Jason Badeaux

Tesla’s cell constraints are likely to continue over the medium term. Because its most profitable use of cells is likely to be in electric vehicles, we do not expect Tesla’s energy storage business to drive enterprise value meaningfully during the next five years.

Each energy transition has enabled massive improvements to existing materials (wrought iron and later steel made using coal), created entirely new materials (polymers from oil-refined petrochemicals) and/or made low-cost manufacturing viable at scale (aluminum using electricity).

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.

The first major [blockchain] breakthrough was bitcoin, which invented digital gold. The second was Ethereum, which introduced general-purpose smart contracts. Helium presents the most ambitious new use case for blockchains we’ve seen since Ethereum.

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

Our true competition is not the small trickle of non-Tesla electric cars being produced, but rather the enormous flood of gasoline cars pouring out of the world’s factories every day.

Importantly, autonomous transport should save consumers both time and costs. The average car owner in the US spends more than 420 hours per year driving—more than 10 work weeks.

There’s no mass market for LDES yet — nothing like the hundreds of gigawatts we may eventually need — but there are several localized markets, adding up to several gigawatts of needed capacity, which is more than enough to keep Form busy from 2025 forward.