Tesla has officially begun selling its company-branded solar panels across select stores. Photos posted by Raina via Instagram show Tesla’s newest low-profile solar panel mounted on a wall for display to visitors of the company’s Washington showroom store.
The sighting of Tesla’s solar product in its store follows recent reports that the Silicon Valley-based company has began pushing Tesla Solar marketing materials in its stores and tested a pilot program where it sold some of its solar products from the locations. The company deemed the pilot successful so it’s expected that we’ll begin seeing products like the Tesla Solar Roof and Tesla-branded solar panels start popping up in stores both domestically and overseas.
Tesla touched on the success of the pilot program in a Q1 shareholders letter, as reported by The Motley Fool:
“Recently, we tested sales of our solar and storage products in several Tesla stores, and saw sales productivity improve 50% to 100% relative to the best non-Tesla retail locations. Based on these results, we are working towards fully staffing more than 70 Tesla stores in the U.S. and abroad with dedicated Tesla energy sales people over the next two quarters.”
Tesla acquired SolarCity for $2.6 billion back in November in a move that was lauded by shareholder, but questioned by Wall Street. The acquisition created the world’s first and only vertically integrated sustainable energy company. The company has carved out a niche by combining Tesla’s battery storage products and SolarCity’s mass scale solar solutions infrastructure.
“It’s really all part of solving the sustainable energy problem, that’s why we are all doing this, to accelerate the advent of a sustainable energy world,” CEO Elon Musk said at the time.
Solar products becoming a staple in Tesla stores is just the latest step in integrating SolarCity and its portfolio of products under the Tesla umbrella. The company’s CEO and Musk’s cousin, Lyndon Rive, departed the energy company in May to focus on family and future products, while Tesla shifted SolarCity’s operating model from door-to-door sales to online and retail store selling.
Tesla has previously said it wants its customers to walk into any Tesla store and buy electric cars, energy storage solutions and solar products all under one eco-friendly roof.
