Jason Badeaux

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 eq... See more

We estimate now (April 2022) they have over 5 billion miles of data – up from 3 billion miles in April 2020. 1.5 million+ vehicles on the road today collecting data. By end of year 2022, we expect this to increase to 3 million. 1 00,000+ FSD Beta testers on road today. Competitors: Comma AI (50 million+ mi), Waymo (20 million+), Cruise (2 million+)... See more

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

Over time, the Gigafactory will grow and hopefully fulfill Elon Musk’s dream: achieving complete vertical integration for all Tesla products.

As I noted in Understanding Token Velocity, the V in the equation of exchange is a huge problem for basically all proprietary payment currencies. Proprietary payment currencies are, generally speaking, susceptible to the velocity problem, which will exert perpetual downwards price pressure.

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.

In terms of its function on the grid, the best way to think of Form’s battery is not as storage, but as the equivalent of a carbon-free natural gas plant. Rather than methane, it runs on renewable energy as fuel, but from the grid’s perspective, it provides basically the same service, which is reliable, dispatchable generation that can run for 100 ... See more

The cheapest possible carbon-free US grid involves vastly more centralized renewable energy, but it also involves vastly more distributed energy. What’s more, far from being alternatives, they are complements: the more DERs you put in place, the more centralized renewables you can put on the system. DERs are a utility-scale renewable accelerant.The... See more

Slide decks hide can shallow thinking. Narratively structured memos are harder to write because they require better thinking. It’s worth it.