August 13, 2025

By Karan Singh

Your Tesla and Powerwall may soon do more than just use and store energy if you’re in the UK. Instead, they could help power your home and earn you money. For the first time outside the United States, Tesla has officially applied for a license to supply electricity directly to homes across the United Kingdom.

Tesla’s plan to deploy Tesla Electric in the UK will apply to homes across England, Scotland, and Wales.

The Tesla Electric Model

The best preview of what this service could look like comes from Texas, where Tesla is already operating Tesla Electric as a retail power supplier. The Texas model is designed to create a fully integrated ecosystem for Tesla’s customers.

It allows customers to charge their vehicles with cheaper electricity, and pays them for feeding surplus power from their home batteries back to the grid during periods of high demand. This system is known as a Virtual Power Plant, or VPP, which helps to stabilize the grid, while rewarding participating homeowners.

Tesla has implemented this system with great success in Puerto Rico, deploying Powerwalls and the Virtual Power Plant to stabilize the island’s aging and unstable grid.

Benefits for Subscribers

Once Tesla Electric arrives in the UK, owners of Tesla products will likely see a series of benefits from subscribing to the service. Starting off, this includes access to cheaper electricity rates, as well as discounted rates for EV charging.

For those who drive a lot, that makes a big difference – some Tesla Electric owners in Texas get to drive for nearly free based on the low rates offered by the program in conjunction with charging during off-hours.

Alongside that, you’ll have the ability to sell stored energy – up to a customizable minimum limit from your Tesla Powerwalls. You can set any minimum limit you like, so that you’re left with enough energy for yourself. The Powerwalls will then charge back up during off-hours when electricity is cheaper. This essentially allows you to sell when the energy price is high and buy it when it’s low.

On top of that, your Powerwall will automatically charge to 100% automatically if a major storm or outage is predicted, enabling you to keep your home powered when you need it most.

It integrates your car, home battery, and electricity supply into a unified energy system, all managed via the Tesla App.

A Massive, Built-in Network

Tesla isn’t starting from scratch in the UK. The company already has a massive potential customer base of more than a quarter of a million Tesla owners, and tens of thousands of Powerwalls already installed in the country. 

That’s thousands upon thousands of customers who are ready to build Tesla Electric UK into a single network – making Tesla a significant player in the UK energy market overnight.

The application was filed late last month with the UK’s energy regulator, Ofgem. The regulator can take up to nine months to process such applications, which means that if approved, Tesla could begin supplying energy to UK homes as soon as next year.

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August 12, 2025

By Karan Singh

In a major announcement, Elon Musk has revealed that Tesla intends to begin scaling up its newly launched ride-hailing service in the San Francisco Bay Area and open it to the general public. This is the next major phase for Robotaxi in California, with an aim to move it beyond its currently limited, invite-only status and into a full-fledged public ride-hailing service.

We are working as quickly as possible to get 100+ Teslas operating for autonomous ride-hailing (can’t use the word “taxi” or “cab” in California) in the Bay Area and allow anyone to request a ride

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 6, 2025 The 100+ Car Milestone

Elon has stated that Tesla is working as quickly as possible to get 100+ Teslas operating in its ride-hailing fleet in the Bay Area. Reaching a fleet of over 100 vehicles is a huge milestone. It shows Tesla’s commitment to expand and improve its “Robotaxi” network, especially in the Bay Area, where the geofence is huge compared to Austin, partly thanks to having a driver behind the wheel to help out with any edge cases.

From Beta to Public Access

Most importantly for customers, Elon confirmed that Tesla’s goal is to allow anyone in the Bay Area to request a ride. This is a transition from the currently limited, invite-only beta test to a proper transportation service that is fully open to the public.

For now, the Robotaxi app itself is still only available via TestFlight, Apple’s early-access app testing tool. There is no Android version available yet, which will be a factor for Tesla’s public launch of the network.

Robotaxi By Any Other Name

In a rather fascinating look at the strange and convoluted regulatory landscape of California, Elon also noted a specific branding constraint. He noted that Tesla cannot use the words taxi or cab in California when referring to the service.

This detail explains why Tesla has officially branded the Robotaxi Network as “Supervised Ride-Hailing Service” in California, and Elon himself uses the term “autonomous ride-hailing.” It’s definitely an interesting hurdle that Tesla will need to clear – and California likely won’t be the most challenging.

States with big taxi lobbies, like New York State, could make regulatory hurdles more difficult for Tesla and other autonomous competitors like Waymo to establish and grow their services.

While there’s no firm timeline given for Tesla’s fleet expansion, Tesla has been aggressively expanding its network. Once Robotaxi matures into a public service, the next steps will be to see just how fast Tesla can pass regulatory hurdles and expand the network to new areas.

August 12, 2025

By Karan Singh

While specs and charging times are always important, the true test of any new heavy-duty vehicle like the Tesla Semi is how well it’s received by professionals who spend their days behind the wheel.

For the Tesla Semi, the verdict from a veteran driver at the major US trucking company SAIA is resounding.

“I hope I retire in this truck”.

In a new video showing SAIA’s real-world testing, a senior driver’s real, enthusiastic praise gives us a good view of just exactly what real truckers think of Tesla’s Semi.

A Demanding Day in the Life

This is no simple highway cruise, nor is it transporting empty containers down minor slopes. The driver, who volunteered for the role, works for SAIA, a nationwide Less-Than-Truckload (LTL) carrier with a fleet of over 7,000 trucks. He puts the Tesla Semi through its paces on demanding city routes, handling pickup and delivery with 10 to 15 stops daily.

This is real-world, strenuous work that tests a truck’s durability, maneuverability, and ease of use.

The Electric Advantage

After spending his days in the Semi, Tom Sterba had a list of specific praises for the Semi’s design and performance.

One of the biggest things was, of course, related to the actual performance of the truck. Electric motors are infinitely smoother than ICE engines – and often far more powerful at various tasks, including towing. Tom’s praises began with the Semi’s performance – and the fact that it could smoothly start at a light, and continue accelerating, all without lagging behind traffic.

That’s especially important in the LTL environment, where these big semi trucks are fighting to get through heavy inner-city traffic to deliver goods to their final destinations.

Of course, alongside that performance, you also need maneuverability, and this was honestly one of the most surprising things. The Tesla Semi absolutely excels in city operations, and offers some absolutely jaw-dropping maneuverability – along with a turning radius better than traditional two-axis trucks.

Semi trucks are big beasts – many feet long, many feet wide, and a massive turn radius that’s better measured in yards than feet, but the Tesla Semi is different. Its turning circle is far tighter, and due to that increased maneuverability, it is far easier to drive – whether you’re taking a turn in a busy city intersection, or backing up your trailer into a tight loading dock.

It also wouldn’t be Tesla without a nod to all the tech. At first, Tom was surprised, and he said it took him a bit to get used to the fact that he didn’t have just one display, but two. However, he quickly fell in love, especially with the Semi’s built-in navigation, alongside its impressive camera clarity.

Ultimately, the experience, for SAIA’s drivers, has been transformative. Tom stated that he preferred the Tesla Semi over gas trucks – and he wants this to be the vehicle he finishes his career in. 

The Bigger Picture

This glowing review comes as part of a larger, more serious evaluation by SAIA as a whole. The company is intentionally running its two Tesla Semis hard – so they can better understand its capabilities and limitations. This real-world testing has provided valuable data to both SAIA and Tesla, showing the truck has an effective range of over 500 miles, and can be charged from 5% to 80% in approximately 45 minutes.

Alongside that, SAIA has noted that its drivers are charging just weekly during their LTL operations. The Semi doesn’t need to be charged up constantly, nor does it need regular maintenance check-overs to review hard-wearing engine parts – they simply aren’t there.

That’s a big advantage, especially as LTL accounts for approximately 5-15% of the US trucking industry’s revenues per year. While Tesla continues to move from its pilot phase to high-volume production, this enthusiastic endorsement from a real trucker is one of the strongest validations of the capabilities of the Tesla Semi to date.

It proves that beyond the specs, the Semi delivers a superior and preferable experience for the professionals who are actually behind the wheel every day.

Check out the whole video below: