The solar tiles are being installed on the homes of Tesla employees, including Musk’s own house

BY ALISSA WALKER 
Tesla

When Elon Musk started taking preorders for Tesla’s solar roof tiles earlier this year, he said they’d be installing the roofs on Tesla employees homes first as a way of test-driving the technology. Photos of the first two installations were included in a letter to Tesla shareholders yesterday—and they look pretty good.

On a call to investors last night, Musk confirmed that the first two roofs had been installed on his house and the home of Tesla’s CTO, JB Straubel. According to the Verge, he also wanted people to know the photos had been taken by the installer and not been retouched in any way: “I want to emphasize there's no Photoshopping on the roof. That is actually how it looks. It was, ‘Take some pics with your phone and send them over.’ That's what we're talking about here. Not some special lighting conditions, pro-photographer situation.”

Looks nice, right? From the side, it is indeed difficult to tell that these are solar tiles, although it becomes more obvious from the overhead shot. 

Customers have four tile designs to choose from, including the “Texture” model
 Tesla

Due to the redwoods and general green-ness of the site, I would guess that the photo of this installation is not one of Musk’s five houses in LA but a building on a property that Straubel owns in Silicon Valley, where he works out of Tesla’s Menlo Park office. (This would also explain why an installer was sending Musk a photo.) Some rough math using Tesla’s calculator tool would place this roof’s cost at about $30,000, not including $7,000 for a Tesla Powerwall battery, with a Northern California customer receiving about $9,500 in tax credits. But according to the tool, the roof would generate $44,600 worth of energy over 30 years.

“Texture” and “Smooth” are available now, with “Tuscan” and “Slate” available next year
 Tesla

Tesla’s solar tiles are meant to be more aesthetically pleasing than the typical photovoltaic panel, but they’re also more efficient. Instead of a one-size-fits-all panel, the solar-collection can be customized, with the site and pitch of the roof determining the number of active, energy-generating tiles ($42 per square foot) and inactive tiles ($11 per square foot). Tesla sells regular solar panels, too, through SolarCity, the company Musk acquired last year.

After these beta roofs are approved for public distribution by Tesla employees, orders for the solar roof system are apparently shipping later this year. If you want to get in line, start here.