Sources familiar with the matter said Tesla is working on a new version of the Solar Roof (Solar Roof v3.5), which is currently being tested in employees’ homes before being officially launched, Electrek reports. It’s not clear what the new version will be, but Tesla has been focusing on the durability and ease of installation of the solar roof lately, the report said. If testing goes well, Tesla expects to launch the new version of Solar Roof when installation resumes at the end of this year.
At the time of its launch, CEO Elon Musk cited it as a key product to accelerate solar power deployment, and his goal is for Tesla to be producing 1,000 new solar roofs a week by the end of 2019. All along, Tesla has been far behind on that goal, but we didn’t know how far behind until earlier this month. The company has never released data on its solar roof installations.
Last month, Electrek obtained solar roof installation data for the first time and confirmed that Tesla deployed 2.5 megawatts of solar roofs in the second quarter of 2022, or about 23 roofs per week. In addition, Tesla has suspended its solar roof installation schedule in almost all markets in the U.S., the only country where Tesla has installed solar roofs.
We now know that Tesla aims to continue installing its own solar roofs in the fourth quarter and that it is developing a new version in the meantime.
