This is from the transcript Dropbox - Aaron Musk pdf.pdf - Simplify your life which is dated June 1, 2019, starting in page 40.
===
Shark: So do you have to have engineers involved in every installation or is that just engineers working on the concept and then those go into each installation thereafter?
Elon: That's actually a more interesting question then you realize.
Shark: I'm not very smart, so I'll get lucky every now and then.
Elon: The way it is traditionally done with solar retrofit is not -- is -- maybe -- you're not quite correct.
This is done still today at Tesla, although it's changing, and it's done in the rest of industry, where doing solar retrofit is a bit like getting a custom-tailored suit.
So somebody will come out to your house, they will carefully measure all of the dimensions of your roof and then there will be engineering involved.
They will engineer a solution that is specific to your roof, that matches the contours and shape of your roof just like a custom-tailored suit.
And it will often take two or three visits. It will take structural engineering. It is complex. And each installation requires engineering.
Elon's Countershark: Wait.
Shark: I'm sorry, were you done?
Elon: No.
Now, a more efficient way to do this is to come up with what you might call sort of an off-the-rack suit solution where the -- where you do not need engineering on a per installation basis, but you have to engineer that solution.
So you want to have something that is -- that is just a few sizes, like -- just like a suit, it's like suits on the rack will be certain preset sizes.
And you don't want to make it too big because if you make it too big, then it's very difficult to fit on the roof without dealing with the peculiarities of every roof.
So you want to have something that is small enough that you can put it on the roof and find a section of the roof that's common across roofs and where it's just sort of a preset, prefab, consistent solar installation.
Now, the net result is on a per-roof basis, you will generate less power but you will do many more roofs because the cost, the total cost from sales through installation will be dramatically less.
And this is what we're going to do, and it will be great.
===
Elon repeats this using an example of a custom vs. rack suit.
===
Shark: So do you have to have engineers involved in every installation or is that just engineers working on the concept and then those go into each installation thereafter?
Elon: That's actually a more interesting question then you realize.
Shark: I'm not very smart, so I'll get lucky every now and then.
Elon: The way it is traditionally done with solar retrofit is not -- is -- maybe -- you're not quite correct.
This is done still today at Tesla, although it's changing, and it's done in the rest of industry, where doing solar retrofit is a bit like getting a custom-tailored suit.
So somebody will come out to your house, they will carefully measure all of the dimensions of your roof and then there will be engineering involved.
They will engineer a solution that is specific to your roof, that matches the contours and shape of your roof just like a custom-tailored suit.
And it will often take two or three visits. It will take structural engineering. It is complex. And each installation requires engineering.
Elon's Countershark: Wait.
Shark: I'm sorry, were you done?
Elon: No.
Now, a more efficient way to do this is to come up with what you might call sort of an off-the-rack suit solution where the -- where you do not need engineering on a per installation basis, but you have to engineer that solution.
So you want to have something that is -- that is just a few sizes, like -- just like a suit, it's like suits on the rack will be certain preset sizes.
And you don't want to make it too big because if you make it too big, then it's very difficult to fit on the roof without dealing with the peculiarities of every roof.
So you want to have something that is small enough that you can put it on the roof and find a section of the roof that's common across roofs and where it's just sort of a preset, prefab, consistent solar installation.
Now, the net result is on a per-roof basis, you will generate less power but you will do many more roofs because the cost, the total cost from sales through installation will be dramatically less.
And this is what we're going to do, and it will be great.
===
Elon repeats this using an example of a custom vs. rack suit.
