Year after year, a seemingly endless raft of all-electric concept bikes wearing Honda badges have made their way across the motor show stage without ever making it onto the dealer showroom. But now, it’s here: this unmissable, cafe racer-inspired electric Honda motorcycle is the company’s first – and you can buy it!

We got our first look at this first-ever production electric motorcycle from Honda back in March, when leaked type-approval documents hinted at a 75 mph 125 cc-class motorcycle with cafe racer styling and a “WH8000D” designation first surfaced. It was clear, then, that Honda was seriously working on a for-real electric motorcycle – what wasn’t clear was when (or even if) it would ever see productions.

The wait is over

The new Honda E-VO is available in dual- or triple-battery versions that feature either 4.1 or 6.2 kWh of battery capacity. On the triple-pack version, riders can enjoy up to 170 km WMTC (about 105 miles) of riding. Recharging takes about 2.5 hours on a standard outlet or about 90 minutes on an L2 (like the Harley-Davidson backed Livewire or Vespa Elettrica electric bikes, DC fast charging is not available).

Both battery configurations drive a motor with a peak power of 15.3 kW, or about 20 hp. And, like all electric motors, all the torque is available at 0 rpm, giving the Honda E-VO in-town performance similar to much higher (than 125 cc) displacement bikes.

Advertisement – scroll for more content

In addition to superior stop-and-go performance, the Honda E-VO offers riders a number of other innovative (for a motorcycle) features, including a 7-inch TFT instrument display paired with a second 7-inch TFT screen for navigation, music, tire pressure, and battery SOC information. The smaller battery pack version of the E-VO includes a front dash cam, while the larger model has both a front and rear dash cam as standard equipment.

The Honda E-VO is available in the black and off-white color schemes (shown). Prices start at 29,999 yuan, or about $4500 for the 4.1 kWh version, and 36,999 yuan (about $5100) for the 6.2 kWh triple-pack version.

Electrek’s Take

Yes, this is a Chinese-market bike built by Honda’s Chinese Wuyang venture. No, we probably won’t ever get something like this in the US, where a raucous, 113 hp 600 cc CBR600RR is somehow positioned as a “good starter bike” by cowards with 3″ wide chicken strips on their tires. That said, if the motorcycle industry as-a-whole wants to survive in North America, zippy, affordable, lightweight motorcycles are exactly what’s needed.

Here’s hoping we get something like this stateside rather sooner than later.

SOURCE | IMAGES: Wuyang Honda; via Ride Apart, the PACK.

Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisors to help you every step of the way. The best part? No one will call you until after you’ve elected to move forward. Get started, hassle-free, by clicking here.

Westerners in-the-know look longingly at the affordable, value-packed electric cars rolling out of China – but what could you get if money was no object? If you were to spend 100,000 US American dollars on a Chinese EV, how good could these Chinese cars really get? Huawei’s 852 hp Maextro S800 is the answer.

Packing up to 852 hp and a cutting-edge technology stack developed by Huawei, Chinese luxury brand Maextro revealed its latest entry into the Mercedes-Maybach EQS and Rolls-Royce Spectre segment of ultra-luxe EVs, the S800, back in February. Now, it’s officially on sale, priced at 708,000 and 1,018,000 yuan (approx $97,500-140,000), and ready to make an entrance.

As I wrote at the car’s launch, the Maextro S800’s bespoke, purpose-built platform doesn’t share any parts with a lesser offering in the Huawei lineup in the same way a Mercedes or BMW or Volkswagen does with a Maybach, Rolls-Royce, or Bentley, respectively. And, while I admit that that may not mean much to you and me, I maintain that it might to the people shopping six- and seven-figure cars. And that might be especially true to people willing to shell out that kind of cash for a car in China’s generally lower-priced market.

That seems to be the kind of upmarket experience people of the People’s Republic want, if the S800’s two thousand initial orders (in just two days) are and indication. And, lucky for those buyers, the Maextro is set to deliver plenty in return.

Advertisement – scroll for more content

The vibe is immaculate

Those well-heeled buyers will get a choice of EREV or “pure” battery electric powertrains good for between 480 and 852 all-electric horsepower. 32 ADAS sensors including both radar and lidar compliment a suite of cameras analyze the road ahead and feed data to Huawei’s ADS road perception system, which is constantly adjusting torque distribution, suspension compression and rebound, and front and rear steering to deliver a tech-driven chauffeur experience that Huawei insists is second to none.

Huawei says its robotic driver is pretty handy when the weather gets nasty, too, thanks to an advanced sensor array that helps to increase the detection distance in rain, fog, and dust by 60% compared to the benchmarked competition.

While the car is its passengers around, they’ll get to enjoy luxurious, reclining rear seats with next-level mood lighting handled by a fully independent rear passenger system that supports intelligent track lighting, gesture dimming, and a panoramic “starry sky” moonroof that includes meteor shower effects.

The Maextro S800 also offers intelligent privacy glass and a unique door-closing function are also controlled with advanced gesture controls, in case you needed reminding that China is living in the year 3000 while the US is being plunged headlong into the 1940s by a pack of pseudo-conservatives too old to realize their gold standard policies will do nothing but hurt a fiat economy that’s consistently proved out the basic hypotheses behind modern monetary theory over the last five or six decades – but that’s a lot for an EV blog.

Instead of that, let’s ooh and ahh over the Maextro S800’s ultra-luxe interior in the photo gallery, below, then keep the debate to the relative merits of one of these over, say, a Mercedes-Benz EQS in the comments.

Huawei Maextro S800 gallery

SOURCES | IMAGES: Huawei Central; CarNewsChina.

Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisors to help you every step of the way. The best part? No one will call you until after you’ve elected to move forward. Get started, hassle-free, by clicking here.

Rivian is reportedly rolling out its latest update, 2015.18, internally to employees, meaning it should be available to R1S and R1T owners in the next couple of weeks. It includes several new features, like Multi-factor Drive charging optimizations. You can learn more below.

Like most software-defined vehicles, Rivians receive occasional updates available over-the-air (OTA). Unlike more traditional OEMs that can only deliver updates to things like navigation and infotainment, Rivian is able to roll out more robust upgrades, adding new features or abilities to existing components, and increasing various efficiencies (and of course, fixing bugs).

In the past, we’ve seen Rivian roll out features like Camp Mode, Kneel Mode, and Launch Mode. Oftentimes, Rivian will publish details of bigger software updates to its “Stories” page, like 2025.10, which rolled out to the public in early April.

As a Rivian R1S owner, I was more excited about update 2025.14, which updated the BEV’s Highway Assist feature. Today, RivianTrackr shared that software update 2025.18 is rolling out internally before launching widely, and we have a preview of what to expect when it arrives.

Advertisement – scroll for more content

What to expect in Rivian update 2025.18

Per the report, update 2025.18 was noticed on May 30, 2025, and is rolling out to early access Rivian drivers (employees). The update applies to Gen 1 (2021-2024) and Gen 2 (2025) Rivian models, and the first four pieces of the latest update are the same for both, so we will start there.

Multi-factor Drive

The first major update is the addition of Multi-factor Drive. When enabled, this feature will require two-factor authentication for your Rivian R1S or R1T to start. When you enter your BEV, hit the brake, and shift out of park, a new authenticator will pop up on the screen, which can be verified through the Rivian app (version 3.1 or later) or your smartwatch. Some additional notes:

• Only the user registered as the Rivian’s vehicle owner can enable or disable Multi-factor Drive. The setting applies to all drivers and keys associated with the vehicle.
• When Multi-factor Drive is enabled, a driver cannot drive the vehicle using the key fob or key card without completing the second authentication.
• To approve a driver, the driver must have a Rivian account associated with the key and the key must be paired with the vehicle.
• Drivers can also access a time-based passcode on their smartphone. Tap to “Security and access” then “View time-based passcode.”
• To use Multi-factor Drive, all drivers must have Rivian app 3.1 or later.

Rivian Energy App update

A new Rivian Energy app features new ways to monitor and control your R1S or R1T’s energy consumption, whatever state of motion the vehicle is in. You can also precondition your battery on demand ahead of a fast charging session and view your charge curve within the vehicle with an interactive graph. The update also includes improved charge time accuracy.

You can view the Ebergy app on your Rivian’s center display, or in the automaker’s app 3.1 or later.

Charging and additional improvements (Gen 1)

• Optimized charging algorithms to reduce charge time from 10% to 80% (Max Pack only)
• Expanded capabilities across a wider range of temperatures (Max Pack only)
• Enhanced vehicle visualizations with more detailed vehicle models on driver display
• Improved responsiveness of Go Chime (fewer random chimes)
• Improved stability and responsiveness of infotainment system
• Improved performance and stability of media apps

Charging and additional improvements (Gen 2)

• All Gen 2 battery packs get improved charge times and expanded capabilities across a wider range of temperatures.
• Optimized charging algorithms to reduce charge time from 10% to 80% (Standard and Max Pack)
• Optimized charging algorithms in Large pack to improve peak charge rates, reduced 10% to 80% charge times, and increase number of miles replenished in the first 15 minutes of a charge session
• Rivian update 2025.18 fixes a rare issue that caused camera views and recorded videos to be unavailable in the Gear Guard app
• Enhanced vehicle visualizations with more detailed vehicle models on driver display
• Enhanced driver display to show a greater number of vehicles across five lanes and more diverse situations (cross-traffic, oncoming traffic, parked vehicles)
• Improved the stability and responsiveness of infotainment system
• Improved performance and stability of media apps
• Optimized low-voltage battery management to improve long-term battery health

One thing I’m not seeing mentioned is a bug I noticed in my Gen 2 R1S after installing the 2025.14 update. When using navigation, my route map zooms out to a view of all of North America every time I make a turn. It’s super annoying.

I hope that big issue is fixed with Rivian’s 2025.18 update, which should be rolling out to individual owners in the next week or two.