As blogged on Interesting Engineering, Elon Musk says the third version of the Tesla solar roof will be cheaper and better than previous designs. Speaking at Tesla’s annual shareholders meeting Musk explained the challenges that caused the production of the product to be delayed.

“We are about to complete version 3 of the solar roof. This is actually quite a hard technology problem, to have an integrated solar cell with a roof tile, have it look good, and last for 30 years,” Musk said.

Tesla’s Solar Roof tile was launched in 2017 with production expected to start in 2018. This timeline was extended after production delays. So far only homes of some Tesla executives have had the tiles installed.

Musk says the third iteration of the tile is going to be better.

“I am very excited about version 3 of solar roof. We have a shot at being equal to a comparable shingle roof plus someone’s utility cost being lower than that. That’s one of the cheapest roofs available. So you can have a great roof with better economies than a normal fairly cheap roof and your utility bill,” he said during the meeting.

Tesla didn’t provide any figures about the total cost of the roof, but shingle roofs can cost as little as $4/square foot. A non-solar tile roof costs around 10-$20USD/square foot.

Tesla price estimates include the savings in utility bills a solar roof may provide, but home energy prices range massively across the world, and even from state to state. Without calculating every individual homes’s energy consumption, it is difficult to really do the math if a Tesla solar roof will really save you money.

Keep reading this blog on Interesting Engineering

 

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