Tesla killing Solar Roof is leaving installers with six-figure losses
Electrek
Tesla killing Solar Roof is leaving installers with six-figure losses
Tesla killed its Solar Roof and told certified installers it will ship only panels. Contractors tell Electrek they sank six figures into the program.
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The roof tiles was my last Tesla livestream event. Once he was done bragging about how he would fix a nonexistent problem, my suspicions he is a conman were confirmed.
He’s literally a manchild throwing money at things and seeing which grows, just to gain more power and influence so he can one day rule the world like a cartoon villain. He’s mindblowingly simple to read.
Nazi-Musk aside, Its not exactly a non-existent problem. Its just a very very small niche problem that doesn’t justify the tremendous resources poured into creating it. Its also an old problem that doesn’t exist much anymore.
There was a time when solar panels were pretty ugly and expensive. Those two things would deter a certain number of people from installing panels. So the idea of cheap solar panels that matched the traditional look some buyers wanted did exist. Heavy emphasis on some buyers because it was a pretty small pool to begin with. What really made solar shingles largely irrelevant was the dramatic drop in cost of regular panels, the drastic increase in performance of regular panels, and the noticeably improved aesthetics of all-black regular panels. So the prior tiny market for solar shingles shrank even more, and the costs of Tesla solar shingles continued to rise without any performance improvements. It was a tiny market before and its a nearly non-existent market now. Solar shingles are bad business.
Lastly, social attitudes changed and having solar panels on a roof switched largely from being seen as an eyesore to a point of pride for many. This last point isn’t totally solved yet. My own housing community doesn’t allow panels on the side of the house that faces the road…except in some circumstances (making the rule even more stupid).
I’m looking forward to the day when I can slap some panels on the other side of the house for even greater solar generation! I’m still have no interest in solar shingles though.
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It sometimes takes a while to cull the herd. All the losers will lose. Evolution at its finest.
I just can’t figure how Musk got so far from his bubble. Money???
Temporarily embarrassed millionaires are everywhere. Especially in the US. They’re all pathetic trash.
They’re the sort that think Musk magically knows something simply because he is already rich.
Evolution is measured only by success, it doesn’t care about intelligence or morals.
Evolution does not have a goal or direction, just variables. Winners win and loser lose.
If it works it lives and if it doesn’t work it dies.
The part of evolution that most people miss is TIME. Sometimes a mind numbing amount of time. More than our pitiful lifetimes amount of time.
I can hardly wait.
well, sometimes the idiot savant strikes it big at the lucky 38.
We had a solar company try to sell us on Tesla panels and we noped out because we didn’t have confidence in the company (this was before the Nazi stuff was more apparent). Glad we decided to forego that! (For many reasons, but this definitely solidifies it)
Musk claimed that Tesla’s solar roof would be competitive with conventional roofing tiles when factoring in the value of the electricity generated and said the roof could potentially cost less than traditional roofing materials, especially high-end options like slate or clay tiles.
Musk lies about everything and even tells us not to believe our eyes. Never forget:
“My heart goes out to” those dumb enough to do business with him. Cut from the same cloth as Trumpy
Every time I see this clip and remember the original he’s trying to copy, I can’t help but guffaw at how pathetic an imitation it is. Don’t mistake this for endorsement, by any means, but the original had composure, posture, military , projected control and determination, all the ingredients for the image of strength he wanted to project.
Musk? He has an edgy tryhard teenager’s imitation, biting his lip like he’s trying to look super focused, moving as if he’s trying to put feeling into it or whatever. It’s like the uncanny valley of parody: We know it’s not parody, but it’s also not really the original.
It’s like “How do you do, fellow kids Nazis” except Buscemi doesn’t deserve being used as analogy for that. Nobody does, really.
God, Musk is such a loser and it’s a mystery how he got as influential among young people as he did.
i blame simcity 3000. it made me eco, and he was the only eco guy with a platform targeting teenagers in 2005
Reddit
We won’t even discuss the fundamental stupidity of putting tiles in the shade, or having a roof system exposed to the elements with hundreds of electrical plugs.
