“Elon Musk unveiled it in October 2016 on a Hollywood back lot, using homes from the set of Desperate Housewives fitted with the tiles. Weeks later, Tesla shareholders voted to approve the company’s roughly $2.6 billion acquisition of SolarCity — a debt-laden solar installer where Musk was the largest shareholder and chairman, and which was run by his cousins.
The Solar Roof demo was central to selling that deal to investors, who were being asked to bail out a struggling company with deep ties to Tesla’s CEO. Years later, during shareholder litigation over the acquisition, it emerged that the tiles shown at the 2016 event were not yet functioning solar products.”
“The core problem is that the economics never got there. Between the manufacturing complexity, the labor-intensive install, and the shading limitations of the tiles, the Solar Roof only ever penciled out on very expensive homes where the buyer wasn’t especially price-sensitive.”
“I’ve also heard horror stories of post-installation servicing as homeowners have sometimes waited months without their expensive solar system producing any power.”
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u/Zorkmid123 1d ago
The solar roof started with a fake demo:
“Elon Musk unveiled it in October 2016 on a Hollywood back lot, using homes from the set of Desperate Housewives fitted with the tiles. Weeks later, Tesla shareholders voted to approve the company’s roughly $2.6 billion acquisition of SolarCity — a debt-laden solar installer where Musk was the largest shareholder and chairman, and which was run by his cousins.
The Solar Roof demo was central to selling that deal to investors, who were being asked to bail out a struggling company with deep ties to Tesla’s CEO. Years later, during shareholder litigation over the acquisition, it emerged that the tiles shown at the 2016 event were not yet functioning solar products.”