Tesla has unveiled a suite of new energy products, including a wall-mounted battery that will be sold for use in consumers' homes. 
 
 Tesla is calling the rechargeable lithium-ion battery the "Powerwall." As the name suggests, the unit is designed to be mounted on a wall, and connected to the local power grid. 
 
 It will be sold to installers for $3,500 for 10kWh, and $3,000 for 7kWh. Deliveries will begin in late Summer. 
 
 Home batteries power up overnight, when energy companies typically charge less for electricity. Then, they can be turned on during the day to power a home. The batteries typically cost thousands of dollars, though many utility companies offer rebates. 
 
 Related: Is the Tesla home battery worth the cost? Depends where you live. 
 
 Kimbal Musk, a Tesla board member, told CNNMoney earlier this week that the new battery would slash consumers' electric bills by 25%. 
 
 The announcement was made during an event in California. In promotional materials, Tesla referred to the battery as "the missing piece." In addition to the Powerwall, Tesla also announced an energy storage system for businesses, and a large scale system for use by utilities. 
 
 "The issue with existing batteries is that they suck," said Tesla CEO Elon Musk. "They're really horrible." 
 
 When coupled with solar energy, the batteries will help accelerate the move away from fossil fuels, he said. 
 
 "That's the future we need to have," Musk said. "It's something we must do, and we can do, and we will do." 
 
 Speculation over the new product line has been building since Jeff Evanson, Tesla's investor relations director, sent a letter to investors and analysts saying the electric car company would soon announce a "home battery" and a "very large utility scale battery." 
 
 Tesla (TSLA) has talked about releasing a home battery for about a year. 
 
 Tesla shares have jumped 20% over the past month as investors speculated about the battery's technical specifications and market potential. The company is scheduled to announce its first quarter earnings next week. ||||| The device is expected to become available in small quantities within a few months, Musk said. 
 
 The Tesla Powerwall is a wall-mounted home battery unit that can store renewable energy. (Photo: Tesla Motors) 
 
 Silicon Valley electric-vehicle automaker Tesla Motors is expanding its presence beyond luxury cars with plans to produce a wall-mounted battery pack designed to store renewable energy in the home. 
 
 Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed the Tesla Powerwall unit in an event late Thursday in California that was live streamed online. 
 
 The unit, he said, would go into small-scale production in three to four months at the company's Fremont, Calif., plant. Next year it will hit production at the company's currently-under-construction battery factory in Nevada. Customers can place orders online. 
 
 The reveal of the Tesla Powerwall underscores the company's transition from electric-vehicle designer and manufacturer into advanced energy device company. 
 
 The lithium-ion, software-equipped Tesla Powerwall comes in two versions: a 7 kilowatt-hour pack for $3,000 and a 10 kilowatt-hour pack for $3,500. Those fees don't include installation. Either version will power a typical U.S. home during peak evening hours, the company said. 
 
 Lux Research analysts said the actual cost of a Powerwall system could be double the sticker price when including installation and the price of an inverter, among other costs. 
 
 The system works indoors or outdoors and has a 10-year warranty. It starts at 220 pounds and measures 52.1 inches by 33.9 by 7.1 
 
 The device is designed to allow homeowners with solar panels on their roofs to store electricity generated throughout the day for use at night or during power outages. 
 
 Musk also revealed a bigger version of the battery pack for use in energy storage for utilities, which are scrambling to meet renewable energy requirements throughout the U.S. 
 
 That system is called the Tesla Energy. Amazon and Target have signed up for pilots. 
 
 With his typical dash of showmanship, Musk revealed to a giddy crowd that, in fact, the room where the news conference was taking place had been running on battery power generated from solar panels. 
 
 "So this entire night -- everything you're experiencing -- is stored sunlight," Musk said as the crowd shrieked. 
 
 It's difficult to immediately assess whether the Tesla Powerwall is pure hype, legitimate business breakthrough or somewhere in between. 
 
 Barclays analyst Brian Johnson told investors in a note Thursday before the event that there's a "battleground of debate" among investors over the impact the device will have on Tesla's business. 
 
