Elon Musk Unveils Tesla’s Solar Roof & New Tesla Energy Products to His Clean Energy Vision

Tesla will build and sell its own line of solar panels with integrated batteries, the company announced at a press event at Universal Studios in LA, today.

The Powerwall 2 will allow residential homeowners to replace their entire roof with solar panels and an updated Powerwall 2 battery system, making it much simpler for homes to be entirely powered by solar power.

The roof is made of a textured glass tile with integrated solar cells.

The roofs look “as good or better” than conventional roofs, according to Musk.

They look like normal roofing tiles from the ground but are completely transparent to the sun.

The tiles are hydrographically printed, which, Musk says, makes each one a “special snowflake tile,” and no two roofs will be the same.

“You can take any two roofs that look like that and they will be different - because they are different”

There are a number of different versions of solar panels: Textured Glass Tile, Slate Glass Tile, Tuscan Glass Tile, and Smooth Glass Tile.

Tesla says its glass tiles are much more durable than conventional roof tile - something that’s important in areas with risk of hail.

The products are a “joint collaboration” between SolarCity and Tesla, according to SolarCity CEO Lyndon Rive.

Tesla is attempting to acquire SolarCity for $2.6 billion and shareholders of both companies will vote on the proposed acquisition in the middle of November.

By incorporating solar modules into rooftops, Tesla is hoping to succeed with a solar technology that to date has had little success.

Just this year, Dow Chemical said it would stop selling a solar shingle it launched five years ago.

Behind the myth of Elon Musk: Has the one-time Silicon Valley visionary lost his magic?
Musk is the CEO of three companies - Tesla, SpaceX, and SolarCity - all of which would fail without government money

These would seem to be heady times for Elon Musk.

Recently, he announced that SpaceX, his space exploration, and tourism company, has developed plans to colonize Mars and save humanity.

A little more down to earth, the billionaire mogul reported this week that Tesla, his boutique electric car manufacturer, had turned a modest profit in the third quarter.

On Friday, at a press event staged in a neighborhood of solar houses, he revealed that SolarCity, a solar roof company where he serves as chairman, has devised new less bulky solar panels.

Were these announcements relevant pieces of news released to inform the consumer or were they merely diversions meant to distract from the serious problems brewing at Musk’s three enterprises?

Continued on Salon.com

Musk says there are three parts to the solar energy solution: generation (solar panels), storage (batteries), and transportation (electric cars).

Musk’s plan is to sell all three of those products through Tesla.

Musk says there are four to five million new roofs built each year in the US, and the solar roof product will be price competitive with more traditional roofs with solar added to it.

However, existing roofs which do not need to be replaced will be better candidates for more traditional roof-mounted solar solutions.

Musk had previously teased the product in a series of tweets as well as the Tesla Motors “Master Plan, Part Deux,” earlier this summer.

Availability and pricing of the solar roof - not to mention how the thing is actually installed and works - was not announced. The Powerwall is $5,500.

Tesla’s Solar Roof Tiles & Elon Musk

It never ceases to amaze me about the insight that Elon Musk has regarding the future of energy. In one way it takes us back to the days when scientists were deciding between localized and distributed power. It reminds me of the saying, “what is old becomes new again.” Clearly, Elon Musk understands this and is willing to re-engage with the discussion.

At eNow we see this same process happening with commercial transportation. Not only can we power the vehicles with solar, but the solar on these vehicles can power the facilities they operate out of.

With the combination of solar and battery storage, the vehicles can operate during the day, store the excess energy that has been generated and provide that energy back to the facilities they operate out of when they return. This concept is very similar to Tesla’s vision – using the energy from the sun to power the house, charge the car battery and take energy back from the car when the car returns home.

Like Elon Musk, we can see the day when you won’t need distributed power to live and work. Yes, this is all possible and it is not far-fetched. What is far-fetched are those that don’t believe we have an energy problem.

Jeffrey Flath
Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer