Tesla Motors Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) CEO Elon Musk made a major announcement on Friday, unveiling the company’s newest product.
Musk summoned reporters to the old Hollywood set of Desperate Housewives, revealing that four of the inconspicuous houses had solar panels on their roofs instead of asphalt shingles.
The singles will come in four different models. They’ll look just like standard shingles, but they’ll be made of glass, allowing sunlight to pass through.
Musk told reporters the tempered glass is "tough as steel" and it will survive anything mother nature throws at it. The roofs can also be equipped with heating elements which would melt snow in northern locations.
The company plans to have Panasonic to produce the solar panel that goes inside of each shingle, and Tesla will then put the unit together.
It’s all part of a bigger, grander plan for Tesla. If its new solar roof catches on, it’ll be able to sell customers batteries, which will be a key part to the future of electric power.
Tesla recently released a battery aimed for the home market that packs more than twice as much storage capacity for less than half the price, capable of storing 14 kilowatt hours of power which can then be used at night, when power prices spike in many jurisdictions.
This will all depend on Tesla’s planned acquisition of SolarCity Corp (NASDAQ:SCTY), which will be voted on by shareholders in November. SolarCity is the United States’ largest installer of rooftop solar systems, and it would make little sense for Tesla to move aggressively into this market without having the means to install at its disposal.
