Elon Musk Says Tesla's Ramping Up Solar Roof Production (bloomberg.com) 134
Elon Musk is looking to ramp up Tesla's solar roof-tile business even as the company's panel installations shrink. From a report: Tesla is rapidly "spooling up production" and hopes to manufacture about 1,000 solar roofs a week by the end of the year, Musk said in a tweet Monday evening. That would represent a massive increase for the company, which at one point in 2018 was making enough shingles to cover three to five homes a week, two former employees said.
these things are so beautiful (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd actually want this not for the solar but for the beautiful roof and durability comapred to other roofs.
So for me It's a shame they are so expensive. The claim is that they amortize out over time with utility bills and maybe last longer than a regular roof. But that means if you sell your house your house price is higher and you have to find buyers willing to pay more on the front end to get the amortization on the back end.
If the company were to take the risk on themselves. For example pricing it as a regular roof but taking all the power themselves for the first 20 years. That would make this a no-brainer. A roof better than any other for the same cost?
I especially like the resistance to hail. My roof has been destroyed twice by hail. this seems to be the only material that could stand up to hail.
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Asphalt shingles fail in an interesting way. At first you can barely see the damage but it light cracks their surface and removes the sun protection. then over about 5 years the sunlight dcomposes the material leaving a spider web of fibers with no rain protection. Unless you have a good eye you can't see it. a good insurance inspector can. and if the pock density is high enough they total the roof, otherwise spot repair. But you'd never think to have it inspected if you didn't know this could happen
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If you build a roof correctly, most of the time, even the loss of a small number of entire shingles doesn't result in actual leaks. I've seen roofs made with cedar planking where shingles had been ripped away by wind and nobody noticed it for the better part of a decade, and all you saw underneath was a tiny bit of pitting on the surface, with no leaks at all.
Then again, I'd lay good odds that most roofs aren't built correctly. They cut corners and use softwood decking, they don't overlap shingles/flashin
Economics of solar roofs (Score:3)
So for me It's a shame they are so expensive.
Their cost is roughly on par with the cost of a stone tile roof. They are expensive compared with a asphalt shingle roof but they appear competitive with the high end sorts of tiles you might see on more expensive homes.
The claim is that they amortize out over time with utility bills and maybe last longer than a regular roof.
The entire point of any solar installation is that it offsets the cost by reduced utility costs. The only question is whether traditional roof + utility costs >= tesla roof costs. Any new roof is going to be a big up front expense whether solar or not. If the tesla roof costs close to
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" They are expensive compared with a asphalt shingle roof "
In other civilized countries, asphalt shingle roofs are for sheds, not houses.
Re: Economics of solar roofs (Score:5, Insightful)
In other civilized countries the houses are the size of an average US shed.
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The only question is whether traditional roof + utility costs >= tesla roof costs
Here is an actual quote they gave to a customer: https://electrek.co/2019/06/14... [electrek.co]
A high end roof with traditional tiles would cost $37k, the Tesla solar roof would be $64.5k and they recommended an additional $10k battery to make good use of the available power.
So an additional $37k over a traditional roof. And note they are not expecting any profit over a 30 year lifespan, in fact the owner would be about $10k down. Seems a little oddly sized TBH.
That $37k has to come from somewhere. Can't mortgage it bec
One data point isn't enough (Score:2)
Here is an actual quote they gave to a customer
That is one data point. It is unclear if it is representative of the prices in general. There almost certainly are going to be roofs where Tesla's offerings don't make economic sense. Your example doesn't provide enough data to draw wide conclusions. Furthermore early versions of ANY product are likely to be quite expensive since they haven't gotten the economies of scale and engineering dialed down yet.
Note I'm not arguing for or against the economics of Tesla's roof. I'm just not drawing conclusions
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A mortgage is a loan secured against the property. As such, you can't borrow more than the property is worth, because if you defaulted then the asset it is secured against would not cover the loan.
Maybe it's different in the US, but in the UK the lender will appoint someone to value the property. They will look at what its market value is, not how much it cost to build.
Valuation (Score:2)
A mortgage is a loan secured against the property. As such, you can't borrow more than the property is worth, because if you defaulted then the asset it is secured against would not cover the loan.
You absolutely can take out mortgages that are for more money than the likely market value of a piece of real estate. Happens all the time. Heck a lot of the reasons for the recession in 2008 were for precisely this reason. Banks made loans on houses for which the likely value of the underlying asset wasn't equal to or greater than the loan or rapidly became so. The banks then sold the loan to another company so they really don't incur much risk by doing this. Furthermore while the real estate does pro
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> Banks made loans on houses for which the likely value of the underlying asset wasn't equal to or greater than the loan or rapidly became so
Yeah, we don't do that any more because it caused a massive global financial crash last time.
> If you've done any valuation at all you'll find that there is no objectively correct answer to what something is worth
True, but the point is that here the banks won't lend more than they think the property is likely to fetch on the market. Sometimes they get it wrong an
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For example pricing it as a regular roof but taking all the power themselves for the first 20 years.
Why would anybody go for that? I get a solar roof but don't get any of the solar?
This is what I have. I went from a $250 bill to the power company (average per month), to a $100 bill to the solar company (average per month), for no financial investment on my part.
I give the solar company my roof to use to install their "power plant." They then charge me 10 cents per kWh generated. This is far better than the 25 cents per kWh I pay the utility company. So although I don't "own" the panels, at the same time it was free installation and maintenance and I have lower bills, and I still h
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They are nice, but I don't think I can afford the current luxury of them. My roof is 30 years old, and within the next few years, I would probably be getting it replaced. While I love the idea of getting solar roof, it may be still better to replace the shingles, and then just put on standard panels. As my house faces the road to the north, most of the panels would be on the south side of my house.
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And if I had to move, trying to sell the place with that extra cost on top would be a nightmare.
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If you are not looking into Solar collection, you may look into Metal roofing.
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Or as my parents did, metal roofing with traditional solar panels on top. That roof is going to last for a good 50+ years, and will be producing power the whole time.
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hail kills metal roofs too. and when you replace them you now have the problem of paying to remove and replace the now obsolete but still working solar panels. in the meantime it looks like crap. And worst case the hail takes out the solar panels too.
these tesla roofs are not more expensive than solar + metal, and they look goos and should last longer.
So it's a no brainer really which you should install if you are going to go solar. It's just that adding 60K to the house's cost with a very slow payback
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Standing seam roofs are pretty much hail-proof; that is the only 50-year metal roof I am aware of. But, if you do a 50-year roof, it usually makes sense to have a secondary water barrier (taped plywood at a minimum) “just in case”.
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But that means if you sell your house your house price is higher and you have to find buyers willing to pay more on the front end to get the amortization on the back end.
One day Americans may pay actual money for electricity and you'll realise that buyers happily pay this. I actually put solar panels on my roof just before selling my house in Australia as people actively seek out this kind of feature.
Too late (Score:2)
3 days ago the first of the new regular roof tiles were delivered to be installed. We waited 2 (3 now?) years for him to get his act together, typical it was the week after we started with the regular roof replacement.
Hopefully in 25 years when it's time to replace them again, they're actually available.
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The installation cost is the main reason it costs more than panels, and getting it down has been one of the main reasons why it's been so slow to ramp. They've been going through multiple iterations to simplify the process. Roof tiles are a lot more complicated than roof panels to install, since they serve double-duty and have to match the contours of the roof (including all of its penetrations).
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But, just l
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I'll assume there is a pretty damn big caveat on them, even in the US. You guys over the pond talk about how old things are, but you really don't know what weather is. Where I live, you find out real quick that 30 year roofs are in no way guaranteed to last 30 years, because a 30 year roof where I live has an expected life of 7 to 10 years. You don't use anything brittle here. Turns out hail is a mother fucker. I have solar panels, they're rated to handle a 2 inch piece of hail. My hope is, that since
AM vs. FM (Score:2, Insightful)
I'd like to thank Hank Green for wording this problem so well, though he might not agree with how I've applied it. This is AM versus FM. This isn't about radios but about energy technology. What does AM stand for in this context? Actual machines. And FM? Well, that depends on the level of politeness you want to portray. We can call this "future machines", "fantasy machines", or "fucking magic". That last one is how Hank Green defined it.
Elon Musk wants to produce enough solar tiles to cover 1000 roo
Agree but there is value in the solar side too (Score:4, Insightful)
I also agree, no way can all roofs or energy use be converted to solar in a meaningful timeframe.
However the reality is that building new nuclear power units will be a tough sell in some areas, so the ability to do that will be limited also.
I think trying to bring individual solar power to as many regions as possible makes a ton of sense. It can reduce the need for as many nuclear plants, making it more likely we could supply all power needs with a mix of nuclear and solar... the only two forms of energy production that make sense to me long term.
