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I was recently in China on yet another trip to tour the factories and showrooms of several leading micromobility companies, and I’ll have more to share with you on that trip soon. But first, while I was getting ready to fly out of the Shanghai airport, I stumbled upon the coolest little motorized carry-on suitcase that functions like a seated electric scooter. I ended up buying it on the spot.

Here’s what happened next when I tried to take it 8,000 km (5,000 miles) home.

This time it’s for real

This is the real deal – I actually bought and tested this thing, which I can prove with my hilarious testing video filmed in three different international airports. I highly recommend it, if you’ve got a couple minutes to burn.

So basically, you should know that this is not part of my long-running Awesomely Weird Alibaba Electric Vehicle of the Week series, where I (lovingly) poke fun at some of the odd and awesome EVs found on China’s largest shopping site from the safety on my computer screen. I did happen to feature a motorized suitcase in my last post in the Alibaba series, inspired by the fact that I knew I’d be sharing this review with you all soon. And finally, here we are!

I’ve seen these motorized suitcases floating around the interwebs for some time, but they’ve always been frustratingly expensive. For more than the price of a great e-bike, you can buy one of these motorized suitcase scooters. Since I wasn’t about to drop nearly $900 on a contraption like this, I figured I’d never have the pleasure of experiencing one.

That was until I walked past a shop selling them in the Shanghai airport. I was able to snag it for just 3,000 RMB, or the equivalent of around US $411. It’s still a dumb price, but it’s over half off the going rate in the west.

How does a motorized suitcase scooter work?

This thing is actually a decent rolling suitcase to begin with. It has 26L of storage, large rear rolling wheels, and a solid telescoping handle so you can roll it around like a normal trolley bag.

But when you push the expansion toggle switch the rear, the scooter’s frame extends out of the bottom and you can telescope up the handlebars to turn it into a functional scooter. A little pad tucked under the carry handle serves as a diminutive seat, and the right thumb lever on the handlebars is pressed to activate the electric motor in the single front wheel. The left thumb lever is the brake (just electric motor braking, no physical brakes), and you can engage reverse by holding both thumb levers simultaneously.

For something designed to do two things at once, which is normally a recipe for mediocrity at both, it actually surprised me in a good way. The suitcase works fine, even if you lose some of its interior storage that is taken up by the scooter’s frame. You also get the nice feature of the suitcase’s battery functioning like a USB power bank, so that’s another cool feature. And as a scooter, it’s decently comfortable, though a bit cramped.

I will say that the zipper on the bag feels a bit cheap and seems to me like it could be the first thing that will eventually break, rendering the bag useless for carrying anything, but until then it works pretty well at its job.

How good can a motorized suitcase scooter be?

This specific suitcase is the Airwheel SE3S, and the marketing says it can get up to 13 km/h (8 mph). My journey home from China started in Shanghai, where for the first couple kilometers of scooting, I didn’t realize I only had the suitcase in the middle power mode and not its highest setting.

I still had a lot of fun scooting around the airport and I was even going faster than folks walking on the moving walkways, so the middle gear was still plenty fast.

But after arriving at my connection in Abu Dhabi, I downloaded the smartphone app and discovered that I could fully unlock the speed. At that point, I was using every single one of those 300 watts available in the front motor to rocket me up to 13 km/h. In fact, I was going so fast that when I would hit the metal expansion joints in the airport floor, the little 92 Wh battery would bounce up off of its connector and I’d momentarily lose power. I could reach behind me and push the battery back down, then all was good again. And it really only happened in the highest power mode, which is when I’d hit any bumps with the most force.

But keep in mind that that if you hit any bumps at full speed, you might have to deal with momentary power interruptions. Not ideal, but still better than the trolley bag that I’d have to pull instead of this one pulling me!

To be frank, I’m actually amazed that the thing was pulling 300W through that little barrel connector (easier to see in the video).

But it never felt like anything was heating up too much, so I guess they have spec’d some sufficiently capable copper and enough heat dissipation on either side to make it work. Or it’s not really pulling 300W, which would make sense since how much power does one really need to go 13 km/h on a flat airport floor?

I also found other features that were available in the app, such as changing the color of the LED lighting in the scooter and controlling the suitcase remotely from my phone. The latter was pretty funny to test out – imagine pushing a button on your phone and watching your suitcase drive away.

Both seem like novelties, so I didn’t really mess with those features very much in practice.

I could see in the app that by this point I had scooted around 3 km (nearly 2 miles) in the Shanghai and Abu Dhabi airports, which was a weird statistic to have for a suitcase, but I was pretty proud of it.

