<story><title>No One Saw Tesla’s Solar Roof Coming</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-31/no-one-saw-tesla-s-solar-roof-coming</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>amelius</author><text>&amp;gt; I&amp;#x27;m sure i&amp;#x27;m not the only one who feels like this is possibly the iphone moment of Solarcity&amp;#x2F;Tesla: an old-ish idea, made sexy and tasty to consumers, together with technology reaching a tipping point&lt;p&gt;Except one ingredient is missing: most people cannot afford one, even if they tried really hard.</text></item><item><author>wojcech</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m sure i&amp;#x27;m not the only one who feels like this is possibly the iphone moment of Solarcity&amp;#x2F;Tesla: an old-ish idea, made &lt;i&gt;sexy&lt;/i&gt; and tasty to consumers, together with technology reaching a tipping point(and also Musk &lt;i&gt;again&lt;/i&gt;  finding a way to maximally exploit government subsidies for clean tech.)&lt;p&gt;The tesla car itself could count as well, but felt less &amp;quot;design driven&amp;quot; imo. If this fails, everyone will call it obviously due to bad tech. If it succeeds, I&amp;#x27;d say it was because the tech was barely sufficient to keep up with the excellent luster.&lt;p&gt;On a side note, I wonder whether or not the heavy government subsidies will be forgotten in the lore of clean tech, just like silicon valley seems to have forgotten the complete and utter reliance on government funding in it&amp;#x27;s infancy(or possibly even today)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>robbrown451</author><text>He&amp;#x27;s pitching it as being basically break even, when electricity costs are factored in. My guess is an awful lot of people can afford this, especially for new construction. Certainly enough to keep up with ability to ramp up manufacturing and training of installers.&lt;p&gt;And then the economies of scale (and hopefully competition) will kick in and it should reach a point where nearly every new house, and nearly every replacement roof, will be solar by default.  At least in climates friendly to solar.&lt;p&gt;IPhone got a lot of attention when it was released, but it was a while before they became common with more than just the early adopter crowd.  This might take a while longer for various reasons, but still, this is a big deal.&lt;p&gt;This has an interesting twist. While it is subtle, people can tell you have it. People like to impress their neighbors. But this one isn&amp;#x27;t just &amp;quot;look how much money I have&amp;quot; but &amp;quot;look how I am using my money to be a responsible citizen of the planet.&amp;quot; If you are going to try to enter the &amp;quot;keep up with the Jones&amp;#x27;s&amp;quot; race, this isn&amp;#x27;t a bad way to go about it.</text></comment>
<story><title>No One Saw Tesla’s Solar Roof Coming</title><url>https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-10-31/no-one-saw-tesla-s-solar-roof-coming</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>amelius</author><text>&amp;gt; I&amp;#x27;m sure i&amp;#x27;m not the only one who feels like this is possibly the iphone moment of Solarcity&amp;#x2F;Tesla: an old-ish idea, made sexy and tasty to consumers, together with technology reaching a tipping point&lt;p&gt;Except one ingredient is missing: most people cannot afford one, even if they tried really hard.</text></item><item><author>wojcech</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m sure i&amp;#x27;m not the only one who feels like this is possibly the iphone moment of Solarcity&amp;#x2F;Tesla: an old-ish idea, made &lt;i&gt;sexy&lt;/i&gt; and tasty to consumers, together with technology reaching a tipping point(and also Musk &lt;i&gt;again&lt;/i&gt;  finding a way to maximally exploit government subsidies for clean tech.)&lt;p&gt;The tesla car itself could count as well, but felt less &amp;quot;design driven&amp;quot; imo. If this fails, everyone will call it obviously due to bad tech. If it succeeds, I&amp;#x27;d say it was because the tech was barely sufficient to keep up with the excellent luster.&lt;p&gt;On a side note, I wonder whether or not the heavy government subsidies will be forgotten in the lore of clean tech, just like silicon valley seems to have forgotten the complete and utter reliance on government funding in it&amp;#x27;s infancy(or possibly even today)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jzwinck</author><text>The way I remember the first iPhone, it was hilariously expensive, yet lacked appeal to business users who at the time were the key demographic for such expensive widgets.&lt;p&gt;Relative to the benchmark of &amp;quot;People who can afford to buy a home in the US,&amp;quot; perhaps a solar roof is not so unattainable. It just has to look great, convey social status, and be durable.&lt;p&gt;Most US home owners don&amp;#x27;t pay for their house (or car) outright. The putative purchase price of photovoltaic panels may not be prohibitive even for plebs.</text></comment>