There is another side benefit of that, a very distributed power grid in the event of an attack on infrastructure. I would say in fact that it would not be a bad national priority to shoot for one solar powered house per block in urban areas, so that in an emergency there would be some place that people could get power from, even limited amount can charge communication devices and keep some refrigeration going for food.
You could store backup electronics for systems in regional warehouses shielded against EMP, for rapid repairs to solar production in a region...
Ideally someday everyone would be comfortable with small nuclear batteries powering blocks at a time. But we are a long ways from there yet, lets just get people OK with the idea of building new nuclear plants period...
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I agree. I think the parent post is sobering, in that we can't install 28 million solar roofs per year, and we'd run out of roofs after 5-6 years anyway. However, I think as part of the solution, building out residential, commercial and institutional solar is a great way to help support the grid and create more renewable energy. Also, industrial solar could certainly be doing more (large installations in the desert) along with nuclear (ideally reprocessing spent fuel to also reduce our waste issue at the
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How are we going to solve this problem? Actual machines? Or, fucking magic?
Here's a different meaning for AM and FM -- "Actual Market" and "Fantasy Market".
The free market has currently evaluated that nuclear power stations aren't economical to build -- (1) huge up-front costs, (2) not enough certainty that the financial return over 30+ years will be enough to pay off those up-front costs, (3) currently the cost of decommissioning is wildly unknown.
The free market has currently evaluated that wind, solar and hydro are economical to build.
How are we going to change this? how are we
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Let's talk about a fantasy market.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/20... [wattsupwiththat.com]
The PTC subsidy has been in effect now for 27 years. Congress has adjusted the PTC many times through the years but today the subsidy is about $.02/kWhr. So, the power company gets money back in the form of a subsidy for roughly 67% of what they produce â" i.e., the company gets money back to the tune of $.02/kWhr after it sells the electricity for $.03/kWhr. If the company sells $3 million of electricity they get the $3 million plus a PTC subsidy of $2 million. That is a huge subsidy! In fact, I think it is the biggest subsidy ever given for anything.
T. Boone Pickens and Warren Buffett both have huge investments in these things and both have openly said that wind farms would not be economic without the PTC.
This production tax credit is a fantasy market. End that subsidy and the fantasy market for wind power goes away.
I've heard from people in the nuclear power industry and they are saying that these wind production tax credits are making it unprofitable to stay in business. This is making utilities and state politicians very nervous. If a nuclear power plant shuts down while it is still safe to operate, and nearly all of them are even at 4
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The wind subsidy is less of an issue today as it was 5-10 years ago. With increasing turbine sizes (>5MW) wind can compete on its own.
I am torn on nuclear; conceptually I want it (specifically small modular reactors), but you are going to need to retire 40-year old reactors in the next decade or two.
Despite huge subsidies, nobody has been successful in the US at building a new nuclear power plant on schedule and on budget. What is going to change that in the next 5-10 years?
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The wind subsidy is less of an issue today as it was 5-10 years ago. With increasing turbine sizes (>5MW) wind can compete on its own.
If wind can compete on its own, and I agree that it can, then let it. As it is now these wind energy projects get half of their profit, or maybe all of it, from tax credits. We are seeing these projects get built in the craziest of places that would not be profitable without this tax credit. End the subsidy and we will see wind still grow, just in places that make a profit on their own.
I am torn on nuclear; conceptually I want it (specifically small modular reactors), but you are going to need to retire 40-year old reactors in the next decade or two.
What happens when these reactors need to be retired for safety reasons and there are no new nuclear power to replace it?
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Get a half dozen companies building a dozen reactors. (It's already common to build reactors in pairs so this would not be unusual.) The five that keep the closest to budget and schedule get to build the next contracts to build, the odd one out has a "time out" to think about why they failed.
In other words, let the government decide who wins or loses. What could possibly go wrong... Unless you were suggesting that you will be doing this with your own money, but then why are you here talking about it and not out there doing it?
enough for the federal government to fund a lot of this and "jump start" this industry.
Ah no, didn't think so.
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In other words, let the government decide who wins or loses. What could possibly go wrong...
So, the federal government can shovel money into industries like electric cars, windmills, and solar power projects but not nuclear power to reduce national CO2 emissions? That is rather hypocritical of you, unless you are calling for the government to stop declaring wind power the winner with its large subsidies.
Unless you were suggesting that you will be doing this with your own money, but then why are you here talking about it and not out there doing it?
