Energy
Bloomberg Says Tesla Powerwall Doesn’t Make Sense
Bloomberg News says the Tesla Powerwall doesn’t make sense. So why have 38,000 folks signed up to own or lease one when deliveries won’t start for 6 months?
Bloomberg News questions whether the Tesla Powerwall — introduced to great fanfare on April 30 — makes economic sense. Their answer? It doesn’t — at least not now. Here’s why.
The Powerwall comes in two versions — a 7 kWh (kilowatt-hour) model and a 10 kWh unit. The smaller battery is design specifically for daily use. The larger battery is strictly a backup power supply.
SolarCity, Tesla’s sister company, has decided not to offer the 7 kWh battery with its rooftop solar systems. That battery “doesn’t really make financial sense,” SolarCity spokesman Jonathan Bass tells Bloomberg. That’s because customers can make money selling their excess solar power back to the grid during the day when rates are high rather than using it to charge up a battery.
Of course, the economics will vary considerably across the country. Not all states require utilities to accept electricity from home solar systems and each electric company has its own rate structure.
SolarCity Offers Larger Powerwall
SolarCity system installed at New England home of Tesla owner (Source: Rob M)
SolarCity says it will only offer the 10 kWh battery to new rooftop solar customers. “Our residential offering is battery backup,” Bass said in an e-mail. Unlike the smaller unit, which is intended for daily use, the 10 kWh battery is designed for no more than 50 discharge cycles a year. Homeowners can buy it outright for $7,140, including an inverter and installation, or lease it for $15 a month for 9 years with an upfront payment of $5,000.
The 10 kWh battery is rated at 2 kilowatts of continuous power. Does that sound like a lot? It’s not. That’s only enough to run a hair dryer or 2 small window air conditioners for about 5 hours. To provide enough electricity to power a typical home would take eight Powerwall units working together. According to Bloomberg, that would cost $45,000 (if the nine year lease option is selected). There are no known discounts for multiple purchases at this time.
“It’s a luxury good—really cool to have—but I don’t see an economic argument,” said Brian Warshay, an energy and smart technologies analyst with Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Bloomberg suggests you could get the same back up capability from a $3,700 generator available at Home Depot.
Demand Is “Crazy”
The Powerwall that has captured the public’s imagination has a long way to go before it makes economic sense for most people. Even in Germany, where solar power is abundant and electricity prices are high, the economics of an average home with rooftop solar “are not significantly enhanced by including the Tesla battery,” according to an analysis by Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
Tesla PowerWall units connected
None of this has dampened the enthusiasm of prospective Powerwall users. Since Elon Musk’s announcement last week, the company has received inquiries from 38,000 people. Demand is so strong, Tesla is considering using its GigaFactory exclusively for residential and commercial storage batteries instead of batteries for its automobiles. There are even rumors it plans to expand the GigaFactory, which isn’t even built yet. Musk says demand has been “crazy off the hook.” He acknowledges that the Powerwall is more expensive than grid power, but says, “that doesn’t mean people won’t buy it.”
If the numbers don’t add up, why would people be in such a frenzy to get a Powerwall of their very own? SolarCity’s Bass says, “There’s a tremendous amount of interest in backup power that’s odorless, not noisy and completely clean.” But its more than that. Some observers call it “The Prius Effect”. Once you think someone else has something new and sexy, you want one for yourself. It’s just human nature.
Elon Musk is a master at creating buzz and then leveraging it. Everywhere you look this week, there are news stories about the Powerwall and what a huge leap forward it is. If all the people who signed up after last week’s announcement follow through, all those new orders will amount to $800 million in new business for the company. The orders are continuing to pour in like a flood tide into the Bay of Fundy.
Tesla Drives Costs Down
Is there anything truly remarkable about the Tesla Powerwall? Yes, there absolutely is. Based on the asking price for the Powerwall, Tesla has managed to get the cost of its batteries down to $250 per kilowatt-hour, something the “experts” claimed couldn’t happen before 2020. That gives Tesla a sizable marketing advantage over other battery companies and that’s before the GigaFactory starts production. Once that comes online, battery prices will undoubtedly fall even more. Musk’s faith in economies of scale seems to be paying off.
What’s Ahead For Tesla?
