Jason Badeaux

The core strategy has unique elements at each level of the ecosystem: overturning the core product architecture, positioning themselves in key bottleneck components, and resolving system-level limitations that slow the adoption of the technology. At the same time, they have applied an effective approach to build their innovation capital so they can... See more

So, policy, philanthropy, and individual behavior do have roles to play, but the real solutions to the carbon nightmare will win because they’re cheaper, better, faster, stronger, simpler, and just plain cooler than what’s available today.

In our view, efforts like the Cybertruck aren’t really about making money; they are about getting attention and proving that Tesla is one of the world’s most innovative companies, specifically for the purpose of building Tesla’s ability to win support from stakeholders — what we call innovation capital.

I found something else surprising about previous energy transitions. Each one later enabled new modes of transport and new materials which were very hard to conceive of during its early phases. In each of the past transitions, the energy source unlocked new distribution technologies and materials that helped drive more adoption for the energy... See more

Tesla’s innovation strategy — which focuses on transforming the auto industry as a whole — offers enduring lessons for any innovator, especially in terms of how to win support for an idea and how to bring new technologies to market.

The future grid will be built from the bottom up, driven by new technologies, DERs, that are in many ways superior to their predecessors.

Early on in an energy transition, there is often more attention on how well they can do existing things. Examples include how well coal could heat and oil and electricity could light. But the larger impact for any energy transition, like other new technologies, is to enable us to do brand new things.

These teams are taking their innovations straight to consumers and enterprises who may not vote for the same people nor share the same climate values, but who buy their products and services because they are just simply cheaper and better.  

Indeed, except for the very simplest physical systems, virtually everything and everybody in the world is caught up in a vast, nonlinear web of incentives and constraints and connections. The slightest change in one place causes tremors everywhere else. We can't help but disturb the universe, as T.S. Eliot almost said. The whole is almost always... See more