Assertion Supported
Baglino: Tesla Energy Relied on Auto Business Before Reaching Standalone Profitability
“The energy business was heavily supported by the vehicle business through many years, to be frank, but finally kind of got out of that bird's nest and was able to fly on its own and generate serious profits and bring cash back to the Tesla broader company, and…”
Assertion Supported
Baglino: Panasonic supply bottlenecks forced Tesla to cut Powerwall production in 2017-2018
“Especially as we got into the 2017 and 2018, there was a cell sort of pinch. Panasonic was having a hard time ramping, and we didn't have enough cells to go around between vehicles and energy, and so we had to kind of, like, pare back on the Powerwall build pl…”
Assertion Supported
Baglino: Tesla prioritized vehicles over energy products during COVID chip shortages
“The same thing happened, by the way, in the COVID crisis where, you know, there were semiconductor shortages. It was kind of like, hey, vehicles, the breadwinner energy, you know, you're going to have to get the scraps and figure it out. And I don't, I think t…”
Insight
Baglino: In-Office Culture Helps Engineers Spot and Reuse Colleagues' Components
“And this is actually, I think, one of the big benefits of an in-office culture, is you just see. It's like, hey, look at that thing over on that desk. Like, I think I could stick that and use that as my power supply or whatever. You know, it's like, it's more …”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Baglino: Tesla Optimus Progress Leverages Automotive Simulation and AI Stack
“When you look at, like, Optimus as an example, which is the robot program at Tesla, like, why is Optimus going quickly at Tesla? It's because, you know, hey, we're, there's a lot of reuse of platform technologies, whether it's, like, how do you opt, like, a si…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Baglino: Having a battery offering was almost existential for SolarCity
“When SolarCity saw the coming sort of net metering change of policy, they knew that it was almost existential to them to have a great battery offering.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Baglino: LG's Tesla Energy bet unlocked vehicle cell deals in China
“Ultimately, you know, they took a bet on Tesla on our team on the energy side and it ended up paying off for them when they ended up getting an opportunity to participate with the vehicle business in China and vehicle business in other places.”
Assertion Supported
Baglino: Early Tesla Superchargers Reused Model S Onboard Chargers
“The first supercharger, it's sometimes called, like, V-II or V-I, you know, the chargers in the supercharger are the onboard charger for Model S. Like, it's, it really, like, that's just, I think, exemplifies the platform play that is possible with smart reuse…”
What-if
Baglino: Tesla Energy Scaled Due to Musk Pushing for Large Projects
“Hands down, the energy business of Tesla could not have gotten to where it got to without Elon's input both as a major advocate in the early days and as a strong force for acceleration on doing big projects like the Hornsdale project, going big or going home, …”
Opinion
Drew Baglino: Tesla Had Obvious Advantages in Stationary Energy Storage
“Tesla can do this so well. We know so much about power electronics. We know so much about batteries, and it just seems obvious that this is going to happen.”
Assertion Supported
Baglino: Tesla Built 1,000 'Powerwall Zero' Units From Model S Batteries
“Tesla had done a very early, we call it like, it doesn't even have a name, it was called, you could call it like Powerwall Zero. It was like a sort of cobbled together Model S battery module. I think we did a thousand of these early systems with SolarCity. And…”
Disclosure
Baglino: Tesla lacked residential distribution and inverters for early Powerwall
“Tesla at the time didn't have, like, a channel to the end customer in the residential space necessarily. We didn't have the time to develop a grid interactive inverter that could back up a house. Like, we didn't have the team initially. The energy engineering …”
Assertion Contradicted
Baglino: Tesla chose cylindrical cells because only they had high manufacturing volume
“One of the reasons why We went with cylindrical cells in the first place was because they were the only batteries built in, in high volume”
Assertion Supported
Baglino: Gigafactory Nevada was an unprecedented risk for Panasonic
“The gig factory in Reno was a huge risk taken by Panasonic to build a single factory bigger than all other factories combined in a new country where they had never done battery manufacturing before in a state with no manufacturing base, Nevada, you know, with …”
Assertion Supported
Baglino: Puerto Rico is one of the largest Powerwall markets
“Puerto Rico is still one of the largest power wall markets, which is kind of wild, because there's not a lot of people in Puerto Rico. But I think it might be the single largest power wall market still.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Baglino: Tesla picked 'Powerwall' name the day before launch
“Yeah, we didn't actually have that name solidified until the day before the Powerwall presentation in 2016.”
Drew Baglino