Tesla to Close a Dozen Solar Facilities in 9 States

DooKey

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When it rains on Tesla it pours according to internal documents disclosed to Reuters. The documents and seven current and former Tesla employees claim the company is going to cutdown the size of their residential solar business that they purchased for $2.6B just two years ago. This is part of the previously announced 9 percent cut and it appears the solar business is going to take the brunt of those cuts. Also, they are ending their sales deal with Home Depot and selling off most of their retail stores and its website. Considering the amount of money spent on this business it makes the 2016 deal look even worse than many pundits claimed it was. Tesla needs to straighten their act up and quickly.

Tesla has been burning through cash as it tries to hit a target of producing 5,000 Model 3 electric sedans per week after production delays. The company faces investor pressure to turn a profit without having to tap Wall Street for additional capital.
 
Wasn't the solar business started by Musk's family? I also remember him having a separate stake in the venture so that when the buyout happened it would serve as a vehicle for him to funnel cash out of Tesla's reserves and into his own pockets.
 
I don't want Elon to fail and respect what he is attempting to accomplish. That being said, the free market does not give a fvck about your "green" intentions so it was getting really old hearing how the iphone generation was going to solve the worlds energy demands with these alternative solutions. Fake stories about sustainability have been thrown out there in record pace only to find out the truth was the headline was only correct if you ignore other factors.
 
solar is not for everyone. If you are in PGE market then yea you would be insane not to go solar. But if you are in SMUD market there is no point. They just need to concentrate in the area that has insane electricity costs. Seriously in my area PG&E bends you over and takes everything lol. Solar atleast saves me 2-3k a year.

on top most people don't care unless its hitting their wallet. Eventually mankind will be the only reason humans go extinct one day lol.
 
If you are a Tesla investor, then this is worrying, otherwise it's just popcorn time. I wouldn't bet against Musk though - he has a history of succeeding when the pundits are against him.
 
great tech that is priced out of most peoples budgets....

As I was saying it depends on your market. With PGE you can't even turn on ac in summer. My bill before solar would spike 500-700 that's when I went solar. After the 10k tax credit cost me about 19k. I just pay more towards my solar loan instead of PGE now.
 
For me the ROI is between 15-20 years which is not exactly good. Also I would need a new roof in 3-4 years so that really makes it not a good deal until after the roof had been replaced.
 
I imagine part of this also has something to do with the administrations justified tariffs on Chinese solar panels.

It was the right thing to do, to put ish China for stealing western tech, and then subsidizing it and turning around and dumping it on global markets. It has caused some pain for solar installers though.
 
I miss some of the door to door sales girls that would come around trying to sell me solar.. they were cute

but almost all the solar sales people were not all the bright.. all you had to do was LOOK at my place as you walked up and could tell solar really wasnt an option for us as almost the entire house is shaded from our own trees and those of neighbors, which we like.

LOL
 
I imagine part of this also has something to do with the administrations justified tariffs on Chinese solar panels.

It was the right thing to do, to put ish China for stealing western tech, and then subsidizing it and turning around and dumping it on global markets. It has caused some pain for solar installers though.

At the end of the day it’s jobs that matter. Tariffs wars down the road will end badly. Global economy is already starting to get hurt and I am sure Trump will leave us in recession by second term if he wins that. You can almost guarantee it. Lol. His buddies are probably making killing in stock market with his tweets and by the time he gets out real estate will be cheap and it will be trump buying. Hahaha.

The problem is what no one wants to address is the pay gap! It’s a fact rich are getting richer and middle class is dwindling. People make more but the expenses are lot higher now. Make corporate tax rate permanent but not middle class. Cut social security out of my paycheck but then lowering social security funding. I hate it when I see my check and see the social security deductions. I am always like I could invest that money in so many ways and have more at the end lol. I don’t need government saving me when I might already be dead! It’s the psychology of things. They know they can take money from every working individual and they eventually get used to it. Only government can take money from us and it won’t be called robbery! Lol
 
The investment absolutely depends on where you are. For me it was a no brainer and I did it 6 years ago. I spent $14K on a 20 year lease on my roof. I save $3K / year on my electric (yes we used a lot, but also expensive in my area). So I have already gotten my money back and I will basically have free electric ($3K/ year if not more) for 15 years. That's about as solid as can be from an investment / return standpoint. That math does not work in other locations. Its just funny because so many people think that its a bad use of money. It absolutely is for some people. For me it was great.
 
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At the end of the day it’s jobs that matter. Tariffs wars down the road will end badly. Global economy is already starting to get hurt and I am sure Trump will leave us in recession by second term if he wins that. You can almost guarantee it. Lol. His buddies are probably making killing in stock market with his tweets and by the time he gets out real estate will be cheap and it will be trump buying. Hahaha.

The problem is what no one wants to address is the pay gap! It’s a fact rich are getting richer and middle class is dwindling. People make more but the expenses are lot higher now. Make corporate tax rate permanent but not middle class. Cut social security out of my paycheck but then lowering social security funding. I hate it when I see my check and see the social security deductions. I am always like I could invest that money in so many ways and have more at the end lol. I don’t need government saving me when I might already be dead! It’s the psychology of things. They know they can take money from every working individual and they eventually get used to it. Only government can take money from us and it won’t be called robbery! Lol


Look I disagree with many of his tariffs. The global steel and aluminum tarrifs for instance is purely moronic, hurts out allies who have done nothing wrong and is just causing problems. A narrower one on only China would have made sense however, due to their illegal state sponsored dumping on global markets.

We absolutely have to protect our intellectual property though. If China can just brazenly steal the tech our companies have developed at great expense and then drive the companies who developed it out of business due to undercutting them because they spent nothing on research and much less on development, then the future is very very from for the west.

At this point we need to be banding together with our western allies and harshly punishing China, even if it means we trigger a massive global recession, because recessions eventually recover, and the long term consequences from losing our tech sector are that great.

What we should be doing is burying the stupid hatchet over steel, aluminum and other cheap nonsense with our allies and teaming up with them to place a complete and total global ban on trade of products from China where they have stolen IP, short term consequences be damned.

We need to go all out fucking MacArthur style on their economy in retaliation until they stop what they are doing, shut down all companies using stolen IP and compensate western firms for their IP theft related losses, but we can't do this alone. We need all of our allies to cooperate or it will never work.
 
Are they talking about this?

https://insideevs.com/tesla-solar-layoffs-home-depot-deals-ends/
https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-home-depot-partnership-solar-facilities/

While the Home Depot partnership accounted for a significant number of solar and energy sales for Tesla, third-party retail partnerships are among the most expensive means of generating sales in the solar industry. According to Perea, the cost of winning a customer through Home Depot could cost up to $7,000 per system, roughly 45% more compared to the national average of $4,000 per installation.

I guess they just decided it wasn't worth the expense and wanted to evolve their sales model around their own stores instead, pocketing more of the sales.

We'll see if the move pays off, depends on how many they can sell directly to pocket more of the profits vs how many more they could potentially sell through third parties to make up for the much higher overhead.
 
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Look I disagree with many of his tariffs. The global steel and aluminum tarrifs for instance is purely moronic, hurts out allies who have done nothing wrong and is just causing problems. A narrower one on only China would have made sense however, due to their illegal state sponsored dumping on global markets.

We absolutely have to protect our intellectual property though. If China can just brazenly steal the tech our companies have developed at great expense and then drive the companies who developed it out of business due to undercutting them because they spent nothing on research and much less on development, then the future is very very from for the west.

At this point we need to be banding together with our western allies and harshly punishing China, even if it means we trigger a massive global recession, because recessions eventually recover, and the long term consequences from losing our tech sector are that great.

What we should be doing is burying the stupid hatchet over steel, aluminum and other cheap nonsense with our allies and teaming up with them to place a complete and total global ban on trade of products from China where they have stolen IP, short term consequences be damned.

We need to go all out fucking MacArthur style on their economy in retaliation until they stop what they are doing, shut down all companies using stolen IP and compensate western firms for their IP theft related losses, but we can't do this alone. We need all of our allies to cooperate or it will never work.

Well that’s the problem. He is pissing even the allies off. I am not sure what his strategy is. I don’t want it to be a situation where our allies rather deal with China then us. On top he went out of his way to help with ZTE. I have no idea what he is mindset is. May be we are heading towards being a state like Russia that no one wants to deal with? Good thing is we change presidents often lol.
 
Simple question, would you take advice from how to install solar panels and batteries and get that all wired in correctly with all the proper shutoff's and capacitors from some random guy working isle 13 at Home Depot?
 
Simple question, would you take advice from how to install solar panels and batteries and get that all wired in correctly with all the proper shutoff's and capacitors from some random guy working isle 13 at Home Depot?

might as well; those same reps don't mind telling customers it's ok if they work on/install their own 220V line in their house even though, unlike 120V ... 220V can kill
 
I am always like I could invest that money in so many ways and have more at the end lol.
But you probably, really almost certainly, wouldn't.

