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Recon Power Bikes partners with GMC on AWD Hummer eBike

Want the ultimate two-wheeled companion to your new GMC Hummer EV, or maybe you just want something electric and all-wheel drive without the Hummer's price tag? Recon Power Bikes has you covered with its new Hummer EV e-bike. Not convinced? Well, hear the specs before you bail. You might be surprised.  Recon's new offering is marketed as "all-wheel drive," which our resident two-wheeled expert and consumer guru Jeremy Korzeniewski tells us is quickly becoming conventional nomenclature for dual-motor electric bicycles. Hey, if you've got two wheels and both have motors, it's technically correct, even if it sounds a bit silly to those of us who prefer the comforts of a cage and four wheels on pavement.  Each of the two motors produces 750 watts, which combines for just a little over 2 (two!) horsepower, but remember, this is a bicycle, not a sport bike. And flipping the coin, that lone pony is accompanied by more than 118 pound-feet (or roughly a 1.8-liter Miata's worth) of torque. Recon says its top speed is north of 28 mph, which is plenty quick for something that you might see strapped to the same hitching post as a 30-year-old Huffy. The base battery offers 17.5 aH of capacity; an upgrade bumps that to 21. Recon says the total range should fall between 40 and 50 miles. The package is rounded out by an adjustable front suspension, four-piston hydraulic brakes, puncture-resistant 4-inch all-terrain tires with molded-in liners and Shimano gearing.  Recon says the Hummer e-bike offers "on-demand" AWD (rear by default; both when called upon) and even offers three fixed drive modes — "Cruise" (rear wheel drive, for maximum range and efficiency), "Traction" (front wheel drive, for navigating with low grip) and "Adrenaline" (for "off road all wheel drive dominance of the toughest, steepest terrain"). "Adrenaline" mode even offers real-time torque vectoring, just like a real Hummer EV. The two vehicles are basically the same, only the bike weighs just 96 pounds, not more than 9,000.  Look for the Recon Power Bikes GMC Hummer e-bike to hit the market in early December with a starting price of $3,999. That may sound steep, but keep in mind that QuietKat's Jeep eBike costs nearly double that.  Related video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Featured Gallery Recon Power Bikes GMC Hummer eBike Green GMC Green Culture Bikes Electric

New Toyota Tacoma, Ranger, Colorado/Canyon fight for midsize truck dominance

Sam Wedll has been driving his Toyota Tacoma pickup on the rugged roads of Northern California for seven trouble-free years, racking up almost 100,000 miles, so he’s interested in the redesigned version of the truck coming later this year. He paid $34,000 for his truck in 2016, loading it with plenty of options. HeÂ’s eyeing the new gas-electric hybrid Toyota Motor Corp. is going to offer, but Wedll, who does his own repairs, isnÂ’t interested in paying luxury prices. “The hybrid is pretty interesting to me because I like the idea of the fuel efficiency,” says Wedll, 47, a casino operations manager in Blue Lake, California. “IÂ’m just trying to save some costs wherever possible.” The Tacoma, known as the Taco to its legions of loyalists, is the leader of the pack in midsize pickups, one of the fastest-growing auto markets of the past decade. With outdoorsy weekend warriors and do-it-yourselfers looking for a truck that could fit in their garage, sales of midsize pickups more than doubled from 2010 to 2020. General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co., which abandoned the market segment when sales slowed early this century, returned with new trucks to take on the Tacoma, which has dominated the medium truck market for almost two decades. Although it's easy to predict that the most lushly appointed versions of the new Taco could approach $50,000 (prices wonÂ’t be announced until later this year), Toyota insists it isnÂ’t backing away from budget buyers even as it rolls out fancier trucks. The current Tacoma starts at $28,030, and the company says affordability is critical to its success. In fact, Toyota will continue to offer the Taco with an old-school stick shift. The Tacoma controls 42% of the midsize truck market and outsells FordÂ’s offering 4 to 1. ThatÂ’s a role reversal from the full-size pickup market, where FordÂ’s F-Series has ruled the road for 46 years. Tacoma sales in the U.S. surpassed 237,000 last year, more than twice the number of GMÂ’s No. 2-ranked Chevrolet Colorado, according to consultant LMC Automotive. But as growth in the overall segment slows, the midsize market is developing into more of a turf war, with manufacturers vying for the sweetest highest-margin spots. “This segment is likely past its prime growth spurt,” says Jeff Schuster, president of the Americas for LMC Automotive.

2019 GMC Sierra carbon fiber bed: How it's made

FORT WAYNE, Ind. — The redesigned 2019 GMC Sierra has some pretty nifty features, and the one that has had the most attention is the MultiPro flipping and folding tailgate. But the Sierra also features the first-of-its-kind carbon fiber truck bed. It's interesting, of course, for its capabilities, such as being 62 pounds lighter than the all-steel box. It even adds more cargo volume since the material can be assembled and shaped differently from steel. As it turns out, the assembly process is cool, too, which we learned when GMC invited us to see the beds being made. Every GMC carbon fiber bed starts out as perfectly flat sheets of thermoplastic carbon fiber. The sheets consist of a mix of fibers and resins, a bit like the molded carbon fiber parts Lamborghini uses. The sheets are manufactured by Japanese company Teijin, which collaborated with GMC to develop the bed. They're all delivered to Continental Structural Plastics (CSP) in Fort Wayne, Ind., for construction into the actual bed. The company, a subsidiary of Teijin, makes a wide variety of composite and plastic parts for the car industry, including body panels for the C7 Chevy Corvette. The rectangular sheets are cut to shape and stacked up at a giant stamping press. Robots pick up sheets and slide them onto a conveyor that goes into a large oven. The heat softens the parts so they can be stamped. The large primary bed parts such as the base are stamped by CSP's enormous 3,600-ton press, and the smaller ones go through a 1,000-ton press. Each press can do different parts using different stamping dies, and CSP switches between dies to produce different batches of parts. After stamping, the parts roll out mostly ready for assembly, but there are rough edges that are trimmed off by water-jet cutters. These cutting machines also create holes for fasteners and for parts such as tie-down hooks and lights. The stamping process also provides the carbon fiber bed with a unique Easter egg. On the bottom of the base of the bed, there are two words: "Connors Way." This is a tribute to Tim Connors, who was the chief engineer of manufacturing at GM and a strong proponent of the carbon fiber bed. He was tragically killed in a motorcycle crash a few years ago. The words were added to honor him, and they were fortunately approved for production. There are some components to the bed that aren't stamped from the flat sheets of material.