"On January 9, 2007, Apple Computer, Inc. (the “Company”) amended Article I of its Restated Articles of Incorporation solely to change the corporate name from “Apple Computer, Inc.” to “Apple Inc.” The name change and amendment were completed pursuant to Section 1110(d) of the California Corporations Code through a merger of the Company’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Apple Inc., with and into the Company. A copy of the Company’s Certificate of Ownership, as filed with the Secretary of State of the State of California, amending Article I of the Company’s Restated Articles of Incorporation solely to reflect the Company’s new corporate name, is attached hereto as Exhibit 3.1 and is incorporated herein by reference."
This seems in large part to reflect their expansion in to battery and solar technology following the aquision of SolarCity. However, I wonder when products such as SolarRoof and Powerwall 2 will be become available. When I read/viewed the promotional material for those products I got the impression that they would be "hitting the shelves" early 2017. Perhaps I was mistaken.
The Powerwall 2 order page[1] used to read "Installations begin in January 2017." I just checked back and it now reads "February 2017." On March 1, will it change to "March 2017?"
I am a very serious potential customer (dad needs help ordering a power backup solution for his medical devices) and sent a detailed email asking for more information. I didn't want to put down a deposit without more details about whether the products are available, if my area is suitable, and when installation would start ("January - no, February - no, March - actually, check back this summer" wouldn't be acceptable for my use case). I didn't hear back for a few weeks.
I just followed up again. Hopefully they respond this time, but I would imagine that I am probably going to go with another battery backup solution (or a gas-based generator solution) at this point.
Will be interesting to see what product categories they enter in the future. Currently they have cars and batteries, but there's got to be a good change they're planning on entering a new product category soon.
Also looking at the German standards for low or even positive energy homes I see a huge potential for energy efficient homes in the US (but also other markets).
The German Passivhaus standard just begs for factory prefab construction. I suspect a major factor is how one can reduce the cost of making the structure airtight.
Don't fully airtight structures need a lot of redundant safety systems to protect against just leaving a candle on killing everyone from carbon dioxide poisoning?
In the context of avar's question the active ventilation is a safety system.
A little bit of research indicates that candles are not all that different in oxygen consumption and CO2 production than a human and that a single candle (or person) wouldn't use up the oxygen quickly if the ventilation ceased.
As long as a failure of the ventilation system is obvious (so a window can be opened or whatever), it doesn't seem like it would be a major concern.
Well, a candle isn't enough to be a concern. But state of the art air tight passive houses include ventilator units that exchange air while retaining (or rejecting) as much heat as possible.
There are several companies in the US producing prefab Passivhaus homes. Typically, a building membrane is used as the airtight layer. Joints get taped, both in the factory and on site.
E.g. http://www.phoenixhaus.com
E.g. https://www.ecocor.us/prefab
Im waiting for the day that a "positive energy" trumps energy efficiency in germany. With solar prices dropping we may get to the point that it is cheaper to not insulate or otherwise reduce energy use and instead achieve positive energy entirely by slapping on more solar panels. Zero-carbon is a net measurement. You dont actually need to be efficient in terms of total energy use.
This has already started to a degree, as people trying to build net-zero homes find that at a certain point the cost (in money/effort/carbon/energy) to add further insulation exceeds the cost of adding heat to the home via adding solar PV. I believe retro-fits of older homes hit this point earlier, since it can be harder to insulate them beyond the low hanging fruit.
Obviously as PV price continues to drop, this point will be met earlier and earlier.
Ive observed this already in off-grid situation where the priorities are different (no net metering, power not used/stored is power abandoned) but when it hits the mainstream it could make a real dent in home construction/insulation biz.
