BLUETTI Portable Power Station With a 17-Year Lifespan Drops 45%, That's Only $55 a Year Over Time
Be prepared no matter where you go with this portable power station that'll always keep you juiced up.
No matter what your plans are, it's always good to prepared for an outage. The summer heat is here in full force, and that means storms aren't too far behind. And you can never predict an emergency. So why go without electricity unless you absolutely have to? Here's the thing: You don't. Not when we live in a world where generators and power stations can keep us juiced up even in the nastiest of accidents and scary storms. And if you head to Amazon right now, you can score one for a great price.
Check out Amazon to get the Bluetti Solar Generator Elite 200 for just $949, down from its usual price of $1,699. That's $750 off and a discount of 44%.
See at Amazon
A portable generator that works hard for you
This model has an impressive 2073.6Wh capacity, with 2600W of continuous AC power, with surges up to 5200W. That's more than enough to run multiple high-demand devices at once. That means things like portable refrigerators, power tools, laptops, and even small appliances can be charged. In fact, you can power up to nine devices at the same time if you'd like.
And you'll be able to use this Bluetti Solar Generator for a long time. Inside you'll find automotive-grade LFP (lithium iron phosphate) batteries that are rated for over 6,000 cycles. They should be good for about 17 years of regular use. There are tons of other portable power stations that don't even come close, and while you're definitely paying for it even with this one on sale, you're still getting plenty in return. And if you've got to take it out on the road, you can do that. It's equipped to handle tough environments, thanks to multi-layer safety protections that help it perform even in extreme temperatures.
Plus, TurboBoost tech and integrated MPPT modules, you can charge the unit up to 80% in just 50 minutes with both AC and DC input. That means less downtime and more energy independence, especially if you're using it as part of a solar setup.
The updated companion app lets you monitor and control power usage in real time, adding convenience and helping extend your battery life. The bundle includes everything you need to get started: the Elite 200 V2 unit, AC and solar charging cables, a grounding screw, and a user manual. Just don't lose all of those things.
If you've been waiting for the right portable generator to add to your setup, this is a deal worth jumping on. This power station is awesome, packs plenty of power and longevity, and is perfect for everything from backwoods adventures to backup plans. And, of course, when the lights go out.
See at Amazon
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Forbes
7 minutes ago
- Forbes
What To Know About The IRS's $4 Billion Tax Assessment On Yum! Brands
KFC Taco Bell (Photo by Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images) The IRS has assessed $4 billion in taxes, penalties, and interest on Yum! Brands. The issue stems from a tax-deferred reorganization in 2014. Yum! Brands is now suing to prevent the IRS from collecting these funds. M&A is often among the most complicated tax issues large corporations face, which can often lead to uncertainty and scrutiny from the IRS. In this article, I discuss the Yum! Brand corporation, what happened in 2014, and why they are facing such a steep tax penalty now over a decade later. Yum! Brands is the parent company of KFC, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and Habit Burger & Grill. As noted by The Washington Post, this corporation spun off from PepsiCo in 1997 to become among the largest set of restaurant chains in the United States and the world. While it currently features those three staples, the corporation has also previously held other chains, such as A&W and Long John Silvers. Yum! Brands has been known to be innovative by having combination restaurants. In these situations, customers can order from a KFC or Taco Bell (or both) at the same location. What makes Yum! Brands particularly impactful is their international appeal. As stated on the Yum! Brands website, the brands total over 61,000 locations and can be seen in 155 countries. According to CNN, KFC has blossomed to become an international staple in countries like Japan, where people often have KFC as their Christmas dinner. Yum! Brands is also no stranger to tax-related news. In early 2025, the company announced a different restructuring. While the company is famously headquartered in Louisville, Kentucky (hence, Kentucky Fried Chicken), Fortune reported that it will be relocating to Plano, TX, due to, among other things, taxes. Kentucky is a state that levies a corporate income tax (5% in 2025). Meanwhile, Texas famously has a 0% tax rate on corporate profits. Individual income tax is also not levied in Texas. Newsweek suggests that Texas has become a bit of a tax haven for new corporate headquarters such as Tesla, Toyota, Charles Schwab, Chevron, and now Yum! Brands. Prior to 2014, Yum! Brands was made up of separate legal entities based on brand and region. For example, there were separate legal entities for KFC Asia and KFC Europe. According to court filings, On November 30, 2013, Yum! Brands publicly announced a corporate reorganization. In this reorganization, the company would no longer be broken out into segments based on geography. Instead, it would focus its organization based on brands (i.e., KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut). It would also have separate divisions for China and India. The goal of this reorganization was to drive growth. To help facilitate the reorganization, the new subsidiaries issued stock in exchange for stock in the previous subsidiary. This stock for stock reorganization often falls under the Internal Revenue Code Section 368(a)(1)(B), which allows for the acquisition of a corporation solely in exchange for all or part of its voting stock. As long as all of the conditions are met, the Yum! Brand legal entities can exchange the stock without recognizing a gain on the appreciated value of the stock. The conditions for this type of reorganization are as follows: Reorganizations under Section 368 are valuable for a company like Yum! Brands because it wishes to restructure the company's organization to enhance future profits. In a normal transaction where Yum! Brands were selling its stock to another company, Yum! Brands would have a gain (or loss) on the appreciated (depreciated) value of the stock. However, Section 368 allows companies to meet certain conditions to defer the gain to a future period. Importantly, companies still have to recognize a gain on the stock's appreciated value, but this gain will not typically happen until the company ultimately disposes of it. In this case, Yum! Brands thought that the conditions under Section 368(a)(1)(B) were met, which would defer the gain, allowing the reorganization to make more sense from a financial perspective. In