Connect with us

Published

15 hours ago

on

For today’s Green Deals, we’re starting with Lectric’s ongoing Mother’s Day Sale e-bike deals after the brand has restocked several models that sold out over the last few weeks, including the XPress 750 Commuter e-bikes that are coming along with $336 in free gear at $1,299. Next, we spotted the tried-and-true Anker 521 Portable Power Station dropping down to $170, which has been upgraded with LiFePO4 cells. There’s also a selection of Greenworks 40V and 80V batteries seeing up to 32% discounts, led by the G-MAX 40V 5.0Ah Battery that has dropped to its $126 low. Lastly, we have Rachio’s 3rd Gen 8-Zone Smart Sprinkler Controller falling to $170. Plus, all the other hangover Green Deals are in the links at the bottom of the page, like yesterday’s new DELTA 2 Max solar generator bundle low, and more.

Head below for other New Green Deals we’ve found today and, of course, Electrek’s best EV buying and leasing deals. Also, check out the new Electrek Tesla Shop for the best deals on Tesla accessories.

Lectric’s XPress 750 Commuter e-bikes are back in stock and coming with $336 in free gear at $1,299

Lectric has some ongoing bundle deals that are left over from the brand’s short-term Mother’s Day Sale, which are also running alongside the ongoing preorder bundles for its new XP4 and XP4 750 e-bikes that launched last week. Among the offers, one notable option is Lectric’s XPress 750 e-bikes for $1,299 shipped, which are now back in stock and coming with $336 in free gear – plus, it’s one of the few models getting the option for $200 off a spare long-range battery to double the mileage (found with the bundled items on the landing page). This bundle would normally cost you $1,635 in full, but the brand is known for its discounts, primarily being on the add-on packages rather than the bikes themselves. Along with your purchase, you’ll be scoring a steel-encased rear cargo rack, fenders to go over both tires, an Elite headlight upgrade, and a suspension seat post. Head below for more on this and the other models seeing savings.

Coming in both Step-Thru and Step-Over frames, the Lectric XPress 750 e-bikes are one of my favorite commuter models that I’ve had the experience riding, with more and more of them popping up across NYC since their release last year. The stock bike with the 14Ah battery weighs in at just under 60 pounds (so a little more with the added-on accessories), equipped with a 750W rear hub motor (1,310 peak) and providing up to 60 miles of travel while its five PAS levels are active, which are supported by a torque sensor for more effortless pick-up and hill climbing. In terms of speed, it all depends on your local laws, with the motor producing either 20 MPH or 28 MPH top speeds, and of course, there are throttles for pure electric cruises, but this will lessen its travel range.

Advertisement – scroll for more content

As with the case of most of the Lectric’s EVs, there’s a solid array of other features on the XPress 750 e-bikes for its $1,299 price tag, like the puncture-resistant tires, hydraulic mineral oil brakes, front suspension fork, a 7-geared freewheel paired with a Shimano derailleur, removable pedals, a thru-axle wheel attachment system for tool-free installations, kickstand, a hidden cable routing system, an integrated headlight and taillight, and a full-color LCD display with a USB-A port to charge your personal devices, especially if you use them as a GPS while riding.

Lectric’s XP4 e-bike preorders with up to $356 bundles (shipping June 2):

Lectric’s XP 3.0 Long-Range e-bike clearance offers (price cuts only):

XPedition 2.0 offers with up to $654 bundles:

XP Electric Trike with $420 bundle

XPeak 2.0 offers with up to $316 bundles:

XP Lite 2.0 Long-Range e-bike offers with up to $316 bundles:

ONE LR e-bike with $220 bundle

Anker 521 portable power station

Get compact personal backup power with Anker’s 521 portable LiFePO4 station at $170

Through its official Amazon storefront, Anker has dropped the price on its 521 Portable Power Station to $169.99 shipped. This unit normally carries a $200 price tag at full here, with the brand’s direct website pricing it higher with a $250 MSRP. Discounts on this model regularly bring the cost down to $170 or its $160 low, with many Lightning deals staggered between longer-lasting price cuts. Anker’s direct website is currently having a flash sale on it for $180, which is beaten out here at Amazon by $10 for a solid $30 off the going rate ($80 off its MSRP) at the second-best price we have tracked.

While this isn’t one of the latest models from the brand, the Anker 521 power station has been upgraded with LiFePO4 battery cells. It comes as a more compact personal backup power solution that provides a 256Wh capacity to keep your devices juiced up while out travelling or as an emergency means during blackouts. It comes surge protected, delivering up to 600W of output power through its six port options – two ACs, two USB-As, one USB-C, and one car port. There are multiple ways to recharge its battery: via a wall outlet, the USB-C port, with a 65W solar panel, or with your car’s auxiliary port.

greenworks G-MAX 40V 5.0Ah battery

Save up to 32% on Greenworks 40V and 80V batteries like the G-MAX 5.0Ah model down at its $126 low

Amazon is offering discounts across some Greenworks batteries, so you can stock up your arsenal for guaranteed power when you need it. Among the models we’re seeing, the most notable is the brand’s G-MAX 40V 5.0Ah Battery for $125.99 shipped, with the price also matching direct from Greenworks’ website. This upgraded model normally fetches $180 at full price, with two previous discounts in 2025 taking things lower than ever to this same rate. You’re getting another shot at the lowest price we have tracked on this model, helping you stock up while saving you $54 off the going rate.

