I tried taking a tiny e-bike kayak-camping on a deserted island. Here’s what happened
When I first looked at the JackRabbit XG Pro, my instinct was to take it somewhere wild. Sure, it’s designed to be a compact, fun-sized ride for urban zipping and off-road excursions — but what if I took it even further? What if I used it to tow a kayak… to the beach… and then paddled that kayak with the e-bike strapped to it to a deserted island to go camping?
Sometimes bad ideas turn into great stories. This was one of those.
You may recall that I recently covered the launch of this wild new micro e-bike (that technically isn’t a bicycle due to the lack of pedals, as my commentors will surely point out). The lightweight 35 lb (16.7 kg) ride can hit 20 mph – or 24 mph in off-road mode (32 to 39 km/h), and has 749 watts of power combined with 48 miles (77 km) of range.
So basically, it’s a lot of performance packed into the frame of something that feels and rides like a small-format throttle-controlled e-bike.
And at half the weight of most off-road e-bikes, this is just about the only one I could find that would be able to tow 100+ lb (45+ kg) of kayak and camping gear in off-road conditions, including uphill through sand, and still be small enough to then carry it on my kayak in open water. Or at least that was the plan, and I hoped it was going to work.
To see this crazy idea play out before your eyes, check out my video of the whole debacle. It’s a bit of an investment at 30 minutes, but word on the street is it’s worth it, and you’re probably running out of options on Netflix anyway.
Towing a kayak with a 37 lb micro e-bike
The JackRabbit XG Pro is often referred to as a “micro e-bike”, but it felt light a might micro e-bike pulling all my gear.
I attached a DIY trailer to my 10 ft sit-inside (shout-out to my dad, since I stole the trailer he built for his larger kayak to get it from the van to the boat ramp) and loaded up with enough gear to keep me comfortable for an overnight island camp.
Then I hit the road — a mix of beachside streets, bike paths, and some surprisingly rough off-road sections.
The bike never flinched. I was legitimately surprised because I had expected this to be a ‘pushing it to its limits’ situation but the JackRabbit XG Pro didn’t really care.
The only time I ever felt like I was pulling a trailer was during slow uphill sections when it would tend to wheelie due to the slow speed, high torque, and the 100 lb kayak pulling back on the seat post.
I kept speeds modest — around 5 to 8 mph (8-13 km/h) felt like the sweet spot before things got bouncy in the kayak filled with camping gear — but the e-bike never seemed to struggle.
Phase two: Packing the JackRabbit onto the kayak
Once I made it to the launch point after several miles of towing my kayak, it was time to test a theory I hadn’t actually tested: Can you fit the JackRabbit onto the bow of a sit-inside kayak and still paddle?
Turns out: kind of.
I broke the bike down as small as I could — batteries out, front wheel off, handlebars turned sideways — and lashed it to the bow. I had added a few tie down points to my kayak the night before to make this lashing process easier, and those definitely helped.
The trailer, wheel, and loose gear filled the rest of the space, and I wedged myself in around it all. Barely. I had to offload gear just to fit my legs in. After moving my tent, sleeping pad and a few other bits of gear to the stern to make more leg room, I finally managed to squeeze in. A quick drag down the waterline reminded me just how heavy the kayak had become, but there wasn’t any turning back now. It was either sink or swim. Or, well, hopefully neither.
Paddling into the unknown
Despite being comically overloaded, the kayak floated (barely), and I pushed off toward an uninhabited barrier island I’d scouted via satellite maps.
The paddle was a bit stressful at first until I was pretty sure the three inches (7.5 cm) of freeboard I had left was enough to keep me from capsizing. The wake thrown off from passing jet skis and pontoon boats made things exciting in all the wrong ways.
I paddled around for a while until I finally found the cut in the mangrove trees I had spotted via blurry satellite map, though it took me several false alarms as I discovered others so small they didn’t show up on the pixelated images.
When I finally found the right cut in the mangroves and slid into a coarse, natural sand ramp, the feeling was somewhere between “I can’t believe that worked” and “Oh no, now I have to unpack it all.”
