Non-bike bike gear tested: HoverAir X1 is the cyclists’ drone I’ve been looking for
E-bikes are my main form of transportation, and so the right gear can make a big impact on my rides. While I normally review e-bikes themselves, in this series we’re exploring some of the helpful tools, gear, and other devices that can help make living a car-free life easier, more convenient, or just more fun! And the HoverAir X1 folding drone has proven to be an incredible camera for my rides, fitting squarely into the ‘fun and conventient’ category.
Because of the work I do (namely this), I’ve long been on the hunt for a super tiny autonomous drone that can shoot decent-quality photos and videos on my rides. I don’t need Planet Earth documentary quality pics and vids, but I’d like something I can still use professionally in YouTube videos and online reviews to capture my solo rides as if I had a cameraman with me.
I not only ride all over the place locally, but I also travel around the world to ride e-bikes. Whether I’m riding down my own street or down an Amsterdam bike lane, I try not to leave home with more than will fit in a backpack. That’s especially true when flying internationally. And that means I often have to leave my pro-level drones behind.
When I can manage to take a drone, it means I can get awesome shots to set the stage or show off cool views of my rides and the places I ride in. And sometimes it’s just nice to grab some third-person shots of myself on the bike, or capture cool drone angles of the places I ride for fun.
When the HoverAir X1 team reached out and asked if I wanted to test their tiny folding drone, I jumped at the opportunity. And I’m glad I did, because this is my new main go-to riding drone. It can literally fit in my pocket – that’s how small it is.
It folds to protect all of its important bits, though I bought a cheap case for a portable hard drive to keep the drone in so it wouldn’t get damaged bouncing around in my backpack while riding or during plane travel.
Even with the additional case I got for it, the whole package takes up half the space of my already small DJI Mini 3 Pro drone.
Despite its small size, the footage it takes is actually decent. It isn’t as good as my DJI drones, but it’s still pretty darn good. To see a sample shot that I worked into my last e-bike review, check out the video below from 1:09 to 1:16.
The HoverAir X1 can shoot 2.7k video, though only at 30 fps. That’s still good enough to give me a roughly 50% crop ability when I output 1080p videos for YouTube. I won’t be doing any slow-motion shots, but I can survive.
It also includes 32Gb of internal storage, so it’s one less memory card I have to worry about. I download the shots and pictures straight to my phone with its wireless connection, and I’m all set.
The video is surprisingly stable, considering the gimbal is only single-axis, but the electronic image stabilization adds to the effect and gives me great footage without the kind of shake you normally see in cheap drones.
The photos it takes are decent, though not amazingly sharp. Of course I’m not going be able to replace my Sony camera with it for pro-level shots, but they’re still surprisingly good. They can also capture perspective shots that my Sony can’t, or at least not without another human holding it while I ride!
The HoverAir X1 also launches and lands from the palm of my hand, which is a weirdly useful feature for cyclists. I often ride off-road in grassy or rocky areas lacking a good landing pad. Even when I can find a spot free of weeds or grasses to take off with my DJI drones, I usually catch them out of the air to avoid landing them on uneven ground and damaging the propellers on grass or rocks. So with the palm launch and landing, the X1 doesn’t care what type of terrain I’m on.
Oh, and I saved the best part for last: there’s no remote control. I know that sounds weird for a drone, but it really just does fly itself. Before you take off, you push a button on the top of the drone to select from different pre-determined flight shots, such as orbit (circles around you), rocket (shoots up and gets a top down view), dolly shot (moves in a straight line), follow mode (follows you around), tripod mode (stays in one spot but rotates to keep you in view as you move), etc. You can also make fine tune adjustments to those modes in the phone app ahead of time, such as how far back you want it to stay while following you or how high to fly during shots.
I assumed this setup wouldn’t work very well, but I’ve tried all of the modes and despite my cynicism, they all worked surprisingly well. The following mode even avoids trees and other obstacles as I ride through them.
You can see working it in the sample videos I cut together below.
If you want to get landscape shots or other non-following shots, you can switch it into manual control mode and fly it from your phone, but that’s not generally the kind of shooting I do when I’m riding. It’s nice to have that option though, especially when you want to grab a few seconds of high-angle scenery to set a scene.
For a roughly $350-ish drone (depending on the combo package), it does an amazingly good job at getting the kind of shots and images I need. If it only came with decent video, or was just a tiny size, or just had excellent autonomous flying and following modes, each of those would be great. But to get it all in one package is quite frankly amazing at this price.
