Tesla Solar Sales Declined for 4 Qtrs. Then Tesla Stopped Publishing the Numbers

Sadly, all those points but 5 are also political. The US isn't serious about it, for whatever (political/economic) reasons.

The UK, on the other hand: https://www.fmb.org.uk/homepicks/news/surge-in-solar-panel-i... ; helped by an efficiency mandate on new houses.

Rare win for Germany, the the land of bureaucracy, made it easy to install *small* residential solar.

You can buy small solar panels in the supermarket, and plug them into the wall socket, which normally is a no no. Per household a maximum of 800 watt though.[1] For more you need something proper that does not just connect via a normal wall socket.

[1] Maybe also 2000 watt but only 800 feed into the grid?

As a Dutch person I'm baffled that you're saying the PV industry has headwinds.

Recently added another 4000kWh of yearly production to my garage for €4000 all in because why not. I also have a 20 kWh LFP battery now, €7000 all-in (and dropping quickly!), which works out fine.

Many people now buy "plug-in" products: small batteries or single PV panel that you just plug into the grid directly, no installation required.

All the issues you list are governmental issues, not PV issues. The global PV indsutry is EXPLODING.

The risk reward ratio is way off at most people’s electricity prices. At best, you save yourself a few dollars in electricity costs (unless you’re in super high priced and sunny California).

At worst, you need to deal with a roofing problem.

For backup purposes, a generator and some fuel seems to be a lot more bang for the buck.

Home solar is mainly a jobs program and rarely makes financial sense, especially if you factor in the opportunity cost of the invested money.

Last year I asked them for a Powerwall quote and was told that I can't get powerwall without their solar panels

Powerwalls have been a huge disappointment for me so far. It gets pretty cold where we live but the Powerwalls are installed in a somewhat insulated garage. However in winter it gets cold enough in there that they need to use their own power to keep themselves warm, so they drain themselves that way in just a few days if there's no solar charging. Similarly, when the solar generation is high they need to cool themselves and that uses power. Our utility doesn't allow grid charging of storage. So all together I have relatively hope we'd actually have much backup power in an outage.

That whole solar city acquisition was a bit of a debacle with Elon buying a very suspect and deeply indebted company that his cousins had founded and controlled for a questionable amount of money… that was probably the first big warning sign that Tesla’s board was out to lunch.

It's likely just not high-margin enough to satisfy Tesla investors. Panels have become commoditized.

They were pushing it hard because at the time they needled to deflect the accusations that the SolarCity purchase was fraud, nepotism, and insider dealing. Now that most people have forgotten about that, there's no need to talk about it anymore.

Agreed. They stopped talking about it...

I have a feeling they are not really that competitive in this market segment, but were helped by a strong brand.

Anyone know if they actually make money on Solar at all, and have an idea what their profit margin is?

And what does the the competition look like (also for e.g. PowerWall)?

SolarCity was about to go bankrupt (owned by Elon Musk’s cousins), so he found a way to justify bailing them out with Tesla money. He held the famous solar roof event, saying that all the homes behind him had solar roofs cheaper than a normal roof, which was later proven a lie. Tesla’s entire solar business was built on that foundation, and they struggled to justify it in the long term.

Everyone I know who’s looked said they cost too much. I think they’re walking away from a commodity market because they don’t want to spend time on lower margin business lines.

The market shifted. Solar used to be a luxury product, with only some environment-conscious rich people putting them on their roof. In that market the solar shingles made a lot of sense.

But solar has become a commodity product. Panel-wise the big bucks is in massive industrial greenfield installations, but Tesla's private-label brand can't compete on that market. In the residential market they are competing with every single local contractor who's willing to make a few bucks throwing bargain-bin panels on your roof, and their own system of proprietary panels and subcontractors can't compete with that either - especially when they force you to buy a power wall as well.

> The article's exactly right. They _should_ be able to find more customers.

It's an ultra-competitive commodity business; the business goes to whoever will sell and install the things the cheapest.

