A bad name isn't why SolarCity is an awful business.
https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3ASCTY&fstype=ii&ei=...
It's a fake grassroots news organization funded entirely by a 501(4)(c) with a fixed political agenda.
In the time it took you to detail the supposed biases of the link (which you didn't back up yourself, mind) and post a throwaway shoot-the-messenger comment, you could have read and understood whether the arguments they put forward are persuasive and correct, something with infinitely more value.
The tl;dr:
* SolarCity is massively in debt. True.
* The solar industry as a whole, including SolarCity, has a tricky future since government subsidies are sunsetting soon. True.
* SolarCity acknowledged those risks and others, and disclosed them to the SEC. True.
* A promient Wall Street advisor rated their stock a "Sell" based on all this. True.
I see nothing in that article that is misleading, non-factual, or even a question of interpretation of unarguable facts.
I'm all for pointing out when a source might have a bias, but that absolutely does not invalidate what they have to say or "discredit" its poster.
SolarCity is massively in debt .. because that's their whole business. They take money from banks or companies like Google and invest it in solar projects, expecting a reliable return for them and their investor. Debt is the whole point.
Government subsidies are sunsetting as solar is getting exponentially cheaper. It comes down to selective reporting.
The "risks reported to the SEC" are classic fodder for reporters trying to make a story out of nothing. For purely legal reasons, companies will enumerate in the 10-K even the faintest risks to their business to preempt any claims.
The comment you're replying to may not have made the deepest point, but was still a legit thing to say. If you have a problem with it, the burden is on you to respectfully refute it, not take a cheap shot. We're trying for good—collegial—conversation here.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11949506 and marked it off-topic.
I'm pretty sure the big win is giving Solar City access to Tesla's financing facilities.
You could say that for pretty much every service you buy. Yet people keep spending money for things they could do (cheaper) themselves!
If you have a PPA, the installer reaps all of the financial benefits. If you finance the system, you get all of the financial benefits. Its the difference between leasing a car versus financing it and then driving it until the wheels fall off (keep in mind, panels have a 25 year warranty but will still produce above 80% capacity for decades after that).
More like Solar City is going to ruin Tesla's financing facilities.
Not if Tesla can borrow those credit lines, and then lend them out with Solar City installs at a profit.
Not losing $300 Million / quarter.
Musk has lots of work to do for sure.
That said, purchasing the hardware costs as much as a car, so maybe can't do that.
http://www.npr.org/2015/02/10/384958332/the-great-solar-pane...
The retail price of electric power basically never decreases. Therefore, if a solar purchase makes sense today, it won't be regretted later. If it doesn't make sense, i.e. because the cost of financing the loan is greater than the projected savings on electricity spending, then it would be reasonable to wait for higher-performance panels.
Yet by that standard, Tesla as well as Amazon are "awful businesses" too. He's not looking to the future, or closely examining why they're losing money.
As for why I think it's an awful business:
1) Huge amount of debt 2) Hugely negative free cash flow (-$790m last year)
Sometimes this can work, but it's absolutely the last thing Tesla needs (they need to put cash to work building out the battery factory and production of the Model 3, not subsidize solar panels).
He wouldn't have done this if he hadn't carefully analyzed every aspect of the situation and concluded it could all be done. He's not just throwing dice in the air. Neither SpaceX nor Tesla could have done any of the things they've done if he was.