China is dominating the global EV market, and according to Rivian’s (RIVN) CEO RJ Scaringe, this didn’t happen by accident. After squeezing global automakers out of their home market, Chinese EV makers are quickly expanding overseas. Scaringe explained why China is leading the shift and what the US can do to keep pace.

Rivian CEO explains why China is leading with EVs

During a recent fireside chat with Rishi Dhall, VP of NVIDIA’s automotive business, Scaringe pointed out that only 8% of new vehicle sales in the US last year were electric.

In comparison, EVs accounted for 45% of all car sales in China last year. That’s a massive difference. China is nearly six times ahead of the US in terms of EV adoption.

When asked about China’s innovation happening at “lightning speed” with new models, advanced battery tech, and much lower EV prices, Rivian’s CEO explained how companies in the US can learn from them.

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One of the biggest reasons is the lack of options in the US. Scaringe says there are only “one of two great, high compelling choices” under $50,000. One of those is Tesla, with the Model Y and Model 3. This is evident from Tesla’s “extreme” market share over the past few years.

Although Tesla vehicles are great, there are still hundreds more choices for gas-powered cars, with different prices, brands, features, and more.

Scaringe says the US needs to offer many more EVs to keep up with China. Rivian currently sells the R1S SUV and R1T electric pickup, but these are flagship products that cost over $70,000 each and have a relatively small market.

What role will Rivian play?

Rivian’s next product, R2, “opens that up dramatically.” The midsize R2 SUV will start at around $45,000, or nearly half the R1S and R1T.

Scaringe explained that the R2 takes “the magic of what is a Rivian at that higher price and puts it into a slightly smaller package.”

Although Rivian’s CEO promises it’s the “coolest vehicle,” the US will need more than just that for it to keep pace. We need R2 to be successful, and we need another “10, 15, 20 other options” for EV penetration to really grow in the US.

After the difference in labor costs fades, Scaringe explained, what we are left with is how the vehicles compare in terms of features, content, and other tech advantages.

In the US, two companies, Rivian and Tesla, have “redefined the network architecture” with vertically integrated tech stacks. In China, many are doing it from the ground up.

Since many automakers in the West source sensors and computers from several suppliers, it is nearly impossible to get them to work in sync, let alone update.

To be competitive, “you have to have the plumbing right,” Scaringe said, referring to vertically integrating the technology. Rivian already has one major global OEM, Volkswagen, planning to use its software in its next-gen EVs. Rivian and VW launched a joint venture worth up to $5.8 billion in November.

In the meantime, Rivian is expanding its Normal, IL plant as it prepares to launch R2. The midsize platform is still on track to launch in 2026.

Once the upgrades are complete, Rivian will be able to produce around 215,000 vehicles annually, up from around 150,000. Once its new EV plant in Georgia is up and running, which is expected in 2028, Rivian expects to add another 400,000 units to its annual production capacity.

R2 is just the start for Rivian, with the R3 and tri-motor R3X launching shortly after. Rivian will sell the R2 overseas in places like Europe as it expands the brand globally.

Source: NVIDIA

Costco members already enjoy solid discounts on GM EVs – and now there’s an attractive deal on the GM Energy PowerShift Charger as well.

GM sent out a bulletin to dealers on March 17 that said Costco members are eligible for a $255 discount on the GM Energy 19.2-kW Powershift Charger when it’s purchased at a GM dealer. The charger costs $1,699 before installation, shipping, or taxes, so that’s a 15% discount, but note that the dealer ultimately sets the charger’s price.

CarsDirect reports that the discounted GM Powershift Charger can be bundled with a new EV purchase or bought on its own. The charger “must be sold as an over-the-counter accessory (ACO).”

All Costco members are eligible for the offer and will need to retrieve the authorization number from the Costco Auto website. 

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As for the GM Powershift Charger’s specs, GM Energy says its new 19.2 kW Powershift Charger delivers around 6-7% more juice than a typical 11.5 kW charger, delivering up to 51 miles of range per charge hour. When paired up with a compatible GM EV and the GM Energy V2H Enablement Kit, it offers bidirectional charging, meaning it can double as backup power for your home.

Designed for indoor or outdoor use, it comes with wifi connectivity, an SAE J1772 plug, a 25-foot charging cable, and integrates with the myBrand smartphone app. Costco members also have the option to finance both the charger and its installation through GM Financial.

Costco Executive members can now snag discounts of up to $1,250 on GM electric vehicles, including the Chevy Silverado EV, GMC Sierra EV, Chevy Blazer EV, Chevy Equinox EV, and both the GMC Hummer EV SUV and Pickup.

If you’re looking to electrify your business fleet instead, Costco is also offering Executive members up to $3,000 off BrightDrop’s all-electric commercial vans – the BrightDrop Zevo 400 and Zevo 600.

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Last year we reported on the storied e-bike brand Juiced Bikes falling on hard financial times and eventually closing down. Now, in a video announcement just posted to the seemingly defunct Juiced Bikes YouTube channel, the charismatic young founders of Lectric Ebikes have announced their purchase of Juiced Bikes along with their intention to revive the brand to its former glory.

