
Tesla is a Battery Company - jeremyrwelch
http://blog.jeremyrwelch.com/tesla-is-a-battery-company
======
happertiger
If Tesla executes, they are going to be the leading company in a number of
industries, of which battery technology and manufacturing is one of them. They
are also leaders in direct sales, JIT manufacturing, motor design, any one of
which is a disruptive innovation channel they could monetize, all in the
service of building electric cars. Tesla is an energy company, a battery
company, a car company, etc, just as GE or any other innovator ends up in many
segments. What they are is a nascent Multi-business, Multi-national company
that the market is betting (based on the stock price) is going to be able to
be a global force. A lot of publicly traded companies are single-business
companies that derive most of their revenues from a domestic operation. The
few companies that manage to become multinationals have this outsized
influence because they tend to drive massive revenues, earnings, and markets
caps. The correlation between operating in multiple business areas and being a
massive multinational is a direct relationship, because disruptive businesses
always reach a saturation point. Businesses like Tesla that set out to disrupt
industries that represent significant portions of GDP will naturally need to
move into multiple markets in order to execute their strategies, because they
need to disrupt or create a sequence of disruptive or creative strategies in
order to reach that saturation point (natural market size).

I love Elon for the fact that he thinks of his businesses on a planetary
basis, and if you consider the point, you'll see he's actually executing Tesla
in multiple markets simultaneously, and essentially going directly from
startup to Multinational, and skipping the domination of a single category. He
knows that if he doesn't, he's going to face stiff competition from entrenched
companies and it's likely he'll lose his advantage. But by tight control of
the supply line businesses, and a few strategic relationships with existing
multinationals, he's able to elevate Tesla into a multi-business, multi-
national organization in record time.

Sure, they're a battery company, but what they really are is an organization
that's shooting for the moon and actually executing at that scale. Simple
incredible to watch.

~~~
PinguTS
In what sense is Tesla a leader in JIT manufacturing?

Do you know how manufacturing takes place at all those other car companies in
Germany, Japan, and South Korea? I can not talk about the Asian-based
companies, but I know for sure that the manufacturing plants in Germany are
very ahead. Because they produce different models at same time on the same
track. Each and every car is different in every aspect. In Europe it is very
common that you order your car they way you like it and do not buy the one
that dealer has in its parking lot. You order to your specification and the
option lists are huge compared to the one from Tesla.

Tesla is having only one Model with limited different features and many same
parts from Ford, Audi, Mercedes, Bosch and others and still is unable to keep
up with delivery as you can see from their latest IR reports.

BTW, the Tesla plant is build with German technology by German companies. Just
to remind you.

~~~
eterm
The claim about leading JIT does seem a bit ridiculous, given JIT
manufactoring grew out of the Toyata Production System[1] which encompases
Kaizen, Kanban and similar.

All of which was pioneered decades before Tesla existed.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Production_System](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Production_System)

~~~
PinguTS
I learned that as Toyotism.

EDIT: Another therm for that is "Lean manufacturing"
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_manufacturing](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_manufacturing)

~~~
lanaius
Lean manufacturing works right up to the point where one of your vendors gives
you a bad part. Your choice is to either shut down a line or have excess
backup supplies at which point there's no need to have been lean.

~~~
e12e
I'm not sure how it helps to have a backup supplies of bad parts?

It should be obvious that quality control across the entire supply chain is
vital to make lean work -- and indeed that is how Toyota and others does it:
They work very closely with suppliers.

------
DenisM
Musk has previously said in an interview that Li-Ion batteries were at $600 /
kwh, but when he looked at the component and manufacturing costs they were at
$100 / kwh. Somehow the entire supply chain has piked up a lot of overhead,
and he realized it would be possible to reduce that. At those prices, Model-S
battery pack costs are between $36k and $51k!

When I realized that, I came to conclusion that Tesla Motors could be viewed
as merely a stepping stone on the way to building a Gigafactory.

When demand for batteries is low, a low-volume battery factory has to share
its suppliers with other clients, and those suppliers will price their risks
and profits into the deal, multiple times along the chain. On the other hand
if you have enough volume to justify having the entire manufacturing cycle
under one roof, from ore to ready packages, all those markups go out the
window. It wouldn't surprise me to see overhead going from the staggering 500%
to a more moderate 50%, but only as long as there is enough demand for all of
those batteries. Which is why you need cars - they consume a lot of energy.

By now it's pretty much certain that Tesla will be the first to build a
Gigafactory. The interesting bit is whether Musk figured out a way to make
sure no one has the ability to build a competing Gigafactory and commoditize
the business. Right now only Tesla itself can generate enough demand, so they
are pretty safe. If Musk can convince the other car manufacturers to buy
batteries from Tesla, it will kill the incentive for anyone else to build a
competing Gigafactory for a long time. So at the least Musk needs to appear
non-threatening to other car manufacturers, and perhaps the best move would be
to split battery division away from Tesla Motors completely.