I doubt that will ever happen. 1) Insulation is essentially passive for the lifespan of a building, PVs and other solar tech + associated heating & cooling systems need regular maintenance, cleaning, replacing etc. 2)highly energy efficient buildings provide better comfort and indoor environmental conditions than a poorly performing building with lots of active heating / cooling etc. 3) insulation works day and night, all year round, PV only produced electricity when the sun shines. There is a big gap between what PV can supply and day/night demand and summer/winter demand. Storage might get to the point where it can bridge the day/night supply/demand gap, but seems unlikely to bridge the summer/winter supply/demand gap.
A lot of the technologies in better home construction are usually out of reach for low income families and low income areas. Add in the number of trades that are included in building houses, and I would imagine a lot of push back on getting some of these technologies implemented at a low cost.
I do still believe there is a huge opportunity for companies to disrupt the building industry with modular housing and other economic choices for people who really can benefit from this.
I don't think of tesla as a "car and battery" company but as a "portable battery (the supposed car) and a home battery" company.
They already partner with (or own) SolarCity so really their overarching business is as an energy company. They collect it, they store it, and they transport it.
All they need is a logistically easier way to transport it than traditional power lines which I'm guessing would step on some toes. So their next step might be something like WiTricity. That way, they can bypass physical infrastructure.
> I don't think of tesla as a "car and battery" company but as a "portable battery (the supposed car) and a home battery" company.
If they really want to be in the business of making batteries, they should get out of the business of making cars as quickly as possible. It's an expensive distraction.
It's extremely difficult, the R&D costs are enormous, scaling up is difficult, thousands of little things can sink you, and once you sell a product, you will be on the hook for it for the next decade.
To me, it seems that they are a car company with a battery side business - it makes a hell of lot more sense then being a battery company with a car side business - for the same reason that Exxon-Mobil isn't an oil company with a jumbo-jet-manufacturing side business.
Which would be a terrible idea. since both energy, and energy storage is a commodity. GM may as well merge with United Fruit Company.
The only two gains I could see would be diversification (But then why not merge with Bank of America? Or Google?), and an integrated logistics system (Except that logistics for electricity and gasoline are long-solved non-problems - and have nothing to do with auto manufacturing.)
There's a concept called "grid parity", where solar PV can deliver energy for the same cost as your utility would charge you for it's provision. This is considered a tipping point, where the economics starts pushing things along harder rather than relying on idealism. It got talked about for years as a goal, but now we've passed it in various parts of the world (starting in those with the combination of lots of sun and high priced utilities).
There's another concept that builds on this called "god parity", which points out that simply distributing energy via a grid has a cost (sometimes more than half of the cost you pay), so if you imagine that you had a tame god that could generate infinite energy for free, but you still had to pay the distribution costs, then if current trends continue, then PV plus batteries would still be cheaper than paying for a grid to deliver "free" energy to your home. It's perhaps not a coincidence that Tesla provides both of the items needed to make this happen, PV and home energy storage.
>All they need is a logistically easier way to transport it than traditional power lines
what flaws of traditional power lines are holding Tesla back right now? It's not a subject i've ever really thought about, but i was under the impression that high-voltage cabling was a pretty efficient way to transport power.
Actually it's around 6% loss in lines and transformers: 2% in transmission and 4% in distribution.[1] This works out to be quite a lot. In some high-intensity areas, Ohm's law losses can use more energy than refrigerating a superconductor over the same length. I'm not sure that there exist ways of increasing efficiency here, but getting another percent or two of global energy production for "free" would be amazing.
But I'm not really sure that the distribution network is holding Tesla back right now. With some SolarCity and a PowerWall, you're going to be able to go off-grid. In theory. The idea is to be a total alternative to traditional energy companies and utilities.
It's a fairly minor thing, but if I had to guess I'd say a Tesla branded inverter for PV systems. Their electric vehicles and the Powerwall 2 incorporate inverters already. It wouldn't be a stretch to start offering them for PV systems too, now that they've got SolarCity. (But there doesn't seem to be any really compelling reason not to continue using third party inverters for PV, so who knows.)
> It's a fairly minor thing, but if I had to guess I'd say a Tesla branded inverter for PV systems.
