Unless they meant a "new roof" as in when you build a house from scratch and you don't have rafters or anything. If you have an existing roof you are redoing every 20 years or so, then this is definitely not the cost of a "new roof".
So, which "new roof" are we talking about here?
That makes very little sense. You're making an apples to oranges comparison here. It would be absolutely impossible to pull that off. It's literally the premium roof + solar and you want it to be the same price as premium roof (thus, you want the solar hardware to cost nothing.
Only one of these generates electricity, thus saving you money and that must be included in the cost calculation in order to determine the actual cost.
And yet it was promised by Musk. Literally "a solar roof will actually cost less than a normal roof before you even take the value of electricity into account".
Don't attack your parent poster for Musk's lies.
In either case, you can finance the costs. Given how Solar City usually operates, I imagine they'll roll the costs in a lease or power purchase agreement where you send them a check each month for an amount less than your current electricity bill.
I'm not saying it's the best deal around. You could come away with an even better net total by re-roofing and putting on traditional solar panels. But then you've got an uglier roof, if you care about that sort of thing -- and there are definitely people who do.
The same can be said for your local fly-by-night roofer, but it sounds like you can buy two roofs for the price of a SolarRoof.
Also, another thing to be concerned about is whether or not you're going to be stuck in the middle of a pass-the-blame around football match between Tesla, and their subcontractors. (I guarantee you that the people installing your roof will not be Tesla employees.) In roofs, installation mistakes can cost you dearly - they are the primary cause of roof problems.
Someone that doesn't install solar can sell the home without worrying about recovering that cost.
Can't project finances much more than 10 years max. At the moment cost of capital is low but that may well change in that time-frame. Things have to make sense in a decade or so also considering that this new technology that is obsoleted by incremental innovation.