Elon Musk announced to employees, in a company-wide email obtained by Elektrek on Wednesday, that Tesla has “two most critical priorities” that demand its attention in the last month of 2019.
One of those priorities is solar.
Tesla’s first priority, according to the email, is that Tesla deliver “all cars” by year end — before the expiration of Tesla’s EV tax credit.
The second priority, “just as important, is that we immediately increase the rate of solar deployments by a significant degree,” said Musk in the memo.
Return to solar
This seeming return to solar comes after Tesla decimated what was once Solar City’s dominant position in residential PV.
Tesla’s solar business plummeted to a startlingly small 29 megawatts in Q2 of this year, down from 47 megawatts in Q1 and a far cry from the 253 megawatts installed by SolarCity in the boom days of Q4 2015. The most recent quarter saw a small improvement to 43 megawatts.
Tesla was once the unquestioned leader in the residential rooftop market with a market share of around 33 percent, but today, the company is No. 3, and its market share during the first quarter was a little more than 6 percent, according to analysts at Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables. Sunrun has become the residential solar market leader.
As pv magazine has reported, Tesla made some major and contrarian changes in its solar sales structure over the last few years:
- Tesla shifted from door-to-door sales to in-store sales, and then to online sales.
- Tesla launched a solar rental service allowing homeowners to rent a solar system for $50 per month.
- Tesla also launched a new commercial solar online ordering platform.
Although Tesla had said that it is “in the process of improving many aspects of this business to increase deployments,” its solar free-fall in a modest growth market looked like a deliberate curtailment of its business.
Tesla’s strategic shifts have not yet resulted in increased solar revenue, but they have reportedly lowered Tesla’s customer acquisition charges.
“The year of the solar roof?”
Earlier this year, Musk dubbed 2019 “the year of the solar roof.”
Tesla did sort of launch its solar roof version 3, a new version of its solar tiles, although one would be hard-pressed to locate a roof with version 1 or 2. Musk is characteristically optimistic, claiming that the company is going to ramp production to 1,000 roofs per week.
But, three years after its introduction, and after having received deposits from interested homeowners, Tesla has connected just a handful of solar-integrated roofs to the grid.
Tesla planned to ramp up production of the solar roof with “significantly improved manufacturing capabilities during 2019,” but has not provided an update on the production of the roof in its Buffalo, New York factory and the 1,460 jobs the company has pledged to create there by next year.
Perhaps the tailwinds of lower solar module prices, legislation such as the California requirement for solar panels on all new homes, aggressive pricing, and new sales techniques will help restore Tesla to its former residential solar glory.
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“As pv magazine has reported, Tesla made some major and contrarian changes in its solar sales structure over the last few years:
Tesla shifted from door-to-door sales to in-store sales, and then to online sales.
Tesla launched a solar rental service allowing homeowners to rent a solar system for $50 per month.
Tesla also launched a new commercial solar online ordering platform.”
When it was Solar City, the company had a presents with kiosks and personnel in places like Best Buys. In Nevada the Legislature changed the rules of residential solar PV and Solar City pulled out of the market. This left many customers a little more than angry. Did TESLA go back into the markets it left and make good on their past claims when it was Solar City? Promises of 30 year warranties and replacement and repair of systems for this (30) years. Didn’t happen, what did happen is many of the large box stores had failures that caused fires in some cases. Poor installation was the ‘most’ prevalently found problem.
If TESLA is going to “rent” a roof top system for as low as $50/mo. just how fast would TESLA be able to address a problem with (your) rented system? If the rented system is offline, does the homeowner still have to pay the $50/mo. fee? IF TESLA installs literally thousands to hundreds of thousands of rented rooftop solar PV each year and then TESLA decides to pull out of the service area, what does the home or business with the “rented” solar PV roof do then? If TESLA can’t catch up and the other two large solar PV firms create a situation where TESLA (solar) files for bankruptcy, who owns the system on your roof? If a new company buys out the assets, what happens to the original contracts signed by you and TESLA?
I’m guessing all the answers to your questions would lie in the small print of the contract…. like any other similar one. What’s your point?
You can ignore the ranting drivel from solar middlemen and salespeople being displaced by Tesla’s online sales model.
Great illustration of why they were the problem all along. Their commission get threatened…..time to spread the disinformation.
I am an experienced solar roof slate installer, wondering how Tesla’s roof will comply with the National Electric Code Rapid shutdown within the array (NEC 2017). I will be updating my knowledge of NEC 2020. Curious if the V3 addresses NEC 2017, which has been in effect in MA.