GlmnAlyAirCar
Active Member
I figured someone would pick up on that. Solar City charges $495 to remove and reinstall the panels when we re-do the roof. Seems a small price to pay to stretch the life of our roof a few more years.
Cost of Tesla Solar Roof Tiles
- Thread starter Green Pete
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winfield100
Supporting Member
and you know this how?
My PV array has been working since 1999
I know folks with PV that has been working for over 40 years (check homepower.org for particulars)
@electracity. What do you add that is even mildly positive.
Your focus seems to be to sow doubt and discord, with a smidgen of positives
winfield100
Supporting Member
incomplete question.
should be more like
Yes, roof cost more than asphalt or standing seam metal or ______.
When you sell it, you DO NOT HAVE TO SAY, "well the roof was re-roofed x years ago with 35 year shingles so they should be good for another 10 or so and it will only cost (multiple of $10's of thousands$ to replace and will be a PITA if you have to take the PV array off and then back on)
OR
"Roof good for another 50-100 years and it will power your EV and your whole house and if the grid goes down, you may get a blip of a few seconds of offline but otherwise OK, thats why it's worth X thousand$ more"
Wow. I saw like 10 ppl answer and none of them really come close to informed guesses.
Roofs are estimated on a per square basis. A "square" is 100 square feet. I am assuming that the Tesla roof tiles are tempered plate glass so I am assuming from a material standpoint the price would be comparable, but considering the volume and size of each piece I think it's likely lower.
On alibaba that's between 4 and 18 dollars a square foot. Suggesting 4 per square foot is doable if you buy in volume. So let's just call it 6 for the extra coating.
6/square times 100 square ft per "square" is 600 dollars of material per square foot.
Roofers are typically paid about 120 per square in my region. This seems like it would be more labor intensive than a typical asphalt roof so let's call it 240 a square.
That comes to about 840 a square before solar panels.
Solar has already proving to be cost effective on ROI so the additional cost doesn't seem like a hard sell.
So the cost of the non cash saving part of the roof could be ~840 per 'square'. That's between 50-100% more than the average roof that should last 20-30 years. These roofs last 5x as long allegedly. All in it seems like a good deal IMO. And I think I'm estimating on the high side.
tempered glass cost per square foot-Source quality tempered glass cost per square foot from Global tempered glass cost per square foot suppliers and tempered glass cost per square foot manufactures on m.alibaba.com
Roofs are estimated on a per square basis. A "square" is 100 square feet. I am assuming that the Tesla roof tiles are tempered plate glass so I am assuming from a material standpoint the price would be comparable, but considering the volume and size of each piece I think it's likely lower.
On alibaba that's between 4 and 18 dollars a square foot. Suggesting 4 per square foot is doable if you buy in volume. So let's just call it 6 for the extra coating.
6/square times 100 square ft per "square" is 600 dollars of material per square foot.
Roofers are typically paid about 120 per square in my region. This seems like it would be more labor intensive than a typical asphalt roof so let's call it 240 a square.
That comes to about 840 a square before solar panels.
Solar has already proving to be cost effective on ROI so the additional cost doesn't seem like a hard sell.
So the cost of the non cash saving part of the roof could be ~840 per 'square'. That's between 50-100% more than the average roof that should last 20-30 years. These roofs last 5x as long allegedly. All in it seems like a good deal IMO. And I think I'm estimating on the high side.
tempered glass cost per square foot-Source quality tempered glass cost per square foot from Global tempered glass cost per square foot suppliers and tempered glass cost per square foot manufactures on m.alibaba.com
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ecarfan
Well-Known Member
Very insightful post, and a good analogy. The new Tesla Energy solar roof tiles initially are going to be relatively expensive but I think there is definitely going to be a market for them; a limited and upscale market of course. As production volume goes up the cost of the tiles will go down and the potential market will increase. Similar to the market difference between the Model S and the Model 3.
Personally I love the look of the Smooth Glass Tile style, as shown partway down the page at Tesla Solar
zag2me
Member
$7000 is high for putting an asphalt roof over an old roof on a medium size house with a simple roof.
Here's solarcity's work for the new Tesla roof:
- tear off and dispose of existing roof.
- repair/replace damaged decking
- replace chimney flashing
- replace skylight flashing
- add roofing paper, plus ice and water shield in many climates
- then they can add the solar roof.
All of this done at a good price by a national corporation? Really?
I think the new roof product has potential. I can't imagine solarcity profitably doing the work. Employees of public companies with their benefit plans and HR departments just don't do this sort of work.
