In a brilliant move, Tesla Motors Inc. has unveiled Tesla energy to expand its business beyond electric vehicles and to tap into the energy industry. As Chief Executive Elon Musk explained, their goal is to “fundamentally change the way the world uses energy on an extreme scale.”
Their vision would include a world where people have solar panels on their roofs for electricity to power their homes and recharge their car batteries. The smallest of the products they unveiled was a $3500 10kWh model that can be used for backup power or to store solar energy.
As Karl Brauer, a senior analyst with auto industry research firm Kelley Blue Book, said “A cost effective home energy storage system it could prove far more valuable, and profitable, than anything the company is doing with automobiles.”
They plan to manufacture the batteries at their automobile factory in California but will then move production to the planned “gigafactory” in Nevada next year.
Though only valued at $200 million in 2012, the energy storage industry is expected to grow to as much as $19 billion by 2017.