- Alright, the next story I want to talk about is
related to the layoffs from last week and this one,
we're talking about them closing some solar facilities .
So they are closing 13 to 14 installation facilities,
of the Tesla solar business and this is related
to the 9% layoff that they announced a couple of weeks ago.
Now, in this layoff, the company said that it's
cuts to overall energy team, including batteries to power
to store power were in line with the broader 9% staff cut.
We continue to expect that Tesla's solar
and battery business will be the same as our automotive,
as automotive, over the long term.
The company also fired dozens of solar customer service
staffers at call centers in Nevada and Utah,
according to former Tesla employees,
some of whom were terminated in last week's cuts.
Ending the Home Depot partnership, which allowed
for solar sales in about 800 stores, is part of Tesla's
larger effort to absorb Solar City into it's
high end brand and sell through 90 of its 109
US retail stores and its website, the company said.
So that's kind of a big deal.
I don't think this is really a surprise to anyone
who's been paying attention.
The Solar City acquisition hasn't gone great.
There was a lot of controversy around it at the time,
so there's a lot of stuff happening in this space
and you know, what is the future of Tesla's
solar business is really the question because
in Q one of 2017, last Q one,
they had 76 megawatts installed.
Contrast that to 2016, it was 200 megawatts.
That was a huge drop.
And so Tesla even said, in announcing quarterly results
in February, Tesla said growth and solar deployments
would resume later in the year.
Now presumably this is because they want to,
they want to grow the model three and they need to get that,
so basically all hands on deck.
Forget all that stuff for now, let's make the model three
successful because that is the make or break moment
for the company and so when you get there,
I think that that all makes sense, right?
So solar generation in the US is growing rapidly,
but it is a tiny fraction of the overall energy mix
in the United States and so Tesla making them
may or may not make a difference.
Back when they were Solar City, they were the largest,
kind of, installer, but they didn't really make 'em
so that was the big change and so there's some questions
as to what's going to happen in the Buffalo plant
and all those kind of things and so, yeah,
big question marks around this.
Now this is in contrast to a new report from the
Bloomberg New Energy Finance, talking about, basically,
what's going on here.
There's some really interesting stuff where you can see
the power generation, how that's shifting
and how it's going to continue to shift more towards
renewable, solar, wind, hydro, those kind of things
and then also the battery prices, utility scale solar,
cost of these things is coming down.
In fact, I just saw an episode of Fully Charged,
with Robert Llewellyn, who was talking about they're
installing, I believe, the world's largest wind,
offshore wind turbine ever and that this one turbine,
I think a blade was over a hundred meters, which is insane
and then from there, they ought to be able to generate,
I'm going to mess this up, but go watch his show,
his recent episode.
It was talking about, I think 12 megawatts,
is what the size of the wind, one single wind turbine
can do and that because they are able to make them at that
scale, the cost is extremely reduced, meaning
they become more profitable.
Also, apparently it's better for birds because the
blades move slower, something like that.
But anyway, point being, you know, the renewable stuff
and batteries and everything are on the rise,
dramatically and Tesla's solar business is in limbo
and in question.
So, I think that, you know, when they get back to it,
when they get back to the point where they can actually
start focusing on this, which I assume would be after
they, you know, model three is kind of ramped up
and like, business as usual, can return
or the next big thing they can focus on,
I think they'll be at a place to really accelerate
and it will become a significant part of their business,
but right now it definitely seems to be like
it's a bit depressed.
So I'm curious what you guys think about that,
this Tesla solar, if you have Tesla solar,
let me know how its going.
I ended up going with someone else and so, in fact,
if you're interested, I use a website called EnergySage.
I mean you can learn more about them
at teslanomics.co/energysage, basically you submit your
energy bill, you pick your roof line out,
you do all these things and then it let's people bid on it
and it kind of breaks it down.
It's an amazing product.
I highly recommend it, so I would go check that out,
if you are interested in getting solar and
Tesla isn't necessarily your first choice.
So let me know what you guys think down in the comments.