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LONDON — Britain’s energy industry could be headed for a significant shakeup, industry insiders have warned, as countries all over Europe grapple with an unprecedented crisis in the power sector.

Wholesale gas prices have spiked across the region, with the U.K. being hit particularly hard.

The front-month gas price at the Dutch TTF hub, a European benchmark for natural gas trading, gained on Monday to trade at 73.150 euros ($85.69) per megawatt-hour, hovering close to the record high seen last week.

Since January, the contract has risen more than 250%.

In the U.K., day-ahead energy prices for Monday reached an average of 291.18 euros per megawatt-hour, according to energy analysis firm LCP Enact. However, the maximum price for the U.K. on Monday could be as high as 1,083.78 euros per megawatt-hour, LCP Enact’s analysis showed.

Impact for energy firms

Robert Buckley, head of relationships and development at Cornwall Insight, told CNBC that the crisis was being caused by a “cocktail of pretty potent things” that were outside of suppliers’ control.

These included strong competition for natural gas deliveries between Europe and Asia, some outages at U.S. production facilities and a tightening of EU carbon market rules, as well as various other factors.

“All suppliers will be finding it very tough at the moment,” Buckley said. “Some of them are bigger and more resilient than others. But scale doesn’t equal automatically resilience.”

He added that “it looks like it’s going to get worse before it gets better” in terms of suppliers leaving the British electricity and gas market.

“[Suppliers are] caught between this rapture of the rising energy price wholesale market and the default tariff cap, and depending on who you who you believe, this is anywhere up to £200, £250 below what a market related cost would be at the moment, so that’s 20% of the total bill,” he said, referring to a cap on consumer energy prices in Britain. “That’s -20% of gross margins. Very few [companies] can sustain that for any length of time.”

Meanwhile, Bill Bullen, founder of U.K. supplier Utilita Energy, warned that surging wholesale prices would inevitably lead to more insolvencies in the energy sector.

“We’re heading back to an oligopoly at this rate and going backwards,” he said in an email Monday.

According to a report from Cornwall Insight, in the fourth quarter of 2010, the six largest energy firms supplied 99.5% of the domestic energy market in the U.K. By the second quarter of 2021, that figure had fallen to 69.1%.

“I wonder how it will look at the end of Q3 2021,” Bullen said.

Start-up Bulb, the country’s sixth-largest supplier, is seeking a bailout, while four smaller competitors recently ceased trading, the BBC reported.

According to industry body OGUK, wholesale energy prices have surged with a 70% rise since August alone. “OGUK predicts that UK North Sea output will roughly halve by 2027 unless new fields are opened, making the U.K. even more reliant on imports,” Will Webster, the organization’s energy policy manager, told CNBC via email.

A spokesperson for British energy regulator Ofgem told CNBC in an emailed statement. “This is a global issue … Ofgem is working closely with government to manage the wider implications of the global gas price increase.”

Political fallout

Governments are keen to take action to stop the crisis hitting consumers too hard.

The British government is considering bailout loans for energy suppliers, according to local media reports. Business Minister Kwasi Kwarteng met with British energy companies on Monday, in what he said was an effort to “ensure that any energy supplier failures cause the least amount of disruption for consumers.”

Seeking to reassure the public on Sunday, Prime Minister Boris Johnson described the pricing crisis as “temporary,” Bloomberg reported.

The U.K. has limits on how much suppliers are able to charge consumers for energy, with price caps reviewed by the government every six months.

In a note on Monday, Eurasia Group warned the continent’s soaring energy prices were also beginning to have political ramifications across the wider region.

Spain’s government released a decree this week to cap retail energy prices. Eurasia analysts speculated that if more EU member states imitate Spain, prioritizing cheap energy above the green transition, the EU’s credibility as a climate leader could be damaged.

“If Madrid’s actions find imitators across the EU this winter, the bloc’s efforts to push for more ambitious climate action at the upcoming global talks in November may suffer,” they said in Monday’s note.

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Toyota the EV battery supplier? Honda will use them to power up its 400,000 hybrids in the US

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March 17, 2025

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Toyota the EV battery supplier? Honda will use them to power up its 400,000 hybrids in the US

Toyota-Honda-batteries

Toyota is now a battery supplier? That’s the plan. Honda will use Toyota’s batteries to power up its around 400,000 hybrids sold in the US.

