Tesla Inc.’s synergies are unique. It is already selling batteries for utility-scale storage of solar. Its Powerwall Home Battery can be used by SolarCity customers who want backup when the grid goes down. And, ultimately, the batteries on the EVs themselves can be used as storage for solar. No matter which of these strategies succeed in the market — and it’s possible they all will — Tesla is poised to get a large piece of the action.
The company is not guaranteed to succeed. Its plan are super-ambitious. It has missed nearly every aggressive product milestone it’s set in recent years. And the competition is fierce. Ford Motor plans to invest $4.5 billion in electrification by 2020. And China, which is already the world leader in solar, has announced a massive scale up in both batteries and EVs.
On the other hand, the overall clean-tech market is poised to grow even faster than expected in the wake of the Paris climate agreement. One study found a “tenfold jump” in clean energy technologies is needed to meet global emissions targets. That’s a $50 trillion (or more) commitment.
So there’s room for plenty of winners in a world where both transportation and electricity are going through massive global revolutions.
In fact, the greatest threat to the new “Tesla Inc” isn’t competition from China or Ford. It’s that voters elected a science-denying president committed to killing U.S. and global climate action and zeroing out federal clean energy funding, a guy who is in bed with the enemies of solar power and EVs, such as as Big Oil and Vladimir Putin.
For now, Musk has been friendly with Trump, joining his business advisory board and bizarrely praising Trump’s choice of Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson for Secretary of State. But if Exxon, Putin, and team Trump win the battle over the future of energy, Tesla Inc will be the loser.
Source: Think Progress. Reproduced with permission.