Tesla’s new Solar Roof costs less than a new roof plus solar panels • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla’s new Solar Roof costs less than a new roof plus solar panels

#111

Post by joshcain » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 2:39 PM UTC

selectodude wrote: post #71

Someone1234 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. The electric vehicle incentives are very much designed that way. The rich get more money than the poor. The higher your income, the more you get back. I'd have to earn an extra $30K to get the full $7,500 (and switch from high deductible to traditional healthcare/cancel my HSA), whereas someone wealthier buying the same car gets every cent.

Not quite. That $7500 is a full on tax credit. Not a deduction. So as long as you pay more than $7500 in taxes, you get it all back. And if for some reason you pay less, you’ll get a refund.

No, he’s right. The EV credit is not refundable* so your tax liability has to be at least $7500 to get the full benefit of it.

* https://ttlc.intuit.com/community/tax-credits-deductions/dis...

Re: Tesla’s new Solar Roof costs less than a new roof plus solar panels

#112

Post by makomk » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 2:40 PM UTC

NeedMoreTea wrote: post #98

makomk wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

UK solar subsidies were particularly daft in this regard - because we're further north and have terrible weather, capacity factor is pretty awful compared to somewhere like California, plus solar is guaranteed to contribute a big fat zero to peak power demand (which is after sunset in winter). It basically just acted as a hand-out to wealthy home owners paid in part out of the power bills of the less well off. Someho…

...and yet it is particularly common in the UK for the home solar to be installed by a commercial provider (who don't get that subsidy, just feed-in tariffs), that provide the panels in exchange for the feed-in tariff from your roof. You get mostly free electric and sometimes some portion of feed-in tariff, they own the panels. If it was that pointless, this sort of deal could never add up, for either party.

Feed-in tariffs are a subsidy - they pay out more than the actual market value of the electricity, and that money comes from the bills paid by other consumers. This is especially true of the ones on older UK solar installations, which are higher than the retail cost of the electricity. There might be some justification for arguing that the ones in other places with much greater reliance on air conditioning and a summertime peak in usage aren't, because they could act as a form of peak shaving, but that doesn't apply to the UK.

This didn't happen because the numbers added up. The government mandated it for political reasons and all parties had to go along.

Re: Tesla’s new Solar Roof costs less than a new roof plus solar panels

#113

Post by BlueTemplar » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 2:41 PM UTC

tibiapejagala wrote: post #80

rootsudo wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would also say that Rich people pave the way for adaption. For example, look at prices of flights. Before there was no "first class" everything was first class, now there are cabin options. While that example is a service, more proliferation of service == wider adaption == increased scale of economies == eventually prices come down for everyone.

The trickle-down of the left.

Lol, the right went so extreme that the left is what would have been the right in Adam Smith's times?

Re: Tesla’s new Solar Roof costs less than a new roof plus solar panels

#114

Post by fiblye » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 2:42 PM UTC

annoyingnoob wrote: post #39

nraynaud wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans on average do not want denser housing. It's not part of their culture, they don't see the point, they want a backyard, and they don't mind having to drive all the time. I'm pretty sure that even the people benefitting for the wealth cities produce would prefer not to live there, and I think the development of rich people's houses along the CT coast attest to that, they try to balance the wealth of the city…

I think you are right that a lot of Americans do not want dense housing. One thing we are missing, especially on the west coast, is good public transportation. Its not that I don't mind driving as much as that I don't have a choice. I'd love to take a train/subway to work or to the next town over or to the big city nearby - but those trains do not exist.

Without dense housing, trains are just unfeasible. It'd take an absolutely massive network to spiderweb out into the vast suburbs of most cities and the costs would be beyond belief.

Re: Tesla’s new Solar Roof costs less than a new roof plus solar panels

#115

Post by belltaco » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 2:42 PM UTC

blurbleblurble wrote: post #110

hokkos wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incentiving rich people to buy expansive tech (and still at lost for the riches) help the technologies to ride the cost curve and bring it to the masses.

The masses don't own houses to put these roofs on. Because of concentration of wealth and return on capital exacerbating that concentration. Because of rent seeking pyramid schemes. Which I imagine artificially restricts demand for improvements like solar panel roofs: who has more inventive to invest in things like solar panel roofs? Owner occupants who are in it for the long term, or rent seeking landlords just tryi…

>The masses don't own houses to put these roofs on

Is this based off an SV mindset? There are plenty of homeowners that aren't rich around the country.

Plus less pollution in the air helps the masses too, with fewer health issues and less extreme weather on a long term basis.

Re: Tesla’s new Solar Roof costs less than a new roof plus solar panels

#116

Post by DFHippie » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 2:43 PM UTC

xwdv wrote: post #101

tibiapejagala wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trickle-down of the left.

