Tesla gears up for Australia's electricity market
There is a race on between the owners of electricity utilities - such as state governments - and companies like Tesla that are developing batteries for domestic use that will allow homes to store enough solar power that they won't need to buy it from electricity retailers.
Thus it is probably not all that surprising that Tesla founder Elon Musk has chosen Australia as one of the prime international territories to colonise for home-energy battery storage. 
He is leveraging off one of the world's most exciting brands - the Tesla electric car - to get a foothold in the potentially huge market for consumers desperate to cut their energy costs.
While NSW premier Mike Baird is much further down the track in his quest to privatise electricity assets, others such as Queensland's Labor government seem to have ignored or misunderstood the competitive dynamics of this market.
Australia is a market ripe for the introduction of batteries needed to store electricity generated by home solar panels. It's a relatively wealthy market, with plenty of sun and high electricity costs.
Musk said during Tesla's quarterly earning call this week that "we are seeing very strong demand for Tesla Energy products [batteries] globally, and particularly in Australia."
A recent report from the Climate Council said that "together with rooftop solar, battery storage presents an opportunity for Australian households to use a much greater proportion of the solar photovoltaic (PV) electricity they generate and minimise the need to purchase expensive electricity from the grid".
There are plenty of battery supply operators in the market already, and at this stage Tesla says it batteries are designed more as a back-up than a stand-alone source of storing solar power.
(And there are other non-lithium batteries being sold for wholesale use that have much greater storage capacity.)
A recent report from the Climate Council concluded: "Battery storage capacity is expected to grow 50-fold in less than a decade. Battery costs have fallen by 14 per cent on average every year between 2007 and 2014 and more dramatic cost reductions for lithium ion batteries are expected as several companies rapidly scale up production."
But the great auto industry disrupter, Tesla, certainly catches attention when it talks of expanding into new market .
Tesla has a vested interest in finding ways to reduce the costs of electricity, given this is what powers its cars.
Tesla's electric car is a superb piece of engineering and has caught the attention of Wall Street as one of the new generation of companies that has helped take the electric- car game mainstream.
(Numerous other car makers manufacture a range of electric cars alongside their predominant petrol-driven models.)
It released this week its quarterly results, which demonstrated so clearly the risks and high capital expenditure costs associated with start-up businesses.
The stock price jumped 10 per cent on the back of the result (which was a loss of $US75 million). The idea is that eventually, additional volumes will be positive for earnings. Revenue was up 33 per cent on the previous corresponding period
Tesla said in a letter to shareholders that its third-quarter global Model S orders increased more than 50 per cent from a year ago, and rose at a faster pace in North America, Europe and Asia, than during the second quarter.
There was also plenty of excitement about an improvement in sales in China, which is its newest major market. Third-quarter Model S orders increased substantially from the second quarter, due in part to the opening of two new retail locations. It expects order growth in China to remain strong, with more store openings and the recent policy changes in Beijing and other major cities that allow buyers of Tesla vehicles to bypass licence-plate restrictions.
There was plenty of hype around Tesla's new SUV model, which it says "has ludicrously fast acceleration and hospital-grade cabin air quality".
Despite the strong volume result and the great excitement surrounding the product, the fact remains that Tesla is still bleeding cash and taking on debt and, according to the Wall Street Journal, the shares trade on 120-times multiple of forward earnings. And it plans to turbocharge capital expenditure in the fourth quarter.
And Tesla is also in a race against time - with other car makers that are ramping up electric-car production.
In the fast-moving technology cycle, the disrupters can often have a limited window to establish dominance in a market before they are themselves disrupted.