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The 2025 Hyundai IONIQ 5 SEL is more expensive than the more basic SE, but it’s a better lease deal this month – here’s the lowdown.

The 2025 IONIQ 5 SE Standard Range is the cheapest lease deal right now because it can be leased for $199 per month over 24 months with $3,999 due at signing.

If you want to drive the 2025 IONIQ 5 SE Long Range, which adds an extra 73 miles of range and 57 horsepower, the monthly payment rises to $229 per month over 24 months, with $3,999 due at signing. As CarsDirect points out, that puts the effective monthly cost at $396, and that’s a fantastic deal relative to the SE Long Range’s price of $48,125.

But when we look at the SEL trim, things get interesting: You can upgrade to the $51,075 SEL model for just $10 more per month.

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Hyundai cut $40 off the lease price of the 2025 IONIQ 5 SEL in March, giving it a monthly price of $406. CarsDirect reports that Hyundai is able to offer this great deal on the SEL trim because of the comparably high residual value (65% vs. 63%) and $750 more in lease cash ($12,250 vs. $11,500) factored into the payment than the SE Long Range.

The SEL and SE Long Range have the same powertrain, but that extra $10 a month gets you projector headlights, roof rails, a hands-free power liftgate, a power passenger seat, heated rear seats, rear climate control vents, a heated steering wheel, and other goodies.

These 2025 Hyundai IONIQ 5 offers are advertised in Los Angeles and are valid through March 31.

Click here to find a dealer that may have the 2025 Hyundai IONIQ 5 SEL in stock. trusted affiliate link


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Trump rewrites crypto rules in first 100 days, industry celebrates ‘180 pivot’ from Biden years

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Trump rewrites crypto rules in first 100 days, industry celebrates '180 pivot' from Biden years

People walk past an advertisement feature Donald Trump with Bitcoin in Hong Kong. 

May James | Lightrocket | Getty Images

As President Donald Trump hit the 100-day mark this week for his second term in office, his approval numbers were lower than for any administration at this point in over seven decades.

Don’t tell that to the crypto community.

Trump ran for office on a promise to make America “the crypto capital of the world.” Those who got behind that message say he’s already delivered, or at least gotten off to a hot start.

A blitz of executive actions, strategic appointments, and early wins, from the creation of a Strategic Bitcoin Reserve to the rollback of enforcement-heavy SEC tactics, has left the industry feeling more welcome in Washington, D.C., than ever.

“Every single appointment — I’m happy with from a crypto perspective,” said Nic Carter, founding partner at Castle Island Ventures. “The previous financial regulatory apparatus was dead set against crypto, and now it’s been a total 180 compared to that.”

President Trump faced early blowback after proposing the possibility of a strategic crypto reserve that would go beyond bitcoin and include other digital currencies like etherXRP,  Solana’s SOL token and Cardano’s ADA. Skeptics said taxpayer dollars shouldn’t be spent on such risky assets. The president soon narrowed the plan to focus solely on bitcoin and made clear he wouldn’t use taxpayer funds to support a government buying strategy.

He’s also been criticized by some for launching a meme coin that’s added billions of dollars in paper wealth to his net worth. The $TRUMP token surged earlier this month after its website announced that top holders would be invited to a private dinner with the president. His family is also involved in other crypto projects.

Exodus legal chief discusses SEC's first crypto roundtable under new Chair Paul Atkins

“It doesn’t really help to have members of his family do encrypted projects of their own,” Carter said. “I understand that they are interested in the industry and want to engage with it, but the optics are not that favorable around that.”

But for the most part, that behavior is being ignored as the crypto industry prefers to focus its attention elsewhere even as the president’s job approval broadly sits at just 43%, according to an average of recent national polls.

At the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Jonathan Gould has signaled support for issuing new bank charters to crypto firms. During President Joe Biden’s presidency, that was almost unthinkable.

“We’ll see a lot of new crypto firms getting bank charters,” Carter said. “And new banks getting set up that are expressively focused on crypto and stablecoins.”

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, under interim chair Travis Hill, is also making moves. Crypto fans have applauded his efforts to expose what industry insiders call “Choke Point 2.0,” an alleged coordinated effort by regulators during the Biden presidency to pressure banks into severing ties with crypto.

Paul Atkins, the new chair of the SEC, represents a stark contrast to predecessor Gary Gensler, who was a notorious hardliner when it came to crypto regulations and enforcement. Carter said the SEC under Atkins has already begun working directly with crypto stakeholders, including Castle Island, to craft guidance on token issuance and the line between securities and commodities.

