Surely there’s a middle ground where a roof is made of something big and panel-sized, rather than a conventional roof with panels as another layer on top?
Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels
11–20 of 363 posts
Re: Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels
#12Did any other manufacturers build their own version? It seems like the right long term idea but the lack of other players seems to indicate there's some underlying issue that isn't solved yet.
GAF did. There are two issues: 1) too expensive 2) not modular. I like that I can separate my solar decision from my roof decision. Panels make that possible.
Re: Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels
#13Tesla's inability to produce solar panels is why I'm most skeptical of the whole terafab datacentre in space stuff.
Everyone gets caught up in the thermal management stuff and the power density stuff and whatever but to me that's a red herring.
The real issue is that Tesla has never known the ability to produce solar panels at scale and Musk said in that recent interview with Dwarkesh that he intends to do all the solar production in house.
So where's he getting the sand from? How are they going to purify it at scale? How are they going to turn it into ingots and then wafers and then cells and panels when they haven't even been able to produce a slim fraction of panels without all those extra steps over the past decade for their roofs?
And if the goal is to have the industrial capacity to do all this in a few years and produce solar panels on the scale that he's talking about -- why doesn't he just lay those bad boys down en masse on Earth and solve the impending climate crisis and our current energy shortages?
It just doesn't make sense.
Re: Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels
#14Surely there’s a middle ground where a roof is made of something big and panel-sized, rather than a conventional roof with panels as another layer on top?
[deleted]
Re: Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels
#15I’m pretty sure solar roof was introduced as a way to pump stock when Tesla was doing poor financially
And to misdirect the acquisition of Solar City, famous for being run by Elons cousins to basically pocket all the tax credits, but which was not going well.
Re: Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels
#16Surely there’s a middle ground where a roof is made of something big and panel-sized, rather than a conventional roof with panels as another layer on top?
The middle ground is integrated solar panels, where you have normal sized panels but they are flush with the rest of the roof and there are no tiles underneath them. There are normal tiles surrounding the panels. This is the style I tend to see now for new builds, but it’s more expensive than just layering on the panels if your roof is already in good shape.
Re: Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels
#17Did any other manufacturers build their own version? It seems like the right long term idea but the lack of other players seems to indicate there's some underlying issue that isn't solved yet.
There are a few companies, I remember Invisible Solar which produces modules which look like traditional clay tiles.
The market pitch is different tho, they are aimed at providing less effective solar for places where you have a hard need to keep the old look, old churches, monumental buildings and such.
Re: Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels
#18"The economics never worked either. An average Tesla Solar Roof costs approximately $106,000 before incentives, compared to roughly $60,000 for a traditional roof replacement plus conventional solar panels — a $46,000 premium. The payback period stretches to 15-25 years, compared to 7-12 years for traditional panels. In 2023, Tesla settled a class-action lawsuit for $6 million after customers accused the company of bait-and-switch pricing, with one plaintiff seeing their contracted price jump from $72,000 to $146,000."
Ouch. The whole point was that it was supposed to be cheaper.
Re: Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels
#19As someone who owns a Solar Roof, this news is disappointing. Many of my friends have said it's the best roof they've ever seen, and I even sometimes get compliments from people who drive past.
[dead]
Re: Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels
#20As someone who owns a Solar Roof, this news is disappointing. Many of my friends have said it's the best roof they've ever seen, and I even sometimes get compliments from people who drive past.
Is it enough to get you off-the-grid?
https://youtu.be/UJeSWbR6W04?is=7zjKewd_mhUFEX1H - mkbhd has a video about it. Not fully off grid, if I remember correctly but generates pretty much all electricity he needs.