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Health care and how much it costs is scary. But youre not alone with this stuff, and knowledge is power. An Arm and a Leg is a podcast about these issues, and is co-produced by KFF Health News.VISIT ARMANDALEGSHOW.COM
Federal law requires that all nonprofit hospitals have financial assistance policies also known as charity care to reduce or expunge peoples medical bills. New research from Dollar For, an organization dedicated to helping people get access to charity care, suggests that fewer than one-third of people who qualify for charity care actually receive it.
An Arm and a Leg host Dan Weissmann talks with Dollar For founder Jared Walker about its recent work, and how new state programs targeting medical debt in places like North Carolina may change the way hospitals approach charity care.
Plus, a listener from New York shares a helpful resource for navigating charity care appeals. Dan Weissmann @danweissmann Host and producer of "An Arm and a Leg." Previously, Dan was a staff reporter for Marketplace and Chicago's WBEZ. His work also appears on All Things Considered, Marketplace, the BBC, 99 Percent Invisible, and Reveal, from the Center for Investigative Reporting. Credits Emily Pisacreta Producer Claire Davenport Producer Adam Raymonda Audio wizard Ellen Weiss Editor Click to open the Transcript Transcript: New Lessons in the Fight for Charity Care Note: An Arm and a Leg uses speech-recognition software to generate transcripts, which may contain errors. Please use the transcript as a tool but check the corresponding audio before quoting the podcast.
Dan: Hey there–
Clara lives in New York City with her husband Remy and their family. And, recently, over the course of a year, they had some … medical encounters. At hospitals.
Nothing super-dramatic: Remy broke his ankle in August of last year. Hello, emergency room. Hello, ER bill.
They had a second baby in November 2023 a boy! who ended up needing to spend a day in neonatal intensive care. He’s fine. They named him Isaac.
And one night early this year, Isaac just… wasn’t looking good. Lethargic. Had a fever.
Clara: We decided to give him Tylenol. Um, and he spit it all back out.
Dan: They took his temp again. A hundred and three point five.
Clara: We started Googling, um, what is like dangerously high fever for a baby
Dan: And yep. For a baby that little, a hundred three point five is starting to get iffy. Like possible risk of seizure. But it was late at night. No pediatrician, no urgent care. Hello new, unwelcome questions.
Clara: The last thing you want to be thinking about is, Oh shit, this is going to be really expensive. You want to be thinking about, let’s go to the ER right now, make sure he doesn’t have a seizure.
Dan: So they went. And the folks at the ER gave Isaac more tylenol, he didn’t spit it out, his fever went down. They went home, relieved about Isaac and a little anxious about the bills.
After insurance, they were looking at more than eight thousand dollars. Clara didn’t think her family could afford anything like that.
And the billing office didn’t offer super-encouraging advice.
Clara: basically every time I’ve called, they said, why don’t you start making small payments now so it doesn’t go into collections.
Dan: However. Clara listens to An Arm and a Leg. Where we’ve been talking about something called charity care for years. This summer, we asked listeners to send us their bills and tell us about their experience with charity care. Clara was one of the folks who responded.
Just to recap: Federal law requires all nonprofit hospitals to have charity care policies, also called financial assistance.
To reduce people’s bills, or even forgive them entirely, if their income falls below a level the hospital sets.
We’ve been super-interested in charity care here for almost four years, ever since a guy named Jared Walker blew up on TikTok spreading the word and offering to help people apply, through the nonprofit he runs, Dollar For.
Since then, we’ve learned a LOT about charity care. Dollar For has grown from an infinitesimally tiny organization — basically Jared, not getting paid much -to a small one, with 15 people on staff.
Jared says they’ve helped people with thousands of applications and helped to clear millions of dollars in hospital bills.
And in the past year, they’ve been up to a LOT and theyve been learning alot. Before we pick up Clara’s story which ends with her offering a new resource we can share let’s get a big download from Jared.
This is An Arm and a Leg, a show about why health care costs so freaking much, and what we can maybe do about it. I’m Dan Weissmann. I’m a reporter, and I like a challenge. So the job we’ve chosen on this show is to take one of the most enraging, terrifying, depressing parts of American life- and bring you a show that’s entertaining, empowering and useful.
In early 2024, Dollar For put out a couple of big research reports documenting how much charity care doesn’t get awarded. And why people don’t receive it.
Jared: I feel like for a long time we have been looking around at the experts, right? Who are the experts? And where can we find them and what can we ask them?
