Talk:SolarCity

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August 2008[edit]

I'm working on a series of articles about Renewable energy commercialization, and SolarCity is notable because it completed the largest commercial solar installation in San Francisco and received an Aspen Energy and Environment Award. The article has three inline citations to support what is being said. No reference to the company website is made and no company logo is included. For all of these reasons the article is encyclopedic, and not advertising. Johnfos (talk) 01:17, 6 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Technology description?[edit]

What is the specific solar PV technology of this company? Where is it described in the article? What sort of solar panel can be purchased with what amount of capacity (voltage, current, watts?) at what price, given some set of product volume (or wholesale/retail)? This article seems to be rather weak on the description of the company's product technology, or it's specific business model that allows it's products to be "better", or "cheaper." N2e (talk) 21:49, 28 July 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Reads Like an Advertisement for Solar City.[edit]

This is an awful article. It reads like it's an ad for Solar City. Near as I can tell people have had terrible experiences with them. Plus they bribe customers with a $50 payment to provide a favorable Yelp review. Read the Yelp reviews: the good ones are about a sentence and a half. The rest go into extensive detail regarding how bad the experience and product was. The company is characterized by hard sell tactics that would put a used car salesman to shame. This article really needs some serious editing. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.1.104.134 (talk) 03:36, 4 January 2014 (UTC)[reply]

End of 2008?[edit]

No mention that "...the company foundered.., the bank that had bank that had back their leases pulled out of the deal..." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Snori (talk • contribs) 10:17, 15 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

[edit]

The updated logo has yet to be seen on SolarCity's page, which has been on the official website for at least a year. That has not been reflected on the Wikipedia page, which I hope to see soon. CHAK 001 (Improvements? Please let me know!) 07:10, 18 November 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Last year they bought Silevo and according to their latest blog post they added 4000 employees for a total of over 9500. http://blog.solarcity.com/employee-spotlight-professional-athletes-at-solarcity-washington — Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.79.245.100 (talk) 20:38, 28 March 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Flagged as ad[edit]

Too much promotional material. Needs work. The heavy promotional content just got a mention on Hacker News.[1]. Looking back, much of the hype was inserted by accounts that edited only this article, then disappeared. Reporting at WP:COIN. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nagle (talk • contribs) 07:03, 2 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to see the same standard applied to all articles, specifically controversial articles: "inserted by accounts that edited only this article, then disappeared."
Good observation!
However, I learned much about SolarCity, which is what I had wanted to do in reading the Wikipedia article, since I think that Wikipedia for many people often is a first source for information about something we need to research further. MaynardClark (talk) 15:08, 2 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The solar photovoltaics industry has grown faster than anyone expected, see Growth of photovoltaics, and this company seems to be capitalising on this. Perhaps these factors account for much of the promotional tone. Johnfos (talk) 12:34, 4 December 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Number of employees[edit]

While the introduction states that "The company has over 13,000 employees", the info panel speaks of "300,000+". While 300,000 technically is > 13,000, it is confusing. I could not find any good source for an up-to-date number, unfortunately. 80.87.117.18 (talk) 11:47, 2 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I see that since your message @IanThePineapple: updated the article to include reference to an October 2018 tweet claiming 45k employeees. Tesla's 2018 annual report since claimed 48,817 employees. I've found this Forbes article from Jan 2019 that claims 45k employees, though this Verge article claims that they conducted lay offs the same month effecting around 3000 employees, which would place them at 42k by the end of January 2019. CNBC claims that the numbers decreased to 44,423 in January 2019, but then had another 8% reduction in March 2019 to 40,869. This would seem to be the most up-to-date reference to this and, unless anyone can find anything more accurate, I'll update the article to include this figure. The other option is to wait as this years annual filing should be filed in late February, which should have a far more authoritative (and up to date) figure. Itsfini (talk) 12:09, 22 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Numbers after 2017 seem to be for Tesla, not SolarCity. The numbers could be useful in a graph showing employees over time, as long as original research is not performed. A reference for SolarCity employees should show the number installing panels and making tiles etc, but likely includes storage department as well (Energy Division). TGCP (talk) 13:40, 22 January 2020 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Solar leasing[edit]

I've expanded the section but I believe it has larger implications than just SolarCity. It may need to be moved to its own article at some point, or merged to some article on solar roof-top financing. --Nemo 13:18, 15 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Edits reverted - Tesla Acquisition[edit]

@Materialscientist: can you please explain why you reverted my edits?

1. The statement that SolarCity was founded "based on a suggestion for a solar company concept by their cousin, Elon Musk, who was the chairman and helped start the company" was not supported by the source referenced. Do you have another source for that line?

2. It seems important to mention the controversy and litigation surrounding the Tesla acquisition of SolarCity. Those facts are highly relevant to the context, implications, and the timeline of the merger, and excluding them creates a biased account of events. What specifically did you find objectionable?

