Tesla Bought SolarCity

[MistaFreeze]

Anyone have thoughts about this?

http://www.wsj.com/articles/tesla-and-solarcity-agree-to-2-6-billion-merger-deal-1470050724

 

[z1ggy]

I believe Musk has gone on record saying they plan to integrate solar panels into the roofs of future Tesla cars. One way of getting them on the cheap is owning one of the top 2 largest makers of solar panels in the world.

I'm not sold on this move personally though, as the solar panels we installed on our EV in college (we built one from scratch) did not really provide much usable power. Just not much surface area, and you really really need to live somewhere sunny for it to make even a small difference. That was years ago though, and I'm sure the efficiency of the panels has gone up greatly.

 

[deadlyapp]

I think Musk is trying to incorporate them as the big picture to get off grid and stay off grid. With PV panels and a whole house battery combined with an electric car, you really could feasibly completely disconnect from the grid. If you sell that as an entire system, you're talking about a couple hundred thousand of potential upside per customer with long term maintenance aspects as well. It wouldn't be impossible to see that branching out into other very energy intensive appliances as well for efficiency sake (eg on-demand electric water heating, high efficiency furnaces, etc).

 

[z1ggy]

I think Musk is trying to incorporate them as the big picture to get off grid and stay off grid. With PV panels and a whole house battery combined with an electric car, you really could feasibly completely disconnect from the grid. If you sell that as an entire system, you're talking about a couple hundred thousand of potential upside per customer with long term maintenance aspects as well. It wouldn't be impossible to see that branching out into other very energy intensive appliances as well for efficiency sake (eg on-demand electric water heating, high efficiency furnaces, etc).

Very plausible, but suuuuper expensive (currently). It will take very long (and get lobbied beyond imaginable) for the layman to get off the grid 100% using a Tesla whole home system. The key is getting extremely efficient solar panels and batteries.

With that said though, I'm very excited and I think Musk is going the world a massive favor by keeping utility companies in check. If I was a huge utility/oil CEO, I'd be a little worried that Tesla will eat into my bottom line 10-15 years from now.

 

[twinrider1]

I thought Musk owned both of them already. I just read up on them and found that not to be the case, but not all that far from it. So I don't see this as a big deal.

 

[repoman0]

I believe Musk has gone on record saying they plan to integrate solar panels into the roofs of future Tesla cars. One way of getting them on the cheap is owning one of the top 2 largest makers of solar panels in the world.

I'm not sold on this move personally though, as the solar panels we installed on our EV in college (we built one from scratch) did not really provide much usable power. Just not much surface area, and you really really need to live somewhere sunny for it to make even a small difference. That was years ago though, and I'm sure the efficiency of the panels has gone up greatly.

Seems like a marketing ploy, if anything. The best current solar panels produce around 200 Watts of power per square meter of panel area. Assuming a car roof is between 1-2 square meters, that's about 0.3 to 0.6 hp worth of power generation. It might barely be enough to run the AC or heat.

Even if solar panels magically get to 100% efficiency, the sun only provides around 1300 W/m^2 of power, assuming no atmosphere or clouds, so it isn't that much better ...

 

[Udgnim]

makes Telsa a better short target

 

[desura]

I thought Musk did this to bail out Solar Coty.

It really makes no sense. Synergies? They could easily just do a cross-marketing deal to sell solar city products in Tesla showrooms.

Look at how fat he's been getting. He's like the over ambitious college freshman who takes on 21 credit hours.

 

[Brovane]

Anyone have thoughts about this?

http://www.wsj.com/articles/tesla-and-solarcity-agree-to-2-6-billion-merger-deal-1470050724

Musk is very much a risk taker.

From my view he should be focusing on the Model 3 and getting production ramp-ed up. This merger just adds to the risk but also adds to the reward because if he can pull all of this off this will just add to the value of Tesla.

He expects Solar City to become cash flow positive soon and by buying Solar City now he can purchase it at a relatively low value, the stock has dropped 50% this year.

 

[SearchMaster]

He must be a little cuckoo...married the same woman twice and is now divorcing her again because he was caught with Amber Heard, who was proven psycho in the Johnny Depp proceedings.

 

[Brovane]

I thought Musk did this to bail out Solar Coty.

It really makes no sense. Synergies? They could easily just do a cross-marketing deal to sell solar city products in Tesla showrooms.

Look at how fat he's been getting. He's like the over ambitious college freshman who takes on 21 credit hours.

Maybe that is why he is a billionaire and you are not......

 

[Brovane]

He must be a little cuckoo...married the same woman twice and is now divorcing her again because he was caught with Amber Heard, who was proven psycho in the Johnny Depp proceedings.

Musk likes the danger zone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwbKYcBdVyk

 

[gotsmack]

Very plausible, but suuuuper expensive (currently). It will take very long (and get lobbied beyond imaginable) for the layman to get off the grid 100% using a Tesla whole home system. The key is getting extremely efficient solar panels and batteries.

With that said though, I'm very excited and I think Musk is going the world a massive favor by keeping utility companies in check. If I was a huge utility/oil CEO, I'd be a little worried that Tesla will eat into my bottom line 10-15 years from now.

Very doable now for people living in places like San Diego.

Power wall + pannels and a small generator for those rare cloudy days.

Maybe have a device that generates electricity from natural gas?

 

[Mayne]

Musk likes the danger zone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwbKYcBdVyk

how do I get a dog/pokemon like this? Is it rare and expensive?

 

[TechBoyJK]

id still bang amber, crazy and all.

 

[poofyhairguy]

I think Tesla is crazy to spend that money when they need to devote everything they have to shipping as many Model 3s as have been ordered by 2018. If the Model 3 flops his plans are worthless because Tesla is done.

