5 ms·

Tesla's energy storage business gets sucked into the company's downward spiral

102 points by rntn 1y ago

sokoloff 1y ago
With all the noise and uncertainty around tariffs and resulting supply chain disruptions, I’m surprised it’s only down 0.8GWh (7.7%) Maybe they’re running installs months behind sales and worse quarters are ahead.
- tonyedgecombe 1y ago
  According to the article the broader market is expanding.
  - sokoloff 1y ago
    The way I read that paragraph is that Q1 (the prior quarter) set a record overall, but it’s not clear whether tariffs hurt others in Q2 as it was in Q2 when Tesla’s installs fell 7.7% QoQ despite having slight growth YoY in Q2.
    - malshe 1y ago
      Tesla's installs fell in Q1 too: For the second consecutive quarter, deployments of its Powerwall and Megapack stationary storage products have declined, according to stats released by Tesla.
      - sokoloff 1y ago
        For Q1, Tesla installs were down 5.5% quarter-on-quarter but up 156% (to 2.56x) versus the same quarter a year prior.
jmyeet 1y ago
TSLA continues its years-long trend of not only defying fundamentals. Here are, off the top of my head, the current, serious risks to Tesla: - Brand damage done to typical Tesla buyers and in countries that subsidize EVs; - Downturn in sales in Q1 and likely future continued declines; - Likely loss of the EV tax credit in the US; - A likely upcoming recession with (currently) one quarter of negative GDP growth; - Tariff risks; - Competition, particularly from Chinese automakers; - Supply chain risks; and - Risks to the Tesla business in China as political and tariff fallout as the administration seeks to ratchet up a trade war with China. Yet Tesla still trades at a P/# of 173. TSLA is a bet on Elon. That's it. But it won't be because of any fundamental success in the business. It'll be a question of how much looting of government coffers it can do. Elon has realized he needs to diversify the business, hence the robotaxis. My bet is that will never go GA and likely will kill or seriously wound someone and get sued out of existence.
- k8sToGo 1y ago
  You forgot the software risks. Other companies already passed them.
- rickydroll 1y ago
  If Tesla's board of directors had any cojones, they would dump Musk and distance themselves from him and his actions.
  - baggachipz 1y ago
    He owns them all, they would never even consider firing him.
  - marcusverus 1y ago
    As the parent said, Tesla's PE ratio indicates that investors are betting on massive future growth, obviously because of Elon's track record of delivering on his promises of new tech (....eventually). If getting rid of Elon caused Tesla to be priced like other car companies, the price would go down by 90+%. No sane board member would consider that a serious option.
    - sokoloff 1y ago
      Board members are also significant shareholders, so they’d be tanking their own position (and would be hard to argue if they sold out shortly before distancing him that they had no insider knowledge of it).
  - darth_avocado 1y ago
    They are in a tough spot re:Elon. While long term, distancing Tesla from Elon and focusing on developing better EVs that out compete BYD, Xiaomi and other Chinese competitors would be the healthy move, they also realize that the company’s unreal valuation is completely tied to Elon and his made up storylines that never get delivered (FSD, Semi, Roadster 2, 4680 battery etc.). Dumping Elon would wipe out hundreds of Billions in shareholder value and the lawsuits would be brutal.
chankstein38 1y ago
That "dark cloud hanging over Tesla" has a name.
- marcusverus 1y ago
  [flagged]
- asteroidburger 1y ago
  Has a weird odor to it, wouldn't you say? A sort of musk, perhaps?
  - SlowTao 1y ago
    It hangs around for a while, like far longer than it should, almost Elon-gated.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
jeffbee 1y ago
Being a white-label outlet for Panasonic batteries in North America is not an amazing business, especially if you set your own brand on fire.
Alupis 1y ago
The "downward spiral" of Tesla is greatly exaggerated - almost entirely by those who hate the CEO's politics and therefore irrationally hate anything near him. Most of your other "big" car companies are also experiencing down-trending sales. Perhaps not the the same percentage as Tesla, but as soon as people are told to hate something/someone else, sales will go back like they always have. People have a short attention span - and only a minority of people wear their politics around as some sort of identity. An even smaller minority of the people cheering on the "downward spiral" of Tesla were ever going to be a Tesla customer (ie. a luxury brand car buyer). The "downward spiral" of Tesla is greatly exaggerated.
- 9283409232 1y ago
  It is and isn't. Tesla's downward spiral gets more media traction than other companies but that doesn't change the fact it is in a downward spiral. I may be one of the few people that read Tesla's recent financials and they are completely propped up by two things: Tesla holds a lot of Bitcoin which increased in value and other companies buy carbon credits from Tesla which is a large source of revenue for them. If either of these two things were to change, Tesla would be in a very bad situation. Rumor is that Trump is trying to kill the entire carbon credit thing. This would be a disaster for Tesla.
- bradfa 1y ago
  Honda Q2 sales are up year over year, and not just slightly. Figures came out today: https://hondanews.com/en-US/honda-corporate/releases/release-efbad212ba065e7c1707ccbdfa000646-american-honda-strong-sales-momentum-leads-to-june-q2-and-first-half-sales-increase https://hondanews.com/en-US/honda-corporate/releases/release...
  - erulabs 1y ago
    Well to be fair the new civic hybrid is a really fantastic car at a great price and exactly what most car buyers need. And additionally their model Y competitor the Passport is very nice and well priced. I’d consider Honda a bit of an outlier considering the quality of their offering this year.
- 1y ago
blipvert 1y ago
Go fash, lose cash.
- devjab 1y ago
  It's wild that the aristocracy has to re-learn that rule of law, equality and liberalism are sort of great when you don't want the king to be capable of taking your toys at a whim.
- thordenmark 1y ago