Yum! Brand's 2024 10-K financial statements, the company notes the following: As reported by Bloomberg Tax, this disagreement comprises over $4 billion dollars in damages: the $2.1 billion in taxes that the IRS believes Yum! Brands should have paid during their reorganization in 2014, $418 million in underpayment penalties and over $1.5 billion in interest on the money that has not yet been paid to the taxing authority. $4 billion is a large assessment for any firm. However, to put it into context, Yum! Brands in 2024 had a pre-tax income of $1.9 billion and paid income taxes of $414 million on that income. Thus, a tax bill of over $4 billion is astronomical for even a company of this size. NRN reports that the disagreement stems from Yum! Brands believe to have met all of the requirements under Section 368 for the reorganization to be tax-deferred, whereas the taxing authority believes that these matters were not all addressed and initiates billions of dollars of income by way of a sale of appreciated value of stock. NRN also reports that Yum! Brands has taken this matter to court and appeals court but was unsuccessful. In turn, Law360 reports that Yum! Brands have taken the IRS to court to sue them over the collections of this $4 billion. While the matter is still uncertain, many in the M&A tax space continue to watch this saga unfold since it represents a significant assessment being levied against some of the U.S.'s most recognizable restaurant brands.
Forbes
10 minutes ago
- Forbes
The AI Paradox: When More AI Means Less Impact
Young business man with his face passing through the screen of a laptop on binary code background AI is in the news every day. On the one hand, this highlights the vertiginous speed at which the field is developing. On the other, it creates a sense saturation and angst that makes business organizations either drop the subject altogether or go at it full throttle without much discernment. Both approaches will lead to major misses in the inevitable AI-fication of business. In this article, I'll explore what happens when a business goes down the AI rabbit hole without a clear business objective and a solid grasp of the available alternatives. If you have attended any AI conference lately, chances are that, by the end, you thought your business was dangerously behind. Many of these events, even if not on purpose, can leave you with the feeling that you need to deploy AI everywhere and automate everything to catch up. If you've succumbed to this temptation, you most likely found out that is not the right move. Two years into the generative AI revolution, a counterintuitive truth is emerging from boardrooms to factory floors. Companies pursuing 100% AI automation are often seeing diminished returns, while those treating AI as one element in a broader, human-centered workflow are capturing both cost savings and competitive advantages. The obvious truth is already revealing itself: AI is just one more technology at our disposal, and just like every other new technology, everyone is trying to gain first-move advantage, which inevitably creates chaos. Those who see through and beyond said chaos are building the foundations of a successful AI-assisted business. The numbers tell a story that contradicts the automation evangelists. Three in four workers say AI tools have decreased their productivity and added to their workload, according to a recent UpWork survey of 2,500 respondents across four countries. Workers report spending more time reviewing AI-generated content and learning tool complexities than the time these tools supposedly save. Even more revealing: while 85% of company leaders are pushing workers to use AI, nearly half of employees using AI admitted they have no idea how to achieve the productivity gains their employers expect. This disconnect isn't just corporate misalignment—it's a fundamental misunderstanding of how AI creates value. The companies winning the AI game aren't those deploying the most algorithms. They're the ones who understand that intelligent automation shouldn't rely on AI alone. Instead, successful organizations are orchestrating AI within broader process frameworks where human expertise guides strategic decisions while AI handles specific, well-defined tasks. A good AI strategy always revolves around domain experts, not the other way around. Consider how The New York Times approached AI integration. Rather than replacing journalists with AI, the newspaper introduced AI tools for editing copy, summarizing information, and generating promotional content, while maintaining strict guidelines that AI cannot draft full articles or significantly alter journalism. This measured approach preserves editorial integrity while amplifying human capabilities. AI should be integrated strategically and operationally into entire processes, not deployed as isolated solutions to be indiscriminately exploited hoping for magic. Research shows that 60% of business and IT leaders use over 26 systems in their automation efforts, and 42% cite lack of integration as a major digital transformation hurdle. The most effective AI implementations focus on task-specific applications rather than general automation. Task-specific models offer highly specialized solutions for targeted problems, making them more efficient and cost-effective than general-purpose alternatives. Harvard Business School research involving 750 Boston Consulting Group consultants revealed this precision matters enormously. While consultants using AI completed certain tasks 40% faster with higher quality, they were 19 percentage points less likely to produce correct answers on complex tasks requiring nuanced judgment. This 'jagged technological frontier' demands that organizations implement methodical test-and-learn approaches rather than wholesale AI adoption. Harvard Business Review research confirms that AI notoriously fails at capturing intangible human factors essential for real-world decision-making—ethical considerations, moral judgments, and contextual nuances that guide business success. The companies thriving in 2025 aren't choosing between humans and machines. They're building hybrid systems where AI automation is balanced with human interaction to maintain stakeholder trust and capture value that neither could achieve alone. The mantra, 'AI will replace your job,' seems to consistently reveal a timeless truth: everything that should be automated will be automated, not everything than can be automated will. The Path Forward The AI paradox isn't a failure of technology—it's a lesson in implementation strategy. Organizations that resist the allure of complete automation and instead focus on thoughtful integration, task-specific deployment, and human-AI collaboration aren't just avoiding the productivity trap. They're building sustainable competitive advantages that compound over time. The question isn't whether your organization should use AI. It's whether you'll fall into the 'more AI' trap or master the art of 'smarter AI'—where less automation actually delivers more impact.
