Solar Roof, big price increase

[Cshama]

I have been going back and forth with them. They are maintaining their responses along the lines of "Your project was re-evaluated and priced accordingly. There is no further path for escalation".

What a load of BS!

Serious question. Even if Tesla backed down. Why would you even want to do business with a company that tries this.

My installation was completed last week by another company. During the process they blew up my main panel and one the panels cracked. It took one minute to resolve both issues with a phone call. I can't imagine what would happen with Tesla.

Both issues were pretty random occurrences. My main panel was in terrible shape beforehand so it wasn't their fault really. But still things happen in construction and its important to trust the company you hire.

The story here about the $7500 quote for a roof deck is very disturbing on another level. I already passed on Tesla. Glad I did.

 

[h2ofun]

Serious question. Even if Tesla backed down. Why would you even want to do business with a company that tries this.

My installation was completed last week by another company. During the process they blew up my main panel and one the panels cracked. It took one minute to resolve both issues with a phone call. I can't imagine what would happen with Tesla.

Both issues were pretty random occurrences. My main panel was in terrible shape beforehand so it wasn't their fault really. But still things happen in construction and its important to trust the company you hire.

The story here about the $7500 quote for a roof deck is very disturbing on another level. I already passed on Tesla. Glad I did.

I totally agree. For that much money, pre or post quote, why would I spend it with a company that one is bad mouthing. Been lots of posts about terrible customer support. I know I went with my first solar from a 3rd party, and am working with another 3rd party for maybe more. Tesla does not even enter my mind. I am not looking for lowest cost, since you get what you pay for. Would rather support the local businesses in my area.

 

[DarkandStormy]

I'm not a lawyer, but it feels like a good contract attorney could help customers with this if Tesla is reneging on contract pricing they signed and agreed to.

Of course, there may have been "fine print" language that was mostly CYA just for these very increases.

 

[wjgjr]

Serious question. Even if Tesla backed down. Why would you even want to do business with a company that tries this.

My installation was completed last week by another company. During the process they blew up my main panel and one the panels cracked. It took one minute to resolve both issues with a phone call. I can't imagine what would happen with Tesla.

Both issues were pretty random occurrences. My main panel was in terrible shape beforehand so it wasn't their fault really. But still things happen in construction and its important to trust the company you hire.

The story here about the $7500 quote for a roof deck is very disturbing on another level. I already passed on Tesla. Glad I did.

I think that is a fair question, but the issue is that if your goal is a solar roof, your options are very limited. For panels, it is a relatively simple thing to find other installers at different levels of price, service, and quality. But, for a solar roof product, Tesla may be the only option for many.

The one bit of good news is that so far - and we will see if this also changes - the on-site crews seem to be very good and very professional. And, at least when I had my install done, I would have expected my installers to resolve those sort of on-site issues very quickly and take responsibility for any issues they caused. So my hope is that for those who do get Tesla to honor their contracts, they will still at least have a positive installation experience (even if all other parts of the experience are terrible.)

 

[h2ofun]

I think that is a fair question, but the issue is that if your goal is a solar roof, your options are very limited. For panels, it is a relatively simple thing to find other installers at different levels of price, service, and quality. But, for a solar roof product, Tesla may be the only option for many.

The one bit of good news is that so far - and we will see if this also changes - the on-site crews seem to be very good and very professional. And, at least when I had my install done, I would have expected my installers to resolve those sort of on-site issues very quickly and take responsibility for any issues they caused. So my hope is that for those who do get Tesla to honor their contracts, they will still at least have a positive installation experience (even if all other parts of the experience are terrible.)

Has anyone posted here that there contract was honored if they roof had not already started to have been taken off?

 

[WaitingForRoof]

Seems they were ramping up on hiring several attorneys for consumer litigation and arbitration right during the price increase.. Maybe that’s why Tesla has not responded to any disputes yet?

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[rspray2000]

Seems they were ramping up on hiring several attorneys for consumer litigation and arbitration right during the price increase.. Maybe that’s why Tesla has not responded to any disputes yet?

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In all seriousness though, in-house attorneys aren't cheap so adding that along with the bad PR, arbitration, lost customer loyalty, now a few free PW's, etc... it seems to suggest there must be a lot of us with agreements they don't want to execute.

 

[holeydonut]

I still hope the AG allocates some investigation to this for illegal pricing practice. Can you imagine if some product leader ends up paying a fine and doing community service? I would enjoy the lolz.

 

[VaNick]

I still hope the AG allocates some investigation to this for illegal pricing practice. Can you imagine if some product leader ends up paying a fine and doing community service? I would enjoy the lolz.

Same here, Virginia's accepted my complaint and snail-mailed a letter to Tesla...

Though my Rep was uninterested when I told her the AG was involved as she tried to extort the $10k difference (post 'free power wall' conversation)...

 

[SMAlset]

If you listen to the earnings call today, Elon addressed this and sure didn’t sound like old pricing would be honored.

