Tesla's Solar Roof Pricing Is Cheap Enough to Catch Fire
Tesla Inc. has begun taking $1,000 deposits for its remarkable solar roof tiles—to be delivered this summer at a price point that could expand the U.S. solar market.
Tesla will begin with production of two of the four styles it unveiled in October: a smooth glass and a textured glass tile. 1 Roofing a 2,000 square-foot home in New York state—with 40 percent coverage of active solar tiles and battery backup for night-time use—would cost about $50,000 after federal tax credits and generate $64,000 in energy over 30 years, according to Tesla's website calculator.
That's more expensive upfront than a typical roof, but less expensive than a typical roof with traditional solar and back-up batteries. The warranty is for the lifetime of your home.
"The pricing is better than I expected, better than everyone expected," said Hugh Bromley, a solar analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance who had been skeptical about the potential market impact of the new product. Tesla's cost for active solar tiles is about $42 per square foot, "significantly below" BNEF's prior estimate of $68 per square foot, Bromley said. Inactive tiles will cost $11 per square foot.
Also: Elon Musk has discovered a new passion in life — and it could be Tesla's best product yet
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bradley13 on Sunday May 14 2017, @07:12AM (29 children)
Solar is great stuff...but. I'm getting more and more skeptical about the whole thing.
Germany how has something like 30GW of installed solar capacity. On a cloudy day in the depths of winter, these installations were delivering around 1% of their rated capacity. So Germany also has coal and gas power plants that can deliver this power. So they pay to maintain two completely independent energy systems. Worse, coal and gas power plants have to be running on standby, even if solar is delivering.
You would think that the solution, or part of the solution, would be energy storage. In Switzerland, there are lots of power plants designed to provide that storage: a pair of lakes at differing altitudes, connected by a power plant. When there is too much energy available, water from the lower lake is pumped up. When energy is needed, it is generated by draining the upper lake. However, the massive subsidies Germany uses to push solar have totally screwed up energy pricing. These storage plants - exactly what you want to help balance our solar energy over the course of hours or days - are going bankrupt.
The response within Switzerland is - coming up for a vote this weekend - a huge package of subsidies for hydroelectric, to counterbalance those German subsidies for solar. This is great for companies that want to live off of government handouts, but it doesn't actually solve the problem. It causes even more distortions, which will be balanced out by more government intervention, ad nauseum.
Can we just get our governments out of the market, and let renewables settle into the market wherever they belong?
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bradley13 on Sunday May 14 2017, @07:17AM (17 children)
Forgot to tie my earlier comment into Tesla... The point here is that Tesla received massive government subsidies. And look at the numbers:
would cost about $50,000 after federal tax credits and generate $64,000 in energy over 30 years
So the production is subsidized, the installation is subsidized, and even then the solar cells take 30 years to break even - assuming no maintenance costs (like replacing batteries) during those 30 years.
The numbers just do not add up.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday May 14 2017, @08:12AM (1 child)
You're paying to subsidize the F-35. Let's hope we get more addicted to opiates before then, this is becoming rather convoluted and annoying. Buy our shit! It's for the environment, not for climate change!
Oh, but that's okay with you all, because I'm Peter Thiel, a gay.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @04:52PM
A gay what?
(Score: 3, Informative) by butthurt on Sunday May 14 2017, @10:09AM (1 child)
> The numbers just do not add up.
These shingles take the place of conventional roofing material, so there would be some saving because of that. According to the story, the figures are for New York. They would differ for places with different insolation. In Arizona, for example, it would harvest more energy.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Monday May 15 2017, @12:56AM
The price of electricity is another thing varies from place to place, and I imagine that the price for the system may vary too.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by stormreaver on Sunday May 14 2017, @11:13AM (8 children)
The numbers just do not add up.
I went to Tesla's site to run its estimator on my house. It projected that I would save about $2 a month (yes, two dollars) over my current utilities for 30 years (assuming no repairs or other infrastructure costs were required during that time). Even with regular price increases in utilities, I most likely would end up paying less by sticking with the utility company than with a Tesla roof.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @12:07PM
It would also be cheaper to remove SO2 scrubbing from power plants, catalytic converters from cars and let nuke plants deposit spent fuel in streams. Think what you could buy with those sweet $2/month savings... mmm!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @12:43PM (2 children)
You seem to have left out a pretty big cost in your cost comparison: Paying for a regular roof.
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Sunday May 14 2017, @08:13PM (1 child)
It's negligable. The cost of materials for asphalt shingles, roll roofing, or corrugated sheet metal is $3 per sq-ft. or less.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @10:14PM
Nobody in a position to purchase solar panels would be using either of the later two.
Furthermore that ignores installation costs.
(Score: 2) by epitaxial on Sunday May 14 2017, @03:35PM (2 children)
The cult of Elon Musk strikes again. People act like that guy is Christ himself walking on water.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday May 14 2017, @05:25PM
But he can walk on government subsidies! :P
(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday May 14 2017, @05:32PM
No man... He's walkin' on the sun [youtube.com]
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday May 14 2017, @05:39PM
Another benefit is independence and redundancy.
Great when the "big shake" comes for places like California or the utilities thought maintenance is just a cost.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @12:57PM (2 children)
So the production is subsidized, the installation is subsidized,
Unlike coal and natgas.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @05:31PM (1 child)
Explain how gas is subsidized. There is a BS claim floating around that it is a subsidy when gas companies deduct normal expenses when reporting income. This is not a subsidy . The government does not give significant money to fossil fuel suppliers. They do give money for solar installations and often mandate net metering which is another subsidy.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @10:17PM
https://www.eia.gov/analysis/requests/subsidy/ [eia.gov]
And that doesn't even begin to include the social cost of pollution - asthma, acid rain, cancer, etc, much less the social cost of global warming.
(Score: 2) by SunTzuWarmaster on Monday May 15 2017, @04:42PM
1 - Roof-No-Solar. $24K in costs. $50K in energy costs. Total is $74K.
2 - Roof-And-Solar*. $24K in roofing costs. $7.5K in energy costs (cost of panel installation). $3K in connected-to-the-grid costs. $4K in remove/replace panel costs (paid when you get a new roof). $39K in total.
3- Solar Roof. $50K in costs. $0K in energy costs.
Note - I apparently have chosen the most cost-effective option (yay me!), but I am still connected to the energy grid. There are some benefits to being off-grid (and having a giant skylight!). That said, if you are getting a new roof, you should seriously consider getting a solar one (especially if it is warrantied). That said, the point is for the roof to be 'free' because it paid for itself with generated energy. You were going to have to pay for both a roof and the energy.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday May 14 2017, @02:10PM (2 children)
Of course the market is extremely short-sighted, and happy to profit off as many externalities as possible.
But something like a substantial carbon tax would help to remove fossil energy's substantial externalized costs, but would end up increase energy costs for everyone. You could potentially offset that by immediately redistributing the tax proceeds to the population though - either as a straight per-capita carbon income, or perhaps as a per-watt rebate - get the same rebate regardless of energy source, but only pay the tax on fossil energy, so that you come out ahead by buying non-fossil energy.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @03:06PM (1 child)
Something like this, right?
https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2014/08/09/the-unsung-inventor-carbon-tax/f1xFyWmaXf2XzW3nVxrNJK/story.html [bostonglobe.com]
... In 1973, OPEC’s oil embargo had Americans lining up for blocks at gas stations that were running dry. Amid calls for gas rationing, Wilson proposed an alternative: Spur conservation by taxing fossil fuels, but keep the revenue out of government coffers by returning it all in equal dividend checks to every adult. ...
Here is the original proposal including a number of details and some updates for this century:
http://lessgovletsgo.org/?page_id=2 [lessgovletsgo.org]
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Sunday May 14 2017, @04:34PM
Something like that, yes. It's far from a new idea, but is consistently opposed by one of the most powerful and well-funded lobbyist groups in the nation - for good reason, since it is an open attack on their rapacious business model.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Weasley on Sunday May 14 2017, @03:59PM (3 children)
A single technology wouldn't be used for power generations with or without solar. We'd be maintaining coal and gas power plants anyway.
Something that has deeply affected my opinion of this is my friend in San Jose. He has a typical solar array on his roof. His house runs on it, and his Tesla charges off of it, and the remaining power is sold back to the power company. He has not purchased gas/petrol or paid an electric bill in years. In fact, he makes money back from the power company.
