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

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

#251

Post by ianai »

s_y_n_t_a_x wrote: post #247
ianai wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He prioritizes speed apparently at the cost of anything else. I wonder why he feels such urgency? I mean yeah he finally got a profit out of Tesla last quarter. But there’s really no tolerance for hiccups in a roof install.

Isn't speed a very important factor when addressing climate change? I thought replacing ICE engines and developing more in renewable energy would be accepted.

Speed is of course great. But you still have to engineer and execute properly. I was hoping HN knew where he was getting his urgency from other than the obvious. Like is he short on money.

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

#252

Post by ravedave5 »

dmckeon wrote: post #229

> And we’re actually going to have […] ‘installathons,’ ” Musk said, which will pit two teams against each other to see who can roof one of two similar-sized/designed roofs faster. Musk reiterated later that there’s “quite a bit of R&D just in the installation process itself.” Not a short seller, but that sounds a lot like: “We don’t yet know how to do this well, but in the meantime we are going to optimize for speed…

Have you ever seen roofers work? They move like there's a storm coming all day. Total hustle, it's why existing roof installs are relatively cheap. It makes sense that they need to ptiomize for near same amount of time.

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

#254

Post by alanh »

HeWhoLurksLate wrote: post #204
jandrese wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you shop around it's abundantly clear that the price of a new roof varies wildly. Some of it is materials. The guy offering 50 year warranty GAF super-premium install who spots loads of potential problems up front and factors them into the cost is going to run much higher. The guy who is just going to hire some rando non-english speaking guys from the 7-11 and toss on the cheapest possible materials without concer…

> Who is going to hire some rando non-english speaking guys from the 7-11 You know you didn't have to put non-english speaking in there, right? Totally unnecessary and shows potential racial bias. (I'm not perfect either, and it bugs me when I say stuff like that too.)

Rolling my eyes here, bud. You’re missing the forest for the non-PC tree.

I met someone who could have been described as a “non-English-speaking roofer.” (Not Latino, fwiw.) He says he was essentially enslaved by the guy running the contracting company, and he had no recourse as no one spoke his language.

That’s the real issue, not phrasing quibbles

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

#255

Post by AnthonyMouse »

macspoofing wrote: post #246
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Natural gas ramps as quickly as it can. But let's assume that's true, that's not a point against me, it's a point against solar because then it means that solar is completely unworkable. You're thinking about this wrong. If you want 100% generation from solar then you need a ton of storage, period. But who says it has to be 100% solar or 0? Take a look at the daily electricity demand curve. Lower at night, higher d…

>And in that case your natural gas plants only have to run for a couple of hours between sunset and bedtime instead of all day long. Right. So we agree, solar cannot remove carbon emissions. And I thought the entire point is to remove fossil fuels entirely from energy generation, not just reduce it. >you use nuclear at night It doesn't work like that. Nuclear can take days to ramp up and ramp down. Solar does not pla…

> So we agree, solar cannot remove carbon emissions.

Except for all the carbon emissions it does remove while the sun is shining and you didn't have to run that natural gas plant for 14 hours instead of 2.

> It doesn't work like that. Nuclear can take days to ramp up and ramp down. Solar does not play well with nuclear.

You don't ramp it up and down at all. You have 100GW of demand at night and 200GW during the day, so you have 100GW of nuclear and 100GW of solar. Nuclear generates 100GW night and day and the solar generates an additional 100GW during the day.

> A more major issue is...if you're using nuclear, why the heck do you even need solar?

Because it's cheaper during the day and there is more demand during the day.

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

#256

Post by ZeroGravitas »

navigatesol wrote: post #109
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #85

I quite like this product and think it'll be a big thing. I do wonder about a comparison to what I've seen recently, which is standard roofs with solar built in almost like skylights. Just big panels at the same level as the tiles, not placed on top in a retrofit. Seems like it's a good compromise (as long as you can get panels that blend with the tiles, and that generate enough that you don't need the whole roof cov…

> I quite like this product and think it'll be a big thing. Do you like it more than when they released it 3 years ago, but never installed any? Can someone point me to the V1 and V2 installations?

Yeah, I did actually. Similar to electric cars or open source it's possible to spot the potential of an idea when it's still in its infancy and not really ready for prime time in every circumstance.

Roofs that generate make a lot of sense and many jurisdictions will mandate some kind of net zero build for new houses. I think there's a lot of room at the top of the market for this kind of product and it will just be standard at some point in the future.

How much of that market Tesla gets and keeps is a harder question, but combining roofing with solar is too obviously sensible to fail I think.

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

#257

Post by carlivar »

api wrote: post #244
dmckeon wrote: post #229

> And we’re actually going to have […] ‘installathons,’ ” Musk said, which will pit two teams against each other to see who can roof one of two similar-sized/designed roofs faster. Musk reiterated later that there’s “quite a bit of R&D just in the installation process itself.” Not a short seller, but that sounds a lot like: “We don’t yet know how to do this well, but in the meantime we are going to optimize for speed…

"Great artists ship" - Steve Jobs (apocryphal?) It's better to ship and start iterating than to sit around and refine without sufficient real world feedback.

Cool, where is a v3 solar roof tile that's shipping?

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

#258

Post by carlivar »

s_y_n_t_a_x wrote: post #247
ianai wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He prioritizes speed apparently at the cost of anything else. I wonder why he feels such urgency? I mean yeah he finally got a profit out of Tesla last quarter. But there’s really no tolerance for hiccups in a roof install.

Isn't speed a very important factor when addressing climate change? I thought replacing ICE engines and developing more in renewable energy would be accepted.

Musk rejects Kanban and Toyota Production System. Chaotic pressure is only one type of production speed.

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

#259

Post by dvdbloc »

zaroth wrote: post #43
mikorym wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if they should just skip comparing it with a normal roof or normal roof + solar. A Model 3 is way more expensive than the average ICE sedan; people buy it anyway.

You get to drive the Model 3.

Also easier to get rid of your Model 3 and recoup some money if you don’t like it. Not so with your roof

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

#260

Post by OnlineGladiator »

ianai wrote: post #251
s_y_n_t_a_x wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't speed a very important factor when addressing climate change? I thought replacing ICE engines and developing more in renewable energy would be accepted.

Speed is of course great. But you still have to engineer and execute properly. I was hoping HN knew where he was getting his urgency from other than the obvious. Like is he short on money.

I don't want to turn this into a debate about Tesla's financials, but I think just about everybody can agree Tesla has always operated in a risky position - highly leveraged, relatively low on cash (in terms of months of runway), extremely risky bets (pre-orders on FSD which has yet to come to fruition).

Love or hate Tesla, they are a financial engineering marvel. And it's easy to make an argument that the company needs more cash, but again I don't want to make this into a flame war.

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