Longer battery life among upgrades to upcoming version of solar storage battery.
The launch of the Tesla Powerwall could not have gone better, but company head Elon Musk has announced that Tesla has no plans to rest on its laurels – a new version of the wildly popular power source will be available this year.
Musk, chief executive officer and product architect of Tesla Motors, said the second generation Tesla Powerwall should hit market by mid-to-late summer 2016.
The Tesla Powerwall made its debut on April 30, 2015 and rapidly sold out, accumulating an estimated $1 billion in initial sales.
The Powerwall is essentially a massive battery that allows users to store solar energy to use as an all-in-one power source to run electricity for an entire residential household once the sun has set. The battery operates two ways – it can tap into backup power once solar panel grids go down, or it can work in concert with solar panels to harness solar energy in the evening, providing a more reliable power source, regardless of weather conditions.
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The new Powerwall version, according to Musk, will feature some “moderate” improvements, namely longer battery life, according to a February 2016 report on the website Futurism.com.
The current Powerwall uses batteries from Panasonic, but the second generation is being constructed with the Tesla Gigafactory plant, which is located in Nevada. The switch means Tesla’s direct product output can increase to meet customer demand.
It’s a significant step for the company, which is turning attention and resources to its energy division, which produces the Powerwall and Powertrain, a larger version of the Powerwall capable of providing energy infrastructure to both companies and cities.
The company, according to the website Tech Insider, has started shifting key personnel to the energy division to focus on residential and commercial products that help store energy, as well as hiring talent from electric utility and solar companies.
The Tesla Gigafactory, which is basically a giant battery factory in the southwest, currently employs more than 230 people.
The primary users of Powerwall are homeowners who have installed solar panels, but more commercial businesses are starting to incorporate the technology.