Can we get governments out of the market? Absolutely not. Corporations have no interest in being clean. They are only interested in making money, and they will cut every shortcut to do it. And we all suffer when the results of their short cuts cause calamity.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Sunday May 14 2017, @04:46PM (2 children)
While that's a good point, it ignores that when energy production shifts over to solar, the costs for storage escalate. There are alternatives, but not for house roof systems (because of scaling costs). One alternative might be molten salt storage. Or there's a convenient mountain range that you can pump water up to store energy. Iin your case there is...but it's not that conveniently close, so you need the utility to handle the storage. Your friend might want to use Mt. Hamilton, but PG&E would probably prefer to use the Sierra Nevadas. (Actually, PG&E looks like it prefers molten salt in the Mojave desert, but, IIUC, that plant is experimental.)
It's not clear what the best approach is, and it probably differs with location. But storage is a substantial cost for all "green" energy sources. And, unfortunately, NONE of the energy sources pay for all their externalities, and none are unsubsidized. This makes comparing costs quite difficult.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday May 14 2017, @05:28PM (1 child)
Maybe the electric car can be the energy storage?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @10:38AM
Riiiight...
So when you're commuting to/from work every day, your electric car is also somehow storing the energy coming off your solar panels.
And at night, when the panels are dead, you're sucking power out of your car. And then the next morning, the car somehow has power to handle the aforementioned commute?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Thexalon on Sunday May 14 2017, @04:25PM
No, we can't just get the government out and have perfectly functioning free markets. I know that libertarianism as a philosophy basically takes that as a given, but it's never shown to be true. In the case of the energy sector:
1. All kinds of large-scale energy production requires government involvement, because it involves all kinds of actions that affect third parties. For example, the fracking techniques now used to collect natural gas in many places also affect the water supply. Coal mining companies have to deal with the coal ash and waste. Nuclear has to figure out what to do about spent fuel rods.
2. Any kind of distribution system uses government involvement to handle the easements to put in the lines and other equipment. Otherwise, for instance, any high-voltage line project could be completely derailed by a relatively small group of property owners refusing to allow the lines to cross their property.
3. Lots of costs involved in collecting energy will not be factored into the price, thanks to externalities.
Also, I can't help but notice that you seem to think you're the first person who noticed that solar power might be affected by nighttime and cloud cover, which is obviously silly.
There is also another source of renewable power that works perfectly well at night and under cloud cover: windmills.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @05:48PM (2 children)
Solar doesn't get down anywhere even in the ballpark of 1% of its nominal efficiency on a cloudy day. That is simply a lie.
And your rant on subsidies isn't much better. It of course depends on the country, but at least in the US fossil fuels receive vast [investopedia.com] federal subsidies. By contrast there is a single [energy.gov] federal subsidy for solar. Drill an oil well and the company gets a 100% tax rebate on tangible costs, 100% rebate on intangible costs, 15% of their gross income completely tax free, and much more. The solitary subsidy for solar is a 30% consumer rebate - the company themselves get no direct refund on their costs. And that solar subsidy is set to decline to 26%, 22% and then 0% in 2021. The subsidies for oil have been increased over the years, and are permanent.
In any case this is all tangential and irrelevant to the biggest problem. Your post simply has no relevance to the topic at hand. This isn't a country replacing their infrastructure or whatever. This is a company offering individuals roofs that cost less than a traditional roof, look great, and generate free energy as a perk. Trying to be against this reeks of extreme bias which I think is supported by your misleading to plainly false supporting 'facts.'
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Sunday May 14 2017, @09:44PM (1 child)
Bullshit!
I installed solar panels on my house a year ago. During the course of that year, the lowest daily production was about 10% of the highest daily production. We did not see a single day during the year where production was effectively nil.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @10:19PM
Woosh!
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @07:20AM
Sure I have a passion for sucking nigger cock. Too bad I haven't made a successful career of it. Now, Musk, any fucking thing that rich shit does just makes him richer, because he's a lucky motherfucker living a charmed life. Somebody should fucking murder that scumbag. Death to Musk. Kill the asshole before he gets his ass to Mars. Fuck Musk!
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday May 14 2017, @07:43AM
I'm missing the data on how much power per area these tiles provide (W/m²).
Efficiency factor?
Chemistry?
And how will these small tiles be interconnected? wiring mess?