Greenworks is one of the best beginner-friendly electric lawn care solutions to replace gas-guzzlers, especially considering that its batteries work across multiple tools and even EVs. For those with an arsenal of 40V tools and devices, this battery is the second-largest for that particular ecosystem, only beaten in capacity by its 8.0Ah counterpart. It comes designed with multiple protections against overheating, short circuiting, over voltage, over current, over discharging, over charging, and more – plus, there’s even an LED indicator that gives you at-a-glance battery levels.

Other Greenworks batteries seeing discounts:

Earlier, we saw Greenworks’ latest Pro-tier 2,300 PSI Electric Pressure Washer dropping back to its $280 low, with many other lawn care solutions rounded together in the same post.

rachio 8-zone smart sprinkler controller

Streamline your sprinklers while cutting water costs with Rachio’s 3rd-gen 8-zone smart controller at $170

Amazon is helping folks streamline their sprinkler setups with the Rachio 3rd Gen 8-Zone Smart Sprinkler Controller getting taken down to $169.99 shipped right now. While the device is listed with a $230 price tag, we’ve been seeing it post up at $200 when at full price these days, with discounts having been more sparse since March. While we have seen it go as low as $146 in the past, this is still a solid $30 markdown that lets you upgrade your sprinklers and irrigation system with “30-minute or less DIY installation.” You can also bundle this device with a weatherproof enclosure for $202, down from $270.

Everyone has different needs when it comes to their yards, and for those with more sizable gardens and lawns, you’ll be able to better streamline controls over watering by installing this popular Rachio device, shrinking water costs in the process too. After the “30-minute or less DIY installation,” which requires no special tools, you’ll gain this device’s weather recognition tech that comes programmed to automatically skip watering during or after inclement weather has moved in, with functions like rain skip, wind skip, freeze skip, and more. What’s great here, is that once installed, you won’t have to worry about extra charges or app subscriptions, with it giving you all the controls to manage things through its companion app on your phone.

Best Spring EV deals!

Best new Green Deals landing this week

The savings this week are also continuing to a collection of other markdowns. To the same tune as the offers above, these all help you take a more energy-conscious approach to your routine. Winter means you can lock in even better off-season price cuts on electric tools for the lawn while saving on EVs and tons of other gear.

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

Related Topics:
Continue Reading

Environment

Tesla has yet to start testing its robotaxi service without driver weeks before launch

Published

9 hours ago

on

May 15, 2025

By

Tesla has yet to start testing its robotaxi service without driver weeks before launch

Tesla Full Self-Driving Beta Hero

Tesla has reportedly yet to start testing its robotaxi service in Austin without a safety driver behind the wheel – just weeks before the planned launch.

For months now, Tesla and CEO Elon Musk have been hyping the launch of “Tesla Robotaxi”, a Uber-like ride-hailing service powered by autonomous Tesla vehicles, starting with a launch in Austin, Texas in June.

We have extensively reported that this launch is disappointing compared to what Tesla promised for years: that all its consumer vehicles built since 2016 are capable of self-driving.

Instead, Tesla plans to build an internal fleet of “10-20” Model Ys and have them offer ride-hailing services in a geo-fenced area around Austin, Texas, helped by human teleoperations. This is very similar to what Waymo has been offering in other cities for years, specifically in Austin, for months now.

Advertisement – scroll for more content

Even with the significant downgrade in self-driving capabilities promised with this project, there are many doubts about Tesla’s ability to achieve the lesser goal.

That’s because the robotaxi service will be based on Tesla’s ‘Supervised Full Self-Driving’ program, which is currently achieving about 500 miles between critical disengagements fleet-wide, according to the latest crowdsourced data.

Tesla will be able to improve on that by optimizing a version for the geo-fenced area in Austin and it has been training its neural nets for that for months with vehicles going around Austin.

However, a new report now claims that Tesla has yet to start testing its service without safety drivers at the wheel – similar to Tesla’s public ‘Supervised FSD’. The Information wrote in a new report:

Elon Musk’s deadline for launching Tesla’s first robotaxi service, in Austin, Texas, is weeks away, but the company hadn’t started testing its cars without a human safety driver as of last month, according to an engineer close to the testing and a former employee. That’s a crucial step required before Tesla can launch the pilot service for customers.