~~~
TorKlingberg
You use "Gigafactory" as if it was an established word. It isn't. It it the
name of Tesla's battery factory being built in Nevada.

~~~
mikeash
It's so named because its planned capacity is measured in gigawatt-hours of
batteries per year. "A gigafactory" to refer to any factory of that size is a
reasonable term to use.

~~~
eru
Couldn't you just measure the capacity in directly in Watts instead of Watt
hours / year?

~~~
mikeash
Certainly, and you could measure battery capacity in joules, and... well, for
some reason we've standardized on weird units for these things.

------
ethanbond
I don't think this is a revelation to anyone who has been paying attention?

This seems to have been the dominant hypothesis for a long, long time, and is
always what justified Tesla's early (very) red activities. They were a battery
company using luxury automobiles to fund battery R&D.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
>They were a battery company using luxury automobiles to fund battery R&D.

This seems questionable to me. I just don't see lithium-ion powering electric
cars in an affordable or usable fashion. The density isn't great and after 4-5
years the battery pack wears out, making your $30-50k battery investment
disappear. There's no resale value on a battery that can't even hold 30% of
its original charge. Musk's solar city shenanigans are cute, but not a lot of
people are moving to solar when electricity is so cheap.

Tesla just never got the battery breakthrough it needed and it will probably
never become a hybrid engine company. All this talk of "just wait until Musk
does this or does that" has been the same excuse we've been hearing for years.
It hasn't materialized, at least for Tesla.

$300m losses in 12 months is scary. $100m loss in the past quarter is just
bad. Musk can build this factory, but he can't improve lithium-ion tech nor
can he raise the price of gas. If gas is under $6 or so, there's very little
incentive to buy a pure electric. Fanboyism aside, Tesla just looks like a
mess and making excuses about how its really not a car company stinks of
desperation. Tesla is pretty much a failed company. Unless they pivot to
hybrid engines and start selling a lower cost car, they'll just continue to be
the toy of the idle rich.

~~~
reportingsjr
Wow, you're pulling out some numbers that seem very unfounded here. You also
seem to be VERY anti-tesla as seen in your other posts in this thread.

Can you show me where you have seen hard evidence of battery packs "wearing
out" after 4-5 years? Also, please define wearing out as there are different
meanings to that.

Contrary to what you have said in this thread the battery life has actually
been significantly better than expected
([http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/In-Gear/2015/0219/How-
much...](http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/In-Gear/2015/0219/How-much-will-
Tesla-Model-S-battery-life-decrease-over-time))

Also, saying the only incentive of buying an electric car to save money is
ignoring a lot of other factors in the word.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
In practice we're seeing ~25% loss of capacity at 40k miles in LEAF real world
testing. 30% loss at 50k miles is the accepted norm. Capacity goes down
annually after that. It seems that some cars are doing better, but play cars
owned by the rich that get very few miles like the early Tesla sportscars.
Real world daily-drivers like the LEAF experience the exact decay that was
predicted. Lithium-ion isnt some new hot tech we don't understand. We
understand it very well.

[http://www.torquenews.com/2250/how-long-will-electric-
vehicl...](http://www.torquenews.com/2250/how-long-will-electric-vehicle-
batteries-last-tesla-s-roadster-could-be-guide)

Americans replace their car every 6 years now. You may have 30-50% capacity at
year 6, depending on a lot of factors. This is unacceptable considering the
anemic range of a new battery. EV means losing almost all your car's value
after 3-5 years. High trade-in values we enjoy now will be lost as the
majority of the cost of the vehicle will be its battery. These batteries will
fill landfills and be an environmental disaster.

