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Actually the solar roofs are made to be about the same cost or cheaper than conventional rooftops WITHOUT factoring in the money saved from the electrcity. So a

Actually the solar roofs are made to be about the same cost or cheaper than conventional rooftops WITHOUT factoring in the money saved from the electrcity. So anyone that needs a roof replacement (5 million households/yr is the market size iir) might as well get solar roofs. In that sense their ROI is immediate and they have nothing to lose. It only doesn't make sense financially if they weren't planning on roof replacement and they are doing it solely for solar roofs, but Tesla is not marketing it to those folks and even admit that that won't make sense finacially. Those people can get Tesla's regular solar panels and their soon to be released high efficiency(~22%) solar panels.

technofiend 9y ago
My roof is slate and nearly 100 years old. It'll last another 100 with minor maintenance so removing it would be negative ROI because of increased maintenance costs vs what I have today. Still, I'll gladly swap the asphalt roof on my garage when the early adopters drive the price down enough... As an early adopter of everything from CDs to minidiscs I think I'm sitting this one out for a while longer. I don't need the solar roof equivalent of $5 blank CD-R media or Jaz drives; one is a few cents each now and the other was a failure. I could be wrong but it seems like the better payoff is in waiting a little longer, like 2-5 years.
- rwmj 9y ago
  Assuming your garage roof is flat, unfortunately it won't generate too much electricity. The panels need to be at right angles to the sun for some of the time (even better if they rotate), and except in some parts of the world near the equator the sun is never directly overhead.
  - ben_w 9y ago
    They don't needs to, they're just more cost-effective if they do. For now, anway — sufficiently cheap future photovoltaics could well be cheaper than the cost of adding a tilt (already cheaper than adding a sun tracker, which is why grid-scale solar plants don't track the sun)
brianwawok 9y ago
Only true if you look at designer roofs. I got 30 year shingles on my roof last year. About 2000 square feet (I know roofs are measured in squares but I forgot the square number). Cost like $6500 installed. Solar city roof is like 45k. Sure it looks better. And if you compare it to a 25k nice looking roof, the math is way better. But tons of us do not have 25k roofs, we have 5-10k roofs..
- aquadrop 9y ago
  Same things as with electric cars, 10 years ago Tesla started as a luxury car manufacturer and now it moves to wider and wider auditory. And there's plenty of 25k roofs for them to be busy for years... Also, I think math for new houses should include the fact that property is usually mortgaged. So, you take part of the cost that's over 25k and it's mortgaged for 25-30 years. You don't pay $30k at once, you pay $100 a month for it, and it saves you $150 in electricity. So it works right from the start. Now there's plenty of roof space for the beginning and let's see where tech will be in 10 years.

technofiend 9y ago

My roof is slate and nearly 100 years old. It'll last another 100 with minor maintenance so removing it would be negative ROI because of increased maintenance costs vs what I have today. Still, I'll gladly swap the asphalt roof on my garage when the early adopters drive the price down enough... As an early adopter of everything from CDs to minidiscs I think I'm sitting this one out for a while longer. I don't need the solar roof equivalent of $5 blank CD-R media or Jaz drives; one is a few cents each now and the other was a failure. I could be wrong but it seems like the better payoff is in waiting a little longer, like 2-5 years.

rwmj 9y ago
Assuming your garage roof is flat, unfortunately it won't generate too much electricity. The panels need to be at right angles to the sun for some of the time (even better if they rotate), and except in some parts of the world near the equator the sun is never directly overhead.
- ben_w 9y ago
  They don't needs to, they're just more cost-effective if they do. For now, anway — sufficiently cheap future photovoltaics could well be cheaper than the cost of adding a tilt (already cheaper than adding a sun tracker, which is why grid-scale solar plants don't track the sun)

brianwawok 9y ago

Only true if you look at designer roofs. I got 30 year shingles on my roof last year. About 2000 square feet (I know roofs are measured in squares but I forgot the square number). Cost like $6500 installed. Solar city roof is like 45k. Sure it looks better. And if you compare it to a 25k nice looking roof, the math is way better. But tons of us do not have 25k roofs, we have 5-10k roofs..

aquadrop 9y ago
Same things as with electric cars, 10 years ago Tesla started as a luxury car manufacturer and now it moves to wider and wider auditory. And there's plenty of 25k roofs for them to be busy for years... Also, I think math for new houses should include the fact that property is usually mortgaged. So, you take part of the cost that's over 25k and it's mortgaged for 25-30 years. You don't pay $30k at once, you pay $100 a month for it, and it saves you $150 in electricity. So it works right from the start. Now there's plenty of roof space for the beginning and let's see where tech will be in 10 years.