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Do you want a light tailwind or a full-on hurricane?
“The only thing better for the climate than buying an EV over a gasoline-powered car is buying no car at all,” the climate scientist
Rob Jackson has written. But for many Americans, not having a car at all is the stuff of logistical and cultural nightmares. The average person living in the U.S. covers more than 1,000 miles per month in their vehicle, and nearly 45% of people don’t even have the option of opting for public transportation. Ditching your car? You might as well ask people to give up their cell phones.
But across the country, transportation advocates and e-bike warriors are looking for solutions to go, if not entirely car-less, then at least car-light. Heatmap has put together a comprehensive guide to help you make a decision that best fits your lifestyle, whether that’s becoming a superpedestrian, a committed e-bike user, or just trying to replace a couple of short-haul drives a week.
Doug Gordon is the cohost of “The War on Cars,” a podcast about the fight against car culture. He is also a writer, TV producer, and safe streets advocate, and he advises nonprofits and mobility companies on communications strategies to promote better streets and public infrastructure through his Brooklyn Spoke Media consulting business.
Alexa Sledge is the director of communications at Transportation Alternatives, a nonprofit organization that has worked to promote non-polluting, safe, and quiet travel in New York City since 1973.
Bryan Deanis the sales manager at The eBike Store in Portland, Oregon, which opened in 2008 as the city’s first e-bike-only retailer. He’s spent over six years helping customers pick out their perfect bikes and is also the creator of the #eBikeAnywhere hashtag.
Kevin Lau is a product specialist at REI with more than 20 years of experience. He is based out of Marlton, New Jersey.
Only 8% of U.S. households currently get by without owning a car, and less than 1% of Americans commute to work by bike. The U.S. is so driving-centric that we’re home to one-fifth of all the cars on the planet despite having less than 5% of the global population.Eleven states have more registered vehicles than people.
But just because driving has always been your default doesn’t mean it makes the most sense for the kind of travel you do — even if you live somewhere without great public transportation. Over half of all trips Americans make in a car are for a distance of less than three miles — perfect to convert into a bike ride.
“I think of mobility like a Swiss army knife: You have to use the right tool for the job,” Gordon told me. “If I just need to pick up a carton of milk, does it make sense to do that in a 6,000-pound metal box on wheels that is powered by dinosaur juice? Not so much.”
On average, commuting by bike in the U.S. saves an estimated $2,500 per year, and it has been found to have massive benefits for one’s mental health, cardiovascular health, and even productivity at work. Yes, even e-bikes!
“If you go to places like Copenhagen or Amsterdam — places where there are huge numbers of cyclists — and you poll those people, concern for the environment barely cracks the top five reasons why they cycle,” Gordon said. “The reasons why people cycle in Denmark and the Netherlands are because it’s safe and convenient, and it’s often the fastest and cheapest way to get where they’re going.”
Transportation is the most significant contributor to climate change in the United States, with nearly 60% of the sector’s greenhouse gas emissions coming from cars alone (another 23% comes from trucks). Replacing a quarter of your total driving with walking, biking, or e-biking could save 1.3 tons of greenhouse gas emissions per year, according to our friends at WattTime — about the same as forgoing burning 1,433 pounds of coal or three barrels of oil. If every American drove even a mere 10% less per year, it’d be like taking 28 coal-fired power plants offline.
You can still make a significant impact without ditching your car, in other words: You simply have to drive less. And the upsides are enormous. More Americans die of car pollution than in car accidents every year. Additionally, commuting by bike or by foot makes us healthier and happier.
It also helps us realize what our community priorities should be. “Individual action is not always what we need to focus on,” Gordon said. “We need to focus on institutional change. But my philosophy is that lots of individual action actually adds up to the political will to get the institutional change you need.”
A survey of studies from five countries (including the U.S.) found that the main barriers to cycling were low perceived safety, bad weather, lack of cycling infrastructure (including “shower facilities” at one’s destination), and distance and perceived effort.