The current "fix" is just to build the battery replacement cost into the
warranty. So now your car is more expensive. Warranty claims now become a
legal struggle over what is faulty or not. Nissan claims 70% battery power is
non-faulty. That means your 75m LEAF range is now ~50m. My gas car gets that
in a gallon and a half.

>You also seem to be VERY anti-tesla as seen in your other posts in this
thread.

Its a 12 year old company that has done nothing but burn money. They have no
mature product on the horizon and their promises of making a middle-class
cheap EV with great range and durability are just not in the realm of
technology. The stock has been on a decline since mid last year and they have
a celebrity CEO who is good at PR and gimmicks but not delivering affordable
vehicles.

>Also, saying the only incentive of buying an electric car to save money

This is the only motivator for mass market acceptance. The idle rich love the
acceleration of that $100k car, but that doesn't matter to someone who makes
half or a third that in a year.

------
thrownaway2424
I don't get this article. The battery in a Tesla Model S is literally a huge
array of Panasonic flashlight batteries. It is an off-the-shelf catalog item
you can order from Panasonic. Admittedly, you should probably have prior
arrangements before ordering millions.

The central insight of the Tesla founders was that people really will pay
$85000 for an electric car. The other auto makers didn't believe that.

~~~
pdonis
_> The battery in a Tesla Model S is literally a huge array of Panasonic
flashlight batteries. It is an off-the-shelf catalog item you can order from
Panasonic._

Um, no. Viewing the battery of a Tesla Model S as just a big flashlight
battery misses the whole point of what Tesla is doing.

A flashlight battery does one thing: it discharges energy until it's empty.
Even an ordinary rechargeable household battery only does two things: it
recharges, and then it discharges.

The battery in a Tesla Model S, OTOH, is continuously _computing_ whether to
charge or discharge, how much to charge or discharge, what its current state
of charge is, how to manage charging and discharging to maximize its life,
etc. And it has to do this in a constantly changing environment--a car that is
traveling at varying speeds over varying types of roads. (Doing it for a home
battery is actually easier, in a way, because there is less variability in the
load.)

This sort of technology is absolutely critical if batteries are going to
become significant in our energy budget on a large scale. The energy storage
medium of the battery is only a tiny piece of the whole picture.

~~~
vonklaus
> The battery in a Tesla Model S, OTOH, is continuously computing whether to
> charge or discharge

Is it? I would imagine the software does that. The battery really is a large
array of commodity batteries made by panosonic. Tesla is doing the gigafactory
for vertical integration and to bolster it's own supply. Obviously, they have
done a lot of innovation around the pack in terms of heat distribution and
cell construction, as well as the management system. The innovation is really
about the macro-cell construction and the software to manage the array. On a
micro-level it is just a bunch of commodity batteries wites into small cells,
that make up a large cell array.

~~~
pdonis
_> I would imagine the software does that._

Obviously the lithium-ion cells themselves aren't doing the computation;
software is. But the software should be considered part of the "battery" as a
system. Without the software the lithium-ion cells are useless for this
application, and indeed for any application more dynamic than a flashlight. So
the software development that Tesla has done is essential for making batteries
viable in the sorts of applications that people want to use them for to help
solve our energy problems.

