100% agree. They need to stop acting like some startup struggling to survive and not take a giant $*&t on their most loyal customers. Really sucks to invest so much money in a company's products and then need to tell your friends that they really can't be trusted in the slightest. This isn't even the first time Tesla has straight up lied to me about something, but at least before they were genuinely struggling to survive.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?
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Solar Roof, big price increase
- Thread starter nicholb
- Start date
100% agree. They need to stop acting like some startup struggling to survive and not take a giant $*&t on their most loyal customers. Really sucks to invest so much money in a company's products and then need to tell your friends that they really can't be trusted in the slightest. This isn't even the first time Tesla has straight up lied to me about something, but at least before they were genuinely struggling to survive.
As some others have mentioned, I think the best way to fight this is through Public Relations (PR). I can't believe that our issue is not covered in a major news organization (no disrespect to the Verge, Business Insider, and others who have covered the story - I really appreciate their effort). It pisses me off to see stories about Elon appearing on SNL, while no major press is reporting that Tesla is not honoring agreements with its customers. I encourage you all to reach out to journalists who can help us with this. One way for Tesla to honor their existing signed contracts is if they get bad press which would affect their stock price. If Tesla does not honor the signed agreement I have with them, I will personally never buy a Tesla product again and I would encourage others not to in the future based on my experience.
gigawatt1010
Member
The Tesla roof crew are literally on the final day of our Solar Glass install today as I type this. This is their third week. It took one week for the tear down crew and another week (last week) for the Solar Glass install. Unfortunately, we had a couple of bad weather days last week that's why the install bled over to a third week. As @wjgjr pointed out, they were all very nice and very professional. We did have one incident where this past weekend, we found a bunch of cigarette butts on my driveway and around the perimeter of our house as well as broken glass along the drip lines of our property. I communicated that to the lead supervisor/PM and he addressed it appropriately and timely.
For sure, I keep hitting up the Facebook or Twitter new but Tesla Fans just call us crybabies or liars...
willow_hiller
Well-Known Member
To be frank, I think this story has gone just about as far as it can. The media cycle moves quickly, and outside of readership of relatively niche publications like the ones you cited above, most people could care less. It's going to be hard to garner sympathy from a wider audience when they see those effected as wealthy elites complaining that their expensive tech toys got a little more expensive.
I think the sympathy is perhaps less an issue than it being a niche product, thus garnering attention only in niche publications. If something similar happened on the auto side, I think it would have attracted far more attention because that is the well-known part of the business and because their competitors would be happy to jump all over it.
As it stands, I agree that it seems unlikely this will be a huge story unless it can be told in the context of some larger shift in how Tesla is doing business.
If anyone is a sports fan, to people on the outside, this looks like sports players fighting with owners about salary, etc. Thats how people in general see someone who can "afford solar".
All people see is a "bunch of 1% ers complaining" (even though its likely very few of the people are actually "1% ers".
EDIT: to be clear, "I" am, not saying this, just saying this is my opinion of what "people on the outside of this issue" think.
A vehicle is seen by many as a "necessity" where solar is not seen as anything close to that. I believe that, to the outside, this is like people complaining that their rolex watch cost more than they thought, or their rolls royce is now more expensive than they thought.
I am not saying "I" think that, but I think that someone complaining about the price of their solar roof getting more expensive is seen as such by anyone not VERY familiar with solar, energy products, etc.
I'm in Austin, TX... we get rather a lot of sun. And the electrical engineer who designed my system does not believe it will cover either of my two cars or my pool heat pump.
After incentives, the sunpower system was $90k (not including the underlying roof) and the new Tesla roof is $138K.
I think we don't get a lot of incentives in Texas!
Sign the Petition
Tesla to honor signed contracts and pricing for Solar Roof customers
www.change.org
Written in haste, let me know any recommendations or edits to add in.
Signed and sharing!Sign the Petition
Tesla to honor signed contracts and pricing for Solar Roof customers
Written in haste, let me know any recommendations or edits to add in.
Okay that does sound reasonable now power wise. We heat our pools down here with cheap natural gas. Unfortunately it does take an absurd amount of energy to heat water and doing it with electricity is rather expensive, even with a heat pump.
I still cannot explain why your system is 4x the national average of per watt installed pre-incentives.
By all means pease submit a request for prosopsal on Compare solar quotes from pre-screened solar installers | EnergySage and get some quote. $10 per watt in 2021 is insane. Did that include a battery?
You know what, that was stupid of me... yes, that includes 6 powerwalls.
Also - I can certainly heat my pool with cheap natural gas, but I'm trying to work toward a greener approach!
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bottom line folks who can afford teslas, solar roofs, etc ARE the 1% folks, so the 99% who never in their dreams could afford a solar roof, and for many, even ever being able to buy a house, well it looks like .......
I'm still amazed Elon asserted that most people kept their orders. I guess people who keep their orders may not be posting on TMC, but I cannot imagine someone just seeing a quote for 1.5x or 2x more and going "whatever sign me up again!".
Maybe there's a large group of solar roofs are going to new construction project that have government subsidies anyway. Like Tesla makes a boatload of money selling Powerwalls that are 100% eligible for SGIP reimbursement. The disclosures that SGIP provide indicate lots of government facilities, schools, and low-income projects are getting Powerwalls throughout California. So maybe him doubling the price of the roof is like a net zero to the actual recipient through subsidy?
Maybe there's a large group of solar roofs are going to new construction project that have government subsidies anyway. Like Tesla makes a boatload of money selling Powerwalls that are 100% eligible for SGIP reimbursement. The disclosures that SGIP provide indicate lots of government facilities, schools, and low-income projects are getting Powerwalls throughout California. So maybe him doubling the price of the roof is like a net zero to the actual recipient through subsidy?
The free Powerwall incentive just appeared in our order page. It shows as a Powerwall $6500 price reduction. Because of how it's structured, this should not trigger a 1099-MISC for a free gifted Powerwall.
This is an approximate $6000 out of pocket price increase from the original agreement, and a suggested $1000 price increase after credits and eventual incentives. Not happy with what transpired but this is in the realm of something I can accept.
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