Tesla's only party trick is tiles that looks a little like roof shingles. They look less intrusive than flat panels. Imho it is about as useful as painting turbines green so they look like trees.
The solar part on the hand is overpriced and may limit how long the roofing lasts. Which means it’s only really competitive if you’re already constructing/replacing the roof and don’t yet have solar.
Aka best case is after ~25 years the roof reverts to a normal roof and then goes on to last another 25+ years. The worst case on the other hand is if the roof needs to be replace as soon as the solar panels reach end of life.
Ya, but people aren't buying a tesla roof for the roof part. It is the solar part that matters. Roofs move, they swell and shift with the seasons. Over 25 years at least some of those thousands of connectors between solar tiles will have degraded and/or disconnected, leaving entire sections/rows of tiles disconnected. That is why, when you need to make thousands of connections in an electrical project meant to last many years, manual soldering is still the preferred tactic.
They can take a hit straight on but if anything comes at the wrong angle the top glass layer shatters. It was so common that we had a designated spot to go dump the ones that would frequently break during the manufacturing process.
hopefully the cybertruck and the panels will get better in future revs. :)