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Solar Roof

tesla.com

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Re: Solar Roof

#201

Post by aplummer »

jaredhansen wrote: post #114
taneq wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait what, their estimated payback time is 60 YEARS? This is terrible. They've gotta be just trying to snipe rich early-adopter-for-the-status types.

> They've gotta be just trying to snipe rich early-adopter-for-the-status types. Tesla? The company that brought you the Roadster first, then the Model S and X, and only later the Model 3? I'm shocked. ;)

yeah i know aren't these the exact people that should pay for these kinds of things? I think it's a great model. Can't wait for the model 3 version!

Re: Solar Roof

#202

Post by 11thEarlOfMar »

owenversteeg wrote: post #196
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll bite... No, we are not talking about minimum wage earners as very few can own homes. They are not in the solar roof market. The context is home owners. In the US the average new car cost is $33,560. A $35,000 electric car is within reason and available on the market. A roof is a 30 year investment. Cars are owned for much less time and auto transport is likely to transition to electric over the next decade or tw…

So firstly, I just wanted to say you seemed like the most self-aware of anybody I quoted. That aside though, c'mon. Sure, the average _new_ car cost might be $33k, but have you ever been poor? Or known anyone who is? Poor people don't buy cars... they buy used cars, use public transportation, walk or bike. Poor people cannot afford a seventy thousand dollar Tesla, or even a $35k hypothetical Tesla. And a lot of peopl…

Poor people will be able to buy used electric cars in the future. They'll still pay the same for the electricity as rich people, just like for gasoline.

If I were to skewer my own arguments, I'd aim at the batteries. They wear out, they are still expensive, mass production doesn't appear to bear the same cost reduction opportunity as other products...

Re: Solar Roof

#203

Post by ed_balls »

Apart from people buying these for status there is another market - Hawaii and other remote places where prices are from 2x to 5x comparing to California.

Re: Solar Roof

#204

Post by syncsynchalt »

drozycki wrote: post #70
IvanK_net wrote: post #45

I have always been a huge fan of a quick transition to sustainable energy sources. There is just one little thing I don't understand. Why they expect people to make electricity at their homes? You can buy a little piece of land in a dessert, put solar panels there and distribute the electricity to other places. And you don't have to climb on any roof during the installation or the maintenance. It is not profitable to…

Not an expert here but a couple things come to mind. From an environmental perspective, it is better to use surface area which is already built up than pristine natural desert land. The house itself already imposes an ecological cost. A solar roof adds around zero to that cost. I've heard the stat thrown about that 50% of energy generated is lost to transmission. If that's true then there's efficiency to generation a…

Decentralized solar generation helps the grid in some ways but hurts it in others, specifically the need for sundown peak generation. See for example the "duck curve" problem that CAISO is facing: https://www.caiso.com/Documents/FlexibleResourcesHelpRenewab...

Re: Solar Roof

#205

Post by boucher »

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #152
tlb wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the right question to ask. Home electricity costs around $0.15/kWh, while power plants sell electricity to the grid for around $0.03/kWh. The difference pays for installing and maintaining the grid and local distribution wires to your home. Depending where you are (I live in a forest, where a tree falls on the power lines a few times a year and they have to send out guys in a bucket truck to fix it) it's expensi…

Not necessarily - my home was built in 2013, with a metal roof and 5kW PV system. But because it's so efficient, I end up not just zeroing out my bill, but giving power to the grid for free (since I don't actually get paid for the power I generate, I just get credits). I have evened the odds out now to some degree with a plug-in hybrid, but I will have to see if in practice charging it will soak up some or all of the…

When home solar installations send excess power to the grid, they also do it in the middle of the day, when wholesale electricity prices are at their highest.

Re: Solar Roof

#206

Post by mundo »

SwellJoe wrote: post #64

I'm super excited about all of the great stuff happening in solar recently, but whenever I read about the economics of home solar, I'm also always reminded of how stacked the deck is for wealthy people vs. poor folks. There's a very large federal tax credit for solar investment. That's great...but, people who can't afford their own home get no such credit, and there's no way for them to get such a credit. That's a su…

This is tautological; the reason poor people don't get a lot of tax breaks is because they don't pay a lot of taxes. The government does spend a lot of money helping poor people, but not via tax credits.

Re: Solar Roof

#207

Post by nvr219 »

mrtron wrote: post #32

Not sure why all the negative energy. They are going after the portion of the market that would replace their roof with a high end material, and are interested in solar. If you are a home owner in this situation, you could consider investing into your home. The roof will pay dividends over the next 30 years, and is attractive and durable. I think it will do extremely well. Perhaps the best opportunity is in new const…

> negative energy

:-D

Re: Solar Roof

#208

Post by catawbasam »

djrogers wrote: post #145
stupidhn wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I looked at getting a metal roof, and standing seam was going to cost about $16k. Same. There seems to be a subset of HackerNews who thinks that most homeowners can pay $50k for a roof and $35k for a car. It's cool high-end stuff, but certainly is not mainstream.

$35k for a car is absolutely mainstream - in fact that's just about the average price for one... [1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2015/05/04/new-car...

For a new car. Lots of people buy used.

Re: Solar Roof

#209

Post by ItsDeathball »

djrogers wrote: post #145
stupidhn wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I looked at getting a metal roof, and standing seam was going to cost about $16k. Same. There seems to be a subset of HackerNews who thinks that most homeowners can pay $50k for a roof and $35k for a car. It's cool high-end stuff, but certainly is not mainstream.

$35k for a car is absolutely mainstream - in fact that's just about the average price for one... [1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/cars/2015/05/04/new-car...

That's the average for a new car. Most people don't buy new cars.

Re: Solar Roof

#210

Post by Spooky23 »

ianai wrote: post #155
pedrocr wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If I put that same $40,000 in an index fund that got the stock market's historical 7% average, and waited 30 years, I'd have $308,000. Are you doing the math all in present dollars? Because the return is 7% after inflation but >10% before. So you'd have >500.000 in 2047 dollars. In this case it's important to do that adjustment because you're doing an investment upfront for payoffs over 30 years so the value of mone…

A 7% yield is an overly optimistic number.

Not really. VTSMX has delivered that over 20 years.
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