Safety is a valid concern. Riding a bike is about 500 times more likely to be fatal than riding a bus, according to a 2007 study; even with the success of programs like New York’s Vision Zero, collisions with cars remain a real danger for people on bikes. The car-related pollution inhaled while cycling can also shorten a cyclist’s life by an estimated one to 40 days. But the benefits of cycling on average far outweigh the risks: Riding a bike adds an estimated three to 14 months to your life, even when the possibilities of collisions and air pollution are considered. The health benefits are so significant that a separate study by Swedish researchers found that cyclists had a 47% lower risk of early death and a 10% lower risk of hospitalization compared to car and train commuters.
What about concerns about shower availability and the “distance and perceived effort” of riding a bike? That’s where the advantages of an e-bike’s pedal assist come into play. “E-bikes are great at blasting through any concerns you have about sweat,” Gordon told me. Even in hot weather or on difficult terrain, pedal assist can keep you looking fresh when you arrive at the office.
The first step to driving less is thinking about when and where you can replace specific trips with walking, cycling, or public transportation instead. Lau told me his general rule of thumb is that if a trip is less than a mile and he can safely walk (i.e. if there are sidewalks or safe paths), then he’ll walk. “If it’s more than that, I’ll take the bike if I have a place to lock it or can bring it into my workplace or store,” he said. For trips where he might need some extra assistance — that are farther, longer, hillier, or will require carrying “more cargo without working as hard,” he’ll opt for an e-bike instead.
You can do a lot of this reconnaissance from your couch. Apple Maps and Google Maps can take a lot of the guesswork out of finding the best bike paths to and from your house and the other places you frequent, including informing you ahead of time if the route will require riding on major or minor roads or ones with protected bike lanes. Google and Apple Maps can also give you real-time information about public transportation options in your area (as well as allow you to plan for trips when service might be reduced, like late nights or weekends), and many transit systems now have their own apps to make tracking delays or alternative service simpler.
It’s funny how you don’t realize where the long, slow inclines are in your neighborhood until you’re huffing up them on a bike. Google Maps and Apple Maps can show you what elevation to expect on a walking or cycling route. If you live in a hillier area, an e-bike might be better than a traditional bike since it can take some of the ouch out of the ups.
“Something really, really important that people don’t always think about is gear,” Sledge told me. “It doesn’t necessarily have to be expensive, but if you can only ride your bike when it’s 80 degrees and sunny, that’s not the best scenario.”
If you live somewhere where it gets hot, rainy, snowy, windy, or the weather can change unexpectedly, think ahead of time about the sort of gear you’d need to make cycling or walking more comfortable. (We have a checklist of ideas below.)
California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York, Oklahoma, and Vermont all have statewide tax credits or rebates to encourage e-bike adoption.
Live somewhere that isn’t on that list? Here is a super handy tracker from the Transportation Research and Education Center at Portland State University of more than 100 counties, cities, and municipalities that offer e-bike incentive programs. Also, look for e-bike lending libraries that might be in your area.
If you’re having trouble learning about the programs available to you, head into a brick-and-mortar e-bike shop in your area or connect with your local transportation advocacy group — they’ll know what programs you can take advantage of and be happy to point you in the right direction.
Do you know what bike enthusiasts love more than anything? Creating new bike enthusiasts. If you’re still feeling intimidated by the idea of getting on a bike — or even if you’re not — “find a friend who’s already doing it,” Gordon suggested. Bike people are “an evangelical bunch, and if you tell a friend who you know is into biking or bike commutes regularly that ‘Hey, I’m thinking of doing it,’ I can guarantee that person will be more than happy to hold your hand and help you through your first ride.”
There are dozens of emissions-free or emissions-light transportation options, from using your own two feet to digging the old beater bicycle out of your garage to going full Steve Wozniak with a Segway. The most important thing is to something you’ll actually use.
That said — “What’s really going to be the best option for most Americans is an e-bike,” Sledge told me. “That’s a true car replacement when so often a [traditional] bike can’t be a true, true, true car replacement.” E-bikes are simply more practical and comfortable for longer rides or daily commutes, and if you need to haul things like groceries or children, they can’t be beaten.
I’ve looked at all my options and don’t think I can drive any less than I already do. What can I do instead?
There’s no way around it: E-bikes are pricy. “An e-bike is going to be a big purchase — nowhere near as much as a car, but still, it’s a major purchase,” Sledge said. Even with incentive programs (more on that below), you’re likely to spend more than $1,000 out of pocket.
It is tempting to look for a bargain. But Dean stressed that manufacturers and bulk retailers are “sacrificing a lot” in terms of quality and service to make a profit at lower price points. As a rule, “If you’re spending less than $1,000 on any bike, it’s landfill,” he said. “And that waste is toxic — odds are, it isn’t going to be recycled properly.”
Gordon suggested that if you’re concerned about how often you’ll use an e-bike, it makes sense to get “a cheap regular bike” initially. “Then you can figure out if this is something you want to do in the long term, and after a few weeks, or a month, or a year, you can go, ‘Okay, I’m ready for the $1,000, $2,000, $5,000 bicycle.’”
Perspective is important, too. Yes, e-bikes are expensive — if you compare them to regular bikes. “If you compare them to cars, they’re a bargain,” Gordon said. “E-bikes are a replacement tool; they’re not an upgrade from other bikes. So if you’re a family with two cars and are going down to one, getting a $2,500 or even $5,000 e-bike is a relative bargain.” Additionally, many retailers — including The eBike Store in Portland, Oregon, where Dean works — offer installment plans to help make the purchase more manageable.
Conversion kits are a popular way to convert an analog bike you already own into an e-bike by attaching a motor to the front hub, rear hub, or mid-drive. Many of these kits can be found cheaply on websites like Amazon, though The Washington Post warns that it is still a “very Wild West market” and to only buy batteries from reputable e-bike battery brands (low-quality batteries are more likely to start fires). While converting to an e-bike might be a good option for you if you want to dip a toe in the e-bike water, you’ll still need to spend several hundred dollars to get a kit that gives you the same oomph as an actual e-bike. That said, whatever option gets you on a bike is the best one, and if you’re converter-kit curious, here’s a good guide for learning where to start.
“Buying a bike at a brick-and-mortar store from competent, kind people who love their job — customers are going to have a fantastic experience,” Dean told me. “They’re going to get a great taste for the bike, which means they’ll be riding it a lot. We’re not in the business of selling bikes that sit and rot in someone’s garage.”
It is especially important to go to a store with e-bike specialists on staff (rather than a bulk retailer like Costco — or worse, anything online) because the mechanics will have checked the bike over and adjusted the safety points so it’s ready to go. “You’re going to get educated and get a strong appreciation of the beautiful tool that you are buying, and learn how to operate it and make it last,” Dean added.
Most importantly, though, ensure you take the bike for a test ride before handing over your credit card. Any retailer worth its salt will offer this as an option; the best retailers will take you on a guided test ride, where they’ll teach you how to use the e-bike you’re trying out. But the bottom line is, “Don’t buy a bike that you haven’t ridden,” Dean said. “Ride the bike before you buy it; that’s in all-caps with smiley faces and exclamation points. Don't buy the bike if you can’t ride it first.”
“Buy the bike that’s going to put the biggest, dumbest smile on your face.”
Dean said he points riders looking to log miles to the Specialized Como. “When you’re commuting long miles, you want something comfortable, something that’s reliable, something that has a strong enough motor that will get you where you’re going and a big-enough battery that you’re not going to sweat it,” he said. The Specialized Como is also an excellent choice for people who want to “show up to work not sweaty” but maybe get a little bit more of a workout on the way home.
If you prefer commuting on a traditional bike, Lau suggested REI’s ADV 1.1, a road touring bike, or the CTY 1.1 bike, a less-expensive hybrid built for logging longer distances and enduring the daily wear-and-tear of a commute. His e-bike pick for commuters is the CTY e2.2, a popular, well-reviewed, and accessible commuter bike specifically marketed to “replace car trips.”
