Tesla is best known for making the electric car look cool. Now, it is expanding its focus to include not only the next generation of battery technology for automobiles, but batteries that could power homes and businesses off the grid through the company's latest venture, Tesla Energy.

TechCrunch reports:

"The first Tesla Energy product is ‘Powerwall Home Battery,’ a stationary battery that can power a household without requiring the grid. The battery is rechargeable lithium-ion — it uses Tesla’s existing battery tech — and can be fixed to a wall, removing much of the existing complexity around using a local power source.“The issue with existing batteries is that they suck,” [Tesla CEO Elon] Musk said in a press conference announcing Tesla Energy. “They are expensive, unreliable and bad in every way.”Tesla’s solution, he said, is different."

The batteries will cost as much as $3,500 for 10kWh and are open for pre-sale in the U.S. today.

"Like regular batteries, they can be used together — up to nine can be stacked up together to create a strong and reliable power source. Musk said he believes they can help people in emerging markets or remote locations ‘leapfrog’ the need for existing power systems, in a similar way that mobile phones have become more important than landlines in remote parts of the world."

Want to learn more? Read the full article here.