Where a solar roof works and where it doesn’t

A press image of some smooth black tiles. (credit: Tesla)

Last week, Tesla and Tesla's newly purchased solar-panel company SolarCity announced that they'd be taking pre-orders at $1,000 a pop for installations of their new solar roof product. The solar roof is made up of tiles-some that produce solar power and some inert-that look just like regular roof tiles.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced the solar roof late last year, just before investors were about to vote on whether the electric-car company should buy SolarCity. At the reveal, Musk told the crowd that "the goal is to have a roof that's less than the installed cost of a roof plus electricity." Later, in a conversation with reporters, Musk said, "It's not gonna make sense for somebody to replace a brand-new roof with a solar roof."

But after that announcement, the CEO got bolder with his claims on the cost of his company's roof, saying at a shareholder meeting that "It's looking quite promising that a solar roof actually [costs] less than normal roof before you even take the value of electricity into account."

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