~~~
waterfowl
would "realtime battery management software company" be a better fit?

~~~
pdonis
Possibly, but as I understand it, the software is tightly coupled to the
battery hardware; if you were to swap in a different kind of cell, or even the
same kind of cell but from a different manufacturer, you would have to rework
much of the software. That's why I think it's better to view the storage cells
and the software as a single integrated "battery" system.

------
joshfraser
They're also a software company. I was recently shocked to hear that ~60% of
Tesla employees are involved in software engineering, versus a normal car
company at around 2%.

Source: [http://www.businessinsider.com/morgan-stanley-tesla-
multiply...](http://www.businessinsider.com/morgan-stanley-tesla-multiply-
stock-worlds-most-important-car-company-2015-3)

------
chatmasta
Also consider:

\- solar city benefits from increased storage capabilities of batteries. Solar
panels (a capital investment) generate higher returns when they also power
buildings at night.

\- National electric grids benefit from increased battery storage because they
can store electricity for hours after it's actually generated.

\- tesla is building a network of superchargers all connected to the electric
grid

\- tesla has arguably more at stake than any company in battery R&D. Few if
any companies are as motivated as tesla for battery tech to improve.

My hypothesis is that Elon Musk is architecting Tesla as the "cloud" of
electricity generation, storage, and transfer. He is building the ultimate
smart grid. Electric cars are a nice excuse to develop the requisite network
effects and initial momentum before expanding to other verticals. He's going
from a red ocean to a blue ocean. [1]

[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Ocean_Strategy](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Ocean_Strategy)

~~~
saryant
How on earth can a strategy centered around generating, storing and
transmitting electricity be considered blue-ocean?

~~~
sparkman55
Well, the innovation is really about storing electricity. We've been
generating and transmitting electricity for over a century now.

Once we can store electricity (in batteries, for example), then intermittent
power sources, like solar panels (and also wind turbines) become much more
valuable.

Energy storage is a very inconsequential market right now, but if smart-grid-
connected Teslas really take off, then they become important not only to the
automotive industry, but also the electricity and energy industries.

~~~
lotsofmangos
Once solar cells hit a tipping point, storage becomes one of the best
businesses to be in.

------
apendleton
I'm sort of curious how the economics of this will end up working out from a
consumer's perspective. Lithium ion's big advantage was energy density -- you
can store a lot of juice for not much mass or volume, which is a really big
deal for portable electronics or cars... for a stationary home installation,
though, much less so. Having a giant thing sitting in your backyard might be
okay if it was high-capacity and cheap, and it seems like there might be other
contenders besides Li-ion that might do well given the different set of
operating constraints that stationary storage would have. Maybe other battery
chemistries, or maybe kinetic energy storage devices like evacuated flywheels,
compressed air, etc....

~~~
Brakenshire
Energy density is still important for home installations, especially if you
have ambitions of retro fitting on a wide scale. If you could get to a
situation where solar + battery was cheaper than a grid connection, a majority
of the population will still not buy it if it's something which will require a
half tonne object to be installed on a specially constructed concrete plinth,
brought on a lorry with a crane system, and taking up 2m x 1m of space. Far,
far better if it can be within the size and weight range of a normal white box
utility, for instance the kind of freezer that people put in their garage.

~~~
HeyLaughingBoy
In the rural or suburban US, it is very common for homes to have large propane
tanks for heating and cooking, due to them being too far away from supply
lines for natural gas. The tank is typically much larger than your example.

Not to mention essentially all new homes have central A/C with one of the heat
exchangers "installed on a specially constructed concrete plinth." We have
plenty of space; it's simply not an issue.

------
pbreit
Article fails to mention that Tesla has actually stated that it intends to
market a home battery and that many believe this is the product that Elon
referenced recently.

------
bs_bishop
Interesting to consider --- is there enough lithium in the world to support
this stuff?

[http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2010/ph240/eason2/](http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2010/ph240/eason2/)

~~~
anon4
Can't lithium batteries be recycled?

~~~
peterfirefly
Yes.

[http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/mythbusters-
part-3-recycling...](http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/mythbusters-
part-3-recycling-our-non-toxic-battery-packs)

[http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/teslas-closed-loop-
battery-r...](http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/teslas-closed-loop-battery-
recycling-program)

~~~
ridgeguy
Thanks for these. The second link notes that the lithium battery recycling is
profitable. Do you know of any links to more detailed economics of lithium
battery recycling? I'm trying to estimate the cost of Li batteries in a fully
recycling system at equilibrium, and I'm not finding any detailed cost/revenue
breakdowns. Thank you.

~~~
peterfirefly
No, sorry. I'd be interested as well.

------
InclinedPlane
Of course. But it's not as though Tesla's cars are just useless, uninteresting
husks. They are also a very competent car company, especially for being so
young. But their core competency is definitely in batteries.

