As electric bikes and e-scooters continue to surge in popularity, and as the growing ridership skews towards younger operators with growing questions about safety and road rules, motorcycle training courses might be an unexpected ally. In Las Vegas, motorcycle safety instructors are expanding their classrooms to include e-bike and e-scooter riders, responding to a growing number of traffic incidents involving younger riders and micromobility vehicles.

The new program, led by instructors at the College of Southern Nevada (CSN) and supported by a grant from the Nevada Department of Public Safety, is designed to give e-bike and e-scooter riders formal safety training similar to what motorcycle riders have long had access to. The move comes as local officials report more than 200 traffic collisions involving juveniles during school hours this year alone, many occurring near school zones.

Unlike traditional motorcycle training, these new courses are tailored specifically to the realities of electric micromobility, reports local CBS affiliate KLAS. That includes understanding e-bike classifications, where different types of electric bikes are legally allowed to operate, lithium-ion battery safety, and practical crash-avoidance strategies for riding in mixed traffic. The goal isn’t to discourage riding, but rather to help riders better understand risk management before something goes wrong.

And to sweeten the deal even further, the class is actually free. Riders won’t need to pay tuition, purchase special equipment, or already own an e-bike to participate. The only real barrier is showing up. For many families, that removes one of the biggest hurdles to formal safety education, especially at a time when e-bikes are increasingly being used by teenagers for commuting to school, after-school jobs, and social activities.

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The structure of the course also reflects how younger riders actually learn. Participants begin with an online, self-paced portion that covers the basics, followed by an in-person session focused on real-world riding scenarios. That hybrid approach mirrors what’s already common in motorcycle safety programs, but adapted for vehicles that are quieter, lighter, and often ridden without licensing requirements.

More of these e-bike training programs aimed at younger riders are popping up around the US. This kind of training could play an important role as e-bikes continue to blur the lines between bicycles, scooters, and mopeds. Many new riders jump on an e-bike with little understanding of stopping distances, speed differentials, or how drivers perceive them in traffic. Others may not realize that different e-bike classes come with different rules about bike lanes, paths, and road use. Formal instruction helps fill those gaps in a way that YouTube videos and warning labels often don’t.

There’s also a broader implication here for cities across the US. As e-bike adoption grows faster than infrastructure and regulation can keep up, education becomes one of the most effective tools available. Teaching riders how to safely interact with cars, pedestrians, and traditional cyclists may reduce crashes without resorting to heavy-handed restrictions or outright bans that often follow high-profile incidents.

For new riders especially, programs like this can make the difference between e-bikes feeling intimidating or empowering. Instead of learning through trial and error – or worse, through an accident – riders get guidance from instructors who already understand traffic dynamics and safety principles of two-wheeled vehicles.

The CSN e-bike and e-scooter safety courses are scheduled to begin in January, and if successful, they could perhaps serve as a model for similar programs elsewhere. As electric bikes continue to move from novelty to normal transportation, efforts like this suggest that the future of micromobility safety may look less like enforcement and more like education.

Ford is jumping into the battery energy storage business, betting that booming demand from data centers and the electric grid can absorb the EV battery capacity it says it’s not using.

To achieve this, Ford plans to repurpose its existing EV battery manufacturing capacity in Glendale, Kentucky, into a dedicated hub for manufacturing battery energy storage systems.

Ford pivots from EVs to battery storage for data centers

Ford says it will invest about $2 billion over the next two years to scale the new business. The Kentucky site will be converted to build advanced battery energy storage systems larger than 5 megawatt-hours, including LFP prismatic cells, BESS modules, and 20-foot DC container systems — the kind of hardware increasingly used by data centers, utilities, and large-scale industrial companies.

The company plans to bring initial production online within 18 months, leaning on its manufacturing experience and licensed battery technology. By late 2027, Ford expects the business to deploy at least 20 gigawatt-hours of energy storage annually.

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The move follows a joint venture disposition agreement reached last week between Ford, SK On, SK Battery America, and BlueOval SK. Under the agreement, a Ford subsidiary will independently own and operate the Kentucky battery plants, while SK On will fully own and operate the Tennessee battery plant.

Ford is also planning a separate energy storage play in Michigan. At BlueOval Battery Park Michigan in Marshall, the company will produce smaller amp-hour LFP prismatic cells for residential energy storage systems. That plant is on track to begin manufacturing in 2026, and it will also supply batteries for Ford’s upcoming midsize electric truck — the first model built on the company’s new Universal EV Platform.

Electrek’s Take

Overall, the shift reflects Ford’s broader push toward what it calls “higher-return opportunities.” Alongside taking a step backward to add more gas-powered trucks and vans to its US manufacturing footprint, Ford says it will no longer produce some larger EVs, such as the Lightning F-150, where softer demand and higher costs are resulting from the lack of support for EVs by the Trump administration. (Batteries produced at the Glendale plant were for the all-electric Ford F-150 Lightning. The best-selling electric truck in the US in Q3, before the federal tax credit expired, was the Ford F-150 Lightning, with 10,005 EVs sold, a 39.7% year-over-year increase.)

With tax credits eliminated and regulatory uncertainty, Ford is pivoting to adjacent markets, including grid-scale and residential energy storage, to keep its battery plants running and justify billions in sunk investment.

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Stellantis may have backed away from planned EVs like the all-electric Ram REV and range-topping Dodge Charger Daytona R/T EV, but the company isn’t standing still. A newly awarded patent outlines an innovative, foam-based thermal runaway suppression system that’s built into an EV’s battery pack.

The indisputable fact of the matter is that electric vehicles catch fire far less often — and far less frequently — than their combustion-powered brethren. Still, a number of highly-publicized early Tesla fires and poorly managed recall on the first-gen Chevy Bolt have linked “electric car” and “fire” in the minds of many Americans, and the ones who have been waiting to test the EV waters until a better safety solution came along are going to absolutely love this latest setup from Chrysler parent company Stellantis.

MoparInsiders is reporting on a new Stellantis patent awarded on a proactive battery safety system that’s designed to stop thermal runaway (read: fire) before it can cascade through an entire EV battery pack.

Rather than relying solely on passive barriers or post-event containment, Stellantis’ freshly patented system uses strategically placed foam channels and deployment mechanisms that can flood the affected cells with high insulation foam when abnormal heat is detected in a cell, isolating the problem area and dramatically slowing (if not outright stopping) the chain reaction that leads to catastrophic battery failure.

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The patent describes an electric car battery that, on the outside, will look familiar to EV enthusiasts, but there are some key differences “layered in” around the familiar bits. These include:

• A bladder filled with a fire-retardant chemical; located close to the battery cells, typically between the cells and the top of the pack. It’s made from a flexible polymer, so it can be punctured when needed
• Two sets of blades; the first aimed at the bladder, ready to pierce it and release the fire-retardant chemical while the second targets specific points on the coolant inlet line, outlet line, or heat sinks to rupture them and release cooling foam directly where it’s needed
• Special coolant line sections; designed with small sealed apertures that closed off with a soft plug material that’s easy for the blades to pierce but strong enough to maintain pressure during normal operation
• Actuation devices tied to a controller; that push the blades into the bladder and coolant components when a thermal event is detected

Special coolant lines

The system relies on a suite of existing temperature sensors throughout the battery pack, and seems like a viable enough solution to a problem that, while rare, certainly exists — and which looms large over America’s Early Majority tech adopters.

As for me, I think Stellantis should focus on bringing more compelling products to market and stop looking for ways to blame the customer, market, and government for its inability to sell Jeep products that, apparently, have enough markup to cover nearly $30,000 in discounts to help dealers move their metal. I look forward to hearing about your take in the comments.

SOURCE | IMAGES: US Patent Office, via MoparInsiders.

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