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It doesn’t look like a Rivian truck, but a new electric bike took shape at the EV company. A startup called Also, which spun out from the EV maker earlier this year and raised $105 million, launched the $4,500 e-bike today, along with a delivery quad for logistics companies and another four-wheeler that consumers could use instead of a typical cargo bike. [Photo: Also] The idea sparked three years ago, after Rivian founder RJ Scaringe met with Chris Yu, head of product and innovation at the bike brand Specialized. We connected over a really basic question, which is: why doesn’t that magical experience that you get out of a Rivian exist in anything smaller than a car? says Yu. Scaringe had long believed that the EV companys approachdesigning its own software and hardware and building a vehicle from scratchwould also make sense for e-bikes and other forms of micromobility. [Photo: Also] We saw this huge transformation that had happened in the electric car space, Yu says. Early electric cars were mostly conversions that replaced a gas motor with an electric motor and batteries, so the driving experience didnt change much. Then came companies like Tesla and Rivian. These pure play, vertically integrated, ground-up EV companies took the approach of, well, if we have the ability to craft the software, the electronics, the hardware from a clean slate, you can design an ownership and user experience that is just fundamentally different in almost every way, he says. In 2022, Yu helped start a skunkworks inside Rivian to explore how smaller EVs could follow the same clean-slate approachan idea that would eventually lead to a new kind of e-bike. [Photo: Adam Wells/Also] An interchangeable design The first difference with the new bike, called the TM-B (or “transcendent mobility” bike), is that it can convert to different forms. At the push of a button, the top frame can be unlocked and swapped with a cargo bike seat with a sturdy rack for carrying groceries or children. It can also be swapped for a different size, so more than one rider can easily share the same bike. Another attachment makes the bike more like a scooter, with a low bench seat. [Photo: Also] The designers wanted to tackle a common pain point for anyone considering an electric bike: there are so many different options on the market that it can be difficult to choose. “I was just talking to my neighbor about thisthey were thinking about buying a utility bike for carrying their kid to school, but they looked at all these utility bikes and thought they don’t look that fun to ride,” Yu says. Buyers can get stuck trying to decide between a utility bike and a fun weekend bike and not end up getting anything. “Or end up like me, with 10 bikes in their garage,” he says. Instead of buying multiple bikes, Also’s system allows them to get less-expensive attachments. If a couple wants to have an e-bike as an extra vehicle for running errands, they can get two sizes to fit each person. Like a car, you can use your phone to unlock the bike as you approach it. If the bike has multiple riders, it automatically recognizes who you are and your preferences, from whether you want to manually shift to your destinations in the navigation system. [Photo: Adam Wells/Also] Pedal by wire Like electric cars and trucks, which use a “drive by wire” designmeaning that the accelerator pedal isn’t mechanically connected to the wheels, but s just a sensorthe bike uses a “pedal by wire” approach. “It’s fully software defined,” says Yu. “What that means is there is zero mechanical connection between you pedaling the cranks and what the motor is telling the wheel to do.” When you pedal, the pedals feel like an ordinary bike, but the ride is much smoother, he says. The default mode is automatic, so a rider doesn’t have to figure out how to shift and adjust the amount of pedal assist that they’re getting, though that option exists. (When you shift, the bike gives haptic feedback so it feels like a gear is shifting.) The bike has roughly twice as much torque as most other e-bikes, so it’s easier to quickly accelerate to join traffic or change lanes. [Photo: Bryson Malone/Also] On a hill, the bike offers “hill flattening,” meaning that it automatically feels like riding on a road that’s less steep, or even completely flat. Going downhill, the bike can also automatically flatten the ride so you can keep pedaling and regenerate the battery. Unlike most e-bikes, 90% of the time that you’re braking, that happens through regenerative braking. “It’s much more akin to a modern electric car experience, where the braking experience is much more consistent, much more reliable, and importantly, the brake pad service life is dramatically longer than otherwise would be,” Yu says. [Photo: Also] An approachable design The bike doesn’t look like a Rivian truck, apart from a similarly shaped light. But “the underlying principles are very shared,” says Yu. “We’re sibling brands that have a common fabric.” The design team tried to balance performance and approachability, he says. “We wanted something that was very welcoming, very simple, geometrically . . . As capable and high-performance as it is, we don’t want it to be precious, either. We want it to be easy and part of your family’s