Welcome back to the latest episode of The Future of Automotive on CBT News, where we put recent automotive and mobility news into the context of the broader themes impacting the industry.
I’m Steve Greenfield from Automotive Ventures, and I’m glad that you could join us.
Tesla’s stock has surged to a $1 trillion valuation – seemingly over the appearance that the close Trump and Musk relationship is going to benefit the automaker.
The company has long been the most valuable automaker in the world, but it is now worth more than the next 10 biggest automakers combined.
Considering there has been no significant news concerning Tesla this week other than the US elections, it’s fairly clear that the latest rally is related to the election and the close relationship between Tesla CEO Elon Musk and President-Elect Donald Trump.
Why has Tesla’s stock responded so strongly?
It’s been very hard to tell where Trump actually stands on EVs overall and consumer-facing taz incentives in particular.
Trump has made it clear that he wanted to remove the EV incentives that kept Tesla’s sales from falling in the US over the last few years. This move would make Tesla’s vehicles more expensive, but some Tesla shareholders are hoping that it will cripple other EV competition, leaving Tesla as the only profitable EV offered in America.
Removing the consumer-facing tax incentives would really hurt the legacy automakers, who are bleeding billions of dollars of cash in their EV operations.
And then there’s the issue of Chinese tariffs.
Remember that the auto industry really is an interconnected global octopus, and many US automakers rely on sourcing many parts from other countries.
As a contrast, Tesla is much more vertically integrated than other automakers, and far less reliant on importing parts.
So, Tesla investors believe the company will be able to stomach the tariffs better than the competition.
Finally, on the automotive manufacturing front, there’s also the more conspiratorial theory that Trump could carve out exceptions built especially for Tesla now that Musk has his ear. An example of this are barriers to Tesla achieving self-driving dominance.
Finally, Elon’s recent appointment to running the Department of Government Efficiency will mean he will have great influence over where programs are cut, and who benefits from such cuts.
How will this all play out, and what will be the implications on Tesla’s stock price?
Your guess is as good as mine.
But, with Elon Musk being best-buddies with our new President, it seems like Tesla investors are betting that a lot of goodness is going to come to the company.
Only time will tell.
So, with that, let’s transition to Our Companies to Watch.
Every week we highlight interesting companies in the automotive technology space to keep an eye on. If you read my weekly Intel Report, we showcase a company to watch, and take the opportunity here on this segment each week to share that company with you.
Today, our new company to watch is Smartville.
The company has two products:
Smartville 360 is a fully integrated energy storage system built with repurposed electric vehicle batteries.
Smartville Periscope is a mobile electric vehicle and battery pack testing kit that provides insights on electric vehicle battery’s health.
The latter product is really interesting to me.
The Smartville Periscope is a portable electric vehicle battery testing kit, providing easy and quick insight into battery condition, performance, and value, inside the vehicle or extracted from it. It allows you to test the health and safety of your EV Battery with our innovative battery assessment tool.
It’s easy to use: Sets up quickly, connects intuitively, and generates reports rapidly. Workforce training in under 15 minutes, reporting within 90 seconds.
The device is self-powered, with WiFi connectivity for seamless data collection.
And the unit identifies risks and failures, including high-voltage and fire hazards, for safe battery handling.
Its unique value lies in its ability to provide comprehensive reports on battery performance, value, and safety across all top-selling EV makes and models and share those reports via a trusted data portal.
If you’d like to learn more about Smartville you can check them out at www.smartville.io
So that’s it for this week’s Future of Automotive segment.
If you’re an AutoTech entrepreneur working on a solution that helps car dealerships, we want to hear from you. We are actively investing out of our DealerFund.
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Don’t forget to check out my book, The Future of Automotive Retail, which is available on Amazon.com. And keep an eye out for my new book, “The Future of Mobility”, which is almost done, and will be out soon.
Thanks (as always) for your ongoing support and for tuning into CBT News for this week’s Future of Automotive segment. We’ll see you next week!