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The folks at Tesla are no strangers to innovation. Now, the company is looking to help you further integrate your Tesla into your day-to-day lifestyle. Effectively, the Tesla Powerwall is an extension of what the Palo Alto-based brand already does best: batteries. Albeit, there’s a lot more to the Powerwall than just some batteries hung on a wall. After all, if that’s all Tesla thought you needed they’d be selling duct tape and Duracells, not this.

A backup battery for your home

A Powerwall battery installed in a school in NZ
A Tesla Powerwall battery | Hannah Peters via Getty Images

No, the Tesla Powerwall promises much more than that. The brand’s newest electricity-powered solution promises to put even the Energizer Bunny to shame. Here’s how it works. At its core, the Tesla Powerwall stores energy from a solar panel. This is critical to the first function of the Powerwall. The brand states that the wall will provide “24/7 outage protection.”

So, more or less, the Tesla Powerwall is a really, really big battery. Moreover, you can order and add up to ten Powerwalls to your home, creating a larger and larger network of off-grid power for your home. Of course, that also means the ‘Wall can effectively charge your Tesla with the sun. Not bad.

The Tesla Powerwall promises a lot

The Tesla Powerwall installed in a home in Canada
Three Powerwall units installed in a home in Canada | Andrew Francis Wallace via Getty Images

That’s not all the Powerwall promises, either. In typical Tesla fashion, there’s an associated app for use with the Powerwall and its bigger sibling, the Powerwall+. The Powewall+ offers even more backup power and uses the same app. In it, you can control any number of parameters about how each of your gigantic batteries is operating. The Powerwalls can be operated to produce any number of outcomes, according to Tesla.

For now, there are three options to choose from when it comes to the different Powerwall settings. For one, you can tell the ‘Wall or ‘Walls to save as much energy as possible. Or, you can tell it to keep you totally off-grid, using all of the available battery power. Finally, you’ll be able to gear the Tesla Powerwall towards all-out energy savings.

Chip shortages have hit supply here too

The Tesla Powerwall installed in a home in Canada
Three Powerwall units installed in a home in Canada | Andrew Francis Wallace via Getty Images

Unfortunately, the chip shortage has hit Powerwall production too. It seems that if anything uses electricity, it’s only a matter of time until the semiconductor shortage hits. Now, it’s the Powerwall’s turn for the next while. Elon Musk stated that there’s plenty of demand for the product out there, even with its hefty $41,000 price tag. Currently, there’s about 80,000 orders in, according to Musk.

However, the company is only able to produce around 30 to 35,000 units this quarter, says CNBC. Despite Musk’s propensity for… let’s say ambitious statements, it seems the brand really is trying its best here. Should you have the cash to drop on a Tesla-fied home, it seems you’ll have to wait quite a while longer for yours to show up.

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