Brits oppose Tesla’s plan to sell energy in UK because Elon Musk is so distasteful
Thousands of Britons have voiced opposition to a request by Tesla to supply electricity to British homes.
And what’s the sole reason for this opposition? It’s because of Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
Last month, Tesla applied for a license to supply electricity to British homes. The application was sent to Ofgem, UK’s government energy regulator.
In addition to Tesla’s business selling EVs, and its CEO’s business making promises about autonomy and robots that never materialize, Tesla is also in the business of selling energy products.
The energy products include solar panels, after Tesla’s controversial acquisition of SolarCity, a company run by Musk’s cousin Lyndon Rive, in 2016. They also include Powerwalls, Tesla’s home battery backup system which can store energy from a home’s solar panels or from the grid, and then use it or sell it back to the grid later during peak hours when electricity is most expensive.
But even more interestingly, Powerwalls can be hooked into a network, called a Virtual Power Plant or VPP, which allows thousands of batteries to simultaneously push energy to the grid when the grid needs it. This can help to end power outages and can also make a significant amount of money for homeowners who participate.
A VPP can also help with overall grid stability. While a single battery doesn’t do much to help the entire grid, thousands of batteries all together can help to shave peaks and shift loads grid-wide, helping to enable the transition to renewable forms of energy generation like wind and solar, which can be intermittent due to weather, clouds, gusts of wind and so on.
And the UK is doing quite well at renewable adoption – the island which started the industrial revolution because it’s literally built on a bed of coal just shut down its last coal plant last year. Clean electricity growth is strong, with over half of its electricity coming from renewables sources last year.
And it has set even more ambitious goals going forward, targeting an 81% emissions cut by 2035.
So, a VPP might be useful in a country with so much wind and solar.
While Tesla’s application does not specify details of its plans (In accordance with UK law), it seems likely that the purpose behind the application would be to set up a VPP system in the UK. Tesla already runs VPPs in Texas and California.
So, all sounds good, right? This is a useful product, and it can help the UK confront a challenge it will need to face as it transitions to a cleaner grid. And, at a time when electricity prices are going up worldwide, more competition and flexibility in energy markets can only be a good thing.
The only problem? Everyone hates Elon Musk. A lot.
As it turns out, Ofgem has been swamped with thousands of comments opposing Tesla’s plan, as a result of a campaign that says Musk shouldn’t be allowed to get anywhere near UK’s electricity supply.
The campaign was launched by the group Best for Britain, which bills itself as “the researchers, data scientists, strategists, and activists, fixing the problems Britain faces after Brexit.”
It set up an action campaign allowing Brits to send a letter to Ofgem stating their opposition to Tesla’s plan.
The letter argues that Musk has proven, through his recent political activity, that he is not interested in the general wellbeing of the populace, but rather in “enriching himself”pushing his own agenda.” It accuses him of “dangerous incompetence or wilful neglect,” and says that these should be “disqualifying qualities for entrance into our energy markets.”
For background, while Musk claimed to be working to reduce US government waste (when he actually increased the deficit), he in fact spent that time advising the US to defund entities investigating his unlawful actions.
The letter also mentions the “rapid spread of misinformation, hatred and conspiracy theories in the UK and across the wider world” on twitter since Musk spent $44 billion to buy the company (that later dropped to a value closer to $15 billion – his recent purchase of it from himself notwithstanding). After Musk purchased the platform, hate speech has flourished there.
None of the points made by the letter focus on Tesla’s business as a whole, but rather solely on its CEO’s harmful actions.
As of yesterday, Best for Britain says 8,462 people had used it to contact Ofgem to voice their opposition to the plan. Public comment remains open until Friday, August 22.
Musk’s actions continue to harm Tesla’s business
This is not the first time Tesla has received local opposition for business deals due to Musk’s poor public persona. In May, Australians voiced opposition to a plan to build a battery factory and Tesla showroom, ~95% of which opposed the plan (with some choice Australian language appearing in the public comments).
And just yesterday, the Austin American-Statesman reported opposition to Tesla’s tax breaks from residents of the county where its Texas Gigafactory is located.
Separately, Musk has received pushback in the UK and elsewhere for his support for extreme rightwing and racist political figures, both in the US where he gave hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes to a treasonous felon who tried to overthrow the US government, and in the UK where he has given both rhetorical and monetary support for a violent racist fraudster who has been imprisoned multiple times.
His unambiguous Nazi salutes, agreeing with a defense of Hitler’s actions in the Holocaust, support for German neo-Nazis, and many other white supremacist statements didn’t help, either.
Beyond his association with racist politics, he has also directly spread misinformation about climate change himself, despite this being a contradiction of Tesla’s mission. Musk has even said that his own recent actions are “not good for America or the world.”
The result of these actions has been to drive protests against the company, embarrass owners and destroy Tesla’s brand reputation.
