These small installations are mostly specialized by companies like Tesla (TSLA), Sunrun (RUN), and Vivint Solar (VSLR) while the bigger ones mostly belong to companies like First Solar (FSLR) heavily financed by utilities and asset owners like NextEra Energy (NEP) Partners and TerraForm Power (TERP). Even though it took nearly 40 years to reach the 2 million installations, analysts believe that the next 2 million will take only four years creating more opportunities for investors. According to the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) data, California accounted for 51% of the first one million installations thereby making it the industry hub.For the remaining one million, 43% of the installations are scattered across states like Florida, Texas, and Minnesota. New solar capacity is mostly composed of large-scale projects accounting for 58% of the 10.6 gigawatts of solar power installed for utility-scale projects in 2018.

Tesla shares are careening out of control this year. The electric car maker has skidded nearly 40% in 2019, tracking for its worst annual performance ever.The stock tumbled again Tuesday after Morgan Stanley slashed its bear case to $10 a share, down from $97, on concerns about increased debt and exposure to China.

Major automakers have announced a slew of investments in the United States since President Donald Trump took office in January 2017 and exerted pressure on the industry to create more U.S. jobs.

Tesla’s stock and bonds tumbled on Monday as investors worried about the automaker’s cash burn and problems with an Autopilot system that CEO Elon Musk has held out as key to the electric car maker’s future.

Ford will go through with its last leg of job cuts in the next couple of months. The automaker announced on Monday that it will slash around 7,000 jobs (~10% of its global workforce) by August.The move is part of a larger restructuring, intended to result in $600 million in annual cost savings for the company. Around 2,300 of the affected people are employed in the United States, according to Ford's spokesman (as reported by Reuters). According to Chief Executive Officer Jim Hackett, the job cuts include elimination of close to 20% of upper-level managers - a decision which is apparently   aimed at mitigating bureaucracy and speed up decision making. Most of the workforce retrenchment is scheduled to be completed by  May 24 in North America, and by the end of August in regions including Europe, China and South America.

The Trump administration plans to delay auto tariffs by up to six months, stopping itself for now from widening global trade disputes, four sources told CNBC.

Cadillac, the luxury arm of auto giant General Motors, appeared to not anticipate the insatiable hunger consumers have for SUVs and crossovers. 

The plant could begin its production as soon as the sale is finalized. In March, GM closed its Lordstown plant to reorient its attention on more profitable trucks and SUVs.GM’s Lordstown plant has built more than 16 million new vehicles over 50 years.

Volkswagen has claimed that pre-orders for its ID.3 electric hatchback surpassed 10,000 cars in just 24 hours. Read More...

Tesla Inc said on Wednesday it closed its $2.7 billion offering of stock and convertible notes and that it was over-subscribed, giving the electric carmaker much needed cash as it ramps up production.

Tesla closed its $2.7 billion offering of stock and convertible notes.The company says it was over-subscribed, giving the electric carmaker much needed cash for production. Tesla sold about $860 million in shares and $1.84 billion in debt, after the underwriters exercised their option to buy 15 percent in each offering.  Shares of the company were down 0.8 percent at $245.20 in trading before the bell.  Tesla last week reported a larger-than-expected Q1 loss as well as lower sales. It also showed dwindling cash reserves, ending the quarter with $2.2 billion, $1.5 billion less than in the end of 2018, thanks in part to a $920 million convertible-bond payment in March.

Under political pressure not to cut jobs, General Motors Co announced on Wednesday it was in talks to sell its Lordstown, Ohio, plant to an electric truck-building company and also said it would maintain some operations at a Canadian factory.

General Motors’ self-driving car division, Cruise, said Tuesday it received a $1.15 billion investment, raising the unit’s value to $19 billion. Read More...

General Motors, America’s largest automaker, is all set to join the cohort of producing electric cars just like Tesla (TSLA), Ford (F) and Rivian and plans to add an all-electric pickup to its portfolio. GM’s clientele has mostly been comprised of SUV buyers.Electric cars in general have been slow to catch up with American car buyers, even though electric hybrid models jumped from 195,226 in 2017 to 360,353 last year, but that is still less than 2% of the overall new vehicle market. One of the other dominating automakers, Ford, has been planning to launch its own electric cars for some time now and has invested $500 million in Rivian to ramp up its production.

In a new offering, electric automaker Tesla plans to raise up to $2 billion, consisting of a mixed bag of convertible notes ($1.35 billion) and equity shares ($650 million) along with a big purchase from Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk. According to the filing, Musk intended to buy about $10 million shares of the company’s out of the new offerings – accounting for 41,896 shares out of a total equity offering for 2.7 million shares. The move came only a week after the company’s CEO Elon Musk was questioned by analysts about raising capital for Tesla following its loss of $2 billion in cash in the first quarter of 2019. Following this announcement, shares of Tesla which had fallen in premarket trading, bounced back when the company revealed the details of its offering about the combination of debt and equity securities.Shares closed trading up 4.3% at $244.10 a share. Analysts have rated buy for Tesla’s stock, especially when after the last five purchases by Musk, the shares were higher by an

General Motors says it is considering a $1 billion investment at its Missouri assembly plant where it builds vans and trucks, state officials said on Thursday.  According to a report in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Missouri Governor Mike Parson said GM had outlined a plan to invest in the plant and add jobs.  Parson told the newspaper that GM is seeking a package of state incentives that would need approval from the legislature before committing to the project to expand its Wentzville plant, which builds the midsize Chevrolet Colorado and GMC Canyon pickup trucks, Chevrolet Express Cargo van and GMC Savana full-size van.

American auto-making giant General Motors clocked higher-than-expected first quarterly profit by cutting costs and selling more expensive trucks, like SUVs and crossover vehicles. However, investors are not quite happy as revenue dropped by 3.4% to $34.88 billion from $36.1 billion during the same quarter a year ago and also missed the Wall Street estimate of $35.28 billion amidst falling vehicle sales and sliding market share.The company’s total market share slid from 17% to 16.1%. On the other hand, adjusted earnings came-in at $1.41 per share against estimate of $1.11 per share.

Tesla is launching new shares and debt worth more than $2 billion, with Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk pitching-in $10 million as the electric carmaker gave-in to Wall Street pressure to bolster its cash reserves. The company said in the filing that it would seek to raise $650 million in new shares and $1.35 billion in debt, with underwriters having the option to buy an additional 15% of each offering, potentially raising the proceeds to $2.3 billion.

This comes on the heels of the electric car company's CEO Elon Musk reaching a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regarding the use of Twitter to disclose material information about the company. According to a 10-Q filing with the SEC published  Monday, Tesla indicated that its cash flow from operations should be adequate in meeting future expenses and near-term debt obligations, while adding that the company could seek alternative financing channels as well. For the first quarter, Tesla reported an adjusted loss of $2.90, compared to a FactSet consensus of an adjusted loss of $1.15 per share.Revenue of $4.54 billion, however, came in lower compared to a FactSet consensus of $5.42 billion. Tesla said that it anticipates a loss for the second quarter as well, but expects to earn a positive profit over the second half of the year.

Despite a 34% drop in first quarter net income, shares of Ford Motor rose above the $10 mark for the first time since August 2018.Ford’s adjusted profit for the quarter stood at 44 cents per share, beating an estimate of 27 cents per share. However, the automaker, despite its success in North America, is still struggling in overseas markets like Europe, South America, and especially China. To address these issues, Ford is shifting away from sedans to trucks, a risky bet that has so far paid off for investors.