Elon Musk To Unveil Solar Roof With Storage, Charger Next Month (bloomberg.com)

Elon Musk plans to unveil Tesla and SolarCity's new solar roof product, which will come integrated with version 2.0 of the Tesla's PowerWall solar storage battery for the home, as well as a Tesla car charger, he said today. Bloomberg adds: Billionaire Elon Musk, the chairman and the largest shareholder of both Tesla and SolarCity Corp., announced his plans to unveil the new product in a message on Twitter Thursday. SolarCity's board agreed to Tesla's offer to buy the biggest U.S. rooftop solar supplier on Aug. 1. The product fits into his long-term vision of helping provide green homes that run on solar energy and use battery storage to help power systems, including charging electric cars, even after sundown. He announced in August that SolarCity is developing a "solar roof," a roofing product that incorporates solar technology without using standard photovoltaic panels.

Comments

Re: Wot?

[Anonymous Coward]

They were demonstrating this technology back in the 1990's. There were plans to make solar panels fit over windows, act like verandahs, or be built into South facing walls.

Sometimes it's not just the idea, but the technology, price and convenience have to reach convergence.

Like tablets. For years I read comments on Slashdot saying tablets would never be useful or practical, and they weren't... until they were.

Now commenters point to products like the Newton and say, 'tablets are nothing new, we had this technology back in the 90's'.

Re:Wot?

[minogully]

Those panels pictured aren't a Tesla/Solar City invention. Those are solar shingles created by another company. Their image is used as speculation on what Tesla's solar roof might look like. Electric does this kind of thing a lot.

It does not mean that Tesla's solar roof will look anything like this.