Elon Musk has announced Tesla's latest product, the company's long awaited diversification from automobile technology.
On Thursday night, Tesla's billionaire co-founder unveiled Powerwall, a wall-fitted rechargeable home battery which could eliminate the need for power grids by providing clean solar energy for residential homes.
Using the company's existing battery technology, the units feature rechargeable lithium-ion cells which stock up on electricity from solar energy and use it to power your home.
A Powerwall unit
Each Powerwall battery can also harness electricity from a grid to ensure smooth operation, using "smart" technology to harness grid power while costs are low.
"The issue with existing batteries is that they suck," Musk said as he announced Tesla Energy. "They are expensive, unreliable and bad in every way."
But his company's solution is different, he says. Each Powerwall unit will cost $3,500 (£2,275) for 10kWh and $3,000 (£1,950) for 7kWh and can provide back-up energy in the event of a power outage.
The units can also be used together, up to nine at a time
Pre-orders are already open on the product and units will begin shipping as early as this summer.
The technology will also continue Tesla's usual trend of open-sourcing patents to allow the world to come closer to Musk's goal of running entirely on renewable energy.
"This is within the power of humanity to do," he said. "It is not impossible, it is something that we can do. But there’s going to [need to] be other companies involved."
The company is also developing a larger scale version, called Powerpack, which hopes to provide clean, sustainable energy for businesses and industry.
"Our goal here is to change the way the world uses energy at an extreme scale," Musk said.
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