In its fourth quarter earnings call, U.S. electric vehicle manufacturerTesla Motors restated its intentions to release an energy storage product for the residential and commercial markets in the United States in 2015. Tesla announced in 2014 that it would build a so-called "Gigafactory" to produce high volumes of Li-ion batteries (and significantly reduce the cost of the technology), primarily to serve its quickly growing electric vehicle business. The company has also indicated on several occasions that its batteries would be used in stationary energy storage applications as well.
Tesla's CEO, Elon Musk, is also the chairman of the largest U.S. solar installer, Solarcity, which is likely to provide Tesla's batteries with their route to market. This would enable Tesla to leverage the extremely high profile brand of Solarcity, and also share its established sales network and the costs of customer acquisition, which are known to be a significant expense to U.S. solar installers.
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