Dan: Finally, they undertook a major research project of their own. They analyzed thousands of IRS filings from nonprofit hospitals, and compared what they found to a study from the state of Maryland based on even more precise data.
And they hired a firm to survey a sample of more than 11 hundred people. Then ran focus groups to dig in for more detail.
Jared: I think that what these reports have just revealed is like, we are the experts like dollar for actually knows more than everyone else about this.
Dan: The amount of charity care that hospitals do not give to people who qualify for it?
The data analysis produced a number: 14 billion dollars. Which Jared and his colleagues say is a conservative estimate.
The survey showed that more than half of people who qualify for charity care do not get it. About two thirds of those folks do not know that it exists. Some people who know about it just don’t apply. And some who do get rejected, even though they qualify.
Their conclusion: We found that only 29% of patients with hospital bills they cannot afford are able to learn about, apply for, and receive charity care. None of which surprised Jared.
Jared: It’s like, Oh, like our assumptions have been correct on this. Like people don’t know about charity care. The process sucks. Um, a lot of people that should get it, don’t get it. Um, and hospitals have put all the pain and all of the responsibility on the patient
Dan: Those topline findings put Dollar For’s accomplishments in context.
Jared: Like we have submitted over 20, 000 of these financial assistance applications.
Dan: 20, 000 people. That’s spectacular. That’s I know you’re counting the money. How much money is it that you’re talking about so far?
Jared: I think we’re closing in on 70 million, 70 million in medical debt relief. So
Dan: Right. It’s a start.
Jared: there you go.
Dan: Its a start.
Jared: It sounds great, and then you see the 14 billion number and you’re like, oh, shoot. What are we doing? What are we doing?
Dan: laugh crying emoji.
Jared: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dan: And so, for most of the year, Jared and his team have been testing a strategy to take on a 14 billion dollar problem.
Jared: We have spent the year trying to work with hospitals. We came at this how do we put a dent in the 14 billion? If it’s not going to be through TikTok, and it’s not going to be through individual patint advocacy, then what if we moved further upstream, and instead of patients finding out about us one to three months after they get a bill, what if they heard about us at the hospital?
Dan: Jared envisioned patients getting evaluated for charity care, and getting referred to Dollar For for help applying, before they check out. He thought
Jared: Maybe we could make a bigger dent into that 14 billion. And, I think that that was wishful thinking.
Dan: Wishful thinking. That’s how Jared now describes his hopes that hospitals would see that they could do better by patients, with his help, and sign right up to work with him.
Jared: Um, well they haven’t, Dan. So, we don’t have, uh, you know, we’ve got one hospital.
We’ve got one hospital. I don’t know if there’s a smaller hospital in the United States. It is Catalina Island Health. It is a small hospital on an island off the coast of California
And when patients go in there, they tell them about Dollar For, and they send them over. Um, that was what we were hoping to do with these larger systems.
Dan: Jared talked to a lot of hospitals. He went to conferences for hospital revenue-department administrators. He didn’t get a lot of traction
Jared: You know, this is one thing where I’m like, I don’t want to be totally unfair to the hospitals.
They’re huge entities that you can’t just move quickly like that.
it is going to take a lot more on their end than it would on our end, we could spin up one of these partnerships in a week.
And. They’re going to need a lot of time and it’s going to, you know, how do we implement this? Um, you know, with a small Catalina Island hospital it was easy, but if you’re talking to Ascension
Dan: Ascension Healthcare– a big Catholic hospital system. A hundred thirty-six hospitals. More than a hundred thirty thousand employees. Across 18 states, plus DC. Jared says they might get thousands of charity care applications a month. A deal to steer folks to Jared isnt a simple handshake arrangement.
Jared: How do you, how do you do that? You know, how do you implement that? I mean, it’s a pain in the ass. And these hospitals, and more so, hospitals are not motivated to figure this out.
Dan: Yeah. Right.
Jared: Unless you’re in North Carolina,
Dan: North Carolina. In 2023, North Carolina expanded Medicaid. In July 2024, Governor Roy Cooper announced a program that would use Medicaid money to reward hospitals for forgiving Medical debt.
Gov. Roy Cooper: under this program. Hospitals can earn more by forgiving medical debt than trying to collect it. This is a win win win.
Dan: Under the program, hospitals can get more Medicaid dollars if they meet certain conditions. One, forgive a bunch of existing medical debts. Another: Make sure their charity care policies protect patients who meet income threhholds set by the state.