People by and large are terrible at saving and investing which is why nearly all of them are 1 paycheque away from losing everything.

Given that people who paid into SS for years are getting it when they retire its not at all correct to portray it as theft either. You can perhaps argue that its not being funded properly or that the funds are being spent on other stuff improperly but those are both 2 different issues altogether. Both of which are fixable at that.

Just raising the SS Taxable Wage base so that the rich pay what they should would alone guarantee that it'd be funded into the 2050's and probably the 2070's.
 
A narrower one on only China would have made sense however, due to their illegal state sponsored dumping on global markets.
No it wouldn't of. If you want to punish some of their anti competitive tactics there are other legal ways to do it. Starting a trade war can only end badly since they can reciprocate evenly and they get hurt less for the most part.

At this point we need to be banding together with our western allies and harshly punishing China, even if it means we trigger a massive global recession, because recessions eventually recover, and the long term consequences from losing our tech sector are that great.
No one is going to push their country into a recession for us and its flat out brain dead to think they'd sabotage their country to do that or to expect our leadership to sabotage our economy to do that too. At best its political suicide and no politician will do that. And it won't even work too since China could just sell to any country which didn't participate in a ban, and you'll never get them all to participate in such a ban.
 
solar is not for everyone. If you are in PGE market then yea you would be insane not to go solar. But if you are in SMUD market there is no point. They just need to concentrate in the area that has insane electricity costs. Seriously in my area PG&E bends you over and takes everything lol. Solar atleast saves me 2-3k a year.

on top most people don't care unless its hitting their wallet. Eventually mankind will be the only reason humans go extinct one day lol.
Yup, I happen to live in the "fuck you for using more energy than a hermit in the mountains we're gping to rape your bank account now" part of thw country... aka PG&E land, solar paid itself off after 5 years with all the incentives
 
This isn't about the failure of his solar business, it's about his Tesla factory being unable to ramp up production of the Model 3 properly. He is having a cash flow crisis, not a business model crisis.

Musk is a big picture guy, he sees how his businesses will work as they slide along the bar from a small investment to a big enterprise. His weakness is that he'll pick a point somewhere along that bar where betting big will make the best sense, and then when he reaches that point he makes the big bet.

His solar business is not the big investment - Tesla is, and that is evident by his ventures into the Gigafactory. He needed the Gigafactory to accomplish his goals for Tesla and for Power Walls, both of which are fed by his solar business. Those big investments were made possible by his backlog of Tesla Model 3 orders, but he expected to have shipped many more cars by this point. His business model is still solid, but his cash flow is behind, and now the sharks are circling. There isn't much danger of losing investor money, since Tesla has assets and intellectual property that people are interested in. People in this thread are talking about China, and one company/nation that would love to buy out Tesla is China.
 
i saw that tesla shit at home depot.

Seems like no one gave it a chance.

I actually like the idea of solar roof tiles that don't look like the eyesore traditional solar panels are.
 
i saw that tesla shit at home depot.

Seems like no one gave it a chance.

I actually like the idea of solar roof tiles that don't look like the eyesore traditional solar panels are.

I for sure don’t think solar panels are eyesore may be for someone who didn’t get professional installation done. I don’t mind the way solar panels look. Heck you can’t even see my panels unless you were at a distance. Not sure what’s such an eyesore about them.
 
I imagine part of this also has something to do with the administrations justified tariffs on Chinese solar panels.

It was the right thing to do, to put ish China for stealing western tech, and then subsidizing it and turning around and dumping it on global markets. It has caused some pain for solar installers though.

How different is that from a country that hands hundreds of billions in "defence grants" to civilian companies that then dump highly subsidised, deeply discounted product all over the world to choke out competition so those companies can be bought along with their technology? I don't disagree with going after China's downright creepy methods for dealing with foreign companies. I mean, they lock up execs from foreign companies for just about any reason you can imagine if they won't play ball with the communist party, but our own houses are far from in order or clean.
 
solar is not for everyone. If you are in PGE market then yea you would be insane not to go solar. But if you are in SMUD market there is no point. They just need to concentrate in the area that has insane electricity costs. Seriously in my area PG&E bends you over and takes everything lol. Solar atleast saves me 2-3k a year.

on top most people don't care unless its hitting their wallet. Eventually mankind will be the only reason humans go extinct one day lol.

I would love to have solar but cleaning the roof off in winter time sucks a horse nut...
 
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