Back from the dead? Bankrupted e-bike company SONDORS now pre-selling bikes again
The SONDORS electric bicycle company infamously went bankrupt in 2023, yet it now appears to be attempting a rise from the ashes. The company’s founder and former CEO Storm SONDORS is back at the helm and pre-selling a new electric motorbike with a somewhat familiar name – the Meta AT.
But will riders be once bitten, twice shy?
SONDORS originally burst onto the scene way back in 2015 – the early days of the US e-bike scene – by offering a $500 fat tire electric bike via a crowdfunding campaign. Many called it a scam after the company was late to deliver, and the bikes that did eventually arrive didn’t quite live up to some of the loftiest claims, but the company did ultimately deliver. In the nearly decade afterward, SONDORS continued following that same game plan: promising the moon for an unbelievably low price, then delivering something that was almost what they’d claimed and almost on time. But they always delivered.
At least, until they didn’t.
After finding success in the electric bicycle market, SONDORS ratcheted things up in 2021 with a groundbreaking design for a light electric motorcycle known as the Metacycle. But that’s where the wheels started to fall off the proverbial e-bike.
The project significantly overran its timeline and ultimately delivered just shy of 2,000 bikes that didn’t quite live up to their originally promised specs. Over several months, the deliveries began slowing to a trickle and ultimately ceased. More on that in a moment. For now though, the important thing to note is that was one of the key pieces that led to the company’s undoing (though some would say an expansion of SONDORS’ electric bicycles into big box stores forced tighter profit margins and didn’t help things either). Ultimately, SONDORS eventually overran its cash supply and failed to make payments to suppliers, prompting the company’s bankruptcy and entering into receivership.
That brings us to today, with Storm Sondors now telling Electrek that he has managed to buy the company back out of receivership and, with it, has launched the new Meta AT. Unlike the street-ready Metacycle, the new Meta AT is an off-road electric motorbike intended to compete with Sur Ron, Talaria, and other light electric dirt bikes.
The 4 kW peak-rated motor claims a top speed of up to 50 mph (80 km/h) and a range of up to 60 miles (96 km) from the bike’s 2.5 kWh lithium battery. Long travel front and rear suspension combined with extra knobby tires position the Meta AT for trail riding and general off-road shenanigans, which are familiar territory for Sur Ron riders.
While the bike is not street-legal, SONDORS will offer a “Street Legal Kit” including mirrors, lighting, and other components. It is unclear how far this will go toward true road-legal compliance. The company walks that tightrope by recommending that riders should “check with your local registration laws and authorities, as regulations vary by location.”
And with its claimed MSRP of $4,200 marked down to just $2,299 for those brave customers prepared to pay in full months ahead of production or delivery, SONDORS appears to be sticking to its low-cost pre-order playbook of “pay now and trust us that you’ll ride later.” Again, that always worked in the past, at least until it didn’t.
To some, the new bike and the offer it presents sounds dubious, at best. As SONDORS’ marketing emails went out, more than a few forwarded emails landed in my inbox from people expressing a range of emotions from confusion to shock to downright anger. With at least 500 paying customers having been left without Metacycles (plus an unknown number of SONDORS electric bicycle customers left out to dry), a SONDORS revival was bound to raise a few eyebrows… or furrow them.
And so to try and learn more about what happened since the big breakdown, and what could happen next with this supposed new Meta incarnate, I went straight to the source. I reached out to Storm Sondors, and wouldn’t you know it, he actually answered.
As I peppered him with questions, to his credit, he was quite forthcoming. He genuinely seems to express remorse for what happened at the end of SONDORS original run and explained that he has been “working relentlessly to find a resolution for those remaining backers.” The sentiment is nice, but it doesn’t make anyone whole again and there doesn’t yet appear to be any solid recourse in the works.
As for what went wrong at the end, Storm shared with me what he says is a list of payments totaling over US $11 million to the Chinese factory that produced the Metacycle. This helps corroborate much of the backstory that led to an expose I wrote in 2023 after I finally found an inside source at the factory, further illuminating a major disagreement between SONDORS and the factory it contracted to build its Metacycles.
