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Today’s Green Deals are all about getting up to go – whether that’s on an e-bike or in an EV. Leading the group today is Hiboy’s 2024 P7 Commuter e-bike that has dropped to a new $900 low in the brand’s latest sale. It is joined by the popular Hover-1 Altai Pro R750 e-bikes that come decked out in plenty of accessories starting from $1,758, as well as a one-day 50% discount on Rexing’s CCS to Tesla EV Charger Adapter for models S, 3, X, and Y to its $100 low. There’s also the early-bird discounts on Vanpowers’ new GrandTeton All-Terrain e-bikes, a chance to save $100 on the security-minded Hover-1 Ace R350 Pro e-scooter – plus, all the other hangover Green Deals that are still alive and well, like yesterday’s Rad Power Labor Day sale kickoff that has two e-bikes down at $999 with a free extra battery offer on another, and more.

Head below for other New Green Deals we’ve found today and, of course, Electrek’s best EV buying and leasing deals. Also, check out the new Electrek Tesla Shop for the best deals on Tesla accessories.

Hiboy’s 2024 P7 Class 3 Commuter e-bike at $900 low

Hiboy’s Back to School sale is still taking up to 50% off a large selection of the brand’s e-bikes and e-scooters, including the first chance to save on the brand’s new EX7 Full-Suspension e-bike. Another new addition to the Hiboy lineup, the 2024 P7 Commuter e-bike is seeing its lowest price yet at $899.99 shipped. Normally priced for $1,700, this is another first chance to save on this 2024 model that had yet to see discounts in the year before this sale came around. You’re looking at a massive 47% markdown here today, scoring you the latest version for your commute needs with $800 cut off the price tag for a new all-time low.

Hiboy’s 2024 P7 Commuter e-bike cruises into view at speeds up to 28 MPH, with three simplified riding modes to choose from: A bike mode to solely power the bike on your own and get in some good cardio, a power-assist mode that can help the rider to reach its top speeds for up to 68 miles, or the pure electric mode that relies on throttle activation for up to 37 miles.

The sleek frame houses the 500W brushless motor that is paired alongside a removable IPX5-rated waterproof 14.5Ah battery, while a Multifunction LCD Display not only gives you at-a-glance performance data, but can also act as a personal coach that pushes you to outdo your previous days’ best. Its also been given front shocks and 2.2-inch mountain tires for when you head off the paved pathways for some adventure. The frame itself also holds an IPX4 water-resistant rating, so you can bury any concerns about hitting those oh-so-enticing puddles during treks out about the town.

Hiboy 2024 P7 e-bike

Hover-1 Altai Pro R750 e-bike comes decked out in gear starting from $1,758

Amazon is offering some major price cuts on the white Hover-1 Altai Pro R750 e-bike that is now down at $1,757.90 shipped. This popular and fully-decked out model often goes for $3,000, with its yellow and black counterparts having seen more recent discounts in the last few months, though we did see this model drop to $1,800 at the top of the month for a short-lived period. While we have seen it go as low as $1,270 in the past (last seen in January), it’s still coming back today with a solid $1,242 cut from its price tag, giving you a powerful commuting/joyriding solution at an affordable rate far lower than usual. You’ll also find the black R750 model down at $2,029 and its yellow counterpart down at $1,997.

Hover-1’s Altai Pro R750 e-bike arrives sporting a stylish motorcycle-inspired frame that houses a 750W motor and a 48V battery that work together to reach top speeds of 28 MPH and carry you up to 55 miles on a single charge. It typically takes seven to eight hours to fully charge, and the battery is removable from the body for more convenient charging. Its 20-inch fat tires help you traverse uneven terrain, and it has been outfitted with a headlight, taillight, and turn signals. It also comes decked out in an array of accessories: dual side mirrors, a phone storage bag, side and rear racks, two saddle bags, a rear mudguard, a triangular storage bag, and a folding lock. Head below to read more.

Hiboy 2024 P7 e-bike

Rexing’s CCS to Tesla EV Charger Adapter for models S, 3, X, and Y now 50% off for today only

Included as part of its Deals of the Day, Best Buy is offering the Rexing CCS to Tesla EV Charger Adapter for Tesla Models S, 3, X and Y for $99.99 shipped through the rest of the day. This handy adapter would normally cost you $200 most days, and we’ve seen a few discounts on occasion in the last year, but they’ve mostly been one-day price cuts spaced out over months. Today though, you can grab this device at a massive 50% markdown that gives you $100 in savings and returns costs back to the all-time lowest rate we have tracked.

With this handy little adapter, Tesla drivers will gain even more charging access to the over 5,000 CCS level 3 fast charging stations across the country. Small and compact, it easily stores away inside your vehicle until it’s needed, re-juicing your Tesla at up to 250kW or 250A speeds (depending on car battery and DC charger specs). It also comes with a protective travel case. There’s also a similar J1772 to Tesla adapter as well, currently priced at $80.

If you’re a Tesla owner who wants to upgrade your home charger setup, Best Buy permanently dropped the price on the Tesla Universal Wall Connector Level 2 Hardwired EV Charger to $580, down from $620. It boasts a customizable output of up to 48A of power, which can be adjusted during indoor or outdoor installations, and also employs an integrated J1772 adapter making it compatible with other EV brands/models outside the Tesla boundaries. You’ll be getting upward to 44 miles of travel range per hour of charging when set at its maximum amperage. If you’re part of a Tesla-only household with no out-of-brand charging needs, consider the cheaper non-universal model that is sitting at $450, matching its Amazon rate.

Summer e-bike deals!

Hiboy 2024 P7 e-bike

Other new Green Deals landing this week

The savings this week are also continuing to a collection of other markdowns. To the same tune as the offers above, these all help you take a more energy-conscious approach to your routine. Winter means you can lock in even better off-season price cuts on electric tools for the lawn while saving on EVs and tons of other gear.

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Customers could end up paying for data centers’ energy costs in the absence of reform: Experts

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April 16, 2025

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Customers could end up paying for data centers' energy costs in the absence of reform: Experts

A visitor observes a computer bay at the PA10 data center, operated by Equinix Inc., in Paris, France, on Thursday, Feb. 6, 2025.

Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images

In some advanced economies, electricity infrastructure and cost of utilities are undergoing structural changes because of artificial intelligence-driven demand for data centers.

In the process, U.S consumers could be paying higher utility bills because of the sector shifting costs to consumers, warned a latest paper by the Harvard Electricity Law Initiative.

Meanwhile in the U.K, residents may experience higher wholesale prices in light of a proposed reform to the electricity market that would favor data centers which harness renewable energy.

As pricing concerns emerge, regulation and energy grid reform will take center stage in managing energy prices and meeting changing energy needs.

‘Complex’ special contracts

Special contracts between utilities and data center companies are one of the ways higher costs associated with data centers may transfer onto everyday consumers, identified a report by the Harvard Electricity Law Initiative in March.

Such contracts “allow an individual consumer to take service under conditions and terms not otherwise available to anyone else.” In other words, they can be used to shift costs from data centers to consumers because of the subjectivity and complexity in those contracts’ accounting practices, the report stated.

Moreover, special contracts are approved by the Public Utilities Commission but tend to undergo “opaque regulatory processes” that make it difficult to assess if costs have been shifted from data centers onto the consumer.

To remedy this, the report recommended regulators tighten oversight over special contracts or completely do away with them and opt for existing tariff practices.

“Unlike a one-off special contract that provides each data center with unique terms and conditions, a tariff ensures that all data centers pay under the same terms and that the impact of new customers is addressed by considering the full picture of the utility’s costs and revenue,” according to the report.

Jonathan Koomey, a researcher in energy and information technology, concurs with the need for data centers to pay according to their usage of the energy grid.

“The key point, in my view, is that highly profitable companies who impose costs on the grid with big new loads should pay the costs created by those new loads,” Koomey told CNBC.

Beyond utility companies and regulators, “intervenors in the utility regulatory process also play a critical role,” Koomey said.

Intervenors can include a specific group of constituents or a large commercial or industrial customer who partake in proceedings. They may raise issues pertaining to customer service and affordability and ultimately allow for commissions to hear from a broad group of stakeholders.

“They often can dig deeper than the overburdened regulators into the projections and technical details and reveal key issues that haven’t yet surfaced in regulatory proceedings,” Koomey added.

Overbuilt infrastructure?

Another factor affecting utility prices is the excessive development of energy infrastructure.

Utilities and pipeline companies in the states of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia are planning a “major buildout of natural gas infrastructure over the next 15 years,” potentially based on an overestimation of data center load forecasts, highlighted a report by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis in January.

Proactive decisions on the part of utilities and regulators are needed to prevent ratepayers from being “on the hook” for overbuilt infrastructure, said the IEEFA report.

Policymakers across states have adopted a slew of measures to incentivize, curb and regulate the influx of data center development, from tax breaks to legislative bills, with a focus on ensuring non-data centers consumers do not bear undue costs, according to a report by the Gibson Dunn Data Centers and Digital Infrastructure Practice Group.

Zonal pricing

In the U.K, data centers and consumers face a different pricing challenge amid government plans to transform the country’s electricity market into a decarbonized, cost-effective and secure electricity system.

The zonal pricing scheme that is being explored under the government’s Review of Electricity Markets Arrangements would mark a shift away from uniform pricing to a split electricity market. Under the new framework, consumers in different geographical zones would be subject to different wholesale electricity prices based on the marginal cost of meeting demand at that location.

Modeling from consulting firm Lane Clark and Peacock suggests that Northern Scotland would experience lower wholesale prices owing to their high renewable penetration and relatively low demand.

The rest of the U.K, accounting for 97% of national electricity demand, is poised to see a rise in wholesale prices from the current national pricing model.

The impact on retail prices remains murky as yet.

“It is not clear how this may impact retail prices as wholesale prices are only one part of the overall electricity bill for consumers, and DESNZ still needs to make various decisions,” according to joint comments from Sam Hollister, Head of Energy Economics, Policy, and Investment and Dina Darshini, Head of Commercial and Industrial at Lane Clark Peacock’s energy transition division, LCP Delta.

The DESNZ is the U.K.’s Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

Will data centers benefit?

While tech firms appear onboard with the lower costs that zonal pricing stands to offer, based on think tank research supported by Amazon, OpenAI and Anthropic, whether data centers do in fact stand to benefit from zonal pricing would depend on their type of operations, according to Hollister and Darshini.

Those potentially well-suited for zonal pricing include data center facilities that handle workloads that can be shifted in time or location, they said.

AI training for deep learning models is one such example. Such workloads can be scheduled during off-peak hours when electricity prices may be lower and synchronized with periods of surplus wind or solar power, which would reduce costs and alleviate grid congestion.

Similarly, data centers that do not need to be close to major urban centers or end users — such as those supporting hyperscale AI training, cloud and large-scale data storage facilities or scientific computing hubs — could also benefit from cheaper electricity when located in regions with high renewable generation and low local demand, Hollister and Darshini said.

However, “not all AI workloads are flexible — real-time inference tasks, such as those used in chatbots, fraud detection, or autonomous vehicles, require immediate processing and would not benefit from time-shifting,” they added.

Latency-sensitive applications such as financial trading and real-time streaming that require close proximity to users would also find zonal pricing “less viable.”

Boosting grid infrastructure

Proponents of zonal pricing point to the benefits of reducing the need to move energy over long distances.

But with the National Energy System Operator’s plans to increase network capability and connect more offshore wind, focusing on grid infrastructure is important, “and zonal pricing won’t eliminate those requirements,” according to Hollister and Darshini.

“It’s not just data centers that are going to need this additional capacity on the grid, they’re probably the most high profile ones, but EV charging is going to change the grid. National Grid as an organization have been talking about the change in the demand profile from EVs for a very long time,” David Mytton, a researcher in sustainable computing, told CNBC.

The demands on the energy grid posed by the electrification of vehicles is a challenge shared across the U.S. and U.K.

In the U.S., electric vehicles will constitute over half of all new cars sold by 2030 and is set to place a considerable strain on an aging energy grid system.

While the electricity consumption of U.S. data centers is growing at an increasing pace, a report by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory published in December noted that this is playing out against a “much larger electricity demand that is expected to occur over the next few decades from a combination of electric vehicle adoption, onshoring of manufacturing, hydrogen utilization, and the electrification of industry and buildings.”

Given this, the infrastructural and regulatory reforms that emerge out of data center management would be helpful for an imminent era of changing electricity demand, said Mytton and fellow researchers.

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Tesla’s Cybercab and Semi sourcing disrupted by Trump’s tariffs, report says

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April 16, 2025

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Tesla's Cybercab and Semi sourcing disrupted by Trump's tariffs, report says

Tesla family hero

A new report claims that President Trump’s tariffs have disrupted Tesla’s plan to source parts for the upcoming Cybercab and Tesla Semi production in China.

