Automotive

This week on Electrek’s Wheel-E podcast, we discuss the most popular news stories from the world of electric bikes and other nontraditional electric vehicles. This time, that includes new e-bikes from Gazelle, Ride1Up, and SixThreeZero, a solar-powered electric seated scooter, LiveWire Honcho approved for MSF motorcycle training courses, and more. The Wheel-E podcast returns every two weeks on Electrek’s YouTube channel, Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter.

Based on the images VW supplied to Ars, I think they’ve mostly met that brief; the R-Line interior in particular looks rather good to me. More importantly though, VW has been listening to feedback. The return to normal door handles will be welcome, even if it might have been driven by Chinese vehicle regulators. Even more welcome are the plethora of physical controls: real buttons on the steering wheel, real switches for the climate control and windows, and real physical air vents, not computer-controlled ones. There’s a new 15-inch infotainment screen that looks nice but will need to be responsive, plus the option of a 12-inch passenger display, a trend I continue to bemoan like Grandpa Simpson shouting at the clouds.

During multiple historic fuel crises and a climate crisis that left tens of thousands dead across Europe this summer, the bloc is reportedly close to striking a deal to allow its automakers to produce more of the vehicles that directly caused each of those problems. In doing so, it would only ensure that its automakers are unprepared to compete against the country that actually is providing solutions to those problems: China.

If the IONIQ 5 isn’t big enough, Hyundai is preparing to introduce the IONIQ 7, set to fill the gap between the IONIQ 5 and IONIQ 9. While the IONIQ 9 was set to fill the spot, initially called the “SEVEN” Concept, Hyundai decided the three-row SUV was a better fit as its flagship model, like the Kia EV9.

In 2013, in response to Toyota’s petition, NHTSA said it would start the rulemaking process. It took another five years before a rule was published for consideration; in the interim, the NHTSA was considering adopting Europe’s rules before deciding that if a car with adaptive beam lights “does not have a long preview of another vehicle, such as in an intersection scenario or when two vehicles are oncoming on a curved road, ADB does not have enough time to react to adapt its beam pattern.” One key difference is how vehicles are regulated. In Europe, cars are homologated for type approval; manufacturers submit examples to authorities for testing to ensure they conform to the rules, and then the authorities approve the car for sale. In the US, OEMs tell NHTSA their cars comply with the FMVSS, or face sanctions if that turns out to be false later. At the time, NHTSA felt that Europe’s glare tests were too subjective for a self-certification regime and decided instead to write its own.

Rivian is back with another Halloween update, and once again it’s another classic-movie-themed one with a new celebrity cameo. For the last few years, Rivian has released Halloween “costumes” for its cars in October, and this year is no different.

BYD offered an early look at the third-generation Tang’s interior, its flagship “tech-savvy” five-seat electric SUV. The third-generation Tang is set to go on sale later this year, joining the full-size Great Tang (Da Tang in China) as a smaller, five-seat flagship SUV.

Amazon’s Fall Prime Day Sale event is over, but that doesn’t mean the savings are slowing down, and we’re keeping all the ongoing deals in our updated Fall Prime Day Green Deals hub here for the rest of the week. Leading today’s edition of Green Deals is the latest and final EcoFlow Prime Day flash sale running for 72 hours, with offers like the 2x 1,024Wh DELTA 3 Classic power station bundle down at $889, alongside some other notable units from $599. Right behind that we have collected all the ongoing Segway Fall Deals Deals Day Sale savings on e-scooters, with continuing options like the ZT3 Pro Off-Road Electric Scooter down at $800. We also have Anker’s SOLIX Prime Deals Encore Sale offering the 2,048Wh C2000 Gen 2 Portable Power Station with a 400W solar panel at an exclusive $1,330, among others, as well as the Segway Navimow i2 Series Robot Mowers at their lowest prices, a continuing low price on EGO’s 56V 12-inch Electric Snow Shovel, and more options hanging onto savings for a while longer. Head below for other New Green Deals we’ve found today and, of course, Electrek’s best EV buying and leasing deals.

