Last week, we told you how well you could have done with at $10,000 investment in Apple stock. Now, we’re going to tell you the NEXT stock that has potential to be an even bigger home run.

Playing around with the math for this blog post has been fun. In fact, I learned something almost eerie when comparing Apple’s stock – and its company, leadership, and business model – to the outfit that I think is going to be The Next Apple. Here’s that nugget:

Apple’s current market capitalization, of $719 Billion, is 24-and-a-half times the market capitalization of The Next Apple. Meaning this: if you invested $10,000 today in The Next Apple and, in ten years, it becomes the size Apple is now…you will have done about as well with The Next Apple than you would have ten years ago with Apple.

Still with me? As you’ll see in our calculations below – and I was able to get through college without one math class, so bear that in mind – we’re possibly going to fall short of that goal. Not by too much. But, if you’re able to buy a stock now that grows by an order of magnitude over the next ten years…would you do it?

I think I know the answer. Without further ado…

The Next Apple is Tesla.

Think back to when Apple ceased to become just a computer company. They did a lot of cool stuff and made a lot of cool computers, but, frankly, when they launched the iPhone, they created a brand new category. Then they did it again with the launch of the iPad. (Now it’s the Apple Watch but I’m not as convinced…time will tell.)

They went from computer company to behemoth. Tesla could do the same – and I believe they WILL do the same, because of a couple Apple-esque moves. Here goes:

Tesla’s Powerwall Launch > Apple’s iPhone Launch

I have GOT to be kidding, right? Tesla’s Powerwall is greater than the iPhone?

Well, give it time.

I spent some time in the electric industry – and one of the selling points we used to use when trying to convince stakeholders to modernize the grid is the “Edison” example. Not Tesla vs. Edison, but Edison vs. Bell. It goes like this: if Alexander Graham Bell were to somehow time travel to 2015, he’d look at a mobile phone and say “what the heck IS that?” When told he built the thing that was a precursor to it, he’d still be a little flabbergasted. Conversely, were Thomas Edison to time travel to 2015, you’d have to walk him over to your neighborhood’s electric poles and say “you built the thing that’s the precursor to this” and he’d say “looks pretty much the same.”

The Powerwall’s genius is in a couple of different categories. It’s a battery (but better than other batteries, if you believe Elon Musk), it’s easily connected to solar panels (because the Sun won’t burn out for millions of years, that’s sustainable energy), and it can allow you to get off the grid.

(I can’t help but find this to be a Left- and Right-solution, in that the Left Wing in America, you know, the tree huggers – well, they can fall in love with the sustainability nature of the Powerwall, and the Right Wing in America, you know, the “get off the grid” tea partiers – well, they can fall in love with the ability to keep the Government out of their energy.)

If you watch the video of Musk’s launch of the Powerwall, you’ll hear him talk about how some countries have leapfrogged landlines and gone straight from no phones to mobile phones. He said the Powerwall could do the same thing for under-developed utility markets – and I have no doubt that is attainable. In fact, the IEA suggests that one-fifth of the world’s population is without access to electricity. In the Powerwall, millions may have an affordable solution to leapfrogging – from no electricity to an off-the-grid, solar/battery solution.

But Not ENTIRELY at the Expense of the Current System…

Here’s where, IMHO, the brilliance of Tesla’s Powerwall really stands out: he didn’t completely go around the utilities that power the US, he offered to work with them.

The Powerwall is, in Musk’s opinion, “infinitely scalable,” so it can be sold to electric utilities right now – as a backup system? Or as their utility’s main power generation and storage facility? Gee, either seem to be doable, according to Musk.

If you hearken back to Apple’s iTunes library – which predates the iPhone – Steve Jobs didn’t force his iTunes solution down the throats of the record companies: he built it as a potential adjunct to the current system, or an eventual replacement, or something in between. I think that turned out pretty well for Apple – and I can’t help but think that guided at least a little of Tesla’s thinking.

Oh Yeah, the CAR!

I didn’t forget to mention that Tesla makes automobiles. Good ones: for the second straight year, Consumer Reports named it Best Overall. Their review was glowing as heck: