Tesla's Highly-Anticipated Solar Roofs Go Up For Pre-Order Today (inhabitat.com) 143
Kristine Lofgren writes: Get ready: Tesla's ground-breaking Solar Roof tiles are available for order in the U.S. starting today. In typical fashion, CEO Elon Musk announced via Twitter that the anticipated tech would be available to order this afternoon with installation happening later this year. Tesla's tiles look like traditional roof tiles but they soak up all that delicious sunlight in order to power your home. According to the company, the tiles will be more affordable than typical roofing and can be paired with their Powerwall battery to power a home completely using solar energy.
delicious sunlight (Score:2, Offtopic)
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It's a Tangerine Dream album I think.
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As far as I know Sunlight® is a registered trademark of The Sun Products Corporation.
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Mmmmmm, sunlight...
</Homer>
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You should not have fired the FBI Director, sir. It's not a good look.
Who the hell... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Who the hell... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's just Elon doing what he does best. Creating novelty items for rich people.
Didn't almost every new technology start out as a novelty item for rich people?
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Didn't almost every new technology start out as a novelty item for rich people?
No.
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Didn't almost every new technology start out as a novelty item for rich people?
If you consider the military as such.
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Nope. The Tamagotchi started out as a novelty item for annoying people.
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It's just Elon doing what he does best. Creating novelty items for rich people.
And this is bad because...?
I mean, almost everything technology-wise was at some point a novelty for the rich (until the cost of production went down enough for the hoi polloi to get them.)
Best examples? Books. Trained horses. Full body armor. Water pumps. Cell phones and computers. And the list goes on and one.
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It's just Elon doing what he does best. Creating novelty items for rich people.
And this is bad because...?
I mean, almost everything technology-wise was at some point a novelty for the rich (until the cost of production went down enough for the hoi polloi to get them.)
Best examples? Books. Trained horses. Full body armor. Water pumps. Cell phones and computers. And the list goes on and one.
I mean, if I could double my salary, I would indulge in these new solar panels. But I can't, so I won't. My salary is good, but not that good.
With that said, there are plenty of people that make double than what you or I make, who will be early adopters. And from that, better, cheaper versions will come till the day they are as ubiquitous as today's shingles.
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You've misread the information, the roof tiles themselves have a warranty somewhere around the heat death of the universe, the power generation warranty is what is 30 years. Even if the tiles one day stop making electricity entirely they will still be fully warrantied roofing.
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No, they are not. They are only warranted for 30 years against water leakage, which is the reason roof tile are replaced in the first place. Which places them at a lower warranty point than my current roof tiles (35 years), at a much higher price. 9 years ago I paid 5K CAD, and Tesla is quoting a similarly sized roof at 43K USD, not including the powerwall & ondulator. They aren't providing the information about how much energy their tiles deliver anywhere I could find either, but I was also under the i
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Nowhere can I save that amount of money from the energy saved :\
Unless you live in Hawaii, where the sun is brighter and power costs 4 times the mainland rate.
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Nowhere can I save that amount of money from the energy saved :\
Unless you live in Hawaii, where the sun is brighter and power costs 4 times the mainland rate.
Or - believe it or not - rural Alaska. Many villages get their power from diesel generators, the most expensive large scale generation there is. (note some use wind power as well) In the Winter, running out of diesel can be a matter of life and death. https://www.adn.com/arctic/art... [adn.com] https://www.adn.com/arctic/art... [adn.com] https://solarpowerrocks.com/al... [solarpowerrocks.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
http://www.limesolar.com/ [limesolar.com]
And if that doesn't suit slash dotters, Let's ROLL COAL!
http://dailycaller.com/2014/07... [dailycaller.com]
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Even made money selling the old oil furnace - it was a good one - to the guys who installed thegas one.
So why am I telling you this shit? Because I heard the same arguments from people about that as you are giving us here, that'
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Oh, I've had my house inspected, air loss calculated, the small 30 square inch loss was reduced as much as it could be, insulation is as good as it get (triple pane glass with dual refraction covers), window covering in use in winter, energy efficient light bulbs, dimmers, very high quality and efficiency thermal pump for heating the house in the winter, yet I still manage to use over 62MWh a year. If natural gaz had been available it would have been my heating choice, alas it isn't available in my area. Oh
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I'm not doing efficiency upgrades, my house is 100 years old and my heat+light bill never went above 175 over the winter, and it's often under 100 during mild weather. when the furnace craps out, I'll put in a reasonably efficient one, but I can save a lot more money and fuel by knocking down the thermostat and putting on a sweater than I can with fancy new equipment and ripping up my walls to install new insulation.