 

[h2ofun]

If you listen to the earnings call today, Elon addressed this and sure didn’t sound like old pricing would be honored.

did he say why?

 

[SMAlset]

Serious question. Even if Tesla backed down. Why would you even want to do business with a company that tries this.

My installation was completed last week by another company. During the process they blew up my main panel and one the panels cracked. It took one minute to resolve both issues with a phone call. I can't imagine what would happen with Tesla.

Both issues were pretty random occurrences. My main panel was in terrible shape beforehand so it wasn't their fault really. But still things happen in construction and its important to trust the company you hire.

The story here about the $7500 quote for a roof deck is very disturbing on another level. I already passed on Tesla. Glad I did.

They blew up your main panel?! Did you have a fire or did they fry everything? Did this happen as they were doing a MPU? Wow, not sure how you feel it wasn’t their fault. Doubt our electrician would feel differently either.

 

[SMAlset]

did he say why?

Said they can’t afford to lose a massive amount of money and just have to refund the deposit.

 

[fjmaz]

My SR price hasn't changed, Los Angeles area. I reserved it last month (March 2021), key is I have a simple roof. 7.25 kW, 2 PW

Solar Roof$26,271.08
2 Powerwalls$19,000.00
Installation CostIncluded
Install Solar Roof + Powerwall together-$2,000.00
Taxes$2,579.99
Solar Renewable Energy Credit-$435.00
Deposit-$100.00
Total Amount Due$45,316.07
Federal Tax Credit-$10,049.63
Price after potential incentives$35,366.44

actually I think the key is that your got your quote last month. they probably quoted you a price with the increase in it. 19k for 2 power walls is a big jump form the 24k I got quoted for 4 Powerwalls.

 

[BW21]

Has anyone gotten any kind of response back from the [email protected] address (a response to filing a dispute)? Two weeks seems like sufficient time to respond when they planned this in advance and knew it was going to anger a lot of people. I think they are just biding their time trying to shake loose anyone who will cancel on their own or accept the new agreement so they don't need to actually violate any contracts, after which the legitimate offers will come out. Otherwise every statement from a Tesla rep is just squirrely language that avoids saying "we won't honor your contract", so I am holding out hope that they will indeed honor our contracts. I've only heard one person say a rep said something to the effect of "we will not honor your existing price", so I'm guessing that one rep just went off the script.

We have not heard back. We sent 1 follow up.

 

[BM3B]

actually I think the key is that your got your quote last month. they probably quoted you a price with the increase in it. 19k for 2 power walls is a big jump form the 24k I got quoted for 4 Powerwalls.

New development - I got an email from Tesla this week offering 1 free PW due to "a price increase" that they said I would receive by email. I have not received an email yet. The free PW is a nice gesture, though in noway compensates for huge price increases. It's worth about $7k in my estimation.

 

[K1Special]

Did anyone bother to listen to the earning call? Elon dodged the question about the 1000 roofs per week figure that was quoted back in early 2020. Said despite the price increase demand still is strong and outpaces supply. Elon said they found they made "significant mistakes in assessing" in assessing the difficulty of building roofs due to the complexity of roofs. He said some roofs are 2-3 easier than other roofs and you can't have a one size fits all product and that some roofs cost Tesla 2-3x as much to build. Said "what we cannot due is lose a massive amount of money." He also mentioned some absolute B$3# about some roofs being "rotted out" or lacking the structural integrity to support the roof.

1.) "rotted out roofs" and/or roofs without sufficient structure are precisely why there is language in everyone's contract that protects Tesla against "unforeseen conditions at the installation location." Nobody in here expects Tesla to absorb the cost of repairing a rotted out or otherwise structurally deficient building. And based on reports we have seen in here with people who have had inspections these massive price hikes are not in anyway related to fixing "rotted out roofs" or roofs lacking structural integrity.

2. Regarding Elon's comment on the "significant mistakes" regarding assessing complexity and thus difficulty in installing the roofs... So you expect us to believe that a company with the financial and intellectual resources of Tesla, one of the most innovative and data driven company in the world with some of the most brilliant engineers, in the world needed half a decade of product development to figure out that residential roofs have a wide range of complexity and variety? Isn't this precisely why the V1 roof rollout was so slow and the product was so expensive? Isn't this precisely what their engineers carefully looked at when designing V3? Isn't this precisely why V3 was going to be so fast and cheap to implement and that it would allow for 1000 roofs per week? Do you guys remember the press conference back in 2019 on the V3 roof and about how everything was carefully combed through and simplified in such a way as to easily install the roof in a day? And that this is why it took Tesla years of product development streamlining so as to get to the V3 roof? Are you really expecting us to believe that it took Tesla half a decade , multiple product revisions, and x amount of installs to figure out that their current cost estimate calculator was off by not 5% not 10% not 20% but 40-100%?? Why was there not careful analytics all along the way of roll out tracking each and every install with constant revisions in pricing so that Tesla would not get burned, but also, the customer would not get burned by breaking contractual agreements?

