JackRabbit XG review: Testing the bigger and bolder little e-bike
The JackRabbit XG is basically the stronger, bigger brother of the famous little JackRabbit micro e-bike, and I had the chance to test one out to see how well a tiny little EV could work for the average commuter. As it turns out, little is big these days!
JackRabbit is well known in the micromobility industry for its pint-sized urban runabouts. The brand’s diminutive 25 lb mini two-wheelers look like a micro take on a more or less conventional e-bike, yet despite their small size they still offer 20 mph speeds and enough range for most urban riders.
But just because the brand has long focused on being as small and lightweight as possible doesn’t mean they don’t also have aspirations for power and features. That was the idea behind the JackRabbit XG: take everything people know and love about a tiny JackRabbit and hotrod it into even more “oomph” in a mini package.
Check out what it’s like to throw a leg over one of these fun little rides in my video review below. Then keep on reading afterward for even more!
JackRabbit XG video review
JackRabbit XG tech specs
- Motor: 500W geared rear hub motor
- Top speed: 32 km/h (20 mph)
- Range: 32+ km (20+ mi)
- Battery: Dual 151 Wh batteries, plus the option to replace with larger RangeBuster batteries
- Max load: 125 kg (275 lb)
- Bike weight: 14.5 kg (32 lb)
- Brakes: Front and rear mechanical disc brakes
- Tires: 20″ x 2.4″ in front and rear
- Price: $1,749
- Extras: Thumb throttle, rotatable handlebars, foldout foot pegs, bell, LCD display, kickstand, dual battery slots, optional fenders and other accessories
What is it for?
Since the JackRabbit XG is not an e-bike in the traditional sense (lacking functional pedals in favor of foot pegs), you’re obviously not going to choose a JackRabbit if you’re looking for exercise. Instead, this is purely a get-around-town type of ride, and probably also a have-some-fun-while-doing-it ride, too.
I’ll call it a micro e-bike since that’s how JackRabbit classifies it, but you wouldn’t be wrong to call it seated electric scooter, either.
Compared to the typical standing electric scooters we usually think of, the JackRabbit XG has a lot of major advantages. The wheels are bicycle-sized, giving it a much better ride over rougher terrain and streets with pot holes. The seat and handlebars will also feel more familiar to anyone with bike experience. Yet despite ‘feeling’ like a bike, it has the lightweight portability of a scooter, truly offering the best of both worlds.
I really like the sideways spinning handlebars since they can rotate 90 degrees and shrink the width of the JackRabbit to just 7-inches (when you also fold up the foot pegs).
It only takes a few seconds and suddenly the micro e-bike is extra micro. With the bars turned, it would easily hide away under a twin bed, such as in a college dorm room.
It could also be stashed behind a couch or in the back of a closet without taking up much room for itself.
The major upgrades
I’ve spent a lot of time on JackRabbit’s smaller and more affordable micro e-bike, so it was interesting for me to compare the JackRabbit XG’s bigger size and increased features.
The biggest upgrades are likely the size of the frame and the dual battery slots.
The bigger frame gives you more space to stretch out by putting the handlebars a bit further out in front of you, and also makes the bike more robust to allow a higher weight rating of up to 275 lb.
The dual battery slots mean the bike comes with an out-of-the-box range of 20 miles instead of 10 miles.
For riders who want even more range, one or two RangeBuster batteries seen above can be swapped into those battery slots, giving riders up to 48 miles of range (or even more, if you bring the original batteries with you in your pocket or bag!).
It’s important to note that the batteries are also UL-compliant, which is critical these days for ensuring battery safety. And if you stick with the smaller batteries, their sub 160Wh rating means you may be able to bring them on many domestic airlines in your carry-on luggage (but you should check with the airline first, as batteries between 100Wh and 160Wh sometimes require advance permission).
Last year I flew through several cities with my JackRabbit OG, and its 151 Wh battery stayed safely with me in my carry-on the whole time!
But the dual battery slots and larger frame are really just scratching the surface of all the upgrades. There’s a lot more here than meets the eye.
