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Elon Musk Gambled Tesla to Save SolarCity

213 points by AndrewBissell 7y ago

admiralspoo 7y ago
What are actually Elon Musk's engineering talents? It seems he is not much more than a marketeer. It's not even clear his visions of reusable rockets and electric cars were original...he is known to take credit for subordinate's ideas and achievements.
- thecleaner 7y ago
  Cult of personality mostly. However Electric cars are actually useless for the environment without renewable energy. So it probably made sense to save Solar City. This whole thing seems like a long term plan for building an absolute monopoly - like what would happen if oil companies also owned all the cars.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - kelnos 7y ago
    > However Electric cars are actually useless for the environment without renewable energy. Isn't even a modern coal-fired power plant cleaner than the ICE in a car? It certainly isn't perfect to have fossil fuel sources powering the electricity used to charge a car, but I'd much rather isolate and improve CO2 capture at coal-fired plants over having 250+ million polluters spread out over the entire country.
- PhilWright 7y ago
  Ideas are ten a penny but execution is what counts. When it comes to SpaceX, there was no rocket company/government agency creating a reusable rocket. None. Not only that, but no one thought it was even realistically possible. He was ridiculed by senior managers from ULA when he first started trying to do it. I guess they are not laughing so much now. Tesla is interesting because his innovation was to create an electric car that actually looks nice and had great acceleration making it actually desirable to drive. All the ones before that were butt ugly and sold on their environmental credentials. Not sure if that will be enough to make them profitable in the long run. Oddly, the big car makers are still unable to make an electric car that is not ugly. Baffled as to why. His 'The Boring Company' seems like a non-starter to me as there is no innovation except making smaller tunnels than usual. Cannot see how that is will work out, but time will tell. His 'Hyperloop' idea is not original and seems like a dumbass idea to me. Maybe that is why he has not actually put any money into it and merely encourages others to develop it instead. He is an entrepreneur so some or even most ideas will not work out, but with the occasional hit. His PayPal was a hit and so is SpaceX. If he has no other hits that is still two more than most people.
  - WheelsAtLarge 7y ago
    Hyperloop seems to be a great way to move materials. Transporting goods thru a specialized system and getting them out of the highways would help a lot. But it's mostly wishful thinking. BTW, it was Peter Thiel that lead Paypal thru the rough times. Musk was a part of it but he was kicked out before you could say that Paypal was a success.
    - pwinnski 7y ago
      Transporting goods via a purpose-dedicated system via fixed points without using highways would be great. And it is! America's use of trains to move goods around this country is amazing. Come to think of it, moving people efficiently is a largely-solved problem given sufficient population density. Hyperloop is just dumb.
      - asdfk-12 7y ago
        If you are referring to urban areas - what about the crippled subway system and insane traffic congestion in NYC?
        jcranmer 7y ago
        NYC has 5 4-track trunks moving 10-car trains through its densest core. If that's insufficient, then the only thing that's going to improve throughput is getting everybody out and having them walk. And there are places (hi Times Square!) where that is insufficient to move the demand. NYC has a throughput problem. High speed doesn't improve throughput, it worsens it.
        mschuster91 7y ago
        > NYC has a throughput problem. High speed doesn't improve throughput, it worsens it. With ultra-dense city cores the only way to fix them is proper city planning - meaning: tearing down skyscrapers outright or converting them from offices into affordable housing to reduce the hordes of low-income staff travelling for hours just to get to work. The "free market" has failed here because stuff still works (=people get to work and make money) but the cost is put onto society as a whole (congestion, smog, life quality degradation, hours upon hours wasted being in transit).
- WheelsAtLarge 7y ago
  His real talent seems to be, "execution of idea". Seems like when he makes up his mind to do something he does not stop until it's done. He plows thru anything that gets in his way. Including people that aren't executing at the level he wants. That's a true talent and extremely rare. Engineering and learning from mistakes maybe less so.
  - new_realist 7y ago
    His real talent is finding government funds and creating losses.
- woodandsteel 7y ago
  Musk is a genius engineer. He is arguably the most brilliant technologist in the world today. Can you point to anyone who has produced as much technological progress, and in two quite different fields?
  - new_realist 7y ago
    Steve Jobs: Apple and Pixar. And those were actually successful.
- davinic 7y ago
  Musk wasn't even the founder of Tesla, he rewrote the history in order to call himself that.
  - gnulinux 7y ago
    > Tesla was founded in July 2003, by engineers Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, under the name Tesla Motors. The company's name is a tribute to engineer Nikola Tesla. In early Series A funding, Tesla Motors was joined by Elon Musk, J. B. Straubel and Ian Wright, all of whom are retroactively allowed to call themselves co-founders of the company. from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla,_Inc.
    - davinic 7y ago
      Yes, "retroactively allowed to call themselves co-founders".
    - kelnos 7y ago
      Just because you're allowed to rewrite history, it doesn't make your rewritten history true. Musk wasn't involved in Tesla until their Series A (a round which he led as an investor), but soon after became involved in the company's operations. Eventually the original founders were ousted from the company, and later Musk just started calling himself a founder. There was a lawsuit[0], and the eventual settlement allowed this revision to occur. Reading between the lines suggests that the original founder just gave in, thinking that it was better for his reputation just to let it go. We have no idea, of course, what would have happened if the original founders had stayed in charge and Musk hadn't joined. Maybe the company would have failed. Maybe it would be doing even better than it is. Who knows. That's immaterial to the argument. Regardless of what Musk would like you to believe, or what a court settlement allows, he did not actually found Tesla. [0] https://www.cnet.com/news/tesla-motors-founders-now-there-are-five/ https://www.cnet.com/news/tesla-motors-founders-now-there-ar...
- zaroth 7y ago
  The interviews I’ve seen of Musk subordinates (particularly engineers but also middle management) has consistently included statements to the effect of, “We are always terrified he will walk into a meeting, go way deeper than we are prepared to discuss, come up with a simple solution that evaded us for months, and walk out thinking we are all idiots.” The guy has plenty of flaws, but he’s apparently terrifically good at synthesizing complex technical data in an extraordinarily wide range of topics, and arriving at solutions that others missed but look obvious in retrospect.
jacquesm 7y ago
HN discussion at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11949434 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11949434
- slavik81 7y ago
  A few highlights: > unclebucknasty - Wow. Sounds like a huge shell game that Musk has set up among his companies. It's betting big, which should be expected from Musk, but it seems a bit odd to be so personally intertwined with public companies and making decisions accordingly. It also seems unduly burdensome to the companies in the "portfolio" which might otherwise perform well. > a13n - Some people think SolarCity is doing terribly because they're losing so much money. Actually them losing money is an incredibly great sign for the long run (assuming they don't run out of money - which Elon won't let happen). > partiallypro - The CEO is his cousin, but he has recused himself of voting on the deal. I doubt the SEC & FTC will care; Wall Street on the other hand, I think they all see what this is about.
whatok 7y ago
If anyone is unfamiliar with the author, she was one of the first mainstream media authors to be critical on Enron and eventually wrote a book on Enron as well.
- heymijo 7y ago
  Ms. McLean has a way of seeing clearly what is right in front of others yet not acknowledged. Then bringing that to our general attention. I heard her doing the podcast rounds last year shining light on the unsustainable business model for hydraulic fracturing to capture natural gas AKA fracking. It's the subject of another book of hers. Saudi America: The Truth About Fracking and How It’s Changing the World https://globalreports.columbia.edu/books/saudi-america/ https://globalreports.columbia.edu/books/saudi-america/
- Shivetya 7y ago
  For many Tesla fans it never seemed to make sense that Tesla would buy Solarcity except as a bailout of Solarcity. The loose connection they have with regards to the environment was certainly not sufficient to justify the move.
  - gameswithgo 7y ago
    Tesla getting into the solar business makes sense maybe. But not until they have the car thing figured out and stable first, and certainly not buying your cousin's troubled solar company in particular! It was clearly a bad move.
- tryitnow 7y ago
  Thanks for pointing this out, I wasn't going to read the article at first, but now I will.
- olivermarks 7y ago
  She wrote 'Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room' subsequently made into an excellent film. I suspect we will be seeing 'Tesla: The Smartest Guys in the Room' soon. It still rankles me that Nicolai Tesla's name is associated with all this.
smacktoward 7y ago
This bit seems pretty damning: > As SolarCity struggled to raise money from institutional investors, it began offering individuals a chance to buy what it called Solar Bonds. (“Now you can get paid while driving the solar revolution,” the marketing material said.) But there were few takers—so other parts of the Musk empire took up the slack. According to the shareholder lawsuit, SpaceX acquired $255 million of the bonds. Other than Musk's involvement in both, what's the situation where a company like SpaceX sees a need to plow $255 million into debt obligations issued by a solar panel installer?
- jacquesm 7y ago
  Absolutely none. I'm surprised the controllers at SpaceX would even allow it.
  - toomuchtodo 7y ago
    Governance at private companies with single majority shareholders (Musk owns >51% of SpaceX, and has even more voting control) is tricky. Controllers work for the C level/CFO, not shareholders (and the CFO is the one who is going to get sued, not the controllers). Solar bonds are not as safe as US treasuries (almost nothing is for those who aren't up to speed), but the argument could be made (hopefully with data!) that they were low enough risk that people weren't going to suddenly stop paying their electric bills for the solar on their roofs (and the benefit to SpaceX was premium earned vs that of other safer cash equivalents), so you might as well lend your satellite launch customer deposits to Solar City to get more solar panels installed on roofs. And if you, as the controller, did not see it the same way, they might consider finding a controller who would. Disclaimer: TSLA investor, owned SCTY solar bonds, have a friend who is a controller for a private family owned company who likes to talk work quite a bit. I admire the financial engineering used to succeed up to this point, and wince at the fiduciary issues occasionally.
- AstralStorm 7y ago
  Only in a deal to furnish sats and rockets with solar panels forever. Vertical integration more or less.
patagonia 7y ago
Damned if Elon does. Damned if he don’t. “An electric vehicle is worthless without electric charging stations.” So Tesla makes a risky move to save one such company that happens to provide an answer to that criticism. People pile on. Predictably.
- mikeash 7y ago
  Tesla was doing quite well installing charging stations before the SolarCity acquisition, and the acquisition of a solar panel company did nothing to assist.
- kmonsen 7y ago
  Risky move to save a company run by Elon's cousin. edit, also Solarcity didn't/doesn't provide charging capabilities, but solar cells. There is not a lack of solar cell companies in the world and SolarCity was never particularly advanced.
  - patagonia 7y ago
    A company that was founded based on his suggestion, with his financial and leadership support. He was there from day zero. Solar City is not just a solar cell company. It is a power generation and distribution company. Which clearly ties into charging electric cars. Another (very) common early criticism of Tesla: You’re just filling up with coal power. And. Risky for sure. Elon Musk obviously doesn’t shy from risky. He sets goals that solve existential problems. In this case, our reliance on fossil fuels.
    - jacquesm 7y ago
      There is a huge difference between risky and dumb. If you create different legal entities then you do so for a reason: to ensure that if one tanks it doesn't bring the rest down. Tying them back together in this way risks all of the companies with none of the benefits of having them all under one legal entity. Besides that it opens you up to minority shareholder lawsuits that have a very high probability of sticking. Musk is a genius but more and more of his moves are showing a disconnect that makes no sense to me.
docker_up 7y ago
The purchase of SolarCity by Tesla was the single dumbest thing Elon Musk did and it has dire consequences for Tesla the car company. Shareholders definitely have a great chance to sue Musk because he did not do this in the best interest of his shareholders, it's in the best interest of his cousin. Co-mingling all parts of his companies (SpaceX buying SolarCity Bonds) is a huge red flag that reeks of corporate malfeasance. He should have let SolarCity die, it would have come back as a stronger company once the initial investors were wiped out.
- patrioticaction 7y ago
  Corruption? I would have never expected such a thing from a member of the PayPal mafia. Edit: Down vote! Quickly! Do it before Elon notices your lack of loyalty.
- mhermher 7y ago
  Not just his cousins (I doubt Musk actually cares about them), but himself personally. He personally held a bunch of SC bonds. Tesla shareholders footed the bill to bail out Musk himself and get him out of those terrible bonds.
- dragontamer 7y ago
  > The purchase of SolarCity by Tesla was the single dumbest thing Elon Musk did Why was it a bad move for Elon Musk? Elon Musk owned many SolarCity shares (in fact, Elon Musk was the chairman of SolarCity). If SolarCity would go bankrupt, Elon Musk would have lost a lot of money and power. Elon Musk saved SolarCity to save his own skin and money. Its not really that hard to imagine. Now Tesla shareholders, who overwhelmingly voted for the merger, made a big mistake. But Tesla shareholders own the company, they are allowed to make whatever decisions they want. Its definitely a sketchy move, but Elon Musk did it correctly. Elon Musk recused his voted, and left it up to shareholder vote. Tesla shareholders only have themselves to blame for this move. EDIT: Even if you voted "no" and were overridden by all of your fellow shareholders, you had plenty of time to sell your Tesla shares to avoid this disaster. Tesla bought SolarCity back in 2016. Plenty of time to sell if you were keeping up with the news.
martythemaniak 7y ago
Well, Tesla is one long stream of gambles. You dont get to school an established, global, trillion dollar industry without taking risks. The only notable thing here is that hating on Musk is really popular these days. So the failed gambles (this, falcon doors, the initial overautomation of the Model 3 production, etc) will be highlighted and mocked, while the successful gambles will go unmentioned or incorporated as a matter-of-fact developments. Running Tesla stories through a selection bias filter is really useful, as it'll discard most stories that pop up.
- deleted 7y ago
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- danso 7y ago
  You read this story and think it boils down to "hating on Musk"? Which of the story's numbers or claims about SolarCity finances and production do you believe are distorted or misleading?
  - hi5eyes 7y ago
    its difficult to critique tesla/elons decisions without running into the cult of teslemmings making it their personality of defending musk of any wrongdoing
  - jsharf 7y ago
