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Earlier quoted context omitted.
How are they multi-national?
They sell cars in multiple countries. For example, here in the Netherlands, Tesla has a pretty big presence for the size of the company. I frequently see Model S's on the roads here.
So there's a trend here.
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 th…
This would be much more world-changing than cheap rockets.
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 ch…
There are also walls you could embed batteries in. A house has a lot of surface area that could be used to store energy.
These 1% per year improvements are going to take forever to get us better EVs
Earlier quoted context omitted.
They sell cars in multiple countries. For example, here in the Netherlands, Tesla has a pretty big presence for the size of the company. I frequently see Model S's on the roads here.
I'm not sure that qualifies as multi-national. I'd say you have to own R&D in multiple countries, not just sell there (through someone probably). But I see your point.
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 cou…
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 cou…
This is an even better summary than the post's title!
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…
Don't forget the "car charging" business. Tesla announced before that it's willing to license its Supercharger network to other car makers. That business could one day replace most petrol charging stations.
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 ch…