The truth is that Tesla is really not in the “off the grid” home battery market right now, although there is talk about offering batteries to residents of Hawaii, where electricity costs triple what it does on the mainland. Tesla really has its sights set on commercial and utility scale products. Utility companies often charge commercial and industrial customers their highest rates.
Business and industry can now charge their Tesla PowerPacks at night when rates are low. Or they can use solar panels to charge them during the day. Either way, they avoid buying electricity from utility companies at peak demand rates.
A battle is shaping up between energy makers and energy storage providers. The outcome will be nothing less than an upheaval in the way electricity is made and distributed. Battery storage is disruptive technology and there is no one who is more of a champion of disruptive technology than Elon Musk.
In 10 years, residential battery storage systems will be as common as stoves and refrigerators. No home will be without one. SolarCity’s Bass suggests that’s when the Tesla Powerwall will begin to make economic sense. Microgrids that soak up energy from the sun to charge grid scale batteries will be everywhere. Utility companies as we know them will become marginal players. The Rocky Mountain Institute predicts that demand for electricity from traditional utility companies will decline by 50% in the next 10 years.
As the market for electricity changes, there will be winners and losers. There is no question Elon Musk plans on being one of the winners.
Source: Bloomberg News
Elon Musk
Tesla’s $2.9 billion bet: Why Elon Musk is turning to China to build America’s solar future
Tesla looks to bring solar manufacturing to the US, with latest $2.9 billion bet to acquire Chinese solar equipment.
Tesla is reportedly in talks to purchase $2.9 billion worth of solar manufacturing equipment from a group of Chinese suppliers, including Suzhou Maxwell Technologies, which is the world’s largest producer of screen-printing equipment used in solar cell production. According to Reuters sources, the equipment is expected to be delivered before autumn and shipped to Texas, where Tesla plans to anchor its next phase of domestic solar production.
The move is a direct extension of a vision Elon Musk has been building for months. At the World Economic Forum in Davos this past January, Musk announced that both Tesla and SpaceX were independently working to establish 100 gigawatts of annual solar manufacturing capacity inside the United States. Days later, on Tesla’s Q4 2025 earnings call, he made the ambition concrete: “We’re going to work toward getting 100 GW a year of solar cell production, integrating across the entire supply chain from raw materials all the way to finished solar panels.”
Job postings on Tesla’s website reflect that same target, with language explicitly calling for 100 GW of “solar manufacturing from raw materials on American soil before the end of 2028.”
Tesla job listing for Staff Manufacturing Development Engineer, Solar Manufacturing
The urgency behind the latest solar manufacturing target is rooted in a set of rapidly emerging pressures related to AI and Tesla’s own energy business. U.S. power consumption hit its second consecutive record high in 2025 and is projected to climb further through 2026 and 2027, driven largely by the explosion in AI data centers and the broader electrification of transportation. Tesla’s own energy division, which produces the Megapack utility-scale battery storage system, has been growing rapidly, and solar supply is a critical companion component for the business to scale. Musk has argued that solar is not just a clean energy option but the only one that makes economic sense at the scale AI infrastructure demands.
Tesla lands in Texas for latest Megapack production facility
Ironically, the path to domestic solar independence currently runs through China. Sort of.
Despite Tesla’s stated push to localize its supply chain, mirrored recently by the company’s plan for a $4.3 billion LFP battery manufacturing partnership with LG Energy Solution in Michigan, Tesla still relies on China-based suppliers to keep its cost structure intact.
The $2.9 billion equipment deal underscores a tension Musk himself acknowledged at Davos: “Unfortunately, in the U.S. the tariff barriers for solar are extremely high and that makes the economics of deploying solar artificially high, because China makes almost all the solar.” Building the factory in America requires buying the machinery from the country Tesla is trying to reduce its dependence on.
Tesla named by U.S. Gov. in $4.3B battery deal for American-made cells
The regulatory pathway adds another layer of complexity. Suzhou Maxwell has been seeking export approval from China’s commerce ministry, and it remains unclear how quickly that clearance will come. Still, the market has already reacted, with shares in the Chinese firms reportedly involved in the talks surged more than 7% following the Reuters report that broke the story.
Whether Tesla can hit its 2028 target of 100GW of solar manufacturing remains an open question. Though that scale may seem staggering, especially in such a short timeframe, we know that Musk has a documented history of “always pulling it off” in the face of ambitious deadlines that may slip. But, rest assured – it’ll get done.
