They were a scam to justify his self-bailout of Solarcity with Tesla funds.

The demo Musk introduced last October at a splashy presentation was a glass-tile solar roof, much different from the metal prototype he’d seen before. How did he pull off this transformation in just weeks? More to the point, who executed the idea and when? Leaders at Tesla and SolarCity, including Lyndon and Peter Rive, gave a variety of different answers on the timeline of its origin and development. At first, the companies said Solar Roof was a Tesla product, and then, later, a SolarCity product. Public statements are similarly contradictory. Some involved with the product’s development suggest that the mixed messages are a result of the combined companies’ wish not to appear as if they rushed out the glass-tile prototype in order to be able announce a high-profile product before the shareholder vote on the acquisition, which some critics viewed as Tesla bailing out SolarCity.

…

No matter how the Solar Roof came to be, it seems to have worked: Three weeks after Musk’s presentation, 85% of shareholders approved the Tesla-SolarCity merger.

A few years later…

The Tesla Solar Roof tiles are still alive, but the product is on the back burner at Tesla as it failed to achieve its promises.

Man he was shilling hard for that, then all of a sudden he just stopped. I read a good number of stories about the solar shingles overheating, catching fire, burning down, malfunctioning…probably related to him going silent on them.

I’ve had my doubts about that stuff since I heard about it.

Perhaps it’s better as a concept than it is in the real world, with real world conditions.

Tesla solar was one of the companies, yes. GAF was also making them and I think a couple of others had them in development.

Yeah a racist asshole killed that. It could have been good.