life.” The team carefully considered each detail of the bike, from integrated turn signals in the frame to a security system that locks everything, including the wheels, when you walk away. (If the bike is stolen, you can track it on an app and remotely disable the whole thing until you get it back.) A custom navigation system, shown in a small touchscreen on the handlebars, shows bike-specific directions and how much range you have left on the battery. The bike has two options for power banksone that can give you up to 100 miles of range, depending on how much you’re using pedal assist, and a smaller option with up to 60 miles of range. The power bank can also be pulled out of the bike and used to quickly charge a laptop or anything else that plugs into USB-C. [Photo: Also] The startup also designed a few accessories, including a helmet that has noise-cancelling microphones so you can take a phone call as you ride. “We tuned the audio experience such that you can be riding at 25 miles an hour, take a phone call, and the other person will not know, will not have any idea that you’re riding on a bike with wind noise,” says Yu. A custom pannier is precisely sized to fit a grocery bag from Trader Joe’s. All of this comes at a price. The TM-B Performance, the premium version of the bike, will be $4,500 when it launches next spring. The company hasn’t yet announced the price of the basic version of the bike, but says that it will be less than $4,000. Accessories and additional top frames add to the cost. By contrast, a budget e-bike might cost less than $1,000. But Also’s models are well within the range of other high-end bikes, some of which can cost more than $10,000. [Photo: Adam Wells/Also] Beyond the bike Like Rivian EVs, which have a “skateboard” under the vehicle with the battery and other tech that can be used across multiple trucks or cars, the bike’s basic technology can be used in other vehicles. The startup also designed a four-wheeled cargo bike, or quad, that can be used for deliveries in dense cities. From the outside, it looks similar to the pedal-assist EVs that UPS, Amazon, DHL, and other companies are already using in some areas. But Yu says that Also’s vertical integration makes it easier to connect with the software that logistics companies use for features like route optimization. The vehicle is also designed from the groud up for durability, so it can last far longer than typical delivery quads. The design will launch later in 2026, along with a simplified consumer version of the same vehicle. The company also announced today that it’s partnering with Amazon on a custom version of the delivery vehicle that the retail giant could use in its dozens of micromobility hubs across Europe and the U.S. The same basic technology that went into the bike and quads could also be used in other vehicles. It could eventually help electrify other small vehicles, like mopeds or motorcycles, that are more common than cars in countries outside the U.S. The transition to electric “can really be accelerated if we can deliver experiences that aren’t just electric, but they’re just fundamentally better product experiences that happen to be electric,” Yu says.
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E-Commerce
Meta, which owns and operates Facebook and Instagramas well as Threads, Messenger, and WhatsAppannounced on Wednesday it is laying off about 600 employees from its new AI “superintelligence” research lab. The news was first reported by Axios. Fast Company has reached out to Meta for comment. That lab, dedicated to pursuing an artificial intelligence system that would reportedly surpass human intelligence, was announced back in June after Meta said it was investing $14.3 billion in Alexandr Wang’s Scale AI and bringing him on board. The cuts come as Big Tech ramps up its investment in artificial intelligence, pouring billions in an increasingly competitive, high-stakes AI arms race. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says the social technology company plans to invest between $60 billion and $65 billion in capital expenditures in 2025 alone. At the same time, Meta has been rolling out AI advertising features at a dizzying rate, and is also reportedly building a large Manhattan data center to power its AI offerings. “By reducing the size of our team, fewer conversations will be required to make a decision, and each person will be more load-bearing and have more scope and impact,” Meta chief AI officer Alexandr Wang wrote in a memo, Axios reported. Meta financials Shares in Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ: META) took a dip in morning trading on Wednesday, but for the most part recovered, and were trading down 0.4% by midday at the time of this writing. In its second quarter 2025 earnings release, for the period ending on June 30, Zuckerberg wrote, “We’ve had a strong quarter both in terms of our business and community: I’m excited to build personal superintelligence for everyone in the world.” The company beat expectations with revenue coming in at $47.52 billion, versus estimates of $44.80 billion. Earnings per share (EPS) came in at $7.14, higher than the expected $5.92. The company’s third quarter 2025 financial results will be released after market close on Wednesday, October 29.