A third: they have to pro-actively identify patients who are eligible for charity care — and notify those patients before sending a bill, maybe even before they leave the hospital.
Jared: I’m very excited to see how that looks in the future. Because if you remember, the big four, like our shit list, is Texas, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina.
Dan: Jared’s shit list. The states where, over the years, he has heard from the greatest number of people who have difficulty getting hospital charity care. Where he often has to fight hardest to help them get it.
Jareds shit list, the big four, were the four biggest states (by population) that had rejected the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.
Because of how the ACA was written, no Medicaid expansion means a lot more people who don’t have a lot of money and just don’t have ANY insurance at all.
It’s a giant problem. And North Carolina was one of those states where it was toughest.
Jared: And in, you know, the span of a year, North Carolina has expanded Medicaid, and created one of the best medical debt charity care policies in the country.
This law essentially says that they have to identify them early. So that’s like on paper, you know, it sounds amazing.
Dan: Onpaper it sounds amazing. We’ll come back to that. But first, let’s make clear: This wasn’t a sudden transformation. The governor, Roy Cooper, who we heard in that clip? He spent like seven years pushing the state to expand Medicaid.
The legislature finally agreed in 2023. And then Cooper and his team spent months this year figuring out how to bake medical-debt relief into the plan. It took a ton of maneuvering.
Our pals at KFF Health News covered the process. Here’s Ames Alexander, who reported that story with Noam Levy, describing the process on a public radio show called “Due South.”
Coopers team started out by trying to quietly bounce their ideas off a few hospitals..
Ames Alexander KFF Health News: But then word got back to the hospital industry’s powerful lobbying group. That’s the North Carolina Healthcare Association. And the Association was not at all happy about it. .
Dan: They raised a stink. And claimed the whole thing would be illegal, the feds shouldn’t approve it.
Cooper and his health secretary Cody Kinsley got kept going– and they did get the feds to sign off on the plan. So it was legal.
But it wasn’t mandatory. They were offering hospitals money, but those hospitals needed to say yes. And that didn’t happen right away.
Ames Alexander KFF Health News: When Cooper and Kinsley unveiled this plan on July 1st, there wasn’t a single hospital official who would join them there for the press conference. Ultimately, though, all 99 of the state’s hospitals signed on. And it’s not, it’s not really hard to understand why they stood to lose a lot of federal money.
Dan: Lose OUT on a ton of NEW federal money. A ton. According to KFF’s reporting, a single hospital system stands to gain like 800 million dollars a year for participating.
And you know, thinking about that — how much money hospitals were considering turning down — kind of puts into perspective Jared’s experience trying to get them to work with him. He wasn’t offering anybody 800 million dollars a year.I said to Jared: Seems like this would be hard to replicate elsewhere. Other states aren’t going to be able to put that kind of new federal money on the table. And Jared said:
Jared: I think before like, Oh, can we replicate it? I’m just like, how do we make it? How do we make it work in North Carolina?
Dan: That is: How to make sure when it gets implemented, that it really works? Remember, Jared said before: This all sounds amazing ON PAPER. We’ll have some of his caveats after the break. Plus the rest of Clara’s story.
An Arm and a Leg is a co-production of Public Road Productions and KFF Health News — that’s a nonprofit newsroom covering health issues in America. KFF’s reporters do amazing work — you just heard one of them breaking down how North Carolina put that deal together. I’m honored to work with them.
Jared loves the idea behind North Carolina’s initiative on charity care: Hospitals have to screen people while they’re on site, and let them know before they leave the hospital what kind of help they may be eligible for.
Jared: Making sure that a patient knows what is available to them before they leave is very powerful. , like, that’s where the responsibility should be. Um, but how do you do it? And what happens if you don’t? Right?
Dan: In other words, Jared says, the devil is in implementation, and in systems of accountability. He’s seen what happens when those systems are pourous.
Jared: In Oregon, they had that law that was like, Oh, you can’t sue patients without first checking to see if they’re eligible for charity care. . And then you find all these people that are being sued that were never screened.
Dan: Yeah, Oregonpassed a law in 2019 that required hospitals to evaluate patients for charity care before they could be sued over a bill. Jared’s colleague Eli Rushbanks analyzed a sample of hospital-bill lawsuits in one county. He could only see patients income in a few of them– but in almost half of those, that income was definitely low enough that the debt shouldve been forgiven.
He also took a big-picture look: In the years after the law took effect, two thirds of hospitals gave out LESS charity care than they had given before. Probably not what lawmakers had hoped for.
