five questions for elon musk about tesla's battery business plan - residential energy storage

Tesla's chief executive, Elon Musk, plans to push the electric vehicle market to a new product line. -
Household and commercial energy storage batteries.
For example, this will allow the user to charge the battery at night-
When energy is cheap-
And use electricity during peak hours during the day.
The billionaire entrepreneur will provide details of the plan to hundreds of invited guests at Hawthorne's Tesla design studio on Thursday night.
Tesla is already involved in energy storage, providing batteries to some of Wal-Mart's stores and other stores.
Musk is expected to step up the plan, in part to make more use of Tesla's giant battery plant near Renault, which will also provide batteries for Tesla cars.
We discussed battery strategy with Thilo Kosloski, vice president and automotive industry leader at Gartner Inc.
He is watching Musk and Tesla closely.
He thinks Musk should answer five questions on Thursday night. 1.
How much is it?
What is the value of the customer?
How will they get a return from their investment in equipment? 2.
Who will buy this?
This is mainly for people or businesses with solar systems, do they need a way to store the electricity they create?
Is the battery useful to people who don't have solar panels or electric cars? 3.
How Musk will use fixed batteries-
Unlike the power of Tesla cars ---
Unite his company?
Musk is also the chairman of SolarCity and works with solar suppliers to place Tesla batteries in some places.
Is this a Tesla product, or a solar city product, or is it both?
Will there be cooperation? branding?
Will the owners of Tesla cars or solar city panels receive any special benefits from this product? 4.
How will Musk sell energy storage products?
Consumers are often confused about the different buying and leasing options offered by solar companies.
Explaining the energy storage in the battery adds another layer of potential confusion.
"The whole space has been suffering for a long time because it is difficult for consumers to understand what it is about and what the business case for the product is," Kosloski said . ". 5.
How will Musk take advantage of Tesla's name?
Compared to other companies, Tesla can make the concept of home battery more attractive to mainstream consumers because it is an innovative brand and is becoming widely known and respected.
How will Musk use this reputation to sell energy storage products?
Follow me on Twitter (@LATimesJerry)
Facebook and Google.