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E-Commerce
From July 14 to November 9, 2023, the American actors’ union SAG-AFTRA, representing 160,000 people, went on strike over a labor dispute with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. Eventually, both sides agreed to terms that theoretically would put limits on how actors images and output could be used. Strike over, everybody went back to work and the entertainment industrial complex started humming again. But they apparently never took heed of the lessons offered by a somewhat obscure 2013 movie, The Congress, which eerily anticipated the crisis Hollywood is now facing. Caught by surprise? Really? Fast-forward to September of 2025. Dutch actor and comedian Eline Van der Veldens company Particle6 released an AI “actor” named Tilly Norwood with the express intention of her becoming the next Scarlett Johansson. The bot had its own social media presence, appeared in comedy sketches, and breathlessly declared, “I may be AI, but I’m feeling very real emotions right now. I am so excited for what’s coming next!” The news that there were agents in talks to sign Norwood, the way they might sign a real actor, sparked an incredible Hollywood firestorm. Lots of denunciations of this use of technology. Lots of claims that this was unfair. And lots and lots of workplace anxiety. But should they really have been this surprised? Futurist Amy Webb suggests not. As she says, Lets not kid ourselves: theyve had more than a decade to prepare for this. Toy Story, launched in 1995, was the first full-length feature film to be fully animated, followed by a string of other hits that did very well without real actors, thank you very much. Lara Croft, the Tomb Raider game star that was launched in 1996, became a movie character in 2001. In 2002, a simulated movie star played the lead in the science fiction movie Simone. In 2011, Japanese idol group AKB48 introduced a new memberAimi Eguchi. She became popular and was added to the band only to graduate when her identity as a composite of the bands other actors was revealed. By 2016, we had AI-generated influencers like Lil Miquela who appear in advertisements, garner thousands of followers, and are paid to endorse brands. And the precedent for Tilly signing with an agent has already been establishedMiquela signed on with CAA as its first virtual client as far back as 2020. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Tilly Norwood (@tillynorwood) Willful blind spots Now seemingly caught by surprise, what did the strategists in Hollywood miss? Most likely, too much focus on their own industry. Fractious labor relations, contract negotiations, and changing entertainment consumption behavior can eat up a lot of executive bandwidth. This leads to not thinking in terms of the larger arenas in which competition takes place. The big threat to this business was not other industry players but something coming along that made what they did unnecessary, undesirable, or too expensive. Once an innovation has demonstrated its efficacy, particularly if it is popular and making money for someone, it is almost impossible to put the genie back in its bottle (see: targeted Internet advertising or ride-sharing). It is also no secret that some moviemakers longed to put AI-generated actors in leading roles, even experimenting with bringing some back from the dead. But perhaps the most significant reason I believe they didnt pick up on the weak signals is because they didnt want to. Accepting the idea of digital acting and the creation of digital worlds means accepting the idea that expertise, talent, and painfully acquired skills will become obsolete. Unfortunately, the law of disruptionin which the complicated and difficult becomes easy and the expensive becomes cheapdoesnt really care about your preferences. Preparing for an existential threat What might they have done to prepare? They could have launched small-scale experiments using digital actors to learn about audience acceptance, production workflows, and creative possibilities. They could have allocated resources to dedicated teams exploring new forms of storytelling. With the constraints of physical acting and reality removed, stories could be developed that could be as revolutionary as the movies themselves were when they created new possibilities beyond what could be done on a physical stage. They could have worked with regulators and their unions to establish a glide path for AI in their sector that would be fair with respect to intellectual property. They could have seriously invested in the digital technologies used to create these new forms of entertainment, rather than leaving all this to technology companies such as Netflix. The end of mass market entertainment? Tilly Norwood isn’t the disruptionshe’s the warning shot. The real disruption comes when AI can generate not just actors, but entire films, on demand, personalized to individual viewer preferences, at essentially zero marginal cost. The studios that survive won’t be the ones with the biggest IP libraries or the most prestigious awards. They’ll be the ones who recognize that the fundamental assumptions of their industrythat content is scarce, that talent is human, that stories are fixedare all being systematically dismantled, and come up with new business models that take advantage of the post-inflection point world. The weak signals are there. The question is: who has the appetite to listen?
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E-Commerce
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