive advantage.
Add in charging and route-planning apps like Chargeway, that make navigating the transition from CCS to NACS easier than ever with its intuitive colors and numbers and easy on/off switch for vehicles equipped with NACS adapters, and it feels like the time is right to start suggesting alternatives to the old EV industry stalwarts. As such, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
Here, then, are my picks for the best Tesla S3XY (and Cybertruck) alternatives you can buy.
Less Model S, more Lucid Air
Developed by OG Tesla Model S engineers with tunes from Annie Get Your Gun playing continuously in their heads, the Lucid Air promises to be the car Tesla should and could have built, if only Elon had listened to the engineers.
With panel fit, material finish, and overall build quality that’s at least as good as anything else in the automotive space, the Lucid Air is a compelling alternative to the Model S at every price level – and I, for one, would take a “too f@#king fast” Lucid Air Sapphire over an “as seen on TV” Model S Plaid any day of the week. And, with Supercharger access reportedly coming later this quarter, Air buyers will have every advantage the Supercharger Network can provide.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Less Model 3, more Hyundai IONIQ 6
Hyundai has been absolutely killing it these days, with EVs driving record sales and new models earning rave reviews from the automotive press. Even in that company the IONIQ 6 stands out, with up to 338 miles of EPA-rated range and lickety-quick 350 kW charging available to make road tripping easy – especially now that the aerodynamically efficient IONIQ 6 has Supercharger access through a NACS adapter (the 2026 “facelift” models get a NACS port as standard).
The company’s sole electric sedan hasn’t seen the same sales success as IONIQ 5, of course – but that has more to do with America’s insatiable lust for crossovers and SUVs than any shortcoming inherent in the IONIQ 6 itself. All the same, Hyundai is helping dealers clear out its remaining 2024 and ’25 models with 0% financing for up to 48 months through June 2nd.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Less Model X, more Volvo EX90
Once upon a time, Mrs. Jo Borrás and I were shopping three-row SUVs and found ourselves genuinely drawn to the then-new Model X. Back then it was the only three-row EV on the market, but it wasn’t Elon’s antics or access to charging, or even the Model X’s premium pricing that squirreled the deal. It was the stupid doors.
We went with the similarly new Volvo XC90 T8 in denim blue, and followed up the big PHEV with a second, three years later, in Osmium Gray. When it’s time to replace this one, you can just about bet your house that the new 510 hp EX90 with 310 miles of all-electric range will be near the top of the shopping list.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Less Model Y, more Kia EV6
If half the fun of driving a Model Y is terrifying your passengers with its straight-line speed, then the Kia EV6 has to be a serious contender for a replacement.
The sporty EV6 GT made its global debut by drag racing some of the fastest ICE-powered cars of the day, including a Lamborghini, Mercedes-AMG GT, a Porsche, even a turbocharged Ferrari – and it beat the pants off ’em. Combine supercar-baiting speed with an accessible price tag, NACS accessibility, $10,000 in customer cash on remaining 2024 models ($3,000 on 2025s) and just a hint of Lancia Stratos in the styling, the EV6 is tough to beat.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Less Cybertruck, more therapy
It’s not bulletproof, it’s not easy to upfit, it shouldn’t be used for towing, and it won’t win in a straight fight against a vinyl picket fence. By just about every standard “truck” metric, the Tesla Cybertruck falls short against the competition from Chevrolet, Ford, and Rivian. On a more subjective front, the Cybertruck has become a symbol for a conservative movement that is (depending on your point of view) either making America great again or plunging a once-great democracy into an era of fascist oligarchy and widespread stupidity.
In short, it’s probably best to skip the CT.
If you disagree with that statement and feel like driving a new Tesla Cybertruck is the key to happiness, I’m not sure an equally ostentatious GMC Hummer EV or more subtle Rivian R1T will help you scratch that particular itch – but maybe therapy might!
HONORABLE MENTIONS
Original content from Electrek.
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Republicans launched multiple attacks against EVs, clean air and American jobs this week, at the behest of the oil industry that funds them. These attacks won’t be successful, and EVs will continue to grow regardless, and inevitably take over for outdated gasoline vehicles.
However, these republican attacks on EVs will still have some effect: they will diminish the US auto industry globally, leading to job losses and surrendering one of the jewels in the crown of American industry to China, where there is no similar effort to destroy its own domestic EV industry.
