Brand wise I can certainly see how this is beneficial to Solar City. Tesla as a brand has taken off hugely, so I can see it being easier to sell 'Tesla Solar' which is an easy benefit to Solar City as a company.
Certainly for any global expansion, I don't think many people outside the US know about Solar City. Where I am in Belgium, Tesla cars are about as prevelant on the roads as Range Rovers and everyone from my nephew to my mother in law knows about it.
As they also say it's a way to get people to the Tesla Stores which should benefit Tesla in a similar way to Apple stores.
to all the people who are saying that this is shady or that this resembles fraud: what the hell are you thinking? here is a man who twice bet his personal fortune on these companies with no other apparent motive besides making the world a better place. in the case of tesla, elon musk could have lost not only his fortune but everything.
if elon musk wanted to make more money he could have done it in other ways with much less risk. founding spacex and tesla only make sense if there was some genuine desire to make the world a better place. a man who put everything on the line for these visions and nearly lost everything would, upon surpassing everyones expecations or even their wildest dreams, suddenly become a shady fraudster and initiate a shady scheme to make a little money? that makes no sense.
i get so mad at people who are constantly detracting from tesla or evs in general. it is so ironic that the one company that isnt trying to fuck people over, perhaps the only large company that has nothing but the betterment of the world on the agenda, is constantly berated and dismissed by everyone.
While I'm inclined to believe Musk went into these industries (at least initially) because of fairly altruistic desires, it's important to note that this is is a narrative that originates and is promoted by him. That is, it would be foolish to make decisions based on that being true and also reflective of his current motivation without very good current evidence to back it up.
Now, I have the luxury of being able to take him at face value because I have no vested interest in any of these companies, as you may not. That said, a fair many people here do in some way or another (as a customer, an investor, or in some related market or field). It behooves them to be very critical.
>i get so mad at people who are constantly detracting from tesla or evs in general. it is so ironic that the one company that isnt trying to fuck people over
Maybe you should care less about the fact that people like a consumer product company less than you? And the idea that this is the "one company" not trying to fuck people over is down right ludicrous.
After the deal closes, expected to be Q4 2016, the ownership split will be:
93.5% Tesla / 6.5% SolarCity
Interestingly, this is an all shares deal. With most people assuming Telsa will need to raise another large round soon to fund full scale production of the Model 3 it will be interesting to see what sort of terms, if any, Tesla will need to give investors to raise.
Current shareholders don't seem too put off the by constant dilution of this acquisition or the constant equities raises. Tesla's short interest is high as always, so they continue to be one of the most polarizing companies around:)
Fun note in the presentation, Solar City has a shop window in the deal where they can take this deal and shop it to other companies to try and get a better deal. Anyone want to take a bet as to whether or not they actually try and shop this deal at all?
As a Solar City shareholder, I think I'm getting screwed. Solar City, at $26.70/share last Friday has a lot more upside than TSLA at ~$235. Hell, I lost almost 5% over the weekend due to where they priced this deal.
Reading the presentation, Musk seems to be saying, "Solar City is great and will be even better if I run it like I do Tesla". And a hand wavy, "we have the same customers."
This seems like an unusually sketchy move from him.
Electric cars are filled with potential to have a decently large positive ecological impact, but as long as they're running on electricity generated by coal, they're just shifting the source of emissions.
However, even if we did move ALL cars off gas, the emissions problem is still very large, and solving it could reduce emissions by 65% [1]. This seems to be a 2 pronged approach, reduce car emissions, and reduce generic energy emissions. This alone won't solve the crisis, but it's a significant contribution.
In a forum frequented by as many developers and engineers as this place I would expect a concept like decoupling to be better recognized. You switch the energy generation away from consumption. Your individual car is then out of the problem.
The amount of electricity generated by coal is down significantly in the US. In 1997 it was almost 53%. Today it's around 33%. So that change is happening.