If I had the money it doesn't do any good unless there is a government willing to issue construction and operation permits. I'm talking about it here because it's a place where such matters are b
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There are about 500 people in the US that have the expertise to build nuclear reactors from a project management, QA, and process perspective. I would hazard a guess that only 20% of them are not retired. You need about 100 of these people per plant for your most optimistic 4-year construction duration (up thread) plus 3 years of design and permitting. To complete 20 per year you need to go from 100 people to 14,000 with the skill set. You might be able to cut it in half by doing 3-4 reactors per plant of
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You can't solve the problem by throwing the wrong resources at it.
You can't solve the problem by ignoring it either.
As I pointed out before, the nation is already reliant on nuclear power for 20% of its electricity and we have nothing that can replace it but natural gas or more nuclear power. We can keep doing the same thing we are now, which is essentially nothing, or we can start on the path of replacing old nuclear power with new nuclear power. We don't need to build 30 nuclear power plants next year, but it would be a good start if we saw one get started next year.
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If wind can compete on its own, and I agree that it can, then let it.
It's been pointed out to you that European offshore wind projects are now being build subsidy free, but you continue to ignore that fact. Or maybe you are being told to ignore that fact and keep spreading your nonsense.
If nuclear can compete on its own, it should. But it can't. It always has, and always will be dependent on heavy subsidies. I don't want to pay for that any more. There are cheaper, cleaner options.
You lost the economic argument. You lost the environmental argument. The base load argument is
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This production tax credit is a fantasy market. End that subsidy and the fantasy market for wind power goes away.
Wind turbines are being installed in Denmark without subsidy. Not many, the vast majority of good spots are taken now, but that will soon change again when offshore wind gets down to onshore prices.
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The PTC subsidy has been in effect now for 27 years. Congress has adjusted the PTC many times through the years but today the subsidy is about $.02/kWhr.
I didn't believe your numbers so I looked for independent collaboration. I got numbers for 2016 total government subsidies of all kinds https://www.eia.gov/analysis/r... [eia.gov] and for the 2018 US energy production mix https://www.eia.gov/energyexpl... [eia.gov] both from the US Department of Energy, a branch called the "US Energy Information Administration".
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Can we build 32 new gigawatt nuclear power plants per year? Yes, those are actual machines.
Lol, so you're in the FM camp as well, but you just can't admit it to yourself.
We can't do that. In a Fucking Magical world we could do that, but not here in the real one. Nobody is set up to crank out the guts of nuclear reactors on that scale, (containment vessels, cooling systems, electrical systems, monitoring equipment, etc.) nobody has the construction experience to build them on that scale, (we'd need at least 32 experienced nuclear architecture groups and related construction groups) and NIMBY says
Re:AM vs. FM (Score:4, Informative)
FFS, what's the fastest anyone has EVER built a nuclear power plant? A decade? Decade and a half?
Let's look at some nuclear power plants near me.
Braidwood, 13 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Byron, 10 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Clinton, 12 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Donald C. Cook, 6 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Duane Arnold, 5 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Davis Besse, 8 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Dresden, 4 years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
And you think we can build 32 in one year?
World wide? Yes, absolutely. In the USA? Unlikely, but possible.
Why you have such a hard-on for nuclear power, I'll never understand. But it's clear that it's affected your brain and is producing something like syphilitic fever dreams.
Why nuclear power? I thought I was quite clear, because nuclear power plants are actual machines. They exist in the here and now. We don't need any magic to build them, we only need to grant ourselves permission. This doesn't mean this is the only solution we should try but since they exist in the here and now there is no reason to not include this in the solution. We should also be building windmills, solar collectors, and hydroelectric dams where they can prove to be profitable. Nuclear power can be profitable but, again, we need only give ourselves permission to make that possible. No magic required.
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... we need only give ourselves permission to make that possible.
and
No magic required.
You contradict yourself kind sir. ;)
Getting people to agree on what is for dinner is magic. Getting people to agree on nuclear is deep magic.
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Nuke advocates are all exasperated geniuses. (Score:2)
Once one fully considers the end-to-end cost of Nuclear power, including the risk of a catastrophic failure, then it's more expensive than the alternatives (solar/wind+batteries, hydro, maybe with some coal or natural gas as backups).
