That's not what he said. Solar cars are dumb. They're good for tech demos, racing across the Australian Outback on a sunny day in the summer, but useless for no

That's not what he said. Solar cars are dumb. They're good for tech demos, racing across the Australian Outback on a sunny day in the summer, but useless for normal commutes in traffic. Musk said Tesla has always planned to provide solar energy. SolarCity provides solar energy. The odd part to outsiders is, why now? I think Musk's investment in SolarCity was being threatened by the end of subsidized net metering. He needed to speed up the time table for energy storage to keep the company in business. SolarCity had the solar panels, but Tesla had the batteries. It would be a poor customer experience for SolarCity to have to negotiate with Tesla for the Powerwall, and it would be a waste of time and money for SolarCity to start its own battery sourcing. If Musk could get the market valuation and accelerate the world's weaning from fossil fuels this way, it's a big bonus, but all this leveraging is pretty risky.