What's happening with Tesla's solar roof?

Summary

The Tesla Solar Roof tiles are still alive, but the product is on the back burner at Tesla as it failed to achieve its promises. When launching the solar roof in 2016, CEO Elon Musk presented it as a critical product to accelerate solar power deployment, as it opens up the market to people who want to go solar but also need to replace their roof soon. He said that he aimed for Tesla to produce 1,000 new solar roofs per week by the end of 2019. However, Tesla didn’t reach volume production of the solar roof tiles until 2020, and even then, it was at a fraction of the deployment it was aiming for. Advertisement - scroll for more content In 2022, Electrek reported that Tesla installed solar roofs for the first time and confirmed that the Company deployed 2.5 MW of solar roofs during the second quarter of 2022, equivalent to approximately 23 roofs per week, which is far short of its goal. Since then, Tesla has even further pulled back its solar effort – and even stopped reporting its solar deployment. Many people are asking what it means for the solar roof, which Musk touted as a revolutionary product. In 2023, we reported that Tesla began phasing out its solar business, particularly its in-house installations. Tesla shifted its focus on deploying Powerwalls and solar inverters through third-party installers. The same thing is happening with Tesla’s solar roof tiles. The company appears to be giving up on installing them itself, but some installations are still happening with third-party certified installers. Tesla doesn’t even give online quotes on its solar roof anymore and has people submit requests for quotes through third-party installers: “In order to receive pricing and product information, Tesla will share your contact information with a Tesla Certified Installer.” We are hearing less about solar roof installations lately, as Tesla has gone virtually silent on the program; however, some ongoing installations are still being carried out by third-party installers....