Jason Badeaux

Since 2017, Tesla’s capital expenditure per incremental unit of capacity has improved from ~$84,000, when the Model 3 was ramping, to ~$7,700. While these improvements indicate that Tesla could continue to increase margins, the more important takeaway is that capital no longer is a bottleneck limiting its growth. Instead, Tesla should be able to... See more

Financial assets are promises to trade certain things in the future, if certain events happen in the world. The financial system is the market for promises.

This is where Professor Jeff Dahn Of Dalhousie University comes in. He and his team partnered up with Tesla in 2016 to create the Tesla Advanced Battery Research division. Their primary goal is to make batteries last longer, they also aim to increase energy density and decrease costs. Prof Dahn recently published a study showing the world the... See more

With the right mechanisms in place, DERs will create a flexible grid by helping supply meet demand in a dynamic system. This represents a very exciting opportunity for electrification, with several software companies already developing solutions to make electricity demand digital and efficient.

The consequences of the existence of blockchains are thus that, for the first time in human history, we have a real alternative to governments and legal systems for the enforcement of promises. What are the effects this will have on the world?

The underlying theme across all 8 of these bullets, except perhaps the last, is that each drives scale of battery production.

And when was the last time you tried to go to fill up your tank and you couldn’t because there was no fuel? The 70's? That was one of the worst existential crises our real economy has faced since the Great Depression. This is a far more frequent occurrence on the electricity grid: nodes can’t function individually, unlike how cars and boilers can.