One thing I should note is that the things I did were not done at one time, and the initiating project was not all about energy savings. The house was re-sided in order to have a maintenance free vinyl miledew resisting surface, so it gets another layer of insulation. The wife wanted something cleaner than oil heat, and they were extending the gas lines past our street, and we got free install since it was easier for them to do that work while the main line was uncovered. Hell, they even replaced some unev
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You mean SAVED and not lost, right? or else you're being sarcastic?
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You mean SAVED and not lost, right? or else you're being sarcastic?
Sarcasm. I dip into that occasionally when I shouldn't.
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We have replaced the roof 2x in 8 or 10 years.
Come the next hail storm where we lose our hail resistant shingles again, we will replace with this.
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Stop drinking the coolaid, read the fine prints on the tesla solarroof website. 30 years warranty against infiltrations, which is less than good asphalt shingles costing less than half the price of the non-solar tiles.
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Scroll down a little and you will see than this warranty stops at 30 years for power generation and 30 years for the 'Weatherization warranty' which is defined as: Weatherization means that there will be no water leaks or other weather intrusions during the warranty period that result from our installation. This limitation is what is small compared to high quality roof which are quoted at up to 75 years here, and still much less.
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I believe he said it would cost the same as an asphalt roof with a solar panel installation. The price I saw was 50K for the roof and a battery backup for night time use after government rebates. That isn't far off what an asphalt roof, a similar sized solar installation and a battery wall would cost. It is a bit more, but not as much as I thought it'd be.
Re: Who the hell... (Score:4, Informative)
The site quoted me 33K for the roof and 7K for the battery, with 18K worth of electricity generated over 30 years and a 9K tax credit for a net cost of about 13K over thirty years.
I'm actually in the market for a roof replacement in the next two years, and I'm interested in solar. I have a small house. An asphalt roof replacement is less than four grand.
This offer is a complete non-starter for me.
Re: Who the hell... (Score:5, Insightful)
The site quoted me 33K for the roof and 7K for the battery, with 18K worth of electricity generated over 30 years and a 9K tax credit for a net cost of about 13K over thirty years.
I'm actually in the market for a roof replacement in the next two years, and I'm interested in solar. I have a small house. An asphalt roof replacement is less than four grand.
This offer is a complete non-starter for me.
This is where I have a problem. Uber expensive solar roofs should not qualify for tax credits. At least not beyond the amount that would be given for traditional PV panels of the same capacity. Its bad enough that most of these credits are simply helping pay power bills for the wealthy, but now we pay for their roofs as well? Meanwhile low income people have no access to these gifts.
We should take all the PV tax credits and provide public schools with PV panels. That way we add PV capacity and help lower school energy bills, good for people of all income levels.
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Ah yes, the classic American leftist moral dilemma.
Saving Gaia vs. screwing the rich.
Do we make alternative energy more attractive to end users by subsidizing it, or say 'screw the rich' and cancel subsidies so the ones who can afford the steep cost of alternative energy will have to pay full freight to feel like they're helping the environment.
What a heartwrenching choice it must be...
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When subsidized energy comes with subsidized roofing, its not a hard choice at all. Just have some limits.
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Do we make alternative energy more attractive to end users by subsidizing it
No we should not. Unless alternative energy is ACTUALLY COST EFFECTIVE it will not scale, and will not be a significant part of the solution. Subsidizing bad technology just means that you get more bad technology, and you divert research dollars and talent away from the search for something that actually works.
The money spent on subsidies should be spent on R&D instead.
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Now we have an entire generation hitting the workforce that have no doubt that it "actually works" because it's been working since before they were born.
I really don't get what you are trying to do here.
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Sorry bill, but you have this one wrong. Due to net metering, the wind generators are now cheaper than coal WITHOUT net metering. And with the new wind generators (10 MW and bigger up to 20 MW), these will be cheaper than everything, except for geo-thermal (which has the lowest costs going).
Solar is dropping in price, and we need to actually use that to our advantage.
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Admit it: you just get all hot and sweaty when you imagine yourself in charge of a Death Panel, don't you?
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People still die in the ER waiting room in Canada. Hospital are knowingly overcrowded and underfunded, but sure, let's perpetuate the myth...
Yet the Canadian life span is longer, Lower infant mortality. No medical bankruptcies. Average health costs/year are about 60% U.S. average.
With the lower infant mortality why don't we hear THINK OF THE CHILDREN when public healthcare comes up?
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Americans have more bankruptcies in general. That's a reflection of American consumerism. It has much less to do with any inability to pay.