Would be smarter to have non solar tiles in the same style to put in the parts of the roof that are not viable for energy production but I’m not Elon Musk leve genius
Sure, if you want a $200,000 roof.
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Musk’s pattern:
If you were to try that, you would end up in prison for fraud before you have your second chance. But of course, Muskie boie isn’t and never was part of the “poor peasants”.
And now all these goons will turn around and buy fleets of his scamtaxis and own all the risk, depreciation and liability when they start to mow down families
How are you Americans still giving him money? 😂🤣
Funny that you think it’s only Americans.
Gotta distract from the growing far-right in Germany somehow.
What? What the hell does that even have to do with this conversation.
Agreeing with you. Pointing out that it’s not “only Americans” supporting (and voting for) these shitheads. Focusing on one country is a mistake when the hyper-wealthy exist and influence internationally. Frustrated with how so much anger is misplaced at American citizens by others. There’s a lot of context I didn’t think needed to be explained.
Yes. Elon is here in america and doing some awful shit, but like you said this far right movement is global. You better believe he is rubbing elbows with the same dictators in other countries.
Just like CEOs are on private forums with each other talking about their slave labor. It’s a big club and we ain’t in it.
Yeah, Epstein Files-sized!
Ah ok
I’m not directly giving him shit. But I’m sure the people that manage the mutual funds that I own are eating his shit up.
Any American who knows what is up isn’t. The problem is regulatory capture. Telsa makes a third of its profits from trading carbon credits. Without this the company has never and will never be profitable. It was always a scam from the start.
Oh look if it weren’t for government handouts that company would be doing even worse than it already is. A lot of what they do is these weird carbon credit trading scheme b******* tactics. It is a money losing company.
Either type out your swears, or choose a different word. Self censoring is fucking obnoxious and makes you look like a stupid child who’s afraid of mommy finding out about your potty mouth.
It’s like a bleep on YouTube over some naughty word a guy says before he mows bad guys down with his machine gun. YouTube wants to protect its already-confirmed-adult viewers from hearing the spicy words as it could detract from the purity of the bloodshed.
Their mommy knows all about my mouth.
I’m not sure why you should decide how other people are allowed to speak. Could you explain where your moral authority originated?
I’m fucking sick to death of people being sanctimonious dipshits and acting like self censorship is somehow the moral high ground. It’s not that you’re not swearing, you’re just putting the weight of the swear on the reader which is disingenuous and still swearing. I don’t care if you want type out fricking/fudging whatever cleaned up word you choose, but to type out f*** makes you look like an immature moron.
fart.
Ranting at people like a 12 year old on Xbox who just learned to swear does not sell the “I’m more mature” image all that well.
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If you want to self censor then you’re allowed to, just as people are allowed to mock people for doing so.
You’re allowed to censor other people if you want to, just as other people are allowed to mock you for doing so.
You’re are allowed to do whatever the fuck you want. You’re not allowed to bitch like a child if whatever you’re doing will provoke the reaction that might be unpleasant to you. That’s how community self-regulates. One idiot says “unalive”, someone else tells them that they’re a fucking idiot, they don’t want to be called an idiot, they don’t say “unalive” anymore, that’s how it supposed to work.
You’re bitching at people like a child because they don’t talk the way you want and acting like you’re the exception. You sound like a squeaker on COD.
Toxic.
In reality not everyone feels comfortably swearing, which can result in self-censorship
Then choose a different word entirely. Typing a bunch of asterisks is still swearing, but erroneously putting the swear on the shoulders of the reader, when in reality it just makes you look stupid as fuck.
Sorry, I’ll try to be less retarded
Mate, don’t use that word. That’s really obnoxious. I thought we were better than that.
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You don’t know the difference between a slur and a curse word? Most people learn the difference by around age 6.
That’s not the line though. Some words are not used for a reason, everyone understands it. It’s not some magical incomprehensible mystery, it’s a basic human decency.
The one not swearing won that interaction, I don’t care what the votes say.
Edit: You unfunny fuckers.
I know I’m probably seen as an asshole, but it’s so easy to trigger people when you don’t actually give a fuck. All I did was basically ma*splain why the poster above used asterisks. Sometimes the word we want to use feels perfect even tho it makes us uncomfortable
So then don’t swear. It’s easy not to. It looks ridiculous to almost swear. Either do or don’t.
Does Vegas still have that stupid fucking tunnel that could have just been a train?
Citynerd recently did another video after he did one about a year ago, and it seems it’s still running.
youtu.be/e7vFCP3PtuA
I hope it burns down.
they expanded it. of course they did.
But unlike a train tunnel, it has no safety measures so when the first car blows up it will be a huge rocket stove.
This was a scam from day one. The tiles Musk presented to media were made by an LA prop factory.
Starting to see a pattern here…
I can not fathom a world in which I would risk my money betting on the success of a Musk endeavor.
Too bad US tax dollars are going into exactly that.
That’s one of the myriad of reasons for my statement.
Good stuff, I hope they keep killing products and slowly disappear into the horizon.
That’s pre-bailouts talk
Lie down with dogs, wake up with fleas.
If your story starts with “I believed in Musk’s vision” or “I voted for Trump” or some other asinine bullshit that everyone with a brain stem was telling you was stupid 10 years ago, you can take your sympathy fishing with you all the way to bankruptcy court.
I hope your kids watch and internalize what a loser their parent is.
The idea has it’s pros and that’s why there’s a market. Autarq, paXos, SolteQ und Nelskamp are the competition.
Sadly, in our case (scenic protected village core) they count still as solar, which isn’t allowed. They would make the most sense there. Our administration should get an update.
And even if they all have gone bust at the end of their lifetime (~30 years), you’ll still have a roof.
The IDEA is great. The man who sold it to them is a known con-artist and liar and they had no shortage of warning before they got in bed with him.
Should be cross posted to Leopards Ate My Face.
I liked the idea. It just couldn’t compete with much cheaper traditional panels. People weren’t willing to pay a premium for vanity. Also, I think people want to show off the panels, not hide them. I mean you can’t gloat about solar panels if no one can tell you have solar panels.
It’s weird that you think nearly everyone wants to gloat about their solar panels.
I want it to look good and I don’t give a shit whether anyone else knows they’re up there or not
I want to gloat about them because I want everyone who can get them to do so. With 2026 technology the majority of residential energy should be produced on site.
The people that’d pay a premium for vanity just don’t get solar panels. The only people I could see going for this are tech bros. There’s lots of huge houses in my area that have regular solar panels. There’s lots of homebuyers here that don’t want to see panels or don’t want panels at all. And then there’s desparate people signing predatory solar panel leases. These tiles don’t fit it anywhere near me. I guess an alternate category would be people who must use a visible roof panel to get decent solar production, but plan to sell in a relatively short term. But still, their best option is inaction, not expensive solar. Especially if your electric supplier caps your output.
The first (Chinese) company that reverse engineers and markets it to the US could win big…
There are already others selling solar tiles like Tesla, but a bit of a search tells me these tiles are a minority. Existing houses don’t replace their roof but add panels on top of it. New houses seem to go with cheaper large panels that are prettied up to give a tile like effect and build them integrated into the whole of the roof.
Yeah, if you are also going to do a new roof, metal roofs work really well with common panels and last 50 years or more. You can just clamp the panels to the seams, making the solar install very simple.
Solar shingles are an insane 10x premium for aesthetics, at best. They are just an inferior, way more expensive, locked in product at worst.
There’s not much to reverse engineer, really.
Let’s see…
1 make promises
2 do a shoddy job of 75%
3 figure out that shit is hard, or maybe impossible, make more promises, trying to con someone else into doing it
4 ???
5 profit!!!
I want China to commit self harm but thats not a factual statement given in almost a decade it only sold 3,000 units.
I'm pretty sure solar shingles or the like were already around... 🤔
Apparently Tesla’s been installing them since like 2018, only ever sold 3,000.
No no, I meant not made by Tesla, you know, real ones.
Sounds like the whole thing was just a way for them to extract training costs from roofers.
I was like “how does a solar roof kill Tesla, and why is it costing installers?” but no lol its saying Tesla discontinued the roof program.
OMG honey the roof is flying away!