Tesla and Walmart announced that they have settled their dispute over the fires at Tesla’s solar installations at Walmart stores that led to de-energizing 240 large solar installations.
Earlier this year, we reported on Walmart filing a lawsuit that revealed several fires occurred at stores where SolarCity installed rooftop solar arrays.
The lawsuit alleged that Tesla, who took over the management of the system after they acquired SolarCity, was negligent in the maintenance and inspection of the systems.
They ended up de-energizing solar arrays at 240 stores in the US.
Walmart stated in the lawsuit:
This is a breach of contract action arising from years of gross negligence and failure to live up to industry standards by Tesla with respect to solar panels that Tesla designed, installed, and promised to operate and maintain safely on the roofs of hundreds of Walmart stores.
The lawsuit was quite scathing, but the two companies kept communicating and they have now settled the dispute.
They both announced today:
“Walmart and Tesla are pleased to have resolved the issues raised by Walmart concerning the Tesla solar installations at Walmart stores. Safety is a top priority for each company and with the concerns being addressed, we both look forward to a safe re-energization of our sustainable energy systems.”
It sounds like all the systems, which put together represent a large solar power generation capacity, are going to be reenergized again.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has recently said that he expected the lawsuit to be withdrawn as Tesla and Walmart were working together again.
As part of his deposition for the lawsuit over Tesla’s SolarCity acquisition, Musk said that Tesla has been having some issues with certain legacy SolarCity solar installations and they have a program, called Project Titan, to assess all the solar installations and see if a part with a potential defect from a supplier needs to be changed.
It’s unclear if the Project Titan is related to the issue with Tesla’s systems at Walmart stores.
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