Hospitals in North Carolina will have two years to fully implement the screening requirement, called “presumptive eligibility.”
Some hospitals around the country already use automated systems for this: They check your credit, pull other data. Some of them use AI.
Jared says he’s seen some hospitals over-rely on the tech.
Jared: Some hospitals that are using presumptive eligibility tools will use that as a way to say, Oh, we already screened you. You can’t apply, but the patient is sitting there going, well, I’m eligible.
Your tool must have got it wrong. Cause these things are not a hundred percent accurate, or think of something like this, you lose your job, or maybe you’re at the hospital because you just gave birth to another human. So now you’re a household of four. It’s a four instead of three.
And obviously the presumptive eligibility tool isn’t going to be able to know that and calculate that. So if you go to the hospital and say, now I want to apply and they say, well, you don’t get to apply because we already screened you and you’re not eligible. That’s bullshit.
Dan: So, as North Carolina hospitals bring their systems online, Jared wants to push for a process where patients can appeal a machine-made decision. Jared: I’d love to be able to test that
how does that impact how many people are getting charity care and that 14 billion?
Dan: What do you think is your best shot for the next year of kind of moving towards 14 billion?
Jared: We are trying to figure that out. Um, obviously the election will play into that, but I think that if I had to guess where we would land, um, I think that we will double down on our patient advocacy work.
Dan: Jared says theyll definitely also continue to work with advocates and officials on policy proposals. But
Jared: The only reason anyone cares about what we have to say about policy is because we know what the patient experiences. So I think that if the, the more people we help, the more opportunity we will have to push policies forward that we want to see happen
Dan: So, this is a good place to note: If you or anybody you know has a hospital bill thats scaring you, Dollar For is a great first stop. Well have a link to their site wherever youre listening to this. Theyve got a tool that can help you quickly figure out if you might qualify for charity care from your hospital. Plus tons of how-tos. And theyve got dedicated staff to help you if you get stuck.
And we just heard Jared say theyre not backing away from that work, even as they aim to influence policy.
About policy Jared does have one other thought about their work in that area
Jared: We think that we’re going to get a little bit more feisty, uh, moving forward. So I’m, I’m excited about that.
Dan: I talked with Jared less than a week after the election. We didn’t know yet which party would take the House of Representatives, and of course there’s still a LOT we don’t know about what things look like from here. Jared had just one prediction.
Jared: I think we’re going to be needed, you know, that much more.
Dan: I think we’re all gonna need each other more than ever. Which is why I’m pleased to bring us back to Clara’s story from New York.
You might remember: Her family had three hospital adventures in the space of a year.
The first one, where her husband broke his ankle, got her started. The bill was eighteen hundred dollars, after insurance. A LOT for their family. But she had a few things going for her.
One, she knew charity care existed. Not because the hospital mentioned it.
Clara: No, I know about it from an arm and a leg,
Dan: And two, she had the skills. Because by training, she’s a librarian. And you may already know this but people come to libraries looking for a lot more than just books.
Clara: People all the time, will come in and bring in a form or need help navigating different systems and, and even just looking and trying to see where to start.
Dan: So, she went and found her hospital’s financial assistance policy online. Saw that her family met their income requirements. Found the form. Submitted it. Got offered a discount… that still left her family on the hook for more than they could comfortably pay.
And decided to see if she could ask for more. Was there an appeals process? There was.
But she didn’t find all of the information she needed online. The process wasn’t quick.
Clara: A lot of phone tag. And I don’t know if the bill pay phone lines are staffed better than the financial aid phone lines. But, you know, you get an answering machine a lot. You have to call back. The person doesn’t remember you. They’re not able to link your account.
All the things that I just feel like they’re really greasing the wheels of the paying for the bill option, but actually not making it especially accessible to do the financial aid and appeal process.
Dan: Clara hung in there. Heres what she told my colleague Claire Davenport.
Clara: Being a listener of the podcast, I feel like I’m part of a community of people who are sort of maneuvering through the crazy healthcare system. And I do kind of have Dan’s voice in my head, like, this is nuts. This is not your fault. This is crazy and not right.
Dan: Also, when she was angling for more help on her husband’s ER bill, she knew anything she learned could come in handy: She was due to give birth at the same hospital pretty soon.
Her persistence paid off. In the end, the hospital reduced that 1800 dollar bill to just 500 dollars.
Two weeks later, Isaac was born. And spent an extra day in the NICU. That, plus the late-night fever that sent them to the ER left Clara’s family on the hook for about 6500 dollars.