Elon Musk
Tesla named by U.S. Gov. in $4.3B battery deal for American-made cells
What began as an open secret in the energy industry was confirmed by the U.S. Department of the Interior on Monday: Tesla is the buyer behind LG Energy Solution’s blockbuster $4.3 billion battery supply agreement.
What began as an open secret in the energy industry is becoming more real after the U.S. Department of the Interior named Tesla as the stakeholder in the LG Energy Solution’s blockbuster $4.3 billion battery supply agreement.
Tesla and LG Energy Solution are expanding their partnership to build a LFP prismatic battery cell manufacturing facility in Lansing, Michigan, launching production in 2027. The announcement, made as part of the Indo-Pacific Energy Security Summit results, ends months of speculation.
“American-made cells will power Tesla’s Megapack 3 energy storage systems produced in Houston, creating a robust domestic battery supply chain.”, notes a press release on the U.S. Department of the Interior website.
Tesla has long utilized China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. (CATL), the world’s largest LFP battery maker, as one of its primary suppliers. That relationship made financial sense for years, considering that Chinese LFP cells were cheap, abundant, and reliable. But with escalated tariffs on Chinese imports and an increasingly growing Tesla Energy business that’s particularly reliant on LFP cells for products including its Megapack battery storage units designed for utilities and large-scale commercial projects.
The announcement of a deepened partnership between LG Energy Solution and Tesla has strategic logic for both parties. For Tesla, it secures a tariff-compliant, domestically produced battery supply for its fast-growing energy division. LGES, now producing LFP batteries in Michigan, becomes the only major supplier currently scaling U.S. production, outpacing rivals like Samsung SDI and SK On. LG Energy Solution’s Lansing plant, formerly known as Ultium Cells 3, was previously operated as a joint venture with General Motors. LGES acquired GM’s stake in May 2025 and now fully owns the site, with a production capacity of 50 GWh per year. LG Energy said the contract includes options to extend the supply period by up to seven years and boost volumes based on further consultations.
For the broader industry, the ripple effects are significant. This deal signals that domestic battery manufacturing can be financially viable and not just aspirational. Utilities, energy developers, and rival automakers will take note as American-made LFP supply becomes a competitive reality rather than a distant promise.
For consumers, the benefits will take time but are real. A more resilient, U.S.-based supply chain means fewer price shocks from trade disputes, more stable Megapack availability for the grid storage projects that reduce electricity costs, and long-term downward pressure on energy storage prices as domestic production scales.
Deliveries are set to begin in 2027 and run through mid-2030, and as grid storage demand accelerates, reliable, US-made battery supply is no longer a future ambition. It is becoming a core requirement of the country’s energy strategy.
Energy
Tesla Energy gains UK license to sell electricity to homes and businesses
The license was granted to Tesla Energy Ventures Ltd. by UK energy regulator Ofgem after a seven-month review process.
Tesla Energy has received a license to supply electricity in the United Kingdom, opening the door for the company to serve homes and businesses in the country.
The license was granted to Tesla Energy Ventures Ltd. by UK energy regulator Ofgem after a seven-month review process.
According to Ofgem, the license took effect at 6 p.m. local time on Wednesday and applies to Great Britain.
The approval allows Tesla’s energy business to sell electricity directly to customers in the region, as noted in a Bloomberg News report.
Tesla has already expanded similar services in the United States. In Texas, the company offers electricity plans that allow Tesla owners to charge their vehicles at a lower cost while also feeding excess electricity back into the grid.
Tesla already has a sizable presence in the UK market. According to price comparison website U-switch, there are more than 250,000 Tesla electric vehicles in the country and thousands of Tesla home energy storage systems.
Ofgem also noted that Tesla Motors Ltd., a separate entity incorporated in England and Wales, received an electricity generation license in June 2020.
The new UK license arrives as Tesla continues expanding its global energy business.
Last year, Tesla Energy retained the top position in the global battery energy storage system (BESS) integrator market for the second consecutive year. According to Wood Mackenzie’s latest rankings, Tesla held about 15% of global market share in 2024.
The company also maintained a dominant position in North America, where it captured roughly 39% market share in the region.
At the same time, competition in the energy storage sector is increasing. Chinese companies such as Sungrow have been expanding their presence globally, particularly in Europe.
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