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Comment by winfredJa | Hacker News Reader

I’m pretty sure solar roof was introduced as a way to pump stock when Tesla was doing poor financially

I think it was a genuine attempt but they failed to find a simple enough solution.

Invisible solar is a genuine use case in areas with shitty power tripping HOAs, but even regular solar takes a decade to break even, so if you sell something like that at inflated Tesla level prices then they simply never will and there is no reason to buy them in the first place.

What is a HOAs?

Homeowners' associations

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeowner_association

That's where regulation comes in. California for example made it almost impossible for a HOA to block. You're not allowed to add more than $1K to the project with your 'requirements'

My solar install took about 4.5 years to break even, which I understand is maybe a bit below average for where I live (Ireland).

Although isn't there an Irish government grant to help cover the cost of the panel + installation? That would make comparing break even times across countries quite difficult.

Certainly isn’t today. In the U.K. solar panels have about a 14 month payback, no incentives other Thant hey are currently tax free (like food. Electric from the grid has a 5% tax)

On top of that there’s an inverter, and if you can’t use all the power immediately you’d need a battery too, which tends to increase the cost.

The biggest cost though is installation.

I imagine the costs of purchasing and installing the panels in the UK are similar, but in Ireland there's definitely grants:

https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/housing/housing-grants...

You do make a good point about VAT on electricity bills also being a factor in the break even calculation. In Ireland it's 9% and that's a temporary cost of living measure and will revert to 13.5% in 2030.

Of course, the solution to that is to nullify all HOAs, power tripping or not. They were a mechanism to enact segregation, and as such should've had no place when created, and certainly has no place now.

It think they under estimate the 'Green bling' factor. For many people if they are going to get solar, they want the neighbours to know. Got to get that virtue signalling in.

Not saying it is a huge factor but it is there.

Sorry I see I am being down voted. Understandable, I do come off a little like a jerk there. I am not anti solar in the least, I just kind it really fascinating how some folks who are very well meaning, also tend to love that they can show off their goodies. I wish it wasn't the case but alas this is how some folks are.

You're not supposed to be down-voted simply because folk "agree or not".

Honestly, I don't agree with you though. Yes, there are ways for folk to signal virtue, and that happens, but I don't think solar power is one of those. Frankly the utility, and financial, returns are just too high.

Obviously ymmv with regard to returns, but I'm getting 16% on capital invested (a number that keeps climbing as electricity costs rise.) That's decent enough that virtue-signalling becomes a meaningless goal. I guess folk might _like_ that they're not burning fossils to get electricity (I do) but the financials dwarf that.

Just because there's actual virtue doesn't mean there isn't also virtue signalling going on... especially when it might be (in your particular circles) more taboo to talk about the actual numbers than the "doing it for the environment" part.

I guess it depends on what you mean by virtue signaling, and indeed on how much you care about "visible" things. And to what extent the people around you care.

Where I stay solar is really common (probably > 1 in 10 has it.) Plus the Financials make it easy (if you have the roof and capital.) And here no-one really cares if you're green or not.

The fact that it is green is a bonus. (Which i think most people don't care about.)

I guess you can read virtue-signalling into anything you like, especially if it matters to you personally. I just don't think it comes into play here.

Your observation may not be true. People do what they've done before, or what other people do. Putting solar on roof is going against both of those.

There are definitely a few people who want to show off their bling/goodies, but all 326 of them already bought cybertrucks to show off. Solar panels are not something to show off and brag about, its not macho. It would be looked at as feminine technology. If its not making a loud noise, looks big and inspiring (pick up truck), billeting smoke, it has no macho power to show off.

It's funny, I said essentially the same thing as a positive upthread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48177024 - lesson is "don't sound like a jerk", I guess.

People love to show off houses. Kitchens, bathrooms, etc. And spending £10k on a bathroom doesn't even generate electricity!

I have also become an unironic supporter of virtue signalling, provided it's backed up by actually doing the thing yourself. Because otherwise the alternative is "vice signalling", like "rolling coal", which is much, much worse.

I’d say they failed to make it cheap enough, although maybe that goes with “simple.” I needed a roof replacement around the time when this looked like a viable option, but there’s no way I was going to pay a substantial multiple over the price of a normal roof plus solar panels for their snazzy integrated roof.

