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

https://cleantechnica.com/2025/04/07/tesla-solar-sales-declined-for-4-straight-quarters-then-tesla-stopped-publishing-the-numbers/

by elsewhen • 1 year ago

172 82 1 year ago

cleantechnica.com

i80and• 1 year ago

Tesla was pushing solar pretty hard for a time a long time ago. My memories actually line up with the charts here.

Then they kind of just... stopped talking about it at all? In retrospect it was kind of a quiet sea change for the company as a whole.

joakleaf• 1 year ago

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)?

potato3732842• 1 year ago

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

All commoditized market segments are like that to varying extents.

ceejayoz• 1 year ago

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

mikeyouse• 1 year ago

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.

bayarearefugee• 1 year ago

Yeah I don't think Tesla ever really cared about solar, they just had to talk the talk for a bit to help grease a very shady business deal (with strong echoes of the recently announced xAI/X deal).

codechicago277• 1 year ago

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.

Analemma_• 1 year ago

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.

timmg• 1 year ago

Just bought a new house in the burbs. Want to get solar. I assumed Tesla was a good company to get them through.

Does anyone have (a non-political) opinion on Tesla Solar? And/or how I should think about getting panels (and battery) installed at my house?

kypro• 1 year ago

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

bearjaws2• 1 year ago

Except you can guarantee MKBHD got the best of the best service with Elon Musk personally holding a gun to the head of whomever was in charge of the install.

They literally work with their top influencers for FSD to make it looks more impressive than it really is.

He even talks about how everyone was having problems but "for whatever reason it went perfectly"... and it still took 8 months

https://electrek.co/2024/07/09/tesla-insiders-say-elon-optim...

bearjaws2• 1 year ago

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.

blitzar• 1 year ago

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.

jonwachob91• 1 year ago

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.

pjc502• 1 year ago

.. for how many panels? In the UK, ten years ago, I got 3.68kW for the equivalent of $7k. A $50k installation sounds wildly unprofitable.

(permitting requirements kick in above 3.68kW, see nice chart at https://www.energynetworks.org/assets/images/Resource%20libr... which gives the rules for ANY size of power station)

7thaccount• 1 year ago

Not political => without even looking at the solar panels, I'd be wary based off all the numerous issues with their cars. The CyberTruck in particular is like a modern day DeLorean, but much worse. That kind of cost cutting is going to be company wide and makes me wonder if their solar stuff is also problematic (not that I've heard anything).

Political=> he did a full blown Nazi salute twice and has been working to have millions fired from their government jobs. The conservatives who don't seem as bothered by that have never been interested in EVs to begin with and his liberal fanboy customers will never buy from him again now. He is extremely unpopular in Germany and China's Tesla market is being out competed. I don't think that makes Tesla look good long term, so I'd be cautious about a long term investment with them like rooftop solar. That's just my opinion anyway.

NickM2• 1 year ago

I will never buy another Tesla again for political reasons, but regarding reliability: their new models have always had reliability problems, but then reliability has always gotten much better within a year or so.

I don't know if the Cybertruck will follow the same pattern, or if the whole company has jumped the shark, but if we're looking for non-political opinions I would not necessarily write them off on quality issues alone.

redox99• 1 year ago

The Model 3 and Y, particularly after the refreshes, are really good cars.

cjcenizal• 1 year ago

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...

rconti3• 1 year ago

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.

cbhl• 1 year ago

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.)

mbesto2• 1 year ago

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.

looofooo02• 1 year ago

Apart from the questionable economics of single family home roof solar. Having an integrated PV roof just makes things worse. It couples function of the roof to the PV function. With normal panels on top of a normal roof, one actually protects the roof and prolongs its life as it protect the roof below from UV, weather and heat.

rconti3• 1 year ago

Tesla solar is PV panels. I think you're thinking of the solar shingle thing which, as far as I know, never really took off. From googling around, they're still advertising it, and people have gotten quotes for it, but I imagine it's a tiny fraction of sales.

looofooo02• 1 year ago

What is the point using tesla as a middle man then?

vintagedave• 1 year ago

The article notes they think Tesla should be about to find customers for solar easily, so asked, what's going on? And that a high point for them was installing 100 megawatts -- which struck me as small.

Some quick googling and clicking result #1 (risky, I know) showed this [1] claiming that 2024 was the second record-breaking solar installation year in a row. And that 50 gigawatts had been installed in the US.

That makes me think:

* Isn't Tesla Solar's max 100Mw number rather, well, tiny? A small drop? Why, for a company like Tesla?

