Tesla Energy Solar Sales Jump
Tesla saw a substantial jump in solar and energy storage sales in Q2, though not enough to get more than a brief mention from the company.
Tesla’s sales of their solar products have always been sub-par compared to their other products, including their Solar Roof product that they acquired when they bought SolarCity in 2017. This has to do with many factors, not least of which being how expensive they are for the return of investment.
Government programs to help homeowners purchase solar products haven’t been enough to support the sorts of numbers Tesla would like; but the biggest hurdle is likely the lack of availability of supplies.
The Pandemic threw the international supply chain into disarray, with some of the more complex electronic products still having availability issues. Tesla’s shareholder letter even cites this as a reason ramp-up of the company’s energy products has been slow.
“Solar deployments increased by 25% [Year over Year] in Q2 to 106 MW, the strongest quarterly result in over four years. Although we continue to experience import delays beyond our control on certain solar components, we have expanded our supplier base to enable growth in this business.”
This includes an 11% decrease in deployments of Tesla’s energy storage products - like the Megapack - due mainly to “semiconductor challenges” which are having more of an effect on the company’s energy products than their vehicles.
Despite those issues, Tesla’s energy storage products are also enjoying a bump in sales; most of which are from the several new pushes by governments like Australia and some American cities investing in the construction of large battery farms.
Tesla’s letter says that they intend on ramping up Megapack production at their factories to address this increase in demand, and hopefully shore up the deployment numbers.
Given the recent flurry of attention to the climate crisis, we’re likely to see those numbers climb as more and more governments get on board with modernising their energy infrastructure. If Tesla can keep up, they could be able to facilitate that green future that Elon has been talking about for years.