------
steakejjs
What's wrong with being more than one thing. They are shaking up A LOT about
how we currently think about the ``energy'' models. I think batteries are
going to do wonder for countries that don't have a ``grid''.

The coolest thing to me about Tesla is the car is becoming decoupled from what
powers the car. It's still electricity but if my power provider was to switch
to nuclear, solar, people on bicycles, or coal It would be transparent to me.

------
jkestner
Don't ignore the other battery companies.

[http://www.pcworld.com/article/2900452/foxconn-partners-
with...](http://www.pcworld.com/article/2900452/foxconn-partners-with-chinas-
tencent-on-smart-electric-cars.html)

    
    
      Foxconn hopes to build cars priced under US$15,000, 
      according to Gou. The contract manufacturer already 
      develops electric car batteries, which he said were in demand.
    

Look out, Tesla.

Being that the batteries are the expensive part of an electric car, Foxconn
could get to the mass market before Tesla, and possibly set back the market if
the experience sucks.

~~~
coryl
Does Foxconn have much expertise in manufacturing batteries?

~~~
henkboyd
Maybe not as much, but Apple has been "poaching" Tesla's engineers.

------
iamcurious
Also, wasn't Musk going to do a phd studying batteries before deciding that
the internet was a better move for him at the time?

~~~
jeremyrwelch
Didn't know about this. Source?

~~~
iamcurious
[https://www.iop.org/careers/working-
life/profiles/page_57723...](https://www.iop.org/careers/working-
life/profiles/page_57723.html)

 _How did your career progress from there?

I was offered a place at Stanford University to do postgraduate research into
high-energy-density capacitors. But then the Internet came along, and I wanted
a piece of the action. _

~~~
jeremyrwelch
thanks! added it to the post

------
smt88
Only as much as Apple was a HDD company with the release of the first iPod.

Yes, their underlying hardware was necessary for the product to be
revolutionary, and it was also something that no one else could produce at the
time.

But, like Tesla, Apple added a layer of design and marketing that made for a
revolutionary UX, as well.

So I agree that Tesla is a battery company, but I don't think that that makes
them less of a revolution for the car industry.

~~~
notatoad
As Apple has never made hard drives, calling them a hard drive company makes
zero sense.

The hard drive in the iPod was never the most interesting component, or the
differentiator from the rest of the market. Tesla's battery is. The hard drive
in the iPod is like the wheels on a Tesla. It's useless without them, but
they're a completely replaceable commodity and has no bearing on the success
of the product

~~~
robotresearcher
The battery in the Model S is an array of commodity Panasonic cells.

~~~
feld
What part of "tesla is going to build their own batteries" do you not
understand?

~~~
smackfu
Sounds like the headline of this article should have used the future tense.

------
stevewilhelm
> Tesla is a Battery Company

Too narrow. Tesla is a electrical energy storage and distribution company.
Tesla has over 400 Supercharger stations.

I think this quote sums it up:

“I see us more as an energy innovation company, at our core, than even as a
car company.”

------
snowwrestler
If true, this puts Tesla and Solar City in complementary positions, and
perhaps on track to become the same company under Musk. Solar City tech
generates the electricity, and Tesla batteries will store it.

------
stox
And McDonalds is a Real Estate company.

~~~
hugodahl
Yep, in a very tight race with CBRE for top spot. I wonder if there's a place
to find sick information, like the Forbes richest list.

------
Animats
Tesla is not a battery company until they actually start manufacturing
batteries.

------
jagtesh
Just like how Apple is a chip fabrication company? I don't think so. Tesla was
the first company to introduce OTA updates, something unheard of in the car
industry. So to call them a battery company sounds very patronizing to me.

~~~
drzaiusapelord
Except Apple is successful and Tesla is not. When articles like these come out
for a company bleeding money its something to worry about. I think its obvious
the lithium-ion just doesn't have the lifespan and density to replace cars. At
least when gas is under $6 a gallon. After 4-5 years the resale value of that
$30k battery pack is non-existant as its begining to fail. We're seeing this a
lot with hybrid sales where the car's battery pack has a fraction of its
capacity. The makes the motor work harder, but with a pure EV car there is no
gas motor to take up the slack.

I have very low hopes for EVs. Even if Tesla lowered battery prices by 20%,
which would be impressive, they're still extremely expensive and still wear
out quickly. They make sense when gas is crazy expensive, but its not,
especially with all this investment in shale oil.

I imagine the future will have more efficient hybrids and perhaps Tesla will
migrate to a hybrid company if they want to stay alive. 100k for a range
anxiety inducing EV with a low resale value after x years due to its $50k
battery pack wearing out is not the vision of the future here.

