Tesla sunsets its Solar Roof tiles

Tesla has discontinued Solar Roof, its solar panels designed to look like regular roofing tiles, Electrek reports. Sources “close to the program” told the publication that Tesla has informed its third-party installer network that Solar Roof is no longer available to order, and that only conventional solar panels will be supplied going forward. While Tesla hasn’t officially announced that it’s sunsetting the product, it’s made several website changes that corroborate the reported discontinuation. The dedicated Solar Roof page (tesla.com/solarroof) that launched almost a decade ago now automatically redirects to Tesla’s solar panel page instead, and the “Solar Roof” option is no longer available under the navigation menu for Tesla Energy products. The only products currently listed are Solar Panels, Powerwall, and Megapack. Tesla first revealed the Solar Roof project back in 2016, but only achieved mass production in March 2020. It was never a successful venture for Tesla. CEO Elon Musk admitted in 2021 that the company made “significant mistakes” with Solar Roof that caused over-expenditure and delays, and a Wood Mackenzie report from 2023 estimated that the solar shingles had only been installed on 3,000 US homes since launch, far fewer than Tesla’s target of 1,000 installations per week. Electrek reports that Tesla has now concluded that Solar Roof is not financially viable for the company. It is, however, seeing greater success with its regular solar panels, and is currently planning to build a new $10 billion factory near Houston, Texas, to ramp up production.