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Oh wow. So that's disappointing. I was under the impression it was about the same cost as a new roof. I guess its starting at that cost, if you want just a tiny

• loco5niner 10y ago
  To be fair, that is a pretty unlikely assumption. edit - just found out Musk pretty much said that. Still....
  • nsxwolf 10y ago
    Yes, I was hoping he would come through when he said: “Would you like a roof that looks better than a normal roof, lasts twice as long, costs less, and, by the way, generates electricity? It's like, why would you get anything else?” I guess technically "generates electricity" is the part I got hung up on, it only needs to generate 1 milliwatt hour to be true. But much of the statement still isn't true - it's more expensive than a regular roof.
    • gwern 10y ago
      The logic here might be that payback in the form of $1 of generated electricity is better than a regular $1 payback via, say, tax credit, because it comes with additional benefits like reduced carbon emissions (not priced into utility bills) or more reliability / having electricity during blackouts.
• ericd 10y ago
  To be fair, even their non-solar tempered glass tiles seem like a better option than slate/tile due to the durability. I'd consider even just that over asphalt, due to the longevity.
• jaggederest 10y ago
  It's a similar price to the high end existing roofing materials that you might find. Certainly it's not going to be price compatible with asphalt shingles, but terra cotta or slate is often 2-4x as expensive as those, and lasts much longer.