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Tesla To Close a Dozen Solar Facilities In 9 States (cnbc.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Electric car maker Tesla's move last week to cut 9 percent of its workforce will sharply downsize the residential solar business it bought two years ago in a controversial $2.6 billion deal, according to three internal company documents and seven current and former Tesla solar employees. The latest cuts to the division that was once SolarCity -- a sales and installation company founded by two cousins of Tesla CEO Elon Musk -- include closing about a dozen installation facilities, according to internal company documents, and ending a retail partnership with Home Depot that the current and former employees said generated about half of its sales. About 60 installation facilities remain open, according to an internal company list reviewed by Reuters. An internal company email named 14 facilities slated for closure, but the other list included only 13 of those locations.
I've seen short sellers jumping on this, claiming Tesla's energy division is failing, claiming that this is confirmation that the Solar City buyout was a bailout for Elon's cousins.
What I see here is Tesla restructuring to be more efficient and consistent.
Tesla is a company that grew very quickly and incorporated into itself a few smaller companies, the largest of which is Solar City.
As a result of that past there are a lot of roles that grew out of a structure that fit a much smaller company that don't make sense now, roles that are redundant between Tesla and SC, etc.
As far as I understand, SC was more of a distributed solar power company that dealt with all aspects of installation, maintenance, financing, etc.
Tesla's residential energy division is transitioning more towards having solar and battery products being something the consumer or the house builder buys directly as product.
So they sold off the maintenance/upkeep contracts to other solar companies and they're bringing all their sales people inhouse, into the same stores they display and sell their cars in.
Tesla's battery storage division is growing significantly.
And sure, like the with the Model 3 production, their new solar tile/panel factory might be taking longer than expected to ramp up, but I wouldn't take that as failure by any stretch, I often see analysts looking at last year's number, comparing it to this year's number and deciding that because it's lower or higher it is worse, without even considering it in the actual context of how the company is run.
We'll see in a few years how Tesla does. But California's rules should help Tesla's solar panel and battery business.
The New York Times says California will require that all new homes have solar power, starting in 2020.
Also, a rate change that takes effect in 2019
will charge California customers based on the time of day they use electricity. So homeowners with energy-efficiency features — a battery in particular, allowing energy to be stored for when it is most efficiently used — will avoid higher costs.
Solar City acquired its debt load working on the Solar City Gigafactory (Gigafactory 2). It had, and has under Tesla, continually been transitioning from its old, low margin business model to this.
If you have an issue with the facts, explain them, but these are the facts. You don't build the largest solar plant in the US with pocket change.
I was watching this thing on TV about some guy named Hitler. Someone should stop him!
There's no "solar roof". Like the "$35k model 3" it isn't available, although you can buy a promise that it may eventually be delivered. Probably not to you, but to the "highest paying customers on the list".
Musk is a scammer.
Musk made almost his only real profit while operating PayPal, whichh is a 'useful' entity but also a far shadier version of 'banking' than most banksters engage in.
Musk peddles hopes and dreams. He markets hype to believers in a dystopian future; his hype provides the illusion of a way out of the percieved dismal fate.
I mean, damnit, it is not that difficult to see the obvious.