Clara used what she’d learned the first time through as a playbook. Apply, then appeal to ask for more help. She says that made it a little simpler. But not simple, and not quick.
Isaac was born in November 2023. His ER visit was in April 2024. When Clara talked with our producer in early August 2024, she was still waiting to hear the hospital’s decision about her appeal. Was it gonna be approved?
Clara: In the event that it’s not, I think we just put it on like the longest payment plan we can. Maybe we would ask family for help.
Dan: Update: A few days after that conversation, the hospital said yes to Clara’s appeal. Her new total, 650 dollars. About a tenth of that initial amount.
Which, yes, is a nice story for Clara and her family. But the reason I’m so pleased to share her story is this:
Clara: Actually, I made a template that you can let your listeners use for making an appeal letter. I’ll share it with you.
Dan: Clara thought it might be useful because part of the application and appeal process — not all of it was just facts and figures and pay stubs. There was also an opportunity to write a letter. Which opened up questions.
Clara: I feel like It’s not totally clear what you’re supposed to put in the letter and who you’re appealing to and how emotional you’re supposed to make it versus how technical
Dan: Here’s how she approached it.
Clara: I was trying to think about if I was reading the letter, what would help paint the picture of this bill in context of everything else. trying to put myself in their shoes, reading it, what would be useful t kind of add more depth to our story than just the bill. And then also I just tried to be really grateful and express authentic gratitude for the great care we received.
Dan: She also included a realistic estimate of what her family could actually pay. Which the hospital ended up agreeing with.
And yes, Clara shared that template with us. We’ll post a link to it wherever you’re listening to this. Please copy and paste, and fill in the blanks, and please-tell us if it works for you.
A big lesson here is, don’t take no for a final answer. Don’t take “We’ll help you this much” for a final answer. Clara discovered one other thing: Don’t give up if it looks like you may have missed a deadline. She missed one.
Clara: So I called them and said, I’m really worried. ” I didn’t send it in time. It might be off by a couple days. Is this going to be a huge problem? And they said, No, don’t worry about it.
It’s totally fine. Just send it. So I’m thinking, Okay, wait. There are so many people who are going to get cut off or get their bill and realize, Oh, well, I totally missed the window. So let’s go for the payment plan option. When actually,
Dan: If you’ve got the chutzpah, and the time, and the patience to make the next call and ask… you may get a different answer.
It sucks that it’s this hard. But I appreciate every clue that it’s not impossible. And I appreciate Clara sharing her story — and her template with us.
I told Jared about it.
Jared: Yeah, that’s amazing. I mean, I love, uh, it’s so funny. it’s just the idea of you have this patient that is going through all of this stuff and is so busy trying to focus on their own health, do their own thing, and they’re out here making templates so that other people can , you know, jump through the same hoops because we know We’re all going to have to jump through the hoops, uh, is just, man, how frustrating is that?
But how amazing is it that you have, you have built a community of people that are, you know, willing to, uh, take those kind of crappy, not kind of, very terrible experiences and, um, and turn it into something that is helpful for other people. I think that’s amazing.
Dan: Me too! So this is where I ask you to help keep a good thing going. We’ve got so much to do in 2025, and your donations have always been our biggest source of support. After the credits of this episode, youll hear the names of some folks who have pitched in just in the last few weeks.
And this is The Time to help us build. The place to go is arm and a leg show dot com, slash, support.
That’s arm and a leg show dot com, slash, support .
We’ll have a link wherever you’re listening.
Thank you so much for pitching in if you can.
We’ll be back with a brand new episode in a few weeks.
Till then, take care of yourself.
This episode of An Arm and a Leg was produced by Claire Davenport and me, Dan Weissmann, with help from Emily Pisacreta — and edited by Ellen Weiss.
Adam Raymonda is our audio wizard. Our music is by Dave Weiner and Blue Dot Sessions. Gabrielle Healy is our managing editor for audience. Bea Bosco is our consulting director of operations.
Lynne Johnson is our operations manager.
An Arm and a Leg is produced in partnership with KFF Health News. That’s a national newsroom producing in-depth journalism about health issues in America and a core program at KFF, an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism.
Zach Dyer is senior audio producer at KFF Health News. He’s editorial liaison to this show.
And thanks to the Institute for Nonprofit News for serving as our fiscal sponsor. They allow us to accept tax-exempt donations. You can learn more about INN at INN.org.
