If you’ve bought or watched Tesla’s stock over the past few years, it’s been a real roller coaster from under $20 to nearly $400 and today around $170, but all the while, they’ve kept innovating. Tesla is more than just a car company; it is positioning itself to become a global energy provider. To be clear, while I’ve invested in Tesla in the past, I have no financial positions connected with the company at the time of this writing.

1. Solar Panels – Tesla’s panels are 20% efficient, which is generally where the market is now. Sure, in the lab, others have pushed these numbers over 40% using various optical and electrical techniques, but in practical residential deployments, 20% is the norm. Tesla’s panels are stylish, as stylish as black panels can be, with their main visual highlight being they appear as seamless and flush to the roof as visibly possible. In this case, the panels represent only part of the solution.
     
2. Solar Roof Tiles – Every 20 to 30 years, most roofs, at least those with asphalt tiles, must be replaced. Tesla has a complete roof system that uses solar roof tiles designed to withstand 120 MPH winds while being roughly 15% efficient. Unlike solar panels, which you install only on roof lines that face the sun most of the time, the roof tiles are installed on the whole roof. While this costs more, it creates a visual look like a traditional roof. The point here is that Tesla is offering a unique option to panels, which some homeowners’ associations have banned.
     
3. Batteries – Be they for a home Powerwall system or their cars, this is an area where Tesla is leading innovation. They are spending heavily on R&D and have their own battery plants, nearly a half dozen, with more under construction, and have been in talks over the years about acquiring mining facilities to source the raw materials. The latest cars implement LFP technology batteries, but Tesla is looking well beyond this technology. Battery chemistry is central to nearly all things Tesla.
    
4. Home Electronics – By this I mean all the components that take power from solar combine it with their Powerwall batteries, inverters, their home car chargers, and the transfer switch. This includes all the other bits of glue electronics necessary to deliver a complete home cogeneration system capable of distributing excess power, beyond the capacity of the Powerwalls and any plugged in cars, back onto the grid. People want solutions, not point products; all the above elements give homeowners a unique option.
     
5. Their App – The Tesla smartphone application ties all the above together: home generation, grid power, car charging and power consumption, the works. This is the same App you use to manage your car(s). The App and all of the data it manages and collects could be one of Tesla’s biggest assets in years to come.
    
6. Home Charging – With LFP batteries, I could leave the house in a Model 3 (Highland) daily at a full charge. When I see my daughter in Richmond, VA, we live in Raleigh, NC, I’ll need to charge while we eat lunch or dinner for the ride home, but that will likely be about the price of a single mixed drink. The same is true when we visit the in-laws in Charlotte. Home charging is a game changer. Duke Energy charges $0.19 KW/hr fully burdened (taxes and all fees included); this works out to about $0.045 per mile, depending upon ones driving. Not since we’ve fed our horses the hay we’d grown in our fields has the fuel for transportation been cheaper.
    
7. Charging Stations – Tesla is putting in one new charging station every business hour of the day. Many of these new stations will have some pull-through stalls so trucks can charge without having to unhook trailers. Even more interesting, Ford F150 Lightning and Mustang MachE vehicles can now install the Tesla App and charge on the Tesla network. Other EV companies are following suit and later this year all GM EVs will be able to charge using the Tesla network. Once GM sells an EV, all the after-market revenue will go to Tesla for the home charger and the charging stations.
    
8. Diverless Taxis – For the past year Tesla has not permitted customers who’ve leased Model 3s or Ys to purchase their vehicles at the end of the lease. It is rumored that Tesla is looking to roll out its fleet of driverless taxis later this year or early next. If Full Self Driving version 12 is any clue, they are getting really close. This will totally crush Uber and Lift, and validate Cruise and Waymo.
   
9. Cogeneration – At some point, Tesla will have a critical mass of home solar customers in a market, region, or country, and it will begin testing branded cogeneration back into these grids using a federated model. This may deliver better rates to Tesla and homeowners and significantly more bargaining power than they currently have as individuals.  

Perhaps even more so than Apple or Google, Tesla positions itself as a critical player in the worldwide technology market. I haven’t even mentioned all the data it harvests from its cars, how that can be used, and the work they’re doing in AI; perhaps that’s a future blog.