    Perfectly true facts can still create bias, by selectively focusing attention. None of this needs to be wrong or distorted.
    - mannykannot 7y ago
      > None of this needs to be wrong or distorted. The perfect defense against truth in any form.
  - martythemaniak 7y ago
    It's more of a meta comment on which stories surface up on Hacker News and other media. The selection of content you get exposed to can matter more than the exact content you consume. I went for dinner to my in-laws a few months ago and my mother-in-law asked if I had heard about the Tesla that caught fire in Shanghai. I said, yeah but did you hear about all the combustion cars that had combusted that day. She had not of course. Didn't even know "normal" cars catch fire. Nothing against her in particular (she had seen it on a mainstream TV news program), I've had similar conversations with coworkers, aquiantances, on social media, etc.
wil421 7y ago
>the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced criminal charges against a handful of Cuomo staffers for rigging the construction bids for the Buffalo Billion program to favor the governor’s campaign donors. The man tapped by Cuomo to oversee the taxpayer subsidies, as well as a leading donor who received a $225 million contract to build out the Buffalo factory, were both convicted last year of conspiring to rig the bids. At the end of the article they mention the lack of car by New York State. Of course they don’t care, the decision makers already got what they and their rich friends wanted.
boyadjian 7y ago
Tesla is a Ponzi scheme.
- standyro 7y ago
  Ponzi schemes don't produce anything of value, like amazing supercars that cost <$50k. (I'm biased) By that same logic, any Y Combinator "unicorn" startup is a ponzi scheme. Overvalued, unrealistic investor expectations. Granted, this SolarCity deal was definitely not in Tesla's best interest... having chatted with a former engineer there who left because of their dysfunction.
  - xkjkls 7y ago
    Most Ponzi schemes usually do produce something of value for those who cash out early enough. I'm not saying the comparison is apt though.
    - kelnos 7y ago
      Do they, though? My impression was that most Ponzi schemes generate cash for early participants by paying them with cash infusions from later participants. Nothing of value is created there; it's just taking money from suckers and giving it to unethical speculators.
      - xkjkls 7y ago
        That's still value for the early investors.
        kelnos 7y ago
        Sure, but you're splitting hairs; that's not how the parent used the term "value".
  - AndrewBissell 7y ago
    Literally lol at calling the Model 3 a "supercar"
DanCarvajal 7y ago
Musketeer's trying to keep this link off the front page.
wfbarks 7y ago
If Elon Musk gets taken down, then humanity should probably just throw in the towel. We (humanity) are in a boat that is taking on water rapidly. The guy working the hardest to patch the leaks is Elon Musk and all those that work at his companies (they definitely aren't working there for the money or the lifestyle) Solar City is a part of this vision. Articles like this and the comments section here at hacker news are making me very depressed about our prospects.
- whenchamenia 7y ago
  If elon musk was anywhere near the best humanity has to offer, I would agree. Thankfully, the facts suggest otherwise.
wfbarks 7y ago
He (and all the brilliant people at his companies who work so hard) are delivering to humanity, a future where we produce and consume energy sustainably, and are out in space exploring our solar system. Everyone at the companies is there because on some level they believe in this vision. So I (and many Tesla shareholders like me) am willing to look the other way with respect to his fiduciary responsibility. There are better targets out there.
- dragontamer 7y ago
  So was Enron, the company who was creating the future of energy. A future in which we produce and consume energy more sustainably. Enron wasn't tackling space challenges, so I guess there's a slight difference there. Look: fraud is fraud. If someone is lying to the public, it is wrong on that basis alone. Elon Musk could have done everything the same and simply NOT lied about it, and things would have gone far smoother. The workers at the Gigafactory2 plant have been disenfranchised due to this SolarCity issue.
  - shiftpgdn 7y ago
    This is such a shit comparison. Enron was just a trading company. They didn't invent anything.
    - Marazan 7y ago
      That is certainly a statement.
  - xkjkls 7y ago
    Exactly. Elon employs thousands of people. They deserve him to be forthright about their future.
  - woodandsteel 7y ago
    >So was Enron, the company who was creating the future of energy. A future in which we produce and consume energy more sustainably. What in heavens name are you talking about? Are you really claiming that Enron was in the business of replacing petroleum and natural gas with solar and wind energy?
deleted 7y ago
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spiderfarmer 7y ago
For all the negativity here about Musk and his business decisions, there is something to be said for integrating transport and energy services in one great package. I consult for a large energy conglomerate that wants to get into this market from the energy suppliers side, but the problem is that they are completely clueless when it comes to expanding beyond their traditional business. In their vision, they'll supply customers with solar panels, an EV charger, home battery, heating solutions and as a backup their traditional business: gas and electricity. All integrated in a nice package. It took them two years to set up a department that sells their first product (besides gas and electricity): an outdated EV charger, from a company they bought that stopped innovating after acquisition and is now lagging behind competition. Not a car, just the charger.
- gamblor956 7y ago
  It took them two years to set up a department that sells their first product (besides gas and electricity): an outdated EV charger, from a company they bought that stopped innovating after acquisition and is now lagging behind competition. Not a car, just the charger. Two years to set up the business structure isn't that much time in the scheme of multinational conglomerates. Especially when the market isn't yet that big and none of the other players are making meaningful profits. On a separate note, SolarCity stopped innovating after it was acquired and went from being #1 worldwide for solar panel installations to a very distant #8 in the US (and not meaningfully ranked on a global scale).
  - kjksf 7y ago
    > On a separate note, SolarCity stopped innovating after it was acquired You're conflating innovation with sales. SolarCity was a financing business more than they were a product company. They were selling financing of solar generation via Power Purchase Agreements. Installation and equipment manufacturing was largely outsourced. That was a business model innovation and for a while it worked splendidly, which is why SolarCity became no 1 installer of solar in US. But the model stopped working which is why Tesla had to restructure the whole business. That's why their sales dropped: they stopped doing what they were doing. Acquisition happened at end of 2016. Just in recent weeks Tesla launched a "rent solar" scheme. It remains to be seen how it'll do in the marketplace, but it's a business model innovation comparable to original SolarCity innovation. They are also working on Solar Roof - another huge innovation with great potential. And if we're charitable, we can also throw the energy storage business in the same bucket: powerwall, powerpacks, megapacks. Winning high-profile installations and growing business at 100% YoY. Hardly a company that stopped innovating.
mrnobody_67 7y ago
Charlie Munger said - "I've never seen a board vote against the CEO when their livelihood depends on keeping the job". Boards are dysfunctional, in the best of times.
chiefalchemist 7y ago
One person's "gambled" is often another person's (e.g., entrepreneur)opportunity. Musk and his ilk are where they are for a reason. They don't fear risk, they go toe-to-toe with it and mitigate it. Words like "gambled" fit a narrative and get attention, but they are also misleading.
- deleted 7y ago
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- AndrewBissell 7y ago