Dean loves to recommend Tern bikes to people who want to make trips with their kids. “They’ve been doing this for a long time, they have tons of great accessories, and they use Bosch power systems,” he said — all points in the bike’s favor. That customizability and reliability make it a good fit for families who want to be able to tailor the bike to their needs and price point while also not having to worry about it breaking down in the middle of a toddler’s meltdown.
But there is one other primary reason why Dean points parents to Tern. “All of their bikes are rider first, cargo behind” — versus bucket bikes that put the cargo in front of the rider. While the latter design is also popular, it also means that if you’re trying to squeak out into traffic, you’re nosing your most precious cargo ahead of you, into potential harm’s way.
Lau offered three options for e-bikes that won’t make you miss the trunk of your car, starting with the Cannondale Cargowagen, which can lug up to 440 pounds — that is a lot of Chili & Lime Flavored Rolled Corn Tortilla Chips. Its range isn’t quite as good as some other bikes on the market — the battery is 545 watt-hours — so it’s probably a better fit for people who live in higher-density areas or near their preferred market. (You can always buy a second battery if you want a little more range.) The Cargowagen is also a class 3 bike, meaning you won’t have to worry about the ice cream melting before you can get home.
Like Dean, Lau loves to recommend Tern bikes for handling heavy loads, especially the Tern GSD S00, which conveniently folds up so it can even be stored in an apartment or transported in an elevator while still being compatible with Tern’s line of cargo-carrying products — but at almost $6,000 before add-ons, it’ll likely be out of many first-time e-bikers’ budgets. Tern’s Vektron S10 is a less expensive option and still has the power to handle hilly roads with six Trader Joe’s bags in tow. (Note that both Terns are class 1 bikes, meaning the pedal assist tops out at 20 miles per hour.)
“Lightweight e-bikes are out there,” Dean said, and can be had — for the right amount of money. “They’re usually going to start around $3,500 to $4,000 and then go up from there,” he told me, pointing to Specialized as one of his favorite lightweight brands.
Keep in mind that you may not need a lightweight e-bike. “No one has ever come in and said, ‘I want a heavy bike,’” Dean pointed out. Electric motors are, by necessity, heavy, so getting a lighter bike can mean sacrificing half the motor and battery. There are workarounds: “If you have stairs to go up, almost all of these bikes have a walk assist mode,” which gently turns the tires so you’re not fighting gravity on your own, Dean told me. Likewise, if you’re trying to load your bike onto a car rack, “you don’t have to Hulk it up there; you can be a little smarter about your efforts by picking up the front wheel and putting it in the rack behind your car. Then pick up the back wheel.” If you’re really struggling with your bike, you can always pop off the battery — one of the heavier components — and carry it separately.
The best new commuter bike you can get away with is the CTY 1.1, the analog bike Lau recommended above, but for an e-bike option, he points customers to the Co-op CTY e2.1, an easy, accessible, no-frills class 1 bike that won’t run you more than $2,000. It might be a little light on features for a serious urban commuter, though.
Dean told me that the Gazelle Medeo and some of the bikes from Electra Country will have price points that could be more acceptable to customers on a budget. Gazelle uses the reliable Bosch power system, and the Medeo is “really good” and comes in “multiple versions.” (I found one for less than $2,000). Electra Country is a subsidiary of Trek and is a “one-size-fits-all, beach cruiser-looking bike” that comes in super fun colors.
Congratulations! You’re the proud owner of a bike or an e-bike (or skateboard or e-scooter or a really good pair of walking shoes). What happens now?
While the benefits of riding a bike (or any other form of active transportation) still outweigh the risks, cars are getting bigger, their blindspots are getting larger, and pedestrian and cyclist deaths nationwide are at a 40-year high. Even electric vehicles might be a small part of the problem since they’re so much heavier than regular cars — and that much more dangerous if you get hit.
I asked Sledge how newly carless commuters could become better pedestrians, and she quickly corrected me. “There is no such thing as being a good pedestrian,” she said. “So often, in the United States, when we have groups of people that are consistently harmed by other groups of people, we’re like, ‘How can the victims be better?’ And the real answer is, ‘How can we create systems and designs that protect those people?’”