In the UK specifically, Tesla sales have fallen by 60% year-over-year, according to the most recent July numbers. Tesla sales show similar trends in most territories in which the company sells, with Tesla sales down globally despite a rising global EV market.
Nevertheless, despite Elon Musk demonstrably being the problem with Tesla right now, his friends and family on Tesla’s board recently gave him a ~$29 billion payout, claiming that it would “energize and focus” the company’s bad CEO.
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Toyota’s new electric SUV boasts significantly more range, a revamped interior and exterior, and an NACS port, allowing you to recharge at Tesla Superchargers. Despite the upgrades, the 2026 Toyota bZ now starts at under $35,000.
2026 Toyota bZ electric SUV prices and range by trim
The bZ4X, Toyota’s first electric SUV, has been killed off and replaced with the upgraded bZ. Toyota improved it in almost every way possible for the 2026 model year, adding driving range, more features, a fresh new look, and more.
Even with the upgrades, the new and improved Toyota bZ is cheaper than the outgoing bZ4X. Toyota revealed prices for the 2026 bZ electric SUV will start at $34,900, or $2,170 less than the outgoing model.
That’s for the base XLE FWD trim with a 57.7 kWh battery, good for 236 miles range. Upgrading to the extended-range bZ XLE FWD Plus will cost $37,900, but a larger 74.7 kWh battery provides up to 314 miles of driving range, representing a 25% improvement over the 2025 model year.
For AWD, prices start at $39,900. Thanks to new SIC semiconductors, AWD models now pack up to 388 hp, 50% more than the outgoing electric SUV.
The range-topping 2026 Toyota bZ Limited FWD trim starts at $43,300, while upgrading to AWD will cost you an extra $2,000.
| 2026 Toyota bZ trim | Battery | Range | Starting Price* |
| XLE FWD | 57.7 kWh | 236 miles | $34,900 |
| XLE FWD Plus | 74.7 kWh | 314 miles | $37,900 |
| XLE AWD | 74.7 kWh | 288 miles | $39,900 |
| Limited FWD | 74.7 kWh | 299 miles | $43,300 |
| Limited AWD | 74.7 kWh | 278 miles | $45,300 |
Toyota’s new electric SUV now features a built-in NACS port, allowing you to recharge at Tesla Superchargers. With a new thermal management system and battery preconditioning, the bZ can charge from 10% to 80% in about 30 minutes.
The new electric SUV features a fresh look both inside and out. Like the latest Camry and Crown, the bZ features Toyota’s new “hammerhead front end design” with an LED light bar across the front.
Inside, the 2026 bZ gets a redesigned center console and a larger 14″ Toyota Audio Multimedia touchscreen, two wireless phone chargers, and an improved dashboard.
Toyota said dropping the “4X” at the end of the name was to simplify things for buyers. The 2026 models are expected to begin arriving at dealerships in the second half of 2025, which could be any day now.
With the 2026 model year arriving soon, Toyota is offering clearance prices on the 2025 bZ4X with up to $12,000 off in lease cash. You can use our link to find Toyota bZ4X models in your area (trusted affiliate link).
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Amid the alliterative, anti-EV “messy middle” rhetoric and the Trump Administration EPA’s ongoing regulatory rollbacks, it’s been tough for fleet and equipment buyers with 8-12 year replacement cycles to make sense of where things are headed – but a new partnership between CASE Construction Equipment and ZQUIP could put those concerns to rest (and make a trip to the CASE dealer a no-brainer).
iVT reports that CASE Construction Equipment has formalized a new partnership with ZQUIP to deliver heavy equipment assets featuring ZQUIP’s swappable energy modules – self-contained power units that could be batteries, fuel cells, or diesel engines. The technology aims to eliminate range and regulation anxiety while maximizing a job site’s energy efficiency and meeting the complex demands of modern construction projects with unprecedented flexibility. And, crucially, at a lower cost than either a mixed BEV/ICE fleet.
“A fully integrated battery system is extremely expensive upfront,” explains Chris LaFleur, managing director of ZQUIP. “This system allows (customers) to buy essentially a bare tool, at a much lower price point.”
For the uninitiated, a “bare tool” is effectively an equipment asset like an excavator or wheel loader that arrives on a job site without a power plant. It’s not electric, it’s not diesel, it’s not natgas – it’s just the machine, with a flat “plate” more or less where you’d expect an engine to be.
Once you’re ready to put that tool to work, a ZQUIP Energy Module gets dropped in, cordless-tool style, and it’s ready to go. That Energy Module could be a contained battery-electric powertrain, or it could be a generator, depending on the energy needs, duty cycles, or regulations (both noise and emissions) that are in play at that specific site.
And, like their hand-held Ryobi cousins, you don’t need as many ZQUIP Energy Modules as you need bare tools. In practice, that means you’re not tying up hundreds of kWh of battery capacity in idle machines.
