A video circulating on social media this morning has electric bike fans cheering and Homeland Security officers scratching their heads after a man who is reported to be a delivery rider appeared to evade a group of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Chicago using nothing more than some quick footwork and an e-bike.

The short clip opens on a fairly routine city sidewalk scene, otherwise ordinary except for the group of around a dozen ICE agents, most with faces obscured and wearing a variety of mismatched uniforms and various military-style fatigues. There doesn’t appear to be any active law enforcement incidents or a clear reason for the large force, and the agents seem to be standing idly in a group on the sidewalk. The delivery rider can be seen walking his bike nearby and bending down to pick something up off the ground, which is followed by one of the agents lunging at him to try and grab him.

Startled, the man stumbles away, pushing his delivery e-bike with him and breaking into an awkward, zig-zagging escape. What follows looks more like a low-budget action comedy than a coordinated enforcement effort, as nearly a dozen ICE officers give chase in what looks like a confused herd. The video has been edited to add the Benny Hill theme song, further lightening the mood.

The rider, clearly no stranger to improvisation, darted past the agents while pushing his e-bike, sometimes switching directions to throw them off or using strangers as a screen to evade the officers, before finally hopping into the air and landing butt-first on his bike to zip away. The last few officers continued to chase the rider briefly as he increased the distance, before they eventually abandoned the pursuit and awkwardly returned to the sidewalk. The cyclist pedaled away, perhaps indicating that the likely throttle-enabled e-bike hadn’t even been turned on at the time.

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It’s unclear what prompted the attempted stop or if ICE agents were actually targeting the man specifically. Many have pointed out recently that such encounters are typical with ICE agents seen simply stopping people of color, often times delivery workers and other laborers.

One thing is for sure, though: As we’ve often said, e-bikes really may be the fastest way around a city, regardless of whether or not you’re being pursued.

Electrek’s Take

Obviously, if police are attempting to legally detain you, evading is not recommended. We don’t have enough context from the video to determine exactly why the ICE agents suddenly lunged at the man. From the video, the incident appears to have started after a single officer decided to attempt to grab the man, and not because he was the target of an investigation. Recent ICE roundups have been widely accused of selective enforcement, mostly preying upon people of color and in working-class areas.

ICE agents are only legally allowed to stop individuals if they have reasonable suspicion that the person has committed a crime, such as an immigration violation.

Electric bicycles continue to be one of the most effective ways to move quickly and efficiently around urban areas.

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Tesla Roadster reservation holders describe the frustrating process of getting their $50,000 deposit reimbursed after the automaker delayed the vehicle’s release by five years.

Update: the article previously mentioned that Tesla didn’t reimburse the $5,000, as per Brownlee, who now said that Tesla sent him the $5,000.

The next-gen Roadster has been sort of a running gag in the Tesla community for a while now.

Tesla first unveiled it in 2017, started taking reservations for it, and said that it would go into production in 2020.

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Eight years after the start of reservations and five years past when it was supposed to enter production, the next-gen Tesla Roadster is still nowhere to be seen.

Tesla charged between $50,000 and $250,000 in deposits for the Roadster, depending on whether customers opted for the “Founders Series” or not. Some people had placed that money in Tesla’s hands for eight years without the automaker delivering anything.

Marques Brownlee, a popular tech Youtuber, was one of those people, and he announced on his podcast last week that he finally decided to cancel his reservation after 8 years:

I’ve had two Tesla Roadsters in my Tesla account. one that I paid for. And the way that worked is you pay the $5,000 payment immediately for the reservation. And then within 10 days, you net $50,000 to Tesla. And then when they deliver the car, whenever that is, you will pay the rest of it. I think totaling $250,000. So Tesla has been sitting with my 50 grand for eight years and hasn’t done anything with it, obviously. Meanwhile, the other one in my account is a referral reward.

He is referring to a referral program that Tesla had at the time. If you helped Tesla sell enough cars, you could get discounts on the new Roadster or even free ones.

Brownlee had made enough referrals to receive a free Roadster and a second one at half price, so he decided to place a reservation for his second one.

He described a painful cancellation process:

You go to manage your reservation, and there is no cancel button next to the Roadster. You have to go in and hit manage. And when you hit manage, it goes, here’s a phone number. Here’s an email address. And you call that phone number. And I actually did this for a couple days and just got voicemail, which was great.

When he finally managed to talk to someone, it was a sales staff member who didn’t know how to cancel the Roadster, but assured him it would be taken care of.

He waited a while, but nothing happened, so he called back, and this time they could finally get him done and reportedly sent a check in the mail.

However, the wildest part is that Tesla is only reimbursing $45,000 out of the $50,000. Brownlee said:

I’ll get 45 grand back. The first 5K I don’t get back.

Update: Brownlee now says that Tesla ended up also sending him the $5,000.

The latest information from Tesla on the Roadster comes from CEO Elon Musk, who says that Tesla will unveil an updated version by the end of the year.

However, he said that almost every year for the last 5 years, and it never happened.

Here’s the relevant podcast episode: