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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.
The Fake News are always distorting the facts to maximize click generation.
Is there really a problem when a company reorganizes? But it's Tesla, a popular click target.
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.
Losing money left, right and centre doesn't mean you're not profitable. Capex capex capex. You can make it up on volume. Capex capex assets capex. Froth froth short sellers froth.
CAPEX!
(Rei is at the "rest home" again)
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Scams have sold most solar panels after all. Hopefully this is a sign people are finally waking up to the giant fucking scam PACE is. Government working as mafia leg breakers for extortionate loans sold to naive people, but it's all kosher because it sells solar panels ...
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.
What a bigly brave future Elon is creating for all the millennial babbys! Quick, buy smire bitcoins gais!!
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.
Musk used Tesla shareholder money to buy SolarCIty - a failing business - from his relatives. A VERY sketchy deal. His relatives piled on debt for the company and Musk bailed them out.
Aa industry that is pretty much controlled by the Chinese because they have a superior product.
Musk then created this bullshit story that the solar panels will have this "synergistic" affect for Tesla. Total bullshit and the Telsa/Musk fanboys ate it up.
Of course, you Tesla Evangelicals NEVER even thought to ask, "Gee, Musk does everything from the ground up because he thinks he can do it better than everyone else because he's an innovative genius!"
Or eh could have even just made a deal with a Chinese company to supply them and conserve his capital to keep Tesla afloat. An EVEN better idea because I'm a better businessman than Musk.
No mater HOW you slice it, Musk's purchase of SolarCity was idiotic and maybe even criminal.
And Rei, your constant apologizing and making excuses for Musk is obvious and getting old.
I would buy some bitcoin, but I've no coin to buy it with...
Clickbait headline: "TESLA CLOSING A DOZEN FACILITIES!!!11!!1!"
Meanwhile, in reality: "Tesla closes 13/14 out of 75 solar panel installation sites."
No wonder Elon Musk wants to get into the journalism accountability business, if he has to deal with nonsense like this all the time.
Tesla's financial structure is a house of cards.
It's board of directors is filled with Musk cronies and a cousin. Musk is a deal maker - that is all.
None have ANY manufacturing experience let alone, auto making experience. This idea that they'll do things different and better than the incumbent auto makers is a nice fairy tale; those auto makers have a century of experience in some cases. And Musk is making a lot of stupid mistakes at YOUR and other stock holders' expense.
My unsolicited advice to you - it sickened me when all those Enron shareholders lost everything:
1. Learn how to read financial statements and study Tesla's.
2. Stop reading puff pieces and comments here written by Musk's publicists and fanboys: think for yourself.
3. Look at the other car companies. Nissan and other Japanese companies have been doing a LOT in the EV market - even building their own battery plants that use their own technology that looks more promising than Tesla's. They don't get the coverage that Musk does because they're not narcissists.
4. The Chinese are getting into the EV market. And so are the Europeans. 2019 is when the shit is going to hit the fan: for Tesla.
5. There is a company already shipping EV semi-trucks: lean about them.
6. And get over your infatuation with Tesla and Musk. NEVER get emotional when it comes to investments.
7. The Chinese control the solar market.
The bigger news is a whistleblower is about to blow off the lid of one of the biggest scams of the decade. Gross margins and production numbers were overstated. Waste is rampant. Faulty batteries were installed in their $80,000+ cars in order to push production numbers up. Elon is going nuts trying to blame it on "shorts". It is very entertaining to see it implode. Meanwhile, Nissan (and others) are making a $30k EV that is available right now, no reservation required. When will Tesla make an affordable car available? Never.
In Musk-world, any investor who is dissatisfied is a 'short seller.'
Just one component of the illusion being spun.
Many good business ideas fail in the sales and marketing process. And partnering with Home Depot appears to be a weak spot. Can't make any money there and can't sell on your own (possibly as a condition of the HD sales channel). HD caters to crazy little old ladies who insist on buying a flower at a hardware store. Or DIYers who don't notice when they exchange their Blum cabinet hardware line for cheap Chinese knockoffs.
Have gnu, will travel.
https://www.technologyreview.c...
Yeah, it MAY be solved and then again. H2 solves it now and for a long time. yes, fuel cells use platinum... About as much as is used in a catalytic convertor.
so we stop making catalytic convertors and start making fuel cells. net zero change
Dried up? Gee that is too bad. My neighbor has a Solar City installation, the thing is a reflective eyesore. Certain time of year the reflection off the taxpayer funded solar panels glare so bad you can't even look in the direction of their house. They installed half the solar panels facing NORTH, and these are the problem.
The real reason for the merger is to find a use for Tesla car batteries that will eventually have reduced performance but still can be charged. Good idea to install worn batteries in people's garages to store power from the solar panels. In that application, energy-storage-vs-weight ratio doesn't matter. Resolves a huge future recycling problem.
As of a little past 7pm yesterday, the sun, without which these panels donâ(TM)t do anything but sit there and look ugly, by the way, failed. Solar failure is a problem with no known cause or solution. Every day, around the same time, the sun slowly, inexorably disappears, taking with it the light and much of the warmth it provided, and tells NO ONE where it is going, nor when, or even IF it will return. Now some will no doubt argue that it has, every morning in recorded history, returned, faithfully, BUT it never comes back to the spot where it disappeared the previous day, so the fact that it has in THE PAST returned is not proof it WILL return subsequently. Also, the exact time of its return, and location is a matter of mere speculation, offered by so-called astronomers, without proof. Do any of them have a time machine?!? No. As I suspected. So Tesla bailing out of the part of a company that makes panels that are useless without the inconsistent, wandering SUN makes sense. Coal, by contrast, is infinite, (we have as yet found no evidence to suggest that any one piece extracted is the LAST one, as there has, so far, always been a NEXT one,) and works day, or night. Yay coal! Also, if you WASH it after you dig it up, (you wouldnâ(TM)t eat a CARROT you just pulled out of the ground without washing it, would you?!?) it becomes something called clean coal, and oh GAWD I miss Stephen Colbert when he did stuff like this... :( ... back when he was actually funny. I want to go back to a time when Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert were BOTH on Comedy Central, Donald Trump was just another stupid asshole, and the US federal government was at least still able to limp.
Ok, I burned a mod point on this for you.
Intelligent mass transit is sorely lacking in the US for many reasons, one of them being that big oil has pushed diesel engines on roads over other solutions, like trains and electric trolleys. Also, the U.S. has very poorly laid out cities compared to Europe, which makes mass transit here a pain. Compare the size of Dallas/Fort Worth to Rome, or Paris, or Frankfurt
Big oil and the traditional auto industry also love fuel cells because it preserves the status quo. Here's why:
1. There's no distribution infrastructure for fuel cell powered cars, and there likely never will be. For now, hydrogen is the only practical fuel for a fuel cell. If you think you are going to make and chill, compress or adsorb hydrogen with your own private little fueling station, then your savings and retirement strategy is likely to be lottery tickets. And shipping/piping hydrogen to a fueling stations is not feasible due to it's low volumetric efficiency. You'd need 4+ tankers hauling cryogenic liquid H2 to equal the energy delivery of a gas/diesel tanker delivery. To be practical, your gas stations would have to be near a rail terminal. The sunk cost of diesel/gasoline distribution in the U.S. is many tens of TRILLIONS of dollars. That's going to be replaced with a hydrogen system... when? The electric grid equivalent is already here.
2. Hydrogen storage techniques would result in a vehicle with a range about the same as a Nissan Leaf. It really does suck as a transportation energy carrier.
3. Fuel cells are very fragile. A little contamination in your fuel from, say, natural gas, and you've ruined the membranes that enable the electron transport. And these membranes contain platinum. Which is more expensive than gold.
4. Large scale hydrogen production is still only economical when converting fossil fuels to hydrogen. Your fuel cell vehicle would still be deriving it's energy from fossil fuels, with all the added inefficiencies of conversion and distribution thrown in. Yes, electrolysis techniques are possible... but not economically competitive. Just use the electricity directly in a battery electric car, which is very efficient.
Yes, and similar quantities of platinum are used in catalytic converters now.
No ICE engine, no catalytic converters. Net zero change.
Check out industrial electrolyzers on Alibaba (22 liters/hour with 6Kw input power at 7 bar) and solutions currently being deployed in Europe and Asia.
You're correct, centralized hydrogen production and distribution has some issues ( metals exposed to hydrogen over time become brittle... coat with polymers? ).
Decentralized production using PV and wind is MUCH more practical and clean.
So what, is this whistler blower your mother?
I'm calling bullshit. The odds are incredibly against you having that kind of insider information and if you did you could find much better things to do with it then waiting for a slashdot article about a Musk business so you could bring it up in an internet forum.
The odds are vastly more likely that, like a child, you are making this up because you either want it to be true or for attention.
I ignore Anonymous Coward posts. If you want to discuss something, that's awesome. Log in.
your fuel cell powered vehicle will be at best, half as efficient as an electric car, with likely a fraction of the range:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
And bumble bees can't possibly fly.
Minus the cocaine.
The idiots who repeat that "bumblebees" misnomer are usually the same idiots who believe that Bill Gates really thought computers would never have more than 640k RAM. You think that you're providing a witty rejoinder to his comment when, in fact, you're just further demonstrating your own ignorance.
Actually you need to recalibrate your sarcasm detector... But then, you probably had yours removed when they installed the e-meter.
I got his sarcasm; the issue here is that you're as ignorant as he is, so both of you believe the "Hurr durr scientists thought bumblebees couldn't fly" nonsense. Which is why you completely missed my point.
And then there are just the stupid people like you who miss the point entirely.
so both of you believe the "Hurr durr scientists thought bumblebees couldn't fly" nonsense
Woooooooooooooooosh. Xenu has deprived you of even the smallest trace of intelligence.
In 2015, 141.2 million taxpayers reported earning $10.14 trillion in adjusted gross income and paid $1.45 trillion in individual income taxes.
Oh the poor people having to pay a whole 14% tax. How do they still manage to put food on the table?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
WHY has the noble bigly commander in chief not just banned solar? It's dirty, unamerican, and hurts american jobs. FUCK SOLAR!! COAL IS THE FUTURE!!
Yep, and also from my link, the bottom 50% pay an average of 3.6% income tax rate. We have a HIGHLY progressive tax structure in the US, and the rich pay overwhelmingly the lion's share of taxes (include in capital gains and social security - which everyone in the 10% maxes out - and you'd find about half the Federal receipts come from those rich folks). Yet somehow - it's not enough?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Well you can't balance your budget, so clearly it's not enough.
And the rich pay more capital gains taxes than the poor....Why do you think that might be...