Tesla: Great Theoretical Products

Some cities do not allow reverse billing metering of electric power, so where does that leave the buyer of such systems?

It leaves the consumer with solar charging their Tesla batteries.

Early adopters pay for the R&D.

Hey if you want something, go for it.....the worst that can happen is you become a cautionary tale...but whatever happens, you'll be 'in-the-know'....

Counting 12 tiles in from the left, there is what appears to be an upward zigzag of dots or gaps. My guess is that these are gathering points for either 12 or 24 tiles in series, which would set the voltage of the array. Then these series groups would be paralleled to generate the total amperage.

I'm going to go out on a limb and double down. If you look where the man is holding his hand the space above and the area to the right don't appear correct also there are shingles butted directly together at the bottom center and there are gaps between shingles at the top that you can see daylight through at this distance when laying a floor or shingling a roof you need to realize that the area is usually not a perfect rectangle and more of a trapezoid. example. What may measure as 15ft from gutter to Peak at one end of the roof may be 15 feet and 1 inch at the other. .. that's not such a big deal if you know about it and can feather in the difference over the series of courses. I would think that these have been manufactured with a click type edge-to-edge convenience! However the failure is that there is no flexibility allowable during installation this will have to be corrected before I would start a business installing these suckers.

Left parenthesis I hope voice-to-text tookes all of that correctly LOL. Right parentheses LOL

Look again at the gaps you're seeing. I believe these thin panels are actually on top of the weather sealing shingles of the original roof.

I'd wait for Tesla to work the bugs out of the product and for the product components to come down in cost. That roof in the picture really is attractive. Neighbors might not appreciate regular solar panels but no one could complain about this alternative.

Have you ever been "DownLight " of a solar roof? At certain sun angles, the reflection causes heat and glare and is extremely annoying. To have a neighborhood full of glare, at times, would be very uncomforable, at best.

Also, anyone calculate the force of a 3/4 inch, or larger, hailstone, coming in from a large thunderstorm? It doesn't hit flat, but is concentrated in a small point of the sphere, not unlike a women's high heel shoe impacts far more force, on a small area, than her body weight. The hailstones often blow out building windows and car windshields. Have seen it up close.

I just thought of something: how well will this roof work when covered with snow? What if you have to rake snow off the roof? Are the tiles themselves hot?

From what I've read they are defrosting (like car windsheilds) so no raking should be required. I think you're right, I just need to wait for the price to come down and the technology to improve.

What about the eves?

eaves

icicles

evs!

I can see this happening if solar shingles have thawing ability to melt the snow. There are probably going to be also selling accessories to these. Such as this;

Yet if you have to cash to put up solar shingles,... you'll have the cash to address those problems as well as other problems dealing with your roof concurrently.

That looks like a fire hazard to me....

They will naturally absorb some energy (irreversibly), and heat up, but not so much if under deep layer of snow.

Maybe you can use your batteries to melt off the snow, and then charge them up again after the panels are clear...

Theoretical products?

As an investment, solar tiles are a reasonably easy investment to justify on a new-build as one doesn't need their area of regular tiles or slates, so there is a take-out price for that area that makes the return easier. In comparison, they look similar to a slate roof from the ground and that makes them barely noticeable.

Adding solar water heaters or electrical panels on top of an existing roof is not so attractive either financially or aesthetically.

There are a few companies that have solar shingles. Tesla or SolarCity are not the first. They just made one that looks like a slate shingle.

Not to worry, those solar shingles will soon be obsolete, just 10 years ago the panels were 2" thick, then 5 years ago they were 1/2" thick, now they are 1/4" thick. At this rate, they will be soon be as thin as a sheet of mylar. By the time your ready, or the cost has come down, somebody will have invented the longer lasting light bulb so no one will need to install solar panels on their roofs anymore.

I find the solar panel roofing concept to be a good idea but so far I have yet to find any manufacturer that rated their panels to take 100 MPH winds plus up to 1" hail and don't have a price tag that is beyond the value of most common houses.

When someone comes out with panel system that meets those physical specs and can hit 1+ watt per square foot average from sun up to sundown on a typical day for ~ $15 or less a square foot I would consider them.

100 MPH plus 1" hail 1+ W per square foot for less than $15 per square foot....

Done.

Not sure why you are concerned about $ per square foot. Shouldn't dollar per watt be more to the point?

I see I should have elaborated and said, that also doubles as permanent roofing that has a 20+ year guarantee as well.

And I had a typo on the 1 watt part. It should have read 10 watts.

Peel and stick panels at a theoretical peak 128 watts for ~23 square feet for $175 doesn't cut it as permanent roofing. Plus I don't see a 1" hail rating either.

1" hail? Not adequate where I live.

I have no knowledge of any hail rating for the product. I suspect it would be fine. It is a flexible strip glued to the roof, I'd guess it is pretty damage resistant....but it would be juat a guess.

Do you share identical criteria with tcmtech? Is there some criteria standard being adopted?

I agree. It really is a genius product, especially because they make it look so nice. Seemed to perform quite well under durability testing, too.

That price tag though... Insurance or not, I'd still be crapping my pants every time there was a storm. Phoenix got a good one yesterday afternoon.

That's minor.

Crikey!

Wow! Where is that? These folks clearly aren't gardeners! Wherever it is, I don't want to go there!

I'd still be crapping my pants every time there was a storm.

Smells like its gonna rain...

That's why you have insurance.....no worries mate