Tesla begins production of solar roof tiles for customers

By Warren Miller, contributing writer

Tesla’s bid to become the one-stop shop for the environmentally conscious consumer took another step recently when the company announced that it has begun mass-producing its long-promised “solar roof” panels for commercial implementation. The company introduced the product in October of 2016, proffering that the technology would cost between 10% and 15% less than having traditional solar panels installed on an existing roof.

Tesla originally planned to have the solar roof tiles on the market by last summer, but according to Tesla founder Elon Musk in an article from the New York Post, “It just takes a little while to get this behemoth rolling.” Several Tesla employees — including Musk himself — had the tiles installed on their homes as part of a pilot program last year. In November, Musk reaffirmed that the tiles were still in the testing phase but would be available soon. Customers were asked to make a $1,000 deposit to reserve the tiles as early as last May, with some already having their homes being surveyed by Tesla employees for future installation.

The tiles are being manufactured in collaboration with long-time Tesla partner Panasonic Corporation (they’ve worked together on batteries for Tesla’s all-electric vehicles for years) in the company’s factory in Buffalo, New York. According to Tesla, there are about 500 employees on-site in Buffalo, with a stated goal of reaching more than 1 gigawatt of cell and module production there soon, although they provided no specific timeline.

Tesla said that its solar roofs will cost between 10% and 15% less than an ordinary roof plus traditional solar panels. Image source: Tesla.

It seems that Tesla is attempting to rebuild an entire energy capture, storage, and delivery system to provide the “fuel” for its electric cars. If these solar tiles are as easy to install and as inexpensive as promised, your roof and the one at your job, and the one at the fast food place down the street, might just be the source that Tesla needs. With charging stations sprinkled liberally around town and a few large energy storage wells to capture the output from all of the roof tiles, electric cars might become just about as easy to “fill up” as their gasoline-based ancestors.

While Tesla seems bullish about the potential of the solar roof tiles, the company’s overriding focus is still on meeting the demand for their new Model 3 sedan. Production of the Model 3 has been slower than expected, with the company admitting that it would likely only produce about half the number of the new model in the first quarter of 2018 than they had originally anticipated. Still, Tesla expects commercial installation of the new solar roof tiles to begin at some point this year. You might be faced with a bit of a wait time, however, if demand is as strong as Tesla would like. Perhaps having a Tesla electric car under your garage roof will put you higher up on the waiting list.