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Former Tesla engineer Christina Balan, who was fired in 2014, said in an interview that her entire team was threatened with deportation for taking her side when she brought up a brake safety issue directly to Elon Musk. She’s now succeeded in throwing out Tesla’s arbitration case against her, and hopes to meet Tesla directly in open court in a case that could influence corporate policy nationwide.

Christina Balan is a Romanian-born engineer who formerly worked for Tesla on the Model S. Her contributions were significant enough that her initials appeared on the Model S’ battery pack.

But in 2014, she brought up what she considered a safety issue directly with Elon Musk. She thought that the Model S’ floor mats could cause a brake safety issue, similar to a situation that Toyota had recently gone through (though that also led to a media firestorm that blew the issue out of proportion). She said that Tesla had chosen suppliers based on friendships, not quality.

And she brought it up directly to Musk because… he told her to. Famously, in 2013, Musk sent out an email to the entire company stating:

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Anyone at Tesla can and should email/talk to anyone else according to what they think is the fastest way to solve a problem for the benefit of the whole company.  You can talk to your manager’s manager without his permission, you can talk directly to a VP in another dept, you can talk to me, you can talk to anyone without anyone else’s permission. Moreover, you should consider yourself obligated to do so until the right thing happens.

-Elon Musk, email to all Tesla employees, March 21, 2013

A few days after sending that email, Balan said she was offered a meeting with Musk, but that when she showed up to the meeting, it was instead attended by a lawyer and some large men in uniforms, and with Tesla forcing her to resign her position.

During that meeting, Balan says that Tesla’s lawyer threatened to deport many members of her team, who were currently waiting on green card applications, if she didn’t sign the resignation, seemingly in response to her team backing her up in raising these concerns. She ended up signing the resignation in protest, writing on it that “I’m resigning for the position that I was put in a month ago bc I dare to speak up to the Sr management, also bc people that had the chance to speak up were threatened…”

Balan’s initials, “CB,” on a Model S battery pack

When Balan’s case got coverage in Huffington Post in 2017, Tesla sent a statement that Balan had stolen company resources to work on a “secret” personal project (Tesla emails show that Balan was told to work on this project by leadership). After this, Balan says she faced difficulty in finding work as companies feared ending up on Musk’s blacklist.

Balan filed a defamation suit over the press statement, but Tesla forced her case into arbitration and got the defamation suit thrown out. Forced arbitration is widely used by companies in America to find faster and more corporate-friendly rulings, an approach that has only become more common after endorsement by the “Supreme” Court.

Balan then appealed that decision, and after many delays (some related to her fight against breast cancer, which is now in remission), she finally succeeded in getting the arbitration thrown out on Monday – even though she represented herself, pro se, for most of the proceedings.

Her win could be significant for corporate policy nationwide, as it could serve to chill the overuse of arbitration which is seen by most observers as giving disproportionate power to companies in labor disputes. However, given the nature of the court’s recent finding, which was found to be a jurisdictional issue, this decision may not be directly applicable to many other arbitration cases.

Now, Balan wants to face Tesla in open court with her case, and hopes to bring more of her story to the public – which she says Musk has tried to stop her from doing, despite his claims of being a “free speech absolutist.”

She said so in an interview this weekend with The Times UK, a media organization owned by climate denier Rupert Murdoch, who is also the father of James Murdoch, a Tesla boardmember.

In the interview, Balan describes working conditions under Musk, and that he was a mostly-absent CEO who only showed up to the office twice a month, would threaten or retaliate against those who tried to fix problems. She says that she wants to take her case to open court “to prove how vindictive this monster is. He’s pure evil… he’s enjoying hurting people… and you don’t know about them because he’s forcing everybody to give up their freedom of speech and their right to sue.”

You can watch the whole interview below:

Electrek’s Take

We haven’t written about Balan’s case before because it’s been such a long time coming, and filled with various arcane legal wranglings. There will likely be more steps to come, many of which are boring legal maneuvers, but perhaps this case will now have a chance to go more public now that the arbitration decision has been thrown out.

And, frankly, I think the initial complaint over floor mats was probably not all that significant of a blockbuster. At the time, floor mats were getting a lot of focus due to the high-profile nature of the Toyota case (which was also overstated), so I think Balan’s team was probably more wary than usual. And we didn’t go on to see a slate of floor mat problems with the Model S in the time since.

However, Tesla’s response to bringing up the safety issue is still unacceptable (to say the least). Not only were all employees told to take steps like this to get problems solved by the CEO himself, but the strong-arm nature of a quick firing in response, and then threatening her team with deportation is beyond the pale.

