![]() Bifacial solar panels, more commonly known as double-sided panels, offer added value by harnessing sunlight through both sides of the panel through reflection off the surface below.Musk ended his announcement at Universal Studios in Los Angeles by asking: "So, why would you buy anything else?" The question was rhetorical, obviously, but the answer will have a lot to do with price. Or stick with a more typical 25-year warranty. No word from Tesla on whether it will back its Solar Roof like some installers do slate-with a 100-year warranty. "Roofers aren't electricians and vice versa, so I'm most interested in seeing how the costs of labor affect the end price to consumers," says Vikram Aggarwal, CEO of EnergySage, an online marketplace of solar installers. If the Tesla slate is lightweight and easy to install, it could be a cost-effective option.īut that's a big if. Natural slate may be the easiest alternative for Tesla to beat from a pricing perspective, since its expense is largely due to the fact that the material is very heavy and hard to work with. And even if Solar Roof products cost less than our estimates, it will most certainly be initially aimed at the luxury home market. If Tesla's roofing tiles end up priced that high, it will be because consumers will essentially be paying for long-term electricity costs up front, according to Musk's formula. Slate Tile would need to cost less than $98,500 (or about $3,300 per 100 square feet).īottom line: For sure, $70,000 to $100,000 is a lot to spend on a roof. ![]() ![]() Smooth and Textured Tile (Tesla's equivalent to asphalt tile) would need to cost less than $73,500, installed (or about $2,450 per 100 square feet) Tuscan Tile (Tesla's equivalant of clay tile) would need to cost less than $69,500, installed (or about $2,300 per 100 square feet), to beat its traditional counterpart So put all that together, and here's how Tesla would need to price its tiles to meet Musk's claims. (Though we should note that the warranty of the Powerwall 2.0 is 10 years, so you would most likely need to replace it more than once over the life of the shingles). So $60,000 worth of electricity becomes $53,500. The easy way to factor in the cost of a Powerwall to our roofing calculation is to subtract it from the value of the electricity over the life of the roof. Combining Solar Roof and Powerwall 2.0, Musk promises, will power an entire home with 100 percent renewable energy. You could stop there, but the system is being packaged alongside Tesla's forthcoming Powerwall 2.0, a battery storage device with a built-in inverter and an installed cost of $6,500. One final factor: the Tesla Solar Roof will work like any rooftop solar system, connecting to your home's electric panel through an inverter. (Our rough estimate assumes our hypothetical Solar Roof homes generate exactly as much electricity as they use.) So that adds $60,000 to the value of the roof. Tesla says the life expectancy of its tiles will be 30 years. That's a typical electric bill in states where solar is big, like California, Texas, and North Carolina. So how could a $73,500 roof be considered cost-competitive with a $20,000 asphalt roof? To compensate for the proposed added value of the "free" electricity from Tesla's roof, we added in $2,000 a year, over the lifespan of the roof. (And we're leaving out any consideration of solar rebates and incentives.) But here's what the installed costs look like for the roughly 3,000 square feet of roofing needed to cover an average size home in the U.S. There are plenty of variables, of course, including the location of the home and shape and height of the roof. To get there, we pulled together ballpark pricing for the various roofing materials Tesla's solar shingles mimic, from sources like the Slate Roofing Contractors Association, the Tile Roofing Institute, and the Remodeling 2016 Cost vs.
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