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Walmart sues Tesla over fires at stores fitted with its solar panels
- PHGamer 7y agojust wait till those high capacity batteries start going. we are going to see some interesting things. Though in this case, i wonder how much is walmart and how much is tesla. knowing both telsa over-promised and walmart probably refused to pay for maintenance.
- protomyth 7y ago“This is a breach of contract action arising from years of gross negligence and failure to live up to industry standards by Tesla with respect to solar panels that Tesla designed, installed, and promised to operate and maintain safely on the roofs of hundreds of Walmart stores,” Tesla seems to be the operator and maintainer. I would expect a contract has maintenance as a flat fee per year if it is anything like other contracts of this type.
- metalliqaz 7y agoAs alleged by Walmart. Failure due to rushed, shoddy work is definitely Tesla's M.O., but Walmart is also not exactly the most credible source, given their history.
- protomyth 7y agoIt would be incredibly stupid to lie in court documents about Tesla "promised to operate and maintain" since the that is pretty easy to disprove.
- zaroth 7y agoNot at all. “On information and belief” is an extremely low standard. The standard for Tesla getting damages for accusations which don’t ultimately pan out... that’s pretty high.
- gamblor956 7y agoThere would be a written contract between the two companies outlining Tesla's responsibilities. If this case proceeds that far, it would definitely be part of the evidentiary record.
- inflatableDodo 7y agoFairly hard to invent seven roof fires in retail premises and Tesla's first act when they took over Solar City was to massacre the sales department. That means that things had got so bad in there that taking money from new customers was not worth the risk, given the product.
- omfg 7y agoWasn’t this work done during the SolarCity years?
- std_throwaway 7y agoSolarCity is now part of Tesla.
- ABeeSea 7y agoWhen you buy a company, you also get their liabilities.
- Clent 7y agoI found that interesting as well. The article is trying to link solar panel failures to Tesla vehicle failures. They were not born from the same company nor process. It seems whatever generated the story was looking for some segue into how the price is down. The stock price was affected by the market's new knowledge. They both contain words for fire but are otherwise independent and distant events in Tesla's history. A more likely scenario is these liabilities that Tesla acquired a couple of years ago had otherwise gone unnoticed. They have now been noticed and the market will risk the outcome of Walmart and all of these other Solar City contracts. The potential risk of these contracts is what is weighing on Telsa's stock price, not a handful of vehicle fires.
- gcbw3 7y agoMy friends at SolarCity never had to work 70h in a week before Tesla acquired them (nor work weekends installing solar panels on Musk mansion in L.A.) So it might very well be the result of the same company and processes.
- CrazyStat 7y agoSo your friend had better working conditions during the same time period this work was done (before the acquisition)?
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- djanogo 7y agoI assume Walmart order of Tesla trucks might also be in jeopardy considering they decided to go to court over these fires?
- AndrewBissell 7y agoProbably in jeopardy because the trucks don't exist, and Tesla's capex is below its depreciation so they're unlikely to build out the plant necessary to manufacture them anytime soon.
- harikb 7y agoIt is the pigeons I tell you! You can still see them right there in the photos!
- markrote 7y agoThe Walton Family also happens to own much of First Solar, a competing provider of photovoltaic cells.
- camjohnson26 7y agoThe Walton family collectively is worth over $150 billion, it’s not surprising they have exposure to a solar company somewhere in their vast fortune. If you’re implying that this lawsuit has no merit because of that investment that seems like an incredibly shaky accusation.
- grecy 7y agoIt's a little curious they wouldn't choose to buy panels from a company they own.... don't you think?
- camjohnson26 7y agoHonestly not really.
- philipkglass 7y agoFirst Solar has acted as an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) firm for large ground-mounted solar farms, but they have never been in the rooftop solar installation business like SolarCity. First Solar's panels would also be an unusual choice for a rooftop installation even if a different installer handled the work. Rooftop solar installations typically call for high efficiency panels. First Solar makes lower efficiency, lower cost panels that maintain performance at elevated temperatures. Their panels are good for solar farms, particularly in hot climates. They don't have anything special to recommend their use in rooftop projects.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- potiuper 7y ago
- outworlder 7y ago> Tesla is also facing a federal field investigation by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board after several Model X and Model S owners across the globe said their cars burst into flames yawn Are other automakers suffering the same investigations? https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=812639 https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=812639 > Each year, from 2014 to 2016, an estimated 171,500 highway vehicle fires occurred in the United States, resulting in an annual average of 345 deaths > Approximately one in eight fires responded to by fire departments across the nation is a highway vehicle fire. Car fires are nothing new. The media coverage for EVs is not proportional.