While we only have Balan’s words as evidence for the deportation threat, we have since seen Musk take vindictive actions against entire teams, and seen his anti-immigrant attitudes including the desire to deport people illegally.

Recently Musk fired the entire supercharger team, in what was probably the dumbest business decision Tesla has ever made, reportedly because Rebecca Tinucci, a star of the auto industry and the head of the most successful team in Tesla, refused to fire more people.

(Incidentally, another longtime Tesla exec who was fired at the same time as the whole Supercharger team, Daniel Ho, had previously praised Balan, saying “without creative engineers like you, this place would be just another car company”)

And Musk is also the largest financial backer of an administration that is currently illegally deporting US citizens to a prison famous for beatings, overcrowding and food deprivation that some have called a place to “dispose of people without formally applying the death penalty.”

He has spent much of his public advocacy in recent years showing racist and anti-immigrant attitudes, including support for German neo-Nazis and agreeing with a defense of Hitler’s actions in the Holocaust. He’s focused more on pushing his white supremacist views than on anything to do with EVs and climate change (which he’s now pushing denial of), thus working against Tesla’s mission.

So, making deportation threats against immigrants does not seem out of character, despite Musk being a formerly “illegal” immigrant himself.

Either way, we look forward to hearing more about this case as it goes on, in the hopes that it can both elucidate more for the public what the real Elon Musk is like, and possibly do something to reduce, ever so slightly, the abuse of the arbitration system by companies.

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This Maryland county will get its power from a solar farm on landfill

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11 hours ago

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October 10, 2025

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This Maryland county will get its power from a solar farm on landfill

Maryland solar farm landfill

Photo: Baltimore County

Baltimore County, Maryland, just brought its first large-scale ground-mounted solar farm online, and it sits on what used to be the Parkton Landfill. The 213-acre site, once a symbol of waste, is now generating clean power that will cut costs, slash emissions, and turn an underused piece of land into a long-term energy asset.

Located north of Baltimore City, Baltimore County is one of Maryland’s largest and most populous counties, and its push toward renewables has major implications for the state’s climate and energy goals.

County Executive Kathy Klausmeier called the project a clear example of innovation meeting sustainability: “We are cutting costs for taxpayers and making investments that benefit our communities for decades.”

The new solar farm will provide around 11% of the Maryland county government’s annual electricity, producing roughly 8.2 million kilowatt-hours (kWh) in its first year. That’s the equivalent of avoiding greenhouse gas emissions from burning over 620,000 gallons of gasoline, powering more than 1,150 homes for a year, or driving 14 million fewer miles in gas cars, according to the EPA.

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The 7 MW system includes four large solar arrays of 15,000 ground-mounted photovoltaic panels. It’s part of a growing trend in the US to repurpose capped landfills for renewable energy, turning dormant properties into productive clean energy sites.

Through a power purchase agreement with TotalEnergies, which owns and operates the system, Baltimore County will lock in reduced electricity rates for 25 years, with options to extend the contract for up to 33 years. That long-term deal protects taxpayers from future electricity price hikes while advancing local climate goals.

“Adding another large source of solar electricity to power our County’s facilities reflects our community’s values of making smart investments that take care of the health of our community and environment,” said Greg Strella, the county’s chief sustainability officer.

TotalEnergies Managing Director Eric Potts called the project a “powerful example of transforming underutilized assets into productive resources,” pointing to the dual benefits of cutting emissions and saving money.

Baltimore County’s next landfill solar project, at Hernwood, is expected to come online by 2028. Once that system is up and running, renewables will supply about 55% of the county government’s electricity use.

Read more: The Trump administration just killed the US’s largest solar project

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The Hyundai IONIQ 3 looks just as wild as the concept [Video]

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12 hours ago

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October 10, 2025

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The Hyundai IONIQ 3 looks just as wild as the concept [Video]

Hyundai-IONIQ-3-looks

The IONIQ 3 was spotted in public rocking a wild new look, just like the Concept Three Hyundai revealed last month.

The Hyundai IONIQ 3 draws looks from the Concept Three

We got our first look at the IONIQ 3 just over a month ago after Hyundai revealed the Concept Three at the Munich Motor Show.

The concept will arrive as the IONIQ 3 when it launches next year. Production is set to begin in early 2026 at Hyundai’s manufacturing plant in Turkey with the first customer deliveries shortly after.

Hyundai’s Concept Three is a preview of the new EV, set to arrive as a little sibling to the IONIQ 5. Like the concept, the IONIQ 3 is bringing a radical new look to the IONIQ series, which Hyundai said will set the tone for its next wave of vehicles.

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The new design theme, dubbed “Art of Steel,” is inspired by advanced steel technology. It features an Aero Hatch profile that Hyundai calls “a new typology that reimagines the compact EV silhouette.”

Hyundai-IONIQ-3-looks
The Hyundai Concept THREE EV, a preview of the IONIQ 3 (Source: Hyundai)

The added lemon-tinted glass that wraps around the vehicle and wheels to match only adds to the electric hatch’s bold new look.

Hyundai kept a few design elements found on other IONIQ models, including its signature Parametric Pixel lights.

Hyundai-IONIq-3-looks
The Hyundai Concept THREE EV, a preview of the IONIQ 3 (Source: Hyundai)

With its official debut coming up, the IONIQ 3 was spotted driving in Korea with what appears to be a nearly identical design to the concept.

The video from HealerTV offers a closer look at Hyundai’s new EV from nearly all angles. Although it’s still covered, you can see the front headlights are about the same. The only noticeable difference is that the turn signal lights are now above the headlight.

As the reporter points out, if you look at the headlights, tail lights, and radiator grille, it appears just like the concept.

Like up front, the turn signal is above the rear taillight. It also features a brake assist light similar to the Nexo, Hyundai’s fuel cell electric vehicle (FCEV).

Hyundai-IONIQ-3-looks
The Hyundai Concept Three (Source: Hyundai)

Measuring 4,287 mm in length, 1,940 mm in width, and 1,428 mm in height, with a wheelbase of 2,722 mm, the Concept Three is about the size of the Volkswagen ID.3 and Kia EV3.

It will sit between the Inster EV and Kona Electric in Hyundai’s European lineup. Hyundai has yet to release prices, range, and other specs, but like the Kia EV3, it’s expected to be available with 58.3 kWh and 81.4 kWh battery packs, offering a WLTP range of around 365 miles.

Since the Kona Electric starts at £35,000 ($47,000), the IONIQ 3 will likely be priced closer to £25,000 ($33,700). For those in the US, the IONIQ is not expected to make the trip overseas.

However, Hyundai is still offering one of the most affordable EVs in the US with the 2026 IONIQ 5 starting at under $35,000.


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Hiboy launches TITAN & TITAN Pro e-scooters with up to $699 savings, Anker SOLIX F3000 station at new $1,399 low, more

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October 10, 2025

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Hiboy launches TITAN & TITAN Pro e-scooters with up to 9 savings, Anker SOLIX F3000 station at new ,399 low, more


We’re closing out this week’s Green Deals with some more major savings, headlined by Hiboy’s new TITAN Electric Scooter and TITAN Pro Electric Scooter, which are launching with up to $699 in savings starting from $1,001. Right behind them is Anker’s SOLIX F3000 Portable Power Station (and bundles) that is getting its $1,399 Prime Day low extended, as well as Mammotion’s YUKA Mini 500H and 700H robot lawn mowers starting from a $649 low. We also have EcoFlow’s latest 48-hour flash sale, a handy device from Goal Zero, and many other ongoing Prime Day sales waiting for you below – with all the continuing event’s savings collected into our Post-Prime Day Green Deals hub here.

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 launches new TITAN and TITAN Pro e-scooters with an up to 80-mile range, now starting from $1,001 (Up to $699 off)

As part of Hiboy’s ongoing Better Than Prime Day Sale, the brand has launched two new e-scooters that bring some serious power to commutes and joyrides, complete with bonus savings. You can now hop on Hiboy’s TITAN Electric Scooter at $1,001 shipped, after using the code HST9 at checkout for an additional 9% off, while Hiboy’s TITAN Pro Electric Scooter is down at $1,350 shipped, after using the code HSTP10 at check out for an additional 10% off. These two new models will carry full $1,700 and $2,000 price tags once the initial launch savings end, making this deal all the more enticing. While things last, you’re looking at $699 and $650 markdowns that save you some serious cash on some seriously powerful rides, while also setting the bar for future discounts down the road. You’ll find both these deals coming several hundred dollars under the TITAN and TITAN Pro Amazon pricing.

With these two new releases, Hiboy is showing folks just how fast and wild their e-scooters can get, with many often falling into the more budget-friendly realm. Things start with Hiboy’s TITAN electric scooter that arrives in futuristic industrial style, equipped with a 750W (1,000W peaking) motor and 48V 18Ah battery that provides up to 46 miles of travel at up to 25 MPH top speeds. Among its many features, you’ll find a dual suspension system, dual hydraulic brakes, 10-inch gel-filled tubeless tires, a wider-than-normal deck, zero-start capabilities and a half-twist throttle, a loud horn, dual headlights, a brake-activated taillight, ambient side lighting, a 3.5-inch LED color display, and more.

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On the other end of the series is the TITAN Pro e-scooter that brings more power and speed along for the ride. This supped-up model has been given dual 750W motors (each peaking at 1,000W) and a 48V 36Ah battery that not only ramps its possible top speeds up to 31 MPH, but also extends travel times up to 80 miles on a single charge. It brings along much of the same features as its base TITAN counterpart, with the main difference being the additional multi-function control buttons that allow you to switch between single and dual motor usage.

Hiboy’s Better Than Prime Sale will continue through October 12, giving you plenty of time to make decisions if you’re split between varying models – with prices starting from $320.

refrigerator open behind anker solix f3000 portable power station

Anker’s extended Prime Day savings offer latest SOLIX F3000 station and bundles at new lows starting from $1,399

As part of Anker’s extended SOLIX Prime Day Sale, which is continuing through the rest of the week, you can still score the brand’s latest F3000 Portable Power Station (and bundles) at their best prices starting from $1,399 shipped for the station with a FREE protective cover (valued at $99), beating out Amazon’s post-Prime pricing by $100. It carries a $2,599 MSRP since releasing back in June, which we saw drop down to this rate for the first time on Tuesday, when Prime Day officially began. It’s now continuing through the rest of the week, giving you more time to jump on the $1,200 price cut and score it at the best price we have tracked. Head below for the full lineup of ongoing bundle deals too.

If you want to learn more about this new power station, be sure to check out our original coverage of this deal here.

man and daughter plant tree while Mammotion YUKA mini robotic lawn mower mows grass around them

Mammotion’s YUKA Mini 500H and 700H robotic lawn mowers get $350 price cuts starting from a $649 low

By way of its official Amazon storefront, Mammotion is offering continued Prime Day savings on its YUKA Mini 500H Robotic Lawn Mower at $649 shipped, as well as its YUKA Mini 700H Robotic Lawn Mower at $849 shipped. These two models usually fetch $999 and $1,199 at full price, with this being the second-ever price cut to the YUKA Mini 500H’s all-time low with $350 cut from its tag, while the YUKA Mini 700H is getting the same sized price cut to its second-lowest rate – landing $100 above the one-time low that lasted only three days in September.

If you want to learn more about these two robots, be sure to check out our original coverage of these deals here.

ecoflow 800W alternator charger connected to power station in SUV with smart controls on phone

EcoFlow 48-hour flash sale drops 800W alternator charger to new $289 low, more from $104

As part of its extended Prime Day Sale, EcoFlow is offering a 48-hour flash sale on a power station, a generator, an alternator charger, and a DELTA Pro Ultra expansion battery bundle. The backup power solution amongst the bunch is the TRAIL 200 DC station, which you can score starting from $104 by checking out yesterday’s coverage. From there, it’s a matter of what kind of support or expansion you want to jump on, with the brand’s 800W Alternator Charger sitting at a lower-than-ever $289 shipped, for example, which also matches at Amazon right now. While it carries a $599 MSRP, we more often see it priced between $348 and $499, with some sales taking things lower. It was priced at $305 for the initial Prime Day savings, but is now falling even further to mark a new all-time low price and give you $210 off the going rate. Head below for the full lineup of flash deals.

If you want to learn more about this on-the-go charging solution, as well as the other offers, be sure to check out our original coverage of these 48-hour flash deals here.

man using goal zero torch light to see under hood of car

Goal Zero’s 500 Lumen Torch Light that doubles as a solar-charging 5,200mAh power bank hits $38

Amazon is offering the Goal Zero 500 Lumen Torch Light at $37.89 shipped. Usually fetching $50 outside of discounts, this device dropped to $40 back April, with discounts since returning the costs to this same rate over the rest of the year – including for both July and this month’s Prime Day events. The savings seem to be sticking around after the event ended last night, giving you extra time to pick it up with $12 shaved from the tag at the best price of the year.

If you want to learn more about this handy solar-charging gadget, be sure to check out our original coverage of this deal here.

ecoflow early prime day power station sale
lectric one e-bike
anker solix early prime day power station sale

Best Fall 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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