- Tesla made a huge splash in the solar panel world
when they unveiled the latest version
of the Tesla solar roof.
But since then, we haven't seen too much about it.
Is it a bargain or a bust,
or a solar tiles of about to go mainstream?
I'm Matt Farrell.
Welcome to Undecided.
(upbeat music)
(air whooshing)
When Tesla unveiled version three of the Tesla solar roof
in October of 2019,
it caught a lot of our attention.
They spent a great deal
of time and effort to refine the installation process
to make it faster and more affordable to install.
Like larger tiles to increase efficiency
in manufacturing costs,
as well as reducing the number
of parts needed to install it by half.
In the end, it's reduced the overall cost
of installing a Tesla solar roof by about 40%.
But since that announcement,
there hasn't been much said about it.
We've seen some customers sharing their experiences online,
but I've been really curious
about what it's been like to install them.
So I reached out to a roofing company
that's doing just that.
Elan had mentioned during the announcement
that they were most likely gonna ramp up a partner program
to bring installers into the fold
to support the rollout.
I had a chance to speak
to Eric Weddle from Weddle and Sons Roofing
who's the CFO and head of their Colorado operations
and one of Tesla's partner
- Everything's still kinda the pilot
with our relationship,
because we've been one of the early entrance
the way that we work with them now,
it may not be the way that we worked with them forever.
You know, initially they shared some leads
with us that had been kind of sitting in their queue
for a long time in territory in Kansas, Nebraska
where they had no direct presence.
So, they've kind of been experimenting
with redirecting people to us that are in our territory
- As a roofing company,
it was interesting to hear what their training was like,
and how well thought out it was.
- The first week was a classroom kind
of classroom warehouse based.
So, as a team, we would sit
and work through kind of installation stuff.
And then we would go out into the warehouse adjacent
and practice on those things.
Then you go out and they have two test houses built onsite
in the corner of their Fremont car factory on Cato road,
under a tent, which is nice.
And we just did a full-scale installation.
- To me the most interesting part of this,
is that you expect solar installers
to be the prime candidate
for taking on a solar roof installation.
But installing a roof is a completely different skillset
from installing solar panels on somebody's roof.
On that front,
it gives companies like Weddle and Sons,
a bit of an edge.
- We have so much to learn and we're still learning.
We don't claim to be experts in the solar side of things.
I felt like this product and this system
just installation wise, it's a better fit
for a roofing company just
because there's so much detailed metal work,
the trims and the flashings and the waterproofing
are just critical.
You know, once it's down you don't wanna
be pulling that up.
I felt like it was a really good fit
for our company as roofers.
- Solar tower products like the silver roof are still new.
Not just to customers, but to the industry at large.
Tesla isn't the only game in town here though.
There are solar tower products from companies
like DeSol Power and Luma Solar.
There's some distinct differences
between the systems though.
On the aesthetics front, the DelSol product doesn't mask
the look of the solar cell much at all.
You can clearly see the shiny reflective cells
within those tiles.
So you get a lower profile consistent shape, but not color.
The Luma Solar product looks far more consistent in color
but the solar cells are still very noticeable.
And that's where Tesla stands out from the pack
because they've spent a good deal of time
and energy figuring out how to make
their tiles blending closely.
On the announcement call,
they actually spoke to that point.
- [Narrator] So our cells are optically isotropic,
meaning it can look purple
from one angle and green from another.
And we have through a number
of different iterations from technology experiments landed
on the technology that gets the solar tiles
to the point where they're anisotropic.
So they blend in with the surrounding,
non-solar tiles and the trim.
They look the same from any angle, exactly.
(laughs)
- But just as impressive as that,
is the cost differences between the systems.
Based on an assessment from solar power world,
the solar roof costs
about $2 and 11 cents per installed watt.
While DeSol Power Tiles cost about $7 per installed watt
and Luma Solar Tiles cost
about $4 and 50 cents per installed watt.
Just comparing Tesla's own prices
between regular panels and solar roof,
you can see that there's still a sizeable gap
and per installed watt prices.
We're talking about the difference between $49
versus $2 and 11 cents,
but that's after incentives
and the incentives are currently changing here
in the United States.
So those prices might actually be going up a little bit.
It's pretty clear that if you're happy with your roof,
you're not gonna wanna replace it with a solar roof.
Going with regular panels is
the obvious choice in that case.
But what if you're replacing your roof
or building a new home?
How does the price compare to roofing costs?
On that, Eric has some really nice insights.
- It's substantially more than a basic asphalt roof.
It's probably five times the cost of asphalt.
Maybe it's called four times the cost
of a standard asphalt roof on a typical home.
But, it's not four times the cost of asphalt plus PV.
But if you start to compare it to a premium roof product,
like a standing seam metal as synthetic shake or slate
which we do a lot of...
DaVinci's a common name.
They do a really nice synthetic slate product.
It compares really favorably
to a premium roof plus solar panels.
It's pretty comparable in cost,
it's a little bit more than like a synthetic shake
or synthetic slate
but the synthetic product doesn't have the PV built-in.
it's getting close to those premium roof products.
It's certainly premium roof plus panels compares
very favorably.
- Ben Sullins put together a great price breakdown
last spring between the different options.
Based on his search criteria he found
that the Tesla solar roof would cost about $56,000
and compare that to a solar array
and a shingled roof at 42,000.
Or a solar array in a metal roof at $70,000
or a solar array and a tile roof at $111,000
or the big one a solar array in a slate roof at $134,000.
So just from a roofing cost comparison,
even without the added solar,
the solar roof is already fairly competitive
with higher end roofing materials.
But when combining higher end roofs plus solar,
Tesla solar roof is an incredibly compelling offer.
But Eric brought up a point that I hadn't considered.
It's a similar point that EV enthusiasts bring up
when comparing EV cars to gas.
Cost of maintenance.
- This is something that has always bothered me.
Working in Colorado.
We had an asphalt roofs to get hailed
out and have to be replaced.
And you incur a pretty significant cost
if they've already got panels.
It's pretty costly to have those panels polled,
stored, do the roof,
get the inspections, put the panels back on.
When you start to take into account
that this product should hold up really well
to impact should age well,
you know, it has a 25 year warranty from Tesla
and for what I've seen,
I expect it to last that long.
You know, if you start to compare it
to an asphalt roof that only lasts 10 or 15 years,
suddenly it actually even the economics
of that start to work out.
- But just how durable are solar roof tiles?
I get the question about regular solar panel durability
a lot from people that are considering going solar.
Like how well they'll stand up to hail
and the other elements?
Well, tempered glass is actually really strong.
- I mean, I think they're pretty amazing.
I I've got one here.
So this is a glass.
This is one of the glass was non active PV.
You can kind of see the...
What the thickness is,
this is about quarter inch or three eighths of
an inch or something.
You know, we'll walk on these all day long,
you can jump on,
we'll drop stuff on.
I mean, I can kind of...
(Eric bangs glass heavily)
I can pound on its glass.
I wouldn't do that on one
of my windows even said it was temporary.
- Add to that the modularity of the tiles.
It's like Lego blocks snapping into place.
So the modularity makes it easier to prepare.
- So if you break one of these tiles,
all you have to do because they're temporary,
they just shatter into pretty safe size and pieces.
Here just take a shot back, you vacuum it up,
you slap a new tile.
You know, the the clips that they hang on,
you know, there's a slot to hold a clip.
There's hangers,
super easy to pop one out,
pop a new one in.
As a roofer, I really liked that
because I see roofs that get replaced,
asphalt roofs get replaced all the time because they've got
you know, X number of impacts
and it's not practical to go replace 20 or 30 shingles,
you know, with solar roof,
maybe you do have a massive hailstorm.
Maybe it knocks out 30 or tiles.
Vastly cheaper to repair that, then replace it.
I mean, all of the work has done underneath the tiles,
once the layout is done, the tiles just snap in.
So I envision that repairability
is actually gonna be a real advantage going forward.
- In the end, the solar roof may prove to be cheaper
to maintain and repair than other roofing materials.
So that's something you should factor
into the cost depending on where you live,
especially if you live in an area with hail.
But the modularity benefit doesn't stop there.
- On my brothers or if we made some wiring mistakes just
because we were so early,
we were ahead of the training documentation.
And so we're in the process of fixing that
and it's been a good at a case study actually
in the repairability.
It's actually been pretty easy to go back
and pop up a section of...
In fact we actually popped up a section of his dummy tiles
and move or replace them with active PV tiles
after the fact, it was really easy.
We use almost all the same clips.
- That's right.
They expanded the PV system of the roof.
It's pretty plug and play in that regard.
Now this isn't something that Tesla's speaking
of as a selling point,
but it's pretty cool
that you could theoretically add to
or upgrade tiles down the road.
But much like everything else in the world,
you have to follow the money.
Affordability and price competitiveness
is the only way forward for solar tiles to catch on
and go truly mainstream.
Elan's goal was to make
the silver roof truly a competitive product
with asphalt shingles and solar panels.
One area to drive that cost down is on installation.
And Eric had a take
on that from an installer's point of view too.
- There's a point at which
it becomes a very attractive segment for us.
And that it really comes down to the days to install.
And so something that takes us four days
on paper it may turn a profit,
but the opportunity cost is pretty high.
We could have done better things those four days.
If we can get that down to two days,
it suddenly becomes a really attractive segment for us.
- There's already a lot of pent up demand
for solar roof at its current price point.
People reporting long wait times to get one installed,
and Eric has a long wait list of his own.
- You know, you asked what challenges are.
I mean, other challenges we're sitting
on probably 200 requests that were a backlog
of probably 200 or more requests for quotes.
- That's 200 requests just for the area
that Weddle and Sons Roofing serves.
Roll that kind of demand out across
the country and the world,
and you could see that Tesla is really onto something here.
Just imagine how much that demand will ramp up
as they continue to drive the cost down even further.
From a customer's point of view,
I think the solar roof is on the verge of going mainstream.
And from an installer's point of view.
- Yeah, we liked the challenge
and honestly we've had a great relationship
with Tesla and they're trying to do something very hard
and they have a track record
of doing a lot of very hard things.
And so every time that I'm feeling skeptical
about something I remember like same guy behind
this landed rockets, you know, vertically.
I think they can figure this out.
At least I don't think I wanna bet against it.
(both laughing)
- I couldn't have said it better myself.
I'd really like to thank Eric Weddle
and Matt Heflin from Weddle and Sons roofing for their time
and some of the great video shots that you saw on the video.
And jump into the comments and let me know
if you're chomping at the bit to get solar roof.
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And as always, thanks to all of my patreons
and new producer Craig Cooper for all of your support.
And as always, thanks so much for watching.
I'll see you in the next one.