We’ve been following Rivian’s quest to develop an in-house electric two-wheeler for years now, dating back to 2022 when we spotted them poaching top electric bicycle talent from companies like Specialized. But despite years of development work, no one on the outside really knows what the company’s micromobility startup ALSO is truly working on. And thanks to several strange teaser videos shared by the apparent skunkworks program, we still don’t know.

We had a pretty good idea that the company has its sights set on an honest-to-goodness electric bicycle, at least based on what Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe said back in 2023.

Rivian spun out a startup called ALSO to focus its micromobility work, and they’ve been hard at work both on and offline. ALSO’s social media team has kept up a steady drip of eclectic teasers, often showcasing a single component without any explanation or background. And it appears they’ve spent big ad money on getting those teasers in front of a large audience.

For example, one post showcases the copper windings of two different motor stators, showcasing what appears to be two different sizes of relatively small-diameter hub motors, though perhaps one is the stator of a mid-drive motor. Two motors would be surprising on an electric bicycle. While it’s been done many times, dual motors are usually found on out-of-class e-bikes that are essentially small electric motorcycles skirting motorcycle laws. A single motor is plenty powerful for street-legal e-bikes, and thus dual motors would only seem necessary on something intended for more power than a typical electric bicycle.

Advertisement – scroll for more content

Another clip shows a control board that has a surprisingly large footprint for something that would conceivably be stored in the frame or body of a conventional electric bicycle. It also looks to have connections for two different motor phase wires, implying driving a pair of motors from the single board. Back in 2010, I headed up an electric bicycle startup developing a model with a completely enclosed front triangle, which could be a solution that would support housing such large-format electronic components within ALSO’s presumed e-bike.

A window in the large circuit board also gives us a partial view of a pair of wheels that seem roughly bicycle-sized, also revealing a conventional fork and disc brake rotor on the wheel.

The potential for dual motors and some large fairing to conceal that circuit board would imply the possibility of something larger than a typical e-bike, perhaps even a moped or light electric motorcycle. The same clip also appears to reveal an engineer working on a gray metal component that looks suspiciously like a rear swing arm, which would lead us to believe that the bike would feature rear suspension.

Despite some of those clues that would imply something bigger or more powerful than a typical e-bike, other teasers show people “riding” along a sidewalk on invisible bikes, miming pedaling actions, which would imply functional pedals. And another teaser displays a belt pulley of what could be a belt drive on the pedal drivetrain, though it could also be a final drive coming from a centrally mounted motor.

In yet another strange post, the bike is completely blurred out, but we can see a rider holding what are likely a set of handlebars awkwardly close to his waist, which would be a position more commonly seen on a standing electric scooter than on an e-bike or e-motorcycle. However, he may also be straddling the bike and simply standing closer to the bars.

He also appears to be wearing a jacket with back armor, something rarely seen among e-bike riders but much more common in the motorcycling world (though I’ve advocated for it on e-bikes, too).

On the other hand, the bike or skate helmet worn by the rider still implies that we’re back in the bike world, not the moto-world.

Keeping the hype train rolling, another short video shows a partial view of the battery in various stages of assembly. The cylindrical cells look like 18650 or 21700 cells, used in many electric vehicles, but most commonly light electric motorbikes and e-bikes. While the camera is too zoomed in to determine the size of the battery, it looks like the cells are arranged in a fairly tightly packed configuration with frequent and close-spaced reversing of the cells. This is done to weld the cells in series – a necessary step for increasing the voltage of the pack.

But the fairly small number of cells grouped together in a single orientation, perhaps as few as six (though it could be more due to the limited framing of the shot), would imply a somewhat small battery by motorcycle standards, potentially around 20Ah or less, if using relatively common 3.5Ah 18650 cells arranged in a 6p configuration. That puts us back in electric bicycle territory (or an underspec’d electric moped), though there could be multiple battery packs to increase the overall capacity.

But pushing back towards something larger is the sophisticated LED lighting setup, which uses two powerful LED segments to create what might be a high/low beam configuration. We rarely see such powerful lighting on electric bikes and find this setup more often on seated electric scooters and motorbikes. But then again, ALSO is part of Rivian and thus would easily benefit from Rivian’s automotive-level components and supply chain.

Then there’s a censored shot of two people on the bike in question, with a child strapped into a kid’s safety seat, implying a utility or cargo bike configuration that can allow for a passenger on the rear rack.

Plus, to make things even more interesting, these shots are all interspersed with artistic designs, strange kinetic wind art, penguin furries, crystal prisms, nature themes, and other seemingly random motifs that either point to the artistic whims of ALSO’s social media folks or are just random red herrings to confuse us further.

Basically, there are many clues, some of them seemingly contradictory, none of which really tell us that much more than we already knew, which is that ALSO is building personal electric vehicles of some unknown type.

The company says all will be revealed on October 22, so we’re on the edge of our seats waiting for that reveal. It could be a major shakeup in the industry, or the company could go the route of basically every other automotive company that tried to build an e-bike and failed miserably. Time will tell.

But there’s one thing I can say for sure. I’ve covered e-bikes longer than just about anyone else in this industry, and this is the weirdest freaking launch lead-up I’ve ever seen.

Ford blamed slowing demand for electric vehicles after announcing plans to slash another 1,000 jobs at its Cologne EV plant in Germany.

Ford cuts jobs in Germany over weak demand for EVs

In a press release on Thursday, Ford announced plans to cut another 1,000 jobs at its plant in Cologne, Germany.

