profitability
Maybe solar city is profitable. But then again, how hard it is to make solar power not profitable?
Well, Vivint is in the same business as Solar City and they aren't making money either. Part of the reason is they are fronting all of the costs against future revenue. They provide and install an entire system and get back something like $0.15/kWh generated.
An 8 kW array like the one I had at my last house costs Vivint about $22,400 to install. I bought on the order of 1000 kWh/month or about $1800/year. It takes about 12.4 years to break even. This is not the kind of investment I would make. I am taking their $2.80/watt cost from here:
https://www.vivintsolar.com/newsroom/press-releases/vivint-solar-announces-second-quarter-2017-resultsThe standard contract duration is 20 years so, eventually, they get their money back. In my favor, I get rid of $0.35/kWh PG&E costs, replace them with $0.15/kWh and put no money into the equipment or installation. Pretty sweet deal!
If I had to part with $22k in exchange for a payoff 12 years down the road, I would have never installed solar. Where I worked, if you couldn't get payback in 2 years, the project was dead on arrival.
This will be the situation for all "Power Purchase Agreement" installations. Of course there are some people paying full price and pocketing all of the profits. Generally, they will install smaller arrays and come up with less than optimal savings. They also own the equipment and are responsible for maintenance.
Then there was Solyndra - a complete financial debacle costing the taxpayers about a half billion dollars with essentially nothing delivered:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SolyndraThese emerging technologies are all money losers. What we need to decide is whether it is worth the startup pain for the gains down the road. I think everybody likes solar but they have no idea how much it has cost. It is nowhere near competitive with conventional technologies but it has the advantage of being 'clean'.
The current Tesla plant started life as a GM factory in 1962 that lasted until 1982. It was then reopened as the NUMMI plant (GM & Toyota joint venture) in 1984 and continued until 2009. In 2010 Tesla took it over.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Factory#FacilitiesThe factory was always a money loser for GM due to poor quality and strikes
http://autointell.com/nao_companies/general_motors/gm-manufacturing/gm-nummi/gmnummi.htmThe point is, Silicon Valley is an expensive place to live and an expensive place to manufacture. Tesla would have had a better situation had they gone to Albuquerque as they originally planned. I suspect California dumped more money into the project than New Mexico could afford.
Tesla isn't the only auto maker to lose money. GM needed a huge bailout (Ford didn't) and the consolidations over the last 20 years shows just how tenuous auto manufacturing can be.
Nobody makes money in the space program. There are no products, no sales, no profits. Yes, it could be considered a boondoggle were it not for the fact that we absolutely must achieve locational diversity if we are to survive. It's pretty clear that NASA is a dead issue so somebody has to work on it. The fact that SpaceX can recover the launch vehicles is pretty slick. NASA never tried to do it!
What the space program has done (and continues to do) is spin off technology. Integrated circuits came about when NASA needed smaller computers. These chips have come a long way in the last 50+ years but the impetus was originally NASA. Of course there have been a multitude of other developments along the way.
I am amazed at how much Elon Musk has created/developed. I assume he is making a bundle of money and good for him. The detractors have created what, exactly?