SolarCity

In a SEC filing released today, SolarCity released a presentation that Tesla put together for its institutional shareholders in order to sell them on the proposed merger between the two companies. In the presentation, we see what appears to be the first official image of the ‘Tesla Solar Roof’.

Update:  a source with knowledge of the matter now says that it isn’t representative of the final product.
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Tesla is set to jointly unveil with SolarCity its new ‘solar roof’ product on Friday. The event is planned ahead of a scheduled shareholders vote on a potential merger between the two companies. The companies recently sent a joint proxy statement package to shareholders sparking speculation about the new solar roof product.
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In this week’s top stories: Tesla’s ‘Model 3 part 2’ announcement brings fully self-driving hardware to all its production cars, Tesla/SolarCity announces new Gigafactory-like deals with Panasonic, and we tell you about the largest solar power plant in the world being proposed in Nevada. 
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Tesla already has a partnership with Airbnb to install ‘Destination chargers’ at the homes of Airbnb hosts, but if the merger with SolarCity goes through on November 17, the partnership will soon extend to also installing solar arrays through a new partnership between the home-sharing company and SolarCity.
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We were quite surprised when Tesla and Panasonic announced a new deal to collaborate on the manufacturing of solar cells and modules at the SolarCity Buffalo factory. And that’s not only because it was announced at 11pm on a Sunday night, but because of the implications it has on the solar cells and modules to be produced at the factory.

SolarCity got the factory from its acquisition of Silevo, a solar cell and module manufacturer. The company was developing the plant, which was expected to go online next year, in order to manufacture its own high efficiency ‘Triex tunneling junction technology’ for cells and modules.
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Some industry analysts suggested that Elon Musk was pushing for Tesla to acquire SolarCity in order for the automaker to help secure financing for a company that consistently requires more cash to provide it services with little to no upfront cost.

But it looks like SolarCity is doing just fine on the capital raising front ahead of the merger as it just secured another $300 million fund for a total close to $1 billion since the board announced it accepted Tesla’s acquisition offer.
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Late Sunday evening, Tesla announced a new partnership with Panasonic in the form of a non-binding letter of intent to manufacture solar cells and modules at SolarCity’s Buffalo ‘Gigafactory’, which the company just took over during the past few weeks.
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In this week’s top stories: Tesla/SolarCity announce upcoming events, Elon Musk challenges Big Coal, Google deploys its self-driving Chrysler Pacifica minivans, and much more.

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SolarCity’s CEO, Lyndon Rive, said this week that the company should “definitely increase forecasts” for next year because of the upcoming new products that the company will unveil in a joint event with Tesla at the end of the month.

We already reported on how the integration of all three products to be unveiled on October 28, ‘solar roof’, Tesla Powerwall 2.0′, and Tesla charger, will be key to the overall offering of the new combined companies.

Though we learned today that the companies will not be merged by the time they unveil the new products since the proposed merger is only going to a shareholders vote on November 17. It’s likely that Tesla will phase out the ‘SolarCity’ brand after the merger since the company applied for trademarks to sell solar products under its own ‘Tesla’ brand, as we previously reported.
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In a joint SEC filing released today, Tesla and SolarCity confirmed that they will be holding the vote on the proposed merger on November 17. SolarCity’s board of directors approved the $2.6 billion deal in August and both companies have since been working to bring the proposal to a shareholders vote.

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Last month, we reported that Tesla disclosed that it was fighting 4 different lawsuits from stockholders over the SolarCity merger alleging breached of fiduciary duties in connection with the proposed merger . We now learn that the number has gone up to 7 lawsuits against Tesla CEO Elon Musk ahead of a scheduled court hearing to consolidate the actions on October 14th.
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In a surprising follow-up after his announcement that Tesla will hold a product unveiling next week on the 17th, CEO Elon Musk said that Tesla nor SolarCity will need to raise equity or debt before the end of the year, and “probably not in Q1 2017 either”.
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Tesla CEO Elon Musk took to Twitter this afternoon to announce an unexpected product launch event on October 17th, just a week away. He further noted that the expected Tesla/SolarCity announcement, which he previously hoped to hold at the end of the month, would indeed be on October 28th…
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In this week’s top stories: News that Tesla is doubling Powerpack energy capacity with the Gigafactory’s new battery cells, Toyota reveals a $27,100 price tag for its Prius Prime plug-in hybrid, details on SolarCity/Tesla’s upcoming ‘Solar Roof’, and much more.

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There’s been a lot of speculations since Elon Musk announced that Tesla and SolarCity will unveil a new ‘Solar Roof’ product. Some think that they will try to bring to market ‘solar shingles’, something several other companies have tried and failed to deliver successfully, while others think it will be a more innovative product.

Last month, we reported on a new product called “Solar Roofing” by Forward Labs. In his article about the concept, Seth suggested that it could give us an idea of what Tesla/SolarCity’s ‘Solar roof’ could be. It was only an educated guess, but as it turns out, a source with knowledge of the product program confirms that his intuition was right. 
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In this week’s top stories: Solar costs are down 25% in five months, Tesla Gigafactory doubles in size in our September update,  Mercedes unveils its all-electric ‘EQ’ brand, and much more.

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Until recently, Tesla hasn’t been really active on the merger and acquisition front. The automaker bought a small tool and die manufacturer in Michigan last year and it also unsuccessfully tried to buy a lithium startup for $325 million back in 2014.

But through its $2.6 billion proposed acquisition of SolarCity, the new ‘Tesla Solar’ would benefit from SolarCity’s several own acquisitions in recent years, including Zep Solar, a maker of mounting equipment for solar panels, Silevo, a maker of solar panels, and ILIOSS, a solar installer in Mexico – the first country in which SolarCity has been expanding outside of the US.
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Last month, a few weeks after SolarCity’s board officially accepted to bring to a shareholders vote the acquisition offer from Tesla, the solar installer announced some restructuring in the form of layoffs and pay cuts for the co-founders, Lyndon Rive and Peter Rive.

Today, SolarCity followed its restructuring at the executive level ahead of the merger. President and Chief Operating Officer Tanguy Serra will be leaving the company and Executive Vice President of Global Capital Markets, Radford Small, has been promoted to the role of Chief Financial Officer.
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In this week’s top stories: A first look at Tesla’s v8.0 software update, VW’s electric range claims, and a Tesla Model S P100D takes on a $200,000 Lamborghini Huracan in this week’s top video.

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We don’t know much about the SolarCity solar panels that are coming out of the South Buffalo plant but Chairman and likely soon CEO of the combined Tesla/Solar City entity Elon Musk told investors last month:

“It’s a solar roof, as opposed to modules on a roof.”

Musk continued:
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