Tesla Starting to Take Orders for Its Innovative Solar Roof Tiles

Final step in Elon Musk's big vision for clean energy homes and cars.

Tesla's roof tiles are solar panels in diguise (Tesla)

Tesla's roof tiles are solar panels in diguise (Tesla)

By Matthew Reitman

After years of testing, Tesla finally began taking orders for its solar roof tiles. The tiles resemble common roofing material but feature photovoltaic cells underneath a transparent coating.

The company is accepting $1,000 deposits on the smooth black glass and textured glass roof tiles—two of the options it unveiled last fall.

Tesla projects the active tiles to cost $42 per square foot. The price is far below what industry experts were expecting, Bloomberg reports. That bodes well for whether or not the tiles will be a niche item for the wealthy or the widely-used product that Musk envisions.

Tesla’s textured glass solar roof tiles (Tesla)

 

Installations in the U.S. will begin in June, but orders outside the U.S. won’t be delivered until 2018.

Tesla’s solar roof is a keystone in founder Elon Musk’s vision for a clean energy community, fueled by electric cars and batteries. “These are really the three legs of the stool for a sustainable energy future,” Musk said. “Solar power going to a stationary battery pack so you have power at night, and then charging an electric vehicle… you can scale that to all the world’s demand.”

Tesla’s smooth glass solar roof tiles (Tesla)
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