Aren't you supposed to find the solutions BEFORE you announce the product?

That's not what startup schools teach

And to misdirect the acquisition of Solar City, famous for being run by Elons cousins to basically pocket all the tax credits, but which was not going well.

Didn't they "bail out" solar roof when tesla started making money?

Or more specifically, didn't Tesla bail out Elon's cousins Peter and Lyndon Rive?

Yeah the Solar City debacle was just one in a long line of crazy stunts that were pulled that if the SEC had any teeth at all, should have gotten someone more than a slap on the wrist.

Or the 2019 Roadster scam to inject liquidity through preorders.

I'm no Musk fanboy but I think this kind of maximally cynical take is tiresome. They thought it would work, they expended significant engineering effort and money making it real and producing it and selling it to customers.

The simplest explanation is that they did all that and the market didn't want it. The economics of traditional panels outweighed the aesthetic advantages of tiles and they're pivoting. No conspiracy or fraud need be invoked.

You're not entirely wrong on it being a maximally cynical take, but I think it depends on where the idea originated. Yes, they expended a lot on engineering to make it real, but you can do that with any idea. I think what matters was if it was a feasible idea put forth from a reasonable source or if it was another grand delusion from Musk that everyone just had to make as real as possible despite their own misgivings on the idea.

Imo basically this, the attempt to make it work is downstream of musk deciding it had to be attempted. Musk can decide to spend money on a project whether or not it's genuine or feasible. This seems a clear cut case of musk designing a bad product and engineers doing their best to implement it despite the nonsensical constraints

Of course the market wanted it. I wanted it. My friends wanted it. But we couldn’t buy it because it was vapourware !

From this to self-driving cars in 2 years to tunnels that will change public transport… maybe Musk should prototype and see what’s actually possible before telling the market. I mean come on - it’s borderline fraud in order to pump stocks - there’s got to be stockholders that are forming class actions as we speak

Both self driving craze and car tunnel madness is only possible at all because how car centric US mindset is. If you even try to suggest that people could instead use good public transport and pedestrian infrastructure they would look at you like you are some sort of crazy.

Musk just takes car centric society pipe dreams and sell it back to them.

Like OMG you transiting to work and can safely stay in your phone 99% of time. In other countries this called train or a bus. Solved in London with 1863 tech.

While i kinda agree with you, it doesn't fly for most US cities.

Most US cities aren't dense at all. A lot of them were built with transportation in mind. London and European cities in general are so much older that their city centers have no real way to accommodate that.

So what do you do? You provide non car options. Technically they exist in US cities too, but especially on the west coast they're just not a viable alternative. Nobody who can choose will take a 2 hour public transit trip over a 20 minute drive. Heck, in a lot of cases biking might be faster than your transit option, albeit riskier

While there is obviously no one easy solution for every city situation could easily be improved in a lot of them if there was political will. At least it would be 1000% more sane than pitching underground car tunnels.

It obviously take decades not years, but again Tesla full self driving was promissed back in 2016 and something tells me it would be a big success if it will be deployed on scale in 2036.

People don't want to change. In the us on the west coast I would say that public transit has a bit of a stigma. You don't use it unless you have to.

Couldn't be more different in the big European cities, using a car there is (made) cumbersome.

West coast cities like Portland and Seattle both have very good transit and in my experience is generally better than driving since traffic and parking are awful. Where I live on the west coast is a mid sized city and transit is completely viable, my family only drives on weekends for example.

> West coast cities like Portland and Seattle both have very good transit

I live in Portland. Traffic is often quite slow. And even then it is much faster than public transit unless your destination is just a few miles away and on the same line.

Public transit is much faster for me but I lived near the Hollywood district and worked downtown.

Most US cities centers were not built to late, instead they were bulldozed for the car, those are 2 different things. The US used to have beautiful city centers and nice urban fabric around those centers.

> A lot of them were built with transportation in mind.

Complete nonsense, the Post-1945 push for suberbia had nothing to with 'transportation in mind', the reason they wanted it was totally different.