You're talking about building 32 new Nuke plants a year at what? $5-10B a pop and each one taking 8 years to come online--and then having to staff hundreds of new nuclea
Build things! (Score:2, Informative)
Act now! We have only 14 months!
https://www.wnd.com/2019/07/ea... [wnd.com]
These global warming warnings are getting louder and more often but no one seems to be all that concerned about building things. Elon Musk is building things so I'm not including him. This threat of global warming is an engineering problem. Let's get some people together and engineer a solution. We don't need politicians in this, they seem to only throw a wrench in the works. What we need are people to...
BUILD THINGS!
Since the politician
Second Use (Score:1)
no they're not (Score:1)
Look at their recent 10Q and tell me where the capex is for this? Where are the jobs posted to get this massive increase in production? We'll see if the SEC does anything about this statement, which I'm assuming was not approved by Musk's twitter sitter before it went out.
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Countdown to denialist rant in 3...2...1 (Score:1)
Re:Who cares about this lying fraud? (Score:4, Interesting)
Tesla is ramping up panel production based on prices protected by tariffs, which is equivalent to a 30% subsidy.
If Trump loses in 2020, the tariffs are likely to be repealed.
Re:Who cares about this lying fraud? (Score:5, Interesting)
The reason for the Tesla Roof hitting stride for 2020 is to take advantage of the change in California’s building code which will require new homes to be built with solar power. This will create a significant demand for camouflaged solutions since not everyone likes the look of panels on the roof.
Building it into your mortgage and designing for it up front also helps with the economics.
Getting installers ramped up is the only real challenge, but I would expect many roofers wanting to get involved in the value chain.
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And replaced with pro sustainability government subsidies for renewable energy.
Re: Who cares about this lying fraud? (Score:1)
Re:Who cares about this lying fraud? (Score:5, Interesting)
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...
Yet none of these features that are actually cool are not supported.
i.e. "...none...are not supported" could this be that this translates to "all are supported". If so, then have you actually meant that?
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Only if you significantly increase the size of your roof. A typical home requires 30 KwH of energy/day (average is 867, but for anybody that can afford a Tesla roof at all or live someplace where you need air conditioning, you probably need twice that or more). The Tesla cars get ballpark 3 miles per STORED KwH. A typical car adds roughly 1000 miles/month or 120000 miles per year (YMM literally V) so call it 30 miles/day or 10 KWH/day, which is a third of a typical house, a smaller fraction of a rich per
Crazy Expensive. Not. (Score:2)
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Re:Who cares about this lying fraud? (Score:5, Insightful)
Musk is nor more a fraud then any other CEO.
However unlike a lot of real fraud CEO's. Musk in terms of Solar City and Tesla does deliver. I see Tesla Cars driving down the same roads I drive, and parked at the same places I shop. I have neighbors with Solar City Solar Panels installed on their homes.
SpaceX is launching craft into space and Docking the the ISS.
He doesn't seem like a guy who I would like to be friends with. However he seems to be the only American with the Ambition, Money and willingness to actually work on changing the world. Before Musk, the Electric Car was the Slow small golf cart, that could barely hit highway speeds, and had under a hundred mile range. Solar Panels were too expensive for people to buy, and were usually just used for a gimmic.
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"He doesn't seem like a guy who I would like to be friends with."
Name 3 CEOs you _would_ like to be friends with. Most of them are psychopaths.
Re:Who cares about this lying fraud? (Score:5, Funny)
Or as The Simpsons [youtube.com] put it... ;)
Re:Who cares about this lying fraud? (Score:4, Insightful)
Before Musk, the Electric Car was the Slow small golf cart, that could barely hit highway speeds, and had under a hundred mile range.
Musk himself is P.T. Barnum.
His primary brand is himself. If he wants to promote an idea, he does it with the greatest showmanship and spectacle money can buy. I'm not suggesting that's good or bad in itself, but once people tire of his nonstop hyperbole, they tend to cast a skeptical eye on his projects.
Never mind the man. Let's focus on that product.
The thing I like about Tesla cars is that they've been designed as computerized systems first, and they happen to fit into a vehicle form factor. Tesla (the company) started with nothing - no proven designs, no existing parts, and no hesitation to change anything, because they hadn't built a customer base that liked their nonexistent old models.
Since every part is a new design, it can be designed without being limited by old requirements. The door handles don't have to be built from the same mold as an old model, so they can pop out. The air conditioning ducts don't have to go around the engine, so they can cover the whole dashboard. The engine doesn't need airflow for cooling, so the body doesn't need a front grille.
Other companies could make all-new designs using all-new parts, but it'd be even more expensive than Tesla's multiple billions of dollars, not just because of the effort itself, but the contract compliance that would be involved in maneuvering a large old company to accommodate an all-new production.
This, in my opinion, is Elon Musk's real "innovation", though I'm hesitant to use that word since he's certainly not the first to do it. He recognizes that building an enterprise completely from scratch is expensive, but ultimately drives improvement. The mistakes of the past should be studied and learned from, but we don't need to keep repeating them just because it's the cheap option.
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Undoing a slip in moderation.
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Reality check here. Tesla started of using parts from other manufacturers. The Roadster was basically a converted Lotus, and the Model S had a lot of parts from other companies... The steering wheel was from Mercedes IIRC, as a random example.
And at the same time other companies were making affordable, really practical EVs like the Leaf. You can deride it for the smaller battery and odd looks, but Nissan deserve a lot of credit for that car. Not only did it prove affordable shorter range cars were viable an
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My concept of Musk is someone who tries to leave nothing to chance and kind of does what the rational-logical-computer thing to do is, come hell or high water. So like you say he realized that he could redesign the car from the ground up, or figure out a cheaper way to launch spacecraft. Seems to me that he also realized that Silicon Valley is absurdly about hype, buzz, marketing and these kind of distributed echo chambers, and to compete with the Fords of the world he'd need to capture people's imaginati
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Solar Panels were too expensive for people to buy, and were usually just used for a gimmic.
I agree with the rest; Musk has done amazing things to push space launch costs down and electric cars to where they're not only viable, but very attractive. But he hasn't really done much with respect to solar panels. A little, and it's possible that the solar roof concept might take off in a big way, but you're definitely overstating his contribution in this area.
Apple!Apple!Apple! I mean, Elon!Elon!Elon! (Score:2)
[*]You are thinking I make joke. I am not.
Re:Who cares about this lying fraud? (Score:4, Interesting)
But he hasn't really done much with respect to solar panels.
Elon's "innovation" with solar panels was in financing, not the technology itself. What really drove the price down was Germany's push for renewables in the mid-2000s which prompted the industry to overcome the high cost of silicon.
That said, the solar roof tiles are genuinely a new product, which is why it's taken so long to bring them to market. I don't know what their margins are like, but the price is going to be on the same order of magnitude as a car. So if they can produce 1000 roofs per week, that would contribute noticeably to Tesla's bottom line.
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I'm getting panels put on this month. I didn't go with Solar City because their financing sucked, higher interest rate than the company I went with by almost a point. The cost of the system and install were basically the same. I don't know what breakthrough he managed in financing but it sure didn't bring me on as a customer.
He bought an existing company that was chugging along doing installs and from what I can tell didn't change much other than the development of the new solar roof that I couldn't even
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Yeah, they changed their financing scheme a few years ago. When they started, Elon's big idea was to overcome the high cost of panels and installation by offering systems on a sort of "leasing" deal -- for no money up front from the customer, they'd put the system on your roof and then sell you the electricity at a lower rate than you'd pay the local utility. SolarCity would own the system, and make their money by arbitraging the cost difference. For various reasons -- changes in laws in some areas, a drop
Re:Who cares about this lying fraud? (Score:4, Insightful)
Solar Panels were too expensive for people to buy, and were usually just used for a gimmic.
While I give Musk endless credit for the electric car and SpaceX he has done nothing to affect the cost of solar panels. Those came down as a result of the rest of the world incentivising their production and China ramping up. Much of the rest of the world is wondering why American are still so solar averse that it takes someone like Musk to advertise the fact that *gasp* you can put solar on your roof.
Nothing but good will come of Musk's entry into this field, but thus far he deserves zero credit in the solar world other than building the largest rooftop solar array on his own factory (an idea he likely got from IKEA who have been doing it for years).
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Much of the rest of the world is wondering why American are still so solar averse that it takes someone like Musk to advertise the fact that *gasp* you can put solar on your roof.
American's aren't averse to installing solar on their roofs. They're averse to paying five times the cost of the panels for installation.
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Oh goddamnit, I committed the apostrophe plural faux pas. Now I must flagellate myself.
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Musk's problem is that he tweets a lot of BS. "Your car will drive itself from coast to coast by the end of 2017", or his latest one "your $50k car will be worth $300,000 by 2021".
If he just stopped tweeting that kind of thing he would have a lot more credibility, but he won't because it's part of his "Tony Stark" brand.
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The Solar City bailout case is going forward in 2020, and will almost certainly be a massive loss to Tesla. Blatant self-dealing, and one look at the number of solar city installations per year shows there was no "synergy"