We’ll get into that. But the bottom line is: be safe when you’re out on the road. Learn how to navigate intersections safely, and don’t take unnecessary risks. Especially if you’re on an e-bike, “You’re traveling faster than most cars are expecting you to,” Dean said. “To remember that, imagine you are not only invisible, but they’re all trying to kill you.”
“Riding a bike is a really good entry for a lot of people into larger political conversations about climate, the design of their cities or towns, and a host of other issues,” Gordon told me. It might only be a short amount of time before you start to wonder why there aren’t more protected bike lanes in your town or city, or why mass transit isn’t reaching your neighborhood or destination, or why lousy road design is making your commute more dangerous than it should be.
There’s some good news, though: There has never been a better time to become a transit advocate. “It could be as small as your block, or your neighborhood, or your city, but there are tons of groups all over the country that focus on working to make them safer and better for the people in them,” Sledge said.
One of the best places to start is by making your voice and your values heard. As Sledge reminded me, car companies already have — and continue to spend money and time lobbying policies that are better for drivers (and their bottom lines) than others on the road. But where to begin? “First, I would look for any kind of organization in your community, your neighborhood, or your city that focuses on safe streets or fighting climate change, and see if you can get involved with them,” Sledge said. “And if you don’t have that kind of organization, start to go to your city council meetings, making your voice heard with your local representatives — those kinds of things really make a difference.”
Another great resource is Transportation for America’s Transit Advocate Guide, which takes you step-by-step through building a movement in your community. Transportation Alternatives also hosts occasional activist trainings to help you learn how to organize successful campaigns in your neighborhood.
Maybe you bought an e-bike or a monthly metro pass … but you’ve been unable to quit your car the way you thought you would. That’s okay! This is not an all-or-nothing activity. “Don’t feel guilty if you’re still driving,” Gordon stressed. Remember that “you’re operating within a system that is built for you to drive, so starting small is really good.” Every fit and start of progress helps.
Remember also that better, low- and zero-emissions-friendly infrastructure and a pedestrian-first culture aren’t going to be built overnight. Even the most hard-core among us still need to use cars occasionally. Just “reimagining how we’re going to truly allocate our public resources — our public dollars, our public services — to serve everyone, and radically rethinking how to do that, is so important,” Sledge said.
I will leave you with one last instruction for ditching your car. When you discover the bike that lets you “follow your joy, follow your bliss,” and puts a “smile on your face” — as Dean likes to say — don’t keep it to yourself.
Someone else in your community is beginning to think about ditching their car, too. It’s your turn now. Go forth. Become someone else’s enthusiastic bike geek.
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Any household savings will barely make a dent in the added costs from Trump’s many tariffs.
Donald Trump’s tariffs — the “fentanyl” levies on Canada, China, and Mexico, the “reciprocal” tariffs on nearly every country (and some uninhabited islands), and the global 10% tariff — will almost certainly cause consumer goods on average to get more expensive. The Yale Budget Lab estimates that in combination, the tariffs Trump has announced so far in his second term will cause prices to rise 2.3%, reducing purchasing power by $3,800 per year per household.
But there’s one very important consumer good that seems due to decline in price.
Trump administration officials — including the president himself — have touted cheaper oil to suggest that the economic response to the tariffs hasn’t been all bad. On Sunday, Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent told NBC, “Oil prices went down almost 15% in two days, which impacts working Americans much more than the stock market does.”
Trump picked up this line on Truth Social Monday morning. “Oil prices are down, interest rates are down (the slow moving Fed should cut rates!), food prices are down, there is NO INFLATION,” he wrote. He then spent the day posting quotes from Fox Business commentators echoing that idea, first Maria Bartiromo (“Rates are plummeting, oil prices are plummeting, deregulation is happening. President Trump is not going to bend”) then Charles Payne (“What we’re not talking about is, oil was $76, now it’s $65. Gasoline prices are going to plummet”).
But according to Neil Dutta, head of economic research at Renaissance Macro Research, pointing to falling oil prices as a stimulus is just another example of the “4D chess” theory, under which some market participants attribute motives to Trump’s trade policy beyond his stated goal of reducing trade deficits to as near zero (or surplus!) as possible.