- tear off and dispose of existing roof.
- repair/replace damaged decking
- replace chimney flashing
- replace skylight flashing
- add roofing paper, plus ice and water shield in many climates
- then they can add the solar roof.
All of this done at a good price by a national corporation? Really?
I think the new roof product has potential. I can't imagine solarcity profitably doing the work. Employees of public companies with their benefit plans and HR departments just don't do this sort of work.
AudubonB
One can NOT induce accuracy with precision!
- Mar 24, 2013
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And well you shouldn't, so why are you putting up those straw men?
When SolarCity came to install our AZ system three years ago, they subcontracted the non-solar portions of the job: flat-roof repair, sheetrocking and so forth, to outsiders. That's all very straightforward, expected, and very, very standard operating procedure.
Not how it works with tearoffs. You are telling me a subcontractor is going to expose the house to the weather, and solarcity will follow behind?
roblab
Active Member
Probably should just let it go, winfield100. Some people can dance, some can't. Some are happy, some are depressed, some healthy, some ill. And some are positive and hopeful, while others are distrustful and wary. They can't do anything about it. The doubters feel they are doing us a service by pointing out the negative possibilities.
A long time ago, I had a daughter who had Down Syndrome. We were required to go to counseling, where the doctor proceeded to tell us of all the things our baby would never do. "She will never ride a bike, she will never know her colors, won't read...." Lora was about two at the time, and was sitting on the floor playing. I stopped the doctor, and asked Lora, "What color is this man's suit?" She said, "Boo", which was obviously wrong, because it was blue. Lora went on to learn to read before first grade and helped her classmates practice reading. But we never changed the doctor's opinion. Back then, the only solution was to "put her in an institution."
I thought it was interesting that doctors generally don't tell new parents that, "Your kid will probably get diseases, break bones, become a teenager, do drugs, fail in school, and die in a motorcycle accident." Being positive is what gives us strength to go on to try new and better things.
Tesla will have market for themselves. As a premium product, Tesla Solar Shingles will not have to compete for the bottom dollar or with installers who exploit their employees.
NON-Mod note:
I don't moderate the Energy side of TMC, so I can't alter post #s 24 & 26. So, until we get another moderator to clean up the mess, here's a heads-up:
As Green Pete agrees, he meant to write "$600 per square" in #24's 4th paragraph, not "...per square foot".
That is all. Apologies for all the drama -
Thanks for pointing that out. Seems too much time has passed for me to edit myself otherwise I would have edited it myself.
AudubonB
One can NOT induce accuracy with precision!
- Mar 24, 2013
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I do NOT deal well with obstreperousness. Straw men are bad enough, now your obstinacy is making you look plain foolish.
The sub is, of course, going to work in concert with whoever is working directly after. Just as in a conventional roof job, where the roofer may hire a sub to do the dirty and lower-skilled demo job to someone else, and jump in when they finish, so would Solar City in this situation.
Probing a business concept is a necessary and beneficial exercise. Throwing out inanities is NOT.
Having sold roofing for a top 10 home renovation company I can tell you first hand that home renovation companies build in absurd (more than 50%) profit margins on asphalt roofs and pay their installers *sugar*, and way overpay their salespeople. There's a ton of room for Tesla to hit cost parity on a far more expensive product. if they work out a partnership with utilities where Tesla roofs + power walls function as micro power plants in some next gen PPA agreement that helps roof owners sell the excess capacity rather than net metering there is tons of room for profitability while getting these roofs installed at reasonable prices.
winfield100
Supporting Member
When I had my PV system installed in 1999, we waited until good weather was forecast, (spring in washington DC), ripped off the whole roof, discovered leaks, repaired, this was pre plywood sheathing so you could see into the attic as the sheathing was 1x5 boards with huge air gaps, put in new joists, sistering some, fell off the roof and was transported to hospital, re sheathed parts, reshingled, then the following week had the PV company, Aurora Solar from Annapolis, Maryland, USA. install the PV system in 1 day.
(The long lasting asphalt shingles need replacing, again, 3rd roof in 33 years)
like AudobonB says, roofers do roofs, PV installers install PV.
I expect the sheathing will be what the PV goes on
Based on elons calling the shingles automotive glass rather than tempered plate glass im going to revise my estimate to 240 usd of material per square (130 for glass, 10 for plastic louvering, 10 for coating and 60 for skeletal structure, 30 for underlayment) plus 240 for labor (double labor of tradtional roof) to a total of 440 per square + cost of solar component (which has already proven to be a cost effective investment).