And ultimately there are people in here with a simple two plane roof, literally a piece of paper folded in half, the lowest complexity possible for any roof who still saw a 40%+ price hike. What about them???

3.) Forcing a power wall with every solar roof + greatly increased pricing. For some of us who have carefully ran the TOU numbers a power wall may not even break even over the warrantied life of the power wall. So why would we pay for it outside of backup power? I'd do much better investing that 10K over 10 years. Plu some people already have generators for backup power. The solar roof was originally advertised to be a no brainer for people who needed a new premium roof and solar. It was supposed to be cheaper than that but obviously more expensive than solar alone. Now suddenly a premium roof + panels is significantly cheaper than a Telsa roof + mandatory powerwall. I can get a premium concrete tile roof that we know from the test of time will easily last 50+ years and solar system with the best hardware in the industry, Panasonic HIT ultra low degradation panels with some of the best temperature coefficient performance out there with a fully optimized array with micro inverters for around $35-45K for an average sized roof with a 6-8kw array. If you use a top quality comp shingle roof it's more like 25-35K. Now that roof will cost what 60-70K+ when you include a power wall? I'm sure there will be some very premium luxury buyers who can swallow that price tag but enough to install 1000+ roofs a week? I'm highly skeptical there are that many people ready to shell out that much for a solar glass roof + powerwall.

4.) Ultimately Tesla wasn't forced to engage in those contracts that they are now reneging on. Elon's tone in the conference call made it seem like Tesla was a victim and couldn't bare the burden of losing all that money. As stated above they had all the resources available over many years to really track down and nail down their cost so that they don't engage into thousands of losing contracts. Every company that is actively doing business and engaging in contracts is expected to do their due diligence and engage into the contract in good faith with the expectations that they will be able to fulfil them. As you can see from the testimony in this thread Tesla has left many loyal customers and fan boys out to pasture. I know my opinion of Tesla and Elon is now 180 degrees different from what it was a year ago.

Thoughts?

 

[ATXMD]

3.) Forcing a power wall with every solar roof + greatly increased pricing. For some of us who have carefully ran the TOU numbers a power wall may not even break even over the warrantied life of the power wall. So why would we pay for it outside of backup power? I'd do much better investing that 10K over 10 years. Plu some people already have generators for backup power. The solar roof was originally advertised to be a no brainer for people who needed a new premium roof and solar. It was supposed to be cheaper than that but obviously more expensive than solar alone. Now suddenly a premium roof + panels is significantly cheaper than a Telsa roof + mandatory powerwall. I can get a premium concrete tile roof that we know from the test of time will easily last 50+ years and solar system with the best hardware in the industry, Panasonic HIT ultra low degradation panels with some of the best temperature coefficient performance out there with a fully optimized array with micro inverters for around $35-45K for an average sized roof with a 6-8kw array. If you use a top quality comp shingle roof it's more like 25-35K. Now that roof will cost what 60-70K+ when you include a power wall? I'm sure there will be some very premium luxury buyers who can swallow that price tag but enough to install 1000+ roofs a week? I'm highly skeptical there are that many people ready to shell out that much for a solar glass roof + powerwall.

Thoughts?

Thanks for the synopsis of the call. Very helpful.

Regarding your comment here, I'm not sure where you're getting your numbers. I'm putting a whole new story on my house, and therefore brand new roof. For me, the Tesla roof, covering 4306 SF, with 17.31 kW of power is now coming in at $170K before any incentives (it was $110K before this price increase). A Sunpower system, quoted in November, for 14.76 kW of power, before incentives, was coming in at $153k. plus a new composition shingle roof at between 25 and 35k. Seems that one roughly half that size would therefore come in around 80-90k with a shingle roof - not 25-35k.

 

[K1Special]

153k for 17.3kw solar system? That is insane. I put 5.2kw of solar on my Mom's house for 13k before any incentives. That includes 16 Panasonic 330 watt HIT panels (the best in the industry), 16 IQ7X micro inverters, Enphase IQ Envoy Combiner management box installed and all racking and support hardware installed. Socal prices. A brand new 30 year preminum architectural comp shingle roof was $12,500. This is a 1 story 1500sqft house with attched 2 car garage.

Here in socal that system generates 9mw per year and is enough to cover all her electricity needs including a pool, ac in the the summer, and about 9k miles of EV driving per year.

So sunpower quoted you 153k for 14760 watts? Thats more than $10 per watt installed and right now most installers are doing $2.50 to $3.00. Tesla was down to what $1.75 for their solar panel system?

Anyway a 4300sqft roof is a rather large house and 14kw is quite a lot of solar. You must be in an area with very poor weather for solar performance to need such a large system that or multiple people driving many EV miles per year.

A premium concrete tile roof is roughly twice what a comp shingle roof costs. For 43 squares that roof here in socal in concrete slate or S tile would be roughly 45-50k and 14kw of installed solar another $35-40k. Thats what 80-90k for a way bigger than average roof and solar system.

 

[Cshama]

Tesla used to do a 16kw system for $16k after incentives.

$153k before incentives is idiotic.