“Elon Musk is up to something,” Chloe Albanesius reports for PC Magazine.
“The Tesla Motors chief today tweeted that his company would unveil a ‘major new product line’ at its Hawthorne Design Studio on Thursday night,” Albanesius reports. “The only clue? It’s ‘not a car,’ he wrote.”
“So what does Tesla have up it sleeve this week?” Albanesius reports. “Some on Twitter pointed to a February earnings call in which Musk promised to launch the ‘Tesla home battery’ for consumers ‘fairly soon.'”
Major new Tesla product line — not a car — will be unveiled at our Hawthorne Design Studio on Thurs 8pm, April 30
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 30, 2015
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Ginger II.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
Home Energy Storage
What does that even mean?
A big uninterruptible power supply (UPS) for your house.
If you have solar panels installed and there’s a power failure in the network, then you lose power also. Home energy storage would allow you to run off batteries until the network is up again.
At that point, the only need for the network is to have a place to sell your excess generation capacity. That cool sunny day where the batteries are fully charged by noon and you don’t need but a fraction of your panel output.
I thought that everyone knew that already? I have a friend here who has been planning a building based on that technology. If you look at what PG&E just did, it is now far less profitable to sell your excess power back to the power companies. Oh, they will gladly buy it… but at a lower rate. So, if you cannot pay for your solar installation by selling back excess power, why not just keep the power in your Tesla batteries for evening use or a rainy day.
That certainly seems to be the guess of all the ‘pundits’ out there.
A smartwatch. He heard everybody was making one and didn’t want to be left out.
Tesla’s new autonomous car feature needs a way for the owner to call it. A smart watch might act as a remote.
Using a smartwatch to control your autonomous car makes sense. But why make yet-another-watch to do it? It only needs to be a software service on existing smartwatches. Install the app, connect to your car, get going. – – This of course means your car is another IOT (Internet of things) device, meaning that it is going to be hack attacked. Locking down its security is of course a top priority. The IOT already has a horrendously POOR reputation for security.
“Right away, Michael”
I certainly would be interested in that, as would many others, but why would this be a Tesla product line as opposed to a product line from Solar City (his other company).
Why is Musk not on Apple’s Board?
Has he been offered?
Because Elon’s personality is closer to that of Steve Jobs prior to being fired by Apple than that of the 2nd coming of Jobs.
His best friends are Sergei brin and Eric Schmidt.
He is a Google guy. Tesla’s are Google based and they frown on CarPlay and Apple Maps.
IOW: No more moles on the Apple board.
That can be fixed.
That’s not this week… That’s in four weeks, three days, and ten minutes…
it is a 3 ghz power pc laptop with a really, really big battery.
Liquid-cooled.
Car floor mats that don’t slip.
Yep, he’s recycling batteries from old Teslas into giant standby UPSes, like the APC you use for your computer, but bigger. I’ve seen big battery ones sold at Home Depot for $5000 to $6000.
A Mophie style case for Apple Watch.
April 30 is NOT this week.
What would be really cool, and urgently needed in Tesla’s home state, is a (relatively) small and efficient water desalination machine. It operates on available solar (and/or wind) energy, and turns sea water into potable water. Municipalities (below State and Fed Gov level) along the coast (and in SF Bay) can purchase the system and add supplemental water into their local water supplies. Corporations with high water usage can purchase it to reduce dependence on local water supply. It would be the equivalent of putting up solar energy collectors and windmills to reduce reliance on the “power grid,” but for the “water grid.”
WATER thats’ it, it has to be. We need this!!!
The comments from MDN are snarky and fun, like the Fashion Police or Miss Manners, just with a techno twist. And now that fashion has risen up to overtake spec sheets, it’s especially entertaining to witness the bluster of the geeks being invaded by fashionistas, haute couture, and hipsters. Delicious culture wars, these promise to be!
An electric motor bike!
A virtual desktop UI based computer, to compete with Apple before Apple competes with Tesla. 😉
He wants to send Steve Ballmer on a one way trip to Mars.
The app works extremely well. I recommend it.
Do you try to sign in to the app so you can post? For registered WordPress accounts, signing in wasn’t possible for me.
Jim is correct. They are releasing a backup system for Home Solar Systems. Excess energy is stored in the backup unit. When the power goes out, you aren’t effected. I received an update on this last week from my solar company (and yes, they did confirm that it was built by Tesla).
It has to be some of the ads. So currently you don’t get them, I and others do. The advert targeting system is broken.
Come on, people. Tesla is introducing an organic line of hair care products. I thought everybody already knew. This time next year will be cookware, and then latex, semi-gloss paints and finally a selection of cat toys in 2018.
Oh no! They are going to build a Tesla Phone. Look out Apple!
some sort of ultra wicked 3d printer that prints other than plastics
or electric motorbike