“The customer decides how he wants to use it,” says Eric Zeiser, product portfolio manager at CNH Industrial, CASE’ parent company. “If he wants to keep his cost low in the beginning, he can buy just one energy module. He could buy the simplest module available to keep his initial purchase price down. And then, in the future, if in six months he realizes his job sites are bigger, he needs more power, he buys the second and third module as he needs to.”
What’s more, different sized equipment assets have different energy needs – and bigger equipment means bigger possibilities. So, while a CASE WX155ZQ wheeled excavator accommodates two energy modules, a CX210ZQ tracked excavator supports three. “On the three-bay CX210 you can have an LFP battery, an NMC battery and a diesel hybrid Energy Module, all together working at the same time,” says LaFleur.
More energy needs = more options
Batteries when it makes sense, ICE when you need it. But, even with an ICE generating the power, the machine is still electric.
“The excavators are always electric,” says Rob Bauer, engineering manager for ZQUIP. “The question is, where does the energy come from? In an optimum case, when you have a normal workday, you’re pulling all the energy out of a battery, and that’s a great day. Everything’s perfect. On the other hand, if you’re in a difficult site, or you have to work a lot of hours in a day, we give you options.”
That’s not just options for the operator, it’s options for the OEM as well.
Growing the CASE EV family
For CASE Construction Equipment and its parent company, CNH Industrial, the ZQUIP partnership represents a strategic expansion, enabling it to grow the brand’s beyond existing compact electric offerings without sacrificing round-the-clock capability or requiring a utility-scale supply of new battery materials.
“CNH has always been a leader in sustainability, and we have a full range of compact electric vehicles, but we didn’t have a solution for heavy machinery until now,” says Egidio Galano, director of construction equipment product management for Europe at CNH Industrial.
The new partnership builds on an established relationship between the companies dating back to 2019. CASE’ 580EV electric backhoe loader, released in 2024 as the industry’s first production-ready purpose-built electric backhoe, utilizes the TerraTech platform from Moog (ZQUIP’s parent) for electric motion control and served as ZQUIP’s initial tester.
Since then, the project has continued to evolve, with the potential to grow to even bigger, more capable heavy machinery offerings. No word yet on pricing.
SOURCES | IMAGES: ZQUIP, via iVT.
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Hyundai will introduce the IONIQ 3 in less than a month. It’s expected to be more affordable than the Kona Electric, but Hyundai’s new EV will be much more advanced.
When will Hyundai launch the IONIQ 3?
We will see the IONIQ 3 for the first time at the Munich Motor Show in early September. Although Hyundai Europe’s CEO, Xavier Martinet, claims its IONIQ series is now the number two EV brand behind Tesla, this could be just the start.
Martinet told TopGear that the Inster EV and IONIQ 3 “are cheaper, so they’ll give us total coverage of the EV market.
The new EV, expected to arrive as the IONIQ 3, will sit between the Inster EV and Kona Electric in Hyundai’s lineup. According to TopGear, the IONIQ 3 will be slightly smaller than the Kona Electric, but more advanced. In the UK, the Hyundai Kona starts at £34,995 ($47,000), so prices are expected to start at about the same or even slightly less.
Like the Kia EV3, the UK’s best-selling retail EV through the first half of the year, the Hyundai IONIQ 3 is expected to be offered with 58.3 kWh and 81.4 kWh battery pack options for a WLTP range of about 260 and 365 miles.
Instead of the 800V electrical system used in the IONIQ 5, 6, and 9 models, the IONIQ 3 will use a cheaper 400V setup.
The interior will feature Hyundai’s latest software and new Pleos operating system, offering a smartphone-like user interface.
To save on costs, Hyundai will build the IONIQ 3 at its plant in Turkey. Martinet wants Hyundai to be just as big in the EV market as it is with gas and hybrid vehicles. Regarding EV sales, he explained that it “isn’t an absolute race but a race against the other manufacturers. We want the same share in all types of powertrain.”
Although adoption has been slower than some expected, Martinet still said, “people don’t go back to ICE” after owning an EV.”
Hyundai is expanding its lineup with new low-cost EVs, but still plans to continue selling gas-powered, plug-in hybrid (PHEV), and fully electric (EV) vehicles. It’s also looking to introduce extended-range electric vehicles (EREVs), which use a gas engine to power the battery.
Although the IONIQ 3 isn’t expected to arrive in the US, thanks to the new tariffs on imports, Hyundai still offers some of the most affordable EVs on the market.
After cutting prices again last month, the new 2025 Hyundai IONIQ 5 can now be leased for as low as $179 per month. It’s hard to find any monthly lease under $200, but for a $45,000 electric SUV, it’s a steal.
The Kia EV3 is already a top-selling electric vehicle in Europe and the most popular retail EV in the UK this year. Will Hyundai top it with the IONIQ 3? We’ll find out more soon. Stay tuned.
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