Instead, oil markets are primarily “responding to the recession risk that comes from the tariff and the trade war,” Dutta told me. “That is the main story.” In short, oil markets see less global trade and less global production, and therefore falling demand for oil. The effect on household consumption, he said, was a “second order effect.”
It is true that falling oil prices will help “stabilize consumption,” Dutta told me (although they could also devastate America’s own oil industry). “It helps. It’ll provide some lift to real income growth for consumers, because they’re not spending as much on gasoline.” But “to fully offset the trade war effects, you basically need to get oil down to zero.”
That’s confirmed by some simple and extremely back of the envelope math. In 2023, households on average consumed about 700 gallons of gasoline per year, based on Energy Information Administration calculations that the average gasoline price in 2023 was $3.52, while the Bureau of Labor Statistics put average household gasoline expenditures at about $2,450.
Let’s generously assume that due to the tariffs and Trump’s regulatory and diplomatic efforts, gas prices drop from the $3.26 they were at on Monday, according to AAA, to $2.60, the average price in 2019. (GasBuddy petroleum analyst Patrick De Haanwrote Monday that the tariffs combined with OPEC+ production hikes could lead gas prices “to fall below $3 per gallon.”)
Let’s also assume that this drop in gas prices does not cause people to drive more or buy less fuel-efficient vehicles. In that case, those same 700 gallons cost the average American $1,820, which would generate annual savings of $630 on average per household. If we went to the lowest price since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, about $3 per gallon, total consumption of 700 gallons would cost a household about $2,100, saving $350 per household per year.
That being said, $1,820 is a pretty low level for annual gasoline consumption. In 2021, as the economy was recovering from the Covid recession and before gas prices popped, annual gasoline expenditures only got as low as $1,948; in 2020 — when oil prices dropped to literally negative dollars per barrel and gas prices got down to $1.85 a gallon — annual expenditures were just over $1,500.
In any case, if you remember the opening paragraphs of this story, even the most generous estimated savings would go nowhere near surmounting the overall rise in prices forecast by the Yale Budget Lab. $630 is less than $3,800! (JPMorgan has forecast a more mild increase in prices of 1% to 1.5%, but agrees that prices will likely rise and purchasing power will decline.)
But maybe look at it this way: You might be able to drive a little more than you expected to, even as your costs elsewhere are going up. Just please be careful! You don’t want to get into a bad accident and have to replace your car: New car prices are expected to rise by several thousand dollars due to Trump’s tariffs.
With cars about to get more expensive, it might be time to start tinkering.
More than a decade ago, when I was a young editor at Popular Mechanics, we got a Nissan Leaf. It was a big deal. The magazine had always kept long-term test cars to give readers a full report of how they drove over weeks and months. A true test of the first true production electric vehicle from a major car company felt like a watershed moment: The future was finally beginning. They even installed a destination charger in the basement of the Hearst Corporation’s Manhattan skyscraper.
That Leaf was a bit of a lump, aesthetically and mechanically. It looked like a potato, got about 100 miles of range, and delivered only 110 horsepower or so via its electric motors. This made the O.G. Leaf a scapegoat for Top Gear-style car enthusiasts eager to slander EVs as low-testosterone automobiles of the meek, forced upon an unwilling population of drivers. Once the rise of Tesla in the 2010s had smashed that paradigm and led lots of people to see electric vehicles as sexy and powerful, the original Leaf faded from the public imagination, a relic of the earliest days of the new EV revolution.
Yet lots of those cars are still around. I see a few prowling my workplace parking garage or roaming the streets of Los Angeles. With the faded performance of their old batteries, these long-running EVs aren’t good for much but short-distance city driving. Ignore the outdated battery pack for a second, though, and what surrounds that unit is a perfectly serviceable EV.
That’s exactly what a new brand of EV restorers see. Last week, car site The Autopiancovered DIYers who are scooping up cheap old Leafs, some costing as little as $3,000, and swapping in affordable Chinese-made 62 kilowatt-hour battery units in place of the original 24 kilowatt-hour units to instantly boost the car’s range to about 250 miles. One restorer bought a new battery on the Chinese site Alibaba for $6,000 ($4,500, plus $1,500 to ship that beast across the sea).
The possibility of the (relatively) simple battery swap is a longtime EV owner’s daydream. In the earlier days of the electrification race, many manufacturers and drivers saw simple and quick battery exchange as the solution for EV road-tripping. Instead of waiting half an hour for a battery to recharge, you’d swap your depleted unit for a fully charged one and be on your way. Even Tesla tested this approach last decade before settling for good on the Supercharger network of fast-charging stations.
There are still companies experimenting with battery swaps, but this technology lost. Other EV startups and legacy car companies that followed Nissan and Tesla into making production EVs embraced the rechargeable lithium-ion battery that is meant to be refilled at a fast-charging station and is not designed to be easily removed from the vehicle. Buy an electric vehicle and you’re buying a big battery with a long warranty but no clear plan for replacement. The companies imagine their EVs as something like a smartphone: It’s far from impossible to replace the battery and give the car a new life, but most people won’t bother and will simply move on to a new car when they can’t take the limitations of their old one anymore.
I think about this impasse a lot. My 2019 Tesla Model 3 began its life with a nominal 240 miles of range. Now that the vehicle has nearly six years and 70,000 miles on it, its maximum range is down to just 200, while its functional range at highway speed is much less than that. I don’t want to sink money into another vehicle, which means living with an EV’s range that diminishes as the years go by.
But what if, one day, I replaced its battery? Even if it costs thousands of dollars to achieve, a big range boost via a new battery would make an older EV feel new again, and at a cost that’s still far less than financing a whole new car. The thought is even more compelling in the age of Trump-imposed tariffs that will raise already-expensive new vehicles to a place that’s simply out of reach for many people (though new battery units will be heavily tariffed, too).
This is no simple weekend task. Car enthusiasts have been swapping parts and modifying gas-burning vehicles since the dawn of the automotive age, but modern EVs aren’t exactly made with the garage mechanic in mind. Because so few EVs are on the road, there is a dearth of qualified mechanics and not a huge population of people with the savvy to conduct major surgery on an electric car without electrocuting themselves. A battery-replacing owner would need to acquire not only the correct pack but also potentially adapters and other equipment necessary to make the new battery play nice with the older car. Some Nissan Leaf modifiers are finding their replacement packs aren’t exactly the same size, shape or weight, The Autopian says, meaning they need things like spacers to make the battery sit in just the right place.
A new battery isn’t a fix-all either. The motors and other electrical components wear down and will need to be replaced eventually, too. A man in Norway who drove his Tesla more than a million miles has replaced at least four battery packs and 14 motors, turning his EV into a sort of car of Theseus.
Crucially, though, EVs are much simpler, mechanically, than combustion-powered cars, what with the latter’s belts and spark plugs and thousands of moving parts. The car that surrounds a depleted battery pack might be in perfectly good shape to keep on running for thousands of miles to come if the owner were to install a new unit, one that could potentially give the EV more driving range than it had when it was new.
The battery swap is still the domain of serious top-tier DIYers, and not for the mildly interested or faint of heart. But it is a sign of things to come. A market for very affordable used Teslas is booming as owners ditch their cars at any cost to distance themselves from Elon Musk. Old Leafs, Chevy Bolts and other EVs from the 2010s can be had for cheap. The generation of early vehicles that came with an unacceptably low 100 to 150 miles of range would look a lot more enticing if you imagine today’s battery packs swapped into them. The possibility of a like-new old EV will look more and more promising, especially as millions of Americans realize they can no longer afford a new car.
On the shifting energy mix, tariff impacts, and carbon capture
Current conditions: Europe just experienced its warmest March since record-keeping began 47 years ago • It’s 105 degrees Fahrenheit in India’s capital Delhi where heat warnings are in effect • The risk of severe flooding remains high across much of the Mississippi and Ohio Valleys.