  Musk and his ilk are where they are because of luck and enormous amounts of political rent seeking and outside capital to paper over losses. Musk's career arc is "internet yellow pages sold in the dotcom bubble" -> "payments company he was drummed out of so Peter Thiel could clean up his mess" -> "rockets and electric cars which have needed huge infusions of government and investor money to stay afloat since their inception"
Animats 7y ago
There are real "solar shingles", but not from Tesla/Solar City.[1] The big player is CertainTeed, which makes roof components. CertainTeed is for real; you can order those. The strange thing is CertainTeed makes both regular and solar shingles, but don't offer a matching set. DeSol has a product line of roof components, with solar, non-solar, and edge parts that all fit together. Theirs looks good, but may be vaporware. Tesla does have some "solar shingle" installations, but few; they're more like demos than a production product.[2] The big problem with "solar shingles", which are just solar panels mounted flush to the roof or as the roof surface, is cooling. Most solar panels have air space behind them. Without that, these things run very hot. Dow backed out of solar shingles several years ago because theirs kept overheating. So, no thin-film solar cells in that application. Somebody should have gotten this right by now. These things have been around since 2013 or so, and they're still marginal. [1] https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2019/04/the-latest-on-solar-roofs-solar-shingles-and-solar-tiles/ https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2019/04/the-latest-on-... [2] https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-solar-roof-long-term-review-homeowner-insights-elon-musk-solar-tiles/ https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-solar-roof-long-term-review-...
- Animats 7y ago
  Amusingly, the DeSol web site has a copyright date of 2023 on it. I sent them a message asking if the product existed yet. They sent back, from a GMail account, "Who are you". I replied that I'd signed my message with my name and sent it from my own domain, what more did they want? Asked "You're sending from GMail, who are you?" Got back "(HN does not do Unicode emoji)". So, not sure what to think of that outfit. They seem to have a good sense of aesthetics; no idea if they can make it work.
  - GhettoMaestro 7y ago
    Let me save you effort - nah, they are dipshits. Next.
  - hayyyyydos 7y ago
    > Amusingly, the DeSol web site has a copyright date of 2023 on it. It's a Wix website (which probably tells you a bit about the company) - many of them have Copyright 2023 on them[1]. It's a phenomenon I've noticed for a while, but never worked out why. If anyone knows the reason I'd love to know. [1] https://www.google.com/search?channel=fs&q="copyright+2023"&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 https://www.google.com/search?channel=fs&q="copyright+2023"&...
HNcantBtrustd 7y ago
When I saw the buy of solar City, I felt bad for Tesla stock owners and was angry at Musk for giving his cousins tons of money. After the Tesla thing ends, we are going to learn about the insider trading among the elite.
omarforgotpwd 7y ago
More negative news on Tesla drawn from interviews with short sellers. The journalist on this is famous for working with Jim Chanos, the short seller who was involved in exposing Enron. He is shorting Tesla and thinks it's the next Enron, and got this journalist to push his short narrative. I don't buy it. The economics of solar are great long term, and selling it with electric cars makes a lot of sense because a) EV buyers use a lot of power, and can save a lot of money with solar b) the electric car batteries also work great for storing solar energy to use at night What they're offering to consumers with their new $50 a month solar rental program is the ability to have a completely off the grid sustainable energy solution for your car and your home. That is huge. Have you heard about the multi-trillion dollar petroleum industry? Also the cars drive themselves better and better every day. Go try it. It's not perfect, but the car fucking drives itself with an object detection neural net and some traffic law heuristics. It's fucking amazing. Go try it if you don't believe me This short bet will blow up in their faces
- xkjkls 7y ago
  > The economics of solar are great long term Why? It seems like a flooded and commodified utility market, the opposite of something with great economics.
  - kjksf 7y ago
    This is "no one goes there anymore because it's so crowded" argument. Solar is big business and will become even bigger (because the economics are great and becoming even better). Commodity or not, some company will make good money there. That company could be Tesla. As to blanket "commodity" argument: McDonald sells hamburgers, Coca-Cola sells flavored water in a glass bottle and StarBucks sells coffee in a plastic cup. There's money to be made in commodity businesses if you are big enough, have the economies of scale and the leading brand.
    - xkjkls 7y ago
      > This is "no one goes there anymore because it's so crowded" argument. This is a very true argument about the margins/economics of a business. If it is easy for competition to enter, it becomes very hard to make a high-margin, valuable business out of it. > As to blanket "commodity" argument: McDonald sells hamburgers, Coca-Cola sells flavored water in a glass bottle and StarBucks sells coffee in a plastic cup. All of these have substantial moats in either brand, training, or real estate. In what way does Tesla have any of these (brand matters far less for larger financial decisions like this) and why is it any advantage to any of these areas to have this attached to an electric car company? And in this area, they already are no longer the leading brand, and have fallen behind many other solar companies.
at-fates-hands 7y ago
This looks like a very complicated pump and dump case.
michael_madsen 7y ago
I have solar panels on my roof. The were installed on top of regular roof tiles, since my house was already built by the time I was ready to install solar panels. But if you are building a new house, I think it makes a lot of sense to use Tesla Solar Roof. The roof looks great, you get clean energy and the warranty is for the lifetime of your house, or infinity (whichever comes first). From a personal standpoint, I wish these had been available when I built my house. As for the gamle on Tesla/Musk part, I would say that this is a long term, strategic move. More an more energy will come in the form of electricity. The solar panel market is full of chinese panels to put on top of your existing roof tiles. But in the future, when the "normal" will be to generate your own electricity, people will want the cool roof that looks like a normal roof. Not then weird "add-on".
Proven 7y ago
The greedy crook used Tesla shareholders' money to save his and his cousins' investment (in Solar City). He doesn't care about "Solar City" as such.
auslander 7y ago
He should stop smoking.
munherty 7y ago
Elon has been quite open about the fact that he wants to just try new things. If things work great he gets the shift economy's, otherwise he just keeps going to the next thing. If you can't get with it then hop off
smallgovt 7y ago
There weren't many pertinent facts or details included in this story. The article focuses on how poorly SolarCity seems to be performing post-acquisition. However, hindsight is 20/20. The fact that the acquisition turned out to be a mess doesn't make it a fraudulent transaction -- many if not most large acquisitions don't live up to expectations. The facts that need to be considered to deem this fraudulent are the data/arguments that drove the decision to acquire SolarCity at the time of the acquisition. Mainly, were the arguments to acquire SolarCity honest and factual? Here is the acquisition pitch deck that Tesla put out at the time of acquisition: http://www.solarwakeup.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Tesla-SolarCity-Investor-Presentation.pdf http://www.solarwakeup.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Tesla-... Unsurprisingly, the author of the article doesn't address any of the primary points contained in this pitch deck.
SmileyRedBall 7y ago
The full title is ‘“HE’S FULL OF SHIT”: HOW ELON MUSK FOOLED INVESTORS, BILKED TAXPAYERS, AND GAMBLED TESLA TO SAVE SOLARCITY’. Makes me wonder are we in the middle of yet another Tesla shorting cycle. Buy some shorts, trash Tesla in the media, wait for stock to drop, then cashout.

