Tesla’s “Flywheel” Approach Is The Secret To Its Success
In physics, a flywheel is a rotating disk that stores kinetic energy in its momentum and then spins that energy out to a nearby engine. In the context of business, as the flywheel rotates, it increases output or revenue without increasing input or cost.
Tesla, best known for being an all-electric car company, is, well, much more than just a car company. It has disrupted a legacy industry with a new business model and consumer approach. But Tesla didn’t stop there. It expanded to new industries, grabbed a stake in key infrastructure sectors, worked to decentralize power distribution, and now offers a new alternative to today’s utility industry. Tesla’s end products are state-of-the-technological-art — all of which interconnect in a flywheel that incites consumer allegiance across multiple sectors and keeps those consumers coming back to Tesla for more — in a flywheel effect, essentially.
Tesla’s mission statement is: “to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport by bringing compelling mass-market electric cars to market as soon as possible.” Today, Tesla builds not only all-electric vehicles, but also scalable clean energy generation and storage products, all part of a business model that prods the world to stop relying on fossil fuels and move towards a zero-emission future.
The intersecting notions of a flywheel in this article were inspired by Post Corona — From Crisis to Opportunity, by Scott Galloway (2020). The book draws upon the metaphor to suggest that, when today’s consumers are introduced to one product within a brand, they are more likely to purchase other products within that same brand. Companies today, Galloway explains, should be focusing on the reciprocal nature of consumerism so that the lure of one product leads consumers to other, different products made by the same company.
In the book, the author, an NYU Stern School of Business professor, unpacks how “tech” used to be a “narrowly defined industry consisting of companies that made computer hardware and software, which companies in ‘other’ industries bought for their business.” No longer is tech so specifically grounded. As an example, Galloway explains that combined tech/auto company Tesla appeals “through every aspect of its strategy: pricing, production, marketing, and even its leadership.”
In a February regulatory filing, Tesla acknowledged CEO Elon Musk’s numerous commitments. “Although Mr. Musk spends significant time with Tesla and is highly active in our management, he does not devote his full time and attention to Tesla,” the filing indicated. It described Musk’s leadership in SpaceX and “other emerging technology ventures.” Musk’s influence extends beyond Tesla to a company that merges the human brain with computers, Neuralink, along with a tunnel-building firm, The Boring Company.
In essence, the Tesla flywheel concept suggests that a person who purchases a Tesla Model 3 is more likely to add range at a Tesla Supercharger and eat at a Tesla restaurant. Later, when growing into other renewable energy options, that same consumer is more likely to choose Tesla Solar and Powerwalls over a competitor’s offerings. And who knows what else?
The Tesla flywheel concept makes the company very appealing to some investors. In fact, Canaccord Genuity estimates that Tesla will reach $8 billion in revenue by 2025.
Tesla Energy Storage alongside Use
The Tesla company website acknowledges that “electric cars, batteries, and renewable energy generation and storage already exist independently, but when combined, they become even more powerful.” That confluence is the essence of the Tesla flywheel.
EVs and other renewable energy sources rely on batteries, and Tesla has refused to relinquish its full autonomy as it grows into different products and sectors. As elsewhere, Tesla is planning for its own battery production in China and has been advertising for technicians for its Shanghai facility in recent months, part of better per unit profitability in the region.
The Tesla Energy division provides stationary storage batteries for residential (Powerwall), commercial (Powerpack), and utility-scale (Megapack) applications. Musk has noted on several occasions that Tesla Energy could someday become bigger than Tesla’s automobile business.
Storage is not just about enabling renewable energy — it’s also an important tool for ensuring the reliability of the grid, smoothing out peaks in demand for power, and preventing sudden surges that can overload local distribution systems.
Tesla’s Core Electric Vehicle Catalog
New regulations on safety and vehicle emissions, technological advances, and shifting customer expectations are bringing electric vehicles (EVs) into the consumer transportation mainstream. The Tesla flywheel is evident within its EV business model, which is based on 3 levels of consumer service: selling, servicing, and charging its electric vehicles, which maintains control over sales and service.
The Washington Post says that Musk’s “impulsive leadership” has vaulted Tesla from its initial entry “as an upstart electric vehicle pioneer to the world’s most valuable automaker.” Fortune named him its 2020 Businessperson of the Year.
