15 ms·
Tesla's New York Gigafactory Kicks Off Solar Roof Production
- kodis 9y agoI really love the work that Tesla is doing in this area, and wish them all the luck in the world, but if the estimates in the article are even close ($57K for a Tesla roof, $41K for a tile roof with a small solar panel, $22K for a conventional asphalt roof) it's hard for me to see this being cost effective.
- CapitalistCartr 9y agoI thought you had to be wrong until I read the article. If people found solar panels garish, unsightly, this would sell like hotcakes. But just the oposite: people will put panels towards the street even when that's not the best angle or side. Like buying Prius over Honda's hybrid because the Toyota is distinctive, people want to flaunt their green.
- dhzjxnbzn 9y agoMaybe this will appeal to people who are green-minded, but live in a conservative area and are ashamed about it.
- AckSyn 9y agoBeing conservative has nothing to do with it. The area of NY I live in right now is extremely conservative and there are dozens of solar panel installations from Apex Solar on homes and businesses.
- melling 9y agoThat means they’ll help to create a new industry, increase competition, drive down prices, but won’t save as much money. Aren’t we still better off?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ricardobeat 9y agoThe idea is that the energy generated makes up for the added cost, so cost of roof - energy savings = less than standard roof.
- bradlys 9y ago"A plain-old asphalt roof with panels would run about $22,000" That's with panels to give equivalent power output. You're essentially paying a $35k premium for a sleeker install.
- cycrutchfield 9y agoAnd what would the effect on property value be for an asphalt roof with garish panels vs. the Tesla option?
- bradlys 9y agoProbably depends on the home. I don't think it would add $35k worth of value over the other installation to a home (especially for a typical $200k home). Also, who cares about property value? If you're selling anytime soon after installing either system, you're going to be taking a significant loss because I doubt you'll make it back in added property value. Especially for the Tesla system. Hard to justify to folks, "Yeah, my otherwise standard $200k home has a fancy $57k roof." Maybe for the bay area where homes are often over $2mm and the desire for such a roof is plausibly high.
- cycrutchfield 9y agoSounds like you figured out what their target market looks like then.
- bradlys 9y agoIt's definitely an item for the 1% class. I'm not surprised it's "backordered" because it's going to be extremely low supply to begin with.
- bkjelden 9y agoThe roof tiles they use are supposedly 'indestructible' and have a longer life than asphalt shingles. That being said, I'm skeptical of their claim. Not many things are indestructible when a large hailstorm rolls through.
- sp332 9y agoI thought they were making this "competitive" with other kinds of tile roofs. Going up against asphalt shingles is pretty ambitious.
- jimrandomh 9y agoThey're already backordered. If they lowered the price, they would be even more backordered, but have less money. We won't know what the non-early-adopter price is until a few years from now.
- JohnStudio 9y agoWell, roof work is an endless source of work .. and an endless source of material (before Elon). The material gets better every year .. its the workmanship that doesn't unfortunately, nor do the hazards associated with roof work. At any price, solar still remains a "cut the wire" thing, and the more wires you cut to the house eventually the more "free" you live. That said, it does not surprise me that Elon has this problem .. no matter what his reputation is .. because he delivers on the workmanship.
- michaelbuckbee 9y agoIt's like any sort of tech: the first version is too expensive and then the price drops some % every year until we all have "supercomputers" in our pockets. Plain Solar Panel (non roof) installation has gone from $52k to $20k in the last decade [1] which is craziness. The other aspect of this is longevity. Setting all solar power generation aspects aside an asphalt roof will generally last 20-25 years. Tesla roof tiles appear to last much longer (infinite warranty, etc.) and are maybe more comparable to a slate roof which would be 10x the cost of an asphalt roof. As a reference point, I grew up in a house built in the 1920s and just confirmed via Google Streetview that it still has it's original slate roof. 1 - https://news.energysage.com/solar-panel-efficiency-cost-over-time/ https://news.energysage.com/solar-panel-efficiency-cost-over...
- tbabb 9y ago20-25 years is at the limit of what I could imagine staying in one house with any certainty. How does the extra longevity justify the cost unless I plan to never ever move again?
- awa 9y agoresale value?
- infogulch 9y agoSo you don't have to replace it again before selling it, or take the hit from someone deducting the cost of a new roof off of an offer, the first is typically better for you as a seller. It also adds value to the house in multiple dimensions: they don't have to replace the roof when they sell it, and a solar roof reduces their electric bill.
- michaelbuckbee 9y agoIt goes to the home's value (aka you'd get more when you sell it). I kind of think of it like brick. Brick has a much longer maintenance cycle than vinyl or wood siding.
- 9y ago
- m3kw9 9y agoPrices will come down as a result of scale and tech advances. And it has been coming down substantially every year
- SubiculumCode 9y agoThis is like the Apple iPhone of solar panel solutions. It looks better than regular solar panels, so those who can afford them, will get them.