Republican attacks on clean air this week included moves to block funding that has led to a renaissance in US manufacturing and also to illegally block clean air laws. They also moved forward with a procedural step towards increasing US fuel costs by $23B, an effort which the former reality TV contestant posing as the head of the DOT announced in January.
These moves shouldn’t be a big surprise – republicans have opposed clean air and American jobs for many years now, and they’re doing it because they want to maintain the bribes they get from the oil industry.
But they should inspire worry for Americans, because they will only harm the country’s domestic manufacturing base in the face of a changing auto industry.
Republicans keep trying to kill clean cars
The last time a republican occupied the the White House, we saw similar efforts to try to raise fuel and health costs for Americans, and to block superior EV technology from flourishing. That didn’t work in the end, and EVs continued to grow both during that period and after.
All the while, fossil fuels have maintained their privileged policy position, being allowed to pollute with impunity and costing the US $760 billion per year in externalized costs. Much of that subsidy is accounted for in the cost of pollution from gas cars, which are one of the primary uses of fossil fuels, which means that, in fact, gasoline vehicles receive much more subsidy than EVs do.
And yet, EVs still managed to grow substantially, despite these headwinds. EV sales have continued to grow, both in the US and globally, even as headlines incorrectly say otherwise. The republican party’s attempts to kill them were futile, and will continue to be.
It didn’t work, but it did delay progress
However, anti-EV actions from Mr. Trump and the republican party did manage to delay progress from where it could have been if America actually instituted smart industrial policy earlier.
What if, instead of the bumbling, idiotic nonsense we went through the last time Mr. Trump squatted in the White House, we could have had something more like President Biden’s EV policy, which created hundreds of thousands of jobs and attracted hundreds of billions of dollars of manufacturing investment?
Surely the American auto industry would be ahead of where it is now if those investments had had time to come online. But instead, republicans are currently trying to kill those jobs, which has already led to several manufacturing projects being cancelled this year, depriving Americans of the economic boost they need right now.
Meanwhile, there’s one place that this sort of stumbling isn’t happening: China.
China is taking advantage
China has spent more than a decade focusing on securing material supply, building refining capacity, developing their own battery technology, and encouraging local EV manufacturing startups.
This has paid off recently, as Chinese EVs have been rapidly scaling in production in recent years. It took a lot of the auto industry by surprise how rapidly Chinese companies have scaled, and how rapidly Chinese consumers have adopted them, after having an initially slow start.
But that adoption hasn’t just been local, it’s also global. Last year, China became the largest auto exporter in the world, taking a crown that Japan had held for decades. But the change was even more dramatic than that – as recently as 2020, China was the sixth-largest auto exporter in the world, just behind the US in 5th place.
China’s dramatic turn upward started in 2020, and now it’s in first place. Meanwhile, because of all the faffing about, the US remains exactly where it was in 2020 – still in fifth place. Well, sixth now, since China eclipsed us (and everyone else).
Tariffs won’t fix it
The reaction of the rest of the world’s automaking countries has been to put tariffs on Chinese autos, hoping to forestall the country’s dramatic rise to dominance. (Although, due to Mr. Trump’s idiotic flailing, Europe is already talking about removing these trade barriers with China)
But tariffs have been tried before, and they didn’t work. When Japan had a similarly meteoric rise to global prominence as an auto manufacturer in the 1970s and 80s, largely due to their adoption of new technology, processes, and different car styles which incumbents were ignoring, the US tried to stop it with tariffs.
All this did was make US manufacturers complacent, and Japan still managed to seize and maintain the crown of top auto exporter (occasionally trading places with Germany) from then until now.
Then as now, the true way to compete is to adapt to the changing automotive industry and take EVs seriously, rather than giving the auto industry excuses to be complacent. But instead, republicans aren’t doing that, and in fact are working to ensure the American auto industry doesn’t adapt, by actively killing the incentives that were leading to a boom in domestic manufacturing investment.
US auto industry jeopardized by republicans
Make no mistake about it: destroying EV incentives, and allowing companies to pollute more and innovate less, will not help the US auto industry catch up with a fast moving competitor.
As we at Electrek have said for years, you cannot catch up to a competitor that is both ahead of you and moving faster than you.