 The success of the system relies heavily on the company's ability to lower battery costs through innovation and manufacturing advancements at its new battery factory in Nevada. Tesla's goal is for 30% of the factory's batteries to go into stationary energy storage systems, while the rest would be devoted to electric vehicles. 
 
 Musk blasted current home battery options for consumers, saying Tesla's device would look nicer and operate more efficiently. 
 
 "The issue with existing batteries is that they suck. They're really horrible," he said. 
 
 Musk, who has long emphasized that his chief goal at Tesla is to reduce carbon emissions that cause climate change, is chairman of solar firm SolarCity, which has a partnership with the automaker on home battery unit pilots. 
 
 It was not immediately clear whether Solar City has a role in the Powerwall rollout. 
 
 But Musk made it clear that he believes solar energy stored in home batteries offers a feasible and desirable alternative to fossil fuels. 
 
 "We have this handy fusion reactor in the sky called the sun" that "produces ridiculous amounts of power," he said. 
 
 He added, with a smirk: "The obvious problem with solar is the sun does not shine at night. I think most people are aware of this." 
 
 That's why home batteries are vital, he said. 
 
 "If Tesla can produce a cost effective home energy storage system it could prove far more valuable, and profitable, than anything the company is doing with automobiles," said Karl Brauer, a Kelley Blue Book senior analyst, in a statement early Friday. "As solar panels get cheaper and easier to install the only thing thing keeping consumers tied to the energy grid is a need for electricity when the sun isn't shining." 
 
 Brauer added: "If Tesla can help consumers bridge the moments between abundant sunlight it could force electric companies to deal with same issue threatening home phone and cable companies. Imagine a wave of customers cutting ties with their local power companies because they have a self-contained energy system." 
 
 Contact Nathan Bomey: 313-223-4743 or nbomey@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @NathanBomey. 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://on.freep.com/1zxOOjm ||||| Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur behind the private spaceflight company SpaceX, says he will unveil his concepts for Mars colonization later this year. 
 
 SpaceX CEO Elon Musk poses with the firm's manned Dragon V2 spacecraft during an unveiling event at the company's headquarters in Hawthorne, California on May 29, 2014. Credit: Rod Pyle/Space.com 
 
 In an "Ask Me Anything" session on Reddit Monday evening (Jan. 5), Musk told readers that the details of his Mars Colonial Transporter would be unveiled by the end of the year, and that the plan would be different from the Dragon capsules and Falcon 9 rockets SpaceX is flying today. 
 
 "The Mars transport system will be a completely new architecture," Musk wrote in the Reddit AMA. "Am hoping to present that towards the end of this year. Good thing we didn't do it sooner, as we have learned a huge amount from Falcon and Dragon." [SpaceX's Plan for Mars & Reusable Rockets (Video)] 
 
 The goal will be to send 100 metric tons (110 tons) of "useful payload," he added. "This obviously requires a very big spaceship and booster system," Musk said. 
 
 This year, SpaceX will also reveal plans for spacesuits that will meet both design aesthetics and utility requirements, Musk noted. Although he did not specify where the spacesuits would be used, it is possible that they could form the basis for future Mars exploration. 
 
 In a first for space flight, SpaceX will attempt to fly its Falcon 9 booster rocket to a safe landing aboard an offshore platform. See how SpaceX's rocket landing tests work in this Space.com infographic Credit: By Karl Tate, Infographics Artist 
 
 SpaceX is the first private company to deliver cargo to the International Space Station, which it did for the first time in 2012. The company has a $1.6 billion contract to provide 12 delivery missions to the station for NASA. A second company, Orbital Sciences, has a $1.9 billion deal with NASA for eight delivery missions. 
 
 Elon Musk founded SpaceX, where he is both CEO and chief designer, in 2002 with the goal of flying people in space. Last September, NASA picked the company as one of two firms to fly U.S. astronauts to the station beginning in 2017 under a separate contract. (Boeing was the other company selected.) 
 