Can you legally fly with an electric motorized suitcase?

I never once had an issue with the bag, though it did get pulled off to the side for additional screening in Abu Dhabi. The battery had already been removed, but it went it got pulled off into the lane of shame after the X-ray scan anyway.

That when a big UAE dude in military fatigues carried my scootcase over to the inspection counter, took one look at the computer screen with its scan on it, and told me it was good to go. No extra inspection. I popped the battery back in and rode away, as one does in these situations.

With a 92 Wh battery that neatly fits under the 100 Wh limit used by most airlines for lithium-ion batteries in carry-on bags, there’s really nothing else that would disqualify this as a legal carry-on bag in most cases. There are some airlines that have specifically banned hoverboards and other rideables, so you may want to double check, but I had no issue in three international airports.

But the journey wasn’t over yet

The final leg of my journey was a flight from Abu Dhabi to Tel Aviv, and the Airwheel suitcase performed admirably yet again. It fit just fine in the overhead storage compartment and was ready to rock n’ roll as soon as I was off the plane.

In fact, just because Ben Gurion Airport was my final stop, that didn’t mean I was done scooting. I took the train from the airport to a stop around 2 km (1.2 miles) from my apartment, then tried to ride my suitcase the rest of the way home. I probably could have made it since the battery is rated for around 8 km (5 mi) per charge, but it just felt pretty darn slow. So I put it on a Lime scooter and rode the pair of us most of the rest of the way at a much peppier 25 km/h (15 mph).

Close to home, I switched back to my suitcase so I could ride the last few hundred meters in style. And to finish strong, I was able to ride it right up the handicap accessible ramp into the lobby of my building, into the elevator, back out of the elevator (in reverse, mind you), and right up to my apartment door.

I had successfully ridden the suitcase from a Shanghai airport shop to my living room, albeit with a few planes, a train, and a Lime scooter in between.

What’s the verdict?

At just over US $400, I can barely justify this thing, at least for me. Yes, it actually worked great and was super fun, but I’m not exactly the target market.

For someone who has trouble walking long distances in an airport, this would definitely be a better way to get around.

But at the Amazon price of nearly US $900, it’s hard for me to call this a “buy”. Don’t get me wrong, I had a blast on it and don’t regret it, even if I’m probably going to try to sell it used for close to what I bought it for and recoup my investment in this article and video. But I’m not sure I can tell anyone it’s really worth the Amazon MSRP, for the same reason that I never considered buying one myself until I found it for under half-priced directly from its Chinese source. In fact, now I’m wondering what it would cost on the streets of China if I hadn’t paid the presumed airport markup.

I guess I’ll need to go back to China and find out…

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Global energy giant RWE halts US offshore wind because of Trump

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Global energy giant RWE halts US offshore wind because of Trump

Global renewable developer and energy giant RWE has halted its US offshore wind operations “for the time being” because of the “political environment” the Trump administration has created.

RWE, Germany’s biggest electricity producer, said in March that it had dialed back its US offshore wind activities. But now, CEO Marcus Krebber said in a speech transcript, which he’ll deliver at the company’s Annual General Meeting in Essen on April 30, that its US offshore wind business is now closed (but it wasn’t all bad news): 

In the US, where we have stopped our offshore activities for the time being, our business in onshore wind, solar energy, and battery storage has so far been developing very dynamically. At the start of this year, we reached an important milestone when our US generation capacity hit the 10 gigawatt mark. The construction of a further 4 gigawatts is secured.

He went on to say that renewables have created regional value and jobs, but that the company remains “cautious given the political developments.” RWE has introduced more stringent requirements for future US investments:

All necessary federal permits must be in place. Tax credits must be safe harbored and all relevant tariff risks mitigated. In addition, onshore wind and solar projects must have secured offtake at the time of the investment decision. Only if these conditions are met will further investments be possible, given the political environment.

About half of RWE’s installed renewable capacity is in the US, where it’s the third-largest renewable energy company through its subsidiary, RWE Clean Energy. RWE holds the rights to develop US offshore wind projects in New York, Louisiana, and California.

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RWE paid $1.1 billion for the New York lease area in 2022, where it’s meant to develop the 3 gigawatt (GW) Community Offshore Wind with the UK’s National Grid. Community Offshore Wind was projected to come online in the early 2030s and expected to power more than a million homes.

The developer paid $5.6 billion for the Louisiana lease in the Gulf of Mexico in 2023 as the lone bidder for development rights, and the Canopy Offshore Wind project off Northern California was not expected to be completed for another decade.

Read more: Trump admin halts $5 billion NY offshore wind project mid-build


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Trump’s memecoin dinner contest earns insiders $900,000 in two days

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Trump's memecoin dinner contest earns insiders 0,000 in two days

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump and his allies have raked in nearly $900,000 in trading fees over the past two days from the president’s $TRUMP cryptocurrency token, according to Chainalysis, a blockchain data company. 

The surge came after a Wednesday announcement in which the top 220 holders of the token were promised dinner with the president.

“Have Dinner in Washington, D.C. With President Trump,” reads a message on the front page of the Trump coin’s website. The event, which is black tie optional and hosted at the president’s private club in the Washington area, is scheduled for May 22, with a reception for the top 25 holders. A “VIP White House Tour” will take place the following day, the site says. The website also hosts an active leaderboard displaying the usernames of top buyers.

The $TRUMP memecoin jumped more than 50% on the dinner news, boosting its total market value to $2.7 billion. It was met with fierce criticism from some of Trump’s political opponents who said the move was further evidence that the president was using crypto to enrich himself. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., a prominent Trump critic, wrote on X that the sale was “the most brazenly corrupt thing a President has ever done. Not close.”

Roughly 80% of the $TRUMP token supply is controlled by the Trump Organization and affiliates, according to the project’s website. Since its launch in January, trading activity has generated about $324.5 million in trading fees for insiders, Chainalysis found. These fees are generated through the token’s built-in mechanism that routes a percentage of each trade to wallets controlled by the project — wallets that, according to the website, are linked to the coin’s creators.

Memecoins, often referred to as meme tokens, are a subset of digital assets that use blockchain technology and derive their value largely from internet culture, memes and social media hype rather than from an underlying utility or asset. The originators of memecoins can make fees when their coins are bought and sold.

They have grown in popularity in recent years as speculative assets, with some coins including dogecoin and fartcoin amassing total market values in excess of $1 billion.

Most of the $TRUMP supply remains locked under a three-year vesting plan, with coins gradually becoming available over time. Lockups like these are meant to protect investors by preventing insiders from cashing out all at once — a scheme commonly known in the crypto world as a “rug pull.” Vesting schedules aim to give retail buyers confidence that early holders won’t overwhelm the market and tank the token’s value.

Still, the dinner contest is being viewed by critics as an unusually explicit attempt to monetize presidential access. 

As CNBC reported Friday, Democratic Sens. Adam Schiff of California and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts are urging the U.S. Office of Government Ethics to investigate whether the promotion constitutes “pay to play” corruption.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment. The company behind the memecoin also did not respond to a request for comment.

Delaney Marsco, the director of ethics at the Campaign Legal Center, a nonprofit focused on campaign finance and government accountability, told NBC News the coin and dinner contest amounted to an unprecedented ethics breach — though it is unlikely to be illegal.

“Criminal conflicts of interest statutes don’t apply to the President,” she said. “That has allowed him to go against decades of of norms that every modern president since Carter has adhered to, which is to divest your financial interests, rid yourself of your businesses, and kind of go in to the presidency with a clean financial slate so that no one could accuse you of manipulating policy decisions or using your position in order to enrich yourself.” 

“The fact that he is not barred by the law from having these financial interests like this meme coin allows him to engage in a lot of seemingly corrupt activity. It has the appearance of a pay to play, so the President is apparently selling access to himself,” Marsco added.

Molly White, an independent crypto researcher, told NBC News that the leaderboard only shows top $TRUMP holders — and then only by their chosen screen name, making it difficult to identify who is paying to potentially join the dinner.

Schiff and Warren have cited public reports showing that some $TRUMP investors have ties to foreign exchanges or received funds from crypto platforms banned in the U.S., including Binance.

White also noted that at least one top $TRUMP owner has an account on Binance, a cryptocurrency company that doesn’t allow American users.

Trump was elected with significant help from the cryptocurrency industry, which poured tens of millions of dollars into the 2024 election, outpacing corporate donations from traditional sectors like banking and oil. After opposing digital assets during his first term, Trump pivoted in 2024 to campaign as a champion of cryptocurrency, casting Democrats as hostile to innovation and as advocating for tighter regulation. 

The $TRUMP token itself offers no product or service, according to the project’s website. It is part of a broader push by the Trump family into digital assets, despite the market’s volatility and regulatory risks.

In addition to the $TRUMP and $MELANIA meme coins, the family is backing World Liberty Financial, a decentralized finance venture that has raised $550 million across two token sales since last October. Buyers are barred from reselling their tokens and receive no share of profits — but a Trump-affiliated entity is entitled to 75% of net revenue, including token sale proceeds.

