inc

Widely reported allegations of solar panel blaze at e-commerce giant’s California centre come as Tesla and Walmart work to defuse the latter’s separate lawsuit.

Having just completed its first ‘Solar Roof’ tile system installations in the US, Tesla said in reporting second quarter 2017 financial results that production of the roofing tiles would not enter mass production at its Gigafactory 2 in Buffalo, New York until the end of 2017.

Tesla reported first quarter 2017 solar installations of 150MW, down from 201MW in the previous quarter, a 25% decrease, due to selection criteria biased towards customer owned PV systems rather than leased.

Major Japanese electronics company Panasonic has increased its ‘HIT’ (Heterojunction with Intrinsic Thin layer) solar module product warranty from 15 years to 25 years and applies to all HIT modules installed from 2017.

Panasonic’s solar manufacturing deal with Tesla at the former SolarCity 1GW solar cell and module assembly plant at RiverBend, Buffalo, New York State, which was recently renamed Gigafactory 2 by Tesla is to be ramped to its 1GW nameplate capacity exclusively by Panasonic in 2019.

Tesla, Inc reported significantly lower than guided solar installations for the fourth quarter of 2016, after the first quarter of integration of acquired SolarCity.