News
Former Tesla executive aims to raise $50 million for energy startup
The latest startup to come from a former Tesla executive has arrived and is set to build next-gen grid hardware.
A former Tesla executive who departed last year is now aiming to raise funding for a new energy startup, which is set to help build next-generation grid hardware.
Drew Baglino, Tesla’s former SVP of Powertrain and Energy, is aiming to raise $30 to $50 million in Series A funding for his new startup, Heron Power, according to three sources familiar with the matter who spoke to Axios. Heron is set to produce next-generation transformers for electrical grids, and two of the sources say the company began raising funding last month.
The funding round is likely to be led by Capricorn Investment Group, which is an impact investment firm that’s particularly focused on sustainability and energy projects. The sources also said that Baglino’s involvement in the project could push the offering’s valuation into the hundreds of millions, though neither he nor Capricorn responded to Axios’ requests for comment.
“If he opened a taco stand there’d be significant interest,” one source says of Baglino. “He’s an A plus player.”
Baglino also responded to the news on Sunday, officially announcing the venture on LinkedIn:
After a year focused on my family, enjoying extended travel and many hours spent gardening and surfing, I’m excited to share that I’ve started a new company, Heron Power.
The electricity sector is struggling to keep pace with AI’s insatiable energy demand on top of the growing electrification of transport, industry, and buildings. Meanwhile, developed economies are deploying renewable resources at near terawatt pace in the face of strong headwinds from undersized, decades-old electric infrastructure long-due for renewal. As we transition towards a more sustainable, largely electrified energy economy, the need for more deployable, efficient, and resilient electrical infrastructure has never been more critical.
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Heron Power is building cutting-edge power electronics for the 21st-century grid. We aim to unlock faster growth of the electricity sector with scalable, innovative, and less costly hardware solutions, accelerating the electrification of everything.
If this sounds like your kind of adventure, let us know by reaching out or applying here: https://www.heronpower.com/
Transformers work to adjust the voltage of electricity between the grid and front-facing applications, and as power-intensive AI data centers become more common, they’re considered to be in somewhat short supply. The firm also says that the transition to sustainable electricity generation alone will require a three- to five-fold increase in global electricity generation and consumption.
"If he opened a taco stand there'd be significant interest. He's an A plus player."
-anonymous source on former Tesla SVP Drew Baglino trying to raise funding for a new startup pic.twitter.com/boOndfGe0l
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) April 7, 2025
READ MORE ON FORMER TESLA EXECUTIVES: This Tesla executive is leaving the company after over 12 years
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Heron is planning to manufacture solid-state electrical transformers within the U.S., though the sector is fairly competitive with startups aiming to build more efficient versions of the hardware that omits copper and iron components in favor of semiconductors.
Currently, around 80 percent of high-voltage transformers are imported into the U.S., and the news also comes as U.S. President Donald Trump’s global tariffs take effect.
“Heron Power is building cutting-edge power electronics for the 21st-century grid,” the company writes on its website. “We aim to debottleneck the growth of electricity generation and consumption with scalable, innovative, and less costly hardware solutions, accelerating the electrification of everything.”
Some investors have said that the valuation estimates are too high, and have been repelled by this and current market factors.
“You’re betting he can build it without a glitch, and that the capital markets will stay open for him,” one source explained. “That’s a really narrow window.”
Baglino worked with Tesla for 18 years, rising up through the company to land in his final position as the SVP of Powertrain and Energy. He played a major role in leading general product engineering, as well as the engineering and development of Tesla’s electric vehicle (EV) batteries, motors, drive units, and power electronics, alongside work on the company’s energy products.
Updated 4/13: Added Baglino’s official announcement.
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Tesla flexed the new features of the Model Y L with a dedicated media event at the company’s Diner on Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles.
The Model Y L is the extended-wheelbase version of the all-electric crossover, which has been voted the best-selling car in the world on three occasions. The vehicle is already rolling off production lines at Gigafactory Texas, and first deliveries are slated to take place later this year.
Tesla brings Model Y L ‘Launch Series’ to the U.S. at $61,990
Teslarati was invited to the event, but due to some scheduling conflicts, we could not make it to Los Angeles. Instead, we will have our hands on a media unit sometime in August, so we’ll be able to spend some more extended time with the Model Y L.
However, plenty of those who made it to LA shared some cool features that set the Model Y L apart from the Model Y.
Multi-Row Climate Control
Tesla fitted the Model Y L with full climate control on all three rows on the front screen. It can be adjusted by selecting which row you’d like to modify on the right-hand side of the touch screen:
The Model Y L has a little row of icons on the right side of the climate screen so the front passenger can more quickly jump to whatever row they want to control. pic.twitter.com/uJS44mgCvk
— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) July 30, 2026
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Better Rear Window Visibility
One of the strangest things about the Model Y, especially the Juniper iteration, is the rear window has extremely limited visibility when looking into the rearview mirror.
Tesla has improved upon this with the Model Y L:
This is a drastic difference. https://t.co/wTdhitD5aA pic.twitter.com/z6hFs0Jkss
— TESLARATI (@Teslarati) July 30, 2026
PowerShare will be included
Model Y L will come with PowerShare in North America, with an 11.5kW output to your home. Tesla said it would require Powerwall 3 for operation.
