[habitue]

I'm no Musk fanboy but I think this kind of maximally cynical take is tiresome. They thought it would work, they expended significant engineering effort and money making it real and producing it and selling it to customers.

The simplest explanation is that they did all that and the market didn't want it. The economics of traditional panels outweighed the aesthetic advantages of tiles and they're pivoting. No conspiracy or fraud need be invoked.

[u1hcw9nx]

But fraud was involved.

Financially it was part of SolarCity bailout (Musk's cousin). It heavily heavily penalized Tesla shareholders and smelled of a family bailout. Solar Roof was announced so hastily in October 2016 justify the merger and stave off massive shareholder lawsuits. There was little effort in the roof development after bailout was a success, minus the bait-and-switch lawsuits.

There was genuine concept level development at some point, but it was developed into product after they knew it did not work to keep lawyers happy.

[panick21_]

What evidence do you have that little effort was put in development? As far as I can tell that not at all the case. The early version was bad and it took multiple generations for it to become a real product.

[alfiedotwtf]

Of course the market wanted it. I wanted it. My friends wanted it. But we couldn’t buy it because it was vapourware !

From this to self-driving cars in 2 years to tunnels that will change public transport… maybe Musk should prototype and see what’s actually possible before telling the market. I mean come on - it’s borderline fraud in order to pump stocks - there’s got to be stockholders that are forming class actions as we speak

[SXX]

Both self driving craze and car tunnel madness is only possible at all because how car centric US mindset is. If you even try to suggest that people could instead use good public transport and pedestrian infrastructure they would look at you like you are some sort of crazy.

Musk just takes car centric society pipe dreams and sell it back to them.

Like OMG you transiting to work and can safely stay in your phone 99% of time. In other countries this called train or a bus. Solved in London with 1863 tech.

[hnaccount_rng]

But transit only solves your problem in cities like London. Some people - for some reason I’m still not entirely clear on - seem to like this. But other people - so far the majority - don’t. And for those, self-driving cars solve the transit problem. That’s valuable. And you only need to beat unit economics of taxis. So there is a significant margin to capture

[panick21_]

People use public transport in villages of 20 people where I live. The idea that you need some mega city for public transport to be viable is an American fantasy. Even if its not for everybody, it still makes sense.

Also most people live plenty urban to make public transit perfectly viable.

Self driving cars means even more cars on the road, and reduce the avg occupation even more. Even in a same rural environment this isn't great. And in an urban environment is insanely fucking stupid.

[sumeno]

Are you claiming that the majority doesn't live in cities? 80% of the US population lives in urban areas. Self driving cars contribute to the transit problem in those areas because it's even more traffic.

[ytpete]

For the 'don't want to live in transit-dense cities like London' crowd, beating the economics of taxis may not be enough since that's not what you're competing with out in the suburbs.

On the other hand, the suburbs don't have much that is even comparable to city taxis in price or availability today, so maybe if it existed that price point would indeed do just as well away from cities too.

[prmoustache]

Self driving cars still create traffic jams and huge environment contamination No problem is solved.

[wat10000]

I’ve traveled to a decent number of countries and the only city I’ve been to that wasn’t filled with cars was Venice. I love public transport and I wish the US would do it better, but cars are extremely common all over the place and self-driving is something that would get a lot of traction in lots of countries.

[SXX]

Any reasonable large city will be fully packed with cars unless it enforce high parking fees and congestion charges.

No matter how much car infrastructure you build and self driving will only make it worse because it will incentify car use.

[hvb2]

While i kinda agree with you, it doesn't fly for most US cities.

Most US cities aren't dense at all. A lot of them were built with transportation in mind. London and European cities in general are so much older that their city centers have no real way to accommodate that.

So what do you do? You provide non car options. Technically they exist in US cities too, but especially on the west coast they're just not a viable alternative. Nobody who can choose will take a 2 hour public transit trip over a 20 minute drive. Heck, in a lot of cases biking might be faster than your transit option, albeit riskier

[SXX]

While there is obviously no one easy solution for every city situation could easily be improved in a lot of them if there was political will. At least it would be 1000% more sane than pitching underground car tunnels.

It obviously take decades not years, but again Tesla full self driving was promissed back in 2016 and something tells me it would be a big success if it will be deployed on scale in 2036.

[hvb2]

People don't want to change. In the us on the west coast I would say that public transit has a bit of a stigma. You don't use it unless you have to.

Couldn't be more different in the big European cities, using a car there is (made) cumbersome.

[mulderc]

West coast cities like Portland and Seattle both have very good transit and in my experience is generally better than driving since traffic and parking are awful. Where I live on the west coast is a mid sized city and transit is completely viable, my family only drives on weekends for example.

[rootusrootus]

> West coast cities like Portland and Seattle both have very good transit

I live in Portland. Traffic is often quite slow. And even then it is much faster than public transit unless your destination is just a few miles away and on the same line.

[mulderc]

Public transit is much faster for me but I lived near the Hollywood district and worked downtown.

[panick21_]

Most US cities centers were not built to late, instead they were bulldozed for the car, those are 2 different things. The US used to have beautiful city centers and nice urban fabric around those centers.

> A lot of them were built with transportation in mind.

Complete nonsense, the Post-1945 push for suberbia had nothing to with 'transportation in mind', the reason they wanted it was totally different.

The reality is more that they pushed suberiba and only then realized the transportation problem it caused, and then they reacted with every increasing highway and stroad building.

> Technically they exist in US cities too, but especially on the west coast they're just not a viable alternative.

Its not an alternative because its either not funded or badly organized.

Its bad because the government doesn't care that its bad, its not actually a fundamental problem.

[oliwarner]

> They thought it would work

That's the problem though. Thinking your product will get by on looks when it's clearly outcompeted on performance, price, availability and longevity. That's not just optimism, it's delusion.

[cheschire]

Pretty sure this didn’t help either though:

> Customer service complaints are pervasive and consistent. Tesla Energy has a 2.6 out of 5 rating on SolarReviews

[pathartl]

Yeah, there's some tubers out there that have absolutely scathing reviews for their customer ervice.

[panick21_]

I don't think it was clear that it would be out compete on price or performance. If you compare roof + solor to solar roof, the idea was that eventually it would compete with doing both separately.

I'm also not sure if its actually worse on longevity.

[oliwarner]

It seems fairly clear if you consider a 50-100 year roof (ours is 150 years, and it's only had membrane changes in that time) against a 25 year roof.

I'm sure the steel shingle will last a fair time but if the PV elements need replacing four times a century, that's not a non-trivial cost.

When my PV panels die, it's just £400 a panel, four hex bolts and some quick connectors to replace it. It's no contest.

[HighGoldstein]

> That's the problem though. Thinking your product will get by on looks when it's clearly outcompeted on performance, price, availability and longevity. That's not just optimism, it's delusion.

May I present to you the Apple corporation, at least until recently.

[xingped]

You're not entirely wrong on it being a maximally cynical take, but I think it depends on where the idea originated. Yes, they expended a lot on engineering to make it real, but you can do that with any idea. I think what matters was if it was a feasible idea put forth from a reasonable source or if it was another grand delusion from Musk that everyone just had to make as real as possible despite their own misgivings on the idea.

[queenkjuul]

Imo basically this, the attempt to make it work is downstream of musk deciding it had to be attempted. Musk can decide to spend money on a project whether or not it's genuine or feasible. This seems a clear cut case of musk designing a bad product and engineers doing their best to implement it despite the nonsensical constraints

[actionfromafar]

I'm tired of his cousins

https://news.ycombinator.com/reply?id=48166411&goto=item%3Fi...