The Tesla and SolarCity merger is not just a smart business bundle of achieving one-time corporate synergies. It’s arguably the beginning of a future where regardless of how the energy is gathered or utilized, it can be shared.

 

This may seem obvious or like not a big deal, but when we start talking about the future of modular transportation where a group of “modules” (cars) together can power a train more efficiently and with less traffic, these cars need to be able to pool their energy repositories together to create one large pool for the train of cars to pull from.

Short side note: this is where fossil fuel vehicles hit a bigger roadblock than a herd of angry Greenpeace activists. Fossil fuels produce energy, but they have to be turned into electricity via combustion prior to being able to be shared. I can’t pour gas into my iPhone and expect it to work, ever again.

We take for granted all the things that we simply plug into the wall. This is how the future of transportation needs to work from the standpoint of universality of the energy being used, but we need to go a step further. Being able to charge your iPhone and iPad from your computer’s energy source is fantastically useful, but it doesn’t make the USE of that energy any more efficient – if anything it makes it less because my iPhone dies every fourth email whereas my computer can handle a few hundred before dying.

With transportation, though, there are real benefits from being able to allocate energy correctly, and only if the energy can be easily allocated in different ways can these tangible benefits materialize.

For example, say there are two 18-wheel trucks, one directly behind the other, driving on an interstate for several hundred miles. Both are carrying their own payloads, and both are using their own engine power to move their respective payloads across the country. However, the guy driving behind the first truck is expending much less energy than his friend in front because he doesn’t have to deal with as much headwind hitting the front of his truck. This is a fairly common occurrence among truckers, and it’s called drafting. The problem with drafting, is that someone is always having to take the brunt of the wind, while the others simply coast behind.

But what if there were a way in a line of interstate trucks for the trailing trucks to push energy from their engines forward to the trucks bearing the brunt of the headwind? Then you’d have the energy where it’s needed most and where the other trucks can simply coast along. It’s a similar thought process as a train on train tracks. Each car does not individually have its own power supply, but rather is attached to the power in the front.

Granted, trucks on a highway are not going to connect directly to reach other necessarily, but the value of having the front truck bear the brunt of the headwinds while everyone that’s trailing pushes some of their own energy forward makes everyone more efficient and channels energy directly to where it’s needed.
That same hallmark of directing energy where it’s most needed is apparent in the Tesla/SolarCity deal. The solar system stores the energy in the battery packs, which then can be used where it’s most needed. Whether that’s charging the person’s car to go somewhere or heating their home or profiting from selling the energy in excess back to the grid, the person’s energy ecosystem is allocating energy where it’s most needed and where it’s most efficient.

In developing a common energy platform where energy can be targeted to where it’s most needed and most efficient, the Tesla/SolarCity deal is way more than just good old fashioned corporate synergies.