As Elon Musk continues to drive his company, Tesla Motors Corp. (NASDAQ: TSLA), forward, he must fight the notion that environmentalism is not economical. Considering the high cost of lithium-ion batteries, the company is pursuing an alternative to bring these costs down.

According to the outlook of a key market guru, Tesla is paving an environmentally friendly way to the future that investors might not want to pass up, assuming the cost issue is fixed. Wednesday morning, Tesla continued to build towards this future with its most recent partnership.

Dalhousie University announced that it has signed an agreement with Tesla for a five-year research partnership. The agreement was signed June 16, 2015, and the exclusive partnership will begin in June 2016.

One of the main reasons that Tesla chose to partner with Dalhousie was for its lithium-ion (Li-ion) battery pioneer, Dr. Jeff Dahn.

Over the course of the next year Dahn will continue to work as the Industrial Research Chair in Materials for Advanced Batteries. This venture is funded by 3M Canada and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). The exclusive partnership with Tesla begins when this program comes to an end next June.

Dahn said:

Our research group’s goal is to increase the energy density and lifetime of Li-ion batteries, so we can drive down costs in automotive and grid energy storage applications. We’re incredibly excited to partner with Tesla, a company that’s so well-aligned with our research.

Aside from this positive research news for Tesla, the company garnered much respect from investment guru Rob Baron when he appeared on CNBC early Wednesday morning. He praised the company and the progress that it has made over the years and where it stands to go from here.

Rob Baron referenced Tesla’s guidance of 55,000 vehicles sold in 2015, not to mention, the company believes that it will expand to sell roughly half-a-million vehicles annually by 2020. Rob Baron thinks Tesla will reach the half million mark quicker.

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However, unless the stock plummets, Rob Baron has already made his money. His initial purchase of Tesla was in 2012 when he bought approximately 1.2 million shares at $33.11. At current prices, this stake alone would be valued at $313.2 million, or nearly 1% of Tesla’s market cap of $33 billion.

Shares of Tesla were up 3.1% at $260.99 on Wednesday afternoon. The stock has a consensus analyst price target of $274.35 and a 52-week trading range of $181.40 to $291.42.

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