- nwah1 7y agoThere's hundreds of times more non-EVs on the road, so the question would be the proportionate level of fires.
- ryder9 7y agoany figures or citations?
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago> The media coverage for EVs is not proportional Do we have EV car fire frequencies for comparison with ICE engines? Without denominators saying “all cats burn” is overly reductive.
- outworlder 7y ago> Do we have EV car fire frequencies for comparison with ICE engines? Without denominators saying “all cats burn” is overly reductive. Fine. And yet, is Reuters reporting those? In fact, why is Reuters even talking about cars? Tesla fires feature very prominently in the news whenever they happen. When was the last time anyone here saw news of ICE fires? I only ever see those in local news, and only if they caused other incidents (like fatalities or traffic jams).
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- alfor 7y agoAnother Tesla bashing article by mainstream media, move along. 100s of thousand of damage, that's pocket change for Walmart and Tesla. Model X and S burst into flame !!! Tesla stock is down 1%, Be Afraid ! Don't buy Tesla !!! Tesla spend zero on advertising, their main source of revenue. They are also disrupting big oil and the auto industry, plenty of enemies to go around.
- o_p 7y agoTeslas bursting into flames is a real risk though.
- c0nfused 7y agoEVs burn frequently on the internet. Compared to the fema estimate of 171,500 highway car fires per year. https://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/statistics/v19i2.pdf https://www.usfa.fema.gov/downloads/pdf/statistics/v19i2.pdf Tesla has contributed 14 total since 2013. I know of at least 2 other cases by others have been reported https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/apr/22/tesla-investigates-video-of-model-s-car-exploding https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/apr/22/tesla-inv...
- o_p 7y agoIts 171k fires in 2 years not per year. You need the total Teslas vs ICE cars in the road to compare those figures. Even then not sure if its a good comparision because Tesla is on the luxury side, it should be compared with ICE cars in the same price range, not any chinese car with little safety. Common sense tells me that a big,unstable ion lithium battery at high speeds is not a good idea, gasoline is much less reactive than people think.
- dwaltrip 7y agoThere are 4 orders of magnitude between 14 and 171,000. I could be wrong, but I don't think those adjustments will cross that divide.
- sarcher 7y agoA Journal of Light Construction editor had a fire in his SolarCity panel set-up as well, and had a hard time getting it sorted out. https://www.jlconline.com/how-to/electrical/solar-panel-fire_o https://www.jlconline.com/how-to/electrical/solar-panel-fire... and here's a follow-up: https://www.jlconline.com/how-to/electrical/solar-panel-fire-update_o https://www.jlconline.com/how-to/electrical/solar-panel-fire...
- Animats 7y agoReally bad customer service. And another follow-up.[1] The old panels get removed and the roof gets new shingles. But no new solar panels yet. [1] https://www.jlconline.com/how-to/electrical/solar-panel-fire-ncis-cape-cod_o https://www.jlconline.com/how-to/electrical/solar-panel-fire...
- ocschwar 7y agoDidn't Solar City rely on local installation firms?
- rblatz 7y agoSounds like they aren’t vetting them enough, training them enough, or the panels are just hard to install properly.
- londons_explore 7y agoI love the fact they blame an animal nest... That animal must have been sitting on its eggs, and carelessly smoking a cigar I guess! No... The cause will have been overheating of the 'optimizer' (MPPT tracker which outputs a fixed voltage) when it failed to a high impedance state, probably due to water incursion. The fire will have happened on a sunny day, because it's the energy from the other panels which starts the fire. Tesla really should have made more parts of the system non-flammable. Then the story would simply be that this guy's system stopped working (or even 1 panel out of 16 stopped working, so output was slightly reduced)
- onion2k 7y ago
- sxates 7y agoAnyone know details about how the solar panels resulted in fires?
- the-pigeon 7y agoThese specific cases, no. But I used to work for a company that made solar components and fires were our biggest fear. The most likely issue is incorrect design or installation due to the complications of DC power. This article goes into details https://iffmag.mdmpublishing.com/solar-panels-and-the-dc-danger-zone-reducing-risk-factors-part-2/ https://iffmag.mdmpublishing.com/solar-panels-and-the-dc-dan... Simply put DC power with enough current to power a home is much more dangerous than AC. And solar power isn't converted to AC until it gets to the inverter. Meaning all the wiring and everything in the solar system has a ton of current going through it on a sunny day. If the system was designed incorrectly or installed incorrectly then there isn't going to be enough copper for that current to go through at some point and it's going to heat up and start a fire. You can also have components fail and all that. But given they are blaming Solar City I'd bet on it being improper installation or inadequate design of the system for the load.
- taneq 7y agoNot a solar installer, but who uses thin enough DC wiring that the current rating is an issue? Every solar installation I’ve seen uses way oversized DC wiring (4-6mm^2 for 10-20A closed-circuit current) to minimise losses. You could literally just short the wiring at the inverter and it’d never overheat. Most fire hazard comes from connectors burning out from what I’ve seen.
- Scipio_Afri 7y agoWell its a lot of things, you could bend the wire beyond its specs for bending radius and in a way that would damage its ability to carry current. You could install it in a way that puts the cables too close together so they then transfer heat to each other and overload the thermal rating of the insulation, thus causing a failure there. You could damage the insulation on the cables leading to water ingress. Proper to code installations which provide plenty of margin to prevent fires are defined mostly by the NFPA 70 (National Fire Protection Act) National Electric Code You could install the cable in a way the the heating and cooling of the cable, over time, causes it to move or shift (kind of like a snake, generally in the direction of gravity where its on a slant or hanging down) and then cause tension on connectors that wasn't there before, if you didn't properly secure the cables or design with that in mind. This one was an actual issue I know about having happened on some wind turbines. If you have a really incompetent contractor, maybe they used the aluminum conductors instead of the copper conductors in some places (the former is far cheaper, but has less bending radius and carries less current). There is a lot to get wrong, most of which I had no idea about until I had to think about it and know the problems in that domain of engineering. Even then, I only did that for a short time so I'm sure there is plenty I don't know. Most of the issues I heard about though weren't engineering issues, it was poorly trained contractors who had no idea what they were doing. They used contractors especially in the Wind Industry, because of the cyclical nature of the building of power plants. Wind had a tax credit that use to not be a partisan issue, then it became one and congress couldn't get its act together which caused the sudden stop of ordering of wind turbines several times. Then there is the lack of unions in many parts of the country, and unions generally keep their workers sharp by keeping them employed even in down turns by evenly spreading out mandatory furloughs. They also go through rigorous apprenticeships and trainings.
- carolina_33 7y agoIt’s okay, Elon has moved on. Now let’s install his 100% trusty brain probes. What could go wrong?
- NetBeck 7y ago>totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket losses, Walmart said in the lawsuit. This amount is immaterial for each party involved.
- bredren 7y agoWhy would Tesla allow this to go to suit, given it’s likely press coverage? Surely there was opportunity to settle.
- lucasmullens 7y agoIt's possible they asked for an absurd amount knowing they would want to settle.
- Fins 7y agoWhen did Musk ever settle, if there is an opportunity to open his mouth and make things worse? I just can see explanations coming from fanboys that Walmart sells engine oil and is therefore part of the ICE mafia out to get Tesla. And they short the stock, too! /s
- GCA10 7y agoIn terms of corporate Walmart, absolutely. But it's annoying as can be -- and even scary -- to employees at those stores. Customers too. Walmart's real objective with a very public suit like this is to make sure that customers and employees see Tesla/Solar City as the villain. Not America's biggest retailer. Even tight-fisted businesses get righteous about this kind of stuff. It's a great way to win the "we care" posturing game, at least for one day.
- toxican 7y agoRight because destroying small town businesses, unethical employee treatment, etc. didn't push folks away, but a fire at a walmart somewhere in the country will.
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- nominated1 7y agoA friend of mine is a union electrician with 15 years in the trade. He’s helped install dozens of solar farms across Northern California. One thing I found interesting/unnerving was that apparently the spacing tolerances between panels is quite low. He said it’s their biggest concern when it comes to fires. So, maintenance seems like a must. Especially on rooftops or structures that will naturally “settle” over time. If I had to guess, these tolerances weren’t properly maintained or the buildings/roofs themselves weren’t solid enough to begin with. If anyone can shed more light on this (pun intended)…
- navigatesol 7y agoSo many apologists on this site its hilarious. I guess Walmart is against climate change! https://twitter.com/sama/status/1130913917864034304?s=19 https://twitter.com/sama/status/1130913917864034304?s=19 At won't point will you hear something that makes you doubt this company? Anything?
- oneepic 7y agoIf you think everyone or even most people commenting on this site are pro-Tesla, I think you're not really reading HN. Either way, the Tesla debates I see are a whole lot like people debating over petty bs like celebrity news, so I usually stay out of them.
