Elon Musk – Global Warming A “Serious Crisis” That Needs to Be Solved

Elon Musk’s electric car pioneer, Tesla Motors, has been diversifying its product line recently, first with the Powerwall home battery system, and now with a new range of solar roof tiles, built in conjunction with solar panel manufacturer SolarCity, and designed to replace traditional ceramic shingles. At the recent unveiling of Tesla’s solar roofing, Musk warned that global warming is one of the biggest problems facing mankind right now, and that we need to work hard to solve it quickly.

“Global warming is a serious crisis and we need to do something about that,” Musk said at a news conference at Los Angeles’ Universal Studios during the unveiling (via The Economic Times Panache).

One way Musk and Tesla aim to help that effort is to make its environmentally friendly products appeal to customers on an aesthetic level. He complained that old electric cars “didn’t look good […] They were like a golf cart,” and that “We need to make [solar roofing] as appealing as electric cars have become.”

“The goal is to have solar roofs that look better than a normal roof, generate electricity, last longer, have better insulation, and actually have a total cost that his less than the price of a normal roof plus electricity,” Musk added. “Why would you buy anything else?”