This cool electric hand truck with tank treads can climb stairs
Most of the fun electric vehicles I discover in the depths of Alibaba require me to sit in, on, or around them. But this time, I’ve found something that barely even needs me involved. Check out this awesome electric hand truck that can climb stairs thanks to its nifty tank track operation!
It’s definitely a unique one for this week’s Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week, but it might also be one of the more useful machines I’ve found in a while.
Don’t get me wrong, I’d love having the world’s smallest electric delivery van just as much as the next guy, but this thing can do what the similarly-sized electric van can’t: climb stairs!
So how does it work? Well it appears to be a four-wheeled utility cart, at least when it’s not doing stair-climbing duty. It is pushed around with its handle, though can likely also work with electric power while on flat ground if you give it a slight tilt like the gentleman below moving the crate motor.
But the real magic starts when it is presented with an inclined obstacle.
The ramped portions of the tank treads encounter the first stair and help the dolly start climbing. From there, the tank treads lower down and begin to raise the load platform, keeping your pile of sandbags or massive weapons safe vertical instead of tumbling down the stairs.
From there on, it’s just a methodical crawl up the stairs as the tank treads work their magic. Check out the video below to see it in action. It seems to work beautifully, though I’m still a bit worried that it could go slipping down at any moment. I’m guessing the instruction manual has a few warnings in capital letters to NOT WALK BEHIND THE MACHINE AS IT CLIMBS.
The speed is surprisingly fast, or at least I was surprised. Even on low speed, it will climb 10 steps per minute. On high setting, it will climb at 16 steps per minute. Based on the folks I often get stuck behind on the local train station stairs, it seems there are a lot of humans who can’t do 16 steps per minute in their highest setting.
In addition to climbing speed, the spec sheet has some other interesting tidbits as well. The stair trolley has a battery capacity of 80-100 floors, which I think is the first time I’ve ever seen that unit used for battery ratings. It is also listed as operated by “single people”, which either means a lone worker or that those who have already found love need not apply.
The whole contraption weighs a bulky 93 kg (205 lb), yet can carry up to 400 kg (880 lb), meaning you and several of your friends could ride one up the stairs when you’re feeling lazy. What’s that? Your third-floor walkup apartment doesn’t have an elevator? Now it does!
There’s also a helpful product detail image, displaying the different parts of the machine to make it easier to understand. Initially, I was a Part 2 man myself. But as soon as I realized there were two Part 4s, I knew I had to switch teams.
The only real downside I can see is that this thing sure is pricey! At $2,650, it’d be cheaper to pay a couple of strong dudes to muscle that safe up the stairs.
But then again, an electric stair-climbing tank never takes a smoking break or files for worker’s comp after getting a herniated disc. So perhaps they’re on to something here.
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Just after Tesla launched its ‘Full Self-Driving’ package, in China, the country announced that it cracking down on automated driving features with new limitations.
In February, Tesla launched a first version of its “Full Self-Driving” FSD package in China for owners with the latest “Hardware 4.0”, or “HW4”, vehicles.
Most of the features under Tesla’s FSD package have been limited to North America due to Tesla training its system for this market first and due to regulatory limitations in other markets.
Shortly after Tesla launched FSD in China, the American automaker had to pause its rollout due to updated requirements from China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT).
Now, MIIT has confirmed that it held a meeting with automotive industry stakeholders yesterday, and it has further clarified the rollout of advanced driver assistance (ADAS) features.
CNEV reported on the meeting:
Car companies were asked to refrain from using words like “self-driving,” “autonomous driving,” “smart driving,” “advanced smart driving,” and instead use the term “combined assisted driving” to avoid misleading consumers, according to the minutes of the meeting.
Tesla had already changed the name from ‘Full Self-Driving’ to “Intelligent Assisted Driving” following the launch in China.
Based on a statement from MIIT, the meeting focused on enforcing the previously announced updated requirements that launched right after Tesla introduced FSD in China (translated from Chinese):
The meeting emphasized that automobile manufacturers must deeply understand the requirements of the “Notice”, fully carry out combined driving assistance testing and verification, clarify the system functional boundaries and safety response measures, and must not make exaggerations or false propaganda. They must strictly fulfill their obligation to inform, and truly assume the main responsibility for production consistency and quality safety, and truly improve the safety level of intelligent connected vehicle products.
Regulators want automakers to reduce the frequency of new software updates and instead focus on extended testing before releasing new updates.
The last few months have been quite chaotic for ADAS systems in China. Along with Tesla’s FSD release, several Chinese companies released their systems, including BYD, Xiaomi, and Huawei.