The trade war started by President Trump and his constantly changing tariffs has thrown a wrench in the plans of most supply chain managers worldwide.

Tesla is no exception.

For most of its manufacturing programs in the US, the American automaker imports a significant number of parts from China, Mexico, Canada, and Europe.

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This includes its upcoming vehicles: Cybercab and Tesla Semi.

Tesla aims to start production of the vehicles at Gigafactory Texas and a new factory in Nevada later this year and ramp up to volume production in 2026.

Reuters reports that Tesla has suspended plans to source certain parts for the upcoming Cybercab and Tesla Semi from China:

Tesla’s plans to ship components from China for Cybercab and Semi electric trucks in the United States were suspended after President Donald Trump raised tariffs on Chinese goods amid a trade war, said a person with direct knowledge.

According to the report, Tesla was ready to move ahead with the plan when Trump first increased the tariffs on China to 34%, but the automaker is suspending the specific sourcing plans after the most recent increases:

Tesla was ready to absorb the additional costs when Trump imposed the 34% tariff on Chinese goods but could not do so when the tariff went beyond that, leaving shipping plans suspended, said the person, who declined to be named as the matter is private.

Trump raised the tariffs on China to 145% last week, with some expectations announced on Friday — even though Trump later claimed there were no exceptions.

In response to the tariffs the US is imposing on China, the Chinese government reciprocated with its own tariffs on US goods, which resulted in Tesla stopping taking new orders for Model S and Model X vehicles in the country.

Electrek’s Take

I would take the report with a grain of salt since it is based on a single source, but it certainly makes sense.

The phrase “Trump’s tariffs have disrupted” could be followed by the name of virtually every major manufacturing company globally, and Tesla is no exception.

Due to Tesla’s vertical integration, Tesla shareholders have been claiming that the tariffs would be positive for Tesla, or at least not as bad as they would be for other automakers.

Tesla indeed has impressive vertical integration for the auto industry, but that’s in relative terms. Effectively, Tesla still uses a significant number of parts from other countries, especially Mexico, but also from China.

Mexico would be the most problematic for Tesla, as roughly 25% of the parts of all its vehicle programs built in the US originate from there.

The tariffs on auto parts from Canada and Mexico are currently paused for everything in the USMCA agreement, but Trump signaled that this is only temporary.

As for the tariffs on China, they primarily affect Tesla’s energy business, which relies on cheap Chinese battery cells, but Tesla also imports some Chinese parts for its cars and 145% tariffs will change that.

Tesla, like many other companies, has to start looking for alternatives.

Many of the problems come not only from the excessively high tariffs Trump is imposing on countries, but also from the fact that he keeps changing his mind and making exceptions, making it hard for companies to plan.

In this case, Tesla might have suspended plans with Chinese suppliers only to wait and see if Trump will back off the Chinese tariffs, if Musk can lobby for an exception with the President, whom he helped elect with $250 million in political donations, to shop for suppliers from other countries, or maybe, just maybe, do what Trumps claims his tariffs will do and manufacture those parts in the US.

For some reason, I have doubts about it being the last one, but you never know.

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Groundbreaking heavy equipment EVs (ha!) steals the show at bauma

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11 hours ago

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April 16, 2025

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Groundbreaking heavy equipment EVs (ha!) steals the show at bauma

It only happens every three years, but it’s spectacular! I’m speaking of course, about bauma – one of the largest trade shows of any kind where heavy equipment manufacturers serving construction, forestry, mining, and more bring out their latest and greatest new job site innovations, and we’ve got a whole bunch of them here, on this special bauma edition of Quick Charge!

With more than two million square feet indoors and twice that outdoors, bauma hosts more than 600,000 guests from 200 countries to see 3,600 exhibitors’ hardware (and, increasingly, software). We’re only going to cover a sliver, but it’s a really cool sliver, you guys – enjoy!

Prefer listening to your podcasts? Audio-only versions of Quick Charge are now available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, TuneIn, and our RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players.

New episodes of Quick Charge are recorded, usually, Monday through Thursday (and sometimes Sunday). We’ll be posting bonus audio content from time to time as well, so be sure to follow and subscribe so you don’t miss a minute of Electrek’s high-voltage daily news.

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Drop us a line at tips@electrek.co. You can also rate us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify, or recommend us in Overcast to help more people discover the show.

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