You mean the right. This is exactly what is meant by trickle down economics. The left just likes to pretend that because money isn’t going directly in your pocket it’s all a scam, but that’s not the truth. Sorry.

> This is exactly what is meant by trickle down economics.

This is not true. Trickle down economics is the theory that money given to rich people will enrich poor people because the rich people will use the money to buy goods and services the production of which will require the labor of poor people. That is, this extra money at the disposal of rich people will create an economic domino effect such that money will ultimately end up at the disposal of poor people. In a trivial sense this is true. The theory is only interesting if this is an efficient way to increase economic activity generally without deleterious side effects.

But it never was the theory that giving money to rich people would spur research and development such that services ultimately were cheaper.

As to whether it's a scam, that is another matter. The allegation then is that the boosters of trickle down economics do not believe their own claims as to the efficiency of this process. That is, they believe, because it is tautologically true, that this will enrich those who are already rich, and they desire this, and the story about the efficiency of this process is a tall tale to salve consciences or win over rubes.

Re: Tesla’s new Solar Roof costs less than a new roof plus solar panels

#117

Post by makomk » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 2:43 PM UTC

Someone1234 wrote: post #35

bArray wrote: post #22

I think a major challenge that is yet to be addressed is the fact that solar panels lose their efficiency over time [1] [2]. Seems like you're looking at 80% of rated efficiency after 20 years - and I'm unsure this includes failures. In the UK a 50+ year old roof is very common - most people expect a house to outlast them without anything but minor repairs. If I were building a house I would want something where it's…

UK roofs are made and ceramic and slate. US roofs are made of asphalt. Mostly because asphalt is inexpensive (particularly due to economies of scale/lack of them on ceramic). Ceramic lasts a lifetime, asphalt can be taken out by one bad hail storm. UK homes are made of brick. US homes are made of fiberboard and inexpensive woods. There's a reason why UK homes have lasted over one hundred years, and most US homes won'…

Of course, since Tesla's cost comparison only works out if you compare their solar roof to one of those more expensive ceramic/slate roofs, it seems fair to compare the lifespan to those roofs too.

Re: Tesla’s new Solar Roof costs less than a new roof plus solar panels

#118

Post by navigatesol » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 2:43 PM UTC

zaroth wrote: post #59

The interesting parts of the call yesterday for me were talking about the challenges they have with v2, although we didn’t really get to hear much about how those issues were addressed. First, that basically everyone was pulled off working on Energy to deal with Model 3 issues because they were do or die for the company. Now with Model 3 under control those resources were put back into Energy - solar, roof, and stora…

>It is funny that this sounds like software guys talking about roofs, not probably the way that roofing guys would talk about it.

They do this because it fools Silicon Valley into believing this is a tech-company.

Having to cut tiles for odd contours or structures on a roof are not "corner cases" to people who actually install roofs.

Re: Tesla’s new Solar Roof costs less than a new roof plus solar panels

#119

Post by dsfyu404ed » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 2:43 PM UTC

blurbleblurble wrote: post #110

hokkos wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Incentiving rich people to buy expansive tech (and still at lost for the riches) help the technologies to ride the cost curve and bring it to the masses.

The masses don't own houses to put these roofs on. Because of concentration of wealth and return on capital exacerbating that concentration. Because of rent seeking pyramid schemes. Which I imagine artificially restricts demand for improvements like solar panel roofs: who has more inventive to invest in things like solar panel roofs? Owner occupants who are in it for the long term, or rent seeking landlords just tryi…

Outside some strips of land on the coasts much of the masses do own homes. Some people get them at 30, some people get them at 50 but for the most part everyone who isn't just bouncing around minimum wage jobs will be a homeowner. That's not to say that the home isn't just a trailer on land and that the location and/or upkeep of the home won't make most upper middle class HN-ers recoil in horror but the fact of the matter is that a heck of a lot of people are homeowners and most of them aren't rich by any stretch.

Re: Tesla’s new Solar Roof costs less than a new roof plus solar panels

#120

Post by navigatesol » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 2:45 PM UTC

hokkos wrote: post #36

rjkennedy98 wrote: post #25

> It also lists $33,950 as the price after an $8,550 federal tax incentive. There is something absolutely astonishing about the fact that in America the way we have go about being eco-friendly is to give huge tax breaks to rich people to buy solar panels and electric vehicles. To think with all that money we could build better infrastructure and denser housing. Really boggles the mind.

Incentiving rich people to buy expansive tech (and still at lost for the riches) help the technologies to ride the cost curve and bring it to the masses.

>Incentiving rich people to buy expansive tech (and still at lost for the riches) help the technologies to ride the cost curve and bring it to the masses.

Ah yes, trickle down never fails.