Wireless Charging Pad
There has been some speculation that Tesla would upgrade the wireless charging pads in the United States, but this is not the case.
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Tesla owner fixes common feature complaint with crafty DIY retrofit
Tesla confirmed that it does not come with the cooled pads as the Y L in China does. This is because North America has not adopted Qi charging yet.
Thermal Management Improvements
These improvements in the Model Y L were seen with thermal management:
- Up to 15% faster cabin cooling
- +23% thermal efficiency gained in hot weather, 7 miles of real-world range gained
- 8x more solar energy reflection off of glass roof
- 30% reduction in solar energy entering the cabin
Some of the thermal management improvements in the new Model Y L Premium:
• Up to 15% faster cabin cooling
• Up to 15 min faster cabin cooling in sunny conditions
• +23% thermal efficiency gained in hot weather +7 miles of real-world range gained
• +10 miles recovered after… pic.twitter.com/jZirFWFdtO— Sawyer Merritt (@SawyerMerritt) July 31, 2026
Demand
Tesla said the Model Y L is almost sold out in the U.S. It comes with
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- 1 year of FSD Supervised
- 1 year of Supercharging
- 1 year of Premium Connectivity
- Free exterior paint color, interior, and wheel option at no additional cost
Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to his social media platform X on Thursday night to deny a ridiculous rumor regarding the sale of the company’s Chinese vehicle production plant, Gigafactory Shanghai.
On Thursday, the Wall Street Journal, citing sources familiar with the matter, claimed in a scathing new report that Tesla was exploring a potential sale of the entire China business in an effort to help bolster a potential merger between SpaceX and Tesla.
Musk immediately denied the rumor not once but twice, initially calling it “fake news,” and then calling it “absurdly fake news” in a separate post just a few moments later:
This is fake news
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 31, 2026
The original poster of the Wall Street Journal article that Musk saw deleted the initial post sharing the headline and the rumored sale of Tesla’s China business.
This has never even come up in a discussion ever.
Absurdly fake news.
-People should assume news is fake until proven otherwise.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 31, 2026
The report seemed absolutely and unequivocally false to begin with; Tesla’s business in China is among the most important pieces of the company’s business. Not only does the factory supply vehicles for the domestic market, but also for various other markets in Asia and Europe.
China is also one of the largest automotive markets in the world, and Tesla has performed well there despite the robust competition.
The speculation regarding a Tesla and SpaceX merger has started to gain steam this year as the space exploration company went public just a month ago. There has been speculation that Musk will bridge all of his companies under one “umbrella company,” and analysts believe this could happen before the end of the decade.
The Tesla and SpaceX merger everyone is talking about is quietly building
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This is the latest iteration of Musk’s very evident war on mainstream media. Reports regarding any of Musk’s companies are quick to get the dreaded “false” or “fake news” response from the CEO when they are unfounded.
Elon Musk
Tesla AI boss reveals how big Optimus is going to get
Tesla’s Optimus chief corrected himself on X, confirming a staggering 10 million robot production target.
![Tesla Optimus Gen 3 [Credit: Tesla]](https://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/tesla-optimus-gen3-diner.jpg)
Tesla’s Optimus program has a new number attached to it, after Ashok Elluswamy, the executive who has run the humanoid robot program since June 2025, posted a three word correction on X Thursday, “Correction, 10 million robots.”
The line clarifies the long term annual capacity Tesla is building toward its planned second Optimus production line at Gigafactory Texas, a figure Musk has cited repeatedly since last year’s shareholder meeting.
The scale is worth noting, because ten million robots a year would mean Tesla building more units annually than most countries sell in new cars. Tesla has framed this as a second line, not the first. The buildout is happening in two phases: a roughly one million unit per year line inside Tesla’s Fremont factory, installed on the floor space vacated when Model S and Model X production ended earlier this year, and a much larger dedicated facility under construction at Giga Texas that broke ground on its first steel structure in May. That Texas facility is the one Elluswamy’s correction refers to, and is expected to reach volume production sometime in 2027.
Correction, 10 million robots https://t.co/0z4nyQNTzp
— Ashok Elluswamy (@aelluswamy) July 30, 2026
Tesla Optimus project fires up as Musk sees production line progress
Elluswamy took over Optimus from Milan Kovac last summer and has spent the months since talking up the program’s trajectory. Elon Musk has also floated the ten million figure at Tesla’s 2025 shareholder meeting.
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Ending Model S and Model X production to make room for the first Optimus line was one of the more consequential manufacturing decisions in the company’s recent history, retiring two flagship vehicles in favor of a robot that has yet to enter mass production. Musk has previously estimated per unit production costs at $20,000 to $25,000 once Tesla reaches a million units a year, though he hasn’t said what that cost looks like at ten times the volume.
Tesla Model Y L’s new features flexed at unveiling event at Diner
Tesla CEO Elon Musk denies ridiculous Gigafactory Shanghai rumor
![Tesla Optimus Gen 3 [Credit: Tesla]](https://www.teslarati.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/tesla-optimus-gen3-diner-80x80.jpg)