Toyota will supply batteries for Honda hybrids in the US

Toyota’s $14 billion battery plant in North Carolina is ready for business. The facility will begin shipping out batteries next month, and it looks like Toyota already has its first customer.

According to a new Nikkei report, starting in fiscal 2025, Toyota will supply batteries for the roughly 400,000 Honda hybrids sold in the US.

Honda currently uses batteries from China and Japan for vehicles sold in the US, but the company is (like most) preparing for changes under Trump.

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Honda’s electrified vehicles, including EVs and hybrids, accounted for over a quarter of US sales last year. The company sold over 308,500 hybrids and 40,400 electric vehicles in the US in 2024. The batteries will likely be used in the CR-V and other Honda hybrid vehicles.

Honda-Toyota-EV-batteries
Honda Prologue Elite (Source: Honda)

Earlier this month, an extra 10% tariff on imports from China took effect. And that’s on top of the 10% imposed in February.

With more expected, including a 25% increase in vehicles imported from Japan, automakers are tightening up their supply chains.

Toyota-new-bZ4X
Toyota’s new bZ4X AWD model introduced in Europe (Source: Toyota)

A 25% tariff on Japanese vehicles, up from 2.5% currently, is estimated to cost the six major Japanese automakers about $20 billion in the US.

Tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada could cost Honda roughly $4.7 billion alone. Teaming up with Toyota to use its batteries for its hybrids is part of Japan’s broader global plans to ween off dependence on China and others for batteries and other emerging tech.

Toyota-Honda-EV-batteries
(Source: Toyota)

The new US plant, Toyota Battery Manufacturing North Carolina (TBMC), is over seven million square feet, or about the size of 121 football fields.

As Toyota’s first in-house battery factory outside of Japan, the plant could be a game changer as Trump’s tariffs take effect. Securing Honda as a buyer will already help Toyota cut costs as it ramps up output.

Toyota plans to ramp up electrified vehicle (EV, PHEV, and hybrid) sales in North America from around 40% last year to 80% by 2030.

Electrek’s Take

Trump’s tariffs are already causing havoc, with nearly every automaker warning that they put the US further behind. Overseas automakers are not the only ones feeling the heat, either.

The “Big Three,” GM, Ford, and Jeep maker Stellantis all build vehicles in Canada and Mexico. GM cut output at its plant in Mexico in January, where the electric Chevy Equinox, Blazer, and Honda Prologue are made. Stellantis halted operations at its Brampton Assembly Plant in Canada last month, where it was expected to launch the Jeep Compass EV production. What’s next?

For Toyota, it looks like its $14 billion bet to build batteries in the US is already paying off. Now, we just need it to introduce more EVs.

After unveiling three new electric SUVs in Europe last week, including the updated bZ4X, Toyota hinted more is on the way for the US. Check back soon for updates.

What do you think? Do you want to see more Toyota EVs in the US, like the new C-HR+? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

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Oil rises as Trump says Iran will be held responsible for any future Houthi attacks

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March 17, 2025

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Oil rises as Trump says Iran will be held responsible for any future Houthi attacks

U.S. President Donald Trump looks on as military strikes are launched against Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis over the group’s attacks against Red Sea shipping, at an unspecified location in this handout image released March 15, 2025.

White House | Via Reuters

Oil prices rose on Monday after President Donald Trump said the U.S. would hold Iran responsible for any future attack by the Houthis, a militant group in Yemen that has launched missile strikes on commercial shipping in the Red Sea and on Israel.

U.S. crude oil futures rose 40 cents, or 0.6%, to $67.58 per barrel. Global benchmark Brent traded higher by 44 cents, or 0.62%, at $71.02 per barrel.

“Every shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon, from this point forward, as being a shot fired from the weapons and leadership of IRAN,” Trump said in a post on social media platform Truth Social. “IRAN will be held responsible, and suffer the consequences, and those consequences will be dire!”

Trump’s threat comes after the U.S. launched a new wave of airstrikes against the Houthis over the weekend. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Sunday the U.S. campaign will continue until the militant group halts its attacks.

“This campaign is about freedom of navigation and restoring deterrence,” Hegseth told Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures.” “The minute the Houthis say we’ll stop shooting at your ships, we’ll stop shooting at your drones, this campaign will end. But until then, it will be unrelenting.”

The Houthis began targeting commercial shipping traversing the Red Sea in late 2023 in support of Hamas, after the Palestinian militant group launched a surprise attack on southern Israel and Israel responded with a ground and air campaign in Gaza. The Houthis and Hamas are both allied with Iran.

The Houthi missile strikes have forced international shipping companies to reroute container ships that would normally pass through the Red Sea and the Suez Canal.

Trump has reimposed a “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran with the goal of driving down the Islamic Republic’s oil exports. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently said the Trump administration’s goal is to collapse Iran’s economy.

The White House believes Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapon, an allegation the Islamic Republic denies. Trump’s national security advisor, Mike Waltz, said Sunday that “all options are on the table” to ensure Iran does not acquire a nuclear bomb.

“We cannot have a situation that would result in an arms race across the Middle East in terms of nuclear proliferation,” Waltz said on ABC’s “This Week.”

Trump has said he wants to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran. In 2018, the president withdrew the U.S. from the nuclear deal negotiated by President Barack Obama, an agreement called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

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If Musk wants to sell Tesla cars to conservatives, Tesla needs stores and service in red states

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March 17, 2025

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If Musk wants to sell Tesla cars to conservatives, Tesla needs stores and service in red states

Elon Musk wants to sell Tesla cars to conservatives, but if that’s the strategy, the automaker should start with having stores and service centers in red states and rural areas.

It’s no secret that Elon Musk’s approval ratings with progressives have been plummeting over the last few years and even more so in the previous few months.

Since he has control over Tesla and he is the only official spokesperson since he let go of the PR department in 2020, the CEO is dragging the automaker along for the ride.

This is a problem for Tesla as Democrats are much more likely to buy electric vehicles than Republicans:

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Tesla’s sales have been crumbling over the last few months, and after the stock crashed 15% last Monday, President Trump held a controversial commercial for Tesla with Musk on the steps of the White House on Tuesday.

A day later, it was reported that Musk plans to give Trump another $100 million in political donations.

It was an apparent attempt to try to promote Tesla to Trump’s fans: conservatives.

Based on a Tesla inventory check and new order delivery timeline, we reported that the Trump ad appeared to have little to no impact on the demand for Tesla vehicles.

It could be that people see through Musk and Trump’s quid pro quo and, therefore, don’t value Trump’s “Tessler” endorsement seriously. Still, there’s also a more practical reason why Trump’s fans and conservatives generally don’t buy more Tesla vehicles: the locations of Tesla’s stores and service centers (hat tip to Ben).

Even if some Trump fans were interested in buying a Tesla after the White House commercial last week, they might have been turned off by the idea of having to drive several hours to a store or service center.

Tesla does not have stores or service centers in Alabama, Arkansas, North and South Dakota, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, or Wyoming.

In some cases, it’s not entirely Tesla’s fault, as some of these states have laws against Tesla’s direct sale models. They force automakers to go through third-party franchise dealerships. This is an abuse of old state laws aimed at protecting dealers against unfair competition from the automakers they represent.

Car dealer lobbies use their influence on state legislatures to use these laws to block Tesla, Rivian, Lucid, and other automakers who never had franchise dealerships from operating their own stores and service centers.

But on top of not having locations in several red states, Tesla also primarily has locations in urban areas, whereas conservatives disproportionally live in rural areas.

The automaker has several dead zones and doesn’t operate locations in smaller cities and towns where there are several Ford, GM, Toyota, and other car dealers:

While it certainly does happen, it’s hard to convince someone to buy a car if they have to drive several hours to pick it up and have it serviced.

Electrek’s Take

In short, it’s not only harder to convince conservatives, on average, to buy an electric vehicle, but Tesla is also not correctly set up to sell and service cars in conservative regions of the US.

Though, I think that’s a small part of the problem.

Cars are not supposed to be political.

Even if Tesla successfully converted a significant percentage of conservatives to electric vehicles, it wouldn’t stop the company’s brand destruction.

Tesla’s reputation amongst Democrats and independents has sharply decreased over the last few years, and especially over the last few months, and that’s thanks to Elon Musk alienating them.

It’s tough to be a successful consumer product company when you have alienated 50% or so of your market.

Tesla is basically becoming the MyPillow of Trump’s second term.

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