I found a short wheelbase with 200 mile range detail in a buried lede under the big Tern RC8 (Class 8) Battery Electric Truck announcement.

A 100% battery-electric platform with an industry-leading short wheelbase of 165 inches

A gross vehicle weight rating (GVWR) of 68,000 lbs. targeting applications of approximately 200 miles in regional city duty cycles, addressing 95 percent of use cases. […]

This launch aligns with the Advanced Clean Fleets regulation in California and gives fleets an excellent option to decarbonize their supply chain, especially in target applications like metro-regional routes, food & beverage logistics and similar routes where the tight turning radius and popular 4×2 chassis offer practical benefits.

Urban heavy electric trucks seem like a great idea, like it is 1917 again.

What I find particularly interesting is that Tern is already known for super long-range electric adventure bikes.

Their Orox bike, running a Bosch Performance Line CX motor (85 Nm torque offering 340% assistance), carries twin 800 Wh batteries for a top range of over 300 km (186 miles).

Altogether the news of both essentially hints at the overdue repeal of dumb 1950s American car culture, with a strong return to smart values of 100 years ago or more. The American “wheelmen” revolution of the late 1800s, which notably included Black men inventing mountain biking, was characterized by very long bike rides and very short truck duty circuits.

When you really look at Tern designs, the bikes also offer amazing cargo options including integrated trailer hitches and even passenger seats.

Municipalities adopting the Tern fleets of trucks and bikes will revolutionize their service fleets, from postal delivery to produce and utilities, effectively eliminating pollution and dangerous dependency on petroleum fuel infrastructure.

In related news, Texas has asked people to stop driving combustion engines and walk or bike instead.

The conclusion of a towing test is clear, Cybertruck design is a total failure.

Combine its better aero with a half-ton drop in curb weight and the Model X’s superior efficiency isn’t surprising. However, it does prove that the Cybertruck—the vehicle Tesla claims to be a game-changing workhorse of a pickup—actually takes a step backward compared to a nearly 10-year-old SUV when it comes to towing.

In other words, the Cybertruck fails against other Tesla models so why bother to even launch it to the public? An old used EV at a small fraction of the cost, using a ten year old design by engineers long ago fired, easily beats the Tesla CEO’s current best idea.

It’s probably a surprise to nobody that a very prominent alleged Nazi with a huge swastika platform would monetize hate even after promising over a year ago he would stop.

Elon Musk’s social media app X has been placing advertisements in the search results for at least 20 hashtags used to promote racist and antisemitic extremism, including #whitepower, according to a review of the platform. […]

The placements allow X to monetize extremist content more than 18 months after Musk said that he would demonetize hate posts on the platform he owns.

And that’s not even the worst of it…

Twitter apparently is managed as a revenue source for those planning mass harms to society, seemingly a domestic terror rally oriented around white supremacist hate groups and their advertisers.

Day after day I see reports of Tesla drivers caught doing double a posted speed limit, often ending in tragedy for obvious reasons (e.g. Ohio, Colorado, and California just this week).

Here’s a good news version from Canada, where police stopped and impounded a Tesla before more people died.

The incident occurred in the area of Cedar Springs and Britannia roads in Burlington around 6 p.m. Wednesday, according to Halton Regional Police. Police said the Tesla was going 110 km/h in a community safety zone in which the speed limit was 50 kilometres per hour.

Apparently this driver is being charged under “stunt” laws (immediate 14-day vehicle impoundment at roadside regardless of who owns it).

A similar story, still under investigation, was recently noted in Nevada. A braggadocio video was self-posted by a Tesla driver showing 83 mph, with his hands removed from his steering rectangle in a clear attention-seeking stunt.

Air Force officials are investigating a captain who posted a viral video of himself driving nearly 100 mph as he sped down a residential street in Las Vegas in a Tesla Cybertruck, according to reports.

Captain Matthew Wallace, who is stationed at Creech Air Force Base, could be seen using just his pinky finger to make dangerously rapid turns in a video shared to his X account on June 2. …’Check mate,’ Wallace said on his since deleted post.

Facing a social media backlash Wallace then lied and said police had authorized his stunt, which they quickly denied and denounced.

Police should thoroughly investigate and utilize the evidence here, especially given it was provided by the driver himself with intent to encourage others to break traffic laws with a Tesla. It’s paradoxical that law enforcement frequently relies on surveillance footage for various investigations, yet often disregards videos of Tesla drivers confessing to their crimes. Wallace’s self-professed criminal act in a self-posted video seems to meet these five criteria for admissibility:

1. Authenticity: provably genuine and unaltered
2. Relevance: content directly related to the crime being investigated
3. Chain of Custody: procedures followed to document how video was obtained and handled
4. Legal Collection: obtained without violating privacy rights or other laws
5. Context: The context surrounding the video must be clear to ensure it accurately represents the events in question

He should be bounced by USAF and his Tesla impounded for stunt driving. What more do we need for Wallace to have charges filed? Based on extensive immoral actions thus far, I wonder if his next big move will be to dig even a deeper hole, to post that he did “not see” anything. Get it? Not see? Nazi?

It’s peak Tesla cult behavior for someone in the military to post videos of themselves intentionally committing crimes, endangering society with bad conduct, then ignorantly calling it “checkmate” with their swastika.