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There's even less of a moat for Tesla in selling batteries to utilities than there is for their cars. And SolarCity was heading to zero. It was acquired by Tes

by IBM 8y ago

There's even less of a moat for Tesla in selling batteries to utilities than there is for their cars. And SolarCity was heading to zero. It was acquired by Tesla because Elon had to bail himself out or the myth of Elon Musk as Tony Stark would have been undone. But also because he along with his cousins would have lost a lot of money. That's compounded by the fact that Elon is significantly personally leveraged and any loss of confidence in Elon Musk Inc. or a decline in his holdings would imperil his other companies [1]. [1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-supports-his-business-empire-with-unusual-financial-moves-1461781962 https://www.wsj.com/articles/elon-musk-supports-his-business...

Animats 8y ago
Especially since Tesla doesn't make cells. They buy from Panasonic. Panasonic competes directly with Tesla in home and bulk energy storage.[1] [1] https://na.panasonic.com/us/energy-solutions/battery-storage/battery-storage https://na.panasonic.com/us/energy-solutions/battery-storage...
- qaq 8y ago
  So gigafactory is not making cells?
  - CapitalistCartr 8y ago
    Gigafactory is Panasonic as much as Tesla. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigafactory_1#Operations https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigafactory_1#Operations
    - qaq 8y ago
      "Tesla owns the land and building, and leases part of the building to Panasonic, which owns some of the cell production equipment" In what world this translates to "as much"?
- kjksf 8y ago
  That product is not made by Panasonic but by Pika Energy (https://www.pika-energy.com/harbor-battery/ https://www.pika-energy.com/harbor-battery/). Never heard of Pika before? Me neither. Which is why they are not as much a threat to Tesla's Powerwall as you claim. When you order from Tesla (https://www.tesla.com/powerwall https://www.tesla.com/powerwall) you get some inkling of how much it'll cost. When you order from Pika (https://www.pika-energy.com/purchase/ https://www.pika-energy.com/purchase/)? "Call us". I yet have to see any serious competition to Tesla's Powerwall. BMW tried to compete and they folded (https://electrek.co/2018/04/30/mercedes-benz-kills-tesla-powerwall-killer-energy-storage-device/ https://electrek.co/2018/04/30/mercedes-benz-kills-tesla-pow...).
  - ReverseCold 8y ago
    The other solar providers are usually done the traditional car way. You find some local company (akin to a car dealership) to install your panels, and they'll tell you how much it costs. EnergySage does give you some insight to the price before you buy though. Basically, you don't buy the battery from Pika energy, you buy it from a local dealer.
kjksf 8y ago
At which point making a better product at lower prices stopped being a moat? SolarCity was a totally different business (installing traditional solar panels but mostly the business was financing those installation) and Tesla is winding it down. The future of energy in Tesla is Solar Roof, Powerwalls (residential storage) and Powerpacks (utility-scale storage). In storage Tesla has significant advantages on cost because of scale. Battery cell production is a Joint Venture with Panasonic (so I'm sure they get them cheaper than anyone else) and they have greater scale than all non-Panasonic cells and the batteries involve lots more components (and cost) that just cells and Tesla makes that, at scale. Powerwall is significantly better looking than the competition I could find (LG Chem RESU and Pika Harbor are plain ugly, Sonnen eco looks decent). Tesla has superior marketing and distribution (all those people buying Teslas are exposed to Solar Roof and Powerwalls and can order online). Solar Roof looks like a product without the competitor. Both Powerwall and Solar Roof are sold out a year in advance. I'm less versed in utility storage business but based on headlines Tesla is killing there as well, breaking size records one after another, doubling the size of the business YoY, which is a crazy growth. If you claim competition then name names and provide data that shows that they are actually doing better than Tesla on some reasonable metric like revenue.
- techstrategist 8y ago
  There may be reason to question whether the solar roof product is as it appears: https://mansionengineer.com/2018/08/10/elon-musk-tesla-and-the-solar-roof-tile-fraud/ https://mansionengineer.com/2018/08/10/elon-musk-tesla-and-t...
Latteland 8y ago
This sense that his whole set of companies are some kind of scam that is some fakey leveraged house of cards with fake revenue, growth, and future potential is wrong, and tired. Any company can lose out long term by not innovating and growing, whether that's GM, IBM, Amazon, or Tesla. Tesla is in their innovative growth phase. And they make actual products that are years ahead of their competitors. There's no other solar roofs. Amazon was seen as a company that couldn't make a profit, but everyone can see now that it was a clever set of choices about long term vs short term. Sure, there's plenty of things tesla could do better, like make reliable production targets, not have to kill themselves. But they do keep growing their production and sales. They make generally excellent products, their customers like them. Their stock is crazily highly valued, but at the same time their company is leading a market, crushing basically the entire automotive industry. There's no need for a conspiracy of financial chicanery to explain how they got here - smart financing, use of incentives that were available to any other company (look how much Nissan got) that were intended to grow a new market. And look, there's a new market for evs.