Xiaomi reported a fatal accident in which its ADAS system was active just seconds before the crash, and Tesla owners using FSD racked up thousands of dollars in fines due to FSD making mistakes.
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The Global Payments Company logo seen displayed on a smartphone.
Igor Golovniov | LightRocket | Getty Images
Global Payments shares tumbled 17% on Thursday after the company said it’s buying Worldpay for more than $24 billion while simultaneously selling its Issuer Solutions business to Fidelity National Information Services.
The company said that in acquiring Worldpay, which FIS had purchased in 2019 before later selling a majority stake, it’s expanding its reach and will be able to serve over 6 million customers across more than 175 countries, enabling $3.7 trillion in annual payment volume.
In selling its Issuer Solutions unit to FIS for $13.5 billion, Global Payments is divesting a unit for back-end financial processing that’s long been viewed as a stable provider of growth. In the end, Global Payments is going bigger in providing payments services to merchants, while FIS is focusing on issuer processing.
FIS bought Worldpay for about $35 billion in 2019 and sold most of its stake last year to GTCR.
Global Payments said on Thursday that it obtained committed bridge financing and plans to issue $7.7 billion of debt “to replace the bridge commitment and refinance Worldpay’s outstanding debt.”
Global Payments CEO Cameron Bready called it a “defining day,” and said the transaction gives the company “significantly expanded capabilities, extensive scale, greater market access and an enhanced financial profile.”
But Wall Street was less enthusiastic. While the acquisition gives Global Payments a larger footprint in payment processing, analysts at Mizuho described it as a strategic step backward.
Mizuho reiterated its neutral rating on the stock, warning that “the business could be seeing more meaningful margin pressure than investors acknowledge.” The analysts wrote that FIS won the trade, getting the “crown jewel” with Global Payments getting “more of the same.”
FIS shares rose more than 8% on Thursday.
Both deals are expected to close in the first half of 2026, pending regulatory approval.
The Tesla Cybertruck is in crisis. The automaker is still sitting on a ton of old inventory, which it is now heavily discounting, and it is throttling down production to try to avoid building up the inventory again.
When launching the production version of the Cybertruck in late 2023, Tesla CEO Elon Musk claimed that the vehicle program would reach 250,000 units a year in 2025:
“I think we’ll end up with roughly a quarter million Cybertrucks a year, but I don’t think we’re going to reach that output rate next year. I think we’ll probably reach it sometime in 2025.”
We are now in 2025, and Tesla is expected to currently be selling the Cybertruck at a rate of about 25,000 units a year – a tenth of what Musk predicted.
Earlier this month, we reported that Tesla began the second quarter with 2,400 Cybertrucks in inventory, valued at over $200 million.
This is a real problem for Tesla as many of those Cybertrucks are older 2024 model year units not eligible for the federal tax credit, and even some ‘Foundation Series’, which Tesla stopped building in October 2024 – meaning that Tesla is sitting on some 6-month-old trucks in some cases.
Tesla is now offering deeper discounts on the new inventory of Cybertrucks. The discounts can go as high as $10,000, but the average one is closer to $8,000, which is more than the tax credit:
Despite Tesla’s efforts, the automaker has only reduced its Cybertruck inventory by about 100 units since the beginning of the month.
Tesla is now further throttling down production of the Cybertruck at Gigafactory Texas, according to a new report from Business Insider.
According to two Tesla workers speaking with BI, the automaker has reduced its Cybertruck production teams and now operates at a fraction of its original capacity. It also moved some Cybertruck production workers to Model Y production at the plant.
One of the workers said:
“It feels a lot like they’re filtering people out. The parking lot keeps getting emptier.”
As we previously reported, Tesla has been operating all its factories at approximately 60% capacity to avoid building up excessive inventory amid lower demand.
When it comes to the Cybertruck program, it sounds like Tesla is lowering production even further.
Last week, Tesla launched a new version of the Cybertruck in an attempt to boost demand, but it has been poorly received due to the automaker’s removal of many essential features.
Electrek’s Take
There are a lot of other automakers that would have already given up on the Cybertruck ith these results, but not Tesla. Musk is not one to admit defeat easily.
However, Tesla is running out of options.
The new Cybertruck RWD was a desperate attempt, and I doubt it will work. Now, it sounds like Tesla is further throttling down production – virtually confirming that the new trim didn’t help.
The next step would be a complete production pause.
Again, I don’t think Musk wants to admit defeat, but at some point, it’s inevitable.
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