~~~
jagtesh
Do they have to be profitable? Yes. Will they move to manufacturing hybrids?
Probably. But they're definitely not a battery company. At least not yet.

------
fivedogit
Wrong. Tesla is a _distribution_ company. Cars and batteries are commodities,
more or less. Corporations are now extremely efficient at copying and
commoditizing their competitors' innovations - just look at how fast the
android ecosystem popped up alongside iPhone - so technological advancements
are not the real source of long term value but merely the temporary advantage
needed to be first to a market and set up _network effects_.

EBay, for instance, was there at the right time to take recent technology
advancements, set up a network-effect marketplace and milk it for, oh, 2
decades. They stopped being a technology company a long time ago.

So how does this relate to Tesla? Answer: The supercharging stations. If Tesla
owns the most charging stations then EV buyers have a good reason to buy Tesla
over a hypothetical Ford or Toyota EV, putting Tesla at a major advantage.
Eventually it'll be on Ford and Toyota to bet the farm on a massive
supercharger network of their own and launch an EV to compete against Tesla's
entrenched domination of the marketplace. Right now, Tesla is in a fleeting
moment of technological and branding advantage which they are correctly
leveraging to quickly set up their charging network.

It's a lot like telcos bragging about their coverage networks. Eventually all
the (surviving) car companies will be doing something similar, running TV ads
about their charging station maps.

Companies are either A) marketing companies or B) distribution companies or a
blend of both.

Nike is a marketing company that happens to sell shoes. Ditto Taco Bell and
cheap Mexican food.

Amazon, Akamai, Google and Facebook are distribution companies --- they own
the network or marketplace.

Disney (mostly distribution), American Airlines (mostly distributiom) Walmart
(mostly distribution) and Apple (mostly marketing/branding, but appstore and
itunes are distribution powerhouses) are a little of both.

Edit: Nielsen, Google are distribution comapnies. They have prohibitively
large or complicated information ingestion systems set up to and then resell
the results.

Newspapers and TV are too, but their distribution monopolies are crumbling.

Interesting. That means solar advancements are very bad for Tesla. If people
don't need to stop and charge, then the distribution network is worthless.

~~~
jeremyrwelch
I generally agree with your categorization, but I would be more specific that
Tesla is both a Battery distribution AND marketing company. EVs existed prior
to Tesla, but they were the first company to identify and correctly serve the
high end market with the Roadster.

My company Chrg specializes in charging infrastructure. Note that the
Superchargers you mentioned actually use specially designed Tesla batteries,
which are precursors to the Home battery product Tesla will likely be
launching soon.

Solar advancements are a great thing for Tesla. Once power is captured via
solar panels, it will need to be stored – preferably in Tesla batteries.

~~~
anonbanker
finally, found the business connection.

------
felixbraun
Tesla's goal is to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport. They want
(a) to see as many electric cars on the road as fast as possible and (b) make
a lot of money.

B is required to perfect the product -- which serves A better than anything
else.

I think the 'Apple way' is most efficient: selling the whole package and
making it so good, that people happily pay a lot.

~~~
e12e
I'm not sure how cars will ever constitute "sustainable transport". Less
unsustainable than carbon fuelled cars, maybe. And that's a big maybe, given
batteries, power generation etc.

But I suppose there's not that much money in trying to sell bicycles...

------
_nedR
>In the NY Metro area, it’s Con Edison

That is a rather unfortunate (or rather appropriate) name for a company named
after Edison.

~~~
peterfirefly
Especially in French.

------
richardw
I can't see Musk trying to build a battery company as his primary focus.
That's not exactly a world-changing life goal (well, for him. I'd be happy
with that). That's like saying that Apple is a chip company because their
chips are central to efficiency.

