SCTY Acquisition makes no strategic, financial or operational sense!

[Norbert]

That makes three of us. Interesting choice of point in time, though.

(Will be interesting to see what effect the 3.7c/kWh solar power plant will have on lowering our retail rates in California.)

 

[Seesaw]

I think from a market perception point of view the acquisition needs to go ahead. Tesla needs to be different and innovative.

If the acquisition fails then Tesla will be perceived as a car company - and from a shareholder perspective that isn't good. Look at VW a million cars a year (many EVs) a quarter of a trillion dollars in revenue and a market cap of only 57 billion.

I know Tesla isn't VW, but acquisitions and vision like being a global leader in solar energy production and storage linked with sustainable and autonomous transport and charging infrastructure are just some of the things that will one day seperate a 60 billion dollar company from a 600 billion dollar company.

 

[googlepeakoil]

Thanks, googlepeakoil. Do you have a picture of one of those cells? Is Musk talking about a panel that will be introduced, or one that has been introduced?

Musk spent a lot of time in the conference call on the aesthetics of the panels.

I imagine the panels are black like SunPower and LG's with black edges.
eg. these 315watt panels (same size as an old 250 watt one - but more efficient) LG LG315N1C-G4 | LG USA
I doubt that the new ones are much different to either of the above.
The 5yr old panels tend to be blue. The black ones do look a lot nicer - but I'd call BS on Musk saying they'll increase the value of a property. He spoke about aesthetics as if a $400k house will look like a $420k house and then it won't matter you spent $15k on solar panels. Yeah right! On a square roof they look ok. I love my 4KW solar panel installation from a earnings / free electricity point of view (14x285w LG panels with inverter and installation cost £5000 to install - and due to connection to immersion heater also gives us free hot-water when it's not too cloudy) - but still glad they're on the back of my house.
in the UK we tend to buy these things outright (ie. cash or maybe in installments). For me it was a no-brainer - payback of aprox 7yrs due to the Feed In Tarriff and that pays out for 20 years - and I don't want to move house for 15+ years (though never-say-never). SolarCity sounds like they exist to arbitrage the difference between electricity costs and electricity earnings - and exist on a credit model so hold biilions in a complicated financial mess.
Note - the best solar-panels today achieve about a 20-23% efficiency (depending on if you quote panel or cell efficiency). And that really means on a really nice sunny day they WILL output their claimed wattage (not 20% of that amount). 20% means they convert 20% of the suns energy to electricity (not 20% of eg. 315w).

 

[googlepeakoil]

Source? Perhaps they need to update their Investors Overview page. It sure sounds like a car company, based on their own description. Perhaps there is a better description elsewhere. But why not there?

Didn't they rename themselves just "Tesla" instead of "Tesla Motors" because of Tesla Energy. So odd that it'd say this. Solar is key to Tesla energy - especially in Musk's vision. Also they predict energy storage to be bigger than cars!

I can't see why solar shouldn't have the same market penetration as Australia. In Australia 20% of houses have solar electric panels (making the distinction as there is also solar thermal).