- sgruetter 9y agoOT: Is there a reliable Firefox to block these annoying Bloomberg auto-play videos?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- vlod 9y agoMine don't play in FF. I think you can disable this via: media.autoplay.enabled type about:config in url and set value to false
- frandroid 9y agoI have this set to false and it's pretty annoying. It seems that the same triggers that make auto-play work are used to play regular video. So I always have to fiddle with Youtube to get a video to start, and Vimeo videos don't play at all. I've had to keep from using this flag in Chrome so I have a backup browser for such sites.
- sgruetter 9y agoThanks, that worked, although YouTube affected, too. Well, better than unexpected auto-play.
- sgruetter 9y agoUpdate: Does also not-auto-play gifs/gifv on imgur, thus it's not really a solution.
- OrwellianChild 9y agoIn Chrome, is this possible?
- delecti 9y agoThere's a plugin that disables autoplay. https://github.com/Eloston/disable-html5-autoplay https://github.com/Eloston/disable-html5-autoplay https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/disable-html5-autoplay/efdhoaajjjgckpbkoglidkeendpkolai https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/disable-html5-auto...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- JohnStudio 9y agoI'm not a big fan of Elon Musk, but let's not get political. I do however, want to point out Buffalo .. its troubles with Solar City .. and its troubles with Elon Musk. Key (non-disputed / non-political points) - Tesla did not hire local workers, and did not hold up on its end for diversity of work-force - SolarCity received 750$ million in the Billion to Buffalo at a time it hadn't operated at a profit in over 2 years (I believe) - Ciminelli, Buffalo's prior largest construction company that built SolarCity was charged with bid rigging / bribery by the Federal Government and it has all but folded up shop. - Panasonic / Tesla agreement / partnership existed in 2006, yet Cuomo said he brokered this deal (fabrication) The Riverbend site that SolarCity started has all but been successful in Erie County. That's my 2c, and the above is factual, non-disputed points. So .. my real question, is why is this not brought to the national level for discussion to what Elon is doing to communities like Buffalo, where I live? That's my question ...
- jsight 9y agoMost of the articles that I have read regarding the Buffalo plant have been about what a mess that it has been. This feels like an aberration, and maybe a sign that things are improving a little bit?
- JohnStudio 9y agoI don't want to digress here, but $345 million dollars has been spent in the last 5-7 years to promote growth in our region. However, entities like 43 North (our regions YC of sorts) has failed to retain / keep new businesses that they recruit for their yearly $1million VC contest. I think all but one company has stayed here since its inception. Secondly, the dollars here have all been spent on revitalization of Main St - which if you walk the 1 block to 800 block (basically Canal Side to Theater district) - one can make the argument of gentrification (controversial on its best day). The money / jobs / growing enthusiasm isn't reflected in a minority middle class. Bottom line, that's what I personally call success of any city trying to regain momentum. By all accounts, I am an educated, white, privileged, and successful conservative living in the suburbs. However, I take the post-Civil War northern Republican view of reconstruction by giving the vision of today should be the vision of 1865 .. and that's equality of all minorities with their white counterparts. The death of Abe Lincoln put us back 50 - 70 years in that movement, and as Andrew Johnson favored the status quote of Southern Democrats / Aristocratic colonialism ... it bleeds into the inequities that minorities today. I know that's long winded, but the historical throw-back .. plays out today, in cities like Buffalo .. where all I want is my black / latino / muslim communities of Buffalo to have the same equity that I have and live as well as I do. Unfortunately ... it's just not happening, despite the welfare dollar being so dominant here in New York (which I do not detest - I just want it used more strategically in regions of poverty). Anyway .. off my soap-box.
- frandroid 9y agoOkay, the tiles are made of glass. Does the carbon footprint of the fabrication different much from terracotta tiles?
- mmsimanga 9y agoJust over two years ago solar panels were prohibitively expensive for me. I read a couple of Instructables showing how to make your own panel using solar cells. I ordered the solar cells. The plan was to cover the whole garage roof with solar cells. The price of solar panels dropped. Now I have a box full of solar cells and it just isn't worth it to go the DIY route. The Solar Roof is out of my price range.
- OrwellianChild 9y agoFrustrating to see prices change, but it sounds like you were up for doing the work at the old price, so it could be a learning opportunity... Alternatively, you might be able to sell the cells (at a loss) to recoup some funds and still end up with solar power for cheaper than you were originally intending to pay!
- mmsimanga 9y agoThanks for the encouraging response. I will use the solar cells as a learning opportunity. I am thinking that they will be a good way to teach kids the basics of solar power.
- ZoomStop 9y agoWhy do they call them all a "gigafactory"? This is getting ridiculous since the subject "gigafactory" in the article is a million square feet and 500 employees.
- paganel 9y agoIf you put "giga" everywhere you increase the hype, increased hype probably means a higher share price, a higher share price means more money for investors (virtual or real money, it doesn't matter), more money is good.
- JurgenKlein 9y agoHexamegagigablockchain.
- philipkglass 9y agoThe Buffalo plant is aiming for a gigawatt of annual cell production by 2019: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-31/tesla-starts-production-of-solar-cells-in-buffalo https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-08-31/tesla-sta... Which is admittedly not large by global standards, but bigger than any solar manufacturing facility that has operated in the US.