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

Does anyone have more insight? Does this part of the company have a good reputation?

[1] https://seia.org/research-resources/us-solar-market-insight/

acdha• 1 year ago

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.

sharemywin• 1 year ago

True much more money to be made hyping crypto, AI and robotics.

rsynnott• 1 year ago

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.

crote• 1 year ago

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.

sleepytimetea• 1 year ago

Tesla panels and total price after installation is too high to be competitive- only the Powerwall enthusiasts buy panels+powerwalls from tesla. Other panels are so cheap these days and EG4 makes excellent power storage options.

intrasight• 1 year ago

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

jebarker4• 1 year ago

You can do this if you use an approved third party installer. I just installed a large solar array with non-Tesla panels but using two of the latest Powerwalls as inverter and storage

jebarker4• 1 year ago

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.

reustle• 1 year ago

I’d be curious to hear how other providers compare in this scenario

pengaru• 1 year ago

Maybe add some sun-facing windows to said garage? Insulation alone won't keep a space without a heat source warm...

resters• 1 year ago

It's hard to take a company seriously whose founder goes all in for Trump. It's humiliating.

tensility2• 1 year ago

It was already demonstrably foolish to trust anything Elon says before he made his explicit turn towards techno-fascism, but that certainly seals the deal for me.

Sonnigeszeug2• 1 year ago

This is probably secondary.

The biggest f* to the world is an oligarch / the richest person in the world, dismantling social help for poor people.

I'm pretty sure there have been death due to this.

You can't disrupt a governance and poor people like twitter without real consequences (and yes even for the twitter people it was shitty but lets be real, no food vs. getting fired from a well paying job is not the same)

jmyeet• 1 year ago

Tesla is a meme stock. Caveat emptor. For a considerable period, the price has never made sense considering the fundamentals. It's currently valued at ~$450k per car delivered in 2024 with a P/E ratio of 108 and that's after a 50% decline from its peak.

Just compare it to any other car company, be it the Big Three, European car makers or BYD.f

The whole purchase of SolarCity was one of Elon's companies (Tesla) buying another company of Elon's that was failing (SolarCity) because it owed a lot of money to a third company of Elon's (SpaceX).

Tesla's most recent quarterly shipments are down 13# Y/Y with likely worse to come. The brand is being publicly torched by the actions of its CEO. A protracted trade war with China could end very badly for Tesla. A trade war with Europe may see the EU replace its demand for EVs with the likes of BYD.

Solar is (now) a commodity business. The panels get ever-cheaper. The only real cost is installation. And a labor-intensive cost like that doesn't scale.

I predict that Tesla will be forced to try and save itself by ousting its CEO in the coming years.

boringg5• 1 year ago

Can I add that outside of the political commentary because thats mainly the only reason this is on hackernews.

There are mounting challenges in climate tech - specifically in residential solar: 1. Residential solar has been under punishing economic headwinds. Tariffs (before this) against imported PV. The market has not been performing. 2. Many of the Public Utilities are making it very difficult for solar to work out financially for home owners - see CPUC in California changing the terms of NEM to the advantage of the Utilities as an example. 3. Energy storage in residential markets has ALWAYS been an insurance product/backup power and not a financially beneficial product. It is tough competition against generators etc 4. Utilities are wisening up and increasing their fees and reducing the benefits of on site power generation. 5. Residential solar has likely already found all the best home owners (ie lowest CAC) so are now pursuing harder to reach.

lotsofpulp• 1 year ago

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.

1970-01-013• 1 year ago

Very long term however it generally isn't a better deal. 15 years with solar is generally no maintenance with linear gains beginning about halfway through. Compared to 15 with a combustion engine that loses value the day it's installed, needs permanent maintenance to operate efficiently and effectively, and only generates value (ha) during disruptions.

matthewdgreen• 1 year ago

Generators are garbage, including the standby ones. Maintenance issues are a real problem over the years due to moving parts. Installation also costs a fortune for the standby generators, due to the need for plumbing and electrical going indoors and out —- even though the actual products are cheaper. Battery backup products are just hugely cheaper to install, but the prices need to come down by about 50%. It’s obvious this will happen, because if you look at pricing on battery components and inverters vs. the cost of the “all in one products” it’s obvious there are huge costs and margins in the fancy assembled products that will go away as global manufacturing ramps up (tariffs excepted.)

singhrac• 1 year ago

I'm having a bit of a Gell-Mann moment here - I'm hearing the exact opposite from every residential and C&I installer I talk to, that solar installations are booming right now.

