 Okay, we're back. We're live. It's Monday morning. It's 12 noon 12 o'clock rock with Mina marita former chair of the PUC and now energy dynamics consultant and Marco Mangelsdorf the CEO of Provision solar and also Hawaii Island energy co-op welcome to your show you guys on a Monday at noon. What do you say? Good morning from the the People's Republic of Spana Cruz, California Mina and Jay hello there And they have type and telephones there wonderful And I'm still on koai. Okay. All right, maybe would you rather be? Yeah, exactly So we were you know Hardly couldn't notice that Electric cars, especially Tesla have been the news Marco found an article about a three hundred dollar three hundred million dollar line of credit that Deutsche Bank Apparently has given to Tesla in order to You know make it possible for Tesla to market its its sedan this new sedan And they're going to go on a big marketing campaign and the three hundred million dollars are given the cash They need to Finance and lease finance those cars, which is all the rage. I mean finance and cars is all the rage these days So that's that's one thing then of course There's been some articles in the news about the new software that's being rolled out by Elon Musk and and Tesla And that's gonna that's gonna make it much safer for drivers to drive It's it's not automated, but it's on the way to automate it And I what my guess is that it will lead there soon and in the morning paper There was a pro and con and whether electric vehicles in general Were you know gonna be the next great thing or what and what the barriers were and what the pros and cons were that was interesting Anyway, it seems like we should talk about we should talk about Tesla, which has one Showroom in Alamoana, which I saw yesterday really beautiful cars And I understand they're building another one in the Howard Hughes area Victoria Ward Near the theaters there at a Wahi Street they're building another one So I don't know if we'll wind up with two, but we certainly for the moment looks like we might have two Tesla showrooms So anyway, so comments on Tesla and electric vehicles Where are we going? What what of this information appeals to you? Well, not not necessarily Tesla vehicles, but electric vehicles in in general. I think it's really important that They be considered because we need to look at ways to grow loads You know over the years the load has been declining and We can't bring in all this new renewable generation unless we grow our load So this is definitely one area Where there's an opportunity Yeah, I would I would echo Mina's comments as well J I believe that by having more electric vehicles number one it would Reduce on opossum fuels have in liquid petroleum that the state brings in for the transportation sector Which is of course substantial as long as it's paired with more PV whether it's rooftop PV or commercial PV or or utility PV that We're seeing more and more our four utilities are seeing more and more that there's often Can be a surplus of solar power during the Midday hours when loads are typically lower and this would be a perfect time and a perfect combination To use that excess or PV power to be able to charge up Where we're a long way it's a way from having any type of volume I think of electric vehicles I mean it doesn't you don't go from one to ten thousand to hundred thousand overnight Certainly, but I mean clearly the cost have to come down right? I mean I was been driving here Driven by a number of these beautiful X of the hybrid-looking SUV vehicles and I'm thinking God much be fun to drive one of those but I mean right now You have to well compensated individual in terms of the salary to be able to afford that so if and when Mr. Musk and hit the $30,000 range that he's touting sometime Supposedly next year. I mean that'll be that'll be a very big thing to be able to be required 200 plus mile worth of range. I mean that that that will be a very important thing for the State of Hawaii when we get there Yeah, and I heard this was one of the big manufacturers has already got 200 mile range I forget which one it was that car came out recently and so we're we're already in a place where a range anxiety is no Longer that big a concern. You're gonna say me Well, and I think the other big challenge for Hawaii is you know, we like our truck so they have to come up with a Good truck. Well, maybe not so much on Oahu, but definitely on the neighbor island. We like our truck. I Don't know why but this reminds me when I was a kid riding a bicycle We used to take a close-pin and put a playing card so it hit the spokes So it sounded like a motorcycle It had a clickety-clack sound because bicycles are silent Well, I can I can see an electric car coming along which has a you know macho and macho engine sound Even though it doesn't make any noise. You think that would help sell electric cars I Think it would help sell it would help sell those and you know, I hadn't even thought of that you're actually right I mean, we've got a thing on I mean We've got con for a lot of folks in the islands and a ruler and then sir They're big beefy either for typically or or dot diesel trucks with a deep deep bear tongue Rumble so I think you're on to something Jay you come up with it Playing card attached to the wheel Several months ago. I wrote this blog about heated toilet seats in Japan. I mean or The the upgraded toilet in Japan and They account for seven percent of a homeowner's electricity use. Oh, wow You know, that's a real way I mean, we have to think out of the box and how to grow loads But I heard that And these toilet seats get more ubiquitous. I mean, you know, definitely that's another area where We have to look at in all these unlikely places where you can Have electricity use yeah, well, I mean if the whole thing it seems to me a natural kind of marriage That is solar on your roof. Maybe you bought too much solar. You don't really need solar and now with self-supply