(Score: 2) by looorg on Sunday May 14 2017, @10:06AM (1 child)
Will this include the Tesla Powerwall, Elons giant battery pack, or is that extra?
https://www.tesla.com/powerwall [tesla.com]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @12:46PM
Yes, the default configuration includes two powerwalls.
(Score: 2) by goodie on Sunday May 14 2017, @12:41PM (5 children)
I am sorry but unless those guys have found a way to make roofs extremely durable, 30 years is somewhere between 10 and 20 years too long... depending on where you live and given the increasing unpredictability and variability of weather conditions, this seems difficult to justify to me... I would almost think that having those in the desert while growing stuff in the shade they create underneath would make more sense.
I am not against the idea, but it has to make some sort of financial sense or people will never actually go for it. And unlike a car you can't drive around to show how cool you are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @12:55PM
Well, tesla is providing an "infinity" guarantee on the tiles.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Sunday May 14 2017, @01:16PM (1 child)
This was one of the things that seemed somewhat odd to me. There is a lifetime warranty on the roof, apparently for as long as the house stands the roof should hold, but it might only produce electricity for 30 years and the powerwall only has a 10 year warranty. So after 30ish years it more or less turns into a normal roof and in that time you would have swapped batteries about three times -- there might be new battery technology in that time it might change but from and based on todays numbers.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Sunday May 14 2017, @09:41PM
Most existing solar installations come with a 20 year warranty, with the solar panels producing 80% of their rated output after 20 years. In real use, solar panels are proving to be more durable, with smaller losses in output over 20 years. So expecting 80% production after 30 years isn't unreasonable today.
Inverters are likely to fail during this time, but I think that the Tesla setups use a single inverter for both the battery and the panels, so a couple of inverter replacements during the lifetime are likely.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday May 14 2017, @02:34PM
They actually do claim that the solar roof tiles will last much longer than normal roof tiles.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @03:19PM
The tiles are glass or similar ceramic material.
Slate roofs (common in UK and Europe) last for 100 years or more. Now, they are being replaced with color-matched fake-slate which is cast concrete (or similar). This also has a long life and is lighter, easier on the roof structure than heavy flagstones. These roofs are very expensive. Families that own old houses with these roofs plan ahead and slowly build up a fund (across generations) to pay for the re-work.
I read a story in one of the Whole Earth Catalogs about an even longer plan -- giant oak roof beams for a university building were weakened from beetle holes but no one could figure out where to get the giant oak beams to rebuild. [googles], ah yes, here's the story,
http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/oak-beams-new-college-oxford [atlasobscura.com]
Well worth a few minutes to see how things used to be done, in the good old days.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by RedBear on Sunday May 14 2017, @02:00PM (9 children)
A lot of posters seem to be missing the point that the Tesla solar roof product is first and foremost designed to be attractive roofing material. The fact that they are also solar energy collectors is a bonus. This product is meant to entice people who would ordinarily be too house-proud to bolt on some nasty utilitarian-looking solar panels on their beautiful roof. But that too is just a bonus.
Primarily the Tesla solar roof product is meant to be installed as the initial roof on a new house, or as a replacement for a worn out roof that needs to be replaced anyway. I don't have first hand knowledge, but I hear replacing a roof costs a pretty penny. As in tens of thousands of dollars. Now we can choose whether we spend that kind of money on a conventional roof that has no additional function and will just wear out again over time, or on a roof that looks just as good but also provides electricity. With the addition of a house battery the energy taken from the grid can be net negative, especially in the summer months. But I think it is short-sighted to look only at the possible benefit to the amount on a monthly power bill.
If you look at the solar roof product as solar panels and think they aren't cost effective, I think you're missing the point. If you look at it as roofing material that happens to also produce electricity, it should make a lot more sense financially. A home with a pre-existing solar roof will have a higher value on the market, since the new owner won't need to spend thousands of dollars putting an ugly bank of solar panels on later if they want solar power. And many home buyers absolutely are interested in solar. The market for solar is still rapidly expanding despite all naysayers and all the dirty tricks the utility companies are playing in various states to try and stop it. It's still getting cheaper too.