Of course, no piece of gear is perfect, and I have complaints here as well. The battery is small, meaning I get about 9-10 minutes of flight time per charge. I bought a second battery due to this, so now I swap a battery in when I need to. Though the style of flying where it shoots in clips and then comes back to you to land in your hand means that each flight is rarely more than a minute or so. That allows you to film several clips on one battery in a single session.
Next, it just feels so darn light. It’s held up great so far, but at just 125 grams (barely a quarter pound), it feels like I don’t want to squeeze it too hard or I’ll break it. I guess that’s not really a complaint, especially since it’s only worked great so far. But it definitely just feels like there’s not much meat to it that would protect it in a crash. Yeah, the propellers are protected, but what about the folding mechanism? Considering I haven’t been able to crash it yet, I just don’t know the answer there.
But all told, it’s served me well across many bike trips and in multiple countries so far. It seems like the perfect tiny travel or cycling drone that can fit in your pocket yet still capture nice videos and images all by itself. I’ve finally found the bike trip drone I’ve been looking for!
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Over the weekend, Tesla began offering many Cybertruck trade-in estimated values above the original purchase price, apparently due to a glitch in its system.
Tesla offers online trade-in estimates for individuals considering purchasing a vehicle from them.
Over the last few days, Cybertruck owners who submitted their vehicles through the system were surprised to see Tesla offering extremely high valuations on the vehicle, often above what they originally paid for the electric truck.
Here are a few examples:
- $79,200 for a 2025 Cybertruck AWD with 18,000 miles. Since this is a 2025 model year, it was eligible for the tax credit and Tesla is offering the same price as new without incentive.
- Here Tesla offered $118,800 for a 2024 Cybertruck ‘Cyberbeast’ tri-motor with 21,000 miles.
- In this example, Tesla offers $11,000 more than the owner originally paid for a 2024 Cybertruck.
The trade-in estimates made no sense. Tesla has been known to offer more attractive estimates online and then come lower with the official final offer, but this is on a whole different level.
Some speculated that Tesla’s trade-in estimate system was malfunctioning, while others thought Tesla was indirectly recalling early Cybertrucks.
It appears to be the former.
Some Tesla Cybertruck owners who tried to go through a new order with their Cybertruck as a trade-in were told by Tesla advisors that the system was “glitching” and they would not be honoring those prices.
Tesla told buyers that it would be refunding its usually “non-refundable” order fee.
Electrek’s Take
That’s a weird glitch. I assume that it was trying to change how the trade-in value would be estimated and the new math didn’t work for the Cybertruck for whatever reason.
It’s the only thing that makes sense to me.
The Cybertruck’s value is already quite weird due to the fact that Tesla still has new vehicles made in 2024, which are not eligible for the tax credit incentive, while the new ones made in 2025 are eligible.
There’s also the Foundation Series, which bundles many features for a $20,000 higher price.
All these things affect the value and can make it hard to compare with new Cybertrucks offered with 0% interest.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
![At $28,000 off, is the Jeep Wagoneer S the best EV deal going? [update]](https://i0.wp.com/electrek.co/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2025/06/jeep_wagoneer_deals.jpg?resize=1200,628&quality=82&strip=all&ssl=1)
Like a 90s “gifted” kid that was supposed to be a lot of things, the electric Jeep Wagoneer S never really found its place — but when dealers started discounting the Jeep brands forward-looking flagship by nearly $25,000 back in June, I wrote that it might be time to give the go-fast Wagoneer S a second look.
This month, the discounts are even better.
UPDATE 23AUG25: I found you some even better EV deals!
Whether we’re talking about Mercedes-Benz, Cerberus, Fiat, or even Enzo Ferrari, outsiders have labeled Jeep as a potentially premium brand that could, “if managed properly,” command luxury-level prices all over the globe. That hasn’t happened, and Stellantis is just the latest in a long line of companies to sink massive capital into the brand only to realize that people will not, in fact, spend Mercedes money on a Jeep.
That said, the Jeep Wagoneer S is not a bad car (and neither is its totally different, hideously massive, ICE-powered Wagoneer sibling, frankly). Built on the same Stellantis STLA Large vehicle platform that underpins the sporty Charger Daytona EVs, the confusingly-named Wagoneer S packs dual electric motors putting out almost 600 hp. That’s good enough to scoot the ‘ute 0 to 60 mph in a stomach-turning 3.5 seconds and enough, on paper, to convince Stellantis executives that they had developed a real, market-ready alternative to the Tesla Model Y.