Based on my local grid, my car runs on roughly one third coal, one third natural gas, and one third nuclear. This seems pretty good, especially as it seems like the coal part will continue to decrease throughout the lifetime of the car.
Of course, with SolarCity joining Tesla, soon you'll be able to get both the car and the energy to run that car from the same company. Assuming your living situation allows for solar power, anyway.
Even assuming coal, at least it is easier to install proper scrubbing in large fixed installations like generation plants.
I'm not sure about the tradeoff in efficiency between electricity transmission and generation in larger capacity: I'm just going to assume the cost and benefit in this set cancel out since we have more larger installations than local power generation.
The idea might be that you have your panels charge a battery by day, which feeds into your car by night. Use the same idea with "Tesla stations," with the price-per-mile barely more than the maintenance cost of the station - use a flywheel or maybe whatever the next wave of batteries is.
Only 14% of emissions come from transport (as per your reference) and, assuming an eventual complete transportation reform, that's still not enough. Master plan part (french N): shift/grow into the energy and industrial sectors. More announcements are coming, the only concern I have is that they come fast enough.
Ah, but one enhances the other. Solar (and wind) both suffer from the intermittency problem: both do not scale up or down to match demand peaks and troughs for electricity. Also the 'amount' of sun and wind varies geographically. So the two solutions are:
- Build roughly 6 sets of geographically distributed wind/solar farms (with 6 separate sets of transmission infrastructure) to handle base-load demand reliably. Expensive.
- Attach a whole bunch of batteries to the grid to smooth out demand. Also (currently) expensive.
I think Elon Musk's solution is to convince enough people to buy huge battery packs that they occasionally drive around, but mostly leave plugged in to the grid.
This is the first move by Musk that I feel is a bit shady. It seems like it's in his best interest, from what I've read, but maybe not in every one else's...
Though the hyperloop is a bit shady too. I guess he's not really involved in it anymore though.
Thunderf00t has some good videos. But these are not his best work. The hyperloop issues are more engineering issues than solar roadway's physics issues.
This series kind of feels like thunderf00t pandering for views with controversy.
Hyperloop is basically a napkin idea that happened to get a lot of people interested in it. I don't see what's shady about it, since he's not using it to raise money or anything. Official involvement has basically been the idea and some small competitions for proofs of concept.
I don't think you appreciate how much power is required for a supercharger station. Put it this way - if you had a SolarCity panel array the size of a Model S, it would produce enough power in a good day to add about 35 miles of range to a single car. Multiply that by the amount most people are actually charging when they pull in, and the number of cars utilizing a charger. It's just not even close to practical unless you cover the entire roof of a nearby building, and then you would need a huge battery somewhere to store the collected power for charging at night. Supercharger stations connect to the grid for a good reason.
How will this allow them to add more Supercharger stations? This will eat up their free cash flow which will actually allow for less spending on things like Supercharger stations.
Lock-in on old tech has been the main worry for me in terms of installing panels on my home. An upgrade option would be a done deal for me, especially since its Tesla.
I wonder if this will be approved by the shareholders, considering that Solar City is losing $300 million in value and it is an all shares merger. I'm hesitant to say it'll go through since I don't think investors like the news, as both stocks are down today and both took a huge hit around when this was announced (Telsa was -2%, but bounced back to -0.5% and Solar City is currently -6%, and falling).
I just want to know what the cost is now for a combined solar panel installation and battery storage for couple days of home use. I assume the Tesla/Solar City deal make more sense with the combine of solar installation plus the Gigafactory, rather than with Tesla the car.
Of the educated people who are concerned about climate change, musk seems to be the only one taking a practical "let's do something about it in a very large way". Solving the problem is worth many trillions of dollars (it's literally a future with dollars vs a future without). If he is successful, he'll become that trillionaire, and it's something he's earned.
