Tesla’s Solar Roof will change everything

For the kind of person who worships Tesla and believes that Elon Musk represents the Second Coming of Albert Einstein, it is a dream come true. They will soon be able to lie down at night  knowing that they are fully surrounded, protected and powered by their favourite brand.

The really good news is that, even for many of the rest of us – the kind of people who would like to have solar panels and use them to power our houses, and cars, for free, but think solar panels look a bit ugly, Tesla Tiles will change everything.

Tesla’s Solar Roof, or Beautiful Solar as they call it on their Australian website, allows you to create your entire roof surface out of Solarglass tiles. The big advantage of these glass tiles, which come in various, reasonably attractive designs, is that they look like roof tiles, and your roof looks like any other roof.

While there’s an Australian site for the tiles that allows you to explore your options and register your details, Tesla Australia says installations haven’t started yet. But people in the building industry constructing new homes tell EV Central that new builds are already being planned that incorporate Tesla Tiles.

They will, of course, be more expensive than a normal solar system, and they are also about 10 per cent less efficient than the unattractive versions, but they make up for that by being able to cover significantly more surface area. Financially, they will only make sense for new builds or those needing to replace an entire roof, at least at first.

Elon Musk has predicted the home power business, which includes the Solar Roof and the Tesla Powerwall you’d also need to buy to store your excess power, could one day be bigger than its electric vehicle business.

“It could be bigger … but certainly of a similar magnitude,” Musk has said.

Estimates in the US suggest a customer with a 2000 square foot roof would expect to pay $US33,950 after incentives for a 10kW Tesla Solar Roof. Finding people to install the roof, which will be very much a custom job, will be part of the challenge. 

While the currently available tiles are made of textured glass, clay-look and slate-like versions are also on the way. 

Solarglass comes with a 25-year warranty and there’s a snazzy video on the site of the tiles surviving a hail strike that shatters standard tiles to bits.