Together, these projects have created new streams of revenue for Trump and his inner circle at a time when regulatory oversight of cryptocurrency has weakened sharply under his administration.

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Drive Electric Earth Month, continues this weekend, get your EV Qs answered

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Drive Electric Earth Month, continues this weekend, get your EV Qs answered

It’s that time of year again, time for events across the country to show off electric vehicles at Drive Electric Earth Month.

Drive Electric Earth Month is an offshoot of Drive Electric Week, a long-running annual tradition hosting meetups mostly in the US, but also occasionally in other countries. It started as Drive Electric Earth Day, but since not every event can happen on the same day, they went ahead and extended it to encompass “Earth Month” events that happen across the month of April. It’s all organized by Plug In America, the Sierra Club, the Electric Vehicle Association, EV Hybrid Noire, and Drive Electric USA.

Events consist of general Earth Day-style community celebrations, EV Ride & Drives where you can test drive several EVs in one place, and opportunities to talk to EV owners and ask them questions about what it’s like to live with an EV, away from the pressure of a dealership.

This month, there are 158 events registered across the US and 1 in Mexico (including one online webinar about things to consider when purchasing an EV).

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Events have been happening all month, but the biggest weekend is this upcoming one, APril 26-27.

One really neat event was the Asheville event, which showcased the resiliency of EVs in an area devastated by Hurricane Helene, which was made more severe by climate change. That event was attended by the Rivian R1T which famously got dragged 100 feet submerged in mud and came out running fine.

But the bulk of the events happened on the weekends surrounding Earth Day, April 22, so there were several last weekend and will be even more this upcoming weekend.

There are plenty of events in the big cities where you’d expect, but Plug In America wanted to highlight a few of the events in smaller places around the country. Here’s a sampling of upcoming events:

  • Big Island EV – Cruise and Picnic in Waimea, HI on April 26, 10am-1pm – EV drivers will congregate in various places around the Big Island (Kona, Waimea, Waikoloa and Hilo), then drive up Saddle Road to the Gil Kahele Recreation Area on Mauna Kea for a potluck and a chance to talk about the experience of owning EVs on the Big Island.
  • Santa Barbara Earth Day 2025 and Green Car Show in Santa Barbara, CA on April 26-27, 11am-8pm – This is part of Santa Barbara’s Earth Day celebration, which routinely attracts 30,000 participants and is one of the longest-running Earth Day celebrations on the planet. The Green Car Show includes ride & drives and an “Owners Corner” where owners can showcase their EVs and attendees can check them out and ask questions.
  • Earth Day’25 – EV’s role in a sustainable future in Queretaro City, Mexico on April 26, 9am-4pm – The sole Mexican event, this is a combined in-person/online seminar at the Querétaro Institute of Technology.
  • Norman Earth Day Festival in Norman, OK on April 27, 12-5pm – Another municipal Earth Day festival, with hands-on activities for kids to learn about the environment. A portion of the parking lot reserved for an EV car show for EV owners who pre-register to show off their vehicles.
  • Oregon Electric Vehicle Association Test Drive & Information Expo in Portland, OR on April 27, 10am-4pm – This one is at Daimler Truck’s North American HQ, and will have several EVs for test drives, owner displays (including DIY gas-to-EV conversions), and keynote presentations by EV experts. They’ll even have a 1914 Detroit Electric EV available for test rides!
  • And, we at Electrek want to give a shoutout to Rove’s EV Drive Days in Santa Ana 10am-3pm April 28 – ROVE is the company behind the “full-service” EV charging concept that we’ve talked about several times here on Electrek, and we like what they’re doing for EV charging. They’ve hosted a few community events, and this is their contribution to Earth Month.

Each event has a different assortment of activities (e.g. test drives won’t be available at every event, generally just the larger ones attended by local dealerships), so be sure to check the events page to see what the plan is for your local event.

These events have offered a great way to connect with owners and see the newest electric vehicle tech, and even get a chance to do test rides and drives in person. Attendees got to hear unfiltered information from actual owners about the benefits and trials of owning EVs, allowing for longer and more genuine (and often more knowledgeable) conversations than one might normally encounter at a dealership.

And if you’re an owner – you can show off your car and answer those questions for interested onlookers.

To view all the events and see what’s happening in your area, you can check out the list of events or the events map. You can also sign up to volunteer at your local events, and if you plan to show off your electric car, you can RSVP on each event page and list the vehicle that you plan to show (or see what other vehicles have already registered).


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