Elon Musk is regarded as one of the great minds of our time. This past Friday, Oct. 28, he took the stage at Universal Studios in LA to unveil Tesla’s new line up of shingles for homes. The idea which sounds relatively boring and bland is actually an innovative masterpiece. Tesla, the company famously known for its electric cars, wants to integrate its eco-friendly technology into rooftops.

     Solar panels have a reputation of being bulky, aesthetically displeasing and spendy. Musk and the rest of his coworkers at Tesla want to change that reputation with their line of solar panels that look almost identical to traditional shingles. The panels are textured glass tiles with integrated solar cells and come in many different styling options, such as terracotta and slate. 

     For this project Tesla has been working with Minnesota based manufacturing company 3M to create the perfect blend of technology and functionality. They have used a layered system to create a shingle that is transparent from direct view but looks like any other shingle from street level. With such an expensive piece of technology, durability was definitely a concern. Musk addressed this with drop tests showing the Tesla shingles were actually less susceptible to damage than the average shingle and quasi-infinite in its lifetime.

     The shingles have actually been installed in four houses from the old set of “Desperate Housewives” for potential investors to view. The goal of the project is to make every roof solar, beautiful, affordable and seamlessly integrated. The actual public release of a product like this is still a ways out but it is nice to see an upgrade to something that has not seen this level of innovation in a while.