Finally, thank you to everybody who supports this show financially.
An Arm and a Leg is a co-production of KFF Health News and Public Road Productions.
To keep in touch with An Arm and a Leg, subscribe to its newsletters. You can also follow the show on Facebook and the social platform X. And if youve got stories to tell about the health care system, the producers would love to hear from you.
To hear all KFF Health News podcasts, click here.
And subscribe to “An Arm and a Leg” on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Email Print Related Topics Health Care Costs Multimedia An Arm and a Leg Podcasts Contact Us Submit a Story Tip

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With this bike, Can-Am delivers an awesome mix of rugged reality and futuristic aesthetic. The Origin’s angular black-and-white bodywork and tall riding position regularly invokes the feeling of a stormtrooper hovering through the moon forest of Endor on a speeder bike. That particular vibe is especially strong at speed, where the elevated stance and electric torque make it feel like you’re gliding just above the terrain. At lower speeds, the illusion shifts. The stealthy motor hum fades behind the subtle roll of tires on pavement, creating a sensation much like quietly cruising up on a skateboard. It’s stealthy, smooth, and serene.

In terms of performance, the Origin tops out at 79 mph for me, providing plenty of speed for highway rides. Can-Am rates the 0-60 mph acceleration at 4.3 seconds, but frankly this bike feels like it might toss you overboard if you push it that quickly. Can-Am estimates range of up to 90 city miles and 71 mixed environment miles. On one test ride, I ran the battery from 100 percent to 1 percent over the course of 2.3 hours, covering 58.7 miles at an average speed of 24 mph, according to the bike stats.
According to my stats, it was many more hours of fun in the sun with a break for lunch at the park by the water in between riding sessions. That ride was done entirely in Sport mode with regenerative braking turned off, and it returned an average energy consumption of 9 miles per kilowatt-hour. It’s a solid showing for an electric dual-sport, especially considering the aggressive mode and lack of regen for the most reactive and relaxed ride.
Sometimes I love the feel of regenerative braking on electric cars and motorcycles. It can add to the feeling of responsiveness. I found regen on this bike to feel a bit more tight and underpowered for my liking, but it’s there as an option for extending range. With regen turned off entirely, the Origin felt significantly more loose and natural to ride. On the Origin I consistently opted to leave both front and rear regen off. We’ll see how the Pulse feels when I test that model next.
I must have logged over 500 miles across four weeks with the Origin. The lasting impression is that when you gain muscle memory for how the bike responds to throttle spin and body movement, riding the Can-Am Origin feels like playing an amplified electric guitar. Every incremental finger and palm positioning has a result, and when you find your rhythm, suddenly you’re creating music.

The other piece of the Can-Am Origin experience that I didn’t anticipate is the conversational aspect. Electric vehicles are still novel to many, and electric motorcycles are an absolute enigma to most. “Can it get wet?” is still the classic question that many ask. But from day one to day 28 of test riding the Can-Am Origin, it was the brand itself that got people asking me about the bike.
My takeaway is that people have a real affinity for the Can-Am brand as well as a nostalgia for the days of two-wheeled Can-Am motorbikes. When they learn that Can-Am is back on two wheels in the form of a bad-ass looking electric dual-sport motorcycle, people react like they just met a the much younger version of a celebrity in their home town. It’s a fun thing to experience.
Can-Am has earned its place as an electric motorcycle brand to consider
The Can-Am Origin is an incredibly thoughtful and fun take on what an electric dual-sport can be. It pairs rugged styling with a high-tech, feature-rich interface, offers plenty of real-world performance, and never stops turning heads while doing it without trying. From its futuristic design and surprisingly refined touchscreen to the tall, confident riding position and intuitive handling, the Origin is a complete package, so long as your expectations around electric motorcycle range are in check.
Priced starting at $14,999, the Origin slots in competitively against other premium electric motorcycles, though it leans more toward adventure and off-road versatility than urban street performance. It doesn’t quite reach the power or fast-charging capability of more premium priced machines, yet it undercuts in price and adds very useful touches like Apple CarPlay, OTA updates, and dual regen tuning.

If money were no object, I’d gladly keep one in the garage. It’s just flat-out fun to ride. From quick errands and joyrides to weekend backroad escapes, the Origin is a thrill machine that leaves you smiling between rides. Can-Am has a huge selection of first-party accessories to customize your bike as well. This configuration above makes me drool.
