SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) — A tweet by Tesla Motors Inc. Chief Executive Elon Musk about a new product line the electric-car maker is about to unveil pushed the company's shares higher on Monday.
Tesla TSLA, +3.01% shares had traded lower throughout the morning, but changed direction after the tweet:
A Tesla spokeswoman, when asked for details, would only say that the company will have "more information to share" in the coming weeks.
Musk has announced future Tesla products and features via Twitter before, most recently earlier this month when he tweeted about a software upgrade for the Model S.
He made an even bigger splash in October, when he set off weeks of speculation after tweeting about the Tesla "D and something else" — which turned out to be souped-up versions of Tesla's Model S sedan.
When Tesla reported fourth-quarter results in February, Musk said the company was working on a new battery for homes and businesses, with production expected to start in six months or so.
See also: Tesla wants you to have one of its batteries
Earlier this month, SolarCity Corp. SCTY, +0.80% unveiled its microgrid service, which combines solar power and batteries. Musk is the chairman of SolarCity, and his cousin Lyndon Rive is SolarCity's chief executive.
Tesla knows the battery business, said Theodore O'Neill, an analyst with Ascendiant Capital Markets. A top-of-the line 85 kilowatt-hour Model S battery would be enough to "keep a standard house going for three days," assuming households consume 12 kwh to 30 kwh a day, he said.
Currently, solar-power customers in many states sell, rather than store, their surplus power back to the grid. Several utilities, however, have raised concerns about the practice, and Tesla could be positioning itself for the day when states either stop allowing it or allow utilities to pay less than the going retail rate for the excess power, making storage more attractive, he said.
See also: these are Tesla's main rivals in energy storage
Earlier Monday, Musk had tweeted about his trip to China over the weekend and losses were piling up for Tesla shares.
Musk told Chinese state media over the weekend that Tesla's TSLA, +3.01% excess inventory in the country was caused by "speculators" who had ordered Model S sedans but never took delivery.
Musk was in China to participate in an international forum on Asian development issues. He had a couple of tweets about the trip:
The losses early Monday took Tesla shares to a 7% decline for the month so far. A monthly loss along these lines would be Tesla's worst 30-day performance since January, when its shares fell 8.5%.
Tesla shares have dropped 15% so far this year and 11% in the past 12 months. Over those same periods, the S&P 500 Index SPX, +1.22% has gained 1.2% and 12%, respectively.
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