Island life, e-bike style
I didn’t end up unpacking the bike at camp. It had taken a lot of effort to get it loaded and I could see the clearing I had spotted on the satellite images was only a short walk through the trees, so I stashed the boat and bike in the mangroves to keep them out of sight from the water and humped my gear the rest of the way.
I found the clearing, set up my tent, and cooked dinner over a twig-burning stove under the creeping suspicion that the Florida Skunk Ape was going to join me at any moment.
The moon was just a sliver that night, but I had a really cool 44-foot (13 meter) solar-powered string light that Biolite sent me and so I set that up for a little extra light as the sun went down. This area of Florida is under a burn ban right now, meaning open fires due to recent drought conditions leading to extra dry brush. I checked with the Department of Fish and Wildlife and confirmed I could use a camping stove, so between that small fire and the string light, I could see my way around my small camp at night. The two were just enough to illuminate all the rats that came out at dusk, who apparently had taken over the island.
I thought I had cleaned my mess kit well after dinner, but throughout the night I was listening to and watching through my tent mesh all of the rats rummaging through it and my bag.
While I had been looking forward to my morning coffee and oatmeal, that pretty much made the decision right there that I’d have to skip it and go for the granola bar I had safely tucked away with me in my tent.
The rats aren’t dangerous by themselves but they do carry diseases and so I wasn’t going to be using that cooking gear until I had a chance to clean it thoroughly.
The ride back: Just as wild
Packing everything back up was just as tight the second time. I loaded everything back into kayak and after one last look at the beautiful sunrise, I pushed off into the open water of the Gulf of Mexico.
I had considered a longer paddle that would cut down the road segment of my ride, but once I got out in the deeper water and the waves picked up, I quickly called an audible and realized I shouldn’t mind the extra miles on the road since drowning in asphalt is a lot less likely.
I beelined it for the coast and have never been happier to hear the crunch of sand under my bow as I beached the kayak for the last time of the trip.
Back on the sand, I hopped out and strapped the kayak to the trailer, reloaded the bike, and cruised back down the highway and into the nearest beach town — tired, sore, a little sunburned, but incredibly satisfied.
The JackRabbit XG Pro isn’t meant for towing a kayak to a beach and then sailing away with it. But that’s what makes this microbike such a fun tool. It’s small, but mighty. Weirdly capable. Surprisingly rugged.
It’s true that JackRabbit’s tiny e-bikes are a favorite among boaters for taking up such little room on a boat, though I think this might be the smallest vessel anyone has ever brought one on. They’re also popular in the light airplane and RV community for the same reason – e-bike-sized wheels for riding around when you get to your destination.
Would I recommend repeating this trip? Only if you enjoy problem-solving on the fly, questionable decision-making, and the occasional kayak-side existential crisis. But yes — it was absolutely worth it.
And considering this is about the worst case scenario for portability and power in a small e-bike, most people should find the JackRabbit XG Pro more than capable of a daily commute or a fun off-road adventure.
What do you think? Would you ever want to try a trip like this? Let’s hear your thoughts in the comment section below. And before you go, check out my video review of the JackRabbit XG Pro below, which stayed (mostly) on dry land. Or check out my full kayak towing/paddling adventure video here.
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Environment
Demand spike, incentives bust, and tariffs: Renewable energy’s biggest stress test is here
Mint Images | Mint Images Rf | Getty Images
Electricity grid demands are on the rise in part due to energy-hungry technology like AI, and while experts believe renewable energy alone is not enough, it is essential to a broader supply equation. But with funding freezes, subsidy walk backs and tariffs on key components all on the table, solar, wind, and hydrogen companies are working harder than ever to make their business models work, even if they never intended to rely on federal support for the long term.
“One of the hats I used to wear was planning for the City of New York. For the longest time, there was decreasing [energy] demand,” said Aseem Kapur, chief revenue officer of GM Energy, an arm of General Motors that the company introduced in 2022. “Over the course of the last five or so years, that equation has changed. Utilities are facing unprecedented demand.”
Beyond New York City, U.S. energy demand is poised to grow upwards of 16% in the next five years, a big difference from the 0.5%it grew each year on average from 2001 to 2024, according to the Center for Strategic & International Studies.
For the renewable energy companies looking to break into the mainstream, subsidies have helped them get through their early days of growth. But President Trump has targeted these solutions from the first day of his presidency. In an executive order from Jan. 20, the Trump administration promised to “unleash” an era of fossil fuels exploration and production while also eliminating “unfair subsidies and other ill-conceived government-imposed market distortions that favor EVs over other technologies.” Last week, Trump issued an EO pushing for more coal production.
In a six-year study breaking down energy subsidies from the U.S. Energy Information Administration from 2022 (the most recent edition), 46% of federal energy subsidies were associated with renewable energy, making them the largest slice of the energy pie. At the same time, natural gas and petroleum subsidies became a net cost to the government in 2022, reversing what had been a source of revenue inflows.
“Every company I’ve talked to recognizes that subsidies were required to help them through an R&D cycle, but they all believed they had to get to a cost parity point,” said Ross Meyercord, CEO of Propel Software (and former Salesforce CIO), whose manufacturing software solution serves energy clients like Invinity Energy Systems and Eos Energy Storage. “Every company had that baked into their business model. It may happen faster than they were planning on, and obviously that creates challenges.”
Meyercord believes that clean energy companies can handle either a subsidy decrease or a rise in tariffs, but both at the same time will add substantial stress to the market, which could have negative downstream effects on the grid — and the people who rely on it.
‘Not going to get rid of fossil fuels overnight’
Like any energy source, Kapur says success always comes down to economics. In the current environment, with interest rates, and fears that inflation will reignite, he said, “it’s going to come down to, ‘What are the most cost-effective solutions that can be brought to market?'” That may vary by region, he added, but notes that solar and energy storage have already reached parity in many cases and, in some instances, are below the cost of producing energy from natural gas or coal-powered resources.
This economics equation is true even in Texas, where the state’s Attorney General Ken Paxton has voiced anti-renewables sentiment in favor of the coal market (his lawsuit against major investment firm BlackRock and others in late November claims these firms sought to “weaponize their shares to pressure the coal companies to accommodate ‘green energy’ goals”). Wind accounts for 24% of the state’s energy profile, according to the Texas Comptroller, suggesting a penchant for any energy source that’s viable and cost-effective.
“The reality is, we’re not going to get rid of fossil fuels overnight,” said Whit Irvin Jr., CEO of hydrogen energy company Q Hydrogen. “They are going to have a very significant piece in our energy ecosystem for decades, and as new technologies come out on a larger scale, the use of fossil fuels will be curtailed, but we need to continue research, development and innovation in a way that makes sense.”
Irvin emphasizes the need for innovation from all sides, including creating new technologies that have a massive impact on large scalability and carbon reduction. “We don’t want to turn off that spigot. We just want to make sure that it’s going to the right places,” he said.
Hydrogen energy itself is one such source of innovation. Hydrogen ranges in sustainability depending on the fuel it uses to source its hydrogen. For example, green hydrogen — the only climate-neutral form of hydrogen energy — stems from renewable energy surplus. Grey hydrogen stems from natural gas methane. Q Hydrogen is working to open the world’s first renewable hydrogen power plant that will be economically viable without a subsidy. Irvin Jr. says the company, which produces hydrogen using water, plans to launch its New Hampshire facility this year.
“Hydrogen fuel cells are a really good way to provide backup power or even prime power to a data center that would be considered essentially off grid,” said Irvin, likening hydrogen fuel cell production to a form of battery storage. While hydrogen is not the most economical because of its comparative immaturity, Irvin said heightened energy demand will outcompete cost sensitivity for tech companies requiring more and more data storage.
