If Tesla’s Powerwall home battery isn’t your cup of tea, perhaps you would like to buy one from another car manufacturer. German auto giant Mercedes Benz is finally bringing its home battery to the United States. It has teamed up with Utah-based Vivint Solar for this purpose. Vivint will begin selling the Mercedes Benz home batteries to new customers in California later this year.
Mercedes Benz’s home battery enables users to store and save the power that’s generated from solar panels so that they can use it whenever they want. The have a capacity of 2.5kWh and a total of eight can be scaled for a combined capacity of 20kWh.
Vivint Solar is a company that deals in solar power setups so it’s going to sell customers the required panels as well. A basic package with the 2.5kWh battery is going to cost $5,000. The complete 20kWh system will cost $13,000. The cost of the solar panels is not included.
The capacity offered is significantly lower than what Tesla’s Powerwall 2 battery offers. It has a 13.5kWh capacity and costs $5,500. Customers can scale up to ten of those batteries for a 135kWh setup.
Mercedes-Benz Energy Americas CEO Boris von Bormann isn’t too worried about competition from Tesla, though. “The market is big enough that there are several companies in this space that can coexist and do really well, so there’s not a need for a shark mentality out there to grab market share from others,” he said in a talk with The Verge.
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