Personally I think this is him wanting to taste some success from Tesla. He put almost ALL of his Paypal money in Tesla, and even though it's somewhat successful it isn't profitable yet. He owned like 20% of SolarCity so this is a way for him to get a payout without the negative PR hit that would come from selling Tesla stock.

 

[Brovane]

I think Tesla is crazy to spend that money when they need to devote everything they have to shipping as many Model 3s as have been ordered by 2018. If the Model 3 flops his plans are worthless because Tesla is done.

Personally I think this is him wanting to taste some success from Tesla. He put almost ALL of his Paypal money in Tesla, and even though it's somewhat successful it isn't profitable yet. He owned like 20% of SolarCity so this is a way for him to get a payout without the negative PR hit that would come from selling Tesla stock.

He put more money into SpaceX than Telsa.

As far as the buyout of SolarCity, it is a all stock offer. This basically means that if you own SolarCity stock you wind-up with the equivalent in value of Tesla stock. So Musk doesn't wind-up with any cash in-hand unless he turns around and sells shares of Tesla.

 

[skyking]

I believe Musk has gone on record saying they plan to integrate solar panels into the roofs of future Tesla cars.

panels on a car = really stupid. I doubt that is a real consideration.

 

[Sabrewings]

panels on a car = really stupid. I doubt that is a real consideration.

No, it's more for the Tesla home system. They wanted solar panels to be part of the package and didn't want to have to go through another company for the high volume they're predicting. By buying Solar City, they're able to cut the fat and get the panels at cost. Even though both companies were Musk companies, they were still separate before. Lots of corporate fat that could be eliminated by combining them.

If you've followed how Musk has made SpaceX so lean and adaptive compared to other aerospace companies, this is no surprise. Bringing production for things you intend to use a lot of under your roof is a huge win in the long run. You incorporate all the existing revenue into your own and get their product at cost, all while being able to finely control quality (very important since a faulty outsourced part, one of the few SpaceX uses, caused the CRS-7 failure).

 

[desura]

Still kinda skeptical. Solar panels on cars show very minor gains.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/410454/does-car-mounted-solar-make-sense/

Now, if your car is sitting in a sunny parking lot most of the day yeah that is like 3-5 miles over the course of a day.

And so solar cells in tesla cars would be a very niche option. Hardly worth acquiring an entire company for.

This is a Solar City bailout. Simple as that.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I always said solar panels on roof of EV cars would be a great idea, nice to see it being considered. It would need to have some kind of solid and hard glass top though for when you scrape snow and ice off. The point of it is that it will trickle charge while you're at work. You drive from home to work in the morning, you're only going to use a small fraction of the battery, then it sits there for hours and trickle charges. For regular car usage during the week you will practically be driving on free energy. For longer trips or off days when you're running errands, then obviously it won't keep up.

Question is, is the extra cost worth it. Say it adds $500 to the price of the car, how long before it pays for itself.

 

[LegendKiller]

Still kinda skeptical. Solar panels on cars show very minor gains.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/410454/does-car-mounted-solar-make-sense/

Now, if your car is sitting in a sunny parking lot most of the day yeah that is like 3-5 miles over the course of a day.

And so solar cells in tesla cars would be a very niche option. Hardly worth acquiring an entire company for.

This is a Solar City bailout. Simple as that.

Solar City could barely fund itself in the securities market through ABS issuance, and only then because they went with 2nd tier rating agencies and kept switching their structures to deal with tax equity. After SunEdison they're likely to face much stiffer terms on their deals.

A friend of mine inquired as to why a big-3 rating agency wasn't on their last deal. The reason SOCTY gave was "Elon moves too fast for the rating agencies". Huh, the last time people moved too fast to properly analyze deals it fucked up the entire world. Luckily SOCTY is much smaller than that but Elon is just as ignorant. And yes, he has more money than me, but that doesn't mean he's not ignorant about it.

 

[skyking]

how long before it pays for itself.

Never. On a car it will never be at the optimum angle, and you cannot even park it in the optimal spaces every time.
Panels belong in an installation with the proper angle for the latitude, out of possible shadows, feeding back to the grid or to a large home bank.

 

[DrPizza]

Solar city got nailed in accusations of corruption in NY. Their huge plant didn't look like it was going to get funded the rest of the way. I'm guessing this is why their stock tanked and Musk got a great deal on it.

It's not for panels on the roofs of cars - that would be silly - like the fire department putting out a rain barrel to catch runoff from its roof during rainstorms so that it would have more water to fight fires. I want solar panels, but after a few announcements about the project in NY and bringing the costs way down on solar panels, while increasing the efficiency, I've been calmly waiting. I'll skip the roof top install though - I've got acres of field to put panels in. If there were a way for me to put in a couple acres of solar panels and sell the energy to my neighbors - and break even (if not make a tiny profit), I'd be all over it.

 

[gorobei]

No, it's more for the Tesla home system. They wanted solar panels to be part of the package and didn't want to have to go through another company for the high volume they're predicting. By buying Solar City, they're able to cut the fat and get the panels at cost. Even though both companies were Musk companies, they were still separate before. Lots of corporate fat that could be eliminated by combining them.

If you've followed how Musk has made SpaceX so lean and adaptive compared to other aerospace companies, this is no surprise. Bringing production for things you intend to use a lot of under your roof is a huge win in the long run. You incorporate all the existing revenue into your own and get their product at cost, all while being able to finely control quality (very important since a faulty outsourced part, one of the few SpaceX uses, caused the CRS-7 failure).

pretty much this.

tesla has the battery factory coming online/ramping to production. having home solar cells charging the super battery pack Powerwall which then charges your car at night makes the whole electric car infrastructure that much more viable and sellable to the public.

not sure if solarcity is the best company out there, but getting it at a discount and dumping the management seems a smart enough play.