213 points by AndrewBissell 7y ago

What are actually Elon Musk's engineering talents? It seems he is not much more than a marketeer. It's not even clear his visions of reusable rockets and electric cars were original...he is known to take credit for subordinate's ideas and achievements.

thecleaner 7y ago
Cult of personality mostly. However Electric cars are actually useless for the environment without renewable energy. So it probably made sense to save Solar City. This whole thing seems like a long term plan for building an absolute monopoly - like what would happen if oil companies also owned all the cars.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- kelnos 7y ago
  > However Electric cars are actually useless for the environment without renewable energy. Isn't even a modern coal-fired power plant cleaner than the ICE in a car? It certainly isn't perfect to have fossil fuel sources powering the electricity used to charge a car, but I'd much rather isolate and improve CO2 capture at coal-fired plants over having 250+ million polluters spread out over the entire country.
PhilWright 7y ago
Ideas are ten a penny but execution is what counts. When it comes to SpaceX, there was no rocket company/government agency creating a reusable rocket. None. Not only that, but no one thought it was even realistically possible. He was ridiculed by senior managers from ULA when he first started trying to do it. I guess they are not laughing so much now. Tesla is interesting because his innovation was to create an electric car that actually looks nice and had great acceleration making it actually desirable to drive. All the ones before that were butt ugly and sold on their environmental credentials. Not sure if that will be enough to make them profitable in the long run. Oddly, the big car makers are still unable to make an electric car that is not ugly. Baffled as to why. His 'The Boring Company' seems like a non-starter to me as there is no innovation except making smaller tunnels than usual. Cannot see how that is will work out, but time will tell. His 'Hyperloop' idea is not original and seems like a dumbass idea to me. Maybe that is why he has not actually put any money into it and merely encourages others to develop it instead. He is an entrepreneur so some or even most ideas will not work out, but with the occasional hit. His PayPal was a hit and so is SpaceX. If he has no other hits that is still two more than most people.
- WheelsAtLarge 7y ago
  Hyperloop seems to be a great way to move materials. Transporting goods thru a specialized system and getting them out of the highways would help a lot. But it's mostly wishful thinking. BTW, it was Peter Thiel that lead Paypal thru the rough times. Musk was a part of it but he was kicked out before you could say that Paypal was a success.
  - pwinnski 7y ago
    Transporting goods via a purpose-dedicated system via fixed points without using highways would be great. And it is! America's use of trains to move goods around this country is amazing. Come to think of it, moving people efficiently is a largely-solved problem given sufficient population density. Hyperloop is just dumb.
    - asdfk-12 7y ago
      If you are referring to urban areas - what about the crippled subway system and insane traffic congestion in NYC?
      - jcranmer 7y ago
        NYC has 5 4-track trunks moving 10-car trains through its densest core. If that's insufficient, then the only thing that's going to improve throughput is getting everybody out and having them walk. And there are places (hi Times Square!) where that is insufficient to move the demand. NYC has a throughput problem. High speed doesn't improve throughput, it worsens it.
        mschuster91 7y ago
        > NYC has a throughput problem. High speed doesn't improve throughput, it worsens it. With ultra-dense city cores the only way to fix them is proper city planning - meaning: tearing down skyscrapers outright or converting them from offices into affordable housing to reduce the hordes of low-income staff travelling for hours just to get to work. The "free market" has failed here because stuff still works (=people get to work and make money) but the cost is put onto society as a whole (congestion, smog, life quality degradation, hours upon hours wasted being in transit).
WheelsAtLarge 7y ago
His real talent seems to be, "execution of idea". Seems like when he makes up his mind to do something he does not stop until it's done. He plows thru anything that gets in his way. Including people that aren't executing at the level he wants. That's a true talent and extremely rare. Engineering and learning from mistakes maybe less so.
- new_realist 7y ago
  His real talent is finding government funds and creating losses.
woodandsteel 7y ago
Musk is a genius engineer. He is arguably the most brilliant technologist in the world today. Can you point to anyone who has produced as much technological progress, and in two quite different fields?
- new_realist 7y ago
  Steve Jobs: Apple and Pixar. And those were actually successful.
davinic 7y ago
Musk wasn't even the founder of Tesla, he rewrote the history in order to call himself that.
- gnulinux 7y ago
  > Tesla was founded in July 2003, by engineers Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning, under the name Tesla Motors. The company's name is a tribute to engineer Nikola Tesla. In early Series A funding, Tesla Motors was joined by Elon Musk, J. B. Straubel and Ian Wright, all of whom are retroactively allowed to call themselves co-founders of the company. from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla,_Inc.
  - davinic 7y ago
    Yes, "retroactively allowed to call themselves co-founders".
  - kelnos 7y ago
    Just because you're allowed to rewrite history, it doesn't make your rewritten history true. Musk wasn't involved in Tesla until their Series A (a round which he led as an investor), but soon after became involved in the company's operations. Eventually the original founders were ousted from the company, and later Musk just started calling himself a founder. There was a lawsuit[0], and the eventual settlement allowed this revision to occur. Reading between the lines suggests that the original founder just gave in, thinking that it was better for his reputation just to let it go. We have no idea, of course, what would have happened if the original founders had stayed in charge and Musk hadn't joined. Maybe the company would have failed. Maybe it would be doing even better than it is. Who knows. That's immaterial to the argument. Regardless of what Musk would like you to believe, or what a court settlement allows, he did not actually found Tesla. [0] https://www.cnet.com/news/tesla-motors-founders-now-there-are-five/ https://www.cnet.com/news/tesla-motors-founders-now-there-ar...
zaroth 7y ago
The interviews I’ve seen of Musk subordinates (particularly engineers but also middle management) has consistently included statements to the effect of, “We are always terrified he will walk into a meeting, go way deeper than we are prepared to discuss, come up with a simple solution that evaded us for months, and walk out thinking we are all idiots.” The guy has plenty of flaws, but he’s apparently terrifically good at synthesizing complex technical data in an extraordinarily wide range of topics, and arriving at solutions that others missed but look obvious in retrospect.

jacquesm 7y ago

HN discussion at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11949434 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11949434

slavik81 7y ago
A few highlights: > unclebucknasty - Wow. Sounds like a huge shell game that Musk has set up among his companies. It's betting big, which should be expected from Musk, but it seems a bit odd to be so personally intertwined with public companies and making decisions accordingly. It also seems unduly burdensome to the companies in the "portfolio" which might otherwise perform well. > a13n - Some people think SolarCity is doing terribly because they're losing so much money. Actually them losing money is an incredibly great sign for the long run (assuming they don't run out of money - which Elon won't let happen). > partiallypro - The CEO is his cousin, but he has recused himself of voting on the deal. I doubt the SEC & FTC will care; Wall Street on the other hand, I think they all see what this is about.

