Three years ago, Tesla said it planned to install 1,000 solar panels per week, which would have been 156,000 solar roofs over that period. However, Wood Mackenzie reports that only 3,000 have been installed so far.
Tesla announced its Solar Roof product to much fanfare in 2016, and three years ago the company announced its goal of 1,000 installations per week. Still, only about 3,000 Solar Roof systems have been installed so far, according to Wood Mackenzie, with a total capacity of nearly 30 MW (DC).
Wood Mackenzie has for the first time identified Tesla Solar Roof installations using its own project-level data set and summarized the key findings in a report titled “Five years on: Tesla Solar Roof deployments fail to meet expectations.”
“The Tesla Solar Roof, an innovative roof tile made of glass tiles with embedded solar cells, attracted considerable attention after it was launched several years ago,” said Max Issokson, research analyst and lead author of the report. “But granular install data has always been elusive, so analyzing product growth has been challenging—until now.”
Despite Tesla’s stated 2020 goal of installing 1,000 systems per week, Wood Mackenzie analysis shows that the average solar roof installation was just 21 per week in 2022, with the highest installation quarter being the first quarter of 2022, when 32 systems were installed per week.
Looking at the entire U.S. roof market, which installs an estimated 5 million roofs per year, Tesla’s share of the total roof market in 2022 was less than 0.03%, according to the report.
“As the solar energy industry continues to grow, solar roof solutions play an important role in offering customers flexibility and alternatives to traditional modules,” Issokson stated. “The future potential of Tesla’s solar roof depends on the company’s ability to simplify and streamline installations and tap into a wider customer base.”
Tesla is not alone in the building-integrated solar roof market. GAF Energy, CertainTeed, SunStyle, Suntegra Solar, Forward and Luma Solar are other manufacturers that have gotten into the game. Today, GAF Energy, a major residential roofing company, is the market leader in the subsector with its Timberline Solar product. Its nail-on solar shingle was announced at CES 2022, where it won the Best of Innovation award. What sets Timberline apart from Tesla’s solar roof is that the roof system directly integrates solar technology with traditional roofing processes and materials, according to Wood Mackenzie.
“GAF Energy’s Timberline Solar rooftop system is better positioned to achieve widespread adoption,” said Issokson. “The product is faster and easier to install, and the company captures customers when they are considering a roof replacement.”
Tesla has also had difficult times in the solar electricity installation market for residential buildings. In its 2022 Solar Installer Leaderboard, Wood Mackenzie noted that Freedom Forever surpassed Tesla in the top three residential markets for the first time, capturing 4% of the US market in the previous year. Sunrun and Titan Solar Energy held the top two.