It's amazing to think that his businesses all revolve around saving the human race... -- SpaceX is designed with the mission of getting a colony on Mars as a backup for humanity. Solar and Tesla are designed to save the planet we now live on.
I've always imagined that the first trillionaire will be the person responsible for asteroid mining – and SpaceX does seem to have a good shot at doing that.
What I like about this is that it's an integration of Elon's ethos. If you owned Starbucks and the biggest coffee plantation wouldn't you find a way to merge them?
Maybe you could just use your car as the battery charged by your solar panels, instead of buying a Powerwall? And then run your house off of it. At least on the weekends. Or maybe more often if you don't have to drive every day.
Because the Tesla battery is 60 kW, so its basically like 10 Powerwalls that you can drive around. Instead of storing it on the wall in your garage, it is lying horizontal in the car.
Sort of amazing that people are not making this connection.
I suspect a fair portion of people actually use their car to go other places during most of the day, which is when Solar is working. A car makes a poor battery because it's absent when you would want to charge it.
I believe they will sell you a system outright and they had a long term financing option called "MyPower" but I think that's been stopped. They sold bonds to cover those loans.
The lease is probably the most popular. Until there is some sort of expandable DIY option that you can gradually grow out, I think the only really popular way to sell these systems will be either baked in to the mortgage or with leases and creative financing. The lease and financing does seem to frighten a lot of people though, SolarCity modeled loan payments off energy use and in the contract there is even a clause that says if there is a prolonged non-sunny period, you might owe a large chunk on the loan when it comes due...
[+] [-] icc97|9 years ago|reply
Certainly for any global expansion, I don't think many people outside the US know about Solar City. Where I am in Belgium, Tesla cars are about as prevelant on the roads as Range Rovers and everyone from my nephew to my mother in law knows about it.
As they also say it's a way to get people to the Tesla Stores which should benefit Tesla in a similar way to Apple stores.
[+] [-] bdcravens|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bronz|9 years ago|reply
if elon musk wanted to make more money he could have done it in other ways with much less risk. founding spacex and tesla only make sense if there was some genuine desire to make the world a better place. a man who put everything on the line for these visions and nearly lost everything would, upon surpassing everyones expecations or even their wildest dreams, suddenly become a shady fraudster and initiate a shady scheme to make a little money? that makes no sense.
i get so mad at people who are constantly detracting from tesla or evs in general. it is so ironic that the one company that isnt trying to fuck people over, perhaps the only large company that has nothing but the betterment of the world on the agenda, is constantly berated and dismissed by everyone.
[+] [-] kbenson|9 years ago|reply
Now, I have the luxury of being able to take him at face value because I have no vested interest in any of these companies, as you may not. That said, a fair many people here do in some way or another (as a customer, an investor, or in some related market or field). It behooves them to be very critical.
[+] [-] dilemma|9 years ago|reply
You're forgetting ego. Really, your last paragraph shows you're a true believer and it's not helping the discussion.
[+] [-] woodandsteel|9 years ago|reply
What do you think is the correct way of going about determining if a person has sincere ideals or is just a con artist?
[+] [-] forgetsusername|9 years ago|reply
Maybe you should care less about the fact that people like a consumer product company less than you? And the idea that this is the "one company" not trying to fuck people over is down right ludicrous.
[+] [-] SmellyGeekBoy|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] devishard|9 years ago|reply
That has to be the most naive statement I've seen on Hacker News.
[+] [-] chollida1|9 years ago|reply
http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/ABEA-4CW8X0/254764622...
After the deal closes, expected to be Q4 2016, the ownership split will be:
93.5% Tesla / 6.5% SolarCity
Interestingly, this is an all shares deal. With most people assuming Telsa will need to raise another large round soon to fund full scale production of the Model 3 it will be interesting to see what sort of terms, if any, Tesla will need to give investors to raise.