The reality is more that they pushed suberiba and only then realized the transportation problem it caused, and then they reacted with every increasing highway and stroad building.

> Technically they exist in US cities too, but especially on the west coast they're just not a viable alternative.

Its not an alternative because its either not funded or badly organized.

Its bad because the government doesn't care that its bad, its not actually a fundamental problem.

But transit only solves your problem in cities like London. Some people - for some reason I’m still not entirely clear on - seem to like this. But other people - so far the majority - don’t. And for those, self-driving cars solve the transit problem. That’s valuable. And you only need to beat unit economics of taxis. So there is a significant margin to capture

For the 'don't want to live in transit-dense cities like London' crowd, beating the economics of taxis may not be enough since that's not what you're competing with out in the suburbs.

On the other hand, the suburbs don't have much that is even comparable to city taxis in price or availability today, so maybe if it existed that price point would indeed do just as well away from cities too.

Self driving cars still create traffic jams and huge environment contamination No problem is solved.

Are you claiming that the majority doesn't live in cities? 80% of the US population lives in urban areas. Self driving cars contribute to the transit problem in those areas because it's even more traffic.

People use public transport in villages of 20 people where I live. The idea that you need some mega city for public transport to be viable is an American fantasy. Even if its not for everybody, it still makes sense.

Also most people live plenty urban to make public transit perfectly viable.

Self driving cars means even more cars on the road, and reduce the avg occupation even more. Even in a same rural environment this isn't great. And in an urban environment is insanely fucking stupid.

I’ve traveled to a decent number of countries and the only city I’ve been to that wasn’t filled with cars was Venice. I love public transport and I wish the US would do it better, but cars are extremely common all over the place and self-driving is something that would get a lot of traction in lots of countries.

Any reasonable large city will be fully packed with cars unless it enforce high parking fees and congestion charges.

No matter how much car infrastructure you build and self driving will only make it worse because it will incentify car use.

> They thought it would work

That's the problem though. Thinking your product will get by on looks when it's clearly outcompeted on performance, price, availability and longevity. That's not just optimism, it's delusion.

Pretty sure this didn’t help either though:

> Customer service complaints are pervasive and consistent. Tesla Energy has a 2.6 out of 5 rating on SolarReviews

Yeah, there's some tubers out there that have absolutely scathing reviews for their customer ervice.

> That's the problem though. Thinking your product will get by on looks when it's clearly outcompeted on performance, price, availability and longevity. That's not just optimism, it's delusion.

May I present to you the Apple corporation, at least until recently.

I don't think it was clear that it would be out compete on price or performance. If you compare roof + solor to solar roof, the idea was that eventually it would compete with doing both separately.

I'm also not sure if its actually worse on longevity.

It seems fairly clear if you consider a 50-100 year roof (ours is 150 years, and it's only had membrane changes in that time) against a 25 year roof.

I'm sure the steel shingle will last a fair time but if the PV elements need replacing four times a century, that's not a non-trivial cost.

When my PV panels die, it's just £400 a panel, four hex bolts and some quick connectors to replace it. It's no contest.

But fraud was involved.

Financially it was part of SolarCity bailout (Musk's cousin). It heavily heavily penalized Tesla shareholders and smelled of a family bailout. Solar Roof was announced so hastily in October 2016 justify the merger and stave off massive shareholder lawsuits. There was little effort in the roof development after bailout was a success, minus the bait-and-switch lawsuits.

There was genuine concept level development at some point, but it was developed into product after they knew it did not work to keep lawyers happy.

What evidence do you have that little effort was put in development? As far as I can tell that not at all the case. The early version was bad and it took multiple generations for it to become a real product.

I'm tired of his cousins

https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=48166411&goto=item%3Fi...

Nah, Elon Musk faked the demo [1] so he could defraud Tesla investors into bailing out his cousins.

[1] https://mansionengineer.com/2018/08/10/elon-musk-tesla-and-t...

> Musk unveiled on October 28 at an event at Universal Studios’ back lot in Los Angeles, on an old residential set used in Desperate Housewives

> There’s a reason that they announced the idea on a fake block in a fake neighborhood with fake houses!

Interesting read.

The Steel Pulse idea actually sounds sort of possible...

Enron Musk.

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