1000’s of Britons have voiced opposition to a request by Tesla to produce electrical energy to British properties.
And what’s the only cause for this opposition? It’s due to Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
Final month, Tesla utilized for a license to produce electrical energy to British properties. The applying was despatched to Ofgem, UK’s authorities vitality regulator.
Along with Tesla’s enterprise promoting EVs, and its CEO’s enterprise making guarantees about autonomy and robots that by no means materialize, Tesla can also be within the enterprise of promoting vitality merchandise.
The vitality merchandise embody photo voltaic panels, after Tesla’s controversial acquisition of SolarCity, an organization run by Musk’s cousin Lyndon Rive, in 2016. In addition they embody Powerwalls, Tesla’s dwelling battery backup system which might retailer vitality from a house’s photo voltaic panels or from the grid, after which use it or promote it again to the grid later throughout peak hours when electrical energy is costliest.
However much more apparently, Powerwalls may be hooked right into a community, referred to as a Digital Energy Plant or VPP, which permits hundreds of batteries to concurrently push vitality to the grid when the grid wants it. This may assist to finish energy outages and may also make a major sum of money for householders who take part.
A VPP may also assist with general grid stability. Whereas a single battery doesn’t do a lot to assist your entire grid, hundreds of batteries all collectively may help to shave peaks and shift masses grid-wide, serving to to allow the transition to renewable types of vitality technology like wind and photo voltaic, which may be intermittent as a result of climate, clouds, gusts of wind and so forth.
And the UK is doing fairly effectively at renewable adoption – the island which began the economic revolution as a result of it’s actually constructed on a mattress of coal simply shut down its final coal plant final 12 months. Clear electrical energy development is robust, with over half of its electrical energy coming from renewables sources final 12 months.
And it has set much more bold targets going ahead, focusing on an 81% emissions reduce by 2035.
So, a VPP is likely to be helpful in a rustic with a lot wind and photo voltaic.
Whereas Tesla’s utility doesn’t specify particulars of its plans (In accordance with UK legislation), it appears doubtless that the aim behind the applying could be to arrange a VPP system within the UK. Tesla already runs VPPs in Texas and California.
So, all sounds good, proper? It is a helpful product, and it might assist the UK confront a problem it might want to face because it transitions to a cleaner grid. And, at a time when electrical energy costs are going up worldwide, extra competitors and adaptability in vitality markets can solely be an excellent factor.
The one downside? Everybody hates Elon Musk. Quite a bit.
Because it seems, Ofgem has been swamped with hundreds of feedback opposing Tesla’s plan, on account of a marketing campaign that claims Musk shouldn’t be allowed to get anyplace close to UK’s electrical energy provide.
The marketing campaign was launched by the group Greatest for Britain, which payments itself as “the researchers, information scientists, strategists, and activists, fixing the issues Britain faces after Brexit.”
It arrange an motion marketing campaign permitting Brits to ship a letter to Ofgem stating their opposition to Tesla’s plan.
The letter argues that Musk has confirmed, by his latest political exercise, that he’s not within the basic wellbeing of the populace, however relatively in “enriching himself”pushing his personal agenda.” It accuses him of “harmful incompetence or wilful neglect,” and says that these must be “disqualifying qualities for entrance into our vitality markets.”
For background, whereas Musk claimed to be working to cut back US authorities waste (when he truly elevated the deficit), he in actual fact spent that point advising the US to defund entities investigating his illegal actions.
The letter additionally mentions the “fast unfold of misinformation, hatred and conspiracy theories within the UK and throughout the broader world” on twitter since Musk spent $44 billion to purchase the corporate (that later dropped to a worth nearer to $15 billion – his latest buy of it from himself however). After Musk bought the platform, hate speech has flourished there.
Not one of the factors made by the letter deal with Tesla’s enterprise as an entire, however relatively solely on its CEO’s dangerous actions.
As of yesterday, Greatest for Britain says 8,462 folks had used it to contact Ofgem to voice their opposition to the plan. Public remark stays open till Friday, August 22.
Musk’s actions proceed to hurt Tesla’s enterprise
This isn’t the primary time Tesla has obtained native opposition for enterprise offers as a result of Musk’s poor public persona. In Might, Australians voiced opposition to a plan to construct a battery manufacturing unit and Tesla showroom, ~95% of which opposed the plan (with some alternative Australian language showing within the public feedback).
And simply yesterday, the Austin American-Statesman reported opposition to Tesla’s tax breaks from residents of the county the place its Texas Gigafactory is positioned.
Individually, Musk has obtained pushback within the UK and elsewhere for his help for excessive rightwing and racist political figures, each within the US the place he gave tons of of hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in bribes to a treasonous felon who tried to overthrow the US authorities, and within the UK the place he has given each rhetorical and financial help for a violent racist fraudster who has been imprisoned a number of instances.
His unambiguous Nazi salutes, agreeing with a protection of Hitler’s actions within the Holocaust, help for German neo-Nazis, and plenty of different white supremacist statements didn’t assist, both.
Past his affiliation with racist politics, he has additionally straight unfold misinformation about local weather change himself, regardless of this being a contradiction of Tesla’s mission. Musk has even mentioned that his personal latest actions are “not good for America or the world.”
The results of these actions has been to drive protests towards the corporate, embarrass homeowners and destroy Tesla’s model status.
Within the UK particularly, Tesla gross sales have fallen by 60% year-over-year, based on the latest July numbers. Tesla gross sales present comparable developments in most territories by which the corporate sells, with Tesla gross sales down globally regardless of a rising international EV market.
However, regardless of Elon Musk demonstrably being the downside with Tesla proper now, his family and friends on Tesla’s board not too long ago gave him a ~$29 billion payout, claiming that it could “energize and focus” the corporate’s unhealthy CEO.
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