Tesla is planning to launch a new version of its solar roof tiles, Solar Roof V3, at a new event tomorrow afternoon.
When Tesla launched its Solar Roof Tiles in 2017, the automaker said that they would start volume production and installation in 2018.
However, the rollout turned out to be much slower and installations have been limited to the homes of some executives and a few customers.
Tesla later delayed volume production to 2019.
CEO Elon Musk said that they had to make some changes to the product in order to make sure it will last for 30 years.
Earlier this year, Tesla said that they are now completing a third version of the Tesla solar roof:
“We are about to complete version 3 of the solar roof. This is actually quite a hard technology problem to have an integrated solar cell with a roof tile, have it look good, and last for 30 years.”
Musk is confident that the third version of the product is going to be the one to roll out to consumers in volume and he expects that in higher volume, it will be cheaper.
Now with the release of its Q3 2019 earnings, Musk confirmed that Tesla plans to launch the Tesla Solar Roof V3 tomorrow.
We contacted Tesla about the announcement and we will update if we get more details.
Earlier this year, Electrek released a first look at Tesla’s V3 solar roof tile technology with custom fittings and the first real Tesla Solar Roof quote. The price was shockingly high, but Tesla argues that it’s worth it when adding the electricity savings over time.
Musk said that Tesla plans on ramping up Solar Roof Tile production to 1,000 roofs per week by the end of the year.
However, production is not the only bottleneck in the deployment of the Tesla Solar Roof.
When first launching the new product, Tesla said that it should take roughly the same time to install a solar roof as a tile roof installation, which is typically 5-7 days.
We previously reported that Tesla Solar Roof installations were still taking about 2 weeks, which adds to the cost of the product, but that was before the solar roof V3.
It will be interesting to see f Tesla addresses the speed of installation with the new version of the production.
Musk is now saying that the product is “ready for the big time.”
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