The Seattle ebike firm Rad Power Bikes has announced four new ebike models, all of which have the crucial distinction of being unlikely to have their batteries abruptly burst into flames.

The firm says its new Safe Shield Batteries—which come customary on all 4 new bikes—have been licensed at UL-2271, an business customary rating for battery security. That means the batteries on these fashions of Rad Power’s bikes received’t be almost as vulnerable to the sorts of battery fires which have been plaguing low-end ebikes and scooters and have led to injuries and nearly 20 deaths within the US.

Rad Power had 30,000 of its RadWagon 4 ebikes recalled in 2022 on account of misaligned tires, a difficulty the corporate has apologized for and says it has mounted. There’s been one reported case of a Rad Power bike catching hearth, however aside from that the corporate hasn’t contributed to the wave of low-cost ebike battery fires. We have a tendency to love Rad Power’s bikes fairly a bit right here at WIRED, so this enhance in battery security is welcome information, particularly due to the added emphasis on the entire “not exploding” factor.

Rad Power’s new bikes are available in a number of varieties. There’s its Radster commuter bike, which is available in Road and Trail fashions for various terrains. Both begin at $1,999. The firm additionally introduced the RadExpand 5 Plus, an $1,899 folding bike, and its new iteration of the cargo-oriented RadWagon 5, which begins at $2,199.

Here’s another client tech information from this week.

Ask Wendy’s Anything

Reddit is attempting to make itself friendlier to entrepreneurs. This week, the corporate introduced a brand new suite of instruments, known as Reddit Pro, that can be accessible to companies without cost.

Reddit Pro gives manufacturers a wide range of methods to interact with the platform’s customers, in service of serving to advertisers higher pour themselves into each eyeball remotely potential. For occasion, Reddit will supply “AI-powered insights” that the corporate says will sift by way of the location’s 17 billion posts to seek out related threads and matters that corporations can then use to “join or start conversations” (aka deploying their deeply cringe advertising ways). That means if you write a remark about, say, Wendy’s, in a thread manner down on a tiny subreddit, the model’s social media group may have a neater time discovering it and spouting off some sassy model banter within the replies.

It’s the most recent transfer in Reddit’s gradual, controversial quest for profitability (and probably enshittification). Reddit filed to take the company public in February, which can allow it to promote inventory to shareholders. The firm, which has never proven profitable, is raring to make its platform extra interesting to advertisers who can spend cash in its boards. This is probably going why Reddit has made strikes like charging an exorbitant amount of cash for the instruments builders use to entry the platform’s information, successfully killing third-party apps. This transfer of giving manufacturers and advertisers a neater portal into each section of the location is one other stab at these ambitions.

Dodge This

There’s a brand new Dodge chargin’ onto the scene. Yes, it’s a Charger, the beefy, grotesquely fuel-inefficient muscle automotive that’s been roaring throughout roads for the higher a part of the previous century. In 2021, Dodge introduced it might ditch its gas-powered Chargers in favor of electrical variants. This week, the primary stage of that rollout has formally begun.

Billed—considerably arguably—as “the world’s first and only electric muscle car,” the Dodge Charger Daytona Scat Pack EV is a fully juiced-up road-rage machine that’s certain to be the closest factor you will get to driving a Transformer. It boasts as much as 670 horsepower and has a quoted zero-to-60 time of three.3 seconds. The automotive additionally comes with an array of options meant to make it simpler to mainline high-octane driving adrenaline. There are devoted efficiency modes for rubber-burnin’ excursions like Drag, Track, Drift, and Donut modes. Another setting, known as PowerShot, will increase horsepower by 40 hp for 15 seconds. It’s like injecting your automotive with nitrous oxide however retaining it avenue authorized.

Nikon Takes a Red Eye

Camera producer Nikon introduced this week that it’s scooping up the cinematic digicam firm Red. Red’s skilled digital cameras have an extended status in cinematography circles for pushing the boundaries of what digicam sensors and optics can do. They’re traditionally expensive, beefy gadgets aimed toward professionals producing cinema-quality content material. If you watch any big-budget exhibits or motion pictures on community tv or the streamers, you’ve absolutely seen one thing shot on Red.

This transfer by Nikon factors to the corporate’s video ambitions. Nikon makes superb pictures cameras however has struggled to compete with the likes of Canon relating to video. Buying a premium video-camera firm could actually give the model a leg up.

Hey Google, U OK?

There’s at all times heaps happening at Google. As one of many largest tech corporations on this planet, the corporate typically attracts plenty of scrutiny and criticism, a lot of it warranted. But Google’s been on a roll these days, with issues stemming from its rush to push out AI products, its latest rounds of layoffs, and inside discrimination against its own employees. All of this makes for a really chaotic time for the corporate, which raises the final word query: Is Google OK?

This week on WIRED’s Gadget Lab podcast, we discuss concerning the on-line uproar about Google’s Gemini AI going “woke” and all the interior turmoil roiling the massive Silicon Valley firm.