How California cops are now using simple drones to catch illegal e-bike riders
Police across the US are cracking down on illegal use of out-of-class e-bikes or non-street-legal electric motorcycles used on public roads. It used to be that if you sped off on an illegal electric dirt bike or mini bike after a traffic stop in California, there was a good chance you’d get away. Most police departments don’t want to engage in high-speed chases over these types of violations, especially if the rider isn’t wearing a helmet or is weaving through dense traffic. And since these types of bikes almost never have license plates, merely outrunning or outmaneuvering a police cruiser through some bushes or over a sidewalk was usually enough to evade justice. But lately, a new kind of chase is happening – from above.
Several California police departments are now turning to small, simple-to-operate drones similar to consumer drones to track down illegal e-bike and electric dirt bike riders who flee traffic stops.
These drones, often built on platforms used by consumer drones but with upgraded camera equipment, are quiet, effective, and don’t put pedestrians or officers at risk like a high-speed pursuit.
And while the tech isn’t new, the way it’s being deployed marks a turning point in how cities are responding to the rise of unregistered, high-powered electric motorbikes and minibikes on public roads.
Recently, the Irvine Police Department shared details on how they caught a minor who was illegally operating a Stark Varg electric dirt bike on public roads and then sped away from police attempting to conduct a traffic stop.
“A 16-year-old juvenile recklessly fled from officers during an attempted traffic stop on Jamboree, reaching high speeds. The rider ran multiple red lights, placing innocent lives in danger. Thankfully, with the assistance of our drone team, officers quickly located the teenager and safely took him into custody. He was later released to his parent. The juvenile was unlicensed, and the motorcycle was purchased by a parent who knowingly allowed their child to ride it. That parent was cited, and the motorcycle was impounded.”
In a similar case just a few weeks ago, the Desert Hot Springs Police Department used a similar drone setup to catch a juvenile illegally operating a non-street-legal minibike on public roads.
As the department shared in a social media post mocking the rider, “Officers attempted to stop a suspect illegally riding a mini bike on city streets. Instead of pulling over like a reasonable person, he chose to flee… on a mini bike. Little did he know, our drone team was already in the air and had front-row seats to this low-speed drama. They followed him as he weaved through traffic, blew through stop signs, and ultimately led us right back to his own front door.”
The DHSPD explained that after the drone watched from above and followed the rider home, police officers arrived and knocked on his front door, which he promptly answered. “He was arrested at his residence without incident,” the post continued. “The mini bike? Impounded. The escape attempt? Hilarious.”
Some police departments in California are still employing police helicopters as their go-to “eye in the sky” for tracking Sur-ron riders who try to run from police, but these light and inexpensive drones are proving to be a more cost-effective and efficient alternative.
The rise of unregistered and often illegally modified electric motorbikes that don’t fit inside existing three-class electric bicycle regulations – many of them closer to light motorcycles than bicycles – has created a real challenge for cities. Riders can disappear down alleyways, weave through traffic, or vanish into neighborhoods where a patrol car can’t follow.
But a few grand for a simple drone? That’s a safer, cheaper solution that can hover and follow quietly from above, sometimes all the way to a suspect’s front door.
This drone-based enforcement strategy raises some interesting questions – not just about surveillance, but about how cities will regulate a fast-evolving micromobility landscape. As out-of-class electric bikes and light electric dirt bikes blur legal categories and create enforcement gaps, tech like drones is stepping in to close them.
Whether that’s a good thing or not depends on your perspective. But one thing’s for sure: the days of just gunning it and getting away are coming to an end.
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Environment
Under Trump, Uncle Sam is becoming an active investor at a scale not seen outside war or major crises
The Trump administration has taken direct stakes in companies on a scale rarely seen in the U.S. outside wartime or economic crisis, pushing a Republican Party that traditionally championed free-market capitalism to embrace state intervention in industries viewed as important for national security.
Japan’s Nippon Steel agreed to give President Donald Trump a “golden share” in U.S. Steel as a condition for the two companies’ controversial merger. Trump now personally wields sweeping veto power over major business decisions made by the nation’s third-largest steel producer.
“You know who has the golden share? I do,” Trump said at a summit on artificial intelligence and energy in Pittsburgh on July 15.
The president’s golden share in U.S. Steel is similar to nationalizing a company but without any of the benefits that a company normally receives, such as direct investment by the government, said Sarah Bauerle Danzman, an expert on foreign investment and national security at the Atlantic Council, a think tank focused on international affairs.
But the Trump administration demonstrated earlier this month that it is also willing to buy directly into publicly traded corporations. The Department of Defense agreed to purchase a $400 million equity stake in rare-earth miner MP Materials, making the Pentagon the company’s largest shareholder.
