Vox Science & Health
Updated by Brad Plumer on May 1, 2015
Most people think of Tesla as a company that builds expensive luxury electric cars. But CEO Elon Musk has something bigger in mind. He wants to make batteries a core part of Tesla’s business, with the not-so-modest goal of transforming the world’s electricity system.
There’s a certain logic to this idea: Tesla is already making batteries for its electric cars. But batteries could potentially have broader applications, too. They could help utilities and homes make better use of solar power, charging up when the sun’s out and saving power for when it’s needed later. They could help smooth over fluctuations in the grid and protect against outages. And so on.