This applies to individual companies, which took their sweet time responding to the challenge from electric upstarts like Tesla, and have now lost market share to said upstarts and let a competitor establish itself in a big way (even though Tesla’s CEO is now trying desperately to harm his own company specifically, and the US EV industry as a whole, by being the largest funder of the party working to destroy said industry).
It also applies to nations, which could have spent the last decade doing what the Chinese auto industry has been doing, but instead non-Chinese automakers have been begging their governments for more time, even though it’s not the regulations that threaten them, it’s competition from a new and motivated rival that is moving faster and in a more determined manner towards the future.
The way that we get around this should be clear: take EVs seriously.
But that’s not what republicans are doing, and in doing so, they are signing the death warrant for an important US industry in the long term.
Another thing republicans are trying to kill is the the rooftop solar credit, which means you could have only until the end of this year to install rooftop solar on your home before the cost of doing so goes up by an average of ~$10,000. So if you want to go solar, get started now, because these things take time and the system needs to be active before you file for the credit.
To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. It has hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high-quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use, and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them.
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International equipment manufacturer Vermeer has unveiled a full-scale prototype of its Interlune excavator, a machine designed to ingest 100 metric tons of rocks and dirt per hour, extracting valuable helium as it makes its way across the surface … of the Moon.
Helium plays a critical role in the manufacturing of semiconductors, chips, optics, and all the other stuff that makes EVs, autonomy, the Internet, and the rest of twenty-first century life possible. The problem is that, despite being the second-most common element in the universe, helium is pretty rare on Earth – and we are rapidly running out. As such, there are intense economic and political pressures to find new and reliable sources of helium somewhere, anywhere else, and that demand has sparked a new modern space race focused on harvesting helium on the Moon and getting it back home.
To that end, companies like American lunar mining startup Interlune and the Iowa-based equipment experts at Vermeer are partnering on the development of suite of interplanetary equipment assets capable of digging up lunar materials like rocks and sand from up to three meters below the surface, extract helium-3 (a light, stable isotope of helium believed to exist in abundance on the Moon), then package it, contain it, and ship it back to Earth.
“When you’re operating equipment on the Moon, reliability and performance standards are at a new level,” says Rob Meyerson, Interlune CEO. “Vermeer has a legacy of innovation and excellence that started more than 75 years ago, which makes them the ideal partner for Interlune.”
Enter: Japan
America isn’t the only spacefaring nation eyeing a helium mine on the Moon. Japan announced similar plans back in 2023, with Japanese construction giant Komatsu announcing plans to develop a fully electric excavator capable of operating on the lunar surface.
The company showed a scaled prototype of the machine at the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas (above), emphasizing the need to develop new ways to operate equipment assets in the extreme temperatures of extraplanetary environments beyond diesel or even hydrogen combustion.
On the airless surface of the moon, it would be impossible for an internal combustion engine to operate on the moon’s surface because there is no oxygen for combustion. Electrically powered machines seem the obvious solution with solar power generation supplying the electricity. But the answer is not that simple.
Temperature changes on the surface of the moon are extreme. They can soar to 110° C and plummet to -170° C. Developing electric construction machinery to perform in this environment is no easy task, but Komatsu is tackling issues one by one as they appear. Using thermal control and other electrification technologies, we are engineering solutions.
Despite Komatsu’s apparent head start, however, Vermeer seem to pulled ahead – not just in terms of machine development, but in terms of extraction potential as well.
“The high-rate excavation needed to harvest helium-3 from the Moon in large quantities has never been attempted before, let alone with high efficiency,” said Gary Lai, Interlune co-founder and CTO. “Vermeer’s response to such an ambitious assignment was to move fast. We’ve been very pleased with the results of the test program to date and look forward to the next phase of development.”
Interlune is funded by grants from the US Department of Energy and NASA TechFlights. In 2023, the company received a National Science Foundation (NSF) Small Business Innovation Research award to develop the technology to size and sort lunar regolith (read: dirt). Interlune has raised $18 million in funding so far, and is planning its first mission to the Moon before 2030.
Electrek’s Take
We’ve got space travel, weird mineral extraction from another planet that’s essential for our technology, and a rapid, unchecked proliferation of AI. All we need now is big worms, a whole bunch of hallucinogenic narcotics, and the will to smash up a bunch of data centers with baseball bats – then we’ll have a pretty decent Dune LARP going. Yee-ha!
SOURCE | IMAGES: Interlune.
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