>But can Tesla sustain any sort of real battery manufacturing advantage over China? We think a lot about developing better car batteries, but car batteries are

>But can Tesla sustain any sort of real battery manufacturing advantage over China? We think a lot about developing better car batteries, but car batteries are fine -- if the world had to live with 300-mile ranges, it would probably not be the end of prosperity. What we need are grid batteries, which are the only realistic replacement for fossil fuel power plants -- sorry, nuclear alone, while a valuable part of a future grid, won't handle variable loads. Grid batteries are a commodity. By contrast these increasingly efficient car batteries are basically a luxury product. Unfortunately capitalism won't normally allocate many resources towards something with low profit margins, but the Chinese government will. Whether or not Tesla can keep up with China at making toys, it is no remedy for the lack of action by our own governments to provide technologies Tesla can't make money off of.