If Canadian prices are only half, they're really not coming out ahead. American prices are greatly exaggerated by a liberal media hell bent on pushing socialism down your throat.
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If Canadian prices are only half, they're really not coming out ahead. American prices are greatly exaggerated by a liberal media hell bent on pushing socialism down your throat.
No. Those numbers come from the U.S. Federal Government.
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> With the lower infant mortality why don't we hear THINK OF THE CHILDREN when public healthcare comes up?
That mortality occurs within the American public system. Those are the people that are already taking advantage of what American social welfare programs have to offer. That includes our "single payer" system such as it is.
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> You're one of those types who would rather die in a hospital ER waiting room than receive healthcare funded by the government like those commies in Canada, arent you?
Thanks to unbridled capitalism we have more hospital capacity than we know what to do with. Thanks to a Republican president, all of those ERs have to treat me regardless of my ability to pay.
It's the Canadians that will die waiting in line.
If you had to depend on what the US government wants to pay, every hospital in your area would close
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In some places, a fancier roof would get broken just as quickly. The tiles serve a pretty simple, basic purpose and you don't really need anything more expensive unless you are trying to show off for your neighbors.
The money you blow on junk like that is lost opportunity cost. It's money you can't spend on something else.
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Re: Who the hell... (Score:2)
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Your total electricity consumption is $50/mo? Where do you live?
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Your total electricity consumption is $50/mo? Where do you live?
I'm in Pennsylvania, and I'm only a little more than that. Most goes to the water heater and the Spa.
It actually isn't that difficult to have a low electricity bill. I have all LED lights, the heater and spa are high efficiency as well as tthe refrigerator and freezer. Even the furnace motor and AC are efficient models.
We got an electrical bill that compared our payment with our neighbors next to us. It said we pay 10 percent more than they do.Not too bad considering that they are a travelling couple,
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I'm in Silicon Valley, and my power is $20-$30/month. It's only me in the house, and I even have a plasma TV (considered to be a power waster though I think that got better towards the later ones, like mine).. I'd like to get solar, and may eventually, but with my low usage, it's hard to make sense fiscally..
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The site quoted me 33K for the roof and 7K for the battery, with 18K worth of electricity generated over 30 years and a 9K tax credit for a net cost of about 13K over thirty years.
I'm actually in the market for a roof replacement in the next two years, and I'm interested in solar. I have a small house. An asphalt roof replacement is less than four grand.
This offer is a complete non-starter for me.
Your $4K asphalt roof would likely last around 20 years before needing to be replaced, and add little value to your home.
The $13K net cost solar roof (which actually is far more comparable to tile vs. asphalt in longevity) is warrantied for 30 years, but would actually likely last around 50 years or more. Given increased costs to put a new asphalt roof every 20 years, you would likely be spending about the same on asphalt in a 60-year timeframe.
That's not including the additional value you would add to you
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That's not including the additional value you would add to your home by having a solar roof, and also not calculating increases in electrical costs over the next half-century, and not including any tax credits you may qualify for.
Perhaps you should think about your "non-starter" a bit more. Costs for this tech are likely to decrease, but it's damn near justifying the cost today.
Did you include the increased property taxes due to the increased value of the house?
Re: Who the hell... (Score:4, Insightful)
Where is that space ship you came to planet Earth on?
NO ONE believes that kind of nonsense you are pushing. Indulging in expensive home improvements won't do squat for your home value. You will NEVER get that money back. So don't even go there and pretend you ever will.
You better personally enjoy what overpriced nonsense you put into your house because you aint getting that money back.
Having the most expensive house on the block is financial suicide if you view your house as an investment.
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You're miscalculating the ROI.
Your calculation would be correct if you bought a house there, made improvements and sold to make a profit - solar rooftiles, not a good choice to put among those improvements.
But that ROI is the combined factor of all benefits. It's the saving in your energy bills while you live there plus every other advantage mentioned above plus whatever value increase there is in your house.
True that value increase is likely to be depressed in that neighbourhood and it's may be less than t
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Where is that space ship you came to planet Earth on?
NO ONE believes that kind of nonsense you are pushing. Indulging in expensive home improvements won't do squat for your home value. You will NEVER get that money back. So don't even go there and pretend you ever will.
You better personally enjoy what overpriced nonsense you put into your house because you aint getting that money back.
Having the most expensive house on the block is financial suicide if you view your house as an investment.
Speaking of overpriced nonsense, I don't personally enjoy paying Greed for my electricity. Costs are going to continue to rise for that utility, especially as improvements in efficient design drives consumption down. Greed has never been known to be kind or fair.
