Predictions and What Clean Energy Trust is Excited About in 2019
The year is already off to a busy start, but the Clean Energy Trust staff took a few minutes out recently to share thoughts on 2019 — predictions for the year, and what we’re excited to see. At the end of the year, we’ll look back and see what turned out to be right, what was wrong, and whether that excitement was warranted.
Scooter War Is Over, If You Want It
By the end of the year, we’ll have forgotten about the war between scooters and city government. The scooter companies will work through this faster than the ride-sharing companies did, they’ll find ways to keep city councils happy through speed throttling, corralled parking and no-parking zones, and of course, a nice fee on top.
The war among scooter companies, on the other hand, rages on in a race for customer loyalty. In most places, where there are plenty of scooters, people will pick the company whose scooter is closest at any given time. The power of default (always going for the Lyft app instead of Uber) isn’t as strong. Look for promos, loyalty programs, etc.
-Ben
Market Uncertainty Will Discourage a Big Cleantech IPO (Good!)
There are a surprisingly high number of tech startups that have either announced plans for a 2019 IPO or are rumored to be making the move, including Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, Slack, Pinterest, and Zoom. These companies have delayed raising capital in public markets due to the swell of later-stage venture capital in recent years from firms like Softbank; while public capital is cheaper than private equity, the IPO process is onerous and if the offering is not well timed, the outcome could be disastrous, e.g. Snap Inc. (NYSE: SNAP) and Blue Apron (NYSE: APRN). Considering the S&P lost more than 6% in 2018, interest rates are on the rise, and the overwhelming uncertainty clouding global trade, I suspect a few of the rumored IPOs may elect to defer a public offering and instead go back to the private well for a quick few-hundred-mil. Moreover, I think the small handful of cleantech unicorns that might otherwise be in a position to consider an IPO — e.g. Proterra and ChargePoint — will instead stick with private financings in 2019 or get scooped up by a strategic buyer with deep enough pockets to justify a billion-dollar-plus acquisition. Having said that, I think it would probably be for the best. The last thing cleantech VC needs right now is an IPO bust. Good progress has been made in signaling to LPs that “Cleantech 2.0” is an attractive sector to invest in, not the solar panels and biofuels that burned VCs ten years ago. We need the next cleantech IPO to be a big success.
-Paul
Patience and Resiliency Will Be Tested in the Crypto Sector
2018 saw a dramatic fall in cryptocurrency market value which many likened to the 17th century Tulip Mania fiasco. Total market cap dropped from nearly $620 billion at the start of the year to just over $130 billion at the end, and some people lost more money over the course of a few months than most make in a lifetime. What was the hottest topic in the news a year ago is today an almost taboo cautionary tale among average joe investors that have cut their losses and pulled out to lick their wounds. In 2019, investors will be observing cautiously on the sidelines as developers work hard to implement changes and features promised as part of the 2017–2018 hype, this time without the societal background noise. This year and next will be crucial in demonstrating the potential of trustless and decentralized networks, and in the meantime, regulators will circle overhead and crypto markets will continue lurking around the bottom.
-Tony
On the EV Front
We’ll see major announcements from the big carmakers about EVs, but they’ll only be widely available on the west coast and in the northeast, and they’ll continue to be expensive cars designed to get people in the doors of the dealership so they buy the more profitable SUV they really want.
The EVs startups planning to launch their own cars and trucks will not sell more than 1,000 cars in 2019. But, we’ll still see new startups generating buzz at the auto shows with slick-looking fiberglass mockups and CGI ads.
-Ben
Elon Musk Will Stay Out of the News.
Bold, I know. Despite the eccentric founder’s penchant for publicity and breaking rules, I think the damage his antics caused in 2018 will sink in, and lead him to be significantly more restrained. Of course, there will be plenty of headlines about Tesla, Space X, The Boring Company, and whatever other new venture Musk breaks into, but Elon will limit the weirdness and damage caused by his own personal news flashes.
-Ian
More 100% Renewable Utility Pledges
Three more utilities will announce long term 100% renewable targets.
-Ben
Climate on the Campaign?
Climate policy has long been largely ignored in national campaigns. With Democratic control of the House and the current push for a Green New Deal, it will be interesting to see how climate and sustainability issues are treated on the campaign trail. Tom Friedman for one, saw this as an opportunity for Democrats. Given the existing track record, I am pretty skeptical that it will go very far but have a healthy dose of optimism that this could be a rallying issue.
-Alex
The Summer of Scooters
Chicago hasn’t had e-scooters deployed en masse yet, but that day is likely drawing near. The City is looking into how to regulate the scooters (for what it’s worth, I like the idea of using a dynamic cap based on scooter usage per day to determine how many should be allowed on the streets). Also, with the explosion in e-scooters across the country, there have been capacity limitations from scooter manufacturers; however, these bottlenecks should ease mid-way through the year. So, expect a scooter-ific summer this year in Chicago and many other cities.
-Ian
Tempest in Your IOT Smart Teacup
There will be a handful of news reports about hacks, data breaches, and companies selling data from smart home devices. People will be outraged on Twitter and Facebook, and some will ditch their devices. But, for the same reason people don’t care about the privacy questions raised by internet tracking, most people won’t care.
Smart home device sales will continue to grow because existing users will buy additional devices (and because people will buy devices, like TVs, that are smart by default but don’t end up getting connected to anything), but the growth of connected homes in the US will slow.
-Ben
Hey Google, How Many Smart Speakers Will be Sold in the US in 2019?
More than 75 million. Following the trend of gigantic growth in the last several years, sales of smart speakers will increase significantly (up from approximately 52 million in 2018). Is this cleantech? Not exactly — it is much broader than that, as voice starts to become the way people interact with computers outside of the office environment. That said, as people have homes that are more connected and easier to manage without digging through instruction manuals, we should expect this to encourage the use of smarter and more energy efficient home energy products.
-Ian