Juiced Bikes was founded in 2009, making it one of the first major electric bicycle brands in the US. Operating continuously until its closure in 2024, its decade and a half of high-performance electric bicycle building created a massive fan base and a reputation for pushing the industry towards power and speed built around innovative designs instead of mere cookie-cutter copycats.

In a candid video posted to the brand’s previously abandoned YouTube channel, Lectric Ebikes founders Levi Conlow and Robbie Deziel openly shared several details about their lengthy bid to purchase Juiced Bikes and their plans to revive the company.

Now to achieve their goal, the pair will have to rely on the lessons they learned in building their own brand, Lectric Ebikes, into the largest electric bicycle company in North America.

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Founded in 2009, Juiced Bikes was the epitome of old school in the e-bike industry. On the other hand, Lectric Ebikes and its two charismatic “e-bike bro” founders are the full embodiment of young e-bike whipper snappers. But despite bursting onto the scene relatively recently in 2019, Lectric Ebikes rocketed past hundreds of other e-bike brands to snatch the title of most annual e-bike sales by 2023. Clenching the title again in 2024 and likely on track for a three-peat in 2025, Levi and Robbie obviously know a thing or two about building up a successful e-bike company.

Lectric has now become known as the go-to source for the best bang-for-your-buck electric bikes, from folding e-bikes to off-road adventure-style rides, cargo e-bikes, and more. But despite Lectric Ebikes’ success, it doesn’t look like its founders intend to merely bring Juiced Bikes into the Lectric family. Instead, the duo seems to be focused on reviving the brand as it is – or at least as it was.

“What drew us into Juiced is the same thing that drew many Juiced customers into the brand in the first place,” explained Levi Conlow, CEO of Lectric Ebikes. “That high performance, that torque, that acceleration, the thing you love about Juiced. That is our full intention, to preserve and continue that beautiful performance into the future, and carry Juiced into its next 15 years. It’s had this hiccup now, but I hope that everyone has seen what we’ve done with Lectric Ebikes and has a great level of confidence in what we’re going to do.”

As Robbie and Levi explained, the process of purchasing the Juiced Bikes brand and attempting to revive it was a long and complicated journey that still seems to be taking shape. Lectric originally placed a winning bid when the brand’s assets were put up at auction in an attempt to pay back Juiced Bikes’ creditors, but the winning bid was rejected, leaving Juiced’s future in limbo. As Levi detailed, eventually he and Robbie were able to salvage a deal where they purchased nearly all of Juiced’s assets outside of its physical inventory. That means the branding, the website, the intellectual property, and pretty much everything else that was once part of the Juiced Bikes company… other than the bikes that used to line the shipping department of its Chinese factory.

And while the pair didn’t explicitly say it, we’ve since seen much of Juiced’s inventory siphoned off by a Chinese-backed e-bike brand called VeloWave, which has been selling it seemingly dropshipped online, so it doesn’t take a lot of internet sleuthing to see why they couldn’t get everything at once.

That means there’s a lot of hard work ahead of Levi and Robbie to rebuild supplier relationships and get bikes moving again. There’s also a number of disappointed Juiced customers who had placed orders for e-bikes just before Juiced collapsed last year and never received them. Levi explained that the company had hoped to fulfill those orders, and may still be able to help those customers out, but that it would take some time to get things moving again.

But while they admit that they may not be able to immediately help many of the frustrated customers or support the larger Juiced Bikes owner community with spare parts until they can build up some inventory, they appear focused on bringing the same commitment to customer service and support to Juiced that they’ve built at Lectric Ebikes.

This is of course still a developing story and we’ll be learning more soon about the backstory to Lectric’s purchase of the Juiced Bikes brand and their plans to return Juiced to its heyday. If you have questions, put them in the comments below and we’ll be sure to find out more when we sit down with Robbie and Levi soon.

Electrek’s Take

This is fascinating. We all thought that there was a chance Juiced Bikes could be saved, but it was a long shot. It meant finding someone who could convince investors that there was still hope, and not that many still saw the hope. But if there ever was, it’s with Levi and Robbie. These guys built the modern-day equivalent of a garage startup into the biggest e-bike company on the continent and almost single-handedly brought previous titans of the industry to their knees. Yet instead of merely forcing other e-bike brands out, here they are trying to save them.

And what I love about this is that it comes from a place of genuine love for the game. If you watch the video above (which you should), you can see Levi and Robbie nerding out about how great Juiced Bikes’ e-bikes were. And they’re right. Those were awesome bikes. Saving the company isn’t just about offering another revenue stream in the high-performance market that Lectric hasn’t previously focused on, but also saving an important part of the history of the nascent American e-bike market. Juiced Bikes WAS the American e-bike market for a long time, back when it was basically just those guys and Pedego… and a few weird chainstay-mounted brush motor e-bikes that looked like they had toaster-shaped batteries strapped to their rear racks.

All of this is to say that this is a really cool story, one that is currently being written, and for which we likely won’t really know how well it will work for many months to come. But damn, am I here for the ride!