Responding to a question from an analyst during the company’s quarterly results call, Musk said:
“…There's no question Tesla's going to do integrated inverter. It's the logical thing to do. I think we've got the most advanced inverter engineering team in the world, and so it makes sense to, just as we do the inverters on vehicles, to do it with solar as well and have it in a very tight package at a cents per Watt level that is, I think, probably twice as good as anyone else. I think maybe better than that.”
They will do this. Tesla branded panels, inverters, batteries, car chargers, apps. All seamlessly integrated from one company. I'm curious whether they'll get into DC optimizers.
Thinking about the political situation, what kind of new industry can Tesla enter into, that will create plenty of jobs, and would be greatly helped from Musk's relationship with the President?
Boats. Was actually told this first day I started working there. Won't be going into production until after pickup truck is out in the market. Looking at early to mid 20's time frame.
I wonder if there is a plan, likely in a later future, in which SpaceX and Tesla merge. Like Tesla and Solar City I could see Elon blurring the lines between SpaceX and Tesla on various projects.
ITAR is a good reason to keep them apart for now. Do to SpaceX making rockets, they can only hire US citizens and a bunch of other annoying requirements by ITAR are needed to be met.
Its easier to keep the companies separate just from a compliance standpoint as what would otherwise be a minor issue can turn into a hundred million dollar fine (eg: someone accidentally given access to the wrong file server). If everyone in your company is a US citizen its much harder to accidentally create an issue under the eyes of ITAR.
I think Musk will keep them separate for now. This pure speculation, but I have the feeling that Tesla is a company Musk will feel comfortable relinquishing control over as it grows, while SpaceX is his baby.
Agreed. Also, given the nature of his lofty goals at Spacex, they're going to take a huge amount of his time to make happen.
Musk is very much motivated by progressing humanity. At this point, the electric car and solar revolutions are well underway (thanks in part to him). But if he were to die tomorrow, it's very possible that a lot of his dreams for space travel would die with him. The industry just hasn't reached the same level of competitive self-sufficiency.
While rockets do need lots of energy to make thrust, and both companies are built around smart people there's really nothing else in common between SpaceX and Tesla. SpaceX is high-risk shipping, Tesla makes consumer goods. SpaceX makes vehicles with hydrocarbon propellants, the whole point of Tesla is to remove the hydrocarbons from vehicles. And there's no reason to put Tesla at risk if SpaceX runs into a string of bad luck.
Both built around not just smart people but increasingly smart machines. The manufacturing processes and the autonomous vehicle products themselves are cases of state of the art robotics at scale. Some of this overlap is perhaps embodied by SpaceX's VP of Software Jinnah Hosein doubling as Tesla's VP of Autopilot Software before Chris Lattner's arrival.
I'd like to see the day when the methan and oxygen propellants for the ITS are synthesized from water and atmospheric CO2 by Tesla solar plants. But SpaceX could just buy the methalox from Tesla, there's no complicated partnership that would benefit from merging them.
The only thing I can imagine is the Internet constellation. If retail consumers will be subscribing, then SpaceX doesn't really have a consumer presence yet. Seems like you could use Tesla to be the consumer facing company for the Internet. But Tesla could just buy exclusive access with resell rights...
Or possibly researching new avenues of energy generation?
I see potential for nuclear energy in the future, and spaceships will have to resort to nuclear energy because fuel isn't going to cut it for energy intensive long term missions.
And if they figure ways to do it with minimal risk, we wouldn't have to depend on solar energy and hope it gets more and more efficient in the future.
I feel like the risks with nuclear energy are overhyped. With proper security precautions, nuclear plants wouldn't be so dangerous are many think. Except unexpected natural disasters of course. But is it really that hard to reconcile the advantages vs. disadvantages? Many coutries aren't low on space like Japan and can handle things going wrong in the nuclear plant area.
This wouldn't be a problem if nuclear fusion is achieved of course, but I waiting for someone to make a law related to "It'll be there within the next decade". Net positive energy nuclear fusion will nicely fit in with quantum computers that exhibit quantum supremacy.
That sounds cool, are there any links you'd suggest reading up on that? Are you talking about mass-> energy conversion in general or something specific which has already been theorized successfully?
And I was thinking not just exploration, but sustained energy intensive missions. Chemical energy will be enough for entry to space, but solar energy might not be sufficient for long term missions.
If heavy machinery needs to be operated (like space mining) we need nuclear energy, and this can happen soon enough that humans haven't yet figured out complex energy production measures like the 'total mass conversion' you mentioned.
There wasn't much between Tesla and Solar City until Tesla brought out the battery. Elon has used one of his factories for the other company before for some part (if I remember the story correctly) so I always got the impression he may fold everything together if or when it makes sense.
Not today for sure. But who knows just me thinking out loud.
To me it looks like they have always wanted the simpler name, but were able to sort out the legal and trademark issues only now. Same for Apple, probably.
So what are people's expectations of what industry Tesla expands into next? I am curious as outside their space operations the rest is highly tied to battery technology. Is there room for new products there?
also -- room for improving solar energy generation - including proliferation of more electric appliances [electric central heat to replace gas/oil]
Boats with solar panels running on wind+electric [this is a fantasy of mine that I have drawings with, alas it is unlikely I have 10 million to build my dream boat, but that does not mean I cannot make sketches :-) ]
I hope his long game is launching solar arrays into space and beaming the power back to earth, effectively combining Tesla Motors, SolarCity, and SpaceX
Musk is actually very critical of solar power in space. He says it's very inefficient due to the lack of atmosphere to "pre-filter" the energy[1]. He believes nuclear power is the way to go in space.
Neither "nuclear" nor "filter" appear in the text of that interview.
Here's the paragraph:
One thing we learned today: While Musk loves electric cars and spaceflight, there's one thing he hates: space solar power. "You'd have to convert photon to electron to photon back to electron. What's the conversion rate?" he says, getting riled up for the first time during his talk. "Stab that bloody thing in the heart!"
He's talking about space based solar power for terrestrial consumption. Solar cells actually generate more electricity without the atmosphere filtering the solar spectrum. But in LEO they can't stay aligned with a ground receiver. Beyond LEO they face enough charged particle radiation damage that standard silicon cells degrade too quickly, so you have to use more expensive cells. And all solar power satellite schemes rely on converting solar electricity to microwave energy in space and converting back to electricity on the ground; that's the lossy "photon to electron to photon back to electron" conversion that he (rightfully, IMO) gets riled up about.
As I see it, the solar power satellite concept could only sound plausible in the 1970s. That was back when both silicon and gallium arsenide solar cells were exotic and before the Space Shuttle had actually flown, so people could still use its ridiculously optimistic on-paper attributes to plan SPS construction. When it turned out that the Shuttle was not going to fly anywhere close to 50 times per year, and the costs per flight went up commensurately, that was a major setback. The falling cost of terrestrial PV modules based on crystalline silicon undermined another rationale for SPS. It made a lot more sense to think about exotic, expensive installation locations when the solar hardware itself was expensive regardless of location. The third setback, the falling cost of battery storage, is currently underway. A geosynchronous solar power satellite can deliver power even when it's night on Earth, but the relative value of that too is falling.
We have a few orders of magnitude more energy from sunlight hitting the earth than our global requirements. Why go through the effort of hauling all that into space when we can meet all our needs on the ground?
Trucks or ships for goods transfer. The later would be a huge environmental impact and potentially significant cost reductions given fuel can account for 70% of shipping cost. Combined with a skeleton crew (or unmanned) via simpler electric engines, autohelm and automation someone is sure to disrupt this area soon.
http://ccbn.10kwizard.com/cgi/convert/pdf/APPLEINC8K.pdf?pdf...