Tesla has quietly discontinued the 10 kWh Powerwall, its larger battery pack meant to store solar energy for use during an outage. Greentech Media confirmed the discontinuation with Tesla, which essentially said that it made the decision because its smaller Powerwall is much more popular. "Due to the interest, we have decided to focus entirely on building and deploying the 7 kWh Daily Powerwall at this time," Tesla says.

The smaller model is far more useful

That's probably because homeowners can get a lot more use out of the 7 kWh model than the 10 kWh model. The larger model is only meant to be used on occasion, as backup power in the event of a disruption. Because of that, it isn't meant to be continually charged and discharged — it's only meant to last through 500 cycles. The 7 kWh model, on the other hand, is meant to last through 10 years of daily use. Tesla even says that by "modifying the way it is installed in a home," the smaller model can be used for backup power, too.

Tesla introduced the Powerwall this time last year. The home battery units are supposed to help ease a home's reliance on the power grid, if not take it off the grid entirely by storing enough solar energy to last it through the day. The batteries seemed to be off to a fairly successful start, though the larger model's discontinuation shows that Tesla saw far more success with one unit than the other. A new version of the Powerwall is supposed to be introduced sometime this year, possibly in August or July. Tesla CEO Elon Musk says the new model will "see further step change in capabilities," though he didn't specify what those improvements might entail.

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