Weird Alibaba: Anybody want an electric airplane stair truck?
Remember how the Bluth family drove that airplane staircase truck in the TV series Arrested Development? My apologies if not, since that’s a bit critical to the lead image gag above. But either way, you can surely appreciate how ridiculous it would be to actually own and drive one of those as a real vehicle. And now thanks to Alibaba, you might not have to purely imagine it anymore.
That’s right! This week’s entry in the future Pulitzer Prize-winning column Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week is a set of electric airplane stairs that you can drive to the grocery store, bowling alley, or to visit your friend in jail. Just don’t park too close to the fence.
To be fair, there’s a slight chance that the stair trucks in the product images on Alibaba aren’t actually electric. The sales page describes an “electric option” for the truck, and I’ve got a hunch that these might be the old-fashioned dinosaur stairs. But to be honest, I’ve been writing this column for over three years now and I’m starting to worry that I’m outpacing the rate at which China can build new weird EVs, so I’m going to allow it.
And it would make perfect sense to have an electric stair truck, at least if you happen to be operating an airline. The refueling operation for massive airliners seems like the last place you’d want any extra exploding engines driving around.
What makes a bit less sense is why they would be selling one of these on Alibaba. Surely they have a direct phone line to Spirit Airlines – they don’t need to advertise to them online.
But hey, if they’re going to market a set of electric airplane stairs on Alibaba, you better believe I’m going to imagine how they could fit into my life. This could be the big new status symbol in electric vehicles!
We’ve got dudes with too much money buying Cybertrucks just to have the latest rare thing to show off. I was just in Austin, Texas this week and saw a pile of Cybertrucks already. Boring… Next! How about driving around one of these babies, huh?! I can all but guarantee you’ll have the only one in town. Oh, your Cybertruck needs special machinery to produce it? So does my truck. Both of ours may rust when left out in the rain, but only mine comes in both a convertible and hard top!
Oh yea, and at just $60,000 a pop, mine saves me a bit of cash, too!
As usual, I don’t actually recommend trying to buy whatever awesome, weird, or traffic-crime-of-a-vehicle I happen to feature each week from Alibaba. Not only is there a real non-zero chance that you’ll lose your money and never get a vehicle, but almost none of the fun things coming out of China’s EV factories are street-legal in the US. And let’s be honest, where would you park your stair truck, anyway?
Sure, none of us will probably buy an electric stair truck. It’s an extravagance that simply won’t fit into the lives of most average folks like us.
But the next time you’re taking a bleary, red-eye flight to lord only knows where, and you happen to gaze distantly out the terminal window until your eyes lock onto a lonely, disused stair truck on the corner of the tarmac, you can think to yourself, “that could have been me.”
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First Solar just cut the ribbon on a huge new factory in Iberia Parish, Louisiana, and it dwarfs the New Orleans Superdome. The company’s $1.1 billion, fully vertically integrated facility spans 2.4 million square feet, or about 11 times the size of the stadium’s main arena.
The factory began production quietly in July, a few months ahead of schedule, and employs more than 700 people. First Solar expects that number to hit 826 by the end of the year. Once it’s fully online, the site will add 3.5 GW of annual manufacturing capacity. That brings the company’s total US footprint to 14 GW in 2026 and 17.7 GW in 2027, when its newly announced South Carolina plant is anticipated to come online.
The Louisiana plant produces First Solar’s Series 7 modules using US-made materials — glass from Illinois and Ohio, and steel from Mississippi, which is fabricated into backrails in Louisiana.
The new factory leans heavily on AI, from computer vision that spots defects on the line to deep learning tools that help technicians make real‑time adjustments.
Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry says the investment is already a win for the region, bringing in “hundreds of good-paying jobs and new opportunities for Louisiana workers and businesses.” A new economic impact analysis from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette projects that the factory will boost Iberia Parish’s GDP by 4.4% in its first full year at capacity. The average manufacturing compensation package comes in at around $90,000, more than triple the parish’s per capita income.
First Solar CEO Mark Widmar framed the new facility as a major step for US clean energy manufacturing: “By competitively producing energy technology in America with American materials, while creating American jobs, we’re demonstrating that US reindustrialization isn’t just a thesis, it’s an operating reality.”
This site joins what’s already the largest solar manufacturing and R&D footprint in the Western Hemisphere: three factories in Ohio, one in Alabama, and R&D centers in Ohio and California. Just last week, First Solar announced a new production line in Gaffney, South Carolina, to onshore more Series 6 module work. By the end of 2026, the company expects to directly employ more than 5,500 people across the US.
Read more: First Solar pours $330M into a new South Carolina solar factory
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No, it’s not the new Bolt. GM’s design team previewed a new high-riding “sporty Chevrolet EV” that should be brought to life.
Is Chevy launching a new sporty EV?
This is the all-electric vehicle Chevy should sell in the US. General Motors’ design team released a series of sketches previewing a sporty new Chevy EV.
Although it kinda looks like the new 2027 Chevy Bolt EV as a higher-sitting compact crossover SUV, the design offers a fresh take on what it should have looked like.
The new Bolt is essentially a modernized version of the outgoing EUV model with a similar compact crossover silhouette. Nissan adopted a similar style with the new 2026 LEAF as buyers continue shifting from smaller sedans and hatchbacks to crossovers and SUVs.
Will we see the sporty Chevy EV in real life? It’s not likely. For one, the “exploration sketch” is by GM China Advanced designer Charles Huang.
GM Design posted the sketches on its global social media page, but the caption read “Sporty Chevrolet EV for the China Market.”
It’s too bad. The Bolt could use a sporty sibling like an SS variant. Chevy introduced the Blazer EV SS (check out our review) for the 2026 model year, its fastest “SS” model yet. Packing up to 615 horsepower and 650 lb-ft of torque, the Chevy Blazer SS can race from 0 to 60 mph in 3.4 seconds when using Wide Open Watts (WOW) mode.
Will the Bolt be next? I wouldn’t get my hopes up. And if GM does bring the sporty Chevy EV to life, it will likely only be sold in China. Like all the fun cars these days.
What do you think of the design? Would you buy one of these in the US? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.
While deliveries of the 2027 Bolt are set to begin in early 2026, Chevy is offering some sweet deals on its current EV lineup, including up to $4,000 off in Customer Cash and 0% APR financing for 60 months.
Ready to test drive one? You can use our links below to find Chevy Equinox, Blazer, and Silverado EVs at a dealership near you.
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Environment
Podcast: Electricity is the base currency, Tesla Robotaxi crashes, new Porsche Cayenne EV, and more
In the Electrek Podcast, we discuss the most popular news in the world of sustainable transport and energy. In this week’s episode, we discuss electricity becoming the base currency, Tesla Robotaxi crashes, the new Porsche Cayenne EV, and more.
The show is live every Friday at 4 p.m. ET on Electrek’s YouTube channel.
As a reminder, we’ll have an accompanying post, like this one, on the site with an embedded link to the live stream. Head to the YouTube channel to get your questions and comments in.
After the show ends at around 5 p.m. ET, the video will be archived on YouTube and the audio on all your favorite podcast apps:
We now have a Patreon if you want to help us avoid more ads and invest more in our content. We have some awesome gifts for our Patreons and more coming.
Here are a few of the articles that we will discuss during the podcast:
Here’s the live stream for today’s episode starting at 4:00 p.m. ET (or the video after 5 p.m. ET:
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