Elon Musk says Tesla will only sell solar panels together with its Powerwall storage battery from next week
- Elon Musk said Tesla will only sell its solar-panel products with its Powerwall storage battery.
- On Twitter, a customer said their panels hadn't generated a "single watt-hour" since January.
- Musk said in January the company was working on integrating Powerwall with its solar products.
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, is going to shake up the way the company sells its solar panels.
In a tweet late on Wednesday, Musk said that from next week, all sales of the company's solar-energy products will come with its energy-storage battery Powerwall.
"Solar power will feed exclusively to Powerwall. Powerwall will interface only between utility meter & house main breaker panel, enabling super simple install & seamless whole house backup during utility dropouts," he said in a follow-up tweet.
Bloomberg reported that the announcement followed a complaint from Brett Winton, the director of research at Ark Investment Management, that his Tesla solar panels hadn't generated a "single watt-hour" since they were installed in January because he was waiting on his utility to approve the connection.
After Musk asked Winton if he had Powerwall, he replied: "Hmm. Yes have powerwall. Everything right now is switched off; just awaiting LADWP," that is, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.
Musk's decision hasn't come entirely out of the blue. He said during Tesla's fourth-quarter earnings call in January that the company was focusing on integrating Powerwall with its solar division.
It also comes a week after numerous customers waiting for installations of Tesla's Solar Roof product reported receiving new contracts that increased the price of installation by as much as 70%. It's not yet clear whether including Powerwall in all sales of Tesla's solar products will increase the price. Tesla did not immediately respond to Insider's request for clarification.
Are you a Tesla Solar Panel or Solar Roof customer? Contact this reporter at ihamilton@insider.com or iahamilton@protonmail.com.