And when treating real estate wisely as a long-term investment (20+ years) instead of some kind of get-rich-quick scheme, it's usually never financial suicide no matter what you do to improve your home.
To each their own.
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Question is, how good is the roof?
Asphalt is usually warrantied for 25 years or so then it needs replacement. And replacing an asphalt roof is environmentally damaging - you can't really recycle the shingles at all - it's just landfill.
You could consider metal roofs, the metal is rated for 50-100 years, so instead of replacing your as
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That
I'm planning to buy one (Score:2)
Currently my house is covered in cedar shingles which have lasted 30 years and will probably make another 10 with a little encouragement. I got a quote for a replacement at $50k installed so if this is $70k for my house then it's only slightly more. Yes, I will gladly pay 50% more for something which will probably last longer plus it will give me free solar energy.
You're right, you can get a roof for $5k. I could replace the tiles with a tin roof tomorrow for a fraction of the price. Of course, it would
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At that price, I'll buy a few thousand kits and make millions of dollars in profit.
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I think that it was replaced as well in the 4 year prior.
Why? HAIL.
If we get hail again to the point, where we need a new re-roofing, we will switch to this.
It is cheaper than metal or tiled roofs and supposed to hold up better.
And like our insurance company, we are tired of paying for new roofs.
Compared to tile roofs (Score:4, Informative)
The comparison stands up for a comparison with high end 50 year tiled roofs.
Not your typical roof retiling with shingles.
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If they are as expensive as regular tiles, the good news is that you might as well cover the whole roof in these things for a uniform look, not just the side that faces the sun.
Re:Compared to tile roofs (Score:5, Informative)
What is the actual price though; the article didn't mention this.
$21.85 per square foot.
If they are as expensive as regular tiles, the good news is that you might as well cover the whole roof in these things for a uniform look, not just the side that faces the sun.
I can't find the price right now, but there is a dramatically cheaper price for the non-solar tiles. i.e., They're anticipating that you cover your entire roof with their tiles (re: uniform look), but the entire roof will not be solar-collecting.
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Seems really wasteful to cover the non-productive side of the roof with solar tiles. They could presumably produce similar looking non-solar tiles at a much lower cost so that you could have the uniform look without paying extra for solar tiles that won't be doing anything for you.
That begs the question, do subsidies help pay for the non-solar shingles? I bet their math assumes so.
Re:Compared to tile roofs (Score:5, Informative)
$21.85 per square foot.
That's the "average" price. Active tiles are about [bloomberg.com] $42/square foot, inactive tiles are $11/square foot. Depends on your roof how many of each you need.
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The comparison stands up for a comparison with high end 50 year tiled roofs.
Well, I just had my entire roof redone (wood beams and planks and everything) for 4500â, and that does indeed include a 50 year warranty on the clay tiles, which basically translates into "change everything again after 75-100 years".
So that's $5000 for 100 years.
Limits on power generation (Score:3, Interesting)
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The utilities don't want a grid with 100% of the population having 50% of their needs met with solar. At noon, the grid would be over-generating, but the utility would still be buying the wasted power. Then at night, when generation drops to zero, they have to make a baseline generation.
Granted, that doesn't, hasn't, and never will happen,
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Peak power usage conveniently matches peak sunlight.
People run A/C to cool down. It sucks a lot of power.
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They also have tiles without solar cells in them which are presumably cheaper, so you can choose what percentage of the roof's surface generates power.
Re: Limits on power generation (Score:1)
They need to work on the calculator (Score:4, Interesting)
The calculator just told me that I'll see a savings of $100 over 30 years. I think I'm going to wait for fusion to become a thing.
Re:They need to work on the calculator (Score:4, Insightful)
When I need a new roof, I will strongly consider buying a Tesla roof. Even if it costs slightly more than a normal roof. This may not be the answer to all our energy problems, but it's a solid attempt to try something. I look at it as voting with my dollar, which probably has a much bigger effect than who I voted for for president. You never hear anyone saying "you'll never earn your money back buying a Mercedes", but people still buy them. I'd rather support a company trying to make progress, rather than blatantly pissing it away.
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The more individuals who do things like install expensive solar roofs, the more the price comes down for others who might do the same thing but can't do it for the high price.
So yes, individual actions really can make a difference.
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Does that include health benefits and long term cost savings of avoided environmental damage due to coal/gas/nuclear energy consumption?
You might also factor in your electricity use increasing considerably as electric vehicles will be fairly common in a decade, and the added benefit of a Powerwall whole-house UPS (dependent on the frequency of black/brown outs in your area).