Volkswagen issued another recall affecting more than 22,500 ID.4 models. Until a fix is ready, it recommends owners charge the battery to no more than 80%. Volkswagen ID.4 hit with another battery recall

BMW’s new electric SUV just got the M treatment. The new BMW iX3 M60 “raises the stakes,” packing a combined 603 hp and plenty of standard M upgrades. BMW gives the iX3 the M treatment with the M60 xDrive

VinFast wants to put electric buses on US streets, and its pitch goes beyond the vehicles: charging, maintenance, and operations bundled into one package. Deliveries of buses approved for US use are expected to begin in Q1 2028. The Vietnamese EV maker announced the plan at the APTA TRANSform & EXPO in Chicago. It signed an initial agreement with NexMove, a joint venture between passenger transportation company Transportation Management Services and commercial EV charging provider Zeem Solutions.

Don’t let the bluff angles fool you—the shape still achieves a drag coefficient of 0.23. Coupled with a 118 kWh (usable) battery pack, that should allow for about 400 miles (644 km) on a single charge, although a formal EPA estimate will show up closer to the car’s arrival in US dealerships in mid-2027. The pack—many examples of which I saw being manufactured on a recent visit to one of Jaguar Land Rover’s factories in the English Midlands—operates at 850 V, and Jaguar says that a 350 kW DC fast charger will take the battery from 10–80 percent in 22 minutes. Even though Jaguar hasn’t had any new cars to sell, it hasn’t been entirely dormant; there’s a rather effective Formula E program, after all. A few weeks ago, that powertrain scored its third team championship in four years, adding a second title for the Jaguar TCS Racing squad (the third being the customer Envision Racing team). And over the years, Jaguar’s boffins have actually learned a lot about how to design, build, and operate electric powertrains that are both powerful and efficient, and that work has direct benefits to road-going EVs.

There’s been something of a change in the world of motorsport over the past few years. It has to do with where the money comes from. In the old days, it was tobacco and, to a lesser extent, booze. Today such things are mostly banned, and when you look at a racecar covered in sponsor logos, you’re likely to see something crypto-, cyber-, or AI-related. This makes sense—an ever-larger share of our GDP is wrapped up in those segments. They’re the ones with all the money, and it takes money to go racing. So at the amateur level, we’ve seen tech CEOs replace dentists as the privateer of choice: This past weekend’s Petit Le Mans included co-founders of GitHub, CrowdStrike, Shopify, and the creator of Ruby on Rails, to name a few.

Usefully, the LFP battery is bidirectional, with an output of up to 12 kW, which means you can even use it to charge your EV in a pinch. If you don’t want to wait several days, the pack will AC charge at up to 6.6 kW and will even DC fast charge (0–80 percent in less than a hour, Pebble says). And it can also regeneratively brake, recapturing up to 42 kW thanks to the in-wheel electric motors that help push the trailer along as you tow. And for 2027, Pebble has added a boost setting to this assist, which provides 54 hp (40 kW) of assistance rather than just easing the slack.

A software bug waylaid half the field and required a race reboot. On a rainy day, Lewis Hamilton was among the drivers who shone.

Tesla sold 486,532 electric vehicles during the third quarter of 2026. That’s a 2.1 percent decrease on the same quarter in 2025, when the company found homes for 497,099 EVs, and one might think that would be bad news for a company valued on the premise of near-constant growth. But Tesla stock is up this morning; the year-over-year numbers might look bad, but the company still exceeded analysts’ expectations of 456,600 cars, which would have been a larger 8 percent year-on-year decline

“You may be driving by yourself, but that’s not your classic private environment,” Rouchitsas said. Rouchitsas said there are two prevalent use cases. The first is the content creator. “So you have OnlyFans, you have Pornhub, you have a very mature adult industry in the US. So opportunistic content creators that might perceive this Waymo or public shuttles as studios: very cheap, providing good lighting, soundproof—kind of,” Rouchitsas said. The other is tourists, who might not know local customs. “I come from Greece, and I also come from an island, so I know what tourist debauchery looks like, what young people tend to do when they’re given context-wise the chance to do so,” Rouchitsas said.

Light replaces chrome for the kidney grille. Pricing for those future electric variants will be revealed closer to their sale dates. But we can tell you the price of the 2027 i3 50 xDrive: $61,500. For context, the 2026 i4 xDrive40, which is less powerful but also has 60 percent of the range, currently starts at $62,300.