Tesla Solar Sales Declined for 4 Straight Quarters, Then Tesla Stopped Publishing the Numbers

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I’ve to place my arms up — when Tesla acquired SolarCity in 2016, I supported the choice. Sure, Elon Musk was chairman of each firms. Sure, it was his cousins who have been CEO and CTO, and had based the corporate primarily based on a suggestion from Elon Musk at Burning Man. Sure, Tesla was saving SolarCity financially in key methods. Nonetheless, I believed there was excellent synergy between the businesses and big potential for extra photo voltaic gross sales by way of the Tesla model, gross sales community, and buyer base.

Since then, Tesla has accomplished some good things, however I’ve to say that I’ve been very dissatisfied in Tesla’s somewhat gentle, disconnected, and general lame efforts to promote extra rooftop solar energy.

One thing I observed some time again proved the purpose. Tesla’s quarterly rooftop solar energy installations began dropping, and dropping, and dropping. In some unspecified time in the future, I noticed this had gone from an up & down section of Tesla’s enterprise to a long-term, important decline.

I made a decision to return and truly see how lengthy Tesla had been seeing its photo voltaic enterprise decline. Sadly, the findings weren’t uplifting. After it’s “last good quarter,” the 4th quarter of 2022, when 100 megawatts (MW) of solar energy have been put in, Tesla’s rooftop photo voltaic installations declined for not less than 4 consecutive quarters. The corporate printed the numbers for these 4 quarters, however then, within the subsequent quarter, Q1 2024Tesla merely lamented that its photo voltaic installations had declined 12 months over 12 months however stopped publishing these figures. Presumably, the rooftop photo voltaic gross sales decline continued — in any other case, Tesla would have highlighted a return to development. However we simply can’t make certain of that in each quarter.

Within the “Assets” part of Tesla’s quarterly monetary reviews, the corporate does nonetheless publish “Solar energy systems, net.” And the totals for which have continued to say no in each quarter since then. So, if we presume continued quarter-over-quarter declines in solar energy installations, that will be 8 straight quarters of decline (not making a judgement on Q1 2025 but, however I’m not hopeful about that quarter both).

Other than latest quarters, if you happen to have a look at the total chart and graph above, it actually stands out that Tesla’s photo voltaic installations have dropped off a cliff in comparison with the place they have been proper after the SolarCity acquisition. In This fall 2016, 201 MW of solar energy have been put in. In Q1 2017, 150 MW have been put in. In Q2 2017, 176 MW have been put in. After which Tesla by no means obtained near these figures once more. In Q3 2017, 109 MW of solar energy have been put in, and Tesla has solely damaged 100 MW of recent solar energy capability in 1 / 4 twice since then.

The pattern in these 4 quarters of 2023 — the final quarters Tesla printed that information for — was unhealthy, very had. If that pattern continued in 2024, now we have to imagine Tesla’s photo voltaic enterprise is a shell of what it was a number of (or perhaps a few) years in the past.

That is horrible to see for anybody cheering on cleantech development. Way more solar energy must be put in, and a large slowdown in photo voltaic installations from a big firm like Tesla simply doesn’t make sense to me. Even not making an attempt laborious, it looks like the corporate ought to be capable to discover many shoppers able to take the photo voltaic plunge.

Right here’s the above chart and graph once more in interactive kind (finest considered on an actual laptop, not a cellphone):

Every other ideas on these numbers and graphics?