Elon Musk Wants To Sell People Solar Roofs That Look Great

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You have to wonder how durable solar roof shingles made of glass really are. Anyone that has experienced hail the size of golf balls will tell you what they can do to a roof in a matter of minutes.

The roof is made of a textured glass tile with integrated solar cells. The roofs look "as good or better" than conventional roofs, according to Musk. They look like normal roofing tiles from the ground, but are completely transparent to the sun. The tiles are hydrographically printed, which, Musk says, makes each one a "special snowflake tile," and no two roofs will be the same. "You can take any two roofs that look like that and they will be different — because they are different," said Musk.
 
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If it is affordable and can provide 3500Kw per month, I wouldn't mind installing it on my roof.

Would love to show APS the middle finger! *Literally*
 
The pragmatic solution is to not get that snowflake roof where there is the chance of inclement weather which is like what 70% of the continental US?
 
It is amazing, and is indeed quite beautiful, and if I were wealthy I would hands down use one of those roofs, find the home-battery concept fantastic and beautifully executed, and the Tesla is not a bad second car (which I can easily afford to go with my mansion).

The one thing I wish he would have at least given a nod to is that he says EVERYONE in America can do this which is nonsense.

With the concentration of wealth in the US, the overwhelming majority simply cannot afford this setup, so I'd prefer a little honesty when he says its a great solution for those in the upper-middle and up class that are building a new home or have to replace their roofs anyway. 90% of the nation is SOL and will not be purchasing any of his products.

Its a brilliant well executed idea though (at least in theory, haven't seen installation costs), I love the durability, I assume the semi-transparent nature of it doesn't reduce efficiency too greatly, and the look is really great. My ONLY concern aside from cost is noise, as I can imagine that rain would be somewhat louder perhaps?
 
Well it's hell of a lot better idea to make roofs out of solar panels, than to try and make roads from it. (and fail miserably)
 
Genuinely new, interesting idea from a generally overrated company and now literal used car salesman. Though the line about this being slightly less efficient than dedicated solar panels was funny; solar energy is already inefficient in terms of volume occupied to electricity generated, and efficiency is generally not improving.

Assuming that these tiles are at least as good as existing installs, and the price difference is not painful, then it should be a no-brainer to install these tiles and the solar system in any house.
 
Combined with the cheaper house battery, Tesla has really hit their stride.
 
A clever solution. Ten year life on the solar cells seems low. Or is that just the batterry pack? There's still the fireman problem however. (How can they put out a fire on your roof when its electrically live)
 
glass-tile-testgif.gif
 
Anyone who thinks this is a good idea has neither seen what builds up on their roof nor hired a roof contractor. I notice that the picture of the house for this article is in a completely treeless area.

The building I live in was built 40 years ago. Every 7 years it has gotten roof work that was warrantied for 10 to 20 years. The crew from 7 years ago installed the tar paper under the shingles wrong, by overlapping it upwards instead of downwards (don't ask what that caused, it's too painful). Our building got off lightly; another building got a roofing contractor that replaced plywood sheeting with Sheetrock about 15 years ago. We finally, finally seem to have found a competent roofing contractor who is fixing all the stupid shit that has gone on before, thanks to some competent people taking over control of the contractor hiring.

So, how's this stuff going to behave when (not if) it's installed incorrectly?
 
I like the idea and would love to go solar but I am not yet rich and famous so this will haft to wait.
 
evilsofa said:
Anyone who thinks this is a good idea has neither seen what builds up on their roof nor hired a roof contractor. I notice that the picture of the house for this article is in a completely treeless area.

The building I live in was built 40 years ago. Every 7 years it has gotten roof work that was warrantied for 10 to 20 years. The crew from 7 years ago installed the tar paper under the shingles wrong, by overlapping it upwards instead of downwards (don't ask what that caused, it's too painful). Our building got off lightly; another building got a roofing contractor that replaced plywood sheeting with Sheetrock about 15 years ago. We finally, finally seem to have found a competent roofing contractor who is fixing all the stupid shit that has gone on before, thanks to some competent people taking over control of the contractor hiring.

So, how's this stuff going to behave when (not if) it's installed incorrectly?
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This dude. This dude speaks truth. I had contractors do my folks house. I wanted them to replace some plywood. I found out they used ~1/4in plywood. Made em rip it all out and start over
 
What is the cost difference in using these in a new construction?
How much power would they generate over their expected lifespan?
If they could just come close to breaking even with just the solar roofing tiles supplementing mains power, within a reasonable time frame, it would not be a bad idea to go that route for the environment. The battery(ies) is likely the most expensive and least eco friendly part of the system, and could be dropped.
 
Gorankar said:
What is the cost difference in using these in a new construction?
How much power would they generate over their expected lifespan?
If they could just come close to breaking even with just the solar roofing tiles supplementing mains power, within a reasonable time frame, it would not be a bad idea to go that route for the environment. The battery(ies) is likely the most expensive and least eco friendly part of the system, and could be dropped.
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I don't think the batteries could be dropped. They are pretty important to the function of the system.
 
evilsofa said:
So, how's this stuff going to behave when (not if) it's installed incorrectly?
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Well as far as the weather blocking capabilities, it won't be any different than any "shingled" roof done incorrectly

As for the power making ability, that should be something that you can see immediate results (or not) from to know if anything went wrong.

An aside... I thought that Elon Musk already owned Solar City, or did he just own a bunch of stock in it?
 
sfsuphysics said:
An aside... I thought that Elon Musk already owned Solar City, or did he just own a bunch of stock in it?
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He's chairman of the board and owns a lot of shares in it but the executive positions are held by his cousins who founded the company.
 
Powerage said:
I don't think the batteries could be dropped. They are pretty important to the function of the system.
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It should be possible to drop the batteries from a solar setup. I know that's how SolarCity has some of their setups. The system would not function at night, since you have no sun to get power. Need some way to store the power during the day, when it'll be less used, so you can use it at night. When you're generating little to no power.

Usually at night you'd feed off the normal utility grid and during the day, you're selling your power to the utility company. Hopefully enough so, that your night time use is free. Either way, I'd rather be self sustaining if I were to throw money into solar. I'd opt for the batteries.
 
When they never tell you how much it cost, it's to expensive.
 
I don't see efficiency as too much of an issue, north of 10%, its fine.
Cost and end result its more important at this point for solar.
There is no need to wait for blowout efficiency in solar to really go at it.
We are not going to run out of sun any time soon, so efficiency is really not that relevant, if the end result is sufficient or very near (it would be for average roofs, for average home I think).
Solar panel cost should plummet with production, even current tech.. if they get out of the equation rare metals, it will plummet even faster and be more sustainable, silicon is very abundant.
Yes the mining argument is bullshit, we do a lot of mining for a lot of things that are much less beneficial than solar panels.
High end now, in 30years or less products like these will be offered at home depot, for cheap.
 
evilsofa said:
Anyone who thinks this is a good idea has neither seen what builds up on their roof nor hired a roof contractor. I notice that the picture of the house for this article is in a completely treeless area.

The building I live in was built 40 years ago. Every 7 years it has gotten roof work that was warrantied for 10 to 20 years. The crew from 7 years ago installed the tar paper under the shingles wrong, by overlapping it upwards instead of downwards (don't ask what that caused, it's too painful). Our building got off lightly; another building got a roofing contractor that replaced plywood sheeting with Sheetrock about 15 years ago. We finally, finally seem to have found a competent roofing contractor who is fixing all the stupid shit that has gone on before, thanks to some competent people taking over control of the contractor hiring.

So, how's this stuff going to behave when (not if) it's installed incorrectly?
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THat not much of an issue, it would need to be certified installers exclusively.. that sort of thing.
 
Solar shingles are not new. Battery backups for solar are not new. The materials of his solar shingle and battery backup he is introducing are new. There might actually be a lithium battery system out there that I haven't heard of too. He's good at hype, but as others have said, this stuff ain't free. I also have to wonder if it's "just around the corner" or if you can put your name on a list or can you actually buy it.

I was very lucky to get a good crew doing my roof on my house last time. It's not perfect, but they did a good job over all. I got up there and looked it over.
 
They haven't listed cost but he did say it would be competitive if you were replacing your roof anyway. Replacing a roof that requires stripping off 2 layers of old shingles isn't cheap, its why it's done every 25 years or so. My concern would be the longevity, do they only last 10 years? How easy is it to replace a tile if one is ripped off or dies?

As to snow you can add a heating element which would actually be attractive since in heavy snows you wouldn't need to shovel your roof.

I did notice that there wasn't a video of a kettlebell on an asphalt shingle roof (most common type).
 
Design1stcode2nd said:
They haven't listed cost but he did say it would be competitive if you were replacing your roof anyway. Replacing a roof that requires stripping off 2 layers of old shingles isn't cheap, its why it's done every 25 years or so. My concern would be the longevity, do they only last 10 years? How easy is it to replace a tile if one is ripped off or dies?

As to snow you can add a heating element which would actually be attractive since in heavy snows you wouldn't need to shovel your roof.

I did notice that there wasn't a video of a kettlebell on an asphalt shingle roof (most common type).
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Well I mean, seems top surface is glass or glass-based so to speak, so it should last longer that pretty much everything else really.
Solar panels don't typically 'go bad' they keep working for years.
 
Unexploded said:
This video of them dropping a kettlebell on various type of roofing tiles for comparison was also pretty impressive. Wonder how it holds up to cold?
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I never watched him talk before, but the first few minutes in, he is terrible. so many umm, pauses, and like stops
 
Poseur said:
Solar shingles are not new. Battery backups for solar are not new. The materials of his solar shingle and battery backup he is introducing are new. There might actually be a lithium battery system out there that I haven't heard of too. He's good at hype, but as others have said, this stuff ain't free. I also have to wonder if it's "just around the corner" or if you can put your name on a list or can you actually buy it.
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I know he wants to sell this Tesla Powerwall lithium battery system. $5500 for a 14 kw. Add $1000 for install. It actually stores over double the amount of power, while also being about the same price.
 
Unexploded said:
This video of them dropping a kettlebell on various type of roofing tiles for comparison was also pretty impressive.
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Clay & concrete tiles are easily broken, which is why I wouldn't want either on my roof.
In order to paint part of the 2nd story, you have to walk on the roof, which would result in broken tiles.
My home had an old wood shingle roof, which I replaced with 40 year asphalt shingles at half the cost of tile. It's been 17 years here in sunny California, and the roof still looks good.

You also have to consider the weight of the roof out here in earth quake country.
A tile roof could easily be 2-3 times the weight, and having that much extra weight on your roof will cause more damage when the house starts swaying during an earthquake.
 
opfreak said:
I never watched him talk before, but the first few minutes in, he is terrible. so many umm, pauses, and like stops
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I've always been more concerned with what he can deliver... As opposed to being a good speaker like Obama...
 
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