You're not gonna have the option of selling it back utility. What do you do with it? Well, you can put it in your car and You know, there's a natural progress a natural progression. Those two things work together pretty well So you you you load you load your car up you charge your car at night. It's wonderful for extra extra power from the PV They have a car that is Hopefully they're gonna get cheaper and hopefully the range will stay over 200 miles for a cheap electric car and And and they were I think they're gonna build them in a way so that they will take Automated software as we go down the pike. I mean, I clearly that's what Elon Musk is doing He's building them so that today's software can get better and better and the car can take Upgrades it, you know, it has it has the you know The the physical the physical attributes to take the upgrades in the software and soon enough the same car You bought today which has a certain amount of you know What he calls security software road safety software We'll also have software that you to make automated and I think the last part of that formula is these cars Will not be sold. I think his 300 million dollar line of credit for Deutsche Bank is a sign of the times He's going to market these on a lease basis to waste so many cars are marketed today So you like a cell phone, you know, you sign up and you pay a monthly charge And maybe you pay something up front, but you essentially pay a monthly charge And the question really to my mind is how if at all should the government incentivize these cars? Because this is the way the future people going to want these really bad the more automated they get the more excited people Don't have and if you already have PV you're going to get very excited about it. What do you think you guys are you ready for doing that? I'm I have mixed feelings guys. I have really mixed feelings I'll tell you why it's because and I fully admit that my business my solar business over the past 16 years has benefited from government and sent it profound to me profound existential questions regarding Be profitable what I mean by that is that if you look at some of the major players across the United States even across the world profitability long-term or long-running But then profitable one Single year out of the ten years and now it looks you know as they're in place So to speak in terms of possibly being purchased by companies need to be profitable They don't Are they deserving of of government support and how much government support should they be getting? I mean that you kind of bring it back home to a weight So we have an announcement over the past couple weeks that we have what a record budget surplus of a billion dollars Of course, which brings all kinds of people clamoring for of course very Valid and and hardwarming ways to spend it But ultimately this is money that comes out of all of our pockets, right? So I don't really have an answer to my philosophical question because it's easier to pose that question than to answer it So I'll I'll shut up. Okay. Well your question the question you dealt with was whether we should have incentives But I think what I heard in there was the implication that incentives or not people are going to want these electric cars These electric cars are ultimately safer. These electric cars will ultimately, you know modify Ameliorate the congestion on the highway because they move efficiently around They could be a big thing for Hawaii if we if we adopt them Of course any state could stop you know electric cars it ultimately is a state regulation kind of thing I don't you know, even if the federal government likes electric cars The state's gonna wind up regulating the highways regulating the licensing and so forth I know you have a lot of thoughts Mina and I want to hear them especially about the incentives But let's take a short break if you don't mind when we come back We're gonna hear from Mina marita on exactly what should be done with electric vehicles going forward such a promising possibility We'll be right back Aloha, I'm Kawi Lucas host of Hawaii is my mainland every Friday here on think tech Hawaii I also have a blog of the same day at Kawi Lucas calm where you can see all of my past shows Join me this Friday and every Friday at 3 p.m. Aloha Hi, I'm Ethan Allen host of likeable science here on think tech Hawaii calm I hope you'll join me every Friday at 2 p.m. To discover what's likeable about science Looking to energize your Friday afternoon tune in to stand the energy man at 12 noon Aloha Friday here on think tech Hawaii Hey, how you doing? Welcome to a botchy talk. My name is Andrew Lening. I'm your co-host and we have a nice program here every Friday at 1 o'clock Think tech studios where we talk about technology and we have a little bit of fun with it So join us if you can thanks, Aloha Okay, we're back. We're live with me and marita and Marco Mangelsdorf talking about Tesla Setting new standards for electric vehicles and electric vehicles in general and we left We you know, we were on a cliff a cliffhanger with me and marita because we wanted to hear what she had to say about the future of electric vehicles and and the policy points around a Resumption of a tax credits here in Hawaii. What do you think? You know, I think we have to look at the whole transportation issue differently Because you know, if we're just looking at adding More electric cars when we're not facing up to the biggest problems that we have in Hawaii, which is traffic congestion And so, um, you know, I don't think the future is going to be just how do we get electric cars on the road? but You know, how do we resolve our transportation problem in general and it's going to be a multi prong approach with with a bigger picture of Alleviating traffic congestion with cleaner vehicles And so I think, you know, we need to be sort of reframing the issue for everybody and And and kind of paying the pit what the picture could look