  Wanting the government to spend within its means is hardly fash.
  - FredPret 1y ago
    [flagged]
  - stevage 1y ago
    But that does not describe Musk's politics.
  - detourdog 1y ago
    [flagged]
  - dyauspitr 1y ago
    Is that why we’re spending $170 billion on ICE and increasing the deficit by $3.5 trillion?
  - mindslight 1y ago
    Sure, it's the support of fascism that's fash - fascist leader, fascist gestures and dog whistles, fascist bringing the bureaucracy to heel under one autocrat. If Musk manages to somehow help sink the big ugly spending bill, it could be the start of a long redemption arc. But I'm not holding my breath.
  - blipvert 1y ago
    Supporting the guy that in his last (single) term put the deficit up by $8trillion(!) doesn’t really support your thesis. Sorry ‘bout that.
foxglacier 1y ago
This article really needs to be a graph. From what I can make out: 2023 average quarter 15.7 GWh / 4 = 3.9 GWh [1] 2024 average quarter 31.4 GWh / 4 = 7.85 GWh 2024 Q4 11 GWh 2025 Q1 10.4 GWh 2025 Q2 9.6 GWh So I guess it's up from the same time last year but down from the peak Q4 2024? Maybe it's seasonal and it's actually growing not shrinking?? The numbers also don't distinguish between residential and utility installs. Maybe they had one huge utility customer in Q4 2024 that distorted everything? [1] https://www.energytrend.com/news/20250115-49006.html https://www.energytrend.com/news/20250115-49006.html
ProllyInfamous 1y ago
After helping take one apart, I definitely wouldn't ever recommend opening/servicing a Tesla PowerWall Two [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TvZG7o3F7Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TvZG7o3F7Y Seems like the engineering/design/safety is lacking.
BSOhealth 1y ago
Not unfair coverage. If your company is trading with a PE of 181 and your YoY sales have been decreasing at greater rates YoY (and we’re literally only talking about 400k cars, equals a >trillion valuation?), you deserve more scrutiny than many others, at least.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- teslaq 1y ago
  Perhaps the bad karma of DOGE/Elon being responsible for 14million impending deaths https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/01/politics/us-aid-elimination-study-14-million-deaths https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/01/politics/us-aid-elimination-s...
  - slashdev 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - teslaq 1y ago
      The Lancet, which came up with the estimates, is an internationally respected publication https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(25)01186-9/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... Also, ten separate global institutions co-authored this page -- is the conspiracy to inflate deathcount that wide-ranging? What factors on the Lancet's paper are you objecting to specifically? a Institute of Collective Health, Federal University of Bahia, Bahia, Brazil b ISGlobal, Barcelona, Spain c Facultat de Medicina i Ciències de la Salut, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain d Paediatrics Department, Hospital Sant Joan de Déu, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain e Fundação Ariel Glaser, Maputo, Mozambique f Centro de Investigação em Saúde de Manhiça, Maputo, Mozambique g ICREA, Barcelona, Spain h Institut Clínic de Medicina I Dermatologia, Hospital Clínic de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain i CIBER de Epidemiología y Salud Pública, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain j University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
didip 1y ago
Too bad. It's the booming part of the business. PW3 not compatible with PW2 is another bone-headed decision. I would have bought one if I can daisy chain PW3 to PW2.
kkfx 1y ago
Well... A personal take as someone who build his own domestic p.v. power plant with storage: - 99% of what's available on the market is NOT meant to be integrated, and that's a big break. I have and EV with a 400V battery and there are on sale p.v. inverters supporting 400V batteries with BMS canbus comms. There is NO DAMN REASON why my car can't be a powerful and big extra battery for my home, just no one have done so, because grid operators dislike semi autonomous people... - despite having many open stuff Tesla is a self-contained ecosystem, which is in general a bad thing and in particular if they do not offer nothing really complete in their own garden. I do want V2L and V2H for my EV, at least many EVs offer the former. Not Tesla. - heat pumps and cold/hot water storage could enable a big energy savings well integrated with p.v. so far only Toyota have announced an experiment of car+home p.v.+heat pump project and I still see nothing on sale. Tesla offer none as well, even if "they evolve the concept of heat-pump in cars"... So well... Why buy a PowerWall? A Victron MultiPlus/Quattro and Chinese batteries offer more power, more storage, more modularity at a cheaper price... Victron also offer an EV domestic charging station BADLY integrated with home p.v. (sometimes does not star charging even if there is plenty of p.v. available, charging settings are awfully limited, for instance you can't say "go full power with Sun, but keep going from the grid as needed at maximum X amps till a certain time" and similar not that strange nor complex logic)...
nico 1y ago
The stock market is a joke Yes, yes, I know it can stay irrational for longer than I can stay solvent But TSLA jumping almost 5% on news of failing earnings, is just ridiculous
hermitcrab 1y ago
I'm guessing there isn't much overlap in the venn diagram of people who buy green energy products and the people who want to be in any way associated with Musk. Musk has: -Alienated a very large part of his customer base. -Wasted resources on the 21st century Edsel that is the Cybertruck. -Picked a fight with the President of the USA. -Consistently failed to deliver on his promises. I can't see how this ends well for Tesla.
- bayesianbot 1y ago
  Might not (sadly) as directly affect the businesses but I hope we don't forget that his time in DOGE probably ends up causing ~14 million global deaths just from USAID: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(25)01186-9/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...

