Laurie Yoler: On Tesla, Venture
Capital and President Obama
Fresh Dialogues Interview with Alison van
Diggelen
February 3, 2010 --- Laurie Yoler, a
managing director of Growth Point Technology Partners, was a
founding board member of Tesla Motors and currently serves on its
advisory board. I met with her at the FountainBlue Clean Green
Annual Conference on Friday January 29th, the day Tesla announced
its planned IPO. Needless to say, Yoler was bullish about Tesla’s
prospects this year. We also discussed President Obama’s State of
the Union Speech on January 27th and the government’s role in
stimulating green technology. A transcript follows the video.
Good news for Green Tech Venture Capitalists in State of
Union Speech? “Rather than what our president said that night, I look at
what’s actually taking place, the changes I’m seeing. President
Obama as a president has embraced sustainability throughout his
tenure.”
Obama’s role: could he do more? “He wants to embrace things that have already happened at
the grassroots level, instead of mandating across the board. He does
have to step forward and the longer he waits to put in Federal
goals, the states are going to be further and further along and it’s
going to be even messier to sort out. So I think it has to continue
to be a priority but so far it seems to be.”
Government’s Role in Green Tech? Demand Side “The government can be a huge customer for many of these
technologies… In the advanced transportation, advanced vehicle
sector the DoE stepped in where the VCs stepped out. The DoE
provided $8.5 Billion in funding in the the advanced vehicle
technologies last year. The entire venture industry only invested
$670 Million, so more than 10 X: government jumping in saying, ‘No
no no, we want to incent advanced vehicles, fuel efficient vehicles,
so we want to jump in.’”
Legislative side “It’s been tough getting some very big things through the
system. I think there is continued interest but I’m not sure that
we’re going to see the regulation happen as fast as many would like.
But it is happening at the state level, 29 states have renewable
energy standards that they have set and six more in process.” On
Tesla’s prospects in 2010 “We’ve seen the continued success and
momentum of Tesla…I get giddy every time I see one on the road. I
think we’ve seen all the large auto manufacturers now make a
commitment to electric vehicles, flex fuel vehicles, hybrid and
battery technologies. So if we look across the automotive ecosystem,
we see that there is sustained momentum and so I would hope Tesla
would benefit from that, being one of the pioneers.”
To hear more Fresh Dialogues interviews with Laurie Yoler,
click here.
