Any article on Solar Roof that doesn't mention Tesla buying solar roof from Elon musk's cousin when solar roof was going under is an article not worth reading
Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels
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Re: Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels
#92I’m pretty sure solar roof was introduced as a way to pump stock when Tesla was doing poor financially
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Re: Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think it was a genuine attempt but they failed to find a simple enough solution.
Invisible solar is a genuine use case in areas with shitty power tripping HOAs, but even regular solar takes a decade to break even, so if you sell something like that at inflated Tesla level prices then they simply never will and there is no reason to buy them in the first place.
My solar install took about 4.5 years to break even, which I understand is maybe a bit below average for where I live (Ireland).
Re: Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
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% o…
While i kinda agree with you, it doesn't fly for most US cities. Most US cities aren't dense at all. A lot of them were built with transportation in mind. London and European cities in general are so much older that their city centers have no real way to accommodate that. So what do you do? You provide non car options. Technically they exist in US cities too, but especially on the west coast they're just not a viable…
West coast cities like Portland and Seattle both have very good transit and in my experience is generally better than driving since traffic and parking are awful. Where I live on the west coast is a mid sized city and transit is completely viable, my family only drives on weekends for example.
Re: Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels
#95My friend has Tesla solar roof. It's a great product but it's too expensive.
At one point after signing the contract, Tesla mailed him and notified that his previous signed contract was void and they sent him a new contract where the price had doubled to over $100k. They told he he had to sign the new contract in order for it to go forward.
This is classic Elon Musk tactic, which is to do whatever the fuck you want, laws be damned, and then try to bully your way through it. My friend didn't budge. They would call him or email him and kept harrassing him to sign the new contract and he said no. I don't remember there being a lot of news about this but I couldn't believe they had the gall to try this, although as I said, this is classic Elon Musk tactics.
Eventually I think other solar roof customers started to band together, and eventually Tesla caved and honored the original contract, as if they were doing him a favor. I'm not surprised that this technology is going to fail because it's too expensive and Musk's promise of dropping prices, surprise surprise!, never manifested.
Re: Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels
#96Did 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.
I mean in general it could be a right-ish idea. I myself have noticed when buying solar panels after replacing shingles that basically the per sqm cost of solar panels is like 2x of shingles (of the not super expensive kind). It could be easily more economical to use a modern version of this to replace your roof. On the other hand, Tesla's solar shingles are tiny compared to panels, more in the shape of actual shingl…
I don't think it really adds up. It's an inconvenient install location and roofs are replaced every 10-20ish years. It makes sense from an efficiency standpoint but the capital costs outweigh that.
IMHO a pergola or carport is going to be better. You lose solar efficiency but gain the benefit of something that provides shade. Especially as solar panels have become an economical roofing option if you don't care about perfect waterproofing.
Re: Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels
#97Earlier 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…
> They thought it would work That's the problem though. Thinking your product will get by on looks when it's clearly outcompeted on performance, price, availability and longevity. That's not just optimism, it's delusion.
> That's the problem though. Thinking your product will get by on looks when it's clearly outcompeted on performance, price, availability and longevity. That's not just optimism, it's delusion.
May I present to you the Apple corporation, at least until recently.
Re: Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels
#98Aside from power-independence, does solar on residential roofs ever make sense? For all the complexity of doing a few houses, you could do an entire parking lot (or empty land) and power the whole neighborhood.
It's central vs decentralisation. The electricy is consumed in the houses and not on the empty land. Parking lots become a win-win with electric cars. They also keep the cars cleen and sun protected.
And it increases installation costs by a pretty huge amount. Installing solar panels in a field is MUCH cheaper than bolting them to a roof or building a structure to hold them above a car park.
Plus, most solar installs are grid connected so a significant portion of the electricity tends not to be consumed where it is produced. It’s not as if installing solar is an alternative to grid connections for most practical reasons.
Re: Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels
#99I’m pretty sure solar roof was introduced as a way to pump stock when Tesla was doing poor financially
I think it was a genuine attempt but they failed to find a simple enough solution.
It think they under estimate the 'Green bling' factor. For many people if they are going to get solar, they want the neighbours to know. Got to get that virtue signalling in.
Not saying it is a huge factor but it is there.
Re: Tesla Solar Roof is on life support as it pivot to panels
#100I’m pretty sure solar roof was introduced as a way to pump stock when Tesla was doing poor financially
I think it was a genuine attempt but they failed to find a simple enough solution.
I’d say they failed to make it cheap enough, although maybe that goes with “simple.” I needed a roof replacement around the time when this looked like a viable option, but there’s no way I was going to pay a substantial multiple over the price of a normal roof plus solar panels for their snazzy integrated roof.