“This is the clarity we’ve been asking for,” Carter said. “Even barring a legislative solution, I think the SEC is going to come out with real guidance around tokens and how a domestic crypto firm can operate.”

Atkins made his first public appearance just four days into the job by opening a crypto roundtable — a move that sent a clear signal to industry participants. Last week, Atkins hosted a half-day session at SEC headquarters in Washington, D.C., focused on crypto innovation and custody. The event took place weeks after the regulator formally dropped its long-running lawsuit against Ripple, a symbolic end to a four-year battle between the SEC and the crypto industry. 

Read more about tech and crypto from CNBC Pro

Veronica McGregor, the chief legal officer of Exodus and a participant in the SEC’s crypto roundtable, echoed Carter’s sentiment in calling the approach a “180 pivot.”

“Just having the roundtables are kind of surprising and refreshing,” said McGregor, who contributed to the political advocacy group Stand With Crypto during the 2024 campaign. “Given that we have an administration that is touting itself as pro-crypto and making some changes that need to be made, I would say those donations were strategically placed and are paying off.”

Waiting on the Fed

Trump has tapped Brian Quintenz, currently policy chief for the crypto group at venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, to lead the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Carter cautioned that the Federal Reserve remains a “structural holdout.” While banks can now custody crypto, thanks to the repeal of an accounting rule called SAB 121, they still can’t work directly with crypto firms “unless the Fed says they can,” Carter said.

The FDIC and OCC have rescinded their anti-crypto guidance, but the Federal Reserve has only partially followed suit. A notice from Jan. 2023 continues to restrict banks from certain crypto-related activities.

“The Fed is still the blocker for banks to deal with stablecoins for crypto,” Carter said.

Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, speaking on CNBC’s Squawk Box outside the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Jan. 21st, 2025.

Gerry Miller | CNBC

Still, the industry has largely gotten what it wants.

Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong was among the biggest donors in the 2024 election cycle and made it his second job to try and get crypto-friendly candidates elected. Paul Grewal, the company’s legal chief, said the Trump administration has “really flipped the script on crypto.”

“It wasn’t all that long ago that we had an administration that not only was skeptical of this entirely new technology, but was in fact hostile to it,” Grewal said. “Now we have a White House and a wider administration that is not only welcoming of digital assets and blockchain-based technologies, but embracing it in a number of different ways, and that really has stood out in the first 100 days.”

Grewal also pointed to some bipartisan momentum in Congress, including bills on stablecoins and market structure.

“We’ve got one issue, it seems, where the White House, together with Republicans on the Hill, have worked together with Democrats in both houses of the Congress to get digital asset legislation on the move,” Grewal said.

Grewal praised the SEC for soliciting public input and opening the door to industry participation on topics like custody and market structure.

Faryar Shirzad, Coinbase’s chief policy officer, said the administration has already met two core expectations: ending the regulatory crackdown on crypto and working with Congress to deliver clarity.

He said he’s been pleasantly surprised by the scope of the administration’s ambitions to go beyond bitcoin and to integrate blockchain technology across the broader financial system.

“They are moving much more aggressively to try to implement crypto and blockchain technology in the broader capital markets,” he said. At the SEC, he said, that includes tokenizing the equities market and examining how that fits within traditional regulatory frameworks.

Trump’s World Liberty Financial crypto project says it sold $550 million in tokens

Shirzad also noted that bank regulators have begun exploring blockchain-based payment systems. Beyond the $3 trillion crypto market, he said the administration’s target appears to be the $100 trillion capital markets, “and I think that’s something that people should pay close attention to.”

Ripple Chief Legal Officer Stu Alderoty, now president of the National Cryptocurrency Association, said internal data shows that 73% of U.S. crypto holders want to see the country become a global leader in the space.

“The government and the industry can now move out of the courtroom and invest in what the U.S. does best — innovation,” Alderoty told CNBC.

Fred Thiel, CEO of bitcoin mining firm MARA Holdings, pointed to early wins for his slice of the industry. He said the administration’s support for mining technology allows companies “to strengthen the U.S. economy and grid.”

Thiel, who participated in the first White House Digital Assets Summit, praised the swift appointment of pro-crypto officials and the launch of the President’s Council of Advisers on Digital Assets.

Dan Lawrence CEO of OBM, which manages energy use for industrial-scale mining farms, said the administration’s pro-energy stance has made bitcoin a natural tool for incentivizing new power infrastructure.

“Bitcoin is a great way to incentivize the build out of that power,” Lawrence said. “It’s really great to see bitcoin being acknowledged at the federal level.”

