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Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels

electrek.co

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Re: Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels

#41

Post by lathiat »

aeronaut80 wrote: post #39
awestroke wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia is pretty close to the equator

Depending on which part you consider it’s also halfway to the South Pole. Cape York to Tasmania is almost 33° of latitude.

Right. Sydney is at 33.9 S and Darwin is 12.4 S

Quote from the article:

In Sydney, south-facing panels typically produce around 30% less energy than north-facing ones. The steeper the roof, the less they’ll produce. They’ll also produce much more energy in summer than winter.

In the far north, the difference isn’t as great and in Townsville south-facing solar panels will only produce around 15% less energy overall than north-facing ones. Because Queenslanders generally use more electricity in summer than winter due to air conditioner demand, the fact that south-facing panels have considerably higher output in summer can improve self-consumption.

In Darwin, south-facing panels produce about 17% less electricity overall than north-facing ones, and, like in Townsville, they have considerably higher output in summer than winter.

Re: Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels

#42

Post by shellfishgene »

unsnap_biceps wrote: post #9

Did 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.

Even just searching in Germany there are at least 4 companies making different designs. I guess they must be selling quite well. Most make non solar tiles of the same size and design for shaded parts of the roof.

Re: Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels

#43

Post by lnsru »

Animats wrote: post #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 b…

Integrated solar panels into the tiles are batshit crazy expensive compared to regular big solar panels from China. I was looking how to install them (some other vendor, not Tesla) and was shocked - you can’t plug the small tiles connected together directly into inverter. There is additional power electronics box in between. Economically it makes no sense. The single installation around is at the guy‘s house who had successful 7 figures exit. Of course, the roof looks awesome.

Re: Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels

#44

Post by defrost »

scotty79 wrote: post #40

I hope somebody figures out at some point how to do roofing with large integrated panels that could be solar.

Yeah, BlueScope Steel (Australia) did this with three separate prototype designs from 2012 - 2015 that were manufactured, installed and currently have had a decade of all weather on house trials.

The Australian market is largely adding trad PV panels to existing housing, but there are signs of greater uptake of integrated PV + weather proof + thermal insulation roofing panels by architects and hopefully will be seen more on new mass produced housing plans.

~ https://arena.gov.au/projects/integrated-pv-solar-roofing/

Re: Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels

#45

Post by jfoster »

bartvk wrote: post #27
sidcool wrote: post #4

Yep. Fred Lambert, the usual suspect.

He is very critical of Elon Musk, but I never caught him writing something false.

If you read his articles over the years you would continually think that Tesla should go out of business in the near future, yet they never do.

He might not specifically lie, but puts such a negative spin on anything Elon-related that the overall result is essentially a lie.

Re: Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels

#46

Post by habitue »

winfredJa wrote: post #3

I’m pretty sure solar roof was introduced as a way to pump stock when Tesla was doing poor financially

I'm no Musk fanboy but I think this kind of maximally cynical take is tiresome. They thought it would work, they expended significant engineering effort and money making it real and producing it and selling it to customers.

The simplest explanation is that they did all that and the market didn't want it. The economics of traditional panels outweighed the aesthetic advantages of tiles and they're pivoting. No conspiracy or fraud need be invoked.

Re: Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels

#47

Post by xingped »

habitue wrote: post #46
winfredJa wrote: post #3

I’m pretty sure solar roof was introduced as a way to pump stock when Tesla was doing poor financially

I'm no Musk fanboy but I think this kind of maximally cynical take is tiresome. They thought it would work, they expended significant engineering effort and money making it real and producing it and selling it to customers. The simplest explanation is that they did all that and the market didn't want it. The economics of traditional panels outweighed the aesthetic advantages of tiles and they're pivoting. No conspira…

You're not entirely wrong on it being a maximally cynical take, but I think it depends on where the idea originated. Yes, they expended a lot on engineering to make it real, but you can do that with any idea. I think what matters was if it was a feasible idea put forth from a reasonable source or if it was another grand delusion from Musk that everyone just had to make as real as possible despite their own misgivings on the idea.

Re: Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels

#48

Post by alfiedotwtf »

habitue wrote: post #46
winfredJa wrote: post #3

I’m pretty sure solar roof was introduced as a way to pump stock when Tesla was doing poor financially

I'm no Musk fanboy but I think this kind of maximally cynical take is tiresome. They thought it would work, they expended significant engineering effort and money making it real and producing it and selling it to customers. The simplest explanation is that they did all that and the market didn't want it. The economics of traditional panels outweighed the aesthetic advantages of tiles and they're pivoting. No conspira…

Of course the market wanted it. I wanted it. My friends wanted it. But we couldn’t buy it because it was vapourware !

From this to self-driving cars in 2 years to tunnels that will change public transport… maybe Musk should prototype and see what’s actually possible before telling the market. I mean come on - it’s borderline fraud in order to pump stocks - there’s got to be stockholders that are forming class actions as we speak

Re: Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels

#49

Post by KaiserPro »

jrmg wrote: post #11

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?

THere is a middle ground which is this: https://www.wienerberger.co.uk/products/roof/in-roof-solar.h...

The big problem is that because there is no real ventilation, the panels get hotter and don't produce as much power.

What you put under them also has an effect on how waterproof your roof is long term, plus when you need to replace them finding ones that are the right size are also a pain.

Re: Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels

#50

Post by SXX »

alfiedotwtf wrote: post #48
habitue wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm no Musk fanboy but I think this kind of maximally cynical take is tiresome. They thought it would work, they expended significant engineering effort and money making it real and producing it and selling it to customers. The simplest explanation is that they did all that and the market didn't want it. The economics of traditional panels outweighed the aesthetic advantages of tiles and they're pivoting. No conspira…

Of course the market wanted it. I wanted it. My friends wanted it. But we couldn’t buy it because it was vapourware ! From this to self-driving cars in 2 years to tunnels that will change public transport… maybe Musk should prototype and see what’s actually possible before telling the market. I mean come on - it’s borderline fraud in order to pump stocks - there’s got to be stockholders that are forming class actions…

Both self driving craze and car tunnel madness is only possible at all because how car centric US mindset is. If you even try to suggest that people could instead use good public transport and pedestrian infrastructure they would look at you like you are some sort of crazy.

Musk just takes car centric society pipe dreams and sell it back to them.

Like OMG you transiting to work and can safely stay in your phone 99% of time. In other countries this called train or a bus. Solved in London with 1863 tech.

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