- yborg 9y agoExcellent point, this is merely a megafactory. (A billion square ft factory, according to Wolfram Alpha, would occupy ~35 square miles or 92 sq. km.)
- p0wn 9y agoPOWER UP THE GIGAFACTORY.
- gknight 9y ago> The name Gigafactory comes from the word “Giga,” the unit of measurement representing “billions.” The factory’s planned annual battery production capacity is 35 gigawatt-hours (GWh), with one GWh being the equivalent of generating (or consuming) 1 billion watts for one hour. This is nearly as much as the entire world’s current battery production combined. via https://www.tesla.com/gigafactory https://www.tesla.com/gigafactory Doesn't explain why they call Buffalo's operation a "Gigafactory," but that's the origin of the name for the more well-known Nevada-based Gigafactory.
- snowball2 9y agoLooking forward to them being available in the UK, if I had't just re-roofed my house with recycled slates I'd have used these, I didn't use the option from Solar Century because they look terrible compared with the glass slates from Tesla: https://www.solarcentury.com/homes-uk/our-offer/sunstation/ https://www.solarcentury.com/homes-uk/our-offer/sunstation/ -- however I do have a lot of respect for the founder of the company http://www.energylivenews.com/2015/01/12/solarcentury-founder-steps-down/ http://www.energylivenews.com/2015/01/12/solarcentury-founde...
- reaperducer 9y agoEvery time Tesla talks about a "gigafactory" like this one, or the one in Reno, I'm reminded of the episode of The Simpsons, where a snake oil salesman comes to town and sells Springfield on the idea of building a monorail. It's a factory. Yes, a big factory. But not bigger than a hundred that came before it. And even if it was, it doesn't warrant a new word.
- Robotbeat 9y agoNo, you're thinking of Hyperloop. (I like Elon Musk and Tesla and even the Hyperloop idea, but I can't help but get that song out of my head. "Sorry, Mom, the mob has spoken! Monorail! Monorail! Monorail")
- simonsarris 9y agoSo what? It's a clever and catchy name. Giga sounds ambitious and is also a common prefix when talking about energy. Did you know that everyone who buys a Tesla is not, in fact, purchasing a dead Serbian-American guy?
- reaperducer 9y agoIn five years it's going to sound as dated and stupid as all the "cyber" branded things from the 90's.
- sf_rob 9y ago>But not bigger than a hundred that came before it. And even if it was, it doesn't warrant a new word. I agree in the Buffalo case, but the Nevada one is the largest factory in existence by footprint (Boeing wins by volume).
- freeflight 9y agoIt's just another superlative to "one-up" whats already been there: "What's better than a factory? The megafactory! And whats even better than that? The gigafactory!".
- monochromatic 9y ago
- EGreg 9y agoWhy not put the solar panels on the cars themselves? Makes them charge somewhat when parked on the street or in an open parking lot :)
- jacobkranz 9y agoThe area is way too small to generate any feasible amount. If I remember correctly you'd only be able to charge 15 miles per day in ideal conditions.
- delecti 9y agoNot to "relevant XKCD" you, but.. https://xkcd.com/1924/ https://xkcd.com/1924/ In addition to the other points made (you often won't be able to charge enough for typical usage), you're also weighing down the car, and you're also immediately disincentivized from parking in a garage, while a house is never not going to be outside.
- monochromatic 9y agoI like the idea of a solar roof, but the incentives just don’t work out where I live. We have lots of sun, so I could plausibly produce quite a bit of excess power... but my electric company won’t buy it from me. The most they’ll do is let me offset my own consumption. So my upside is capped at getting free electricity, which’ll save me $100-150 a month. That’s not nothing, but it’ll take a LONG time to recoup the cost.
- castratikron 9y agoThat's when you start using your excess power to mine crypto and get $0.50/kWh instead of the $0.03/kWh that your utility would give you.
- monochromatic 9y agoThat’s... crazy talk. I like it.
- lightwave 9y agoThere's a company building a distributed grid exchange system so your neighbors could get a slight discount by buying your power as opposed to that of the electricity company, and you would make more than you would by selling to the electricity company. Currently piloting this idea across a couple places in Australia and SE Asia. https://powerledger.io/ https://powerledger.io/ Edit: I clarified a sentence.
- SQL2219 9y ago...Solar shingles will cost more than a conventional roof along with photovoltaic panels -- but not “wickedly so,” said Hugh Bromley, a New York-based Bloomberg New Energy Finance analyst. He estimates a Tesla roof would cost about $57,000 for a 2,000-square-foot house From where I sit that is wickedly more expensive. I had a new composite roof installed 2 years ago for $2,900
- ChuckMcM 9y agoYou need to add in 2000 sq ft of solar panels, mounted. As well.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- JohnStudio 9y agoThe postmortem comment to this thread, is kind of buried in the distressed communities report posted today from The Atlantic. Page 35, pretty much sums it all up. http://eig.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/2017-Distressed-Communities-Index.pdf http://eig.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/2017-Distressed-Co...