Current shareholders don't seem too put off the by constant dilution of this acquisition or the constant equities raises. Tesla's short interest is high as always, so they continue to be one of the most polarizing companies around:)
Fun note in the presentation, Solar City has a shop window in the deal where they can take this deal and shop it to other companies to try and get a better deal. Anyone want to take a bet as to whether or not they actually try and shop this deal at all?
[+] [-] jaynos|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cheriot|9 years ago|reply
This seems like an unusually sketchy move from him.
[+] [-] swalsh|9 years ago|reply
However, even if we did move ALL cars off gas, the emissions problem is still very large, and solving it could reduce emissions by 65% [1]. This seems to be a 2 pronged approach, reduce car emissions, and reduce generic energy emissions. This alone won't solve the crisis, but it's a significant contribution.
https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/global.html
[+] [-] ianai|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikeash|9 years ago|reply
Based on my local grid, my car runs on roughly one third coal, one third natural gas, and one third nuclear. This seems pretty good, especially as it seems like the coal part will continue to decrease throughout the lifetime of the car.
Of course, with SolarCity joining Tesla, soon you'll be able to get both the car and the energy to run that car from the same company. Assuming your living situation allows for solar power, anyway.
[+] [-] mjevans|9 years ago|reply
I'm not sure about the tradeoff in efficiency between electricity transmission and generation in larger capacity: I'm just going to assume the cost and benefit in this set cancel out since we have more larger installations than local power generation.
[+] [-] zamalek|9 years ago|reply
Only 14% of emissions come from transport (as per your reference) and, assuming an eventual complete transportation reform, that's still not enough. Master plan part (french N): shift/grow into the energy and industrial sectors. More announcements are coming, the only concern I have is that they come fast enough.
[+] [-] spangry|9 years ago|reply
- Build roughly 6 sets of geographically distributed wind/solar farms (with 6 separate sets of transmission infrastructure) to handle base-load demand reliably. Expensive.
- Attach a whole bunch of batteries to the grid to smooth out demand. Also (currently) expensive.
I think Elon Musk's solution is to convince enough people to buy huge battery packs that they occasionally drive around, but mostly leave plugged in to the grid.
[+] [-] impostervt|9 years ago|reply
Though the hyperloop is a bit shady too. I guess he's not really involved in it anymore though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDwe2M-LDZQ
[+] [-] karmicthreat|9 years ago|reply
This series kind of feels like thunderf00t pandering for views with controversy.
[+] [-] alex_duf|9 years ago|reply
Tesla and Solar City on the other hand seems to make perfect sense. Why do you think it's shady? (ahah, shady, solar...)
[+] [-] mikeash|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] adwn|9 years ago|reply
Are you implying nepotism? Would you have said that it was "basically expected" if neither Musk nor his cousins would have been involved in SolarCity?
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[+] [-] jeffmanu|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ilaksh|9 years ago|reply
Because the Tesla battery is 60 kW, so its basically like 10 Powerwalls that you can drive around. Instead of storing it on the wall in your garage, it is lying horizontal in the car.
Sort of amazing that people are not making this connection.
[+] [-] mulcahey|9 years ago|reply
The PowerWall is designed to be cycled daily while the car is expected to be cycled weekly.
There is also a danger of electrocution and regulatory hurdles.
https://youtu.be/vhqe4gMN6Lk?t=2h46m32s
[+] [-] kbenson|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] manmal|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] perseusprime11|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CptJamesCook|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Nelson69|9 years ago|reply
The lease is probably the most popular. Until there is some sort of expandable DIY option that you can gradually grow out, I think the only really popular way to sell these systems will be either baked in to the mortgage or with leases and creative financing. The lease and financing does seem to frighten a lot of people though, SolarCity modeled loan payments off energy use and in the contract there is even a clause that says if there is a prolonged non-sunny period, you might owe a large chunk on the loan when it comes due...
[+] [-] afsina|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mhurron|9 years ago|reply
Look, I could not help but make that stupid joke when it fits so well.
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
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