Solar Roof, big price increase

[bayareaever]

I read about them using metal, but has that started already? And how does that look? I would think it would be quite noticeable since the roof sort of shimmers in the sun like an old-style window, and glass looks quite different from metal. And many people, us included, want a solarroof for looks as much as solar power.

I am quite concerned about aesthetics for this reason (assuming I ultimately move forward at this point).

My advisor said this change is recent and only applies to entirely inactive planes (mixed active/inactive planes are still all glass). He said the metal is identical because it’s ‘uv painted’. I honestly don’t believe him, once you account for aging and dirt accumulating.

 

[wjgjr]

I signed my contract in the last 30 days...

I would suggest reading the contract, particularly the clause on arbitration. If it is like my contract, you have 30 days to mail (as in paper mail) to Tesla a letter opting out of arbitration.

 

[ATXMD]

I would suggest reading the contract, particularly the clause on arbitration. If it is like my contract, you have 30 days to mail (as in paper mail) to Tesla a letter opting out of arbitration.

Yes, that clause is in there. Any benefit in NOT opting out? (also trying to get ahold of my lawyer!)

 

[cobra]

Can someone attempt to define ‘$14/sf’?

How would I attempt to calculate the ‘new’ price if my roof is xxx sf?

what a mess indeed.

I saw about 3 posts (not all on this site) with wording like this. One of the project advisors was claimed to say "$14/sf for the non-solar portion of roof". If you have the original breakdown on your job, I have seen some that show non-solar roof and solar roof portions of the cost. An initial attempt would be to take your roof sqft total, do a rough estimate of how much is solar vs. non-solar, then back calculate the old $/sqft rate. Given that, then use the new number of $14/sqft to calculate the new non-solar roof portion and see what we see...

 

[holeydonut]

I am quite concerned about aesthetics for this reason (assuming I ultimately move forward at this point).

My advisor said this change is recent and only applies to entirely inactive planes (mixed active/inactive planes are still all glass). He said the metal is identical because it’s ‘uv painted’. I honestly don’t believe him, once you account for aging and dirt accumulating.

The advisor told you all this, but did they also confirm that your quoted price did not increase?

 

[Southpasfan]

I am not sure the "new $14 per square foot" is really a very good explanation. Unless the old price was $4 per sq ft its hard to see how just this adjustment could result in the increases everyone is posting.

Having just finished my 16.32 panels 3 PW project it was plain to see how the hardware and hard costs were only 50% of the total price. It just does not seem mathematically logical that hard costs somehow tripled as to solar roofs.

Have their been posts where installs expected to take a week took three weeks for the entire crew? That's the type of thing which could explain these types of increases.

Ugh. Construction projects can generally be awful. This for some reason feels worse.

 

[jboy210]

I am not sure the "new $14 per square foot" is really a very good explanation. Unless the old price was $4 per sq ft its hard to see how just this adjustment could result in the increases everyone is posting.

Having just finished my 16.32 panels 3 PW project it was plain to see how the hardware and hard costs were only 50% of the total price. It just does not seem mathematically logical that hard costs somehow tripled as to solar roofs.

Have their been posts where installs expected to take a week took three weeks for the entire crew? That's the type of thing which could explain these types of increases.

Ugh. Construction projects can generally be awful. This for some reason feels worse.

Our Solar Roof took 3+ weeks. Most days there were at least 8 people here. And some days up to a dozen. (Glad I bought extra donuts and there was a spare port-a-potty next door).

 

[ATXMD]

I saw about 3 posts (not all on this site) with wording like this. One of the project advisors was claimed to say "$14/sf for the non-solar portion of roof". If you have the original breakdown on your job, I have seen some that show non-solar roof and solar roof portions of the cost. An initial attempt would be to take your roof sqft total, do a rough estimate of how much is solar vs. non-solar, then back calculate the old $/sqft rate. Given that, then use the new number of $14/sqft to calculate the new non-solar roof portion and see what we see...

I'm curious about this $14/sf. Does anyone have anything official on this?

My contract has a roof price (which is exactly $5.60 per square foot - it appears to be based on the total square feet of my roof, rather than just the non-solar portion), a Solar Roof price ($2,650.018 per kW), and then the powerwalls broken out separately (that went up by $10K for 6).

Assuming the $14 replaces the $5.60, the "Solar Roof" portion goes to $4,511.882 per kW.

If this is the case, then it seems that a price increase of about $32k is covered by the "solar portion of your Solar Roof" and the remaining $46K is not covered by that clause.

 

[wjgjr]

I am not sure the "new $14 per square foot" is really a very good explanation. Unless the old price was $4 per sq ft its hard to see how just this adjustment could result in the increases everyone is posting.

Having just finished my 16.32 panels 3 PW project it was plain to see how the hardware and hard costs were only 50% of the total price. It just does not seem mathematically logical that hard costs somehow tripled as to solar roofs.

Have their been posts where installs expected to take a week took three weeks for the entire crew? That's the type of thing which could explain these types of increases.

Ugh. Construction projects can generally be awful. This for some reason feels worse.

Just to clarify a bit for everybody, the solar roof price is split into two components. One is listed as "Solar Roof (xxx sq. ft.)" with a price, and one is listed as "Solar Roof (yyy kW)" and a price. The total represents the price of the roof (exclusive of pre-construction, permitting, or other repair work, and - if applicable - PWs.) The price for yyy kW of solar seems to represent the solar portion and is (or "may be", per Tesla's advice) tax deductible. The part for xxx sq. ft. seems to represent the non-solar portion and is not tax deductible. So, notably, if the increase is to the sq. ft. line, not only is it an increase, but the ITC does not help offset it.

We signed our first v3 contract ~18 months ago and the price per sq. ft. did not change. It works out to $5.60 per sq. ft. So not quite the $4, but it is a huge increase over the last 18 months. (And I don't know how much of that was this weekend, but somewhere along the line the increase has been significant.)

 

[Southpasfan]

Our Solar Roof took 3+ weeks. Most days there were at least 8 people here. And some days up to a dozen. (Glad I bought extra donuts and there was a spare port-a-potty next door).

Wow. My install for 48 panels was two days Did they say it would take three weeks at the start?

 

[ATXMD]

I'm curious about this $14/sf. Does anyone have anything official on this?

My contract has a roof price (which is exactly $5.60 per square foot - it appears to be based on the total square feet of my roof, rather than just the non-solar portion), a Solar Roof price ($2,650.018 per kW), and then the powerwalls broken out separately (that went up by $10K for 6).

Assuming the $14 replaces the $5.60, the "Solar Roof" portion goes to $4,511.882 per kW.

If this is the case, then it seems that a price increase of about $32k is covered by the "solar portion of your Solar Roof" and the remaining $46K is not covered by that clause.

Interestingly, if the "roof" price does not change, then the Solar Roof portion becomes just slightly over $6600 per kW ($6602.004, but I know there's a rounding issue in their agreement), which seems much more likely (Tesla tends to work in round numbers).

 

[jboy210]

Wow. My install for 48 panels was two days Did they say it would take three weeks at the start?

They projected 1-2 weeks, but everyone in the Facebook Solar Roof groups was saying close to the month. Now, at that time everyone in the group that had V3 Solarroof installs were like us, in the first 100 SolarRoof installs where joint Tesla and sometimes 3rd party contractors were doing installs. So that undoubtedly increased crew size and time somewhat.

 

[jk732]

I saw about 3 posts (not all on this site) with wording like this. One of the project advisors was claimed to say "$14/sf for the non-solar portion of roof". If you have the original breakdown on your job, I have seen some that show non-solar roof and solar roof portions of the cost. An initial attempt would be to take your roof sqft total, do a rough estimate of how much is solar vs. non-solar, then back calculate the old $/sqft rate. Given that, then use the new number of $14/sqft to calculate the new non-solar roof portion and see what we see...

It really sucks on their parts. I have signed contract on Jan 16 and re-signed on March 4th after couple of revisions with price of $88k for 15Kw & 3 PWs (my roof size is 4070sf, permit submitted and probably approved and onsite scheduled at end of April). Got email saying price has been increased to $132k (55% increase) and so upset like everyone else who was affected by this. They have all information like roof complexity before we signed contract and they factor those now because they cannot make any profit ? Maybe I am too naïve but never seen like this one before. I think we need to voice this to media or something like that so that it will not happen to others in future.

 

[bayareaever]

The advisor told you all this, but did they also confirm that your quoted price did not increase?

I spoke to him about this a few weeks ago. He didn’t bring up the issue with steel shingles. I asked about it after reading here about it. He confirmed what I outlined- his explanation made little sense because he also said the steel is stronger but so what, because most of the roof is still glass!

I’m scared to call now because of what he might tell me about the price!

 

[Southpasfan]

It really sucks on their parts. I have signed contract on Jan 16 and re-signed on March 4th after couple of revisions with price of $88k for 15Kw & 3 PWs (my roof size is 4070sf, permit submitted and probably approved and onsite scheduled at end of April). Got email saying price has been increased to $132k (55% increase) and so upset like everyone else who was affected by this. They have all information like roof complexity before we signed contract and they factor those now because they cannot make any profit ? Maybe I am too naïve but never seen like this one before. I think we need to voice this to media or something like that so that it will not happen to others in future.

Well, an increase of $10 per square foot on a 4,000 sq ft roof does equal $40k.

Of course, as some just posted, the new contract would have the breakdown to confirm $5.60 vs. $14.

Which of course, like many things, prompts the follow up question -- almost triple the basic roofing cost?

That's unacceptably large even by contracting standards when, as here, there is no underlying discovery, which is typically the case.

I mean, I would hate to be the Tesla employee who said it was OK to price quotes at $5.60 which actually ended up costing $14, that's a ticket to a very short career.

 

[ATXMD]

Just realized the new agreement breaks it down differently (click the tiny text that says "Energy Products Purchase Agreement" under the net cost.

It's now broken down as:
Roof Material (comes out to $6.54 / sf)
Roof Labor ($12.70 /sf)
Solar Roof Material ($1266.185 / kW)
Solar Roof Labor ($743.63 / kW)

 

[cobra]

Just realized the new agreement breaks it down differently (click the tiny text that says "Energy Products Purchase Agreement" under the net cost.

It's now broken down as:
Roof Material (comes out to $6.54 / sf)
Roof Labor ($12.70 /sf)
Solar Roof Material ($1266.185 / kW)
Solar Roof Labor ($743.63 / kW)

W..ouch, so that is something like $19.24/sqft on the roofing alone Also doesn't seem to match the $14 number. Did they say what complexity your roof was?

 

[wjgjr]

Just realized the new agreement breaks it down differently (click the tiny text that says "Energy Products Purchase Agreement" under the net cost.

It's now broken down as:
Roof Material (comes out to $6.54 / sf)
Roof Labor ($12.70 /sf)
Solar Roof Material ($1266.185 / kW)
Solar Roof Labor ($743.63 / kW)

Thanks for providing the breakout.... It occurred to me it is a simple thing to check the Tesla website to get the numbers by varying the size of the roof and complexity, leaving the solar amount fixed. Based on what you posted, it appears you have a complex roof.... It appears the cost per sq. ft. is $14.00 for simple, $16.00 for moderate, and $19.24 for complex. The price for the solar is the same for all cases and matches the $2010/kW number you posted.

Based on some of the other contracts posted in the thread history, the price/kW is essentially unchanged - it looks like it was $2010/kW from three examples of old contracts - so this increase seems to be purely to the part of the contract that is not eligible for the ITC. I suspect it does reflect Tesla underestimating these costs and potentially also underestimating the amount of non-PV required on a typical roof. Combined with the real increase in materials, and you see pricing doubling or tripling.

 

[Southpasfan]

Thanks for providing the breakout.... It occurred to me it is a simple thing to check the Tesla website to get the numbers by varying the size of the roof and complexity, leaving the solar amount fixed. Based on what you posted, it appears you have a complex roof.... It appears the cost per sq. ft. is $14.00 for simple, $16.00 for moderate, and $19.24 for complex. The price for the solar is the same for all cases and matches the $2010/kW number you posted.

Based on some of the other contracts posted in the thread history, the price/kW is essentially unchanged - it looks like it was $2010/kW from three examples of old contracts - so this increase seems to be purely to the part of the contract that is not eligible for the ITC. I suspect it does reflect Tesla underestimating these costs and potentially also underestimating the amount of non-PV required on a typical roof. Combined with the real increase in materials, and you see pricing doubling or tripling.

Which leads us around to the beginning. These increases, and the fact that they were done to existing contracts, signified some sort of mistake.

I was kind of hoping, for all the posters and from the sidelines, that it was an actual mistake and Tesla would make good on existing contracts, which could still happen of course.

But it now appears the "mistake" --- which is supported by the details of the changes plus a couple of posters who pointed out that the actual installation took almost a month -- was in Tesla's initial pricing model. It looks like the figured they could do the roof portion of the work at something approaching what a basic shingle roof would cost, and in reality, they were way off in the amount of work. As I said, someone at Tesla is probably in a world of hurt over this.

Not only are contracts going to be cancelled, but some will try arbitration or suing, and its not even that those would be successful or unsuccessful, its the poor, poor form of doing this. Its one thing to have growing pains with state of the art technology.

Its another thing to screw up on pricing basic roof install labor.

 

[holeydonut]

I spoke to him about this a few weeks ago. He didn’t bring up the issue with steel shingles. I asked about it after reading here about it. He confirmed what I outlined- his explanation made little sense because he also said the steel is stronger but so what, because most of the roof is still glass!

I’m scared to call now because of what he might tell me about the price!

Haha yeah, it's like going to the dentist... the pain of bad news is much worse than the little bit of good news you could get.