With the wrong name and a sky-high starting price of $66,995 (not including the $1,795 destination fee), however, that demand didn’t materialize, leaving the Wagoneer S languishing on dealer lots across the country.
That could be about to change, however, thanks to big discounts on Wagoneer S being reported at CDJR dealers in several states:
- Jeff Belzer’s in Minnesota has a 2025 Wagoneer S Limited with a $67,790 MSRP for $39,758 ($28,032 off)
- Troncalli CDJR in Georgia has a 2025 Wagoneer S Limited with a $67,590 MSRP for $42,697 ($24,893 off)
- Whitewater CDJR in Minnesota has a 2025 Wagoneer S Limited with a $67,790 MSRP for $43,846 ($23,944 off)
- Antioch CDJR in Illinois has a 2025 Wagoneer S Limited with a $67,790 MSRP for $44,540 ($23,250 off)
“Stellantis bet big on electric versions of iconic American brands like Jeep and Dodge, but consumers aren’t buying the premise,” writes CDG’s Marcus Amick. “(Stellantis’ dealer body) is now stuck with expensive EVs that need huge discounts to move, eating into already thin margins while competitors focus on [more] profitable gas-powered vehicles.”
All of which is to say: if you’ve found yourself drawn to the Jeep Wagoneer S, but couldn’t quite stomach the $70,000+ window stickers, you might want to check in with your local Jeep dealer and see how you feel about it at a JCPenneys-like 30% off!
Jeep Wagoneer S gallery
Original content from Electrek; images via Stellantis.
Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisors to help you every step of the way. The best part? No one will call you until after you’ve elected to move forward. Get started, hassle-free, by clicking here.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Multinational equipment brand SANY just launched a clever new 50-ton reach stacker that pairs gravity and an F1-style KERS system to generate electricity, improve operating efficiency, and reduce costs. The best part: they’re putting that smart tech to work by helping clean up (and shore up) the grid.
Short for Kinetic Energy Recovery System, KERS was a staple of Formula 1 in the late aught and 2010s. Essentially an advanced form of regenerative braking, KERS captured the kinetic energy of a car at speed that would normally be lost as heat when the brake pads pressed against the brake discs. Instead of heat, KERS converted that energy into electricity (storing it in a battery or flywheel), to be deployed later.
Sebastian Vettel explains KERS
In practice, KERS gave drivers an extra boost of horsepower at the push of a button, enabling them to attack or defend their position on track and adding a fresh strategic element to the sport. In SANY’s case, that stored power is fed back into the reach stacker’s electric hydraulic system, reducing pressure loss across the high-pressure setup by 50%, and lowering the machine’s overall energy consumption by more than 60%.
Energy recovery is a key feature. The potential energy of the boom, lifting gear and energy storage cabinets during the boom’s descent can be recovered efficiently with an overall recovery efficiency of over 65%. That means every 1 kWh of consumption in lifting can be recovered by 0.4 kWh during descent.
The 50t reach stacker is available with a 512 kWh swappable battery pack that’s compatible with other SANY heavy equipment assets, and supports both DC fast charging when swapping isn’t practical or (for whatever reason) desirable.
On a single charge and backed by the onboard KERS, that’s good enough for the machine can lift and move containers for more than 7 continuous hours, which SANY claims significantly reducing downtime for charging compared to other, similar equipment assets.
The new SANY reach stacker can stack six 50-ton containers, greatly enhancing a site’s container and battery storage density within a limited space. The first units will reach unnamed customers building out a utility-scale energy storage project by the end of this month.
Electrek’s Take
All the great stuff I was saying about the new 65-tonne XCMG still holds true for the SANY (especially when they take the wraps off their own 65t BESS-specific unit later this year), but the SANY adds smart battery swap tech and what seems to be more efficient operations, too.
Regardless of which one you choose, it seems like the available options for reach stacker operators are just getting better and better!
SOURCE | IMAGES: SANY.
If you’re considering going solar, it’s always a good idea to get quotes from a few installers. 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.
Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisors to help you every step of the way. Get started here.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Sports2 years agoButton battles heat exhaustion in NASCAR debut
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment11 months agoHere are the best electric bikes you can buy at every price level in October 2024