An international network of Tesla-owned showrooms and galleries, mostly in urban centers, is based on direct sales and service, not franchised dealerships. The showrooms are complemented by internet sales as well as Service Plus centers. In some areas, Tesla mobile technicians make house calls, and service can even occasionally be delivered remotely — without ever physically touching the car.
Tesla has created its own network of “supercharger stations” where drivers can charge their Tesla vehicles in about 30 minutes using a proprietary network. The highly anticipated “Full Self-Driving” suite will be another way of allowing longer and safer road trips.
Future additions to the Tesla catalog include the Cybertruck, an all-electric pickup truck with angular proportions and stainless steel exoskeleton, and a Semi, which will invigorate long-haul trucking with more benefits for drivers and transit companies.
The Tesla Gigafactory Flywheel Phenomenon
Tesla’s has 4 “gigafactories” (‘giga’ stems from gigawatt-hour, or GWh, here):
- Giga Nevada — in Sparks, near Reno, Nevada;
- the Solar City Gigafactory at Buffalo, New York (Giga Buffalo? Gigafactory 2?);
- Giga Shanghai — the 2019 Tesla plant in Shanghai, China; and,
- Giga Berlin — the new European Tesla gigafactory, which is being constructed in Grünheide, near Berlin, Germany.
Three main gigafactory features are part of the Tesla flywheel phenomenon.
- Separate from their scale, Tesla’s organization of production reverses much current conventional wisdom regarding production geography. For example, Tesla’s automotive facility in Fremont, California, reconcentrates manufacturing onsite as in-house brand componentry, especially heavy parts, or by requiring distant global suppliers to relocate in proximity to the main manufacturing plant.
- As an electric vehicle producer, Tesla’s production and logistics infrastructures are important in meeting greenhouse gas mitigation and the reduction of global warming.
- Tesla’s deployment of Big Data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and predictive management are important. Gigafactory logistics contribute to production and distribution efficiency. Company effectiveness is a primer for all future industry and services as they seek to minimize time-management issues. Methods of reduction of wasteful energy usage become evident through dataset analysis.
Tesla’s global reach is extending to Europe and Asia. Tesla Motors India and Energy Private Limited was incorporated on January 8, 2021. Registered in Bangalore — the country’s technology hub — the company would start with sales and then potentially move on to assembly and manufacturing, Nitin Gadkari, India’s transport minister, said. Also see:
The Long Reach of Tesla’s Flywheel
Tesla solar customers from now on will buy power systems that feed exclusively to Powerwalls. Powerwalls will interface only between the customer’s utility meter and house main breaker panel, enabling a relatively simple install and seamless whole house backup during utility dropouts, according to Musk.
Updates reflect customer feedback — many people thought their battery-less solar system would work in a blackout, only to be disappointed when it didn’t. Moreover, Tesla consumers seemed eager to gain protection against blackouts, so streamlining the offerings into paired technologies made sense — and deepened the Tesla flywheel effect.
CleanTechnica’s Zachary Shahan has outlined the extensive list of internal “Tesla companies” and their immediate competitors. If there was any doubt about Tesla’s flywheel effect, look no farther than these intersections of products and consumer loyalty to understand Tesla’s ongoing and seemingly impossible accomplishments.
- Tesla Cars vs. BMW & Audi & Toyota & Honda — car manufacturing
- Tesla Network vs. Lyft & Uber — mobility services
- Tesla Supercharging vs. Electrify America & EVgo & Ionity & Fastned — fast charging
- Tesla Charging vs. ChargePoint & EVBox & many others — home/destination chargers
- Tesla Autopilot vs. Mobileye/Intel & Waymo & Cruise/GM & Nvidia — self-driving/driver-assist tech
- Tesla Solar vs. Sunrun & Vivint Solar — solar panel installation
- Tesla Solar Tech vs. SunPower & Trina Solar — rooftop solar generation tech
- Tesla Energy Storage vs. AES & SimpliPhi & sonnen — stationary energy storage
- Tesla Grid Services vs. Utilities around the world & Stem — grid services
- Tesla Insurance vs. Allstate & Geico & State Farm — insurance
- Tesla Stores vs. Auto dealerships — auto sales & service
- Tesla Trucks vs. Freightliner/Daimler & MAN Truck and Bus & Scania & Iveco — semi trucks
- Tesla Infotainment vs. Apple & Google — in-car infotainment
- Tesla Computers vs. Nvidia & Intel — computer chips, systems on a chip, supercomputers
- Tesla Batteries vs. LG Chem & CATL & Panasonic — battery cells
- Tesla Seats vs. Faurecia & Johnson Controls & Lear Corporation & TS Tech & Toyota Boshoku — automotive seats
- Tesla Robots vs. Kuka & ABB & Yaskawa Electric Corporation — industrial robots for manufacturing
Tesla offices in Fremont, California. Photo by Zachary Shahan, CleanTechnica.
Musk had previously said in June he was leaning towards supporting DeSantis for president in 2024.
Joe Skipper | Reuters
Tesla‘s bitcoin holdings led to a big pop in reported net income for the fourth quarter because of a new rule change in how companies account for digital assets.
After showing a carrying value of $184 million in digital assets for the prior four quarters, the number suddenly jumped to $1.08 billion in the December period, Tesla reported in its earnings release on Wednesday.
The increase followed a recent policy change from the Financial Accounting Standards Board, which mandates that corporate digital asset holdings be marked to market each quarter starting at the beginning of 2025. Before the FASB rule change, companies owning bitcoin had to report their holdings at the lowest value recorded during their ownership, regardless of any subsequent price gain.
Tesla said in its earnings deck that the change resulted in an earnings per share boost of 68 cents in the quarter, and CFO Vaibhav Taneja noted on the earnings call that the net income increase was $600 million.
“It’s important to point out that the net income in Q4 was impacted by a $600 million mark-to-market benefit from bitcoin due to the adoption of a new accounting standard for digital assets,” Taneja said.
At the end of the third quarter, Tesla’s bitcoin holdings were recorded at a carrying value of $184 million, though their fair market value was significantly higher at $729 million. That means the actual increase in the value of its holdings in the period was about $347 million, reflecting bitcoin’s fourth-quarter rally.
Much of the recent gain in bitcoin is tied to optimism surrounding the second Trump administration, which was heavily backed by the crypto industry. Tesla CEO Elon Musk was Trump’s biggest financial supporter and is now a top adviser in the White House. Longtime Musk ally David Sacks was tapped by Trump to the be the White House AI and crypto czar.
Bitcoin tracking website Bitcoin Treasuries ranks Tesla as the sixth-biggest holder of bitcoin among public companies.
Tesla’s fourth-quarter earnings and revenue fell short of analysts’ expectations on Wednesday as auto revenue dropped 8% from a year earlier, yet the stock climbed in after-hours trading.
— CNBC’S Lora Kolodny contributed to this report.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that “your family’s life might depend on” having solar, despite that he’s part of a US government administration that has already made it harder to get solar, and seems poised to try to make it even harder.
Tesla hosted its Q4 and full year 2024 earnings call today, missing expectations on revenue and earnings. The company had its first down sales year since 2011, despite a rising EV market. The market initially responded poorly to the numbers, but recovered as Tesla guided a return to growth.
As part of the call, an investor asked if Tesla had given up on ramping its solar roof. The product was originally unveiled way back in 2016, and hasn’t particularly lived up to the hyped expectations of the time (especially due to some, uh, hiccups along the way).
Tesla’s answer highlighted that the roof remains a core part of its residential product portfolio, along with Powerwall, and that it draws a lot of customer interest despite it being a “premium” product (in contrast to original promises that it would cost less than a regular roof). But Tesla isn’t installing the roof itself, it says it would rather produce units to send to the roofing industry.
Then, CEO Elon Musk went into a soliloquy about the benefits of having home solar, which are true if perhaps a little overstated:
I think it looks really cool, and your house generates electricity. And if you combine it with the Tesla Powerwall battery, then you can be self sufficient, so that even if the grid turns off – even if the grid turns off for several days – your house still works. And your roof looks awesome. So it’s like, I recommend anyone who can afford it, get Tesla’s solar roof and Powerwall, your family’s life might depend on it. And just in terms of convenience, your kids are not gonna yell at you cause their computers don’t work and their power went out and they cant charge their phone. Actually happens. You literally cant even call anyone cause your phone’s out of juice.
Despite the answer being a bit rambly, there’s an important portion in there, when Musk says “your family’s life might depend on it.”
This is perhaps a little alarmist, but there is a point to be made in there. Having ready access to energy can be helpful in a bad situation, like for example during increasing natural disasters which Musk himself seems to deny are happening.
So, while Musk is wrong about climate change, he’s right that solar and batteries can increase resiliency of a home – which could, indeed, be lifesaving for that home’s residents in certain circumstances. But it’s still hyperbolic, and self-serving, to leverage these fears in order to sell a “premium” product – one which costs in the multiple tens of thousands of dollars – to fearful family members.
But then we must consider the larger context in which these words were said.
The White House’s occupant opposes solar
Unfortunately for the US, and for Elon Musk’s businesses selling renewable energy products, that three-time candidate finally managed to get more votes than his opponent (while still failing to attain a majority, and despite committing treason in 2021, for which there is a clear legal remedy). And after campaigning against solar, he’s already started attempts to marginalize it as an energy source in his first week squatting in the Oval Office.
On his first day occupying the seat on which traitors do not belong, he signed a memo stating that the US should focus on all forms of energy except wind and solar, the latter of which the company that virtually all of Musk’s wealth comes from sells.
Mr. Trump has also attempted to freeze disbursement of funds related to the Inflation Reduction Act, some of which go to solar projects. The IRA reduces energy costs for Americans and was responsible for a massive boost in American manufacturing, both things which Mr. Trump opposes.
We’re not sure what effect these directives will have, given their questionable legality and the fact that Congress is responsible for government budgets, not former reality TV hosts. But then again, it should be expected that a convicted felon would break the law again, especially if said felon shows no remorse for their illegal actions.
And Mr. Trump has ignorantly promised – inasmuch as the promises of a compulsive liar ever matter – to continue to attack this cheap, clean energy source in his quest to make life worse for Americans. Many estimate there is more nonsense to come, and given past experience with the ignoramus in question, that seems like a good bet.
But we’re talking about Elon Musk here, what does he have to do with all of this?
Elon Musk’s involvement in anti-solar actions
Elon Musk spent much of last year campaigning for Mr. Trump, despite that he made it openly clear that he wants to harm solar, the fastest-growing energy source in the US, which is cheaper and cleaner than fossil fuels. That candidate instead favors dirty, costly fossil fuel energy.
As a thank you for Musk’s massive bribes to Mr. Trump’s campaign, he has been appointed to the Department of Government Efficiency. This is not an actual department, but an advisory panel with no official authority.
It was created to be helmed by Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, two of the supposedly most intelligent and capable republican operatives, who nevertheless were both tasked to do a job that would normally accomplished by one person (Ramaswamy has since quit or been forced out, before the job even started). The panel has a redundant mission to the already-existing Government Accountability Office – making it a redundant office to reduce redundancy (no, this is not a Monty Python sketch, this is apparently real life).
So, Musk is an official part of this administration which is making these anti-solar moves.
It’s a change from Musk’s previous statements about solar power. Even as recently as 2022, Musk has decried anti-solar moves, and yet he’s now thrown large chunks of his personal wealth and effort into a group committing several of them.
While Musk and his advisory panel haven’t necessarily been directly associated with these anti-solar actions, the idea of freezing government funds is related to the supposed purview of his department, so it would be reasonable to think that he might have some input into this.
Further, Musk has shown in the past that when an administration does something he objects to, he’s willing to leave an advisory position in protest. He did this in 2017 when Mr. Trump signaled that he wanted to pull the US out of the Paris Agreement, an action which Musk said was “not good for America or the world” and quit an advisory board that he had been on (Trump did the same thing again last week, and Musk didn’t resign his position this time, signaling his newfound spinelessness).
So – the fact that Musk has not pulled out of the administration despite these anti-solar moves, combined with the fact that he has shown disapproval through resignations before, suggests that he at least tacitly accepts these moves to make it harder for you to install solar.
So… Elon Musk says you’ll die without solar, but wants to make it harder for you to get it?
And now we get to the point of this all: if Elon Musk thinks that your family is in mortal peril if it doesn’t install solar panels, but he also seems okay with government making it harder to install solar panels, does that mean he wants you to die too?
Worth a thought, especially for those apparently few investors who are still onboard for Tesla’s mission, rather than just holding onto base hopes that the company might benefit from some unspecified corruption.
Although, given the policies we’ve seen, which will directly harm Tesla’s business, maybe even that latter group might reconsider how the corruption is working out for them.
If you’d like to install home solar from a company that *isn’t* working actively to harm solar adoption in the US, it’s always a good idea to get quotes from a few installers. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. It has hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high-quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use, and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them.
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