The wait is over! On April 30th, at its design studio in Hawthorne, California, Tesla Motors Inc. will unveil its new product line, and it’s not a car. In an email sent out to investors and analysts on Tuesday, it was reported that Tesla would be announcing a home battery and utility-scale battery.
Khobi Brooklyn, a Tesla spokeswoman, said that “we’ll share more information next week.”
We had gotten rumor of this new battery back in February when Elon Musk discussed it during an earnings call, but no additional details were made available at that time. In just under a week, we will finally be able get those details. How much will they cost? What hardware will be used and supported? Will these build upon the concepts in existing home batteries? Are they rechargeable? If not are they recyclable?
Tesla announced last September its plans to build a new Gigafactory in Reno, Nevada, 62 million has been spent so far. When all is said and done an estimated $5 billion will be spent on this project. Tesla plans to begin building lithium-ion batteries at this facility in 2017. The lithium-ion battery technology is being positioned to be the front runner in emerging energy storage that also provides supplementary electricity. Could this technology ultimately threaten our traditional electric grid? These new batteries when combined with the rapidly expanding residential solar market present exciting new opportunity’s for off the grid living.
Image Source: Tesla
