TechCrunch reported that Tesla had removed solar roofs from the public pages of the official network and that links to related products and support pages were now moving to the Universal Solar Page. This means that this household energy product, which has been launched for almost a decade, has largely withdrawn from Tesla's main push list for new clients.

It was mentioned that there were still installations providing solar roofing programmes to clients, but the availability of supplies depended on the project schedule. This suggests that Tesla may still be in the process of disposing of existing stocks, rather than a complete cessation of delivery.

Installation target long outstanding

Solar roofs have been packaged as high-end house products with both power generation and building appearances, replacing traditional roofs and conventional solar panels. Tesla had proposed a target of 1,000 units per week earlier, but after years of process and installation process adjustments, the actual size of installation in 2022 was only about 20 to 40 units per week.

This product has been oriented to the high-end residential market from the outset and has continued to be overpriced. Tesla often compares it in marketing with the total cost of “to replace roofs with solar panels” to highlight the overall programme value. However, even so, some users still received installation offers of as much as $200,000, which is far above the acceptable range of ordinary households.

Cost structure is difficult to spread

Unlike standardized solar panels, solar roofs may use common silicon batteries, but they are more specialized in tiles, structures and supporting equipment that make it difficult to reproduce the mature supply chain directly. The continued decline in the price of conventional solar panels depends on large-scale global standardized production, which is lacking in solar roofs.

This also means that Tesla needs to design and procure manufacturing equipment for the product separately. When sales fall short of expectations, the cost of equipment and production lines becomes more difficult to share, and the cost of manufacturing and installing single sets of products becomes more difficult to reduce.

Power generation performance has been questioned.

It was also reported that the product had been used in practice with thermal deformation of non-power generation components and melting of materials at the bottom of the roof. The market is even more concerned that some users reflect that the actual generation of electricity from the system is lower than Tesla had previously expected.

One possible reason is inadequate heat dispersion. Ordinary solar panels usually leave a distance from the roof to allow air to move the heat. Solar roofs also have gaps, but space is smaller, which can lead to higher temperatures, thus slowing down battery efficiency. When the temperature of solar components rises, the voltage usually decreases and overall power generation performance is affected.

The integrated roof is still not completely out.

Tesla ' s contraction of this product line does not mean that the integrated solar roof concept is over. It was reported that companies such as GAF and Merlin Solar were still in the market, and that a group of customers that focused in part on building appearances could still generate demand.

However, Tesla's withdrawal would still put pressure on this track. As one of the highest-market companies in the world, Tesla has failed to scale the product, suggesting that such programmes still face significant challenges in terms of cost, manufacturing and installation efficiency.