Former Tesla CEO and Heron Power CEO Drew Baglino founded the heat pump startup

Former Tesla CEO Drew Baglino has quietly developed a heat pump startup, TechCrunch has learned.

This is the second company Baglino has founded in the two years since he left Tesla. Sources confirmed the existence of the startup, called Sadi Thermal Machines, and TechCrunch reviewed the company’s filings in Delaware and California.

Sadi was founded in June 2025 and shares its Scotts Valley, California, headquarters with Heron Power, a startup also founded by Baglino, which sells solid-state transformers, according to company filings.

The company’s name is a clear reference to Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot, the pioneering French physicist whose work laid the foundation for modern thermodynamics, including the internal combustion engine and the heat pump. Little is known about Sadi Thermal Machines, however, it appears to employ several Tesla alumni, according to LinkedIn reviews and a source familiar with the startup.

TechCrunch was unable to reach Baglino or the PR firm representing Heron Power. This article will be updated if they respond.

Before founding Heron Power and Sadi Thermal Machines, Baglino spent nearly two decades at Tesla, where he worked on everything from the original Roadster to the Powerwall and Powerpack energy storage systems. When Baglino left Tesla in April 2024, he had risen to executive vice president, overseeing the development of the company’s core energy technologies, including electric motors, batteries, and electronic devices.

Along the way, Baglino worked on Tesla’s heat pumps. He is credited as the inventor of a patent for a thermal management system that uses two cooling loops, one to cool the battery and the other to cool the drivetrain components.

To control the two loops, Baglino and his teammates developed three-way and four-way valves that give the EV’s thermal management system sophisticated control of the temperature of various components. Such a system allows Tesla to harvest heat from the traction motor, for example, and use it to preheat the battery to ensure optimal performance when charging quickly in cold weather.

The patent lays out some of the design principles that form the basis of Tesla’s “octovalve” system that first appeared in the Model Y. The heat pump in that car controls the temperature of the cabin, batteries, and motors, all in a package about the size of a suitcase.

When it started, Tesla’s octovalve system was more advanced than that of its competitors, and at least for a short time, the company considered developing a heat pump for residential and commercial settings. Tesla executives, including Baglino and CEO Elon Musk, discussed such a plan during a 2022 earnings call. They are discussing a heat pump that will handle both HVAC and water heating.

“From a mechanical standpoint, it’s very consistent,” Baglino said. “We’ve learned a lot about how to make efficient and reliable heat pumps that work in all environmental conditions and we’re excited about the idea of ​​working on that problem one day. Let me put it this way, it’s definitely in line with our mission to accelerate the transition to sustainable energy.”

Making a heat pump for the home, he added, would be easy. “It’s very difficult in the car,” he said. “It’s significantly reduced in weight and volume and power.”

But then Musk added one of his famous winners. “It’s something we’re going to do, but we’re not committing to a timeline right now,” he said. Tesla has yet to release a residential HVAC or water heating system.

“People have to do it anyway,” Baglino said on the phone. With Sadi Thermal Machines, he seems poised to make good on that statement.