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Yesterday was a day of EVs (check our summer e-bike deals list below before the sales end), while today’s Green Deals are here to cover power station units across three major brands – and you won’t want to skip out on these discounts. First, we have Bluetti’s 3-part Prime Day sale that will not only be running through July while taking up to 43% off the company’s offerings, but also includes ramping deals, extra savings opportunities, gifts, and a giveaway with some truly amazing prizes! Next, there’s the latest release from EcoFlow, the new DELTA Pro 3 Portable Power Station that is launching with a $500 discount to $3,199, along with a handful of bundle savings options too. Then, to close out the week, Goal Zero’s Yeti 500 Portable Power Station has just fallen to a new $360 low. Plus, all the other hangover Green Deals that are still alive and well.

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.

Bluetti’s 3-part Prime Day sale takes up to 43% off power stations, expansion batteries, and bundles through July

Bluetti has launched its Prime Day sale through July 31 that will be taking up to 43% off the company’s power stations and bundle combos in three stages – with plenty of extra savings opportunities being thrown in. From now through July 15 you’ll be able to save on the Bluetti units below, with July 16 dropping additional offers alongside Amazon’s Prime Day deals, before the “last call” period lays out the last of the prospective discounts between July 17 and 31. One of the notable standouts today is the AC180 Portable Power Station for $579 shipped, after using the on-page promo code AC180420 at checkout for $420 off. Down from its usual $999 price tag, we only recently saw the price drop this low, with the first and only previous occurrence being from 2 weeks over at Amazon, where it currently matches in price. Today, this deal comes back to repeat the 42% markdown and return costs to the all-time lowest that we have seen.

The AC180 LiFePO4 power station gives you peace of mind that wherever you may be or may be headed, your charging and power needs are met with a 1,152Wh capacity and 11 versatile output ports – four ACs, four USB-As, one USB-C, one DC, and one wireless charging pad for personal devices. In just 45 minutes you can have it recharged up to 80% battery via a standard wall outlet, or hook up a 500W solar input for solar charging that takes 2.8 to 3.3 hours instead. You’ll have all the usual smart controls to monitor and adjust settings through the BLUETTI app on your tablet or smartphone. Head below for more.

And as we said before there are plenty of extra savings opportunities that Bluetti has thrown in during this Prime Day sale to take advantage of. Depending on how much money you spend on your total order, you can also shave off a little extra money from the cost – orders over $1,500 get an additional $150 off, orders over $2,000 get an additional $200 off, and orders over $3,000 get an additional $300 off – with all three vouchers found at the top of the main sale’s page.

Bluetti Pre-Prime Day power station discounts:

Bluetti Pre-Prime Day expansion battery discounts:

Bluetti Pre-Prime Day solar generator discounts:

Bluetti Pre-Prime Day home backup discounts:

There are more goodies and gifts being given away by Bluetti too – as with most of the company’s sales, you can take advantage of membership rewards, which you can learn more about here. Next, there is Bluetti’s Giveaway contest that is giving away tons of prizes – with two grand prize winners getting vouchers for 100% off discounts on Prime Day orders. You can learn more about the contest and its many prizes here. And lastly, when you reach certain price thresholds in your cart, the company will also gift you with Bluetti-brand lifestyle items; pins/stickers, canvas bag, cups, and outdoor tableware sets.

EcoFlow DELTA Pro 3 portable power station within post for Bluetti Prime Day sale

EcoFlow launches new DELTA Pro 3 Portable Power Station with $500 off discount and bundle savings options

EcoFlow has launched its latest addition to its lineup of home and portable energy storage devices, the DELTA Pro 3 Portable Power Station for $3,199 shipped through July 23, after using the on-page $500 off discount. Launching with a $3,699 MSRP, this is the very first chance to save on this all-new device that comes in with a generous $500 markdown on the standalone model, with bundle savings available as well. This discount also marks the first recorded low pricing point for the forseeable future, with no telling how long it’ll take to see another discount after this deal ends next month. You can learn more about this device below, or by reading through our initial launch coverage.

The new DELTA Pro 3 arrives with a massive 4,096Wh capacity that can be expanded up to 48,000Wh with additional equipment, as well as a 4,000W power output. The power output can also be expanded up to 12,000W when you connect three of these power stations together. The unit can be fully recharged in a variety of more ways than previous units – seven solo-source charging options and 18 combination charging options to be precise – with a standard wall outlet getting it back to 80% battery in just 50 minutes, along with other options at differing speeds via solar (2,600W input max), EV, automotive cigarette outlets, dual PV charging, and more.

It has the same smart control functionality as other models, accessed through the EcoFlow app via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, as well as 14 output ports to cover your various devices needs: seven ACs, two USB-As, two USB-Cs, and three DCs. This is the first of EcoFlow’s units to include the company’s X-Core 3.0, an integrated architecture system that is designed to offer far superior host safety, performance, and intelligence improvements – pulled from commercial-grade and EV technologies and placed inside a power station for the first time. It also boasts increased surge power for more demanding appliances, the fastest charging capabilities, quieter and cooler operations, improved battery management, longer battery lifespans, explosion-proof battery packs, more advanced parallel capacity expansion, and smart home energy management.

There are also a few bundle options to consider here, especially for those of you looking to go all out and incorporate all the bells and whistles needed for full home backup solutions. First, you can waylay the $500 discount to instead receive a free 400W solar panel along with the power station for $3,699, which is valued together at $4,898. You can bundle the power station alongside a DELTA Pro 3 Extra Battery to achieve a doubled capacity for $5,498, down from $6,298. For outdoor enthusiasts on the move, you can grab the power station with a 800W Alternator Charger and a Smart Generator Adapter for $3,799, instead of its usual $4,298. And then there is the home backup option that has the power station and EcoFlow’s Smart Home Panel 2 for $4,798, down from $5,598 – which bumps up to a discounted $7,098 if you need it installed for you.

Goal Zero Yeti 500 portable power station within post for Bluetti Prime Day sale

Goal Zero Yeti 500 Portable Power Station falls 28% to new $360 low

Courtesy of Goal Zero’s Amazon storefront, you can now get the company’s Yeti 500 Portable Power Station for $359.96 shipped, after clipping the on-page 20% off coupon. Normally fetching $500 since its release in January, we’ve only seen two previous discounts in the last six months, first to $400 in April, then to the former $375 low during Memorial Day sales. Today it returns at an even lower rate, coming in as a combined 28% markdown that beats our previous mention by $15 and carving out a new all-time low.

The Yeti 500 power station is a 6th generation model that was designed to bring better support to folks during casual explorations like on camping trips, at tailgate parties, for road trips, and more. It provides a 499Wh capacity with 500W of power output (1,000W surge), and can be hooked up to a solar panel with a max input of 200W – giving you a full charge in around 3 hours – or you can utilize its fast-charging capabilities via a wall outlet and recharge it in just 90 minutes. Your small appliance and device charging needs will be covered by the two AC ports, two USB-A ports, two USB-C ports, plus the bonus car port.

More Goal Zero Amazon power station discounts:

Goal Zero Amazon bundle discounts:

Summer e-bike deals!

MOD Bikes MOD Easy 3 e-bike within post for Bluetti Prime Day sale

Other 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.

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The days of superfast SUPER73 e-bikes are over… sort of

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January 12, 2025

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The days of superfast SUPER73 e-bikes are over... sort of

Even if you’re not knee-deep into electric bikes like many of us, you very likely may have heard of the e-bike brand SUPER73. The company’s motorcycle culture-inspired electric bikes have proven incredibly popular among teens and young adults, but the heyday of fast and questionably (or clearly) illegal e-bike modes seems to be coming to an end for the brand.

SUPER73 didn’t invent the moped-style electric bike, but it is often credited for kickstarting the boom. The name has become so ubiquitous that even other brands of moto-inspired electric bikes are often erroneously referred to as SUPER73 e-bikes.

Technically, SUPER73s were always intended to be perfectly street-legal electric bikes, and they always shipped in what was known as “Class 2 Mode”. That meant the bikes could top out at 20 mph (32 km/h) and largely met most electric bicycle regulations around the US for the last few years.

However, SUPER73 e-bikes could be quickly and easily unlocked via the company’s own smartphone app, letting riders access Class 3 mode of up to 28 mph (45 km/h) on pedal assist, or even an Off-Road Mode that basically removed all restrictions and allowed faster speeds on throttle-only riding as well. Despite the name, Off-Road Mode was largely used for street riding and turned the bike into something of a mini-motorcycle.

But those days of easily unlocking higher performance are officially gone, with SUPER73 now reacting to new California regulations that put stricter interpretations of e-bike classification laws on the books. Those new regulations, which took effect on January 1, 2025, required any e-bike with a functional throttle to limit its motor assist to just 20 mph. If an e-bike was designed to be modified for faster speed or higher power (such as via a setting change on the bike’s display or in the smartphone app), the bike would no longer be considered a street-legal electric bicycle in California.

SUPER73, which has often found itself at the center of the debate around faster e-bikes, reacted quickly. A major change now results in the higher performance modes being removed from SUPER73’s app. According to a notice on the company’s website, “In light of newly implemented regulations, customers who download and pair the SUPER73 app after January 1, 2025, will not have the ability to access modes other than the Class 2 mode in which the product is sold.”

While the bikes still have the mechanical ability to go faster, SUPER73’s new update basically removes the ability to access that higher performance, essentially limiting its e-bikes to 20 mph on both throttle and pedal assist.

Is there a workaround?

No, SUPER73 has developed an ironclad solution to prevent their e-bikes from being operated in illegal ways.

Just kidding. No, of course this isn’t a perfect solution, but not really due to any fault by SUPER73. There are multiple apps already available that can be used instead of the company’s app, which allow riders to re-access that higher performance. I won’t list them here, but it’s not exactly hard for anyone with an e-bike and internet connection to figure it out.

That doesn’t mean that every SUPER73 e-bike out there is going to be back in its former 30 mph form, and a significant number of riders will likely simply be stuck with new 20 mph speed limits. But we shouldn’t pretend like this is a foolproof system that can’t be defeated. As long as the e-bikes are built in a way that they are physically capable of higher performance (like a chunky 2,000W motor that is software-limited to 750W and 20 mph), the possibility remains that they will be somehow unlocked to access that performance.

It should be noted that such unlocking would still fall outside the regulations of California’s new electric bike laws, but at that point the punishment would likely fall upon the riders themselves instead of the e-bike maker, if it did its part to remove performance unlocking from its native app.

Electrek’s Take

I think that a lot of us could see this as an inevitability, though I’m not sure we expected to see companies come around this quickly, or rolling out updates that covered their e-bikes nationwide instead of just in California.

I agree that in the short term, this will likely have a positive effect on the few bad apples who ruin it for everyone – basically the roving gangs of teens on illegally fast e-bikes. People who ride e-bikes in dangerous ways around other cyclists and pedestrians are a danger, plain and simple.

In the long run though, I still don’t think this is the proper route to go. When you can buy a 125 mph car that weighs as much as a military vehicle and yet it is simply the responsibility of each driver to never exceed barely half of its performance, it seems silly to put so much effort into reducing the speed of bicycles from 28 mph to 20 mph. Is this really the major public safety threat to spend our time and legislative resources on?

I still believe that the better solution combines education and enforcement. It’s simply not that hard. If some snot-nosed kid is riding dangerously in the bike lane, street, or sidewalk, confiscate the bike and slap a fine on his or her parents. But don’t tell me that a responsible adult who is simply trying to get to work efficiently is a menace to society on an e-bike that goes 28 mph instead of 20 mph.

My wife and I riding a pair of SUPER73 e-bikes. She’s a menace, alright. But it’s unrelated to the e-bike.

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Why Trump and GOP attacks on IRA can’t score a clean sweep in red states

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January 12, 2025

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Why Trump and GOP attacks on IRA can't score a clean sweep in red states

Volkswagen U.S. assembly of all-electric ID.4 flagship in Chattanooga, Tennessee in 2022.

Volkswagen

The new Republican-majority Congress has wasted no time in making its energy priorities clear. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson said from the House floor minutes after his reelection, “We have to stop the attacks on liquefied natural gas, pass legislation to eliminate the Green New Deal. … We’re going to expedite new drilling permits, we’re going to save the jobs of our auto manufacturers, and we’re going to do that by ending the ridiculous E.V. mandates.”

Data from the auto industry shows a more complicated story. There are more investments in EVs and related battery technologies in states under the control of Republican governors than in states run by Democrats. The top 10 states for total investments in EV technology, according to the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, are either solidly red or swing states such as Michigan, Arizona, North Carolina and Nevada. Far from help the fortunes of automakers, Trump confidante Elon Musk is on record as saying that repealing EV incentives would be a pill he could swallow, even as CEO of Tesla, because it would hurt other automakers even more.

Amending or possibly repealing the Inflation Reduction Act, President Joe Biden’s sweeping 2022 law that allocates approximately $369 billion over the next decade to clean-energy and climate-related projects, has been a talking point for President-elect Trump and many members of the GOP. Not a single Republican voted in favor of the bill — saying its subsidies, tax credits, grants and loans are wasteful government overreach — and the party and Trump have since railed against it.

On this year’s campaign trail, Trump said he will “rescind all unspent funds under the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act.”

He and fellow Republicans have also talked about eliminating the IRA’s $7,500 federal personal tax credit for buying a new electric vehicle, as well as various incentives for private companies investing in manufacturing solar panels, wind turbines, EV batteries, heat pumps and other clean-energy products.

But in an interview with CNBC last fall, Speaker Johnson hinted at the potential problem for the GOP now that investments have been made, and job growth continues to climb, across Republican states. He said it would be impossible to “blow up” the IRA, and it would be unwise, since some aspects of the “terrible” legislation had helped the economy. “You’ve got to use a scalpel and not a sledgehammer, because there’s a few provisions in there that have helped overall,” Johnson said.

The economic boost that hundreds of IRA-funded projects have given the country, beyond just the EV industry, are predominantly in red states — and the hundreds of thousands of clean-energy jobs linked to the IRA as well as the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the CHIPS and Science Act. A vast portion of that workforce voted for Republicans in November, and jeopardizing their livelihoods could fuel a balloting backlash.

House Speaker Mike Johnson: We want to expand upon Trump-era tax cuts & do massive regulatory reform

“The IRA is the quintessential policy that can create jobs, drive economic growth and improve our economy,” said Bob Keefe, executive director of E2, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group comprising about 10,000 business leaders and investors, “while at the same time giving us the tools to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”

While the clean energy jobs market remains small relative to a total U.S. employment market of roughly 160 million Americans, it has become more than just a blip in the jobs picture. Data for the full year 2024 is not yet available, but according to E2’s Clean Jobs America 2024 report released in September, more than 149,000 clean-energy jobs were created in 2023, accounting for 6.4% of new jobs economy-wide and nearly 60% of total employment across the entire energy sector. Over the past three years, E2 reported, clean-energy jobs increased by 14%, reaching nearly 3.5 million workers nationwide. “Our members and businesses across a lot of sectors are very concerned about the potential of repealing” the IRA, Keefe said.

In the two years since the IRA passed, E2 has tracked private-sector clean-energy projects, including solar, wind, grid electrification, clean vehicles and EV and storage batteries. To date, it has identified 358 major projects in 42 states and investments of nearly $132 billion. More than 60% of the announced projects — representing nearly 80% of the investment and 70% of the jobs — are located in Republican congressional districts.

In November, the Net Zero Policy Lab at Johns Hopkins University released a study focused on the domestic and global impacts of tinkering with Biden’s climate bills, in particular, the IRA. “Our scenario analysis shows that U.S. repeal of the IRA would, in the most likely scenario, harm U.S. manufacturing and trade and create up to $80 billion in investment opportunities for other countries, including major U.S. competitors like China,” the study said. “U.S. harm would come in the form of lost factories, lost jobs, lost tax revenue and up to $50 billion in lost exports.”

The fallout of gutting the IRA has not been lost on GOP lawmakers whose states and counties are benefiting from the law’s largesse. In August, 18 House Republicans sent a letter to Speaker Mike Johnson, urging him not to axe the tax credits that have “created good jobs in many parts of the country — including many districts represented by members of our conference.”

Coincidentally, one of the signees, Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer of Oregon, is Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Labor. Another, Rep. Buddy Carter of Georgia, has touted the eight clean-energy projects, totaling $7.8 billion in investments and creating 7,222 jobs, the IRA has brought to his district. And the tiny town of Dalton, Georgia, home of the largest solar panel manufacturing plant in the western hemisphere and source of about 2,000 jobs, is in the district represented by Marjorie Taylor Greene, a vociferous climate-change skeptic who has nonetheless cheered the factory.

The QCells solar panel manufacturing plant in Dalton, Georgia, U.S., on Monday, May 3, 2021. 

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

In a survey of nearly 930 business stakeholders conducted in August by E2 and BW Research, more than half (53%) said they would lose business or revenue as a direct result of an IRA repeal and 21% would have to lay off workers.

If Republicans fully repeal the IRA, which would require congressional approval, they “would be shooting themselves in the foot and hurting their own constituents,” said Andrew Reagan, executive director of Clean Energy for America, a nonprofit that advocates for the clean-energy workforce. “You would see not only projects canceled, but job losses,” he said.

West Virginia Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, who will chair of the Environment and Public Works Committee this year, talked in a recent interview with Politico about a focus on rolling back elements of the IRA, including “frivolous” spending, while pushing to keep parts that have created clean-energy jobs. In her state, “some people have taken advantage of this tax relief and are now employing 800 and 1,000 people,” Capito said, “and that’s what this should be all about.”

Union organizing at EV and battery plants

In addition to spurring new job growth, the IRA, Infrastructure Act and CHIPS Act each have provisions ensuring that a significant portion of jobs created go to union members or provide prevailing wages and benefits, apprenticeships and job training to non-union workers. So it’s no surprise that unions are also on the front line in the battle to protect the bills.

Unionization rates in clean energy have surpassed traditional energy employment for the first time, reaching 12.4%, according to a recent Department of Energy report. “That’s a really big deal for us and we want to keep building on that,” said Samantha Smith, strategic advisor for clean energy jobs for the AFL-CIO, which represents more than 12.5 million U.S. workers in manufacturing, construction, mining and other sectors. “We’re going to work to make sure that every job and clean-energy project with this federal funding can be a good union job,” she said. “That is our focus when looking at this legislation and what Congress might do.”

The Laborers’ International Union of North America represents about 530,000 workers in the energy and construction industries. Executive director Brent Booker noted that LIUNA members voted for both Trump and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, but that “none voted to take their jobs away.” And while “cautiously optimistic that the IRA is going to stay in place,” the union “will hold to account this administration to make sure” it does.

A recent report from the Center for Automotive Research outlines the critical workforce needs to meet the demand for EV batteries, which is expected to grow six-fold in the U.S. by 2030. There are a significant skills gaps in the battery industry, the report stated, which will require increased recruitment and training of workers — especially engineers, technicians and assemblers — for years to come.

This paves the way for unions to organize workers at battery plant factories, many of which are joint ventures located in the so-called “battery belt” that stretches from Michigan down to Georgia. In February of last year, the United Auto Workers committed $40 million through 2026 in funds to support non-union autoworkers and battery workers who are organizing across the country, and particularly in the South.

“In the next few years, the electric vehicle battery industry is slated to add tens of thousands of jobs across the country,” the UAW said in announcing the investment. “These jobs will supplement, and in some cases largely replace, existing powertrain jobs in the auto industry. Through a massive new organizing effort, workers will fight to maintain and raise the standard in the emerging battery industry.”

Indeed, just this week, workers at Ford’s $6-billion BlueOval SK EV battery plant in Glendale, Kentucky, a joint venture with South Korea’s SK On, filed with the National Labor Relations Board to hold a union election.

Clean Energy for America’s Reagan said he assumes that Trump will be true to his America First platform: to strengthen U.S. manufacturing and supply chains, cut consumers’ energy bills in half by increasing domestic energy production and reduce reliance on foreign trade, especially with China. “He can’t do any of those things if he repeals the tax credits or tries to stifle American companies that are creating jobs,” Reagan said. “If he’s going to be successful, he can’t take an adversarial approach to a huge part of our economy.” 

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Volvo DD25 Electric compactor gets to work in Yolo County, California

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January 12, 2025

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Volvo DD25 Electric compactor gets to work in Yolo County, California

California County Adds First Electric Volvo DD25 Compactor to Fleet

Yolo County, California depends on its climate for continued agricultural success. As such, the county’s leaders are taking environmental stewardship seriously by aiming for full carbon neutrality by 2030. To help achieve that goal, they’re putting zero-emission machinery like the Volvo DD25 Electric compactor to work.

We got our first chance to sample the DD25 Electric at Volvo Days last summer, where the all-electric tandem roller’s vibrating drums impressed dealers and end users alike. It was no surprise, then, that when Yolo Country fleet superintendent, Ben Lee, when shopping for a compactor the DD25 Electric was high on his list.

“The DD25 Electric will help us achieve our goals in several ways,” explains Lee. “By reducing emissions, lowering noise levels, being more energy-efficient, improving working conditions and promoting environmentally friendly practices … we’ll use it to compact soil, gravel and other base materials for road and foundation projects, as well as rolling out and leveling asphalt during road construction and resurfacing.”

To help Lee handle those various projects, the Volvo’s drum frequency can be adjusted from 3500 vpm (55 Hz) to 4000 vpm (67 Hz) to cater to different applications and materials.

The DD25 Electric offers other benefits, as well – like a 20 kWh 48V battery that offers up between six and eight hours of continuous operation. That’s could be several shifts in the kind of conditions Yolo’s work crews will encounter, meaning it will only have to get put to bed (Volvo recommend overnight AC charging) two or three times a week.

Getting power to the compactor, too, is something Yolo is considering. “There are some remote areas in the county, so we’re looking into a mobile, self-contained charging unit as well,” explains Lee, apparently referencing the Volvo PU130 mobile battery. “So we wouldn’t have to bring the machine back to the yard each night during a long-term project.”

Yolo County views electric equipment as an essential step in reducing emissions and energy consumption, especially as communities work towards stricter regulations and sustainability goals.

Electrek’s Take

Ed Galindo, E-Mobility Product Manager at VCES, educates Yolo employees; via Volvo CE.

This press release came to us ahead of the devastating wild fires in Southern California that are dominating headlines right now – so much so that I effectively sat on the news for a few days, debating whether or not we should even be talking about a California news story that isn’t about the fires right now.

But I realized: this story is about the fires. Climate change driven by combustion and carbon emissions is driving climate change and that’s making fires like these possible … and I should have run it sooner.

SOURCE | IMAGES: Volvo CE.

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