Tesla’s solar roof is dead — here’s what went wrong

特斯拉太阳能屋顶项目终结——究竟出了什么问题？

Nearly a decade ago, Tesla introduced its solar roof, which was essentially a mini-power plant that happened to look like high-end shingles, fancy terra-cotta tiles, or refined slate slabs. Now the solar roof is dead. Tesla has scrubbed public-facing mentions of the product from its website. TechCrunch has confirmed that the solar roof URL now redirects to its generic solar landing page on Tesla’s website, and all of the support pages redirect, too. Electrek was first to report on the product’s disappearance.

近十年前，特斯拉推出了太阳能屋顶（Solar Roof）。这本质上是一座微型发电站，外观却酷似高端木瓦、精致的陶土瓦或考究的板岩。如今，太阳能屋顶项目已经终结。特斯拉已从其官网上删除了所有关于该产品的公开信息。TechCrunch 已确认，原有的太阳能屋顶页面链接现已跳转至特斯拉官网的通用太阳能产品页面，所有支持页面也均已重定向。Electrek 最先报道了该产品的下架消息。

But like other Tesla initiatives, the concept might have a life beyond the company. Two solar installers told TechCrunch their company was still offering the solar roof, though one said availability would depend on the timeline of the project. That suggests Tesla is working to offload existing inventory. Depending on how full that warehouse is, the solar roof might be available for some time.

但就像特斯拉的其他项目一样，这一概念在公司之外或许仍有生命力。两家太阳能安装商告诉 TechCrunch，他们的公司仍在提供太阳能屋顶安装服务，不过其中一家表示，能否安装取决于项目的具体时间表。这表明特斯拉正在努力清理现有库存。根据仓库的库存量，太阳能屋顶可能还会存在一段时间。

Tesla had lofty goals for the product, aiming for 1,000 installations per week, but after years of refinement and process improvement, the project got to somewhere between 20 and 40 per week as of 2022. Tesla’s solar roof never had a bright future. From the start, it was positioned as a luxury product, and it only got more expensive over time. In its marketing materials, Tesla compared the solar roof with the cost of solar, plus roof replacement. That positioning made the product seem attractive, especially if you really didn’t like the looks of regular solar panels. But even when you factored in replacement, the product could be eye-眼ingly expensive. People reported receiving quotes of $200,000 to install one.

特斯拉曾为该产品设定了宏伟目标，即每周安装 1,000 套，但经过多年的改进和流程优化，截至 2022 年，该项目的周安装量仅在 20 到 40 套之间。特斯拉的太阳能屋顶从未有过光明的前景。从一开始，它就被定位为奢侈品，而且随着时间的推移，价格越来越高。在营销材料中，特斯拉将太阳能屋顶的成本与普通太阳能板加上屋顶更换的费用进行了对比。这种定位使该产品看起来很有吸引力，特别是对于那些非常不喜欢普通太阳能板外观的用户而言。但即使算上更换屋顶的费用，该产品的价格依然高得惊人。有用户反馈称，安装一套系统的报价高达 20 万美元。

Even as silicon-based technology got cheaper over time, the solar roof proved an aberration. Regular panels dropped in price because the world makes billions of standardized solar cells every year and assembles them into largely standardized panels. The solar roof might have used standard cells, but the tiles were unique to the system. That meant Tesla had to design and buy its own manufacturing equipment, and when sales didn’t materialize as expected, the per-unit cost of that equipment went up.

尽管硅基技术随着时间的推移变得越来越便宜，但太阳能屋顶却是一个例外。普通太阳能板价格下降，是因为全球每年生产数十亿个标准化的太阳能电池，并将它们组装成高度标准化的面板。太阳能屋顶虽然可能使用了标准电池，但其瓦片是该系统独有的。这意味着特斯拉必须设计并购买专用的制造设备，而当销量未达预期时，这些设备的单位成本便随之上升。

Physics wasn’t kind to the project, either. Anything that’s under full sun exposure has to deal with heat, and there were reports of the solar roof’s non-solar parts warping and roof underlayment melting. For Tesla, perhaps more troubling were reports of underproduction: The system wasn’t making as much electricity as Tesla said they would. It’s hard to say what, exactly, resulted in the underproduction, but a likely culprit is heat. Like many electronic devices, solar panels perform better when they’re colder. Voltage tends to decline by about half a percent for every degree Celsius. Regular solar panels cope with this by leaving a gap between the panels and the roof, allowing for some airflow to cool things off. Tesla did the same with the solar roof, but the gap was much smaller, which may have led to high temperatures that robbed the cells of some efficiency.

物理定律对该项目也不太友好。任何暴露在烈日下的物体都必须应对高温，有报道称太阳能屋顶的非太阳能部件出现了翘曲，屋顶衬垫也发生了熔化。对特斯拉而言，更令人担忧的或许是发电量不足的报告：该系统的发电量并未达到特斯拉宣称的水平。很难确切说明导致发电量不足的原因，但高温很可能是罪魁祸首。像许多电子设备一样，太阳能板在低温下表现更好。温度每升高摄氏一度，电压往往会下降约 0.5%。普通太阳能板通过在面板和屋顶之间留出空隙来应对这一问题，从而利用空气流动进行降温。特斯拉在太阳能屋顶上也采取了同样做法，但空隙要小得多，这可能导致高温，从而削弱了电池的效率。

So now that Tesla is pushing buyers to its traditional solar panels, does this spell the end of integrated solar roofs? For now, no. Other companies like GAF and Merlin Solar are still angling for a piece of the market. Plus, it’s likely that a number of buyers with specific aesthetic tastes will keep companies interested. Still, Tesla’s decision could deal a blow to the idea of a solar roof. If one of the world’s most valuable companies can’t make it work, who can? Maybe that’s an indictment of the entire concept. Or maybe it sounds like a challenge to an eager founder willing to prove Elon Musk wrong.

既然特斯拉现在正将买家推向其传统的太阳能板，这是否意味着集成式太阳能屋顶的终结？目前来看，并非如此。GAF 和 Merlin Solar 等其他公司仍在争夺这一市场份额。此外，很可能仍有一些具有特定审美偏好的买家会维持企业的兴趣。尽管如此，特斯拉的决定可能会对“太阳能屋顶”这一概念造成打击。如果全球市值最高的公司之一都无法将其做成功，还有谁能做到呢？也许这是对整个概念的否定，又或者，这听起来像是对那些渴望证明埃隆·马斯克（Elon Musk）错了的创业者们发出的挑战。