I've said before that Elon Musk is the only person who has really understood and accepted that in order for solar to become more widely accepted it has to become invisible. This is similar to the way he understood that in order to make electric cars cool, you had to make a high performance awe inspiring electric car instead of fiddle-farting around with ugly glorified golf carts. He understands that you need to break the mold in order to get people's attention. Right now there's one other company making a supposed "solar roof" product but when I checked it out I was less than impressed. They still looked like solar cells, they just happened to be in slate form. The Tesla solar roof is the first I've ever seen that actually looks like a conventional, attractive roof, in four totally different styles. Now that Tesla has shown what is possible, other companies will follow. And the cost can only go down over time. Eventually I think it will be considered the height of silliness to waste money putting a non-solar roof on a new house, or replacing a worn conventional roof with anything but solar. Which is exactly what Musk wants, for solar power to become ubiquitous.
The fact that Tesla itself still isn't making a profit is meaningless in the big scheme of things. Tesla has all the luxury car makers scared so stiff they've even started admitting it in public these days. Every car maker is moving up timetables for shifting to electric cars much sooner than they ever would have if Tesla didn't exist. BMW uses the threat of Tesla to motivate their employees [greencarreports.com]. When Tesla starts pushing out the Model 3 even the non-luxury brands are going to wake up.
The future is renewable energy and electric cars, and there's really nothing anybody can do to stop it at this point. China and India, two of the largest car markets on this planet, are both talking very seriously about requiring all new cars to be zero-emission by the 2030s. Since nobody is going to spend the trillions of dollars it would take to build a widespread, global hydrogen refueling infrastructure, in a practical sense this means most new vehicles made after 2030 will be electric vehicles. This is happening, people.
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @03:33PM (1 child)
Nice post, just a couple of comments.
Just replaced our roof with traditional asphalt shingles in the NE USA. Three bedroom suburban ranch with garage on the end, cost was $12,000 for a very nice job, including rehanging the wonky gutters. We didn't go with the lowest bidder--got references and checked quality. This probably has 20-30 year life expectancy. The solar tiles (glass or ceramic) are much more durable...but maybe not in our case, since the house has big trees nearby that might eventually fall on the roof?
> This is similar to the way he understood that in order to make electric cars cool, you had to make a
> high performance awe inspiring electric car instead of fiddle-farting around with ugly glorified golf carts.
While Musk took it to volume production, there were a number of earlier high performance electric car prototypes and short runs. Probably the most influential was the tzero https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC_Propulsion_tzero [wikipedia.org] but there were several others even earlier.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @05:31PM
At least you don't live in Florida.
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Sunday May 14 2017, @05:03PM (4 children)
But those car makers still haven't understood Tesla's key advantage (in the USA at least): high-speed charging infrastructure along the highways, making long journeys possible.
You can buy a Bolt with an impressive range, but don't try to drive it cross-country, because it's going to be a very slow trip (if it's even possible).
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday May 14 2017, @05:37PM (3 children)
It can't be recharged at Tesla stations? and there is no other electric recharge stations?
Ie, no SAE Combined Charging System CCS connector?
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Sunday May 14 2017, @09:31PM
No.
Tesla limits use of Superchargers to Tesla cars and with the Model 3, will limit free usage.
And while there are CCS charging stations, for the most part they are slower than superchargers and they are in towns, not along the highways. In summary, not suitable for long interstate journeys (or even long intra-state journeys in states like Texas and California).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @11:38PM (1 child)
There will be fast charging stations for Bolt at Chevy dealers and this site https://www.aggdata.com/aggdata/complete-list-chevrolet-dealer-locations [aggdata.com] claims there are nearly 3000 Chevy Dealers in USA.
This https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/22/14703712/tesla-supercharger-growth-model-usa-canada-mexico [theverge.com] claims there are nearly 400 Tesla Supercharger locations in USA, with nearly double that planned by the end of 2017.
There is a Tesla Supercharger a couple of miles from my local Interstate highway exit, but the local Chevy dealer is even closer...and while that is the only Supercharger in this metro area of about a million people, there are five Chevy dealers (more if you look a little outside town).
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Whoever on Monday May 15 2017, @08:41PM
First of all, it's only Chevy dealers that plan to sell the Bolt that will be required to install chargers, not all 3000 across the USA.
Secondly, imagine you want to drive up or down I5 in CA, compare these two images:
Chevy dealerships along I5 [ibb.co] and
Superchargers along I5. [ibb.co]
Even if you assume that every Chevy dealership installs a CCS charger, you will still have a problem driving the main N/S artery in CA.
Finally, the Bolt's actual real-life charging rate is not as high as a Tesla connected to a Supercharger.
So, no, a Bolt is not a practical only car yet and there is no plan to make it such.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @05:47PM (1 child)
To replace a roof should be in the 8k-15k range depending on the size and shape and area you live in. 50k is at worst 3x more expensive. A *TOP* end PV system is in the 25-30k range. With many being in the 10-15k range. Most people reshingle the roof about every 15-30 years (depending on area again). With costs being as low as 2 cents a sqft or about 1.5k-3k for the whole roof. A full roof replacement is *very rare* and usually only due to something catastrophic happening.
Tesla has positioned itself as a luxury brand. People who spend 80k on a car have no issue spending 50k on a roof. Not because it is 'better' but because it has the most important thing when spending money. Bragging rights. It is not a bad idea. It works very well for Apple and BMW. The big luxury brands all look to BMW and Mercedes. Both based in Germany. They are all in with solar.
The fact that Tesla itself still isn't making a profit is meaningless in the big scheme of things
I would say that is not true. For if it fails it will be held up as the gold standard as to why these ideas are silly. They are not silly but people will use it for years to come.
When Tesla starts pushing out the Model 3
They do not have the capacity. They will not have it for at LEAST 5-10 years.
What Musk is doing is cool yes. But do not drink too deeply from the koolaid. He is selling stuff to high end buyers with lots of disposable income. Hence the luxury brands seeing him as a threat competitor as they both are selling brand. The other car manufactures who make 200k of 1 model (more than his entire capacity for 1 year for all of his models). Do not take him seriously at all. They are not in the same market segment. The luxury brands are.
This is happening, people
No doubt. But only when the economic model is there. When that happens it will happen even faster than you think. It is the same thing that burred the coal industry. Not taxes or innovation. Simple economics. NG is cheaper. When solar is cheaper than NG the market will shift very quickly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @10:29PM
When Tesla starts pushing out the Model 3
They do not have the capacity. They will not have it for at LEAST 5-10 years.
the Tesla Model 3 program is on track for initial production to begin in July, and for volume production to begin by September, going by Tesla’s Q4 2016 investor letter. Below are some more details and commentary since this is the #1 topic of interest for many EV fans.
The plan is apparently for production to exceed 5,000 units a week at some point in the fourth quarter, and for production to exceed 10,000 units a week at some point in 2018.
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/02/23/tesla-model-3-production-track-5000-units-week-end-year-10000-units-week-2018/ [cleantechnica.com]
Even if they are delayed by 2 years, that's still 500K/yr in 3.5 years.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @05:41PM (3 children)
They are a sign that a company is struggling. Asking for cash deposits points in the same direction.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @06:25PM (2 children)
Are you suggesting that people should just sign up and then decide later that oh I dont really want the order, forget it -- and have no repercussions?
Tesla is doing this not only to gauge interest, but to gauge interest in people serious enough to buy. If they gauged interest by seriously and stupidly believing they would sell to everyone that signed up for free as you seem to suggest is an indicator of a strong business, they would be incredibly surprised about all of the people that suddenly did not want or could not afford or refused to accept calls about the signup, once manufacturing was underway and the finances needed to be worked out for the order.
They charged a down payment for their cars, too. And still do. They can't just give away the hardware and hope someone will buy it, nor expect that an unproven product will sell based on what the wisdom of the internet believes. Instead, they wisely demand money from people seriously considering it.
$1,000 is not something to forget about, and so it will draw only people with the money to spend and likely the will to proceed with the order.
You are very likely not one of those people that are interested.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 14 2017, @10:34PM
Cash deposits are 100% refundable. [tesla.com]
That is not just Tesla, that's effectively the law for any auto manufacturer.
Also, the roof deposits are fully refundable too. [techcrunch.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 15 2017, @02:09AM
Tesla wants cash now. That is why they are taking deposits. As the other post says, it's nominally refundable, so you're not actually committed to anything. Unless Tesla goes bust.
(Score: 2) by ilsa on Monday May 15 2017, @10:03PM
I keep seeing references to Active vs Passive solar tiles, but I'm having a heck of a time finding references to what that actually means.
What is an active tile, a passive tile, and how do they differ?