by IBM 8y ago

Animats 8y ago

Especially since Tesla doesn't make cells. They buy from Panasonic. Panasonic competes directly with Tesla in home and bulk energy storage.[1] [1] https://na.panasonic.com/us/energy-solutions/battery-storage/battery-storage https://na.panasonic.com/us/energy-solutions/battery-storage...

qaq 8y ago
So gigafactory is not making cells?
- CapitalistCartr 8y ago
  Gigafactory is Panasonic as much as Tesla. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigafactory_1#Operations https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigafactory_1#Operations
  - qaq 8y ago
    "Tesla owns the land and building, and leases part of the building to Panasonic, which owns some of the cell production equipment" In what world this translates to "as much"?
kjksf 8y ago
That product is not made by Panasonic but by Pika Energy (https://www.pika-energy.com/harbor-battery/ https://www.pika-energy.com/harbor-battery/). Never heard of Pika before? Me neither. Which is why they are not as much a threat to Tesla's Powerwall as you claim. When you order from Tesla (https://www.tesla.com/powerwall https://www.tesla.com/powerwall) you get some inkling of how much it'll cost. When you order from Pika (https://www.pika-energy.com/purchase/ https://www.pika-energy.com/purchase/)? "Call us". I yet have to see any serious competition to Tesla's Powerwall. BMW tried to compete and they folded (https://electrek.co/2018/04/30/mercedes-benz-kills-tesla-powerwall-killer-energy-storage-device/ https://electrek.co/2018/04/30/mercedes-benz-kills-tesla-pow...).
- ReverseCold 8y ago
  The other solar providers are usually done the traditional car way. You find some local company (akin to a car dealership) to install your panels, and they'll tell you how much it costs. EnergySage does give you some insight to the price before you buy though. Basically, you don't buy the battery from Pika energy, you buy it from a local dealer.

kjksf 8y ago

At which point making a better product at lower prices stopped being a moat? SolarCity was a totally different business (installing traditional solar panels but mostly the business was financing those installation) and Tesla is winding it down. The future of energy in Tesla is Solar Roof, Powerwalls (residential storage) and Powerpacks (utility-scale storage). In storage Tesla has significant advantages on cost because of scale. Battery cell production is a Joint Venture with Panasonic (so I'm sure they get them cheaper than anyone else) and they have greater scale than all non-Panasonic cells and the batteries involve lots more components (and cost) that just cells and Tesla makes that, at scale. Powerwall is significantly better looking than the competition I could find (LG Chem RESU and Pika Harbor are plain ugly, Sonnen eco looks decent). Tesla has superior marketing and distribution (all those people buying Teslas are exposed to Solar Roof and Powerwalls and can order online). Solar Roof looks like a product without the competitor. Both Powerwall and Solar Roof are sold out a year in advance. I'm less versed in utility storage business but based on headlines Tesla is killing there as well, breaking size records one after another, doubling the size of the business YoY, which is a crazy growth. If you claim competition then name names and provide data that shows that they are actually doing better than Tesla on some reasonable metric like revenue.

techstrategist 8y ago
There may be reason to question whether the solar roof product is as it appears: https://mansionengineer.com/2018/08/10/elon-musk-tesla-and-the-solar-roof-tile-fraud/ https://mansionengineer.com/2018/08/10/elon-musk-tesla-and-t...

Latteland 8y ago

This sense that his whole set of companies are some kind of scam that is some fakey leveraged house of cards with fake revenue, growth, and future potential is wrong, and tired. Any company can lose out long term by not innovating and growing, whether that's GM, IBM, Amazon, or Tesla. Tesla is in their innovative growth phase. And they make actual products that are years ahead of their competitors. There's no other solar roofs. Amazon was seen as a company that couldn't make a profit, but everyone can see now that it was a clever set of choices about long term vs short term. Sure, there's plenty of things tesla could do better, like make reliable production targets, not have to kill themselves. But they do keep growing their production and sales. They make generally excellent products, their customers like them. Their stock is crazily highly valued, but at the same time their company is leading a market, crushing basically the entire automotive industry. There's no need for a conspiracy of financial chicanery to explain how they got here - smart financing, use of incentives that were available to any other company (look how much Nissan got) that were intended to grow a new market. And look, there's a new market for evs.