A photo of a natural gas flare burning near an oil pump jack at the New Harmony Oil Field in the U.S. on June 19, 2022.
Luke Sharrett | Bloomberg | Getty Images
U.S. crude prices fell more than 4% Wednesday after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries delayed a pivotal meeting on production cuts that was scheduled for the weekend.
The West Texas Intermediate contract for January dropped $3.27, or 4.2%, to $74.50 a barrel, while the Brent contract for January fell $3.32, or 4.03%, to $79.13 a barrel.
OPEC said in a statement the meeting of energy ministers is delayed until next Thursday without providing a reason. The talks have run into trouble due to Saudi dissatisfaction with other members’ production levels, delegates told Bloomberg.
Compliance is a major challenge for OPEC and its allies, called OPEC+, because many countries have an incentive to not stick with their production quotas, said Tamas Varga, an analyst with PVM Oil Associates.
“Compliance will be weak going forward,” Varga said. He pointed to Russia in particular, which needs to finance its war in Ukraine.
There was growing anticipation among traders this week that OPEC+ might implement additional production cuts, as oil has fallen precipitously from September highs amid record non OPEC production and demand concerns in China.
OPEC+ has already taken 5.16 million barrels per day off the market since 2022, which includes 3.66 million bpd from the group and 1.5 million bpd in voluntary cuts from Saudi Arabia and Russia.
Despite those deep cuts, Brent has fallen below $80 a barrel in recent weeks. Goldman Sachs believes OPEC will use its pricing power to keep Brent in a range of $80 to $100 a barrel.
Most analysts view OPEC+ extending the current cuts into 2024 as the most likely scenario, though they would not rule out the possibility of deeper cuts given current market conditions.
Israel and Hamas also agreed to a four-day ceasefire Wednesday to facilitate the release dozens of hostages held in Gaza. Oil spiked in October on worries that the war could spread throughout the Middle East, though traders increasingly view a regional conflict as unlikely.
A photo shows the logo on US electric carmaker Tesla’s European headquarters in Amsterdam on May 2, 2025.
Ramon Van Flymen | Afp | Getty Images
Elon Musk’s electric vehicle manufacturer and energy company Tesla is preparing to supply electricity to British households and businesses.
The Texas-based company formally submitted its request for an electricity license to the British energy regulator Ofgem at the end of last month, according to a notice on the watchdog’s website.
If approved, the move could pave the way for Tesla to compete with the big firms that dominate the U.K. energy market from as soon as next year.
The application, first reported by the Sunday Telegraph, came from Tesla Energy Ventures and was signed by Andrew Payne, who runs the firm’s European energy operations.
Tesla, which is best known as one of the world’s leading EV manufacturers, also develops solar energy generation systems and battery energy storage products.
Musk’s company already has an electricity supplier in Texas, called Tesla Electric. The service, which was launched in 2022, allows customers to optimize energy consumption and pays them for selling excess energy back to the grid.
Tesla’s push for a license to supply electricity to British households comes as the company endures a protracted European sales slump.
Data published last week by the U.K.’s Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) showed Tesla’s new car sales dropped by nearly 60% to 987 units last month, down from 2,462 a year ago.
In Germany, meanwhile, Tesla car sales fell to 1,110 units in July, down 55.1% from the same month in 2024.
The latest sales figures underscored some of the challenges facing the company, which continues to face stiff competition, particularly from Chinese EV manufacturers, and reputational damage from Musk’s incendiary rhetoric and relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.
In a move that helps the brand duck protectionist anti-Chinese tariffs, Volvo Cars has switched production of its award-winning EX30 models destined for US roads from its Zhangjiakou plant in China to the Ghent facility in Belgium.
Volvo EX30 production began in the company’s Ghent factory back in April, but those first cars were earmarked for the Swedish domestic and European export markets, but that move wasn’t primarily motivated by avoiding tariffs. As Electrive reports, the company seemed happy enough to continue importing its small electric crossover from China and accepting the new 28.8% tariffs (up from 10%), but the wait times to get the vehicles shipped in from China was imply too long.
In 2024, Swedish and German buyers had to wait up to eight months for their EX30 in some cases, according to Volvo Cars’ European boss, Arek Nowinski, per Automotive News. Once production in Ghent is fully up to speed, however, wait times should be cut to about 90 days. Those wait times, and the price hike associated with the tariffs, have hurt sales of the originally Chinese-made Volvo EV. In 2024, for example, the EX30 ranked third in European EV sales, but slipped out of the top 10 first half of 2025.
“The car is now being built in Europe, which means faster delivery times,” Volvo Cars CEO Hakan Samuelsson to Automotive News. “We should return to the sales and market share figures for the EX30 that we had before the introduction of tariffs.”
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Coming to Staying in America
Volvo EX30; via Volvo Cars.
The EX30’s switch to Ghent is good news for American fans of the compact, lickety-quick Volvo EV. Now that it’s no longer exclusively made in China, Volvo has decided to give it a stay of execution as it revamps its US product lineup to better align with market trends (read: SUVs) and the changing political landscape (read: tariffs and inflation).
The reason? The Made in China version of the EX30 would virtually unsellable in the US due to the implementation of 147% tariffs on vehicles imported from China. Vehicles imported from Europe, meanwhile, carry just 15% tariffs, keeping the EX30 in a competitive price bracket.
Expect to see both Ghent and South Carolina play an increasingly large role in Volvo’s US product mix – at least for the next three-odd years.
SOURCE | IMAGES: Volvo Cars, Automotive News, via Electrive.
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It featured four advanced electric motors with a combined power of nearly 1,300 horsepower. The U9 can accelerate from 0 to 62 mph (0 to 100 km/h) in just 2.36 seconds.
With a motor at each wheel and a highly advanced electric-air suspension, the U9 can turn on itself and even jump over potholes.
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But that was only the beginning.
Based on a new filing with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), BYD is preparing to launch a new ‘Track Edition’ of the Yangwang U9:
When an automaker releases a “track” version of a car, it typically primarily features body changes for better aerodynamic performance, adding downforce, and it will also often feature bigger brakes.
The Yangwang U9 ‘Track Edition’ appears to feature all that… and much more.
The filing reveals that BYD updated the motors at each wheel to a new 555 kW motor. That’s a higher-performing motor than in most performance electric vehicles. The U9 Track Edition has four of them for a total of 2,220 kW (3,019 hp).
I would have thought that this was a typo if it wasn’t for the insane electric vehicles coming out of China these days.
Here are a few pictures from the MIIT filing:
There are a lot of performance specs that are not included in the MIIT filing. Therefore, it will be interesting to see when the vehicle is fully unveiled and BYD reveals what kind of performance it can achieve with 3,000 hp packed in 4 electric motors.
Here are a few other features mentioned in the filing:
Standard features:
20-inch wheels with 325/35 R20 tyres
Carbon-fibre roof
Large fixed carbon-fibre rear wing
Rear diffuser with adjustable blades for aerodynamic optimisation
Optional aerodynamic parts:
Standard or enhanced carbon-fibre front splitter
Electric rear wing
Electrek’s Take
How are they going to keep that thing from flying away? Seriously.
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