whatok 7y ago

If anyone is unfamiliar with the author, she was one of the first mainstream media authors to be critical on Enron and eventually wrote a book on Enron as well.

heymijo 7y ago
Ms. McLean has a way of seeing clearly what is right in front of others yet not acknowledged. Then bringing that to our general attention. I heard her doing the podcast rounds last year shining light on the unsustainable business model for hydraulic fracturing to capture natural gas AKA fracking. It's the subject of another book of hers. Saudi America: The Truth About Fracking and How It’s Changing the World https://globalreports.columbia.edu/books/saudi-america/ https://globalreports.columbia.edu/books/saudi-america/
Shivetya 7y ago
For many Tesla fans it never seemed to make sense that Tesla would buy Solarcity except as a bailout of Solarcity. The loose connection they have with regards to the environment was certainly not sufficient to justify the move.
- gameswithgo 7y ago
  Tesla getting into the solar business makes sense maybe. But not until they have the car thing figured out and stable first, and certainly not buying your cousin's troubled solar company in particular! It was clearly a bad move.
tryitnow 7y ago
Thanks for pointing this out, I wasn't going to read the article at first, but now I will.
olivermarks 7y ago
She wrote 'Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room' subsequently made into an excellent film. I suspect we will be seeing 'Tesla: The Smartest Guys in the Room' soon. It still rankles me that Nicolai Tesla's name is associated with all this.

smacktoward 7y ago

This bit seems pretty damning: > As SolarCity struggled to raise money from institutional investors, it began offering individuals a chance to buy what it called Solar Bonds. (“Now you can get paid while driving the solar revolution,” the marketing material said.) But there were few takers—so other parts of the Musk empire took up the slack. According to the shareholder lawsuit, SpaceX acquired $255 million of the bonds. Other than Musk's involvement in both, what's the situation where a company like SpaceX sees a need to plow $255 million into debt obligations issued by a solar panel installer?

jacquesm 7y ago
Absolutely none. I'm surprised the controllers at SpaceX would even allow it.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Governance at private companies with single majority shareholders (Musk owns >51% of SpaceX, and has even more voting control) is tricky. Controllers work for the C level/CFO, not shareholders (and the CFO is the one who is going to get sued, not the controllers). Solar bonds are not as safe as US treasuries (almost nothing is for those who aren't up to speed), but the argument could be made (hopefully with data!) that they were low enough risk that people weren't going to suddenly stop paying their electric bills for the solar on their roofs (and the benefit to SpaceX was premium earned vs that of other safer cash equivalents), so you might as well lend your satellite launch customer deposits to Solar City to get more solar panels installed on roofs. And if you, as the controller, did not see it the same way, they might consider finding a controller who would. Disclaimer: TSLA investor, owned SCTY solar bonds, have a friend who is a controller for a private family owned company who likes to talk work quite a bit. I admire the financial engineering used to succeed up to this point, and wince at the fiduciary issues occasionally.
AstralStorm 7y ago
Only in a deal to furnish sats and rockets with solar panels forever. Vertical integration more or less.

patagonia 7y ago

Damned if Elon does. Damned if he don’t. “An electric vehicle is worthless without electric charging stations.” So Tesla makes a risky move to save one such company that happens to provide an answer to that criticism. People pile on. Predictably.

mikeash 7y ago
Tesla was doing quite well installing charging stations before the SolarCity acquisition, and the acquisition of a solar panel company did nothing to assist.
kmonsen 7y ago
Risky move to save a company run by Elon's cousin. edit, also Solarcity didn't/doesn't provide charging capabilities, but solar cells. There is not a lack of solar cell companies in the world and SolarCity was never particularly advanced.
- patagonia 7y ago
  A company that was founded based on his suggestion, with his financial and leadership support. He was there from day zero. Solar City is not just a solar cell company. It is a power generation and distribution company. Which clearly ties into charging electric cars. Another (very) common early criticism of Tesla: You’re just filling up with coal power. And. Risky for sure. Elon Musk obviously doesn’t shy from risky. He sets goals that solve existential problems. In this case, our reliance on fossil fuels.
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    There is a huge difference between risky and dumb. If you create different legal entities then you do so for a reason: to ensure that if one tanks it doesn't bring the rest down. Tying them back together in this way risks all of the companies with none of the benefits of having them all under one legal entity. Besides that it opens you up to minority shareholder lawsuits that have a very high probability of sticking. Musk is a genius but more and more of his moves are showing a disconnect that makes no sense to me.

docker_up 7y ago

The purchase of SolarCity by Tesla was the single dumbest thing Elon Musk did and it has dire consequences for Tesla the car company. Shareholders definitely have a great chance to sue Musk because he did not do this in the best interest of his shareholders, it's in the best interest of his cousin. Co-mingling all parts of his companies (SpaceX buying SolarCity Bonds) is a huge red flag that reeks of corporate malfeasance. He should have let SolarCity die, it would have come back as a stronger company once the initial investors were wiped out.

patrioticaction 7y ago
Corruption? I would have never expected such a thing from a member of the PayPal mafia. Edit: Down vote! Quickly! Do it before Elon notices your lack of loyalty.
mhermher 7y ago
Not just his cousins (I doubt Musk actually cares about them), but himself personally. He personally held a bunch of SC bonds. Tesla shareholders footed the bill to bail out Musk himself and get him out of those terrible bonds.
dragontamer 7y ago
> The purchase of SolarCity by Tesla was the single dumbest thing Elon Musk did Why was it a bad move for Elon Musk? Elon Musk owned many SolarCity shares (in fact, Elon Musk was the chairman of SolarCity). If SolarCity would go bankrupt, Elon Musk would have lost a lot of money and power. Elon Musk saved SolarCity to save his own skin and money. Its not really that hard to imagine. Now Tesla shareholders, who overwhelmingly voted for the merger, made a big mistake. But Tesla shareholders own the company, they are allowed to make whatever decisions they want. Its definitely a sketchy move, but Elon Musk did it correctly. Elon Musk recused his voted, and left it up to shareholder vote. Tesla shareholders only have themselves to blame for this move. EDIT: Even if you voted "no" and were overridden by all of your fellow shareholders, you had plenty of time to sell your Tesla shares to avoid this disaster. Tesla bought SolarCity back in 2016. Plenty of time to sell if you were keeping up with the news.

martythemaniak 7y ago

Well, Tesla is one long stream of gambles. You dont get to school an established, global, trillion dollar industry without taking risks. The only notable thing here is that hating on Musk is really popular these days. So the failed gambles (this, falcon doors, the initial overautomation of the Model 3 production, etc) will be highlighted and mocked, while the successful gambles will go unmentioned or incorporated as a matter-of-fact developments. Running Tesla stories through a selection bias filter is really useful, as it'll discard most stories that pop up.