102 points by rntn 1y ago

With all the noise and uncertainty around tariffs and resulting supply chain disruptions, I’m surprised it’s only down 0.8GWh (7.7%) Maybe they’re running installs months behind sales and worse quarters are ahead.

tonyedgecombe 1y ago
According to the article the broader market is expanding.
- sokoloff 1y ago
  The way I read that paragraph is that Q1 (the prior quarter) set a record overall, but it’s not clear whether tariffs hurt others in Q2 as it was in Q2 when Tesla’s installs fell 7.7% QoQ despite having slight growth YoY in Q2.
  - malshe 1y ago
    Tesla's installs fell in Q1 too: For the second consecutive quarter, deployments of its Powerwall and Megapack stationary storage products have declined, according to stats released by Tesla.
    - sokoloff 1y ago
      For Q1, Tesla installs were down 5.5% quarter-on-quarter but up 156% (to 2.56x) versus the same quarter a year prior.

jmyeet 1y ago

TSLA continues its years-long trend of not only defying fundamentals. Here are, off the top of my head, the current, serious risks to Tesla: - Brand damage done to typical Tesla buyers and in countries that subsidize EVs; - Downturn in sales in Q1 and likely future continued declines; - Likely loss of the EV tax credit in the US; - A likely upcoming recession with (currently) one quarter of negative GDP growth; - Tariff risks; - Competition, particularly from Chinese automakers; - Supply chain risks; and - Risks to the Tesla business in China as political and tariff fallout as the administration seeks to ratchet up a trade war with China. Yet Tesla still trades at a P/# of 173. TSLA is a bet on Elon. That's it. But it won't be because of any fundamental success in the business. It'll be a question of how much looting of government coffers it can do. Elon has realized he needs to diversify the business, hence the robotaxis. My bet is that will never go GA and likely will kill or seriously wound someone and get sued out of existence.

