Elon Musk Announces Tesla Motors Home Batteries Today

Today, Elon Musk will unveil the new Tesla Motors product line that are not cars. We already know that it will be batteries for home use.

Elon Musk took to Twitter end of March to announce a new product line Tesla Motors will unveil on April 30. It will not be a car he said. Back then, it was already likely that the new products Tesla would offer are batteries for home use. Then a week ago, Jeffrey Evanson, Tesla’s head of investor relations sent an email, according to Bloomberg, to investors and analysts, announcing a Tesla Motors Home Battery and a large Tesla Motors Utility Battery.

The email said also that Elon Musk will explain the advantages of the new Tesla batteries at the April 30th event in Telsa’s Design Center in Hawthorne. Elon Musk teased the event tonight scheduled for 8pm PDT yesterday with a tweet saying: “For the future to be good, we need electric transport, solar power and (of course) …”

For the future to be good, we need electric transport, solar power and (of course) … pic.twitter.com/8mwVWukQDL— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 29, 2015

Tesla is planning a huge lithium-ion battery factory. The new product lines help Tesla potentially increasing the sales of batteries beyond cars. 

Tesla is already piloting the home battery in over 300 homes in California. The Tesla Home battery has a capacity of 10-kilowatt hours, which is enough energy for about 8 hours of use in a normal US household on average. This could be enough to save considerable energy in connection with a solar panel system.

Tesla’s home batteries measure 2.5-feet wide and 3 feet tall and have a starting retail price of $13,000. With subsidies, this cost can be reduced quite a bit. 

The surprise factor is gone for the Tesla event today. However, the Tesla Home Batteries doesn’t sound like a mass market solution and there is competition for it from other energy companies. Elon Musk needs to bring a good speech tonight to convince people why Tesla Home batteries are better.