Washington Post
10 minutes ago
- Washington Post
Points of Light, founded by the Bush family, aims to double American volunteerism by 2035
NEW ORLEANS — The Bush family's nonprofit Points of Light will lead an effort to double the number of people who volunteer with U.S. charitable organizations from 75 million annually to 150 million in 10 years. The ambitious goal, announced in New Orleans at the foundation's annual conference, which concluded Friday, would represent a major change in the way Americans spend their time and interact with nonprofits. It aspires to mobilize people to volunteer with nonprofits in the U.S. at a scale that only federal programs like AmeriCorps have in the past. It also coincides with deep federal funding cuts that threaten the financial stability of many nonprofits and with an effort to gut AmeriCorps programs, which sent 200,000 volunteers all over the country. A judge on Wednesday paused those cuts in some states , which had sued the Trump administration. Jennifer Sirangelo, president and CEO of Points of Light, said that while the campaign has been in development well before the federal cuts, the nonprofit's board members recently met and decided to move forward. 'What our board said was, 'We have to do it now. We have to put the stake in the ground now. It's more important than it was before the disruption of AmeriCorps,'' she said in an interview with The Associated Press. She said the nonprofit aims to raise and spend $100 million over the next three years to support the goal. Points of Light, which is based in Atlanta, was founded by President George H.W. Bush to champion his vision of volunteerism. It has carried on his tradition of giving out a daily award to a volunteer around the country, built a global network of volunteer organizations and cultivated corporate volunteer programs. Speaking Wednesday in New Orleans, Points of Light's board chair Neil Bush told the organization's annual conference that the capacity volunteers add to nonprofits will have a huge impact on communities. 'Our mission is to make volunteering and service easier, more impactful, more sustained,' Bush said. 'Because, let's be honest, the problems in our communities aren't going to fix themselves.' According to data from the U.S. Census Bureau and AmeriCorps, the rate of participation has plateaued since 2002 , with a noticeable dip during the pandemic . Susan M. Chambré, professor emerita at Baruch College who studied volunteering for decades , said Points of Light's goal of doubling the number of volunteers was admirable but unrealistic, given that volunteer rates have not varied significantly over time. But she said more research is needed into what motivates volunteers, which would give insight into how to recruit people. She also said volunteering has become more transactional over time, directed by staff as opposed to organized by volunteers themselves. In making its case for increasing volunteer participation in a recent report , Points of Light drew on research from nonprofits like Independent Sector, the National Alliance for Volunteer Engagement and the Do Good Institute at the University of Maryland. Sirangelo said they want to better measure the impact volunteers make, not just the hours they put in, for example. They also see a major role for technology to better connect potential volunteers to opportunities, though they acknowledge that many have tried to do that through apps and online platforms . Reaching young people will also be a major part of accomplishing this increase in volunteer participation. Sirangelo said she's observed that many young people who do want to participate are founding their own nonprofits rather than joining an existing one. 'We're not welcoming them to our institutions, so they have to go found something,' she said. 'That dynamic has to change.' As the board was considering this new goal, they reached out for advice to Alex Edgar, who is now the youth engagement manager at Made By Us. They ultimately invited him to join the board as a full voting member and agreed to bring on a second young person as well. 'I think for volunteering and the incredible work that Points of Light is leading to really have a deeper connection with my generation, it needs to be done in a way that isn't just talking to or at young people, but really co-created across generations,' said Edgar, who is 21. Karmit Bulman, who has researched and supported volunteer engagement for many years, said she was very pleased to see Points of Light make this commitment. 'They are probably the most well known volunteerism organization in the country and I really appreciate their leadership,' said Bulman, who is currently the executive director of East Side Learning Center, a nonprofit in St. Paul. Bulman said there are many people willing to help out in their communities but who are not willing to jump through hoops to volunteer with a nonprofit. 'We also need to recognize that it's a pretty darn stressful time in people's lives right now,' she said. 'There's a lot of uncertainty personally and professionally and financially for a lot of people. So we need to be really, really flexible in how we engage volunteers.' ___ Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP's collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP's philanthropy coverage, visit .