Thats a hugely competitive price against a traditional asphalt roof. Im not a huge expert but automotive glass is super cheap (~1.56 cents a square foot), and if they are working with same supplier that does all the windshields for tesla you can bet their volume price is awesome.
3Victoria
Active Member
Yes, on the just finished Q&A call on ir.tesla.com EM said that the materials in the roof tiles was extremely inexpensive, including the glass, the fancy printing, and the louvres. He also said that eliminating the middle men (manufacturer, wholesaler, retailer, etc) meant that the price would be good. We shall see.
I'm really surprised that folks are not pointing out increase in resale value from such a roof. I mean that slate roof looked awesome. A real slate roof is ...well it is darn expensive, 4x what a normal roof costs if you go cheap and 6x (+) if you go high end. If you build new and put on a Tesla roof I'd think it would pay for itself just on resale. How many large to mcmansions homes are built in the US every year? 10's of thousands I'd think. I'd have to think you could make a Tesla roof be like granite in the kitchen. It would get hard not to sell a new home of 500+k without a granite (or a comp like soapstone) kitchen. If they can get that level of consumer demand it will simply eclipse anything that solar city has going on and all the power supply agreement crap will fall by the wayside, people won't necessarily care about selling back power, etc. They just want the roof.
adiggs
Active Member
That slate roof does indeed look good.
Watching the recording of the presentation, I'm left with the impression that the Solar City business model will be shifting to emphasize roofers, home builders, and utilities (new builds and roof replacements). Of course they'll still be a local installer for adding panels to a roof, but an important characteristic of roofers and home builders is that will be a much lower sales cost to approach those folks.
Partly its based on the number of installs SC does already (300k / year, or is it 300k total?), and the size of the annual home roof market. If you've got a cheaper, more functional, longer lasting, etc.. installed product, it won't be hard to get 10% market share. It looks to me like SC can abandon every other segment of the market, get a small % market share of the new and replacement roof market plus continue to do installs for utilities, and be a bigger company in that reduced scope market.
Since I haven't seen details, only heard claims, I'm not yet ready to change my personal investment outlook for Tesla. But if the stated goals can be achieved (and I do believe Elon will get there, even if it isn't true on day 1), then I see another production constrained product coming to market for Tesla/SC.
Clearly, the #1 biggest deal here is what the integrated installed cost is (roof, battery, electric company interconnect). I'm also curious to see if the integrated product is designed to operate independently of the grid, and what the economics of that look like. Power companies and utility commissions are variably supportive of solar, and that leads to differences nationally in the economics of the solar.
The unlimited demand business case is that the roof + battery can be installed for less than a new roof plus electricity that gets offset, given that the local power company doesn't give any benefit at all to your locally generated power (i.e. - the roof and battery reduce your household draw on the grid, and nothing further).
Once they hit that price point, that's game over for anybody not installing these systems (given that enough can be produced - that's a lot of roof tile to be manufactured).
Watching the recording of the presentation, I'm left with the impression that the Solar City business model will be shifting to emphasize roofers, home builders, and utilities (new builds and roof replacements). Of course they'll still be a local installer for adding panels to a roof, but an important characteristic of roofers and home builders is that will be a much lower sales cost to approach those folks.
Partly its based on the number of installs SC does already (300k / year, or is it 300k total?), and the size of the annual home roof market. If you've got a cheaper, more functional, longer lasting, etc.. installed product, it won't be hard to get 10% market share. It looks to me like SC can abandon every other segment of the market, get a small % market share of the new and replacement roof market plus continue to do installs for utilities, and be a bigger company in that reduced scope market.
Since I haven't seen details, only heard claims, I'm not yet ready to change my personal investment outlook for Tesla. But if the stated goals can be achieved (and I do believe Elon will get there, even if it isn't true on day 1), then I see another production constrained product coming to market for Tesla/SC.
Clearly, the #1 biggest deal here is what the integrated installed cost is (roof, battery, electric company interconnect). I'm also curious to see if the integrated product is designed to operate independently of the grid, and what the economics of that look like. Power companies and utility commissions are variably supportive of solar, and that leads to differences nationally in the economics of the solar.
The unlimited demand business case is that the roof + battery can be installed for less than a new roof plus electricity that gets offset, given that the local power company doesn't give any benefit at all to your locally generated power (i.e. - the roof and battery reduce your household draw on the grid, and nothing further).
Once they hit that price point, that's game over for anybody not installing these systems (given that enough can be produced - that's a lot of roof tile to be manufactured).
