Tesla, Inc.’s mission since its inception has always been about creating innovative, sustainable, and green energy technology of the future. Although most well known for its electric cars, Tesla has also branched out into producing solar panels for home use.
In 2021, Tesla, Inc. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk announced that it will be bringing its solar energy technology to Europe within the year. However, in mid-2022 the Solar Roof is still not available in Europe. Expectations are that Solar Roof will be available in Europe in 2023.
Tesla’s brand is hoping to extend its reach across the Atlantic and beyond within the next few years. Read on to learn more about the company’s plans.
What Are the Benefits of the Tesla Roof?
Tesla, Inc. claims that the average person could save over five hundred dollars a year from utility and electricity bills by installing the Tesla Roof.
In 2018, Musk stressed the great economic value of this innovative technology, saying that with Tesla’s new pricing, it would be like having a money printer on your roof, particularly if you live in a state with high electricity costs.
Since its release in 2016, Tesla Roofs did not take off as the company and its shareholders thought it would. This is because the technology is developed at a slower pace, with Tesla, Inc. only making a few Tesla Roof tiles for a few homes every week. Despite this delay, Musk hopes to increase production in the years to come.
Installation of the tiles will also not compromise the look of a home’s architecture. Tesla’s solar panels are much sleeker and less noticeable compared to traditional solar panels. They are also customizable at an additional cost, allowing the tiles to blend seamlessly into any roof material or pattern.
How Tesla’s Solar Roofs Work
Tesla’s Solar Roof innovative technology is patented with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. After installation into a roof, Tesla’s Solar Roof tiles get right to work, absorbing sunlight to turn into electricity.
Throughout the day, Tesla’s Solar Roof tiles collect and store electricity into Tesla’s integrated Powerwall battery. Through this battery, the electricity is available at any time, day or night, rain or shine. Thus the tiles allow for complete sustainable energy production and storage, putting their users ‘off the grid.’
The Powerwall battery storage is highly capable of storing enough electricity to allow a home’s electricity to run as normal even during an outage. Depending on the home’s size and electricity it needs, Tesla will give you a recommendation on how many Powerwall batteries it will need.
The US and European patents for Tesla claim that the Solar Roof tiles are also water and weatherproof. The tiles have a plurality of ‘photovoltaic strips’ encompassing its outer layer, creating a ‘serial connection.’
The patents also describe how to produce and install the tiles. Despite this, Tesla requires its own trained installers to position the tiles on customer’s roofs.
Tesla’s Solar Roof Installation Costs
Typically Tesla’s roof tiles are installed in one day on the average residential home. Larger and more complex buildings sometimes require a few days to install.
With the latest release of Tesla’s Solar Glass V3, prices have dropped drastically while also improving upon the quality of the tiles. After this price decrease in 2019, interest in Tesla’s roof tiles grew quite a bit, nationally and internationally. Tesla Inc. also offers a 25-year power, tile, and weather warranty on all their Solar Roof tiles.
Compared to other solar panel tiles on the market, Tesla offers its tiles at a relatively affordable rate. Their panels can range in price from around $8,000 to $32,000, depending on the size and power needed for your home. However, these costs do not reflect the total incentives and savings from utilities that come with Tesla’s Roof tile installations.
Does Tesla Offer Discounts on Solar Roof?
Tesla solar panels are already the lowest price-per-watt solar panels on the market, but are there any other ways to save money when ordering?
In short, the only way to get a discount on Tesla solar panels is by using an existing Tesla owners “referral link” when ordering your Tesla solar panels.
Tesla has did this same “referral program” concept with it’s vehicles and essentially it allows new customers to get a discount on their purchase by using an existing customers personal referral link.
In regards to Tesla solar discounts, using a Tesla referral link when ordering will save you $300 off solar panels or $500 off solar roof.
The referral discounts are typically only available for a limited time before Tesla stops offering the discount, so take advantage of the savings while you can.
The Reality of Tesla’s Solar Roof Expansion Into Europe
Due to the lack of major production en mass of the tiles within America, the prospect of mass expansion into Europe does not seem to be entirely likely to happen any time soon for Tesla. Although the tiles are available in some places like Great Britain, they are not yet widely available and affordable.
Some reports claim that Tesla has not completed any more than about 200 Solar Roof installations of its latest version, Solar Roof V3, as of February of 2020. Therefore the widespread expansion of Tesla’s solar panels is not likely to become widely available to people in the foreseeable future.
Another important factor that delays the hope of Tesla’s roofs being available for installation in Europe is the availability of installation crews. Solar Roofs by the company required to only have Tesla crew members install their tiles. Therefore Tesla would need to hire plenty of crew members and create Tesla branches all over the region.
Hope On The European Horizon For Tesla’s Solar Roofs
If you live in Europe, keep in mind that although there may be a delay in Tesla’s solar panels arriving in your area, they are likely to become widely available within a few years.
First, Tesla’s corporate officers need to determine how they would be able to distribute the Solar Roof tiles in Europe. The company has the option of either importing them from the United States or building them in manufacturing plants in places like Germany.
Tesla, Inc. is currently in the process of building a ‘Gigafactory’ in Berlin-Brandenburg to produce its products. The factory is intended to be used to create new models of Tesla vehicles by its intended release date of the summer of 2021.
Due to its massive landmass, the Berlin Gigafactory is also an ideal place to produce a factory of Tesla’s Solar Roof tiles as well. Tesla is predicted by many to do so to take advantage of its space and location within European markets.
However, the date of construction for a Solar Roof tile factory in Berlin has not yet been named. The idea of such a factory for their solar panels comes solely from the speculation of non-Tesla pundits. But according to many, it would be foolish of Tesla not to take advantage of the land to produce more of their non-vehicle products.
Reports on Tesla’s shipments as recently as the summer of 2020 also said that large shipments of Tesla’s Powerwall and Solar Roof tiles arrived in the Netherlands. The same source suggested that there are over 10,000 units of each item in this shipment.
In the past year or so, 60 containers of Tesla’s Powerwall batteries in the Netherlands. Therefore Tesla Inc. could have plans to distribute its Solar Roof tiles from the Netherlands to other European countries.
If you intend to closely follow the expansion of Tesla’s Solar Roof sales into European countries, you can check out their website and sign up for updates sent to your email.