While hydrogen projects continue to reap federal incentives to propel the industry forward, Irvin said subsidies were never part of his company’s business equation. “If they do exist, we’ll be able to take advantage of them,” he said. “If they don’t exist, that will still be fine for us.”
But that might not be true for every alternative energy company depending on where they’re at in the R&D cycle. Changes in federal incentives have real power to shift the progression of renewable energy in the U.S., especially when combined with tariffs that could stifle companies’ international relationships and supply chains. Meyercord, Kapur and Irvin all foresee private industry partnerships making a huge impact for the future of the grid, but recognize that the strain is increasing as energy tech of all kinds becomes smarter and more grid-dependent.
Based on the excellent Hyundai IONIQ 5 N platform, Vanwall gives its Vandervell H-GT a high-performance aesthetic makeover inspired by the classic Lancia Delta HF Integrale. But what makes this body kit a genuine “high-performance” upgrade isn’t the way it makes the car look: it’s the 500 lb. weight savings!
Developed by Austrian racing team ByKOLLES Racing and invoking the name of a 1950s Formula 1 team, the Vandervell H-GT is essentially a new Hyundai IONIQ 5 N in aggressive, Lancia Delta-inspired carbon-fiber bodywork that the company claims gives the car an, “unprecedented weight optimization in this vehicle category.”
The H-GT’s new “thin wall” carbon fiber body slashes the car’s weight by over 230 kg (507 lbs.), which means ByKOLLES’ new Vandervell can do anything that Hyundai’s “special” IONIQ 5 N hot hatch can do. Only faster.
Raw carbon, raw performance
Mechanically identical to the IONIQ 5 N and packing the same 641 hp (with N Grin Boost) and 568 lb-ft of torque. That’s enough to launch the Hyundai version of the hatchback from a standstill to 60 mph in just 3.0 seconds.
After its 500 lb. crash diet, it’s even quicker.
The car was first announced in 2023 (along with the renderings shown, below), when ByKOLLES was competing in the World Endurance Championship (WEC) with what used to be called an LMP car – but they keep changing the names of these things so it could be a Daytona Prototype, Hypercar, or even a 24 Hour LeMans Wonkavator by now.
The important part, however, is that a few of these cars have now broken cover, with ex-Formula 1 supremo, Bernie Ecclestone, having been seen trying the new-age Lancia on for size.
The Vanwall Vandervell website still shows the same €128,000 ($145,405, as I type this) price tag and specs it did in 2023, which either means they haven’t updated it in a while, were really, really good at pricing the thing in the first place, or both.
That’s presumably on top of the IONIQ N’s already hefty $66,100 price tag.
Electrek’s Take
This isn’t the first time my weird love of Lancia models from the 70s and 80s has been highlighted on these digital pages, but even my biased sensibilities can see that this is a unique, ultra-luxury statement piece that offers supercar levels of performance with the sort of daily driver dependability that Hyundai has offered for years.
It’s an incredible machine – and the only thing they did wrong, in my book, was not show one in Martini colors on its debut.
SOURCE | IMAGES: Vanwall Vandervell; CarExpert.
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I had the chance to drive the new 2025 RS Audi GT e-tron for a few hours in the Nevada desert and for a few minutes on a race track.
Here are my thoughts.
Audi has stepped up its EV game in a big way with its new electric vehicles based on the PPE platform. Over the last year, I drove both the Q6, an electric SUV based on the PPE, and the A6, an electric sedan based on the same platform, and I came out extremely impressed.
I think those vehicles are going to take Audi to the next level when it comes to EVs.
But they are not the EVs pushing Audi’s limits; that’s still its flagship Audi GT e-tron, now with a top-performance RS version launched with the 2025 model-year refresh.
The new GT e-tron, which is built on the same platform as the Porsche Taycan, is more than a model year refresh; it’s a mid-cycle update, but not a normal one. While mid-cycle updates often focus on design changes and adding a few features, the 2025 GT e-tron looks very similar to the previous version, but it’s significantly different under the hood.
