For His Birthday, Bieber Does the Electric

Justin Bieber, the babyfaced heartthrob coming to a “Tiger Beat” near you, joined the ranks of adulthood Thursday. The singer turned 18, and for his birthday his manager got him a special present.

“I always yell at you, don’t get anything flashy, be humble,” Bieber’s manager Scott Braun told him on the Ellen DeGeneres show yesterday. “And I kinda broke my own rule.”

And then in a move reminiscent of the Showcase Showdown, Bieber looked across the stage and saw his new gift: the Fisker Karma, a plug-in roadster that starts at over $100,000. The car can go 32 miles on the electric charge alone, but it also has a gas combustion engine that gives it a combined range of 230 miles. It’s also notable for the solar panel on its roof, which the company says can add up to four or five miles of juice in a given week.

“We decided to get you an environmentally friendly car,” his manager told him.  

DeGeneres then gave Bieber a gift complementing his new ride, unfurling a sunshade with cutouts of her face and Bieber’s. Surrounded by a heart, of course.

The Biebs joins other celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio, George Clooney, and Jay Leno who have added electric cars to their garages. (It probably helps to have a fleet of back-ups when you can’t go much further 32 miles on the battery alone.)

If Bieber ever makes the trip to Texas, he’ll find plenty of charging stations to “refuel” his ride. Texas has more than 100 electric vehicle charging stations, according to the ChargePoint website, which offers subscriptions for charging. Austin has the most stations thus far, and has about 150 electric vehicles currently in use, according to Austin Energy. And Austin Energy predicts that by 2020, there’ll be between 10,000–35,000 new plug-in vehicles in Austin.