Tesla has revealed their plans to construct the most sustainable neighborhood in the country in Southeast Austin, Texas. This will be the company’s first solar neighborhood and will be constructed in Easton Park, a master-planned neighborhood that will feature Powerwall battery storage, Tesla solar roof tiles, and electric vehicle charging stations. This project aims to create a new model for large-scale sustainable housing projects and will be named “Austin ++”. “Neighborhood solar installations across all housing types will reshape how people live. The feedback we get from the solar and battery products used in this community will impact how we develop and launch new products,” said the Tesla CEO, Elon Musk during a press release.
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Tesla first unveiled its solar roof tiles five years ago as part of a big bet on solar energy that included the acquisition of SolarCity, a company founded by Musk’s cousins Peter and Lyndon Rive. In the time since, the company’s solar roof tiles have run into mounting costs and technical issues in manufacturing and installation, leading to aggravated customers and even a lawsuit from Walmart, for fires allegedly caused by the solar panels. During a first-quarter earnings call earlier this year, Musk admitted to “significant malfunctions” with the previous roof iterations but promised to make improvements to the technology in 2019.
One advantage of the new development is that the solar panels will be directly merged into the construction of the homes instead of being retrofitted on existing buildings. So far, only a few homes were built with Tesla’s new solar roofs in June, as part of the experimental phase for future construction. A few thousand homes are slated for future phases of the project. “The feedback we get from the solar and battery products used in this community will impact how we develop and launch new products,” said Elon in the statement.
