Elon Musk’s five insights into solar energy

The Washington Post. By Dominic Basulto. 1/16/13 It’s hard to argue against Elon Musk being one of the greatest entrepreneurs of our era, responsible for bringing to market such innovative companies as PayPal, SpaceX and Tesla Motors. But it’s his role as chairman and primary shareholder in SolarCity — a solar energy company run by his cousins – that’s getting a lot of attention these days. SolarCity went public in 2012 at $8 a share and now trades at close to $70. That’s nearly a 10x investment in just two years. (Just look at that beautiful chart) So what does Elon Musk know about solar that the rest of us don’t?

1. Solar energy is inherently an exponential technology.
If there’s one thing Wall Street loves, it’s a good growth story, and that’s something that SolarCity has been careful to cultivate. The company already has 80,000 paying customers and expects to sign up 1 million customers within the next four years. That means the company will need to literally double in size every few months. Think about that for a minute: 1 million customers over four years means 250,000 new customers in 2014, or approximately 20,000 new customers each month. So the company will have doubled in size — from 80,000 to 160,000 customers — by Memorial Day weekend. 

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