Tesla CEO Elon Musk revealed in courtroom docket on Monday that demand for Tesla Powerwalls stands spherical 80,000 objects, nevertheless the agency is not going to be able to make even half of that many this quarter.

Inside the “best case,” Musk said, Tesla will produce 30,000 to 35,000 of its home backup batteries inside the current quarter. He blamed the anticipated shortfall on chip shortages.

Musk was testifying in Delaware Chancery courtroom docket when he revealed the latest Powerwall steering on Monday. He was there to defend his place in Tesla’s 2016 acquisition of SolarCity, the picture voltaic installer, for spherical $2.6 billion.

Shareholders have sued Tesla alleging that Musk pushed for the SolarCity deal, was improperly involved when he should have been completely recused, and acted in his private best pursuits reasonably than Tesla shareholders’ best pursuits on the time.

Together with spending spherical $2.6 billion to build up it, Tesla took on SolarCity’s billions in debt and completely different liabilities and obligations. Non-public entanglements between the two firms abounded. As an example, Musk’s first cousins Lyndon and Peter Rive primarily based and ran SolarCity, and Musk was a md of the board at every firms concurrently.

The shareholders suing Musk moreover take into account he was not as clear as he should have been with all of Tesla’s voting shareholders about different options of the deal, along with the financial effectively being of SolarCity, and investments in its picture voltaic bonds by SpaceX, one different Musk-led enterprise.

In May 2015, higher than a full yr sooner than shopping for SolarCity, Tesla launched its Energy enterprise with an event to level out off its Powerwall and larger vitality storage merchandise. Musk touted the considered working Tesla’s electrical vehicles on clear, plentiful photo voltaic power, making them far more sustainable.

He pitched the energy storage systems as an answer to make renewable vitality further reliable, storing picture voltaic vitality generated by way of the day for use at night, for example. Via the presentation Musk pointed to Powerwalls mounted flat on a wall at the back of the auditorium.

The batteries may allow home homeowners to remain off the grid totally, or a minimal of avoid interruptions from blackouts. “It’s designed to work very successfully with picture voltaic strategies correct out of the sector,” he said, with out specifying a certain mannequin of panels.

He said that Powerwalls could be on the market in three to 4 months.

In courtroom docket this week, Musk suggested a singular story, claiming that the Powerwalls would not have been attainable to assemble with out shopping for SolarCity.

In an commerce Monday, shareholders’ attorneys requested Musk if he thought June 2016 “was not the easiest time for Tesla to be embarking on a $2 billion acquisition of a financially troubled agency.”

Musk said, “I don’t suppose that SolarCity was financially troubled.”

The attorneys then rephrased their question saying, “It wasn’t an outstanding time to buy any agency, lots a lot much less a financially troubled agency. Proper?”

Musk replied, “Actually, not acceptable. We had been beginning progress of the Tesla Powerwall battery. And in order to have a compelling product, you truly wished to have a tightly built-in picture voltaic and battery reply. And we could not create a well-integrated product if SolarCity was a separate agency.”

The courtroom docket may need to resolve whether or not or not Musk efficiently managed the Tesla board and compelled a SolarCity deal to happen, or whether or not or not shareholders and the board made that decision independently, based on all of the information the CEO was obligated to share.

Within the meantime, Tesla stays to be making an attempt to make its picture voltaic enterprise run profitably and simply.

The company reported $494 million in vitality revenue inside the first quarter of 2021, an enchancment from $293 million by way of the primary quarter of the pandemic yr, nevertheless its first-quarter worth of revenue reached $595 million.

Tesla does not disclose the breakdown between its picture voltaic and vitality storage merchandise, or its picture voltaic and vitality merchandise for homes and larger scale duties like its Megapack in Australia.

Tesla’s lots greater autos enterprise generated $9 billion in revenue by way of the primary quarter of 2021.

Inside the first quarter of 2021, Tesla abruptly elevated prices for its picture voltaic installations, and made it a requirement for purchasers ordering picture voltaic panels or “Solarglass” roof tiles to moreover order the Powerwall.

All through a first-quarter earnings identify, Musk said:

“There’s only one configuration. We can’t promote a house picture voltaic with out a Powerwall. That picture voltaic may each be picture voltaic retrofit with customary panels positioned on the roof, or it could be the Tesla Picture voltaic Glass Roof, nevertheless in all circumstances, it will have the Powerwall.”

After these price hikes, which affected some Tesla picture voltaic prospects retroactively, Tesla could be going by way of proposed class movement lawsuits in California and Pennsylvania from unhappy prospects who had already lined up financing and made changes to their homes to rearrange for Tesla picture voltaic installations.