Tesla' Solar Roof Tiles Announced Cheaper Than Expected

[TxMusky]

This was at the bottom of the linked page you provided. It takes a minute to load but it should be under the video of the hail stone being shot at a tile.

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MobileBlues
3 days ago
I am a contractor and I'm not sure where you are getting your numbers but you are WAY off on the costs being the same or less as current roofing. Roofing is sold in 'Squares" which are 10' X 10' 'Squares' or 100 Sq. Ft. A typical roof on new construction in most of the U.S. is about $200 per 'Square' or $2.00 per sq. ft. Tesla's calculation of $24.50 per sq. ft. makes the roof cost $2,450 per 'Square' or more than ten times the cost of a typical new asphalt shingle roof. How Tesla fudges the numbers is they amortize the cost over a ten year period and say that it's competitive with a typical asphalt shingle type roof when calculated on a yearly basis.
Of course the above calculation does not take into account the production of solar energy and the utility savings that will provide.

[TxMusky]

From the Bloomberg link you first provided the 2000sq ft was 40% covered and cost 50K...

Roofing a 2,000 square-foot home in New York state—with 40 percent coverage of active solar tiles and battery backup for night-time use—would cost about $50,000.......

“The pricing is better than I expected, better than everyone expected,” said Hugh Bromley, a solar analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance who had been skeptical about the potential market impact of the new product. Tesla’s cost for active solar tiles is about $42 per square foot, “significantly below” BNEF’s prior estimate of $68 per square foot, Bromley said. Inactive tiles will cost $11 per square foot.

So if the math is close, active tiles are 42 a sq ft, inactive are 11 a sq ft at 40% active tile coverage and 60% inactive that is pretty steep, at 50,000 WITH federal tax credits. (800 sq ft times 42 per sq ft for active tiles) (1200 sq ft times 11 per sq ft for inactive) 46,800 total cost mtls and labor.

[wacojoe]

Besides the shuck & jive on costs, there is the usual avoidance of the disposal issue with the toxic materials in solar panels. We see nothing about the materials in these tiles, but a little querying of your favorite search engine will reveal that the disposal of solar panels, yet to hit full stride, will significantly impact the ultimate "costs" of them. These are hidden costs ignored for the most part. My cynical nature is being confirmed as relevant once again.

An example: China facing future problems getting rid of their flood of solar panels when they inevitably degrade in ~20-30 years —

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/socie...mental-problem

[Truckman]

the disposal of solar panels, yet to hit full stride, will significantly impact the ultimate "costs" of them.

Put them in crates marked "Encrypted Email Files - DNC & RNC"...Leave them anywhere near the back door of a Russian embassy...They'll disappear overnight...

Or, put the same crates unmarked on the weatherdeck of an abandoned cargo freighter anywhere near the coasts of Nigeria or Somalia...Problem solved......Ben

[TxMusky]

Basic physics, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. But then again, this is a problems that will be decades down the road, why worry about it now? That is the way these new age thinkers approach things. Remember the days when cloth diapers were picked up on your front porch, taken to a plant, cleaned sanitized and brought back to your front porch? How about paper sacks at the grocery store, we used those sacks for school book covers, wrapping paper and many other things. Glass bottles, we paid a few cents for the bottle when we bought the soda and got a few cents back when we returned the empty, which was cleaned and refilled and sold again. Some "forward" thinking yuppie thought disposable diapers, plastic sacks and disposable plastic bottles would be "New age" and now the things we used to reuse many times, now get used once and clog our landfills for decades to come. Kuerig coffee pods was the bomb, until people started seeing millions of those little plastic pods filling dumpsters and they are not biodegradable.

Sometimes the new and improved ideas are good ideas only for the present. Us oil and gas guys are horrible people according to the greenie weinies, but their pollution is yet to be seen and for the most part will only become a problem after many of them are dead.

[wacojoe]

Below is an excellent breakdown & comparison of the costs involved. The up-front on one of these guys is more than stiff and you best be planning on dying in the house to recover cost versus an ordinary asphalt shingle one. Maybe it would recover a major part of the extra cost for a resell, but I highly doubt it, same as solar panels.

https://www.inverse.com/article/3510...f-actual-price

[mgrist]

Basic physics, for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. But then again, this is a problems that will be decades down the road, why worry about it now? That is the way these new age thinkers approach things. Remember the days when cloth diapers were picked up on your front porch, taken to a plant, cleaned sanitized and brought back to your front porch? How about paper sacks at the grocery store, we used those sacks for school book covers, wrapping paper and many other things. Glass bottles, we paid a few cents for the bottle when we bought the soda and got a few cents back when we returned the empty, which was cleaned and refilled and sold again. Some "forward" thinking yuppie thought disposable diapers, plastic sacks and disposable plastic bottles would be "New age" and now the things we used to reuse many times, now get used once and clog our landfills for decades to come. Kuerig coffee pods was the bomb, until people started seeing millions of those little plastic pods filling dumpsters and they are not biodegradable.

Sometimes the new and improved ideas are good ideas only for the present. Us oil and gas guys are horrible people according to the greenie weinies, but their pollution is yet to be seen and for the most part will only become a problem after many of them are dead.

Just a reread of Tex's post above, plain, simple and to the point.