- navigatesol 7y ago>If you think everyone or even most people commenting on this site are pro-Tesla The "influencers" are, and if you don't think so you aren't paying attention. Look what they say on Twitter. I posted a link in another comment, but miraculously it disappeared. It happened with Theranos too. People of "high reputation" on this very site claimed everything was "FUD", that if you were against the company it was because you didn't want to see a young woman succeed in Silicon Valley. Then it turned out to be a fraud. And yet these people are still reputable here, after ridiculous commentary. It says a lot about the community, unfortunately.
- AndrewBissell 7y agoBuried in the lawsuit is some entertaining commentary on Tesla's SolarCity acquisition: "On information and belief, when Tesla purchased SolarCity to bail out the flailing company (whose executives included two of Tesla CEO Elon Musk's first cousins), Tesla failed to correct SolarCity's chaotic installation processes or to adopt adequate maintenance protocols, which would have been particularly important in light of the improper installation practices." ... "On information and belief, SolarCity's business model was ultimately a bust."
- thinkcomp 7y agoThe actual lawsuit: https://www.plainsite.org/dockets/40v40ia2y/supreme-court-of-the-state-of-new-york-new-york-county/walmart-inc-fka-walmart-stores-inc-v-tesla-energy-operations-inc-fka-solarcity-cor/ https://www.plainsite.org/dockets/40v40ia2y/supreme-court-of...
- jmb12686 7y agoAnd yet, somehow TSLA is only down 1.6% in after market hour trading today (this news broke after mkt close). TSLA, appears to have irrationally exuberant investors. A (nearly) irrelevant comparison; WMT, a profitable enterprise, is down 1.53% at mkt close today, didn't experience any negative news today, and a core aspect of their business model doesn't explode into flames.
- jaimex2 7y agoProbably because they dont make Solar panels anymore and the panels in question are well out of warranty.
- jmb12686 7y agoOk, let's exclude solar panels. WMT's business model doesn't include extreme capacity Li-ion chemical bombs traveling at highway speeds. To be fair, I admire and hope one day to afford a Tesla. But the risks are clear. High capacity Li-ion batteries have high risks and incident rates of explosion.
- breser 7y agoYou do realize that all vehicles have risks of fire or explosion. In order to make a vehicle with sufficient energy density to be usable for transportation you have to take those risks. While it's true that Tesla has had a relatively small number of vehicle fires with the Model S and X. To date there has not been a single fire with a Model 3. Even with the Model S and X fires they were far rarer than ICE vehicle fires. It's just that nobody bothers reporting on ICE vehicle fires because they happen all the time. The relative rarity of the Tesla fires is what made them news not a high incident rate.
- new_realist 7y agoModel 3 fire and subsequent explosions: https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-3-fire-explosion-moscow-what-we-know-so-far/ https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-model-3-fire-explosion-mosco... Based on anecdotal evidence, Teslas seem more prone both to spontaneous combustion and fires from minor accidents than comparable luxury cars of similar age (that is, relatively new). The latter is why the NHSTA made them retrofit a titanium shield to the underbody early in the Model S lifecycle.
- daferna 7y agoShould've used microinverters, but then again, the technology wasn't mature yet at the time SolarCity was still independent.
- Proven 7y agoIt’s a miracle the freaking Tesla crooks are still destroying their shareholders’ and customers’ property with total impunity.
- new_realist 7y agoFrom Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/SolarCity/comments/9ikm8g/solarcity_shutdown_my_system_apparently_a/eeknsvh/?context=3 https://www.reddit.com/r/SolarCity/comments/9ikm8g/solarcity... "whistleblower123456 1 point · 7 months ago If you want the truth here it is. Tesla has installed millions of defective amphenol connectors all over the u.s. These connectors are catching fire and burning down homes and businesses. They are hiding it with something called project titan where they are hiring thousands of people just to replace connectors. The problem is that they are testing it with infrared cameras to see if the connector heats up and only then replacing it. These connectors are defective meaning just because it passes one day it does not mean it wont fail the next even after testing. Tesla refuses to replace all of these connectors betting on insurance to cover any fires and only looking at homes when their monitoring platform reports arc faults. This is why they are dismantling the solar division with layoffs. Right now if you have tesla installed on your roof you may have a ticking time bomb ready to kill you in your sleep. If you have it on your business same thing. Don't believe me, google walmart fires. If you have tesla stock better prepare to sell it because when this gets out it is going to crash. They need to do the right thing and shut off all systems with these connectors and replace them with mc4. They wont because it would cost them hundreds of millions to do and hundreds of thousands of dollars on lost production. Do the right thing Tesla."
- farah7 7y agoSounds like a short seller.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]