Unexpected by most. That’s the term that Tesla boss and potential future Martian warlord Elon Musk has used to refer to an upcoming product launch planned for next week. What could it be?
Tesla product unveiling on the 17th (unexpected by most), followed by Tesla/SolarCity on the 28th
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 9, 2016
Now, this announcement comes at an interesting time for Tesla. It’s just closed out the third quarter of its 2016 financial year (and apparently won’t have to raise money in the fourth), and it’s still at least nine months out from the earliest possible production date for the more-affordable-than-a-Model-S Model 3. It’s an odd time to announce anything significant, really, unless it’s not directly related to the company’s slowly growing stable of electric cars.
A few suggestions from Reddit include an entirely new category of ground transport (bus, motorcycle, truck), a new design of inverter for the Powerwall home battery — or a completely new Powerwall, electric car apartment charging, or a hardcore city-grade industrial battery energy storage system.
Our money is on an automatic charger for the Model S, Model X — a closer-to-reality version of the snake charger that we thought was a little bit sexy: