the house you see around you
are all solar houses i don't know if you
know that
did you notice
so then then why would you buy anything
else elon musk unveiled prototypes of
tesla's solar roof tiles
in october 2016. they came in four
styles that looked just like normal
roofing material
but were essentially miniaturized
versions of traditional solar panels
the roof tile reveal helped tesla
justify a 2.6 billion
acquisition of solar city and
represented musk's vision for what the
businesses could do together
it's been almost two years since then so
where are the tiles
we now have several hundred homes with a
solar roof
on them that's going well it takes a
while to just confirm that the soil roof
is gonna last
you know for 30 years and all the
details work out as of may this year
reuters reported that there are actually
only 12 tiled roofs connected to the
grid
all in northern california tesla
declined to give an updated figure
but later clarified that hundreds of
homes refers to roofs that are scheduled
for install
or are only partially installed tesla's
been accepting
thousand dollar deposits for the roof
tile since may 2017
but at that point the company wasn't
even close to mass producing them
it established a factory in buffalo new
york to make the tiles
but it's not running at full capacity
yet and in the company's most recent
annual shareholder meeting
musk blamed ongoing delays on a need for
more testing
there's only so much accelerated life
testing that you do on a roof
so um before we can deploy it to a large
number of
houses we need to make sure that if that
all elements of the roof are going to
last for
at least three decades but ideally sort
of half a century or more
solar tiles like large solar panels use
silicon solar cells to convert
sunlight into electricity but it turns
out this tech
is difficult to shrink and to
manufacture
it's a little bit like saying the early
iphone
screens which were real breakthroughs
were just smaller versions of your flat
screen on your wall
making things small actually changes
a lot of the way that technology will
work and that's been a big challenge
i think for tesla but certainly for the
whole industry overall to try and
miniaturize it in a way that keeps it
cost effective
and also gives it the very very reliable
performance that solar is known for
one of the customers with the tiles
already installed is san jose resident
and tesla model 3 owner tree winn
he pre-ordered as soon as possible and
the roof was installed earlier this year
i was actually extremely surprised i got
the call just because i you never know
with this stuff right
i thought there'd be extreme delays i
just didn't know how long it was going
to take
while traditional solar panels can be
installed in a day
it took a team of 10 to 15 workers two
weeks to install this roof
wynn asked them why his home was chosen
they said it was kind of proximity to
their headquarters so that they could do
quick troubleshooting i think the
simplicity of the house helps you can
see my
house it's a very simple roof layouts on
it like complicated roof so i think that
goes into account as well
tesla's customers are paying a premium
for the tile sleek look
wynn's roof cost him about a hundred
thousand dollars
though he did need to replace his roof
anyway i don't think this will ever pay
for itself honestly
for people that don't need a new roof
but want to install solar traditional
panels are
definitely cheaper people have often
said to me
do we need to find some great new
technology to
finally make solar work and i think the
answer is no the solar industry has won
in america we have made solar cost
effective in most of the country
but wynn is excited to be an early
adopter and see his energy bill decrease
traditionally in the summer my my power
bill is around 400
450 in the summer my last bill was only
40
ultimately tesla's goal is to make the
tiles a cost-effective option
partly by ensuring they're more durable
than other rooftops
tesla's promising 30 years of solar
power generation
i would expect these solar roofing tiles
in just a few years to be quite
reasonably priced
if they can get the market interest that
they're hoping for
experts anticipate a wave of new solar
installations within the next three to
five years
not just for homes for businesses for
new mini malls for all kinds of built
infrastructure where we can make solar
the go-to product it's not just a
roofing shingle anymore it's a
power plant on your roof tesla says
solar roof installations will scale up
later this year
and into 2019 it's
highly likely that great engineers and
incredible technologists and
a lot of those people might be at tesla
are going to be able to take this very
difficult challenge and engineer the
heck out of it and get us to that
cost parity we're not there yet