Tesla shops will sell home energy storage as well as electric cars

Tesla's recent acquisition of Solar City mean the automaker's retail stores are about to get a makeover.

|
/Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters/File
A man looks around a Tesla showroom in Beijing.

Tesla is perhaps best known for its electric cars, but the company has another prominent business as well.

Its Tesla Energy division markets stationary lithium-ion battery packs for energy storage.

Energy-storage systems can increase the utility of home solar arrays, meaning Tesla Energy will likely become more important now that Tesla is set to acquire SolarCity.

The acquisition of SolarCity—which, like Tesla, is controlled by Elon Musk—was approved by Tesla shareholders last week.

Tesla's retail stores may soon get an update to reflect the newfound prominence of energy storage.

The company also plans to revamp the majority of its retail stores to better showcase its energy-storage products, reports Business Insider.

Citing an unnamed Tesla spokesperson, the website said Tesla will remodel its stores to showcase the Powerwall 2 home energy-storage battery pack, and will install new graphics explaining energy-storage products.

Customers will now also be able to order Powerwall battery packs in stores; they were previously available to order online only.

According to Business Insider, Tesla has already remodeled some stores in North America, Europe, and Australia.

These initial locations were chosen to get the new look because they were in local markets Tesla viewed as having particularly strong demand for energy storage.

But Tesla now reportedly plans to offer its energy-storage battery packs at a larger number of locations.

The Powerwall 2 was unveiled by Elon Musk at a media event last month, alongside solar roof tiles for SolarCity.

The second-generation Powerwall battery pack features a new look, and double the capacity of the first Powerwall pack, unveiled in May 2015.

It holds 14.0 kilowatt-hours of energy, compared to 7.0 kWh for the original. (A 10-kWh Powerwall was also offered, but it was canceled in May of this year).

The price is $5,500, and Tesla said at the October launch that deliveries will start in early December.

As Tesla apparently moves to make its energy-storage products more visible in its retail stores, it is also expanding the network of those stores.

In its second-quarter letter to shareholders, Tesla said it would add a new store location every four days throughout the end of this year.

It hopes to have about 440 stores open worldwide by the end of 2017.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Tesla shops will sell home energy storage as well as electric cars
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/In-Gear/2016/1128/Tesla-shops-will-sell-home-energy-storage-as-well-as-electric-cars
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe