Tesla cancels solar projects in mass, scales back solar division | Hacker News Reader

Tesla cancels solar projects in mass, scales back solar division

electrek.co

57 pointsmfiguiere21 comments

Elon should focus on accelerating the world's transition to sustainable energy, rather than accelerating Twitter's transition to being a free for all hell scape.

...and rather than recommending voting for politicians who do not believe in man-made climate change...

He has never recommended voting for a politician who doesn't believe in climate change. He once said that if you want a split congress you have to vote for the party not in control of congress but that's a very different thing than telling someone to vote for a politician who doesn't believe in climate change

He voted for Mayra Flores in June:

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/elon-musk-drifti...

https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1536973965394157569

Mayra Flores is pro-oil and pro-gas. She says the "oil and gas industry is critical to the success of our State and Nation". And that she "will always work to help the oil and gas industry and stand firm against radical policies that would undermine it":

https://www.mayrafloresforcongress.com/issues/

She's an election and January 6th conspiracy theorist:

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/06/23/politics/mayra-flores-cap...

She lost her seat in the midterms:

https://www.businessinsider.com/gop-mayra-flores-blamed-vote...

fucking frightening

Publicly stating you voted for somebody is not the same as recommending somebody vote for the same person. You could perhaps claim it is implicit, but that is rather flimsy.

Those are some impressive mental gymnastics.

Musk is showing you who and what he is. Believe him.

That is the definition of an endorsement.

...except in this specific case, where it's exactly the same thing.

Unfortunately, he's not the ideas man. Clearly.

So many people finance solar, or lease to installers growing with investment money, that pullbacks this year and next are inevitable as rates rise. State and federal incentives don’t bring projects into the range of discretionary cash on hand for typical homeowners.

I hope they can still get their app fixed. I haven't been able to see solar data from my panels in over a week now. the last time this happened it took 6 emails and 2 phone calls for them to fix it.

> After years of its solar business slowing down since acquiring it through taking over SolarCity in 2016, Tesla’s solar division was finally getting some momentum over the last few quarters.

What was the strategic reason for a car company buying a solar power company? The “sustainable energy” connection seems dubious to me (Tesla is a car company).

But I also can’t believe it was mostly to help out his cousins (who founded SolarCity).

Not sure why this is hard to understand. Their vision is of a house with Tesla solar on the roof, Tesla battery and Tesla car in the driveway all connected with the same app. They would later add other things like heating and cooling.

Why wouldn’t you believe it? At the time even The Economist called him out in it.

It can make sense if you squint & consider both battery companies

There’s a lot more financial opportunity in centralizing solar and selling the electricity than in providing residential solar, where they only can make money after the fact by selling batteries. As a public company, I can see how they would realize this, even if it’s anti-consumer.

Is "in mass" a real thing? I thought it was "en masse"?

In English, yes, you’d say en masse, but it literally translates to the same thing.

We borrow it from French, as we do many other phrases.

For example, when people say, “X has a certain… «je ne sais quoi,»” you wouldn’t be entirely wrong by simply saying, “X has a certain… I don’t know what.”

If you pay a deposit, isn't there an obligation to deliver?

Likely didn’t generate the battery sales they expected it would, and scaling individual residential projects is hard.

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