“In Europe, demand for electric cars remains well below industry forecasts,” the company said. Ford is blaming weak demand for EVs, saying it will move from a two-shift operation to a single-shift operation, starting in January.

The proposed plans from last year include cutting about 4,000 jobs in Europe by the end of 2027, or about 14% of its European workforce. The job cuts will be primarily in Germany and the UK as part of a broader restructuring. Tuesday’s announcement will raise it by another 1,000.

Advertisement – scroll for more content

Earlier this year, Ford faced a historic worker strike in Cologne that disrupted production. The news announced on Tuesday will likely affect vehicle production again.

Ford currently builds electric vehicles, including the Explorer and Capri, in Cologne, but it’s facing new competition from BYD and other low-cost EV makers from China.

Although Ford is blaming weaker-than-expected demand for EVs, according to the latest data from the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA), 1,011,903 battery electric vehicles (BEVs) were registered in the EU in the first seven months of 2025, led by increases in Spain (94.5%), Germany (59,2%), and Italy (60.3%).

If you look at the most recent registration data from the German Federal Motor Transport Authority (KBA), Ford registered 10,924 BEVs in Germany through August, or less than 15% of the nearly 74,000 vehicles it sold.

The shortcomings come despite Ford investing nearly €2 billion ($2.4 billion) to upgrade the facility to produce electric vehicles. Ford also offers the Puma Gen-E, the electric version of its best-selling vehicle in Europe. It was the first EV to qualify for the full £3,750 ($5,000) discount from the UK’s recently launched Electric Car Grant program.

Rivian broke ground on its long-planned Georgia factory today, with the goal of getting cars off the line in 2028. The company plans to build its highly anticipated R2 and R3 vehicles there, though it will start initial production of the R2 in its existing Illinois plant in the interim.

Rivian first announced the plan for the factory in 2021, at a cost of $5 billion. It was originally planned to be the home of Rivian’s next-generation vehicle, the $45,000 R2, which will be a competitor for the mid-size SUVs that currently dominate the American automotive landscape.

The plant will be built in a rural area outside Social Circle, Georgia, about an hour East of Atlanta. Rivian has also announced an East Coast Headquarters in Atlanta, which will support the new plant.

The factory was originally supposed to open in 2024, but has been significantly delayed. Most recently, Rivian decided to pull forward production of the R2 and move it to the company’s existing factory in Normal, Illinois, saving over $2 billion in short-term costs. It made this announcement alongside the unveiling of the R2 and R3.

Advertisement – scroll for more content

But Rivian still has targets to meet, and those targets were imposed by entities with rather deep pockets. As is the case with many economic development projects, the company has grants from the state of Georgia and loans from the federal government, each of which have timetables attached.

State and local officials offered a total of $1.5 billion in support to Rivian for the factory, and the federal government offered the company a loan of up to $6.6 billion, which closed in the final days of President Biden’s administration (before anti-EV forces invaded the Oval Office and started on their mission to destroy American industry). But the feds’ loan requires breaking ground, which Rivian fulfilled today.

The plan now is for the factory to start producing cars in 2028. The factory will be built in two phases, each with 200,000 units of capacity, with the plans to use that capacity to expand sales outside of North America.

Today’s groundbreaking represents a big win for Georgia, which has attracted significant amounts of investment in EV-related manufacturing as a result of President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.

Since Biden’s EV push, Georgia alone has seen 22 facilities announced, representing $24.4 billion in investment and 26,400 EV jobs, per the BlueGreen Alliance’s EV Jobs tool. This is despite Georgia Governor Brian Kemp being a climate change skeptic… but at least he still wants the state to have good EV jobs, and attended today’s groundbreaking. Georgia’s two Democratic Senators, Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, have both provided significant support in bringing these EV jobs to the state.

Rivian’s project was the largest of these announced facilities at the time of its announcement, with 7,500 planned jobs. But since then, Hyundai’s upcoming Georgia factory and its 10,000+ planned jobs exceeded it in size. The two factories, combined, make up the majority of planned EV jobs for the state of Georgia.

However, it’s still a strange time for EVs in the US. Not only are the federal EV tax credit and other EV manufacturing incentives ending (even though the far higher subsidy received by gas cars remains), some of Georgia’s other EV investment has recently been thrown into question.

Donald Trump, the current squatter in the Oval Office (who is Constitutionally barred from holding office in the US), made another step towards his goal of harming American manufacturing last week, when his administration sent its thugs to raid Hyundai’s massive plant in Georgia. This has resulted in nationwide backlash in Korea and delayed the plant’s construction.

Rivian has not suffered a similar fate, but there could be unanticipated future roadblocks along the way, depending on how committed the current occupier of the White House is to destroying American industry.

But for Rivian’s part, it says that EV credits aren’t required to make its plans for the factory pencil out. Alex Hoffman, its Chief Policy Officer, said “we did not build this company based upon federal tax incentives.”

Despite this, the company is still breaking ground at what could be considered a shaky time for building EV plants in the US – maybe the EV tax credit isn’t necessary to make the plans pencil out, but the $8 billion in loans and support from governments seems to have made enough difference to keep plans on schedule, this time.

The company hosted an event this weekend for the community, which thousands of people attended. Rivian says the plant will start vertical construction in 2026, and vehicles will start rolling off the line in 2028.

The 30% federal solar tax credit is ending this year. If you’ve ever considered going solar, now’s the time to act. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. It has hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high-quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use, and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them.

Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisors to help you every step of the way. Get started here.