As the factory told me back then, after several rounds of Metacycle production, Storm placed a large deposit for another major production round, which the factory used to buy thousands of components to build the bikes and prepare a new production line. But when financial problems hit SONDORS, he failed to pay the balance on existing production runs, which left hundreds of finished Metacycles gathering dust in the factory’s warehouse in China.
Storm showed me a spreadsheet of payments he made to the factory and explained that he asked the factory to shift his deposit for future production towards paying off the balance on existing production, which would have allowed him to take receipt of hundreds of completed Metacycles. The factory says they resisted as the money had already been spent on components, additional staff, and tooling up a new production line, all to help accommodate SONDORS’ major new production order. Shifting the payment would have been a breach of contract, the factory claimed, and would have left them out millions of dollars without a guarantee that future production they have already begun investing in would ever be paid for.
The two parties have been at loggerheads ever since, and Storm shared that he has attempted to rope in QS Motors, a major Chinese manufacturer and the parent company of the factory that produced the Metacycle, into “stepping in to resolve this matter urgently for the benefit of SONDORS Metacycle customers.”
At this point, it doesn’t appear that either party has budged. Storm continues to say “I paid!” while holding up over US $2 million in deposit receipts, and the factory continues to say “Yes, but not for these bikes, you didn’t.”
That leaves the old SONDORS in a stalemate, with no resolution in sight. But that hasn’t stopped the newly reborn SONDORS from pushing forward with its Meta AT launch. “The Meta AT is a different machine entirely,” Storm explained. “Smaller, lighter, and built to be more agile. It leans toward the off-road category with a price and performance level that opens it up to a much wider audience. Yes, it’s intentionally closer to the Sur Ron segment, but with SONDORS styling and ride experience.”
With a lower performance, less complicated, and even less legal motorbike than the original Metacycle, the barrier for production will certainly be lower this time, but will that be enough to win over skeptical riders?
Storm thinks so, and claims to have received over 7,400 Meta AT reservations “through private channels, with early access offered to those individuals.” The bikes are now available to the public for pre-order through an Indiegogo campaign, which currently shows 36 backers. Storm says reservations are “converting in stages. As they do, you’ll see the numbers reflected on the campaign page.”
I asked Storm if he was worried about riders trusting SONDORS after the company’s abrupt closure in 2023. For him, there wasn’t any question. “I created this category. Before SONDORS, there was no mass market for electric bikes – now there is. I’ve shipped hundreds of thousands of units. I’ve built the factories, the tooling, the supply chains. This isn’t a side hustle or a new idea. This is what I do. And the Meta AT is the best machine I’ve ever built. You can question the industry. You can question the hype. But don’t question whether I deliver. I always have.”
And he’s right. SONDORS did always deliver. Until it didn’t.
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Elon Musk isn’t happy about Trump passing the Big Beautiful Bill and killing off the $7,500 EV tax credit – but there’s a lot more bad news for Tesla baked into the BBB. We’ve got all that and more on today’s budget-busting episode of Quick Charge!
We also present ongoing coverage of the 2025 Electrek Formula Sun Grand Prix and dive into some two wheeled reports on the new electric Honda Ruckus e:Zoomer, the latest BMW electric two-wheeler, and more!
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Environment
FERC: Solar + wind made up 96% of new US power generating capacity in first third of 2025
Solar and wind accounted for almost 96% of new US electrical generating capacity added in the first third of 2025. In April, solar provided 87% of new capacity, making it the 20th consecutive month solar has taken the lead, according to data belatedly posted on July 1 by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and reviewed by the SUN DAY Campaign.
Solar’s new generating capacity in April 2025 and YTD
In its latest monthly “Energy Infrastructure Update” report (with data through April 30, 2025), FERC says 50 “units” of solar totaling 2,284 megawatts (MW) were placed into service in April, accounting for 86.7% of all new generating capacity added during the month.
In addition, the 9,451 MW of solar added during the first four months of 2025 was 77.7% of the new generation placed into service.
Solar has now been the largest source of new generating capacity added each month for 20 consecutive months, from September 2023 to April 2025.
Solar + wind were >95% of new capacity in 1st third of 2025
Between January and April 2025, new wind provided 2,183 MW of capacity additions, accounting for 18.0% of new additions in the first third.
