Elon Musk: 2019 Will Be “the Year of the Solar Roof”

"Solar plus battery plus electric vehicles, we have a fully sustainable future."

Looking Up

During the unveiling of Tesla's highly anticipated Model Y Thursday night, CEO Elon Musk shared his vision for his company's immediate future — and it had little to do with cars.

"This is definitely going to be the year of the Solar Roof and Powerwall," he told the audience, according to Inverse — a sign that Tesla is shifting its focus from the road to the home, with the ultimate goal of creating a fully sustainable future.

Pretty Picture

In August 2017, Tesla gave the world its first glimpse of an installed Solar Roof, and it looked, well, a lot like any other roof. But that was the point — Tesla's solar tiles didn't have the jarring appearance of many home solar panels.

That aesthetically pleasing design — combined with the tiles' affordability and "infinity warranty" — had solar energy expert Senthil Balasubramanian predicting Tesla would be a "game changer" for clean energy.

With the exception of the occasional massive battery project, though, we haven't heard much about Tesla's home energy products since then. The company spent much of 2017 and 2018 focused on getting through the Model 3's "production hell" and dealing with the fallout from Musk's latest public misstep.

Under One Roof

But now that Model 3 production is humming along, Tesla has the bandwidth to shift some of its engineering focus back to its Solar Roof and home batteries, according to Musk — and that should go a long way toward helping the company meet its ambitious goal of a more sustainable energy system.

"Solar plus battery plus electric vehicles, we have a fully sustainable future," Musk told the audience Thursday. "That’s a future you can feel really excited and optimistic about. I think that really matters."

More on Tesla: Solar Expert Predicts Tesla Will Be a “Game-Changer” for Clean Energy

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