For comparison, before launching its paid ride service in Austin, Waymo tested its vehicles with safety drivers in the area for 6 months and then without safety drivers for another 6 months.

Waymo has now taken over a significant market share of ride-hailing rides in the Texas capital, but it still has limitations; for example, it doesn’t drive on the interstate.

The report also mentions that Tesla has been working with local emergency services in Austin to develop intervention plans in order to avoid causing issues if its autonomous vehicles fail.

Electrek’s Take

This is the biggest softball goal. It’s a fraction of what was promised, it’s something that others have achieved before. It’s a punt created for Tesla to finally get a “win” in self-driving.

If they can’t even make it, it would be disastrous, but at least, I hope that it will finally open the eyes of many Tesla shareholders to the reality that Tesla is actually behind in autonomous driving and that Musk’s latest claims that Tesla will have “millions of robotaxi on the road” in 2026 are just the same as when he claimed it would happen in 2025, 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, and 2019: corporate puffery.

My main concern now is for public safety. I have little hope of US regulators being able to stop Tesla considering Trump is firing anyone who got in Musk’s way after he gave him over $250 million.

If Tesla brings its cowboy approach to this, it could get bad quickly.

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

Continue Reading

Environment

Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe shares more detailed images of the R2’s Maximus drive unit

Published

9 hours ago

on

May 15, 2025

By

Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe shares more detailed images of the R2's Maximus drive unit

Rivian Maximus

The development of Rivian’s R2 validation builds continues to progress. We know so because the American automaker’s founder and CEO, RJ Scaringe, continues to pepper us with welcome updates with plenty of fantastic images. The latest post features the inner workings of Rivian’s Maximus drive unit, which will propel the upcoming R2 EVs when they hit the market next year.

Another day, another exciting social media update from RJ Scaringe. Nine days ago, the Rivian CEO shared a peek at the company’s new Maximus drive unit, designed to be more compact and efficiently built to help reduce cost-per-unit production.

Our only look was from outside the drive unit’s casing at the time, but it was exciting news nonetheless. As an encore, Scaringe posted photos of the R2 validation builds on a pilot line at the automaker’s facility in Normal, Illinois.

This evening, Scaringe took to Instagram and X once again to share a better look at the inner workings of the Rivian Maximus drive unit. Check it out:

Advertisement – scroll for more content

Rivian Maximus
Source: @RJScaringe/X

RJ shares more images of Rivian’s Maximus development

Rivian’s CEO posted the three images above, which showcase some interesting perspectives of the developing drive unit. As previously shared by Rivian, Maximus uses a new continuous winding technique that reduces the total welds per stator and thus the total overall cost of building each one.

For comparison, Rivian’s current Enduro drive unit requires 264 stator welds, while Maximus only needs 24. You can see the stator windings in the image above to the left. Scaringe shared excitement in the progress of the Rivian team’s Maximus drive unit as well as some insight in his post:

I love the packaging on Maximus — the drive unit for R2. It has a side mounted inverter that utilizes flat area at the end of the motor to minimize the length of bus bars, keeping them light and efficient. The large planar shape also allows all processing and power electronics to exist on a single printed circuit board.

The inverter chassis closes out the oil cooled motor cavity and seamlessly routes coolant from the power modules to the drive unit’s heat exchanger with no extra parts.

Overall, the inverter part count is reduced by 41% relative to Enduro and structural inverter lid saves more parts and fasteners by also serving as the drive unit mount. I love this design efficiency. (heart emoji)

Looks fantastic, RJ. We can’t wait to see the visual progress of the R2 you share next!

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

Continue Reading

Environment

EV sales are up, Tesla sales are down, and new electric Toyota goodness

Published

9 hours ago

on

May 14, 2025

By

EV sales are up, Tesla sales are down, and new electric Toyota goodness

On today’s thrilling episode of Quick Charge, we’ve a huge spike in global EV sales and a huge dip in Tesla deliveries. Plus a whole bunch of news from Toyota, including an updated bZ that’s just a bit better than before … but is a bit better going to make a big difference?

We’re also on track for more than 1 in 4 new cars sold this year to be electric, with a whole lot more hybrids coming in to make up the difference and drive fuel demand down to a new yearly low. All this, plus the top 5 cheapest EVs to insure when you hit the play button.

Prefer listening to your podcasts? Audio-only versions of Quick Charge are now available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn, and our RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players.

New episodes of Quick Charge are recorded, usually, Monday through Thursday (and sometimes Sunday). We’ll be posting bonus audio content from time to time as well, so be sure to follow and subscribe so you don’t miss a minute of Electrek’s high-voltage daily news.

Advertisement – scroll for more content

Got news? Let us know!
Drop us a line at tips@electrek.co. You can also rate us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or recommend us in Overcast to help more people discover the show.

If you’re considering going solar, it’s always a good idea to get quotes from a few installers. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. It has hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high-quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use, and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them. 

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. Get started here.

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

Continue Reading

Trending