WATCH: OCC rescinds key regulatory hurdle for banking system to engage in crypto-related activity

OCC rescinds key regulatory hurdle for banking system to engage in crypto-related activity

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Tesla board is reportedly floating replacing Elon Musk as CEO

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Tesla board is reportedly floating replacing Elon Musk as CEO

According to a new report from The Wall Street Journal, Tesla’s board has taken steps toward potentially seeking a new CEO to replace Elon Musk.

To say the least, Tesla’s board of directors has been extremely favorable to Elon Musk, Tesla’s largest single shareholder and long-time CEO.

They have backed his every move, granted him a $55 billion CEO compensation package, and remained silent when he threatened Tesla shareholders that he would not develop AI products at Tesla unless given a larger, more controlling share of the company, or decided to fire Tesla’s entire charging team to make an example out of the head of the team.

Tesla’s then-third-largest individual shareholder, after Musk, Leo KoGuan, told Electrek last year that he couldn’t get his concerns about Musk heard by the board.

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Most recently, they have not addressed the protests at Tesla stores and product boycotts, which are attributed to Musk’s involvement in politics, angering a significant portion of the population and Tesla’s consumer base.

Many people, including myself, deduced from the board’s silence that it did not plan to take action against Musk’s negative impact on the brand.

Now, a new report from The Wall Street Journal suggests that the board started to move against Musk for the first time last month.

The report brings several new information to light. Here are the main points with quotes from WSJ:

  • According to unnamed sources, Tesla’s board reached out to executive search firms to look for a new CEO:
    • “Board members reached out to several executive search firms to work on a formal process for finding Tesla’s next chief executive, according to people familiar with the discussions.”
  • The board reportedly met with Musk and asked him to spend more time on Tesla:
    • “Around that time, Tesla’s board met with Musk for an update. Board members told him he needed to spend more time on Tesla, according to people familiar with the meeting. And he needed to say so publicly.”
  • After Musk committed to spending more time at Tesla, it’s not clear what is the current status of the search for a potential new CEO:
    • “The board narrowed its focus to a major search firm, according to the people familiar with the discussions. The current status of the succession planning couldn’t be determined. It is also unclear if Musk, himself a Tesla board member, was aware of the effort, or if his pledge to spend more time at Tesla has affected succession planning. Musk didn’t respond to requests for comment.” 
  • Additionally, Tesla’s board has been looking at adding a director, and JB Straubel, whose role on the board has mostly gone under the radar, has reportedly been meeting with investors:
    • “The eight-person Tesla board has been looking to add an independent director, according to people familiar with the process. Some directors, including Tesla co-founder JB Straubel, have been meeting with major investors to reassure them the company is in good hands.”
  • WSJ has reportedly seen text messages that Musk sent to someone telling them that he doesn’t wish to be CEO at Tesla anymore:
    • “Last spring, he told that person that he no longer wanted to be CEO of Tesla, but that he was worried that no one could replace him atop the company and sell the vision that Tesla isn’t just an automaker, but the future of robotics and automation as well.”
  • The report mentioned a Tesla manager who shared frustration about Musk’s negative impact on the business who has reportedly been let go since his comments were reported in the media:
    • “Eliah Gilfenbaum, a Tesla executive in California, told his team that it was getting more challenging to hire and retain talent, according to one person who was present. He told them Tesla would be better off if Musk resigned. That was unlikely to happen, he told them, and employees needed to reconcile the boss’s politics with the company’s mission. He advised them to try to compartmentalize and just keep going.”
  • The board reportedly told investors that Musk wasn’t as well aware of what’s happening with Tesla as he used to:
    • “In recent meetings with investors, board members told them that despite Musk’s government work, he was involved in Tesla meetings remotely. One board member told people that sometimes Musk wasn’t as well prepared and that he needed to be briefed more about what is happening with Tesla. The board members continued to say they believed Musk’s proximity to Trump and the White House would benefit the company over the long term.”

The report provides some insight into how the board is addressing the current situation with its controversial CEO.

During Tesla’s earnings call last week, Musk said that he would scale back his time at DOGE to spend more time at Tesla.

It encouraged some investors, but the CEO still claimed that he would “spend a day or two per week on government matters”:

“I think starting probably next month, May, my time allocation to DOGE will drop significantly. I’ll have to continue doing it for, I think, probably the remainder of the President’s term, just to make sure that the waste and fraud that we stop does not come roaring back, which will do if it has the chance. So, I think I’ll continue to spend a day or two per week on government matters for as long as the President would like me to do so and as long as it is useful. But starting next month, I’ll be allocating probably more of my time to Tesla and now that the major work of establishing the Department of Government Efficiency is done.”

In addition to these duties, Musk serves as CEO of SpaceX and the de facto leader of X/xAI, as well as being involved in Neuralink and The Boring Company.

Musk didn’t respond to WSJ’s request for comments, and as of the time of writing this article, he didn’t seem to have directly addressed the new report on X, but he did share a couple of memes about him “wearing many hats”:

He appeared at Trump’s cabinet meeting today wearing two hats simultaneously.

Electrek’s Take

I’d take the report with a grain of salt. A lot of it makes sense, but there are unnamed sources, and this could be as simple as the board floating the idea of replacing Musk.

Also, I want this to happen, so I’m certainly biased in the sense that I want to believe it’s true.

I think the board and shareholders would have a tough time removing Musk. Shareholders are not sufficiently incentivized by the current stock price, which is resisting Tesla’s declining growth and struggling fundamentals.

And they still believe Elon’s lies about self-driving and humanoid robots soon bringing Tesla back to rapid earnings growth.

I think we might need a few more people to get the “Elon realization moment” before there’s enough motivation from shareholders to push him out.

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China’s 3-row 872hp SUV would destroy the EU/US market: $40K Lynk & Co 900 PHEV 

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China's 3-row 872hp SUV would destroy the EU/US market: K Lynk & Co 900 PHEV 

On our trip to Shanghai auto show facilitated by Zeekr, my colleague Scooter and I got to see an unbelievable amount of EVs from 20+ makers, many of which we’d never heard of. Each maker offered an incredible array of models but one in particular stood out to me: the Lynk & Co 900.

One thing I love about this Plug-in Hybrid is that it has a relatively huge battery and could be ridden fully electric, outside of road trips. The two 45-52kWh battery options provide somewhere between 220 and 280 km of range using China’s optimistic calculator. That’s 137 – 174 miles of EV range before the gas motor kicks in and about six times the average daily commute.

Zeekr, Lynk & Co’s sister company, has an even bigger battery, but gawdier PHEV with a 380km/236 mile range before the gas kicks in. At this point, we are really talking about an EV with a range extender.

As with many Chinese luxury vehicles, the second row seats really stood out. They are as comfortable as a laz-y-boy and offer to electronically spin around 360 degrees to make the 2nd and 3rd row a conference area. I nearly fell asleep in them a few times. OK I did but that’s because of jet lag or something. I can’t get over how futuristic the back of this car is.

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Lynk & Co 900 is 524 cm long, 199 cm wide, 181 cm high and has a wheelbase of 316 cm and uses the SPA Evo modular architecture.

The drive is smooth and quick and never once did that petroleum engine kick in.

The 900 comes with standard roof-mounted LiDAR, with higher-priced variants powered by Nvidia’s Thor smart driving chip enabling door-to-door navigation with G-Pilot H7.

Its sleek body isn’t just for looks as it hits the wind tunnel with an impressive drag coefficient of 0.291 Cd. It also boasts a top tier 0-100 km/h in 4.3 seconds.

Lynk & Co is making waves with its upcoming 900 model, which has already received over 40,000 pre-orders ahead of its official launch on April 28. Built on the SPA Evo architecture, the six-seater combines class-leading 88.2% space efficiency with innovative 180-degree rotating second-row seats, targeting premium family buyers seeking versatile cabin configurations. The intelligent cockpit features front and rear 30-inch 6K displays driven by dual Qualcomm 8295 chips, delivering 60 TOPS computing power for eight-screen coordination via the LYNK Flyme Auto system. Powering the SUV is a 2.0T plug-in hybrid (PHEV) powertrain with 3-speed DHT Pro transmission and dual rear motors, generating 650kW total output to achieve 0-100km/h acceleration in 4.3 seconds – positioning the 900 as one of the fastest electrified SUVs in its segment.

It turns out that there are other similar vehicles from other Chinese makers including the Li L9, Denza N9 and Aito M9.

Electrek’s take:

The Lynk & Co 900 is the Chinese EV market in a nutshell:  90% of the car at half the price of its western rivals. Compare to a Range Rover, Rivian R1S, the upcoming Scout, Hyundai Ioniq 7 or a Kia EV9 and it is hard to imagine how well these would sell in the US and Europe.

Something else I love to see is a huge battery PHEV with enough range for reasonable daily tasks before the gas engine kicks in. Scout has a similar idea so we might get to try something similar in the US.

Even in China Lynk&co has noted it had 40,000 pre-orders before launch, so I think this is going to be a popular vehicle. I don’t think, even with the bananas current trade climate, this one will show up in the US. Europe on the other hand might want to keep an eye out however.

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