California- Elon Musk, the daring entrepreneur and the mind behind some of the leading industries, is gearing to break into yet another market. The CEO of Tesla announced plans to provide homes and businesses with batteries connected to solar panels. The switch would allow users to rid themselves of government operated power plants for good.
Speaking to reporters in Hawthorne California, Musk said: “Our goal is to fundamentally change the way the world uses energy.” The “Powerall” batteries, as they are known, will be manufactured by Tesla, but Elon Musk has planned that the distribution should be outsourced. Musk has come up with a list of partner companies for the purpose, including Solar City, which was founded by his cousins.
Unfortunately, Tesla has a history of manufacturing products that are too expensive for local consumers. The cars are a good example; they start at $70,000. Tesla’s history has led people to believe that the batteries might also be a bit too pricey for everyone to switch to, with the suggested price ranging between $3,000 and $3,500.
Peter Rive, one of the founders of Solar City, said: “I do not believe this product in its first incarnation will be interesting to the average person.” However, he still believes that the demand would still be able to increase the use of batteries in homes. The basic design of the battery is still lithium-ion, much like the one found in small rechargeable ones.
Whether this would lead to Tesla Motors creating another wing or not, is yet to be decided. However, the company has already purchased a new domain, teslaenergy.com. The company states that it is aware of having low gross margins initially, but expects profits to grow substantially by next year.
As per an analysis from Deutsche Bank, Tesla could be looking at a potential $4.5 billion in sales. The plans seem to be moving our societies towards a fossil-fuel-free world. We could soon be looking at our homes being powered by Lithium-ion batteries, charged by solar panels on the roof, which would also be fuelling our Tesla model-S in the garage.
..”batteries might also be a bit too pricey for everyone”. You could have said that about TV in 1955.
If you were in the technical in-crowd, like my cross street neighbor, you could have said wait for color TV. Like other middle class kids we had TV for ten years before TV was for everyone.. or for the boy next door whose father was sure that TV would become technically more advanced.