In the same period, the combination of solar and wind was 95.7% of new capacity while natural gas (511 MW) provided just 4.2%; the remaining 0.1% came from oil (11 MW).
Solar + wind are >22% of US utility-scale generating capacity
The installed capacities of solar (11.0%) and wind (11.8%) are now each more than a tenth of the US total. Together, they make up almost one-fourth (22.8%) of the US’s total available installed utility-scale generating capacity.
Moreover, at least 25-30% of US solar capacity is in small-scale (e.g., rooftop) systems that are not reflected in FERC’s data. Including that additional solar capacity would bring the share provided by solar + wind to more than a quarter of the US total.
With the inclusion of hydropower (7.7%), biomass (1.1%), and geothermal (0.3%), renewables currently claim a 31.8% share of total US utility-scale generating capacity. If small-scale solar capacity is included, renewables are now about one-third of total US generating capacity.
Solar is on track to become No. 2 source of US generating capacity
FERC reports that net “high probability” additions of solar between May 2025 and April 2028 total 90,158 MW – an amount almost four times the forecast net “high probability” additions for wind (22,793 MW), the second-fastest growing resource. Notably, both three-year projections are higher than those provided just a month earlier.
FERC also foresees net growth for hydropower (596 MW) and geothermal (92 MW) but a decrease of 123 MW in biomass capacity.
Taken together, the net new “high probability” capacity additions by all renewable energy sources over the next three years – i.e., the bulk of the Trump administration’s remaining time in office – would total 113,516 MW.
FERC doesn’t include any nuclear capacity in its three-year forecast, while coal and oil are projected to contract by 24,373 MW and 1,915 MW, respectively. Natural gas capacity would expand by 5,730 MW.
Thus, adjusting for the different capacity factors of gas (59.7%), wind (34.3%), and utility-scale solar (23.4%), electricity generated by the projected new solar capacity to be added in the coming three years should be at least six times greater than that produced by the new natural gas capacity, while the electrical output by new wind capacity would be more than double that by gas.
If FERC’s current “high probability” additions materialize, by May 1, 2028, solar will account for one-sixth (16.6%) of US installed utility-scale generating capacity. Wind would provide an additional one-eighth (12.6%) of the total. That would make each greater than coal (12.2%) and substantially more than nuclear power or hydropower (7.3% and 7.2%, respectively).
In fact, assuming current growth rates continue, the installed capacity of utility-scale solar is likely to surpass that of either coal or wind within two years, placing solar in second place for installed generating capacity, behind only natural gas.
Renewables + small-scale solar may overtake natural gas within 3 years
The mix of all utility-scale (ie, >1 MW) renewables is now adding about two percentage points each year to its share of generating capacity. At that pace, by May 1, 2028, renewables would account for 37.7% of total available installed utility-scale generating capacity – rapidly approaching that of natural gas (40.1%). Solar and wind would constitute more than three-quarters of installed renewable energy capacity. If those trend lines continue, utility-scale renewable energy capacity should surpass that of natural gas in 2029 or sooner.
However, as noted, FERC’s data do not account for the capacity of small-scale solar systems. If that’s factored in, within three years, total US solar capacity could exceed 300 GW. In turn, the mix of all renewables would then be about 40% of total installed capacity while the share of natural gas would drop to about 38%.
Moreover, FERC reports that there may actually be as much as 224,426 MW of net new solar additions in the current three-year pipeline in addition to 69,530 MW of new wind, 9,072 MW of new hydropower, 202 MW of new geothermal, and 39 MW of new biomass. By contrast, net new natural gas capacity potentially in the three-year pipeline totals just 26,818 MW. Consequently, renewables’ share could be even greater by mid-spring 2028.
“The Trump Administration’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ … poses a clear threat to solar and wind in the years to come,” noted the SUN DAY Campaign’s executive director, Ken Bossong. “Nonetheless, FERC’s latest data and forecasts suggest cleaner and lower-cost renewable energy sources may still dominate and surpass nuclear power, coal, and natural gas.”
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Tesla has been forced to reimburse a customer’s Full Self-Driving package after an arbitrator determined that the automaker failed to deliver it.
Tesla has been promising its car owners that every vehicle it has built since 2016 has all the hardware capable of unsupervised self-driving.
