
Tesla Motors, Inc. Is Now Officially Tesla, Inc - pearlsteinj
https://techcrunch.com/2017/02/01/tesla-motors-inc-is-now-officially-tesla-inc/
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arikr
"On January 9, 2007, Apple Computer, Inc. (the “Company”) amended Article I of
its Restated Articles of Incorporation solely to change the corporate name
from “Apple Computer, Inc.” to “Apple Inc.” The name change and amendment were
completed pursuant to Section 1110(d) of the California Corporations Code
through a merger of the Company’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Apple Inc., with
and into the Company. A copy of the Company’s Certificate of Ownership, as
filed with the Secretary of State of the State of California, amending Article
I of the Company’s Restated Articles of Incorporation solely to reflect the
Company’s new corporate name, is attached hereto as Exhibit 3.1 and is
incorporated herein by reference."

[http://ccbn.10kwizard.com/cgi/convert/pdf/APPLEINC8K.pdf?pdf...](http://ccbn.10kwizard.com/cgi/convert/pdf/APPLEINC8K.pdf?pdf=1&repo=tenk&ipage=4589126&num=-2&pdf=1&xml=1&cik=320193&odef=8&rid=12&quest=1&dn=2&dn=3)

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Animats
Apple had a name conflict with a 60's band which used the name "Apple
Records". That was settled around the time the iPod came out.

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evaneykelen
Actually the company was called Apple Corps and it was not a band:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sosumi](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sosumi)

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monocasa
I mean, it's wholly owned by The Beatles and their estates, and AFAICT it's
sole raison d'être is to protect their IP.

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mamurphy
This seems in large part to reflect their expansion in to battery and solar
technology following the aquision of SolarCity. However, I wonder when
products such as SolarRoof and Powerwall 2 will be become available. When I
read/viewed the promotional material for those products I got the impression
that they would be "hitting the shelves" early 2017. Perhaps I was mistaken.

The Powerwall 2 order page[1] used to read "Installations begin in January
2017." I just checked back and it now reads "February 2017." On March 1, will
it change to "March 2017?"

I am a very serious potential customer (dad needs help ordering a power backup
solution for his medical devices) and sent a detailed email asking for more
information. I didn't want to put down a deposit without more details about
whether the products are available, if my area is suitable, and when
installation would start ("January - no, February - no, March - actually,
check back this summer" wouldn't be acceptable for my use case). I didn't hear
back for a few weeks.

I just followed up again. Hopefully they respond this time, but I would
imagine that I am probably going to go with another battery backup solution
(or a gas-based generator solution) at this point.

[1][https://www.tesla.com/powerwall](https://www.tesla.com/powerwall)

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pazra
Will be interesting to see what product categories they enter in the future.
Currently they have cars and batteries, but there's got to be a good change
they're planning on entering a new product category soon.

Any thoughts on what they might bring to market?

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TaylorAlexander
I'm hoping homes.

There's lots of energy to be saved in better home construction, and factory-
made homes can be made more cheaply than on-site built homes.

That's the one I've been hoping for ever since I saw the solar roof.

~~~
eliaspro
Also looking at the German standards for low or even positive energy homes I
see a huge potential for energy efficient homes in the US (but also other
markets).

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sandworm101
Im waiting for the day that a "positive energy" trumps energy efficiency in
germany. With solar prices dropping we may get to the point that it is cheaper
to not insulate or otherwise reduce energy use and instead achieve positive
energy entirely by slapping on more solar panels. Zero-carbon is a net
measurement. You dont actually need to be efficient in terms of total energy
use.

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ZeroGravitas
This has already started to a degree, as people trying to build net-zero homes
find that at a certain point the cost (in money/effort/carbon/energy) to add
further insulation exceeds the cost of adding heat to the home via adding
solar PV. I believe retro-fits of older homes hit this point earlier, since it
can be harder to insulate them beyond the low hanging fruit.

Obviously as PV price continues to drop, this point will be met earlier and
earlier.

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sandworm101
Ive observed this already in off-grid situation where the priorities are
different (no net metering, power not used/stored is power abandoned) but when
it hits the mainstream it could make a real dent in home
construction/insulation biz.

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BinaryIdiot
I wonder if there is a plan, likely in a later future, in which SpaceX and
Tesla merge. Like Tesla and Solar City I could see Elon blurring the lines
between SpaceX and Tesla on various projects.

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labster
While rockets do need lots of energy to make thrust, and both companies are
built around smart people there's really nothing else in common between SpaceX
and Tesla. SpaceX is high-risk shipping, Tesla makes consumer goods. SpaceX
makes vehicles with hydrocarbon propellants, the whole point of Tesla is to
remove the hydrocarbons from vehicles. And there's no reason to put Tesla at
risk if SpaceX runs into a string of bad luck.

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jonwachob91
Elon wants to commercialize Mars (SpaceX), he'll need renewable energy to do
it (Tesla). His end goals warrant a strong partnership between the two.

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kozak
To me it looks like they have always wanted the simpler name, but were able to
sort out the legal and trademark issues only now. Same for Apple, probably.

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zherbert
Now they need the Twitter handle.

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Shivetya
So what are people's expectations of what industry Tesla expands into next? I
am curious as outside their space operations the rest is highly tied to
battery technology. Is there room for new products there?

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SHOwnsYou
I hope his long game is launching solar arrays into space and beaming the
power back to earth, effectively combining Tesla Motors, SolarCity, and SpaceX

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Alupis
Musk is actually very critical of solar power in space. He says it's very
inefficient due to the lack of atmosphere to "pre-filter" the energy[1]. He
believes nuclear power is the way to go in space.

[1] [http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/a8101/elon-
musk-o...](http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/a8101/elon-musk-on-
spacex-tesla-and-why-space-solar-power-must-die-13386162/)

~~~
philipkglass
Neither "nuclear" nor "filter" appear in the text of that interview.

Here's the paragraph:

 _One thing we learned today: While Musk loves electric cars and spaceflight,
there 's one thing he hates: space solar power. "You'd have to convert photon
to electron to photon back to electron. What's the conversion rate?" he says,
getting riled up for the first time during his talk. "Stab that bloody thing
in the heart!"_

He's talking about space based solar power for terrestrial consumption. Solar
cells actually generate more electricity without the atmosphere filtering the
solar spectrum. But in LEO they can't stay aligned with a ground receiver.
Beyond LEO they face enough charged particle radiation damage that standard
silicon cells degrade too quickly, so you have to use more expensive cells.
And all solar power satellite schemes rely on converting solar electricity to
microwave energy in space and converting back to electricity on the ground;
that's the lossy "photon to electron to photon back to electron" conversion
that he (rightfully, IMO) gets riled up about.

As I see it, the solar power satellite concept could only sound plausible in
the 1970s. That was back when both silicon and gallium arsenide solar cells
were exotic and before the Space Shuttle had actually flown, so people could
still use its ridiculously optimistic on-paper attributes to plan SPS
construction. When it turned out that the Shuttle was _not_ going to fly
anywhere close to 50 times per year, and the costs per flight went up
commensurately, that was a major setback. The falling cost of terrestrial PV
modules based on crystalline silicon undermined another rationale for SPS. It
made a lot more sense to think about exotic, expensive installation locations
when the solar hardware itself was expensive regardless of location. The third
setback, the falling cost of battery storage, is currently underway. A
geosynchronous solar power satellite can deliver power even when it's night on
Earth, but the relative value of that too is falling.

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smegel
I'm going to build a house in a few years time. I have a feeling there will be
a lot of Tesla branded stuff in (and on) it.

