That or Musk is spinning this purchase of Solar City as a move to become a clean energy company instead of a way to salvage is investment in Solar City. JimN's hypothesis makes perfect sense.
link? afaik, over ½ of solar city's biz (& many other pv companies in CA) sell their systems outright - as opposed to financing them. As far as 'credits' - much of CA (major market) doesn't even participate in the whole credit program. That program was defeated years ago by many of California's utility companies. As far as solarcity's solvency, & presuming they are on the verge of bankruptcy, would you rather them go the way of solyndra? Get bought up on the cheap by China? .
Conspiracy theories aside, making/installing panels that generate the energy to be stored in a Powerwall (or similar Tesla product) in a utility application is a crucial area where SolarCity can play a key role.
The credits mentioned above are tax credits for installing solar. I haven't had solar city in to do an in-house estimate yet but I have had one of their competitors and talked to Solar city. The business plan is the same for either. I live in Oregon. A solar system to power my house is $13,597. I would pay that upfront or they will offer me financing. From there I would get $2,597 back from my power company as a rebate. I would get $3300 back from the federal tax credit in 2017. I would get $6000 back from the State of Oregon as a tax credit spread over the next 3 years. So after 3 years my net installed cost is $1700. That is the purchase option. They will also do the install with no money down but they own the system and they get the Federal, States, and power company credits. I can either lease if from them for $xxx a month for 20 years or pay per the kWh for the power it produces. These options are being pushed big time right now as most people don't have thousands to pay for a solar system and can't wait 3 years to get the tax credits. I can't go into a Costco or Home Depot without being asked if I want to get a solar system for $0. Solar City has taken on a lot of debt to finance these systems, both ones purchased by the customer and ones they own and lease back. As of today the revenue coming in doesn't cover the debt payments and the loses are rapidly accelerating. Finacials are here: Growth, Profitability, and Financial Ratios for SolarCity Corp (SCTY) from Morningstar.com
You are forgetting that Elon cares very little about money. I would imagine salvaging any investment is at the very bottom of his priority list.
PayPal is a finance company. As a co-creator, musk certainly knows how to make money with way less risk than electric cars, battery backups, & solar panels. Certainly musk's motives are more than just making money tho that's part of it. If nothing else, forcing the large car companies to make Electrics completes his task. They may not want to, but musk is taking away lots of easy profits from high end companies like Porsche Mercedes audi BMW etc. .
why can't musk behave more like donald trump? now there's a guy who knows how to make money without government assistance.
Haha, I assume you are joking. Also, he wouldn't have opened up Tesla's patent vault if he cared that much about money.
SolarCity also markets battery banks with their solar panels to commercial customers for back up power and peak/rate shifting.