This level of support by the federal government for a mining company is unprecedented, said Gracelin Baskaran, an expert on critical minerals at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
“This is the biggest public-private cooperation that the mining industry has ever had here in the United States,” Baskaran said. “Historically, DOD has never done equity in a mining company or a mining project.”
Trump’s unique hold over the Republican Party gives him the ability to intervene in companies on a scale that would be difficult politically for a Democratic president, Danzman said.
“The Democrat would have been accused of being a communist and a lot of other Republicans probably would not have felt comfortable moving in this particular direction because of their greater commitment to market principles,” Danzman said. Trump is expanding the range of what is possible in the U.S. in terms of state intervention in markets, she said.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
More state investments likely
More interventions could be on the horizon as the Trump administration develops a policy to support U.S. companies in strategic industries against state-backed competition from China.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in April that the U.S. government might need to make an “equity investment in each of these companies that’s taking on China in critical minerals.” The Pentagon’s investment in MP Materials is a model for future public-private partnerships, CEO James Litinsky said.
“It’s a new way forward to accelerate free markets, to get the supply chain on shore that we want,” Litinsky told CNBC. The U.S. government is helping the mining industry fight “Chinese mercantilism,” the CEO said.
Meanwhile, the golden share in U.S. Steel is a potential model for foreign direct investment “transactions that really affect our national security but where it’s going to be great for our economic growth,” Sen. Dave McCormick, R-Pa., said in a May interview with CNBC.
“Having taken a stake in US Steel and MP, we’re now left to wonder where this administration will find its next investment,” Don Bilson, an analyst at Gordon Haskett, wrote in a note to clients earlier this month.
Trump proposed in January that the U.S. should take a 50% stake in social media app TikTok as part of a joint venture. China’s ByteDance is required under a recently passed law to divest TikTok or the platform will be banned in the U.S. Trump extended ByteDance’s compliance deadline until Sept. 17.
Past precedent
The U.S. has a long history of intervening in industries, particularly where national defense is concerned, said Mark Wilson, a historian at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, who studies the military-industrial complex.
But past interventions were often temporary and typically happened during war, economic crisis or took the form of bailouts to prevent a major player in a critical industry from going bankrupt.
The U.S. government bought a majority stake in General Motors to prevent the automaker from collapsing in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, ultimately selling off its shares at a loss to the taxpayer. In the 1970s, defense giant Lockheed and automaker Chrysler received government bailouts.
During World War I, President Woodrow Wilson nationalized the railroads, but he returned them to private ownership after the conflict. The Roosevelt administration made sweeping interventions during the Great Depression and World War II, from establishing the Tennessee Valley Authority to making big investments in the nation’s manufacturing capacity.
China looms large
The U.S. is not fighting an economic crisis or war today, but the return of great power competition with Russia and China and the supply chain disruptions of the Covid-19 pandemic have led to more nationalistic economic policies, said UNC’s Wilson.
The U.S. has increasingly recognized that China’s economic model is based on manufacturing overcapacity that dumps products “onto global markets in ways that make it hard for other markets to compete,” Danzman said.
The threat posed by China’s dominance of the rare-earth supply chain became apparent in April when Beijing imposed export restrictions against the U.S., Baskaran said. Within weeks, automakers warned they would have to halt production due to a rare-earth shortage, forcing the U.S. back to the negotiating table with Beijing, she said.
“The historical moment we’re in does seem to be one where there is this reassessment of assumptions of the previous generation about the efficacy of markets and free trade to solve all our problems in national security,” Wilson said.
The question is whether state intervention can solve the failure of the free market to address national security concerns in industries like rare earths, Danzman said.
“When you step in to try to address one of these market failures with this kind of government intervention, you can have a cascade of new market failures,” she said. “You’re distorting the market more.”
Lucid’s electric minivan can outsprint the Chevy Corvette Z06, and it has more interior space than a Ford Explorer. Is the Lucid Gravity really the “ultimate uncompromising SUV?”
Lucid Gravity SUV is faster than a Corvette Z06
Lucid’s electric SUV is impressive inside and out. The Gravity provides up to 450 miles of driving range, ultra-fast charging (200 miles in under 11 mins), and it even offers up to 120 cubic feet of cargo space. That’s more than the Ford Explorer (87.8 cu ft).
It’s also faster than most sports cars. The Grand Touring trim has up to 845 hp, good for a 0 to 60 mph sprint in just 3.4 seconds, but the Dream Edition takes it to another level.
Powered by dual electric motors, the Lucid Gravity Dream Edition boasts 1,070 hp. To see how Lucid’s minivan stacks up against the competition, Car and Driver nabbed one for testing.