k8sToGo 1y ago
You forgot the software risks. Other companies already passed them.
rickydroll 1y ago
If Tesla's board of directors had any cojones, they would dump Musk and distance themselves from him and his actions.
- baggachipz 1y ago
  He owns them all, they would never even consider firing him.
- marcusverus 1y ago
  As the parent said, Tesla's PE ratio indicates that investors are betting on massive future growth, obviously because of Elon's track record of delivering on his promises of new tech (....eventually). If getting rid of Elon caused Tesla to be priced like other car companies, the price would go down by 90+%. No sane board member would consider that a serious option.
  - sokoloff 1y ago
    Board members are also significant shareholders, so they’d be tanking their own position (and would be hard to argue if they sold out shortly before distancing him that they had no insider knowledge of it).
- darth_avocado 1y ago
  They are in a tough spot re:Elon. While long term, distancing Tesla from Elon and focusing on developing better EVs that out compete BYD, Xiaomi and other Chinese competitors would be the healthy move, they also realize that the company’s unreal valuation is completely tied to Elon and his made up storylines that never get delivered (FSD, Semi, Roadster 2, 4680 battery etc.). Dumping Elon would wipe out hundreds of Billions in shareholder value and the lawsuits would be brutal.

chankstein38 1y ago

That "dark cloud hanging over Tesla" has a name.

marcusverus 1y ago
[flagged]
asteroidburger 1y ago
Has a weird odor to it, wouldn't you say? A sort of musk, perhaps?
- SlowTao 1y ago
  It hangs around for a while, like far longer than it should, almost Elon-gated.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

jeffbee 1y ago

Being a white-label outlet for Panasonic batteries in North America is not an amazing business, especially if you set your own brand on fire.

Alupis 1y ago

The "downward spiral" of Tesla is greatly exaggerated - almost entirely by those who hate the CEO's politics and therefore irrationally hate anything near him. Most of your other "big" car companies are also experiencing down-trending sales. Perhaps not the the same percentage as Tesla, but as soon as people are told to hate something/someone else, sales will go back like they always have. People have a short attention span - and only a minority of people wear their politics around as some sort of identity. An even smaller minority of the people cheering on the "downward spiral" of Tesla were ever going to be a Tesla customer (ie. a luxury brand car buyer). The "downward spiral" of Tesla is greatly exaggerated.

9283409232 1y ago
It is and isn't. Tesla's downward spiral gets more media traction than other companies but that doesn't change the fact it is in a downward spiral. I may be one of the few people that read Tesla's recent financials and they are completely propped up by two things: Tesla holds a lot of Bitcoin which increased in value and other companies buy carbon credits from Tesla which is a large source of revenue for them. If either of these two things were to change, Tesla would be in a very bad situation. Rumor is that Trump is trying to kill the entire carbon credit thing. This would be a disaster for Tesla.
bradfa 1y ago
Honda Q2 sales are up year over year, and not just slightly. Figures came out today: https://hondanews.com/en-US/honda-corporate/releases/release-efbad212ba065e7c1707ccbdfa000646-american-honda-strong-sales-momentum-leads-to-june-q2-and-first-half-sales-increase https://hondanews.com/en-US/honda-corporate/releases/release...
- erulabs 1y ago
  Well to be fair the new civic hybrid is a really fantastic car at a great price and exactly what most car buyers need. And additionally their model Y competitor the Passport is very nice and well priced. I’d consider Honda a bit of an outlier considering the quality of their offering this year.
1y ago

blipvert 1y ago

Go fash, lose cash.

devjab 1y ago
It's wild that the aristocracy has to re-learn that rule of law, equality and liberalism are sort of great when you don't want the king to be capable of taking your toys at a whim.
thordenmark 1y ago
Wanting the government to spend within its means is hardly fash.
- FredPret 1y ago
  [flagged]
- stevage 1y ago
  But that does not describe Musk's politics.
- detourdog 1y ago
  [flagged]
- dyauspitr 1y ago
  Is that why we’re spending $170 billion on ICE and increasing the deficit by $3.5 trillion?
- mindslight 1y ago
  Sure, it's the support of fascism that's fash - fascist leader, fascist gestures and dog whistles, fascist bringing the bureaucracy to heel under one autocrat. If Musk manages to somehow help sink the big ugly spending bill, it could be the start of a long redemption arc. But I'm not holding my breath.
- blipvert 1y ago
  Supporting the guy that in his last (single) term put the deficit up by $8trillion(!) doesn’t really support your thesis. Sorry ‘bout that.