The design has been slightly updated with a honeycomb grill, a few new wheel designs, and a very cool new motorsport-inspired rear reflector.
I think that the rear diffuser with vertical reflector looks sick on the RS GT:
It still looks like the same sporty vehicle, but more refined, especially the RS version.
Speaking of the RS version, it’s now the most powerful Audi ever with almost 1,000 horsepower (912hp). That’s thanks to new motors with increased copper density, resulting in more power and lower weight:
An added bonus is that they can also regen at a higher rate of 400kW, which quite impressive. I prefer the regen modes in the Q6/A6, but the 400kW capacity has some incredible stopping power. That’s 0.45G at max deceleration.
It’s useful when you launch the RS GT e-tron from 0 to 60 mph in 2.4 seconds with launch control is engaged. I did a few quick acceleration and fast launches in the desert and on a small racetrack outside of Las Vegas and you need to make sure your head is firmly on the headrest.
Audi also has a “push-to-pass” power boost button on the steering wheel that unleashes an extra 94 hp (70 kW) for 10 seconds. The German automaker emphasized that this is repeatable. I didn’t test that, but I can say that I tested the RS GT e-tron on the racetrack after a dozen people did with the same car, and I was impressed by the capacity at about 50% state-of-charge.
Now, if you look closely at this launch, you might have noticed how the front end of the vehicle adjusted itself down after shooting up from the launch.
That’s thanks to the new advanced adaptive air suspension with with damper control.
It’s extremely fast and impressive. I am pretty sure they could make the car jump and down with the suspension if they wanted to, but they don’t.
The suspension is so advanced you don’t need an anti-roll bar. It adjust so fast that it is able to keep the vehicle solid and balance even in high speed corners. It felt effortless driving somewhat aggressively on the desert roads outside of Las Vegas, but Audi enabled a very cool test on the track.
They had me do a lap without the active suspension’s cornering compensation activated and then I did the same lap with it enabled. It was night and day. In fact, it felt like cheating. I’m no track driver, but the second lap felt incredibly easy, almost as if the car was on rails.
Here are the different suspension profiles:
The new 2025 GT e-tron also has 12% more battery capacity resulting in up to 51 more miles of range depending on the configurations and wheel choices. It results in 278 miles of range mac for the RS and 300 miles of range for the S.
As usual, one of the most impressive things about Audi’s EVs is the fast-charging capacity, and the new 2025 GT improves on that thanks to the updated battery pack:
That results in 10 to 80% charging in about 18 minutes.
All that performance doesn’t come cheap. The S e-tron GT starts at $125,500, and the RS e-tron GT Performance starts at $167,000. The version that I tested with closer to $180,000 with options.
Electrek’s Take
This was actually my first time driving an Audi GT e-tron so I can’t compare it to the previous version, but I came out impressed.
With Audi, I love their quiet, comfortable luxury with the A6 and Q6. This is not that. It’s a performance vehicle, but it’s still a 4-door, 4-seater, with decent space in the back, so Audi clearly also focused on comfort, and you can feel it.
I can see this being a great daily driver even though the cabin wasn’t as quiet as the previously mentioned vehicles and you could feel more vibration.
The Audi GT e-tron really shines when you start driving more aggressively. Like I previously said, the active suspension’s cornering suspension is truly impressive and makes things easier.
Though I’d note that, unlike the active suspension in the latest Taycan, the one in the Audi GT does allow a bit of roll to give you some road feedback. I appreciated that.
I also appreciated the vehicle’s steering. Again, I can’t compare it to previous versions, but the ratio was reportedly reduced and it did feel short and precise.
The lower weight and higher battery capacity are also appreciated as it can be hard for people to buy an electric vehicle at $100,000+ with fewer than 250 miles of range, which was the case before this 2025 update.
Now, to be fair, Audi put me in a fully loaded RS GT e-tron Performance that cost closer to $200,000. It was incredible, but I don’t know how the car performs with the base S GT e-tron. I’m sure you can have fun with it too and you get more range.
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