Drew Baglino spent nearly two decades building Tesla’s batteries, motors, and power electronics. Now the former Tesla SVP is quietly building the one home energy product Tesla talked up for years and never shipped: a residential heat pump.
His startup, Sadi Thermal Machines, is a direct bet on an idea Tesla floated openly in 2022 — before the company reoriented itself around humanoid robots and robotaxis.
Tesla said it would build this. Baglino is doing it instead.
On Tesla’s Q4 2021 earnings call in early 2022, Baglino and Elon Musk spent real time talking up a residential heat pump that would handle both home HVAC and water heating.
“From a mission perspective, it’s very aligned,” Baglino said at the time, adding that a home unit would actually be easier to build than a vehicle one because it isn’t “so constrained on mass and volume and energy.” Musk added his usual qualifier — “it is a thing we will do, but we’re not committing to a time frame at this point.”
