The reason I was given for them stopping was, not enough qualified installers around the country. Could be true, could be bullshit. The cost actually wasn't unreasonable for what they were offering, but who knows.
Labor costs are still costs in my book. If they couldn't pay to hire and train enough specialists, and generalists couldn't do the work, then that strikes me as a failure to meet the price point they needed in order for the product to be successful.
That could be somewhat true, but personally having someone come in and do specialized work on my home, something which required more knowledge then a typical worker in that industry, I can easily see how they don't have enough installers to keep up with demand. Even trying to find just a basic carpenter/electrician/plumber/etc to do work is beyond difficult at the moment. People are literally booked months out to do routine basic things, let alone installing solar shingles, battery storage, and being able to tie it all together into your existing home electric. It would require a company who can do roofing and niche electric work, not something most construction companies are able to accommodate. It's not as cut and dry as you might think.
There was a really interesting YT video I watched about a guy who chronicled the whole process, and the Tesla team did a shit ton of engineering and coordination with the local utilities and contractors. They were 100% committed to ensuring it was a successful, stress-free experience for the end user. I can totally see how that takes very specialized training to pull off. I also respect their decision to stop new projects rather than push out a shitty experience or installation.
We have a few houses around me that have the solar tiles... and they look amazing. Really easy to spot in the winter, as all the snow melts off of them while the houses around them have buildup.
Completely agree. When I got a quote from them and started going through the initial steps they would do with the project, there were MOUNTAINS of forms and charts and paperwork they were showing us about what they needed for the install, how they were going to maximize the solar output based on where the actual solar tiles were going to be vs the fake ones, what we needed to obtain from the electric company and whether or not the current equipment running into our house would be able to work with the Tesla battery, and on and on and on. It's definitely a very involved process and not something you'd be able to train just one company to manage. You'd basically need a Tesla company just to be trained to do the install and then scale that out across the US. I believe it was a pretty big error on their part, not having that infrastructure in place before rolling out the product, but I don't think it's a cost thing, or a malicious thing, it seems more like a proprietary setup which there just isn't enough skilled workers to launch it to the scope they were hoping.
Back when I was in the appliance world, Miele had some many general contractors fuck up their dishwasher installations that they started a training program and if an authorized installer put the dishwasher in, they'd up the standard one year warranty to five years at no cost. I could only imagine the amount of training and expertise to install solar roof tiles.
I tend to think that they kept the initial installers in-house so that they could figure shit out, get some experience, and then begin to train and certify third-party installers. That would be no small undertaking... there's a shit-ton to learn about all the different ways everything could go sideways, especially with the various jurisdictions with different codes around solar integration. Collecting all of that, then turning it into a proper training system is a multi-year process. I think the popularity/demand for them took off way, way faster than their training process could support, and now they're waiting for it to catch up. I know there's a huge wait list here in my area for Powerwall installs, never mind the solar tiles.
I'm currently going through the same issues. Having solar installed at my house (not Tesla for the record) and they had no issues finding the guys to come and install the actual panels themselves, but finding the certified electricians that can tie the battery system and associated electrical work needed on the main panel is still going to take another few weeks because there's only so many people that have the proper licensing on top of a lot of people getting solar installed in this area.
Quite recently apparently: https://electrek.co/2022/09/12/tesla-requires-powerwall-every-solar-roof-project/
Nothing on HGTV compares to This Old House. Maybe it's also on HGTV or something, I have no idea. I watch it via Pluto TV anyway.