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Tesla killing Solar Roof is leaving installers with six-figure losses

electrek.co

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Re: Tesla killing Solar Roof is leaving installers with six-figure losses

#12
> Tesla offloaded the hardest, least profitable part of the Solar Roof — the physical install and the customer relationship — onto small local companies, let them absorb the training and tooling costs, and then pulled the product out from under them.

I wonder how many of the companies understood this is what Tesla was doing, and recognized the risk inherent in their position.

Re: Tesla killing Solar Roof is leaving installers with six-figure losses

#14
post #5
post #2

Is there any competitor in the USA? The idea of roof tiles which are themselves solar panels seems sensible to me, and it's more aesthetically pleasing than putting panels on top of normal tiles.

It's extremely labor intensive and costly to put stuff up on the roof, and problematic in terms of electrical connector, electrical safety, and being proprietary for mounting and roof repair. Big ass PV panels that are 2.0 x 1.0 meter in size (or larger) are so cheap now for photovoltaic ground mounts that the labor and mounting can actually cost more than the panels. 460W panels can be something like $0.25 USD per S…

How does one go about acquiring these?

Re: Tesla killing Solar Roof is leaving installers with six-figure losses

#16
post #6

Optimus robots will arrive in Robo taxis to install your Tesla solar roof which will also receive Internet and XAI LLM service from orbiting data centers. When? By the end of the year.

You forgot the "XAI LLM service powered by 60 gas turbines in Memphis running the grok CSAM generator"

Re: Tesla killing Solar Roof is leaving installers with six-figure losses

#17
post #2

Is there any competitor in the USA? The idea of roof tiles which are themselves solar panels seems sensible to me, and it's more aesthetically pleasing than putting panels on top of normal tiles.

Clearly it’s very expensive and people aren’t paying for it.

Re: Tesla killing Solar Roof is leaving installers with six-figure losses

#18
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's extremely labor intensive and costly to put stuff up on the roof, and problematic in terms of electrical connector, electrical safety, and being proprietary for mounting and roof repair. Big ass PV panels that are 2.0 x 1.0 meter in size (or larger) are so cheap now for photovoltaic ground mounts that the labor and mounting can actually cost more than the panels. 460W panels can be something like $0.25 USD per S…

How does one go about acquiring these?

By googling wholesale solar panel dealers, one example would be https://krannich-solar.com/us-en/

Assuming you're in the US 48 states there should be plenty of companies that'll take your money for a factory sealed pallet load of panels. They come wrapped up from the factory, basically all they do is do the invoicing/billing to you, they buy them by the 40' or 45' container load and then load them onto trucks at a loading dock.

PV panel factory datasheets will clearly specify how many are on a pallet and how many pallets fit in a single container.

Re: Tesla killing Solar Roof is leaving installers with six-figure losses

#19
post #4
post #2

Is there any competitor in the USA? The idea of roof tiles which are themselves solar panels seems sensible to me, and it's more aesthetically pleasing than putting panels on top of normal tiles.

No, it's an impractical idea that nobody wanted.

I did want it. Would have looked great on my quite old house where it is highly impractical to have conventional solar panels, as there is essentially not enough space anywhere to have more than one or two panels in the same location, and I need new tiles soon anyway.

I think it turns out it was announced too early and attempted to scale before it was ready (turns out it won't be ready at all in this iteration).

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