foxglacier 1y ago

This article really needs to be a graph. From what I can make out: 2023 average quarter 15.7 GWh / 4 = 3.9 GWh [1] 2024 average quarter 31.4 GWh / 4 = 7.85 GWh 2024 Q4 11 GWh 2025 Q1 10.4 GWh 2025 Q2 9.6 GWh So I guess it's up from the same time last year but down from the peak Q4 2024? Maybe it's seasonal and it's actually growing not shrinking?? The numbers also don't distinguish between residential and utility installs. Maybe they had one huge utility customer in Q4 2024 that distorted everything? [1] https://www.energytrend.com/news/20250115-49006.html https://www.energytrend.com/news/20250115-49006.html

ProllyInfamous 1y ago

After helping take one apart, I definitely wouldn't ever recommend opening/servicing a Tesla PowerWall Two [0] [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TvZG7o3F7Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TvZG7o3F7Y Seems like the engineering/design/safety is lacking.

BSOhealth 1y ago

Not unfair coverage. If your company is trading with a PE of 181 and your YoY sales have been decreasing at greater rates YoY (and we’re literally only talking about 400k cars, equals a >trillion valuation?), you deserve more scrutiny than many others, at least.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
teslaq 1y ago
Perhaps the bad karma of DOGE/Elon being responsible for 14million impending deaths https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/01/politics/us-aid-elimination-study-14-million-deaths https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/01/politics/us-aid-elimination-s...
- slashdev 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - teslaq 1y ago
    The Lancet, which came up with the estimates, is an internationally respected publication https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(25)01186-9/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6... Also, ten separate global institutions co-authored this page -- is the conspiracy to inflate deathcount that wide-ranging? What factors on the Lancet's paper are you objecting to specifically? a Institute of Collective Health, Federal University of Bahia, Bahia, Brazil b ISGlobal, Barcelona, Spain c Facultat de Medicina i Ciències de la Salut, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain d Paediatrics Department, Hospital Sant Joan de Déu, Universitat de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain e Fundação Ariel Glaser, Maputo, Mozambique f Centro de Investigação em Saúde de Manhiça, Maputo, Mozambique g ICREA, Barcelona, Spain h Institut Clínic de Medicina I Dermatologia, Hospital Clínic de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain i CIBER de Epidemiología y Salud Pública, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain j University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA

didip 1y ago

Too bad. It's the booming part of the business. PW3 not compatible with PW2 is another bone-headed decision. I would have bought one if I can daisy chain PW3 to PW2.

kkfx 1y ago

Well... A personal take as someone who build his own domestic p.v. power plant with storage: - 99% of what's available on the market is NOT meant to be integrated, and that's a big break. I have and EV with a 400V battery and there are on sale p.v. inverters supporting 400V batteries with BMS canbus comms. There is NO DAMN REASON why my car can't be a powerful and big extra battery for my home, just no one have done so, because grid operators dislike semi autonomous people... - despite having many open stuff Tesla is a self-contained ecosystem, which is in general a bad thing and in particular if they do not offer nothing really complete in their own garden. I do want V2L and V2H for my EV, at least many EVs offer the former. Not Tesla. - heat pumps and cold/hot water storage could enable a big energy savings well integrated with p.v. so far only Toyota have announced an experiment of car+home p.v.+heat pump project and I still see nothing on sale. Tesla offer none as well, even if "they evolve the concept of heat-pump in cars"... So well... Why buy a PowerWall? A Victron MultiPlus/Quattro and Chinese batteries offer more power, more storage, more modularity at a cheaper price... Victron also offer an EV domestic charging station BADLY integrated with home p.v. (sometimes does not star charging even if there is plenty of p.v. available, charging settings are awfully limited, for instance you can't say "go full power with Sun, but keep going from the grid as needed at maximum X amps till a certain time" and similar not that strange nor complex logic)...

nico 1y ago

The stock market is a joke Yes, yes, I know it can stay irrational for longer than I can stay solvent But TSLA jumping almost 5% on news of failing earnings, is just ridiculous

hermitcrab 1y ago

I'm guessing there isn't much overlap in the venn diagram of people who buy green energy products and the people who want to be in any way associated with Musk. Musk has: -Alienated a very large part of his customer base. -Wasted resources on the 21st century Edsel that is the Cybertruck. -Picked a fight with the President of the USA. -Consistently failed to deliver on his promises. I can't see how this ends well for Tesla.

bayesianbot 1y ago
Might not (sadly) as directly affect the businesses but I hope we don't forget that his time in DOGE probably ends up causing ~14 million global deaths just from USAID: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(25)01186-9/fulltext https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...