Once it was happened that Tesla’s stock dropped to its lowest level following another fatal vehicle crash and the Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk has to introduce more “hardcore” cost-cutting solutions to save the company from running out of cash.
Tesla appears to be delaying its plans to ramp up its solar business. According to reports, Tesla is exploring different products for its solar Gigafactory in Buffalo, New York, due to dropping sales. Also, there are the vast majority of solar cells manufactured at the plant by its partner Panasonic which are shipped to overseas rivals instead of being used in Tesla’s “Solar Roof.”
How important this solar product was to the automaker’s sustainable future?
Musk sold solar products as the missing piece of his clean-energy innovation. At a launch event in California in October 2016, Musk showed off new textured glass tiles Tesla designed to look like regular rooftop shingles. The company accepted big deposits for customer preorders and delayed the product’s delivery multiple times due to some variation of production issues and technical complexities. As reported, the company was not producing enough Solar Roof at its Buffalo factory to fulfill customer’s orders.
Critics have often highlighted such issues as proof of Musk’s unfortunate habit of overpromising and under delivering on his commitments. As Musk outlined in 2006, the company’s goal is to develop an affordable high-volume sedan (the Model 3) and then rolling out solar power in bulk. He even revised his master plan in 2016, in which he focused Tesla’s future entirely around the Solar Roof.
It has become clear that Musk has remained far from his grand strategy. The Company has not fully upheld the promise of a $35,000 (roughly Rs. 24.5 lakhs) Model 3 and customers are still waiting for their Solar Roof preorders to be fulfilled. Tesla has moved on new plans to develop a Model Y, a semi-truck and a high-end roadster. Till now, Musk hadn’t visited his Buffalo solar factory, the company recently laid off a subset of plant workers and has continued upsetting its solar sales channels.