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danso 7y ago
You read this story and think it boils down to "hating on Musk"? Which of the story's numbers or claims about SolarCity finances and production do you believe are distorted or misleading?
- hi5eyes 7y ago
  its difficult to critique tesla/elons decisions without running into the cult of teslemmings making it their personality of defending musk of any wrongdoing
- jsharf 7y ago
  Perfectly true facts can still create bias, by selectively focusing attention. None of this needs to be wrong or distorted.
  - mannykannot 7y ago
    > None of this needs to be wrong or distorted. The perfect defense against truth in any form.
- martythemaniak 7y ago
  It's more of a meta comment on which stories surface up on Hacker News and other media. The selection of content you get exposed to can matter more than the exact content you consume. I went for dinner to my in-laws a few months ago and my mother-in-law asked if I had heard about the Tesla that caught fire in Shanghai. I said, yeah but did you hear about all the combustion cars that had combusted that day. She had not of course. Didn't even know "normal" cars catch fire. Nothing against her in particular (she had seen it on a mainstream TV news program), I've had similar conversations with coworkers, aquiantances, on social media, etc.

wil421 7y ago

>the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, announced criminal charges against a handful of Cuomo staffers for rigging the construction bids for the Buffalo Billion program to favor the governor’s campaign donors. The man tapped by Cuomo to oversee the taxpayer subsidies, as well as a leading donor who received a $225 million contract to build out the Buffalo factory, were both convicted last year of conspiring to rig the bids. At the end of the article they mention the lack of car by New York State. Of course they don’t care, the decision makers already got what they and their rich friends wanted.

boyadjian 7y ago

Tesla is a Ponzi scheme.

standyro 7y ago
Ponzi schemes don't produce anything of value, like amazing supercars that cost <$50k. (I'm biased) By that same logic, any Y Combinator "unicorn" startup is a ponzi scheme. Overvalued, unrealistic investor expectations. Granted, this SolarCity deal was definitely not in Tesla's best interest... having chatted with a former engineer there who left because of their dysfunction.
- xkjkls 7y ago
  Most Ponzi schemes usually do produce something of value for those who cash out early enough. I'm not saying the comparison is apt though.
  - kelnos 7y ago
    Do they, though? My impression was that most Ponzi schemes generate cash for early participants by paying them with cash infusions from later participants. Nothing of value is created there; it's just taking money from suckers and giving it to unethical speculators.
    - xkjkls 7y ago
      That's still value for the early investors.
      - kelnos 7y ago
        Sure, but you're splitting hairs; that's not how the parent used the term "value".
- AndrewBissell 7y ago
  Literally lol at calling the Model 3 a "supercar"

DanCarvajal 7y ago

Musketeer's trying to keep this link off the front page.

wfbarks 7y ago

If Elon Musk gets taken down, then humanity should probably just throw in the towel. We (humanity) are in a boat that is taking on water rapidly. The guy working the hardest to patch the leaks is Elon Musk and all those that work at his companies (they definitely aren't working there for the money or the lifestyle) Solar City is a part of this vision. Articles like this and the comments section here at hacker news are making me very depressed about our prospects.

whenchamenia 7y ago
If elon musk was anywhere near the best humanity has to offer, I would agree. Thankfully, the facts suggest otherwise.

wfbarks 7y ago

He (and all the brilliant people at his companies who work so hard) are delivering to humanity, a future where we produce and consume energy sustainably, and are out in space exploring our solar system. Everyone at the companies is there because on some level they believe in this vision. So I (and many Tesla shareholders like me) am willing to look the other way with respect to his fiduciary responsibility. There are better targets out there.

dragontamer 7y ago
So was Enron, the company who was creating the future of energy. A future in which we produce and consume energy more sustainably. Enron wasn't tackling space challenges, so I guess there's a slight difference there. Look: fraud is fraud. If someone is lying to the public, it is wrong on that basis alone. Elon Musk could have done everything the same and simply NOT lied about it, and things would have gone far smoother. The workers at the Gigafactory2 plant have been disenfranchised due to this SolarCity issue.
- shiftpgdn 7y ago
  This is such a shit comparison. Enron was just a trading company. They didn't invent anything.
  - Marazan 7y ago
    That is certainly a statement.
- xkjkls 7y ago
  Exactly. Elon employs thousands of people. They deserve him to be forthright about their future.
- woodandsteel 7y ago
  >So was Enron, the company who was creating the future of energy. A future in which we produce and consume energy more sustainably. What in heavens name are you talking about? Are you really claiming that Enron was in the business of replacing petroleum and natural gas with solar and wind energy?

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spiderfarmer 7y ago

For all the negativity here about Musk and his business decisions, there is something to be said for integrating transport and energy services in one great package. I consult for a large energy conglomerate that wants to get into this market from the energy suppliers side, but the problem is that they are completely clueless when it comes to expanding beyond their traditional business. In their vision, they'll supply customers with solar panels, an EV charger, home battery, heating solutions and as a backup their traditional business: gas and electricity. All integrated in a nice package. It took them two years to set up a department that sells their first product (besides gas and electricity): an outdated EV charger, from a company they bought that stopped innovating after acquisition and is now lagging behind competition. Not a car, just the charger.

gamblor956 7y ago
It took them two years to set up a department that sells their first product (besides gas and electricity): an outdated EV charger, from a company they bought that stopped innovating after acquisition and is now lagging behind competition. Not a car, just the charger. Two years to set up the business structure isn't that much time in the scheme of multinational conglomerates. Especially when the market isn't yet that big and none of the other players are making meaningful profits. On a separate note, SolarCity stopped innovating after it was acquired and went from being #1 worldwide for solar panel installations to a very distant #8 in the US (and not meaningfully ranked on a global scale).
- kjksf 7y ago
  > On a separate note, SolarCity stopped innovating after it was acquired You're conflating innovation with sales. SolarCity was a financing business more than they were a product company. They were selling financing of solar generation via Power Purchase Agreements. Installation and equipment manufacturing was largely outsourced. That was a business model innovation and for a while it worked splendidly, which is why SolarCity became no 1 installer of solar in US. But the model stopped working which is why Tesla had to restructure the whole business. That's why their sales dropped: they stopped doing what they were doing. Acquisition happened at end of 2016. Just in recent weeks Tesla launched a "rent solar" scheme. It remains to be seen how it'll do in the marketplace, but it's a business model innovation comparable to original SolarCity innovation. They are also working on Solar Roof - another huge innovation with great potential. And if we're charitable, we can also throw the energy storage business in the same bucket: powerwall, powerpacks, megapacks. Winning high-profile installations and growing business at 100% YoY. Hardly a company that stopped innovating.

mrnobody_67 7y ago

Charlie Munger said - "I've never seen a board vote against the CEO when their livelihood depends on keeping the job". Boards are dysfunctional, in the best of times.

chiefalchemist 7y ago

One person's "gambled" is often another person's (e.g., entrepreneur)opportunity. Musk and his ilk are where they are for a reason. They don't fear risk, they go toe-to-toe with it and mitigate it. Words like "gambled" fit a narrative and get attention, but they are also misleading.