On the test track, the Lucid’s minivan covered a quarter-mile in just 10.6 secs, beating a Chevrolet Corvette Z06 to 150 mph by nearly three seconds.
According to Car and Driver, the Gravity didn’t just impress in the quarter-mile, “it was a beast in every acceleration metric.” Lucid’s SUV hit 30 mph in 1.4 seconds, 70 mph in 3.7 secs, and topped 100 mph in just 5.9 seconds.
Dave Vanderwerp, the testing director who took the Gravity for a spin, said the electric SUV “gets a sort of second wave of thrust starting around 60 mph.”
With a quarter-mile of just 10.6 secs, Lucid’s Gravity is the fastest SUV they have ever tested, beating out the Rivian Tri-Motor Max (11.1 secs), BMW iX M60 (11.5 secs), and Mercedes-AMG EQE53 SUV.
Although the Rivian’s 850 hp R1S Tri-Motor beat the Gravity to 60 mph, Lucid’s SUV sprinted ahead in the quarter-mile, traveling nearly 20 mph faster.
It was also faster than gas-powered super SUVs, including the Lamborghini Urus Performante (11.2 secs) and Porsche Cayenne Turbo GT (11.2 secs). However, they have yet to test a Tesla Model X Plaid, so that could change the game.
In what it called the “1,000 hp mom missiles” drag race, Hagerty recently pitted the Gravity Dream Edition against the Audi RS Q8 Performance, Range Rover Sport SV, Porsche Macan Turbo Electric, Rivian R1S Quad, and Porsche Panamera Turbo S E-Hybrid.
The result was a three-way tie between Lucid’s Gravity, the Porsche Panamera Turbo, and Rivian R1S Quad hitting the quarter-mile in 10.5 seconds.
The Lucid Gravity is available to order starting at $94,900 in the US. Later this year, Lucid is launching the lower-priced Touring trim, priced from $79,900.
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Solar provided over 11% of total US electrical generation in May, while wind + solar produced over one-fifth, and the mix of all renewable energy sources generated nearly 30%, according to data just released by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Solar continues to set new records
Solar continues to be the fastest-growing source of US electricity, according to EIA’s latest “Electric Power Monthly” report (with data through May 31, 2025), which the SUN DAY Campaign reviewed.
In May alone, electrical generation by utility-scale solar (>1-megawatt (MW)) increased by 33.3% year-over-year, while “estimated” small-scale (e.g., rooftop) solar PV increased by 8.9%. Combined, they grew by 26.4% and provided over 11% of US electrical output during the month.
For the first time ever, the mix of utility-scale and small-scale solar produced more electricity than wind: solar – 38,965 gigawatt-hours (GWh); wind – 36,907-GWh.
Moreover, utility-scale solar thermal and photovoltaic expanded by 39.8% while that from small-scale systems rose by 10.7% during the first five months of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024. The combination of utility-scale and small-scale solar increased by 31.1% and was nearly 8.4% of total US electrical generation for January to May – up from 6.6% a year earlier.
Solar-generated electricity easily surpassed the output of US hydropower plants (6.1%). Solar now produces more electricity than hydropower, biomass, and geothermal combined.
Wind is also on the rise in 2025
Wind produced 12.2% of US electricity in the first five months of 2025. Its output was 3.9% greater than the year before, almost double that produced by hydropower.
During the first five months of 2025, electrical generation by wind + utility-scale and small-scale solar provided 20.5% of the US total, up from 18.7% during the first five months of 2024. Solar + wind accounted for nearly 21.5% of US electrical output in May alone.
During the first five months of this year, wind and solar provided 26.2% more electricity than coal, and 15.4% more than US nuclear power plants. In May alone, the disparity increased further when solar + wind outproduced coal and nuclear power by 55.7% and 22.1%, respectively.
All renewables produced almost 30% in May
The mix of all renewables – wind, solar, hydropower, biomass, geothermal – produced 9.7% more electricity in January to May than they did a year ago (7.6% more in May alone) and provided 28.1% of total US electricity production compared to 26.5% 12 months earlier.
Electrical generation by all renewables in May alone provided 29.7% of total US electrical generation. Renewables’ share of electrical generation is now second only to that of natural gas, whose electrical output actually dropped by 5.9% during the month.
“Solar and wind continue to grow, set new records, and outproduce both coal and nuclear power,” said Ken Bossong, the SUN DAY Campaign’s executive director. “Consequently, the ongoing Republican assault against renewables is not only misguided and illogical but also a good example of shooting oneself in the foot.”
Read more: FERC: Solar + wind made up 96% of new US power generating capacity in first third of 2025
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