This might not seem connected to living in Argentina, but it is.
Last night, Elon Musk announced Tesla Energy. Its first products will be lithium-ion batteries: among them, a reasonably sized, reasonably priced, nice-looking battery that you can mount on the wall of your home. Batteries are important because energy storage is crucial to any form of energy production. If your energy source varies at all, and all of them do, you need a way to store its energy in order to consistently produce. But batteries have been around for a long time and they keep making new ones. So why is Tesla's a big deal?
Design in Engineering
Looking good matters. I feel this is still underrated in engineering, despite some of the most successful companies in existence sharing a common characteristic of excellent, innovative design. People need to want to use it, no matter how innovative the technology is by itself. Musk addressed this as soon as he started talking about batteries. They're ugly. They're big, dirty, and unwieldy. In his own words, they "suck".
Since the announcement, there has been plenty of commentary and analysis about the product, as there should be. Some are saying that it's $10,000 cheaper than comparable technologies; others are saying it's actually more expensive than what's already out there. But the price doesn't tell everything. Nest released a thermostat that costs 10x as much as a typical one—but this is what it looks like. People bought it, Google bought it. With Toyota's Prius, it wasn't at all clear if fuel savings justified the higher price of the car. But that didn't change the fact that it was a well-designed car for the price. Tesla showed that with its cars too, though at a higher price.
Positive Association
This is not just a battery, it's a Tesla battery. The same company that makes those Roadsters and Model S's that rip down the highway. Imagine taking the battery out of one of those cars and using it to power your home. I'm not even thinking about the practicality of it. I'm just thinking, that's cool.
Batteries don't come off as interesting. Talking about solar cells or wind energy bores a lot of people; imagine trying to talk about energy storage. What Musk has done is built the Tesla brand around really fast cars, one of the most universally appealing things that exist—even more than wizards. And to that brand, he is now attaching the traditionally unsexy battery, putting it in public consciousness right next to "driving real fast". We can talk about batteries now. That, by itself, is a huge step.
Building the brand in the first place wasn't easy, by the way. Tesla was an electric car company at a time when electric cars could've easily gone the way of "hippie ideas". Musk made electric cars cool, and he'll try to do the same for energy storage.
Overview
Ultimately, this is about climate change. And I think one of its biggest challenges is in branding—in shedding that label of "hippie ideas". I mean, what else is left when you have some of the most thoroughly vetted facts in scientific history, still being questioned as a matter of belief? At that point, it's not about the facts or the technology anymore. It's about how you tell the story.
The most sustainable solution is in solar energy and energy storage. When Elon Musk—a literal rocket scientist and probably one of the smartest humans in existence—says he can think of no other way to do it, that's worth considering.
So how is this relevant to Argentina? Well, it's not. Not specifically, at least. But I didn't lie when I said it was connected. One thing about traveling is that it gives you a chance at detecting a glimpse of something called the Overview Effect, described in the 19-minute video below. It's worth making time for—if nothing else but to pretend, for a little while, to be an Earth-bound astronaut.