Tesla's Powerwall May Be The Future In 2017

Elon Musk’s Powerwall home battery and “plan to fundamentally change the way the world uses energy” is many things, but it’s not a battery technology breakthrough.
Powerwall is a big deal: a $3,500 rechargeable battery that can store electricity, power an entire home and be installed in virtually any garage or outside any home in under an hour sounds like real innovation. And for alternative energy source users, like solar panel or windmill owners, it is. Musk noted during his product unveiling at the Tesla Hawthorne, Calif.-based Design Studio, that Powerwall’s batteries owe much to the existing Tesla Model S electric car battery technology. A company spokesperson told Mashable, “We are leveraging the same architectures, battery management systems, and technologies as the Model S battery." Tesla confirmed that the Model S uses Panasonic lithium ion battery cells. As for the batteries inside the 3 ft. by 4 ft. Powerwall, they will eventually be manufactured at Musk’s still-under-construction $4.5 billion Gigafactory in Nevada. However, that facility won’t be completed and ready for battery production until, by Tesla’s own measure, 2017.