The battery might _currently_ be the most important single component of an EV,
but there is no guarantee that will be true in five/ten/twenty years. The car
is more than just a mechanism to increase scale. You don't beat Musk by making
a better battery company. You'd better find a way to beat this:

[http://www.businessinsider.com/the-tesla-model-s-is-
consumer...](http://www.businessinsider.com/the-tesla-model-s-is-consumer-
reports-top-pick--for-the-second-year-in-a-row-2015-2)

(The word 'battery' is not even mentioned in the article. Tesla could have
less battery life but still win.)

Again, similar to Apple, Tesla found a point of advantage and will own it. The
landscape will change and so will Tesla's efforts at building or maintaining
an advantage against some very powerful companies.

~~~
weavie
Batteries may appear quite humble, but they are at the core of just about
every technological advancement we have at the minute. Cars, laptops, phones,
wearable devices.. they all depend on batteries. At the minute battery life is
a real bottleneck for us. We are turning into a nation that plans their life
around moving from charging station to charging station. Batteries are heavy
and they don't last that long. The next truly world changing advancement is
going to have to involve making access to energy much less heavy.

------
kamikrazy
Having a "Tesla battery pack" at your home is more than just handling grid
fluctuations. What if the battery pack can act as a supercharger for your car?
It's like having a tank of gas in your garage all the time.

~~~
hnnewguy
> _It 's like having a tank of gas in your garage all the time._

And how many people care to have a tank of gas in their garage all the time,
even though the idea is completely feasible today?

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zeeshanm
Selling batteries def have helped them with keeping the lights on. Not sure if
many remember but Tesla was about to go under water at some point before
cutting a deal with this German car company to sell them batteries.

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deepinsand
The article assumes that car batteries will feed into the grid. Tesla seems to
think that won't be the case, car batteries need to be secured against harsh
outdoor conditions and have tougher charge cycle limits.

~~~
jeremyrwelch
Tesla deploys a large battery product at all of their Supercharger locations.
These batteries are built to withstand harsher weather conditions, and will
likely form the basis for a home battery product.

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kostyk
Elon Musk: Evangelist

[http://www.thegadflyreview.com/elon-musk-
evangelist/#.VRyqe_...](http://www.thegadflyreview.com/elon-musk-
evangelist/#.VRyqe_nF-So)

------
ck2
Except we need an exponential leap in battery technology.

These 1% per year improvements are going to take forever to get us better EVs

~~~
eru
But 1% a year IS exponential.

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yogurt
Tesla is no more a battery company than Amazon is a shipping company.

~~~
kdawn
Every company needs a platform to attack other markets and industries from.
Build fast and break into other accessible applications of your product or
service.

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efremjw
Whose battery IP does Tesla use?

~~~
SEJeff
Panasonic, source:

[http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/panasonic-and-tesla-sign-
agr...](http://www.teslamotors.com/blog/panasonic-and-tesla-sign-agreement-
gigafactory)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Model_S#Battery](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Model_S#Battery)

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otar
And Google is a search engine...

~~~
jeremyrwelch
Google is an advertising company with a monopoly on a specific native ad type
called "search ads"

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astrocat
Batteries are to devices what rockets are to space...things.

So there's a trend here.

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themodelplumber
Totally ignorant of the tech here, but could they now do Netflix for
Batteries? $9 / mo. gets you all the AA, AAA, D cells you require?

~~~
ctdonath
It's all about the tech. Not disposable cells on the "one to a dozen" scale,
but rechargeables by the cubic meter: wanna drive a car 300 miles? Tesla
batteries. Wanna buffer your house power, daytime power demand at nighttime
costs, or nighttime power use from solar? Tesla batteries. Anything you'd put
gasoline in for high-power untethered use? Tesla batteries. Remember: the
first Tesla car was powered by an enormous number of laptop batteries
(basically AAs by the hundreds/thousands).

Current battery technology insufficient (your phone only lasts a day on a
charge, or your electric car only gets 100 miles)? now that he's getting
demand up for big-money big-volume batteries, Musk can fund battery research
and production on a scale way beyond anything we've seen. Remember: Musk's
"gigafactory" project is intended to build more batteries than the entire
world currently produces.

------
leoc
Aren't they mainly a subsidy company?

