Off Interstate 25 in Colorado, six Electric Era dispensers sit under a Love's canopy with about 1,200 kW of conversion hardware between them, by Out of Spec's count. A car that pulls in alone can use 200 of it. The rest waits for company. That gap, between power that exists and power that reaches whatever needs it, runs through every story in this edition, and it is a harder problem than shortage.
Bloomberg's film on China's grid draws the same picture across a country. China added more than 500 gigawatts of capacity in 2025, the film says, yet one interviewee in it puts wind and solar at about half of installed capacity and only just over a fifth of generation. Part of that is weather. The other part, by the film's account, is plumbing: coal plants holding annual contracts that push clean power offline late in the year, and provinces that each guard their own supply and struggle to trade during a heat wave. Beijing's announced fix is not more panels. It is a unified national power market by 2030. The Love's site has the same problem in miniature: the host's complaint is not too little hardware but hardware that cannot pool.
Buyers answer the gap in different ways. Scout says over 85 percent of its reservations are for the Harvester, which pairs a 70 kWh battery with a gas generator that never drives the wheels. That reads less like doubt about electric motors than doubt about the charging map: people want the EV drive and a fallback they control. Smart went the other way with the #2, a 35.8 kWh battery and a quoted 20-minute charge from 10 to 80 percent, a bet that a small pack is enough when topping up is quick. And TFLEV's used e-tron GT, a car its presenter calls a 230-mile EV, climbed 7,000 feet to Loveland Pass, arrived with nine points more than its navigation predicted and gave back just six on the way down. There, the battery was fine. The estimate was the weak part.
What to watch: whether China's 2030 market arrives on time, since curtailment is the honest scorecard for a grid that is mostly built. Whether Electric Era answers Out of Spec's questions about why its dispensers cannot share power, which the host says he plans to ask in person. Whether Scout's Harvester costs much more than the big-battery EV when production starts, expected at the end of 2027 per the video. And smart's price for the #2, still unannounced when it was filmed. In each case the hardware exists. The open question is who can reach it.
China Built 500 Gigawatts in a Year. Now It Has to Use Them.
Bloomberg's film opens on scale: more than 500 gigawatts of new capacity in 2025, which the narrator compares to India's entire electricity system, and an 84 percent rise in lithium-ion battery storage capacity between 2024 and 2025. Not all of it was clean. After power cuts hit the northeast in 2021 and 2022, the film says, Beijing launched a build-out that took in coal, gas, hydro and nuclear alongside wind and solar. The problem now runs the other way. Curtailment, where the grid tells generators to stop because it cannot absorb their output, falls hardest on wind and solar, and the film cites estimates that the clean power wasted in the first half of 2026 could have supplied France. The causes it lists are mostly institutional: a grid run by state-owned operators that dispatch plants by instruction rather than by price, coal plants holding annual contracts, and provinces each responsible for their own supply. Beijing's answer is a unified national market by 2030, built on the kind of cross-border wholesale trading the film says Europe already uses. The film ties the stakes to industry through carmaker Seres, which says its Chongqing plant runs 3,000 robots and that its AITO brand passed a million deliveries in 46 months. Out of Spec's Colorado charging stop, story four below, shows the same mismatch at the scale of six parking spaces.
Scout's Buyers Picked the Gas Generator, by a Wide Margin
Kim Java and co-host PJ went back to Scout's temporary headquarters in Charlotte to see new concepts for the Traveler SUV and Terra pickup, both body-on-frame with a solid rear axle and dual motors, on a purpose-built platform rather than an existing Volkswagen one, the hosts say. The bigger news is the order book. Scout told them that over 85 percent of its roughly 200,000 reservations are for the Harvester, which pairs a 70 kWh battery with a gas generator that only charges the battery. The all-electric version carries 120 to 130 kWh and an expected 350 miles; the Harvester's total is put at over 500. A Scout representative describes EV-heavy, balanced and generator-heavy modes, plus a tow mode that leans on the engine to keep the battery up. The towing case is real: in today's fourth video, Out of Spec says one Wyoming stop cost about $100 to recharge a Cayenne and trailer for roughly 200 miles. The hosts list charging at up to 350 kW on an 800-volt system through a NACS port, and towing targeted above 10,000 lb. Scout still aims for a starting price under $60,000, the hosts say, though one host expects loaded trucks near $100,000, with production expected at the end of 2027.
Smart's #2 Keeps the Battery Small and Leans on a 20-Minute Charge
Elliot Richards' walkaround of the smart #2 takes the brand back to the tiny city car it started with, now electric only. The figures, by his account: a 35.8 kWh battery, 300 km of WLTP range (about 186 miles) against the previous generation's 153 km, rear-wheel drive, a 140 km/h top speed and a 10 to 80 percent charge in about 20 minutes. He reads the battery as a sign of premium pricing, though smart had not announced a price when he filmed ahead of the Paris show. Most of his time goes on the cabin: a front bench you can slide across to get out the other side, tactile climate controls, no piano black, a sunroof, and a split tailgate that clearly won him over. Smart is now a joint venture of Mercedes-Benz and Geely, and Richards frames the #2 as a rival to Renault's Twingo. Electrifying put the Twingo at 27.5 kWh and a claimed 163 miles in the 2CV video this site covered yesterday, so on paper the #2 carries more battery for somewhat more claimed range. Price will decide the comparison.
A Love's Charging Site Holds 1,200 kW and Gives One Car 200
Out of Spec stopped at a new Love's charging site off I-25 in Colorado, the host's first time on either the Love's network or Electric Era hardware, midway through a California to North Carolina drive in a Porsche Cayenne Turbo Electric towing the Pebble trailer covered here yesterday. The driver experience earns good marks: a canopy, proper squeegees, and tap-to-pay with a $15 hold and no app, at 50 cents per kWh, against the 67 cents the host paid at an Electrify America stop in Wyoming. The hardware draws questions. By the host's reading of the data labels, each of six dispensers converts up to 200 kW at a maximum of 350 amps, fed by a 1,000 kVA transformer and a 379 kWh LFP battery that can add 250 kW. His concerns are that battery power is converted from DC to AC and back to DC before reaching a car, adding losses, and that because each dispenser has its own rectifiers, a lone car cannot borrow idle capacity next door. He estimates the 350-amp limit holds lower-voltage cars such as a Mach-E or Rivian to around 120 kW. A Colorado logo suggests state funding, he says, and the state's 150 kW per port minimum may explain the one-car-per-dispenser layout. The video is sponsored by rival network IONNA, which the host says his team now works with on behalf of drivers.
A $50,000 Used e-tron GT Climbs 7,000 Feet and Comes Back With 39 Percent
TFLEV's Jen took the channel's 2023 Audi e-tron GT, a car the video's title pegs at 238 miles, on its Loveland Trials: about 74 miles from Boulder at roughly 5,000 feet to Loveland Pass at 12,000, then back, in eco mode on cruise control with the air conditioning running on an 87-degree day. The navigation predicted 36 percent at the summit. The car arrived with 45 percent and 105 miles showing after averaging 2.1 miles per kWh on the climb. Coming down, with regen adjustable through the paddles since the car has no one-pedal mode, it used only six more points and finished at 39 percent and 110 miles, with the trip computer showing 3.7 miles per kWh at the end. Her verdict is that around 230 miles is plenty for daily driving. Price is the other story: TFLEV says the car cost about $120,000 new and it bought this one with roughly 20,000 miles for about $50,000, from a dealer the video promotes. This site noted Gjeebs' case for the RS e-tron GT as a used bargain back in July. Her complaints are small: a frunk button hidden at the end of the door panel, smudge-prone piano black and a haptic volume control, offset by physical climate buttons she says the Porsche Taycan lacks.
Bottom line: The cheapest fix in energy right now is not another gigawatt or another charging stall. It is better wiring between the ones already built. For buyers, that means discounting headline capacity and asking how much of it you can actually reach. By that test, the used e-tron GT at about $50,000 is the smartest purchase here, because the Loveland run shows its modest range stretches further than its own estimate. Scout's Harvester is a sensible hedge for people who tow, but a generator is a workaround for a charging network that should not need one.
Commentary on third-party videos. Figures and claims are as presented in the sources and have not been independently verified. Spotted an error? Tell us and we will correct it.