5. Global Gazette

Elon Musk's big announcement: It's called 'Tesla Energy'

Late Thursday night in Los Angeles, Tesla announced "Tesla Energy," described by the company in a statement as "a suite of batteries for homes, businesses, and utilities fostering a clean energy ecosystem and helping wean the world off fossil fuels."

The statement continued: "Tesla is not just an automotive company, it’s an energy innovation company. Tesla Energy is a critical step in this mission to enable zero emission power generation."

Tesla CEO Elon Musk made the official announcement onstage at the company's design studio in Hawthorne, California, just south of LA.

"We have this handy fusion reactor in the sky, called the Sun," he said, stressing that solar power is the best way to end the world's addiction to fossil fuels and head off a disastrous future in which we are overwhelmed by CO2 in the atmosphere.

What's the problem? The Sun doesn't shine at night. So you need to store the power gathered by solar panels. But existing batteries, as Musk quipped, "suck."

The "missing piece," according to him, is Tesla's suite of batteries. And they will not suck.

Tesla PowerwallScreenshot via Tesla



The home battery, called the "Powerwall," is intended to store solar energy and enable customers to bank grid electricity from nonpeak periods and use it during peak times, saving money. It looks "like a beautiful piece of sculpture," Musk said. You can order it now, it's wall-mounted, and it comes in different colors.

"The Tesla Powerwall is a rechargeable lithium-ion battery designed to store energy at a residential level for load shifting, backup power and self-consumption of solar power generation," Tesla said.


Tesla PowerwallScreenshot via Tesla



There will be two versions, according to Tesla:



There will also be a battery application for businesses and one for utilities. Both will operate on a larger scale than the "Powerwall" home battery. They will be called "Powerpacks."

Partnering with Tesla on this technology are Amazon, Target, and Southern California Edison, among others.

Musk said that with 160 million Powerpacks, the entire United States could be transitioned to renewable energy.

To demonstrate his point, he revealed that Tesla's entire event was being powered by solar energy stored in Tesla batteries.

Tesla EnergyScreenshot via Tesla



Musk said that initially the Powerwall and Powerpack will be made in Tesla's Fremont factory, but as the product line scales, it will be made in the massive $5-billion Gigafactory that the company is building in Nevada.

And there will be many more Gigafactories, Musk said.

The presentation was relatively short, and Musk left the stage after thanking everyone for coming. From the looks of social media activity before the event, the party will continue into the Southern California night.

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