There are very few states in the US where net metering doesn't exist, with California having the NBT (and Arizona and Utah something similar iirc), and Alabama, South Dakota, Tennessee, Idaho, and Texas all have utility-set forms of net metering. Just because California has phased it out and it's a sunny state doesn't mean you can't install a solar roof in Massachusetts and benefit.

The cost of panels is dirt cheap (even with tariffs). You don't need energy storage if you pay $100/month in energy costs, just offset that. Home Depot will install it if you want!

overfeed• 1 year ago

If you've ever lived through a disaster, then you know fuel availability and demand spikes can make it unobtainable overnight. Solar is great for disaster resilience.

pjc502• 1 year ago

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.

piokoch• 1 year ago

Let's compare UK and USA electricity prices.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/263492/electricity-price...

It seems that something is not working that great in the UK...

huijzer2• 1 year ago

The US isn't serious about it,

More than 40% of Texas's energy was carbon free already in 2022 [1], and they are still installing solar. Not on public lands, but most solar wasn't installed on public lands anyway.

Having said that, in the big picture the US is far behind China indeed regarding solar renewable installations. Compared to the EU, California is far behind and Texas is a bit behind. Germany for example sits at around 50% renewable [2].

[1] https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/blue-states-dont-build-red-sta...

[2] https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/germany-sets-new-re...

Mashimo2• 1 year ago

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?

Gasp0de2• 1 year ago

You can have up to 2000W panels with an inverter up to 800W. Note that the 800W is what you're allowed to produce, not feed in, but it can still be beneficial to overprovision panels because with 800W of panels you won't produce 800W of power in mornings, evenings and winter. Panels are also cheap af in Germany currently, about 60€ for a 440w panel.

steveharman• 1 year ago

You can do exactly the same in the UK. I am, and I do.

apexalpha3• 1 year ago

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.

Rebelgecko• 1 year ago

I think the plugin prodicts are pretty cool, especially for renters, but my understanding they're not legal in the US

xnx• 1 year ago

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

legitster• 1 year ago

I heard a former Solar City marketing person talk about it. He said when Tesla bought them back, Musk cancelled all of the marketing budget. Musks justification was that marketing was a waste of money and he could get more sales via a single free tweet.

He then proceeded to not tweet about that part of his business.

skc• 1 year ago

Such a brilliant idea all the same.

A shame that the economics never seemed to work.

tensility2• 1 year ago

Did they ever actually install many of those solar tiles?

kkfx• 1 year ago

IMVHO as an European, with p.v. and storage:

- I do want DC-direct car charging, not double conversion, something who exists in EU CCS-combo as a standard but not a single vendor implement it...

- I do want a LOCAL FIRST (and only eventually) system, some vendors offer that, I do not know if Tesla offer that but I doubt a bit

- I do want modular batteries because anyone have different storage needs

- a classic string inverter OR microinverter who do not waste p.v. power because modules output more than they can convert for AC usage, but DC direct for charging all batteries AND possibly for heat pumps compressors as well

Why I write this here? Well because Telsa have a single peculiarity "being ahead of the others" and actually for p.v. they are not ahead of anyone. My small system is built on a Victron master inverter (relatively FLOSS with a custom Debian named VenusOS, well integrated in Home Assistant), on BYD moderately modular batteries and Fronius p.v. inverters, good for the p.v. parts but very bad in software terms. It's still more open than Tesla and perform better than PowerWall+Solar roof in theory.

Tesla cars still have the best software even if way too much service-oriented, but beside that they have shown very little innovation and China taking on quickly, also some choices like do not have V2L I can use to power my main inverter and so a bit usable to power the home with extra storage of the car battery penalize Tesla as well.

Long story short in the past they was good. But tech evolve and they seems not much interested in positive evolution. I'm not interested in Cybertruck or in small usual cabin controls changes like directions on the steering wheel as buttons, I do care about substantial evolution.

If Tesla offer something like:

- a hybrid p.v. inverter with 400V DC + data channel and car charging home station

- modular storage from 5 to 50 to 100 kWh

- home heat pumps DC direct for sanitary water, home heating/cooling

I buy it, no question. If not they haven't nothing I can buy from different vendors, cheaper and even less closed.

tim333• 1 year ago

Marques Brownlee had a system put in and ran it for a year. It was ok but cost $120k which seems a bit steep. Summary section of vid: https://youtu.be/UJeSWbR6W04?t=1119

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

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