Another Tesla executive has officially moved on. Brian Dow, who got his start at Tesla back in 2016, has left the electric automaker to pursue a new position at Generac, which is a primary rival to Tesla's energy division.
In our recent conversations about home batteries and generators, only two names have come up: Tesla Powerwall and Generac. The latter is more focused on gas-powered generators and other products, though it also produces and sells home batteries and inverters. When we were having our recent solar system installed, we only had two battery options to choose from, the Tesla Powerwall and the Generac PWRcell.
According to LinkedIn, Dow was initially a Senior Manager at Tesla, though he was promoted to Director of Engineering, a role he held for nearly four years. A recent update to his LinkedIn page, which was first reported by Electrek, confirms that Dow is now VP of Engineering, Clean Energy at Generac Power Systems. The page says he's held the new role for one month.
Based on Eletrek's story, Dow's previous Director of Engineering position at Tesla put him in charge of “Electronics, Firmware, Integration & Test.”
While Tesla doesn't yet steer a large portion of its resources toward its energy division, it's certainly ramping it up, and it stands to be one of the company's primary business models in the future. Tesla made big promises early on about solar roofs, solar panels, Powerwalls, and Powerpacks, and it has definitely deployed all of the products, though not to a level expected by some.
In order for a company to sell loads of products, there actually has to be a massive market for them, and that just hasn't been the case in the past. However, the tides are turning, and clean energy companies are seeing a notable uptick in consumer interest in a wider variety of markets. The same could be said about electric cars just a few years back, though now the demand for Tesla's vehicles is off the charts.
As people become more interested in electric cars, as well as related "green energy" products, the deployment of Tesla's energy products is expected to grow. However, this also means that rivals may soon see a bigger market for competing products, and Generac is arguably a top choice. This may become especially true now that it has hired Brian Dow as a top executive.