3. I proposed renaming that subsection "Acquisition by Tesla, Inc." rather than "Subsidiary of Tesla Inc. (2016–present)", as the section predominantly describes the facts of the merger and hardly makes any mention of developments since then. Stonkaments (talk) 23:06, 24 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This user's talk page says they "may not respond swiftly to queries", so I would appreciate any input from others as well. Stonkaments (talk) 02:56, 25 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I've added some additional details about SolarCity's operations since 2016. I'll continue to work on editing this section, and would still appreciate others' input! I still think it will make sense to break out the acquisition by Tesla into a separate subsection from the rest of the 2016-present history. But first I plan to clean up some of the wording and fill in some more relevant information from this time period. Stonkaments (talk) 21:31, 27 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I agree with you that the acquisition should be its own section. It is the most relevant and interesting aspect of this company. It is a red flag that the article glosses over something patently fraudulent while spending a lot of words on minutia (can't think of a more neutral way to say it). Violarulez (talk) 09:09, 19 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Change from a subsidiary to an acquired company[edit]

I recommend we change this article from stating that SolarCity is a subsidiary of Tesla, to say that SolarCity was acquired by Tesla.

My reasons:

  • I can find no official reference to SolarCity actually being a subsidiary of Tesla after the acquisition. I see that some news sources refer to it as a subsidiary, but they give no indication on where that information is coming from.
  • None of the statements by Tesla before or after the acquisition say that it will be or is a subsidiary.
  • The recent 10K SEC filings of Tesla do not mention SolarCity as a subsidiary. They do say: "We acquired SolarCity Corporation (“SolarCity”) on November 21, 2016. SolarCity’s financial results have been included in our financial results from the acquisition date as previously reported in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2016."
  • There is no mention of SolarCity on the Tesla website.
  • There are no "number of employees" for SolarCity after the acquisition date.
  • Tesla is now referring to "Tesla Energy", which includes solar panels, solar roof, and batteries, but isn't a subsidiary, it's another part of their business.
  • The battery business pre-dated the acquisition of SolarCity
  • The solar roof business was a new business after the acquisition of SolarCity.

I believe this would require moving some post-acquisition information back into the Tesla, Inc., article.

Please support, oppose, or comment. ReferenceMan (talk) 00:51, 21 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

  • Support, as this article is a bit of a mess on all fronts. We have to make sure the better developed content does not get lost though and find it all new homes. QRep2020 (talk) 07:09, 21 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]
  • Tesla's SEC filings for the merger proposal, as well as an amendment after the merger was completed, both state: "with SolarCity surviving the Merger as a wholly owned subsidiary of Tesla."1 2 It's not clear to me whether Tesla's solar products are still sold exclusively through SolarCity, or the rebranding to "Tesla Energy" means it's now sold/serviced directly by Tesla. Stonkaments (talk) 15:13, 21 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Article scope: Solar City (2006-2016) to its acquisition by Tesla ; or everything from 2006 to 2021 and beyond???[edit]

The article as it currently exists is a bit confusing. Solar City as a company was founded in 2006, and became a major player in the provision of solar panels, battery storage, and long-term leased solar electricity generation over the following decade in the US market. All this is well sourced.

The company ceased to exist as an independent entity in 2016 when it was acquired by Tesla, Inc, who has operated it since 2016. (a subsidiary, I presume, based on the discussion above on thie Talk page). It continued operating under the name of "Solar City" for only a short while, and has been operating as "Tesla Energy" for several years now.

It seems to me that their ought to be some article cleanup; but best to discuss it here on the Talk page first. In my view, this article (which as of today, 24 Jan 2021) is still named Solar City some 4 1/2 yrs after the acquisition) is mostly about Solar City the company and its first ten years. Moreover, the history of that company from 2006 to 2016, as an independent company is sufficiently notable that it can and should stay named that ("Solar City") in Wikipedia and the scope of the article can just be about that, with only a short summary of the "what happened after the acquisition" by Tesla.

The confusion comes from also sorta/kinda trying to cover the Tesla Energy of 2016/17 until today in the same article, where the link Tesla Energy today redirects to Tesla, Inc.. For example, the infobox claims Tesla is the parent; but that is only true for what the company became after 2016. It seems to me that THIS article ("Solar City") ought to lighten up on trying to be a complete source of all the details of the solar division after 2016, and allow those details to move over to wherever Tesla Energy is explicated on Wikipedia, which today is at Tesla, Inc. If it gets to large over there to continue to be in the main Tesla article, then that material can be split out, but not to the Solar City 2006-2016 article (this one), but to its own article to explicate how Tesla, Inc. has run the operation since 2016.

Proposal[edit]

To summarize more clearly: this article ought to explicate the historical company that was founded, grew, and existed from 2006 to 2016. Then, like many many companies in the US, it ceased to exist as an independent company, and its assets (including business contracts from the solar generation business) were bought by a different company.

In other words, just like the Glenn Martin Company that ceased to exist after it was acquired in 1961 by the Martin Marietta Corporation. Then, Martin Marietta merged with Lockheed in 1995 to become the Lockheed Martin. Wikipedia has good articles covering each of those three companies, and doesn't lose the Glenn Martin Company info in a giant mashup under the later company organizations. N2e (talk) 11:20, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Second. QRep2020 (talk) 15:24, 24 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Agree. ReferenceMan (talk) 04:45, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Propose to move "Buffalo Billions" out of this page, and into the Giga New York page[edit]

The main issue is that the contracts to build Giga New York were assigned fraudulently. There were no allegations that SolarCity did anything wrong. ReferenceMan (talk) 04:51, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

This article is written like a massive advertisement for SolarCity/ Tesla Solar. Perhaps we should do something about the advertorialism before we reduce the criticism? QRep2020 (talk) 18:23, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
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