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The calculator just told me that I'll see a savings of $100 over 30 years. I think I'm going to wait for fusion to become a thing.
So let's take it at face value. Are you planning to live for thirty years or more? If so, then you'd get a hundred bucks and you'd have your own solar power system effectively for free. Is that worth nothing to you?
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The problem is he *won't* have a solar power system. After 30 years, the tiles would be producing negligible amounts of power, if any.
What? Who told you that, and why are you repeating it?
Watch out if you've got a big roof (Score:2)
We have a pitch of 8 and a pretty large multilevel roof, this calculator tells me that a 50% coverage Tesla roof + battery will cost me $54K with the tax break, down to costing $20K after 30 years. That's still more than a shingled roof would cost today, and to be comparable to a fancy tiled roof I guess I'd have to wait until I'm very, very old.
Highly anticipated ? (Score:1)
Anticipated by his brother ?, Solar City was as good as dead without being bailed out by Elon, shame Tesla investors had to pay for his families business failures, its still doomed to fail, there is way too much competition from the people that actually make the panels for Elon (China), as for their "Powerwall" its just a metal box full of Panasonic tech with a Tesla sticker, the market would do better to skip the middlemen and buy direct from the manufacturers and not the sticker men.
Actual comparison for a 1500 sq ft ranch (Score:5, Insightful)
Last year I replaced my roof with a conventional asphalt shingle roof. These were timberland lifetime warranty shingles (really a 25 year warranty). Quoted roof size was 21 square (2100 sq ft) at a cost of $12,600. This is on a single story hipped ranch with 4/12 pitch, ice and water up 2 rows, 2 layer tear off (old roof) cutting in a ridge vent, and adding a chimney cricket (use google).
Tesla quotes $68,700 for this same roof with a 30 year warranty. Run some numbers... (and I'm going to ignore government incentives)
Tesla claims a $18,600 savings in energy. If I was able to take out a solo mortgage at 3.92% for 30 years on $50k for this roof it'd cost me $85k in the end, well offsetting the $18k savings and putting me $17k in the hole.
Lets run the numbers the other way. Say I had the difference ($50k) laying around and I wanted to invest that at the rate I'd pay for the roof in the above example ($236/mo for 30 yrs) in a monthly compounded account you'd accrue $142k after 30 years.
I love the idea of widespread renewables, but I can never get the long term financials to play out in their favor.
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Additionally, one should reduce the investment income by the income tax rate. Decreased expenses are equivalent to tax-free income.
That roof is worth more than the entire house (Score:4, Interesting)
Even without ANY solar panels, they're roughly costing 4x the price of a 'regular' roof, once you select 70% solar, you're looking at 10x the price of a 'regular' roof.
And for that I save about $1k/year, it's a very poor investment. Get a metal roof and 'regular' solar panels, the same amount of energy for less than a quarter of the cost and the same 30-100y lifespan.
Well, I would love to do this, but (Score:2)
$50k for a new roof is not remotely comparable to the ~$7K it cost a few years ago for a traditional roof (paid for by insurance, due to hail damage)
Even if it could completely eliminate my electric bill (which is unlikely)(and which would require the additional $7k battery) that only saves me $100/mo - which means it would take be 47 years to pay this off, and even then only if the financing rate was 0% (also unlikely)
As wonderful as an idea as solar roof is, at the prices so far, its completely infeasibl
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Whole roof SOLAR + ROOF. Not a fair comparison to just a new roof without solar. That said, this obviously is not cheap; plus I don't see the reason for paying a lot for expensive tiles on the side of the roof that does not see much sun. Perhaps their non-tiles (assuming they have those) are much cheaper??
Comparing payback at fixed power rates that will never go up--- and they always go up-- is also not fair. That said, this is again not cheap still. In CA, power is many years ahead that is, their rates
Not gonna work in Europe (Score:3)
I haven't done a proper survey, but I'd say most roof coverings in Europe are teracotta tiles, clay tiles etc. There are a few slate roofs, some thatch and a few other materials. There's no way these tiles would look any good on any of those except maybe the synthetic slate roofs. Then there's the cost... way more than a few flat panels (and probably still more than panels sunk into the roof line). I'm sure I don't need to point out that a lot of European roofs have been up for a hundred years and are still watertight, so we're going to need more than a 30 year warranty.
However, for an "i am rich" statement, these'll do great ;-)
Cheaper? (Score:2)
According to the company, the tiles will be more affordable than typical roofing
I'm curious as to how they make solar panels cheaper than roofing tiles.