Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed on Monday that his company is planning to announce a “major” new product on April 30th and that it won’t be a new car. Musk offered no hints about what this new product will be but there’s good reason to believe that it will have to do with entering the market for home energy storage.
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Bloomberg reported earlier this year that Tesla is working on a lithium-ion battery for homes and businesses to store energy generated by solar panels and other supplemental sources. The market for solar home energy use is really starting to expand as many households see it as a good way to lower their monthly electric bills, so this would be an area where Tesla could really be entering at just the right time.
“Combining solar panels with large, efficient batteries could allow some homeowners to avoid buying electricity from utilities,” Bloomberg explained in its report. “Morgan Stanley said last year that Tesla’s energy-storage product could be ‘disruptive’ in the U.S. and in Europe as customers seek to avoid utility fees by going ‘off-grid.’ Musk said the product unveiling would occur within the next month or two.”
We won’t know for sure what the new product will be until it’s announced, but it definitely sounds like Tesla has plans to expand its reach well beyond the realm of electric cars.
