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Curious about your experience with Tesla Energy
- Thread starter iliveinhope
- Start date
Back in the early part of the year, I tried multiple times to get through to the team to get a quote and place an order for a Powerwall. I left many messages through the first level agents who answered the phone, but never got a call back. Finally, a friend who already had one installed put me in touch with his PM. She told me they were way behind, at least until the Fall, and there were no more rebates available. I wanted to make sure I was prepared for potential power shut offs in Northern California, so instead, I worked with Infinity Energy. The install is complete and I took the opportunity to add additional panels. I’m still hoping for the rebate, although I’m in around 400th place on the list. I’m glad to hear that Tesla has become more responsive in the interim, although my experience with Infinity was very good.
It has been pretty rough. My "advisor" is an incredibly friendly yes-man who takes a bit of effort to get a hold of, and leaves me looking at white papers and wire diagrams to figure out what I want.
I went somewhere else for the solar array, but it seems silly to get someone else to install Tesla's own Powerwall, which leaves me scrounging around message board postings and whatnot to prevent the nightmare of a bunch of people showing up on the install day and screwing up my setup royally.
I went somewhere else for the solar array, but it seems silly to get someone else to install Tesla's own Powerwall, which leaves me scrounging around message board postings and whatnot to prevent the nightmare of a bunch of people showing up on the install day and screwing up my setup royally.
mkspeedr
Member
I ordered it 10 months or so ago. They quoted it. Then surveyed it a second time. Increased the quote 30%. Moved the original location and has blamed PG&E for 8 months why they cannot install it. Plus I have had 4 different people assigned to the project.
charlesj
Active Member
You, me and the rest of us here on the forum are a different breed of customers, like the geeks in other circles. We are very much more involved in this than a lot of their customers. We don't have internal data, us vs the rest who are only interested in the end product, not any steps or progress. Have a friend who showed me her installation. All she was interested is the time it went on line.
Maybe Tesla should have two branches of service people
one for us, one for them who are not interested in the process. As to the permit copy, I am sure I asked Tesla to send me the wiring diagram and packet. Don't think they do that as a rule. That is when we have several rounds of discussions including the so called engineer why and why not phase. For example, the permit package included an inverter by the meter. My inverters are under each panel and they should have know as I supplied that info so why on the drawing.
When that was corrected, and finally the main breaker size agreed upon, they still sent the picture with the inverter by main meter. Good thing that didn't matter at inspection time.
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I only saw 2 other recent posts about your issue and in both of them you indicated that you were waiting for PG&E to do some panel upgrade. Has PG&E ever come out to do it? Was this some type of 100 to 200 or 400A service upgrade? Unclear from what you posted exactly what kind of upgrade this is for you.
When our main service panel needed upgrading per our City, that added additional cost to our job. We didn’t know what kind of service panel we had when we signed our contract (label long fallen off) and we elected to just send in photos instead of requesting a site visit so until they went to apply for a permit neither of us had a way of knowing. Did you originally have a site survey? Our job is more complicated due to location of existing equipment and lack of good install space and probably in our case it would have been better having the site survey done. This week they are doing our install and doing a nice job.
We originally had an advisor back in January but after covid happened he was no longer there so was assigned a new person. Only spoke to her once or twice and when her line was busy we called back and had other staff answer some of our questions. If they couldn’t answer the questions, they would send an internal email to her. Tesla after the covid lockdown then tried to have any rep able to work with you but more recently went back to an advisor as people seemed to like that approach better. We were always able to reach someone and ask our questions so didn’t really bother us either way. Now at install stage and close to the finish line.
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You, me and the rest of us here on the forum are a different breed of customers, like the geeks in other circles. We are very much more involved in this than a lot of their customers. We don't have internal data, us vs the rest who are only interested in the end product, not any steps or progress. Have a friend who showed me her installation. All she was interested is the time it went on line.
Maybe Tesla should have two branches of service people
As to the permit copy, I am sure I asked Tesla to send me the wiring diagram and packet. Don't think they do that as a rule. That is when we have several rounds of discussions including the so called engineer why and why not phase. For example, the permit package included an inverter by the meter. My inverters are under each panel and they should have know as I supplied that info so why on the drawing.
When that was corrected, and finally the main breaker size agreed upon, they still sent the picture with the inverter by main meter. Good thing that didn't matter at inspection time.
Agree about probably most customers not getting too much into the details. So no need to provide until end of install and not tie up designer time.
Question about your 3-line electrical drawings. Aren’t they just connection diagrams not actual physical layout (which is determined when the install team comes out)? Ours showed what equipment was planned for the exterior wall and the remainder shown installed in our garage per our ask due to a southwest hot stucco exterior wall. No real horizontal or vertical placement ever indicated.
To Tesla's credit, after requesting it, they sent me the permit application packet. Interestingly, the PV layout IS part of it (surprise =) ) The advisor initially told me layout is not part of it. The "detailed" plan actually answered a lot of my questions. I wish they shared initially as part of normal workflow. I agree with charlesj we are not "normal" as consumer goes. but I would say Tesla customer in general is geeky enough to care (percentage wise).
Wait what - you actually feel like you're getting top-tier service from Tesla on the auto-side? I was under the impression Tesla was bottom-rung in terms of service since they just push cars out for list and try to take the human element out of everything?
My neighbors with Teslas all hated the many issues they had upon delivery (stuff not fitting, feeling wrong, or straight broken). Then they hate taking the car in since it's usually out of commission for a long time and they don't get loaners. Of course bad service didn't stop them from buying more than 1 haha.
Only one neighbor has swore off of Tesla due to service; the others are willing to deal with Tesla's BS every once in a while since they like the product.
charlesj
Active Member
Yep, they are geeky enough
but am sure they don't query their customers if they are geeky as well but I imagine if you made some geeky questions to them, they should have caught on and provide drawings.Yep, if one get solar as well on the same permit, that layout is also needed for good reason.
charlesj
Active Member
Yes, the line drawing is not a physical panel location but, it does contain wire sizes, box part numbers, new breaker size and panel placement, etc. And the critical part is how they tie together.
In my case, they were told about my solar breaker in the 2nd story subpanel that feeds into the main panel with 2-100A breakers there.
They placed it in the backup panel that would have required a wire remodel that I was not prepared to do.
That was another bone of contention. Wanted to make sure the 2-100A breakers were moved to the backup panel with the PW 30A breakers and designate breaker size. All I needed was another reason the inspector may have said back to the drawing board.
One never knows what might hang up the inspector.
In the end the layout worked beyond expectation as I didn't know you can splice wire inside those boxes/main panel and redirect where they ended up. I had the 2-100A wires in main panel spliced and run back to the backup panel and the 150A wire to the Gateway, all through one large hole between the two boxes, backup panel right behind main panel, nothing visible, and up to Gateway. Super job.
The 3rd party contractor I initially contacted had all sorts of conduits and gutters running everywhere.
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