Range will be the limiter on machines like this for a while, and while around 70 miles between charges is enough for plenty of use cases, it still has to be a part of the conversation when talking recommendations. But here’s the thing: despite that limitation, electric motorcycles are a ton of fun right now. And if you’ve got either a high pain tolerance for early adoption or healthy access to good charging infrastructure, you can absolutely push them further.

The Origin is compatible with both Level 1 (standard wall outlet) and Level 2 (240V) charging, but not Level 3 DC fast charging. Can-Am rates Level 2 charging at 0 to 80% in 1.5 hours and 0 to 100% in 3.5 hours. In practice, that translates to plugging in and waiting a few hours between fun sessions. For some riders, that’s no big deal, especially if spending time at your destination is part of the trip.
I certainly don’t live along the great electric freeway of California, but my coastal stretch of highway in South Mississippi is populated with electric charging stops.
In my testing, I used the Can-Am Origin for a roundtrip airport commute from home in Ocean Springs, MS to Gulfport, MS, and back. The airport was outside of the travel-there-and-back-without-charging range, but free charging infrastructure at the airport parking garage made it no problem. I rode there, parked, charged during my trip, and returned from the other side of the country to a full battery. So yes, it’s capable of handling local duties. But if long range is central to your riding lifestyle, it’s something to plan around. I think lower speeds and paid charging solutions along the way would allow me to reach New Orleans and return home, but I haven’t set out on that path with this bike.


The Origin isn’t perfect, but it’s arguably best in its category, well-executed, and just damn cool to experience. Can-Am absolutely executed on creating a great electric motorcycle experience despite not being solely focused on EVs or two-wheeled machines.
Can-Am Pulse experience
After 600+ miles on the Can-Am Origin, I had the chance to put some miles on a 2025 Can-Am Pulse electric motorcycle. My key takeaways? Both are excellent electric motorcycles with equally great CarPlay integration. The Pulse is more approachable with a low riding position and slightly more range. The larger storage capacity is also appreciated compared to the somewhat tight space on the Origin.

If I were choosing which to purchase without extensive riding experience, the Can-Am Pulse is absolutely the bike I would gravitate toward. It’s just a great standard street bike with awesome technology at a competitive price.

Above is a look at the redesigned CarPlay experience coming in September 2025 to iPhone in iOS 26, as seen on the Can-Am Pulse display. The new design flexibility makes CarPlay look more at home next to Can-Am’s UI that always appears on a third of the display. Since Can-Am supports CarPlay, the infotainment system will receive free upgrades as Apple enhances the iPhone-powered feature.
Can-Am also supports free over-the-air software updates to the bike itself. Updates are downloaded over wifi and installed using the built-in system on the bike. No visits to the dealership or firmware updates over USB drives required.
Here’s how both bikes compare on paper:
Feature | Can‑Am Origin | Can‑Am Pulse |
---|---|---|
Starting MSRP | $14,499 | $13,999 |
0–60 mph | 4.3 sec | 3.8 sec |
City range | 90 miles | 100 miles |
Combined range (WMTC) | 71 miles | 80 miles |
Charging (20→80 %) | 50 min (Level 2) | 50 min (Level 2) |
Peak power | 47 hp (35 kW) | 47 hp (35 kW) |
Continuous power | 27 hp (20 kW) | 27 hp (20 kW) |
Torque | 53 lb‑ft (72 Nm) | 53 lb‑ft (72 Nm) |
Dry weight | 412 lb (187 kg) | 390 lb (177 kg) |
Seat height | 34 in (865 mm) | 30.86 in (784 mm) |
Suspension travel | Front/rear 10 in (255 mm) | Front/rear 5.5 in (140 mm) |
Drive modes | 6 modes (Normal, ECO, Rain, Sport, Off‑Road, Off‑Road+) | 4 modes (Normal, ECO, Rain, Sport+) |
Find more about Can-Am Origin and Pulse electric motorcycles here.
Electrek’s Take
I still think the Can-Am Pulse is the easier recommendation for most people, and you can kit it out as much as the Origin. Yet after around a month with each bike, I can’t help but think more about the Pulse. Can-Am really built a fun machine with that bike, especially with its commanding riding position and rugged style.
I would love to see a version with Level 3 charging speeds and greater range to expand the road trip potential, but both machines are super if your commute or leisure route works with the specs.

For now, Can-Am has delivered more than any other electric motorcycle maker when it comes to a giant display with CarPlay integration, attention-grabbing style, and options for two different riding preferences.