 SpaceX's next flight to the space station, its fifth delivery flight so far, is set to launch at 4:47 a.m. EST (0947 GMT) on Saturday (Jan. 10) from Florida's Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. During that mission, a Dragon resupply ship will launch toward the station, and SpaceX will also attempt to land the first stage of the Falcon 9 rocket on an "autonomous spaceport drone ship" in the Atlantic Ocean. The mission was initially set to launch on Tuesday (Jan. 6), but a last-minute rocket issue delayed the flight. 
 
 While Musk discussed space travel possibilities that extend far into the future, he also mentioned some of the systems that the company is currently developing, including the reusable rocket test this week. 
 
 In response to a question about the planned Falcon 9 first-stage rocket landing, Musk said the stage would use "mostly gravity" to stay on the robotic ship, with "steel shoes over the landing feet as a precautionary measure." 
 
 Previously, Musk had said there was a 50 percent chance of mission success. But when he was pressed by a reader as to how he came up with that percentage, he said, "I pretty much made that up. I have no idea." 
 
 Musk did write that the innovative "hypersonic grid fins" on the rocket are vital for the landing attempt. 
 
 "The grid fins are super important for landing with precision," he wrote. "The aerodynamic forces are way too strong for the nitrogen thrusters. In particular, achieving pitch trim is hopeless. Our atmosphere is like molasses at Mach 4!" 
 
 Musk also suggested that SpaceX could work on making the second stage of the Falcon 9 reusable, as the company is attempting to do with the first stage, but he said the resources would be best suited for a mission to Mars. In the meantime, he is working on making the rocket as light as possible. [Red Dragon: Mars Mission Idea with SpaceX Capsules] 
 
 "With sub-cooled propellant, I think we can get the Falcon 9 upper stage mass ratio (excluding payload) to somewhere between 25 and 30. Another way of saying that is the upper stage would be close to 97 percent propellant by mass," Musk wrote. 
 
 One reader asked how Musk is able to learn so quickly. "I do kinda feel like my head is full!" he responded. "My context-switching penalty is high, and my process isolation is not what it used to be." 
 
 "Frankly, though, I think most people can learn a lot more than they think they can," he added. "They sell themselves short without trying. One bit of advice: It is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree — make sure you understand the fundamental principles, i.e., the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details, or there is nothing for them to hang on to." 
 
 Musk also answered questions, ranging from the mundane (he gets six hours of sleep a night) to what games he plays (the Kerbal Space Program). 
 
 And aside from Mars, readers wanted to know what other places in the solar system would be good to explore. One reader asked if Jupiter's icy moon Europa should be a target. 
 
 "There should definitely be a science mission," Musk said. 
 
 You can watch SpaceX's Falcon 9/Dragon launch live on Saturday, courtesy of NASA TV. The webcast will begin at 3:30 a.m. EST (0830 GMT). 
 
 Follow Elizabeth Howell @howellspace, or Space.com @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
– The guy who's diligently working on a plan to transport humans to Mars has also been toiling on a project that makes use of the sun. That project, a rechargeable lithium-ion battery made by Tesla called Powerwall, is designed to be installed in homes and store solar energy to be used at night or during power outages, CNNMoney reports. And that guy who announced it last night in a live-streamed unveiling in California is Elon Musk, the ambitious Tesla CEO who hopes this energy alternative will reduce our need for fossil fuels, the Detroit Free Press reports. "The issue with existing batteries is that they suck," he said, per the newspaper. "They're really horrible." Not the Powerwall, according to Musk, which is scheduled to start shipping sometime this summer, the AP reports. The 220-pound wall-mounted battery charges "using electricity generated from solar panels, or when utility rates are low," the Powerwall site explains. But there's a cost to get there: The batteries go for $3,000 or $3,500, depending on its juice capacity, plus installation. "The value proposition now is around reliability and backup power more than it is around savings, but over time that may change," says an analyst with GTM Research. Indeed, Musk's brother Kimbal, one of Tesla's board members, told CNNMoney earlier in the week that the battery would cut electricity bills by 25%. As the AP explains, as more utilities permit power prices to fluctuate throughout the day based on market conditions, Powerwall software will let customers use their own home-generated power—and not costly grid power—when grid prices are highest.