Tesla taking preorders for Solar Roof

The business community and stock market were extremely pessimistic about Tesla's acquisition of Solar City, which is also an Elon Musk founded company, but allegedly does not make any money. Despite the cries of naysayers, Tesla shareholders voted 85% for the merger last year, and now they are ready to make their own solar products and install them alongside stationary battery products and electric cars. Awesome solution, right?


RIGHT! If you look past all the hype and marketing nonsense, you'll see a relatively expensive COMPLETE solution for energy production, storage and consumption. Nowadays anything can run on electricity from tools, home appliances and gadgets to cars, motorcycles, trucks, boats...etc.


We don't have all the specifications of the latest Tesla energy systems (PowerWall II and Solar Roof), but this illustration is a good basis to start making my point.

Tesla (and Solar City) use very high efficiency inverters for all their systems, losing less than 13% of the energy in a full cycle. This full cycle consists of capturing solar energy, storing it and using it or feeding it back to the grid. The grid then delivers it  - to wherever it's needed - with a 5% maximum loss, depending on the distance. Some clever German engineers found that 350V DC can be transported with even less energy loss, under 3%, but this type of grid is not used worldwide, yet...

So in the picture above you see a Tesla PowerWall (V1), which had some serious limitations, like the sustained power draw, which couldn't be more than 2000W (an average AC unit), but the PowerWall II has a 90% efficiency, 13.5kWh total capacity and 5000W continuous/ 7000W peak power delivery. 120kg ... 10 year warranty... and uses the new form factor Gigafactory battery cells, called 20700 (20mm diameter x 70 mm height) instead of 18650 (18 x 65).


For now you can order Textured and Smooth tiles, and you have to pay cash or non-Tesla credit/financing. It seems they want to serve paying customers first, then later in the year they'll offer some kind of financing for the larger customer base.

In the US you get a cost calculator, which more or less approximates you final price and savings over 30 years, using Google Project Sunroof information. In other parts of the world, you'll have to wait for an expert assessment.

Personally I'd wait to see the finished product working on some customer's homes. In theory these Tesla Solar Tiles may be the best solar products on the market. For most real estate developers it's a no brainer, while the average house owner will probably wait for the current roof tiles to break beyond repair, then upgrade to Tesla Solar Roof, as part of a renovation.

In my opinion, battery storage makes more sense in the short term, as the grid can handle all electricity consumers, but struggles at peak hours. Having stationary battery storage plus charging you electric car only at night, will stabilize the grid for the near future, BUT end goal should be to shut off all the dirty power plants and use only solar, wind, geothermal and battery storage.

For more information check out Tesla.com