Want to learn more about the world of electric motorcycles and other two-wheeled EVs? Catch up on expert Micah Toll’s constant coverage, and subscribe to Electrek’s Wheel-E podcast for weekly updates.
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Environment
This $2,400 eight-wheeled dump truck from China is the toy every man needs
Published
7 hours agoon
July 19, 2025By
admin

There’s something about the joy of playing around with Tonka trucks in a sandbox that men really never grow out of. Sure, we grow up, get real jobs, and most of us never take the toys back out of the dusty, long-forgotten box. But the desire is still there. And if you gave just about any former boy and reluctant adult the option, I’d be dollars to donuts they’d gladly play around with the life-sized version of their childhood construction toys in a heartbeat.
If that sounds like fun, then I’ve got good news for you. I just found the coolest grown-up toy construction vehicle and it’s unlike anything you’ve seen before. I’d argue that it slots in nicely as a perfect example of some of the coolest and weirdest things you can find from China’s endless supply of innovative EVs. So, for your viewing pleasure, I submit this week’s Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week: the Octo-dumper!
I really don’t know how to describe this vehicle. I’ve been at a loss for words before in this column, but at least there’s usually a general class of vehicle that these things fit into.
In this case, I’m hesitant to call it a dump truck – partly because it appears to be all dump and no truck.
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It’s remote-controlled, so you could call it an RC vehicle, but the fact that I’ve seen cars smaller than this rig makes me hesitant to lump it in with the remote-controlled toys.
Then there’s the 8×8 setup here. The last time I saw an eight-wheeled vehicle like this was, ironically, it was a mobile crane that was unloading one of my containers full of fun Alibaba construction equipment. Wow, I didn’t expect to come full circle there so quickly.

But despite being unable to quite classify this dumper, I still love everything about it, and I kind of want one.
Measuring around six feet long (197 cm), it seems capable of carrying a fairly large load. They rate it for 2,200 lb (1,000 kg) of cargo, and it looks every bit ready for it.
The top speed of 9 mph (15 km/h) might not hold up when fully laden, but this isn’t exactly a vehicle built for speed. Or comfort, for that matter. It’s built for by-god gettin’ stuff done! And with a claimed 5.4 kWh of battery capacity, it’s going to be quietly hauling your junk around for a good long time before it needs a recharge.

The cargo bed appears to have the classic pickup truck tailgate in the rear, though it also adds a pair of side gates like an old Corvair 95 Rampside pickup, except that the side gates run the full length. Finally, the front also has a tailgate–err, frontgate? Basically, it’s gates all around to turn this thing into a rolling flatbed capable of carrying just about any oversized junk you can think of!
Just don’t start tipping it up while you’ve got all those gates down or you might lose your load. That’s right, don’t forget that this is also a dumper! Not just a transporter around a job site, you can unload your dirt, mulch, gravel, friends, or whatever you carry in here with the push of a button.
Now I’m not exactly sure what I’d do with one of these if I owned one, but I’m sure I could find plenty of uses. You never realize what you can do with an octo-dumper until you own one, and then it’s suddenly like, “How did I ever manage without this thing!?”
Now it will set you back more than a Tonka truck. But I’d argue that the sticker price of $2,482 is a small price to pay in order to have the coolest vehicle in the neighborhood! Just try not to think yet about the thousands and thousands of dollars in fees, import charges, shipping, and other expenses of actually receiving one of these in the West. Instead, think of the fun hayrides you could give the neighborhood kids, at least assuming their parents signed the extensive liability waiver that this thing would probably require.
Speaking of liability though, before any of you get the bright idea to try one of these, please be warned that I’m telling you that’s a bad idea. As I always try to remind my readers during these fun tongue-in-cheek Alibaba articles: don’t actually try to buy one of these things. Seriously. These wild-looking Chinese EVs may be fun to look at, but this is just a lighthearted weekend column where I dig through Alibaba’s bizarre and fascinating collection of electric vehicles. While I’ve had a few successful (and fun) purchases from the site, I’ve also been burned more than once – so it’s definitely not for the faint of heart or anyone on a tight budget.
That’s not to say some brave (or stubborn) readers haven’t taken the plunge anyway, ignoring my caution and venturing into the unknown. But please don’t be the one who gambles and ends up with empty hands and a lighter wallet. Consider this your official heads-up – I’ve warned you!
For now, let’s enjoy how awesome it is that something like this octo-dumper exists, and leave it at that. Until next time, and until the next weird Alibaba EV, this is Micah signing off.

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