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AndrewBissell 7y ago
Musk and his ilk are where they are because of luck and enormous amounts of political rent seeking and outside capital to paper over losses. Musk's career arc is "internet yellow pages sold in the dotcom bubble" -> "payments company he was drummed out of so Peter Thiel could clean up his mess" -> "rockets and electric cars which have needed huge infusions of government and investor money to stay afloat since their inception"

Animats 7y ago

There are real "solar shingles", but not from Tesla/Solar City.[1] The big player is CertainTeed, which makes roof components. CertainTeed is for real; you can order those. The strange thing is CertainTeed makes both regular and solar shingles, but don't offer a matching set. DeSol has a product line of roof components, with solar, non-solar, and edge parts that all fit together. Theirs looks good, but may be vaporware. Tesla does have some "solar shingle" installations, but few; they're more like demos than a production product.[2] The big problem with "solar shingles", which are just solar panels mounted flush to the roof or as the roof surface, is cooling. Most solar panels have air space behind them. Without that, these things run very hot. Dow backed out of solar shingles several years ago because theirs kept overheating. So, no thin-film solar cells in that application. Somebody should have gotten this right by now. These things have been around since 2013 or so, and they're still marginal. [1] https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2019/04/the-latest-on-solar-roofs-solar-shingles-and-solar-tiles/ https://www.solarpowerworldonline.com/2019/04/the-latest-on-... [2] https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-solar-roof-long-term-review-homeowner-insights-elon-musk-solar-tiles/ https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-solar-roof-long-term-review-...

Animats 7y ago
Amusingly, the DeSol web site has a copyright date of 2023 on it. I sent them a message asking if the product existed yet. They sent back, from a GMail account, "Who are you". I replied that I'd signed my message with my name and sent it from my own domain, what more did they want? Asked "You're sending from GMail, who are you?" Got back "(HN does not do Unicode emoji)". So, not sure what to think of that outfit. They seem to have a good sense of aesthetics; no idea if they can make it work.
- GhettoMaestro 7y ago
  Let me save you effort - nah, they are dipshits. Next.
- hayyyyydos 7y ago
  > Amusingly, the DeSol web site has a copyright date of 2023 on it. It's a Wix website (which probably tells you a bit about the company) - many of them have Copyright 2023 on them[1]. It's a phenomenon I've noticed for a while, but never worked out why. If anyone knows the reason I'd love to know. [1] https://www.google.com/search?channel=fs&q="copyright+2023"&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 https://www.google.com/search?channel=fs&q="copyright+2023"&...

HNcantBtrustd 7y ago

When I saw the buy of solar City, I felt bad for Tesla stock owners and was angry at Musk for giving his cousins tons of money. After the Tesla thing ends, we are going to learn about the insider trading among the elite.

omarforgotpwd 7y ago

More negative news on Tesla drawn from interviews with short sellers. The journalist on this is famous for working with Jim Chanos, the short seller who was involved in exposing Enron. He is shorting Tesla and thinks it's the next Enron, and got this journalist to push his short narrative. I don't buy it. The economics of solar are great long term, and selling it with electric cars makes a lot of sense because a) EV buyers use a lot of power, and can save a lot of money with solar b) the electric car batteries also work great for storing solar energy to use at night What they're offering to consumers with their new $50 a month solar rental program is the ability to have a completely off the grid sustainable energy solution for your car and your home. That is huge. Have you heard about the multi-trillion dollar petroleum industry? Also the cars drive themselves better and better every day. Go try it. It's not perfect, but the car fucking drives itself with an object detection neural net and some traffic law heuristics. It's fucking amazing. Go try it if you don't believe me This short bet will blow up in their faces

xkjkls 7y ago
> The economics of solar are great long term Why? It seems like a flooded and commodified utility market, the opposite of something with great economics.
- kjksf 7y ago
  This is "no one goes there anymore because it's so crowded" argument. Solar is big business and will become even bigger (because the economics are great and becoming even better). Commodity or not, some company will make good money there. That company could be Tesla. As to blanket "commodity" argument: McDonald sells hamburgers, Coca-Cola sells flavored water in a glass bottle and StarBucks sells coffee in a plastic cup. There's money to be made in commodity businesses if you are big enough, have the economies of scale and the leading brand.
  - xkjkls 7y ago
    > This is "no one goes there anymore because it's so crowded" argument. This is a very true argument about the margins/economics of a business. If it is easy for competition to enter, it becomes very hard to make a high-margin, valuable business out of it. > As to blanket "commodity" argument: McDonald sells hamburgers, Coca-Cola sells flavored water in a glass bottle and StarBucks sells coffee in a plastic cup. All of these have substantial moats in either brand, training, or real estate. In what way does Tesla have any of these (brand matters far less for larger financial decisions like this) and why is it any advantage to any of these areas to have this attached to an electric car company? And in this area, they already are no longer the leading brand, and have fallen behind many other solar companies.

at-fates-hands 7y ago

This looks like a very complicated pump and dump case.

michael_madsen 7y ago

I have solar panels on my roof. The were installed on top of regular roof tiles, since my house was already built by the time I was ready to install solar panels. But if you are building a new house, I think it makes a lot of sense to use Tesla Solar Roof. The roof looks great, you get clean energy and the warranty is for the lifetime of your house, or infinity (whichever comes first). From a personal standpoint, I wish these had been available when I built my house. As for the gamle on Tesla/Musk part, I would say that this is a long term, strategic move. More an more energy will come in the form of electricity. The solar panel market is full of chinese panels to put on top of your existing roof tiles. But in the future, when the "normal" will be to generate your own electricity, people will want the cool roof that looks like a normal roof. Not then weird "add-on".

Proven 7y ago

The greedy crook used Tesla shareholders' money to save his and his cousins' investment (in Solar City). He doesn't care about "Solar City" as such.

auslander 7y ago

He should stop smoking.

munherty 7y ago

Elon has been quite open about the fact that he wants to just try new things. If things work great he gets the shift economy's, otherwise he just keeps going to the next thing. If you can't get with it then hop off

smallgovt 7y ago

There weren't many pertinent facts or details included in this story. The article focuses on how poorly SolarCity seems to be performing post-acquisition. However, hindsight is 20/20. The fact that the acquisition turned out to be a mess doesn't make it a fraudulent transaction -- many if not most large acquisitions don't live up to expectations. The facts that need to be considered to deem this fraudulent are the data/arguments that drove the decision to acquire SolarCity at the time of the acquisition. Mainly, were the arguments to acquire SolarCity honest and factual? Here is the acquisition pitch deck that Tesla put out at the time of acquisition: http://www.solarwakeup.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Tesla-SolarCity-Investor-Presentation.pdf http://www.solarwakeup.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Tesla-... Unsurprisingly, the author of the article doesn't address any of the primary points contained in this pitch deck.

SmileyRedBall 7y ago

The full title is ‘“HE’S FULL OF SHIT”: HOW ELON MUSK FOOLED INVESTORS, BILKED TAXPAYERS, AND GAMBLED TESLA TO SAVE SOLARCITY’. Makes me wonder are we in the middle of yet another Tesla shorting cycle. Buy some shorts, trash Tesla in the media, wait for stock to drop, then cashout.