One way Tesla Energy does this is by using the batteries to help justify massive investments in the core electric car business. The new products create new markets for the gigantic (well, “giga”) battery factory the company hopes will propel the car business to scale. In much the same way, Edison and his circle developed and sold electric household appliances like the clothes iron to create demand for electricity during the daytime: they were leveraging the system they invented to create new product categories that in turn increased demand for their system in the first place.
More fundamentally, these batteries add value through a software overlay that manages their use and creates, along with the batteries in Tesla’s cars, a network of energy storage devices that will become increasingly valuable first to the existing utilities and eventually as a full-blown renewable energy alternative as it scales. If this works, Tesla will ultimately control a global power network, positioning itself as the utility of tomorrow.