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!
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California’s rollercoaster of an electric bicycle voucher program, designed to make the highly effective transportation alternative affordable for more California residents, has hit yet another bumpy section of track. This time, a “technical issue” is being blamed for the second tranche of vouchers being delayed indefinitely, causing yet another headache for the beleaguered California E-Bike Incentive Program.
The program was set to launch its second round last night, opening its application window for one hour to distribute 1,000 more vouchers worth up to $2,000 off of an electric bicycle.
But program’s operators announced just before the application window was set to close yesterday that the website had experienced technical problems.
Unlike the first round of the incentive program, last night’s application window was designed to last for an hour, giving every eligible California resident who entered the website during the window an equal chance at receiving a voucher. That system was designed as an improvement to the first round, which was widely criticized for its “first come, first served” approach that rewarded fast typing and clicking to exhaust the first 1,500 vouchers in mere seconds.
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However, the timing of the announcement last night meant that many hopeful applicants were left waiting on the website for an hour before learning that the application round was being delayed indefinitely.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, a spokesperson for the California Air Resources Board, which administers the program, said the board is investigating the issues and attempted to troubleshoot the problems “in real time.” The program “ultimately made the decision to reschedule once it became clear that not everyone was able to access the waiting room,” said CARB’s Lindsay Buckley.
It is unclear how many people entered the website during the one-hour application window, but the first round of applications launched last December saw over 100,000 people vying for the limited number of vouchers.
Despite occasional issues like these, such e-bike voucher programs are a powerful motivator for cities and states aiming to shift more trips away from cars and toward sustainable transportation. By directly reducing the upfront cost of an electric bike – often thousands of dollars – these incentives make e-bikes accessible to a broader population, especially lower-income riders who may not be able to afford one otherwise. And unlike subsidies for electric cars, which tend to benefit wealthier households, e-bike voucher programs often deliver a much higher return on investment in terms of mode shift, equity, and emissions reductions.
The benefits don’t stop at access. These programs help normalize e-bike use in urban and suburban areas, accelerating cultural adoption and proving that two wheels can be a practical alternative to four. Cities that have rolled out vouchers, like Denver and San Diego, have seen immediate surges in ridership and have reported that many recipients use their e-bikes as replacements for car trips.
As policymakers look to reduce traffic congestion, improve air quality, and hit climate targets, e-bike vouchers offer a fast, scalable, and cost-effective tool that delivers results where it matters most: in people’s daily lives. Despite California’s own voucher program repeatedly hitting roadblocks, these types of programs have proven invaluable to making real changes in the accessibility of important commuting alternatives to cars.
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The first 2022 GMC HUMMER EV Pickup Edition 1 rolls off the assembly line at Factory ZERO (Source: GM)
Donald Trump signed two executive orders today that walked back parts of tariffs he previously imposed on US automakers ahead of a rally in Michigan to mark his first 100 days in office.
The Wall Street Journal first reported today in an exclusive that Trump was “expected to soften the impact of his automotive tariffs, preventing duties on foreign-made cars from stacking on top of other tariffs and easing some levies on car parts.”
Trump signed an executive order making sure the 25% tariffs on vehicles and certain auto parts won’t stack on top of existing aluminum, steel, or Canada and Mexico tariffs. He also gave automakers a credit to help blunt the impact of the 25% duties on imported parts that go into US-built cars.
Trump’s backpedal comes after weeks of meeting with automaker executives, and a week after a coalition that included GM, Toyota, Volkswagen, and Hyundai sent a letter urging him to drop tariffs on foreign auto parts due to land in May.
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American Automotive Policy Council (AAPC) president Matt Blunt today said in response to the executive orders, “American Automakers Ford, GM, and Stellantis appreciate the administration’s clarification that tariffs will not be layered on top of the existing Section 232 tariffs on autos and auto parts. Applying multiple tariffs to the same product or part was a significant concern for American automakers, and we are glad to see this addressed. We will review the details of the executive order closely to assess how effectively it will mitigate the impact of tariffs on American automakers, our domestic supply chains and ultimately American consumers.” The AAPC represents Ford, GM, and Stellantis.
Electrek’s Take
The 25% auto tariffs implemented under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act aren’t going anywhere, and most economists say that tariffs will raise car prices and slow auto sales. This White House Fact Sheet is titled, “President Donald J. Trump Incentivizes Domestic Automobile Production.” Where’s the incentive? US automakers are just getting hit with the stick once instead of twice, and they’re thanking Trump for it.
The carrot that worked as an incentive was Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, along with the stability that came with it. All this whiplash is terrible for the US and global economy.
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New data suggests that the Tesla Powerwall 3 is significantly disrupting the US solar inverter market.
The home battery pack’s integrated inverter is changing the game.
Tesla acquired its solar business when it bought SolarCity in a controversial deal due to Musk being a large shareholder of both Tesla and SolarCity, and Musk’s cousin led the latter.
The automaker kept the SolarCity operations going for a few years. In fact, it continued until after Tesla shareholders sued Musk over the acquisition, and Musk defended himself by claiming that SolarCity had become an integral part of Tesla.
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Shortly after he won the lawsuit, Tesla virtually stopped all operations that came from its SolarCity acquisition, which primarily consisted of residential solar financing and installations.
Tesla even stopped reporting solar deployment. The company’s energy business now consists almost entirely of Powerwall and Megapack deployments.
However, the launch of the Powerwall 3 has indirectly brought Tesla back into the solar business, as the home battery pack features an inverter that works for both solar and storage applications.
EnergySage is a company that matches solar installers with potential buyers, and as a result, it has a wealth of interesting data about the solar industry in the US. Today, it released its Spring 2025 Marketplace report.
In the report, EnergySage revealed that Tesla became the second-most quoted inverter brand in the second half of last year:
Tesla became the most quoted battery brand in H2 2024, occupying 63% of Marketplace share nationwide. Because the Powerwall 3 includes an integrated inverter, Tesla also became the second-most quoted inverter brand. With batteries increasingly being added to solar systems—the national battery attachment rate jumped to 45% in H2 2024, an all-time high—Tesla’s growth was a key driver of the low storage and solar prices seen on EnergySage. In 2025, we are examining whether brand backlash and equipment shortages will affect Tesla’s Marketplace share.
This is also a byproduct of the increased popularity of energy storage systems when deploying new solar systems.
In big solar markets like California and Texas, the majority of residential solar quotes are attached to batteries, and Tesla is not the top quoted brand, thanks to Powerwall 3:
Powerwall was already the preferred home battery pack for many homeowners, and the fact that it now includes a solar inverter has made it even more attractive, as most home energy storage systems in the US are being deployed along with rooftop solar.
The Powerwall 3’s solar inverter integration is pushing solar plus storage costs down quite a bit.
The popularity of the Powerwall 3 has particularly hurt Enphase, a leader in solar inverter. It had 73% of the US market in 2022, and now it is down to 53%.
Despite Tesla driving prices down, Powerwall 3 is not the cheapest battery pack available. Panasonic and EG4 batteries were both priced lower on a per kWh basis than Tesla’s in the second half of 2024, but Tesla won on cost when also replacing the solar inverter.
If you’re interested in installing solar panels and/or batteries for your home, we recommend using EnergySage. You will be able to get quotes without any hassle and only talk to someone when you are ready to move forward. Within minutes, you can get on the path to producing your own power with solar and battery storage, including with Powerwall.
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