Tesla halted solar roof installation due to supply issues; Some customers will be left without a roof for months

Tesla has halted solar roof installation due to problems receiving solar roof tiles. Now some customers will be without a roof for months.

Supply chain issues are affecting almost every industry in the world at the moment.

When it comes to its auto business, Tesla’s supply chain was not without challenges, but it has fared much better than its peers and managed to double its production last year.

Its solar business also grew over the past year, but it also began to be affected by supply chain issues late last year, when we reported on early signs that supply chain issues were affecting Tesla’s solar panel business .

In December, we released a report on how Tesla was starting to delay some solar rooftop projects. At the time, Tesla’s solar roof installation was not affected by similar issues, but things changed in February when Tesla began to worry about solar tile supplies.

At the time, Tesla informed customers who were about to receive the installation about possible delays.

Now a month later, the situation has worsened and Tesla has almost stopped solar roof installation.

electrek Received an internal communication from Tesla’s solar scheduling team asking them to focus on solar panel rooftop retrofits as solar tile is in short supply. In communication, the team committed not to schedule new installations.

The issue of supply is leaving some customers in precarious situations.

For example, Tesla Solar Roof customer Ryan Prizik in the Los Angeles area began installation of his solar roof in January by removing his existing roof and creating a “dry-in”—a waterproof condition of the roof with protective film. Before installing the actual roofing material goes over the plywood, which in this case is the solar tiles.

Here’s what it looks like:

At the time, Prizik was told that installation of the solar tile would take place within the next eight weeks and that the dry-in’s waterproof capability would last about six months, so it wouldn’t be a problem.

Now in March, more than eight weeks after the roof was removed, there’s still no solar tile installation in sight, and Prizik is starting to worry.

When contacting his Tesla roof consultant, which was not an easy task, he was told about the lack of solar tile and warned that their installation could not happen before the end of the year – due to the way dry-in’s waterproof before the period.

In fact, the roof has already leaked on two occasions, and Tesla had to come and fix it. One of the crew members who came to fix the leak told the owner that a large shipment of solar tiles was stuck at the LA port, but this could not be confirmed.

If such an ongoing installation is being halted for months, we can imagine that there will be significant delays for other planned solar rooftop installations.

Prijic is not alone in his situation. Several buyers with planned installations are reporting that their timelines have been pushed and there is little communication from Tesla.

Tesla is producing solar tiles at its New York Gigafactory, and its goal was to produce enough tiles for 1,000 solar roof installations per week, but it seems to be nowhere near that goal as solar cells across the industry But it’s hard to hold hands. ,

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