could be like and and so one is In the electrification of public transportation in general, you know More electric buses more electric shuttle vehicles. So anywhere you're you're moving Greater amounts of people, you know, how do you get that electrified? Yeah, I mean, I absolutely I think electric buses has got to be part of the package Nice that one of those manufacturers is going to make electric trucks. I hope that happens soon Especially for the Hawaii market electric buses. We need more of that and we need a lot of buses And that's that's the multimodal one that up that I relate to I I don't have any confidence that the government is going To make bike paths all around this could be the best place in the universe for bike paths But you know, we we do bike paths by not doing bike paths the same thing with pedestrian walkways We don't really we don't take care of our hiking trails. We don't build setbacks We build concrete interfaces like in kakaako where you really can't walk Everybody drives to Alamona shopping center and they see concrete all around them It's like being in this huge concrete jungle This note and walking is very hard So I'm thinking that if you talk about multimodal, you're really talking about more kinds of electric vehicles. That's the reality of it Yeah Yeah, so so, you know, I think you know, it's not only incentives that we have to look at it What what are the disincentive to using, you know? Larger vehicles in Hawaii and how do we more appropriately scale The transportation for, you know, the right types of uses and Then we have to get creative You know, one of the things that I saw in the big island years ago at I think it was that the Mamalani was you know solar panels on on electric golf carts and having them charged up that way And my understanding was that the golfers like them because they're a little bit more pepier, so you know What's the inventory of golf carts out there that can use a Solar charge on them during or get them charged up during during the day, you know So I think it's how do you reframe the issue and look at incentives and disincentives You know part of the disincentives would be our taxation issues You know, are we appropriately taxing The dust guzzlers dirtier Engines and more appropriately Taxing electricity right now. I take and that takes the burden off the tax incentive for solar and electric vehicles And it and it puts a disincentive on the other side and you have to have both working Or at least you have won't have to have one working if you want to do incentives for solar and electric vehicles Then do a huge big distance center for fossil I mean we have a very modest distance and of the barrel tax and the real problem with that is the money Doesn't go to where it was supposed to go, which is really tragic right and year after year This is raised in a legislature and year after year they take the money away and they put it to something else It's really tragic And I I agree with you on that and I and I feel that We have to we have to look out of the box on solar Solar is only on tops of roof. Why can't solar be in the tops of buses buses have a lot of geography Especially those you know twin buses, you know two buses They could get a real more than a trickle charge off just putting solar on top of the bus We should have solar everywhere. We should have movable solar We you know and guys like you mark Marco with provision You don't have to limit yourself to homes and roofs You can you can find efficient solar panels and maybe efficient batteries and Combine them in a way that hasn't happened before. What do you think? Well, I think that I'd just like to ask me that kind of a cut to the case political question, which is Meaning do you believe that let's say this next legislative session that The legislature should put a bill or two in front of the governor's desk that will one bill which would provide state tax credit for residential battery storage and To go on the governor's desk which should incentivize through state tax credit Those people to buy more electric vehicles You know No, because you know We already know That the tax credit as it exists now Includes storage so, you know, it's a matter of designing your system right to take full advantage of the tax credit with PV plus Storage, so the state is the state already allows that taxation already allows that In their interpretation of the tax credit So I I think if we're looking at just a separate energy storage tax credit credit, that's a huge mistake Okay, and I think it's just and Then and even the cars I think the car should be competitively priced It's already competitively priced with the with the Nissan beef and you know the What there's a Tesla version for what 30,000 or something Not until next year at the earliest That's Elon Musk's plan to really go go to town marketing those and I think that's the purpose of his line of credit and all that But you know don't don't you guys feel that you know transportation has lagged We we've been talking as include the Hawaii energy policy forum and the part of the State Department of Transportation We've been talking about Multimodal transportation. We've been talking about electric fields We've been talking about trying to you know get the fossil fuels off the roads But we haven't done really much at all after five years plus of talking about it And so if you know if I was king You know and I'm not running by the way if I was king I would really throw some money at this I would say I'm gonna change public conduct all those guys who love the macho trucks We're not gonna let them do that anymore. We're gonna we're gonna incentivize them force them To get on the road with electric vehicles or biofuel. We're not gonna let them use fossil fuel We're gonna make it really hard for them and in five years more. We could actually change it But going at the rate we're going now in terms of changing public opinion and public buying habits We're not