The severe weather outbreak that has brought tornadoes, extreme rainfall, hail, and flash flooding to states across the central U.S. over the past week has already caused between $80 billion and $90 billion in damages and economic losses, according to a preliminary estimate from AccuWeather. The true toll is likely to be costlier because some areas have yet to report their damages, and the flooding is ongoing. “A rare atmospheric river continually resupplying a firehose of deep tropical moisture into the central U.S., combined with a series of storms traversing the same area in rapid succession, created a ‘perfect storm’ for catastrophic flooding and devastating tornadoes,” said AccuWeather’s chief meteorologist Jonathan Porter. The estimate takes into account damages to buildings and infrastructure, as well as secondary effects like supply chain and shipping disruptions, extended power outages, and travel delays. So far 23 people are known to have died in the storms. “This is the third preliminary estimate for total damage and economic loss that AccuWeather experts have issued so far this year,” the outlet noted in a release, “outpacing the frequency of major, costly weather disasters since AccuWeather began issuing estimates in 2017.”
AccuWeather
Low-emission energy sources accounted for 41% of global electricity generation in 2024, up from 39.4% in 2023, according to energy think tank Ember’s annual Global Electricity Review. That includes renewables as well as nuclear. If nuclear is left out of the equation, renewables alone made up 32% of power generation last year. Overall, renewables added a record 858 terawatt hours, nearly 50% more than the previous record set in 2022. Hydro was the largest source of low-carbon power, followed by nuclear. But wind and solar combined overtook hydro last year, while nuclear’s share of the energy mix reached a 45-year low. More solar capacity was installed in 2024 than in any other single year.
Ember
The report notes that demand for electricity rose thanks to heat waves and air conditioning use. This resulted in a slight, 1.4% annual increase in fossil-fuel power generation and pushed power-sector emissions to a new all-time high of 14.5 billion metric tons. “Clean electricity generation met 96% of the demand growth not caused by hotter temperatures,” the report said.
President Trump’s new tariffs will have a “limited” effect on the amount of solar components the U.S. imports from Asia because the U.S. already imposes tariffs on these products, according to a report from research firm BMI. That said, the U.S. still relies heavily on imported solar cells, and the new fees are likely to raise costs for domestic manufacturers and developers, which will ultimately be passed on to buyers and could slow solar growth. “Since the U.S.’s manufacturing capacity is insufficient to meet demand for solar, wind, and grid components, we do expect that costs will increase for developers due to the tariffs which will now be imposed upon these components,” BMI wrote.
In other tariff news, the British government is adjusting its 2030 target of ending the sale of new internal combustion engine cars to ease some of the pain from President Trump’s new 25% auto tariffs. Under the U.K.’s new EV mandate, carmakers will be able to sell new hybrids through 2035 (whereas the previous version of the rules banned them by 2030), and gas and diesel vans can also be sold through 2035. The changes also carve out exemptions for luxury supercar brands like McLaren and Aston Martin, which will be allowed to keep selling new ICE vehicles beyond 2030 because, the government says, they produce so few. The goal is to “help ease the transition and give industry more time to prepare.” British Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander insisted the changes have been “carefully calibrated” and their impact on carbon emissions is “negligible.” As The New York Timesnoted, the U.S. is the largest single-country export market for British cars.
The Environmental Protection Agency has approved Occidental Petroleum’s application to capture and sequester carbon dioxide at its direct air capture facility in Texas, and issued permits that will allow the company to drill and inject the gas more than one mile underground. The Stratos DAC plant is being developed by Occidental subsidiary 1PointFive. As Heatmap’s Katie Brigham has reported, Stratos is designed to remove up to 500,000 metric tons of CO2 annually and set to come online later this year. Its success (or failure) could shape the future of DAC investment at a time when the Trump administration is hollowing out the Department of Energy’s nascent Carbon Dioxide Removal team and casting doubt over the future of the DOE’s $3.5 billion Regional Direct Air Capture Hubs program. While Stratos is not a part of the hubs program, it will use the same technology as Occidental’s South Texas DAC hub.
The Bezos Earth Fund and the Global Methane Hub are launching a $27 million effort to fund research into selectively breeding cattle that emit less methane.