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If you are willing to put in some Project Management time yourself, you can get solar for a LOT cheaper than if you hire an outside solar company.

For the installation - most roofing companies will install the roof mounts and screw on the solar panels for $1.5k-$2k (might be different in your area, but still cheap). An electrician can be hired to make all the solar panel connections and the grid connection for a few hundred $$$.

As the Project Manager - you'll need to source the panels, file the permits, and hire the roofers and electricians. https://www.solarwholesale.com/jerry-rig-everything/ can assist (assist, not do) all of that for you for a cheap price. $10k-$15k with Solar Wholesale will get you the panels and cables you need, plus the engineering drawings, the permit paperwork, and etc. (thank you for the great Solar DIY series Jerry!)

For $20k and working as the Project Manager yourself, you can get what most solar companies will charge you $50k for. Which is ballpark inline with construction project management costs - typical residential construction project management cost 40-50% of the total project budget. A lot of those projects as complex enough to warrant those fees, unless you have a lot of experience, but in my opinion adding solar to your roof is not a complex process and does not warrant those fees.

I went through this process myself as well. A few conclusions I made:

1. The installer you choose is more important than anything else. The panels are pretty commoditized at this point. The battery cells are pretty much commoditized as well (they are 2-3 companies all of the major battery companies use). Your biggest worry is not if, but when, things break. Most well known manufacturers (REC, Enphase, Canadian Solar, Hyundai, etc.) have good warranty policies, but you need someone to coordinate that - so make sure your solar installer does that on your behalf.

2. A Powerwall battery is 13.5 kWh and has a 11 kW inverter. The base is $8k and $6k for each battery expansion. A similar, well known, brand EG4 sells the same battery for $3.7k and a similarly spec'd inverter is around $2.5k. Generally speaking Tesla installers quote much higher on labor than others too.

3. From the installers I spoke to they dont really like working with Tesla.

4. If you live in a place like Texas, Florida, etc., I wouldn't even bother with batteries unless you have a relatively small house. Most houses suck down so much energy that a natural gas generator is way more cost effective.

Friend ordered the solar roof (the solar panels that look like shingles), and after waiting a year switched to their regular solar.

From my conversations it was a complete mess to get installed, with poor communication on their end. After it was installed he had 2 issues within 2 years resulting in them needing to replace hardware.

Add in that it was quite expensive, he is not a happy customer.

I went through this process this year. Found solar installation companies on Yelp, got some quotes, chose an installer. A month later, I have Panasonic panels and a Powerwall powering my home. There’s plenty of info online. I live in the US and found this resource very educational: https://www.energy.gov/eere/solar/homeowners-guide-going-sol...

We have a Tesla car, but I never considered their solar because it's a commodity, and their options are overpriced. They also pushed leases pretty heavily, which I was not interested in. We bought our panels in 2018, the same year we bought the EV.

Just talk to your neighbors about reputable local installers. They'll have panel and storage options.

That said, because these things are largely commoditized, there's some turmoil in the market. Our (excellent!) local installer was saved by the PPP during the pandemic, which was a bit of a sobering thought -- they're the ones backingthe 25 year installation guarantee!

Then Sunpower (our panel vendor, and one of the higher end ones, at that) went out of business. Our monitoring system continues to work thanks to the work of the bankruptcy courts, though it's been transferred to a company who is trying to support those assets be having a freemium model.

I have personal no experience to give, but I thought this was a good video when I watched in a while ago, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJeSWbR6W04

Higher price than competitiors and they have a poor reputation for after sales service.

A repuatable local company will be cheaper and you can have roughly the same equipment (tesla powerwall) and have after sales support.

You should look closely at solar rate plans and interconnection fees in your area. If you're hoping to save money with solar, it's possible that you never recoup the initial investment because of the way the newer rate plans are structured (esp. for PG&E).

In the bay area, it might be cheaper to opt into 100% renewable rate plans from CleanPowerSF or Peninsula Clean Energy. (Silicon Valley Power is 100% renewable by default, IIRC.)