The new display is much nicer to use, finally giving more data than the original simple LED dot display, and it now gives controls for things like LED lights.
Speaking of those lights, they’re finally available to help keep you illuminated at night for others to see you on the road! And since they run off the main battery, you don’t have to worry about charging up separate LED light batteries.
The bigger 500W motor is another nice addition since it allows for better acceleration and also more powerful hill climbing. The speed is still limited to 20 mph, but that’s fine by me. With a wheelbase this short, you probably don’t want to be hitting Class 3 speeds anyway. I don’t have any big hills around me, but I imagine bombing down a huge hill on this thing at well over 20 mph would be a bit iffy.
The new dual brakes offer more powerful stopping as well, which is nice when you have a more powerful motor. You never want to have more ‘go’ then you have ‘stop’.
There are even more interesting accessories you can add now, such as higher handle bars and a rear strut fender for keeping the puddle spray off of your back.
Basically, it feels like a lot of thought went into the new designs! Since this isn’t some out-of-the-catalog white labeled e-bike, they likely had to design a lot of this stuff from scratch without the benefit of dozens of other e-bike companies using the same parts first.
One change that doesn’t thrill me though is replacing the keyed lock for the batteries with a thumb screw lock.
On the one hand, it sure does make it easier to swap your battery out when you want to. On the other hand, it sure does make it easier for a thief to steal your battery if you lock your bike outside and don’t bring the batteries in with you.
Of course when the batteries are this small, you can easily put them in your bag to bring them inside. But I still would like the option to lock them so I’m not obligated to bring them in with me all of the time.
Fortunately, JackRabbit does give us a keylock accessory on their site if you want to swap out the thumb locks, but you’ve got to pony up an additional $25 per lock.
But what about the price?
Yep, here’s the kicker. Oh lordy, it’s priced at $1,749. That’s some serious dough!
I had gotten so used to the $999 price of the smaller JackRabbit OG that the significantly higher cost of the XG really slaps you across the face.
On the one hand, JackRabbit doesn’t get the benefit of using lots of pre-existing bike parts that they can simply select out of catalogs. Sure, some things like tires and motors are the same. But many other parts like the frame, handlebar mechanism, and unique batteries all have to be custom made for JackRabbit. So I understand that they aren’t getting the same economies of scale that bring us ultra-cheap electric bikes.
But at the same time, I know there are people out there who compare watts per dollar as their main metric, and JackRabbit will never win there. If you’re looking for the fastest or longest range ride for the least money, this ain’t it. You can leave now.
If you’re still here, then you obviously are open to other features and advantages of specific e-bikes, and that’s exactly what JackRabbit is about. Sure, you pay a premium, but you get a super lightweight and easy-to-ride micro e-bike that folds up to a mere 7 inches wide. For some people, that’s worth the premium. And if it’s not, then I still recommend checking out the OG and OG2 models from JackRabbit for $999 and $1,299. You don’t get dual batteries or some of the other features, but the prices are better and you still get a lot of the benefits found in the XG like the small size and peppy speed.
If you’ve got the cash though, the JackRabbit XG is a seriously fun ride and offers way more features than I ever expected from such a small, minimalist little e-bike.
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Environment
OpenAI leads private market surge as 7 tech startups reach combined $1.3 trillion valuation
Three years ago, Sam Altman lit the fuse for what’s become the most explosive bull run in the history of tech startups with the launch of ChatGPT.
Along with OpenAI’s rapid rise to a $500 billion valuation, other prominent names like SpaceX, Anthropic and Anduril have seen astronomical markups of late. In total, a basket of seven of the highest-valued private tech companies is now worth $1.3 trillion on paper, almost doubling in the past year, according to Forge Global, which provides a marketplace for private investments.
Forge’s value assessments are based on trading activity as well as funding round valuations and tender offers.
That number is continuing to grow. On Friday, CNBC’s David Faber reported that Elon Musk’s xAI is raising $10 billion at a $200 billion valuation, just months after achieving a $150 billion valuation.
Like in the public markets, where the artificial intelligence boom has dramatically lifted the market caps of Nvidia, Broadcom, Oracle and others, AI is also the dominant driver of private market valuations.
OpenAI leads the pack (Forge values it at $324 billion), followed by four-year-old Anthropic at $178 billion, with xAI at $90 billion, according to Forge. Those three companies are all competing directly with one another, as well as with Google and Meta, to create the large language models of the future.
Databricks, which is also one of Forge’s seven leading companies, is valued at $100 billion, due to the data analytics startup’s hefty investments in AI.
The other companies in the group are Musk’s SpaceX, fintech company Stripe and defense tech company Anduril, valued by Forge at $456 billion, $92 billion and $53 billion, respectively. AI is having such a big impact on defense and national security that Forge created a new defense fund to give institutions exposure to the sector.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI (L) and Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla.
Reuters
As as a group, they’ve quadrupled their value since late 2022, when ChatGPT first hit the market.
Forge CEO Kelly Rodriques said that the valuation surge is reflective of actual growth, not just projections.
“We’ve not seen this in the private market ever,” he said. “Companies that are growing at 100%, 200%, 300% on numbers that are already pretty big.”
The hunger for AI exposure is reshaping capital flows into AI, beyond just the few companies at the very top. According to Forge, 19 AI firms have raised $65 billion so far this year, accounting for 77% of all private-market capital.
With that kind of cash available, those companies have little incentive to going public, Rodrigues said.
“If these stocks are liquid and have access to as much capital as they can get, regulation is probably the only thing stopping them from staying private for as long as they want,” he said.
Even without being publicly traded, they’re having a significant impact on the public markets.
Oracle’s stock jumped 36% in a single day this month after the software maker’s earnings report, largely due to a massive contract with OpenAI. Broadcom also forged a new mammoth deal with the ChatGPT creator, while Microsoft continues to benefit from its substantial equity stake in the company.
Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Meta all recently raised capital spending guidance to reflect infrastructure demand.
OpenAI’s Altman sees some reasons for caution.
At a dinner with reporters in San Francisco last month, he described current valuations as “insane” and acknowledged that yes, “we are in a bubble.”
But he’s still betting big.
“You should expect OpenAI to spend trillions of dollars on datacenter construction,” he said. “We will spend maybe more aggressively than any company who’s ever spent on anything… because we just have this very deep belief in what we’re seeing.”
In July, the US Environmental Protection Agency proposed a plan to delete its scientific finding recognizing that greenhouse gases are harmful to human health, with the goal of making cars less efficient and more costly to fuel. That plan went up for public comment last month, and the public comment period closes in two days, on September 22.
At issue is the EPA’s “Endangerment Finding,” which is the scientific basis of EPA’s regulation of harmful greenhouse gases. The endangerment finding found that greenhouse gases are harmful to human health, recognizing a scientific fact that every serious person has known for a long time – but now it was at least codified into federal procedure.
The Endangerment Finding focused specifically on carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), sulfur hexaflouride (SF6), hydroflourocarbons (HFCs), nitrous oxide (N2O), and perfluourocarbons (PFCs, now more commonly known as PFAS or “forever chemicals”), all of which we are certain cause climate change and harm humans.
And, in fact, the EPA is required to regulate these pollutants by the Clean Air Act, which tells the EPA that it must work to reduce air pollution.
Lee Zeldin wants to poison you and raise your fuel costs
Despite that legal requirement, in July, Lee Zeldin, a fraudster placed into the position of chief saboteur of the EPA by a convicted felon who sought a billion-dollar bribe from the oil industry while running for an office he is Constitutionally barred from holding, announced that he would repeal this finding, flying in the face of law, science, public health and American economic interests.
Zeldin’s stated purpose for attempting to delete this finding is because if the finding is gone, it will allow him to roll back other life- and money-saving vehicle efficiency regulations. He wants to revert those regulations because they constrain the fossil fuel industry – which has given him hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes over his political career.
The specific regulations that Zeldin has his eyes on are automotive regulations put in place by the EPA under President Biden. According to the government’s own numbers, these regulations stand to save 2,000 lives per year and save Americans over $100 billion dollars per year in fuel and health costs.
In announcing his illegal plan to kill Americans and cost all of us more money, Zeldin was joined by Chris Wright, a former oil CEO who is currently the titular head of the Department of Energy. In April, Wright signed off on a DoE report which said the rollbacks sought by Zeldin would raise gas prices by 76 cents per gallon, showing that the people behind this plan know it will increase your costs and yet are shoving it down your throat anyway.
The reason gas prices would rise is because of higher demand. If vehicles are less efficient, not only will they burn more gasoline thus costing you more money and also causing more pollution, more dependency on foreign oil and higher health costs for everyone, but that gasoline will be more expensive because that’s what happens to prices of products when demand rises. And the proceeds from those higher gas prices aren’t going to anything societally beneficial, they’re rather going to line the pockets of oil elites.
Wright’s office also offered a junk report (which is wrong in 100 ways) to justify the EPA’s position, claiming wrongly that climate change isn’t all that bad. But in doing so, the DoE misinterprets data, which the author of one of the cited studies immediately pointed out that the DoE misinterpreted. So, even the stretched justifications offered for the plan are steeped in the ignorance we have come accustomed to since late January.
So far, this clearly harmful plan has only been proposed, and has been open for public comment on regulations.gov since early September, where interested members of the public can leave substantive comments on whether they support the planned regulatory change or not.
Since then, comments have been rolling in, though the docket only shows a total of 676 approved comments as of this writing. This seems exceptionally low, given that the original endangerment finding produced some 380,000 comments.
As it turns out, the EPA has actually received a total of 111,596 comments so far, but it has been approving those comments for public posting at a glacial pace. At the current rate, it will take some 30 years for the agency to sift through and approve all the comments.
We reached out to the EPA to ask what was taking so long, and it said that it was busy categorizing comments based on whether they were part of a mass comment campaign or written by individual commenters, and sorting through them for the presence of profanity (although, one wonders if profanity is really all that unjustified when it’s on a plan that will knowingly kill thousands of people per year). Many comments have been “deferred” after an initial scan, awaiting another look.
Regardless, the number of approved comments is still incredibly small compared to the total, and it’s hard not to wonder if something nefarious is happening here.
Looking through the few comments EPA has accepted, the vast majority seem to be in favor of the reasonable and both scientifically and legally correct position of maintaining the Endangerment Finding. If these are the comments that EPA deigned to allow through, even in the midst of its efforts to kill Americans, then we can imagine even more vehement opposition to its plan in the 110,920+ comments it has hidden (including this author’s… which was made as soon as the docket went up for comment, and much like this article, is forceful and truthful but not profane).
In addition to the public comment site, EPA also held a virtual public hearing, where interested members of the public could call in to make their voices heard. The vast majority of callers supported the scientifically correct position of maintaining the finding.
The comment period is also much shorter than usually expected for regulations like this, as pointed out by a comment made by the Attorneys General of several states. The comment period is likely smaller than legally required of the EPA, just another example of the EPA breaking the law to try to kill you. After this comment, EPA did extend the comment period… by one week, from September 15 to September 22. Which is still not as long as the legal requirement.
Public comments can be submitted here. In case you get lost, the docket code is EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-0194.
If Zeldin pushes forward with his idea despite the inevitable public opposition to a plan to raise Americans’ costs and make their lives more deadly, the move will likely be caught up in courts for years, wasting Americans’ time and money and jeopardizing American competitiveness as the world rapidly moves towards improving vehicle efficiency without us.
Even if this clearly unwise and probably illegal move loses in court eventually, we still will have lost time in the transition – giving Zeldin’s oil masters some extra runway to sell their poison to us, and ensuring America’s competitors get a leg up in the transition to cleaner technologies while Americans remain forever poorer and sicker as a result of the republican party’s actions.
Public comments on this ridiculous plan are open through September 22 at 11:59PM EDT, 8:59PM PDT. Comments can be submitted here. In case you get lost, the docket code is EPA-HQ-OAR-2025-0194. EPA has to respond to legitimate concerns made during public comment periods or else the rule could be voided, so the more substantive your comment, the better.
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