The automaker has been selling a “Full Self-Driving” (FSD) package that is supposed to deliver this unsupervised self-driving capability through over-the-air software updates.
Almost a decade later, Tesla has yet to deliver on its promise, and its claim that the cars’ hardware is capable of self-driving has been proven wrong. Tesla had to update all cars with HW2 and 2.5 computers to HW3 computers.
In January 2025, CEO Elon Musk finally admitted that HW3 also won’t be able to support self-driving and said that Tesla will have to upgrade the computers. 6 months later, Tesla has yet to communicate a plan for retrofits to owners.
Tesla is now attempting to deliver its promise of unsupervised self-driving on HW4 cars, which have been in production since 2023-2024, depending on the model. However, there are still significant doubts about this being possible, as the best available data indicate that Tesla only achieves about 500 miles between critical disengagements with the latest software on the hardware.
The situation is creating a significant liability for Tesla, which already needs to replace computers in millions of vehicles, and it may need to do so in millions more.
On the other hand, many customers are losing faith in Tesla’s ability to deliver on its promise and manage this computer retrofit situation. Some of them have been seeking to be reimbursed for their purchase of the Full Self-Driving package, which Tesla sold from $8,000 to $15,000.
A Tesla owner in Washington managed to get the automaker to reimburse the FSD package, but it wasn’t easy.
The 2021 Model Y was Marc Dobin and his wife’s third Tesla. Due to his wife’s declining mobility, Dobin was intrigued about the FSD package as a potential way to give her more independence. He wrote in a blog post:
But FSD was more than hype for us. The promise of a car that could drive my wife around gave us hope that she’d maintain independence as her motor skills declined. We paid an extra $10,000 for FSD.
Tesla’s FSD quickly disillusioned Dobin. First, he couldn’t even enable it due to Tesla restricting the Beta access through a “safety score” system, something he pointed out was never mentioned in the contract.
Furthermore, the feature required the supervision of a driver at all times, which was not what Tesla sold to customers.
Tesla doesn’t make it easy for customers in the US to seek a refund or to sue Tesla as it forces buyers to go through arbitration through its sales contract.
That didn’t deter Dobin, who happens to be a lawyer with years of experience in arbitration. It took almost a year, but Tesla and Dobin eventually found themselves in arbitration, and it didn’t go well for the automaker:
Almost a year after filing, the evidentiary hearing was held via Zoom. Tesla produced one witness: a Field Technical Specialist who admitted he hadn’t checked what equipment shipped with our car, hadn’t reviewed our driving logs, and didn’t know details about the FSD system installed on our car, if any. He hadn’t spoken to any sales rep we dealt with or reviewed the contract’s integration clause.
There were both a Tesla lawyer and an outside counsel representing Tesla at the hearing, but the witness was not equipped to answer questions.
Dobin wrote:
He was a service technician, not a lawyer or salesperson. But that’s who Tesla brought to the hearing. At the end, I genuinely felt bad for him because Tesla set him up to be a human punching bag—someone unprepared to answer key questions, forced to defend a system he clearly didn’t understand. While I was examining him, a Tesla in-house lawyer sat silently, while the company’s outside counsel tried to soften the blows of the witness’ testimony.
He focused on Tesla’s lack of disclosure regarding the safety score and the fact that the system does not meet the promises made to customers.
The arbitrator sided with Dobin and wrote:
The evidence is persuasive that the feature was not functional, operational, or otherwise available.”
Tesla was forced to reimburse the FSD package $10,000 plus taxes, and pay for the almost $8,000 in arbitration fees.
Since Tesla forces arbitration through its contracts, it is required to cover the cost.
Electrek’s Take
This is interesting. Tesla assigned two lawyers to this case in an attempt to avoid reimbursing $10,000, knowing it would have to cover the expensive arbitration fees – most likely losing tens of thousands of dollars in the process.
It makes no sense to me. Tesla should have a standing offer to reimburse FSD for anyone who requests it until it can actually deliver on its promise of unsupervised self-driving.
That’s the right thing to do, and the fact that Tesla would waste money trying to fight customers requesting a refund is really telling.
Tesla is simply not ready to do the right thing here, and it doesn’t bode well for the computer retrofits and all the other liabilities around Tesla FSD.
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