doing very well. We have less than 3,000 electric vehicles in a state of a million vehicles. That's peanuts Well, I think the whole challenge for the legislature is you know, you're looking at entire system changes You know whether you're talking about the fuel infrastructure your your transportation infrastructure your electrical grid Your water system Domestic use and ag use And your communication system, you know, that's a five really big areas that need a total overhaul and Some really good long-term planning and he you know, if you're looking at oh, we need more electrical vehicles Or we need another bike path. That's just a project. What we're talking about is full Systems changes that are happening that we're not keeping up with and there's no long-term strategy To make those kinds of transformations well amen to that and now after in the post next era era Or maybe the post next era era You know, we should be able to think more creatively get out of the box Step off smartly and get into more innovative systems What do you see going forward Marco about? about you know marrying Solar and batteries and cars would you as an entrepreneur would you as the principal of provision solar try to roll with his leaves on that? well, I mean that's clearly from what I can tell clearly what Elon Musk's strategy is in his Desired purchase of the company of solar city, which is an owned essentially a majority control by his cousins Peter and Linton Rive Is that he sees that synergy between electric vehicles and between? Solar PV and we are I guess awaiting a shareholder approval Boat which may or may not be taking place right now. I don't know if they had to have a super majority I haven't looked at it in that detail, but I would think at least 50% of the shares plus one But yeah, I mean, it's a good combo, but again, Jay I go back to this kind of existential question. I've been really even pondering recently, which is how important is profitability and I'm not even talking about near-term profitability, but Unprofitability or losing money for not one not two not five but ten ten years. I mean, what does that say? about The product what does it say about how the product is being sold how the product is being priced for city model Which I've been looking at in some detail Analysts jump up and down with glee when they hear that solar city has announced that they've reduced their costs again and again And again, and that they're the leader in terms of reducing the cost of install PV system So I think to myself how how kind of Alice in Wonderland through the licking glass is this You know prices going down and and they lose more and more and more money. Well, yeah, but don't don't you think we're in a new We're in a frontier thing here. This is a transformation and You know, they haven't worked out all the technical details They haven't made a product people are willing to pay more for they're effectively incentivizing You know the whole movement themselves by taking you know less as a purchase price And then eating the loss But you know over time I think they believe that over time this will resolve and certainly Elon Musk's view of the matter that you know Where he puts his money where his mouth is or at least he puts his Tesla's money where its mouth is Is that ultimately these guys are going to have a product that will be you know central in the future of Clean energy and transportation I'm sure he's not telling us everything. He has some tricks up his sleeve about how he's going to put these things together But but clearly over time The technology gets better over time people become more interested over time That software makes it more useful more interesting more exciting for the market and I think he's betting on that So if he were here today Marco, he would disagree with you that because they haven't made money in ten years Means they were on the wrong track. I think it's a long plan. That's all many me now. How do you know? And I'd like to hear me this view. What's your take on this, you know, I know I don't have a viewpoint yet That's okay Maybe maybe that's the smartest thing of all well Marco, let me let me let you close and you can rebut everything I've said We live in bizarre time that the claps the biggest solar renewable company in the planet San Edison back in April They're there in the process of being part-filled out dismembered. They're never going to come back as they were they were big They were bold they were Breaking traditions and and they collapsed in a supernova or exploded in a supernova Fashion and I mean as long as companies like Elon Musk Tesla and others can I guess count on Deutsche Bank and others To call me up 100 200 300 million bucks at the club, you know, they can keep they can keep the automated Assembly line flowing along, but I think we're we're beginning to see Serious reaction from the market as in from investors when you look at past months Okay, the past 30 or so days in terms of the stock price that both Tesla and solar city Well, hasn't been as dramatic but clear than the market writ large have some misgivings about this combination of Tesla and solar city Alright, you know, you want to have less words on this? Yeah, I you know, I completely agree with Marko on you know, you have these Huge Companies that you know, it's not only the Utilities have to change their business model But these other companies their business models aren't static either that they have to involve You know, what does the future hold for them? Yeah, we're in a transformation. We're out of time, too Marco Mangelsdorf of provision solar mean marita form a chair of the PUC and a consultant as the energy dynamics Thank you so much you guys I hope to see you again in two weeks from now here on Mina Marco and me on energy today We've been talking about Tesla setting a new standard for electric vehicles and much more and we'll find something else to carry the conversation in two weeks Thank you so much both