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We’re kicking off this week’s Green Deals with a bunch of savings that will only last through the rest of the day, starting with the final hours of Lectric’s April Showers Sale with up to $654 in e-bike bundle savings, like on the XP Trike for $1,499 that comes with one of the largest bundles we’ve seen at $420 in free gear. In the same vein, it’s the final day of EcoFlow’s Easter Sale and Mega Sale, with shared flash offers at up to 60% off on three different units, including a DELTA Max 2000 Portable Power Station, a DELTA Pro bundle, and a pair of expansion batteries – with everything starting from $849. Lastly, we have a one-day-only sale from Best Buy on the Worx 40V 17-inch Cordless Intellicut Lawn Mower at $266, as well as an additional 4.0Ah battery discount too. Plus, all the other hangover Green Deals from last week are in the links at the bottom of the page, rounded together within our Electrified Weekly coverage.

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.

Leisurely enjoy errands and joyrides on Lectric’s XP Trike with $420 bundle at $1,499 ($1,919 value)

It’s the final day of Lectric’s April Showers Sale with up to $654 being taken off e-bike bundles, which the brand has provided a countdown clock for through the rest of the day. We wanted to shine a spotlight on the bundle for the Lectric’s XP Trike that is coming with $420 in free gear at $1,499 shipped. You’d normally have to shell out $1,919 to get this package at full price, which sits among some of the largest bundles we have been seeing over the last year. With the additional gear, you’ll be upgrading your riding experience with steel-encased front and rear cargo baskets, a wide saddle with a backrest, a suspension seat post, an Elite 850 lux headlight, and a bell.

Lectric’s XP Trike is an ideal model for folks who enjoy taking leisurely rides around town, especially older riders – plus, with the bonus add-on gear you’ll get more versatility for cargo-hauling needs. The folding frame houses a 500W planetary geared brushless motor that peaks upwards to 1,092Wh alongside a removable 48V 13Ah battery, providing you with 14 MPH top speeds for up to 50 miles when its five pedal assistance levels are activated. Inexperienced riders will also get some added support in its default mode, which limits the acceleration and speed until you get more comfortable with its system.

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And for the price, Lectric’s XP Trike comes with a solid array of stock features too, like the hydraulic brakes and additional parking brake for guaranteed stopping power, as well as others including integrated rear lights (with brake lighting), slimmer tires for easier turning, an ergonomic twist throttle for electric cruising (which will shorten its mileage), and a backlit LCD display. On top of everything, the build comes with an IP65 water-and-dust-resistant protection rating.

Be sure to check out the full lineup of Lectric’s April Showers Sale offers, which are seeing up to $654 taken off the other e-bike bundles through the rest of the day.

EcoFlow DELTA Max 2000 Portable Power Station

You can save up to 60% on EcoFlow’s DELTA Max or DELTA Pro power station setups for today only starting from $849

As part of its soon-to-end Easter Sale and alternate Mega Sale, EcoFlow is closing out these sales tonight with its final flash offers on three different backup power deals, starting with the DELTA Max 2000 Portable Power Station for $849 shipped. We usually see discounts hitting this model’s bundles over the standalone unit, which is being brought down from its $2,099 price tag here for the rest of the day (and sale). We saw it fall lower back during Black Friday sales to $799 and then $759 during Cyber Monday, with today’s deal still coming in as a significant $1,250 in savings, beating out our previous mention during the brand’s Spring Sale by $50 to land down at the third-lowest price we have tracked. You won’t currently find it available at Amazon, with this being the best price we can find right now.

While it may not be the newer second-generation model with shorter charge times and LiFePO4 cells, you’ll still be getting a reliable backup power solution in EcoFlow’s DELTA Max 2000, which offers an equally expandable 2,016Wh to 6,048Wh capacity when you add on expansion batteries. Through its 15 port options it dishes out up to 2,400W of power that can surge up to 3,400W for larger appliance needs too. The battery can be recharged to 80% in just 65 minutes through a standard wall outlet, with alternate options for combination fast-charging, including AC and solar, AC and a generator, or solar and a generator. Of course, you can also solely connect up to its maximum 800W solar input that can refill the battery in 2.5 hours, as well as be used for the previously mentioned combo charging.

The second of these offers bundles the DELTA Pro Portable Power Station with a free protective bag at $1,899 shipped, down from $3,699. While you can find it matching in price at Amazon, you won’t be getting the additional bag there. This is a larger model offering a more expansive setup, this unit comes with a 3,600Wh LiFePO4 capacity that you can invest in further to raise as high as 25kWh. It sports 14 output ports but provides power at up to 3,600W normally while able to surge to 7,200W when needed. Plugging it into a wall outlet gives you back a full battery in 1.8 hours, with its max 1,600W solar input taking a little longer at 2.8 hours.

The final of these offers provides you with two DELTA Pro Smart Extra Batteries for $2,899 shipped over the usual $5,598 rate you’d pay at full price. By adding these to a DELTA Pro power station, you’ll increase its capacity by an additional 7,200Wh, so grabbing them with the above discount would score you a 10,800Wh setup for trips, parties, emergencies, and more.

It’s the final day of EcoFlow’s sales, so be sure to browse through both its Easter Sale and Mega Sale offers while they’re still around and at up to 65% off – plus, the bonus savings, free gear, and rewards.

Worx 40V 17-inch Cordless electric lawn mower

Affordably cover lawn duties with this Worx 40V 17-inch cordless mower that adapts to grass at $266 (Today only)

As part of its Deals of the Day, Best Buy has two Worx discounts that will affordably get you geared up for spring mowing duties, led by the brand’s 40V 17-inch Cordless Electric Lawn Mower that comes with two 4.0Ah batteries for $265.99 shipped, and matches in price over at Amazon too. Coming down off its $330 perch, most of the recent discounts we’ve seen on this older model have been taking things down to $280, with some falls as low as $247 in the last year. You’re looking at $64 off the going rate here today though, which provides you with a tried-and-true means to handle mowing jobs around your home. Head below to learn more about it and the additional one-day-only offer.

New-time homeowners will find a budget-friendly solution to their mowing needs with this 40V Worx mower that comes powered by the two included 20V 4.0Ah batteries to tackle up to 1/8 acres of land on a single charge. It weighs in at only 35 pounds, making it easy to manage and sports the brand’s Intellicut tech that can either ramp up or dial back the motor’s power depending on the thickness of grass that it moves through. It offers six cutting height levels to choose from, ranging from 1.5 inches to 4 inches while also providing 2-in-1 functionality for either rear bagging (complete with an indicator for a full bag) or mulching. You also won’t have to wrestle with any pull strings thanks to the push-button start nor the fumes or noise you’d get from gas-guzzling models.

Now, with the above bundle, the two batteries will take two hours to charge at the same time with the included dual-port charger, or just 1 hour apiece. Of course, with these all being within Worx’s PowerShare family, batteries can be interchanged, which makes Best Buy’s additional deal for a 20V 4.0Ah battery at $74.99 shipped, quite a solid means to extend the mower’s runtime with more batteries that you can keep switching in and out with one another.

Best New Year EV deals!

Best 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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6 hours ago

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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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8 hours ago

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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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10 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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