Solar Roof, big price increase

[jimm01]

I could be wrong, but I think all the cutting is done with metal pieces, not glass.

You are correct there is no custom cutting with V3 (as was the case with V2). There is a YouTube video demonstrating this in a valley (search for Dragon Scale Valley). The same holds true at the gable ends and cheeks.|

If Tesla is being totally honest then this is a crisis of competence. I had a Tesla Solar roof installed last year--it was a cluster F@#k. Although the initial 'paperwork' was easy (except for the waiting). From the time the material was delivered it was total chaos. Murph's law prevailed at every step (I wrote about some of it here: The Domino Effect sorry for the prose but it was an early morning rant after a sleepless night). In any case, I still haven't paid them. They damage my house and some of the workmanship is very poor. As far as power generation is concerned; so far not at any instance, even high noon on a clear day, has it generated above 80% capacity. Closer to the summer solstice I will download my data and then make a fuss. So cost recovery will take much longer.

I do think it's a viable product I just think Tesla need more experience designing installing it. My father was in the roofing and siding business. I worked for him before and during college. I also worked in building material supply business and did cost estimation for roofing siding, windows, rain gutters, sheeting, etc., as well as project management. I have built two houses for myself, and have rehabbed and remodel several properties, subcontracting very little. From that experience I think I can honestly assess what was poor project management and no site management. I saw lots of wasted time and material (see photo of left over material that went to a landfill).

In any case, Something's not adding up. Tesla should be able to provide empirical data of what and where specific cost escalations are. A Tesla solar roof is first and foremost a roof, and I doubt a Tesla solar roof is any more complex than installing a slate roof. In fact there are YouTube videos stating as much. This is supposed top be a growth industry--other competitors are out there--if I were an investor I'd be worried.
This sounds more like incompetence and lack of experience, (or something more sinister is going on here). However, I have to agree, Hanlon's Razor applies to Tesla's "excuse" for the recent cost escalation.

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

 

[VaBob]

Tesla’s Latest Solar Stumble: Big Price Increases (Published 2021)

The company is charging tens of thousands of dollars more to cover roofs with its much-anticipated solar shingles, angering some customers.

www.nytimes.com

Thank you NYT! And thanks for finding this, SMFS. Hope to see more of these articles.

 

[VaNick]

That does sound optimistic. Did the installer just show up out of the blue or did they let you know in advance that they were coming? Just curious because I'm scheduled for May 17th install, but I think that's contingent on me signing their new agreement. Wondering if I should keep an eye out for the Tesla installer. But sounds like talking to the rep helped.

100% out of the blue, just happened to see a Tesla van in front of my house...

 

[zecar]

Why does Tesla want to do these installs? Seems like being the manufacturer and approver of installers makes more sense.

 

[jimm01]

I could be wrong, but I think all the cutting is done with metal pieces, not glass.

Why does Tesla want to do these installs? Seems like being the manufacturer and approver of installers makes more sense.

My thoughts exactly. Forget about roofs Tesla understand as much about houses as I do the origins of the Universe. From my experience the corporate culture is as it was with SolarCity. At least it's not Tesla's empower corporate culture (which maybe a myth anyway). In any case, talking to a decision maker is harder than finding water in a desert experiencing a 100 year drought.

 

[jimm01]

My thoughts exactly. Forget about roofs Tesla understand as much about houses as I do the origins of the Universe. From my experience the corporate culture is as it was with SolarCity. At least it's not Tesla's empower corporate culture (which maybe a myth anyway). In any case, talking to a decision maker is harder than finding water in a desert experiencing a 100 year drought.

Let me try boss--I always wanted to work on a house ... ?

 

[jimm01]

My thoughts exactly. Forget about roofs Tesla understand as much about houses as I do the origins of the Universe. From my experience the corporate culture is as it was with SolarCity. At least it's not Tesla's empower corporate culture (which maybe a myth anyway). In any case, talking to a decision maker is harder than finding water in a desert experiencing a 100 year drought.

Square peg round hole, what's a craftsman to do ... ?

 

[jimm01]

Why does Tesla want to do these installs? Seems like being the manufacturer and approver of installers makes more sense.

"I've got a million of 'em, million of 'em." ~ Henny Youngman

The rain gutters were not removed from my house during the solar roof install.--so they became bent an dented. When I inquired at the time the was assumption was they would be replaced and was part of my bill. Otherwise Tesla would have remove the old rain gutters.

To make matters worse, to fit the galvanized drip edge tabs were cut around the hidden gutter hangers. These will prematurely rust and are visible from the ground. Now Tesla want's to charge me for the replacement and will not move on the other repairs until I agree, (they harassed me for days to approve the new contract). When I asked about the cuts into the galvanized drip edge the "genius" on the phone told me it was not an issue because Tesla installs the rain gutter over the drip edge and they would just bend the tabs down. Having worked on a gutter truck I was just stupefied. Moreover, the only way to get the old rain gutters off is the beat them off with a hammer--this may cause damage to the fascia.

Maybe Musk should have remained at Stanford and got his PhD. It would been more apropos.

“Give ’em the axe, the axe, the axe!

Give ’em the axe, the axe, the axe!

Give ’em the axe, give ’em the axe, give ’em the axe!

Where?

Right in the neck, the neck, the neck!

Right in the neck, the neck, the neck!

Right in the neck, right in the neck, right in the neck!

There!”

 

[K1Special]

One would think after 5 years worth of prototypes and installs they would have a good handle on the problems and edge cases. My background is in project management and I could single handily have done a far better job in managing the roll out while carefully tracking productivity and costs. It really makes you wonder who does Teslas have working for them? The no brainer roll out would have been to start out V3 with the simplest fastest roofs and to simply reject any orders where the complexity would be too big of a slow down of the limited available trained personnel resources at a time of high demand. In the initial online configurator you could ask them to include some pictures of the roof from across the street and a few questions about how many planes, crickets etc. You could reject them outright on the initial order stage and for those that slip through put wording in there like "Please note: If we find your roof exceeds our current complexity limitations during our initial inspection/assessment, we are sorry, but we will have to cancel your order and refund your deposit." In house Tesla roofing teams should have only 1 purpose and that is working on installs with pre-qualified roofing contractors so that they can train as many contractors as possible on the installation of their product. Tesla roofing employees should only be in the training business not the roofing business. After initial training they can have a team of in house experts that go out to sites as needed to deal with edge cases. We've seen stories in here where some roofs take upwards of 3-4+ weeks to complete a roof, which is ridiculous. They should only be doing roofs that can be done in typical roofing time frames of 2-5 days. They should not take any jobs that take weeks to complete.

Also, I don't think this is a product you can price online. Perhaps you could provide a range based on the satellite square footage but specify on the intial order that due to vast differences between roofs and local labor rates your pricing will be determined upon assessment and the current range estimate is just a guestimate. The actual signed committed contract pricing should only happen after on site assessment. To make up for these expenses the deposit should be $500 not $100 and a refund will only be given if the roof is rejected due to complexity or if the price of the roof post assessment exceeds the initial proposed range (and this range should have enough wiggle room to make this an unlikely event).

Job costs should be tracked very precisely and pricing should be constantly adjusted. There is no excuse by year 5 Tesla should easily have had a profound understanding in the install limitations of their product and firm understanding of its total cost to the company.

 

[Southpasfan]

One would think after 5 years worth of prototypes and installs they would have a good handle on the problems and edge cases. My background is in project management and I could single handily have done a far better job in managing the roll out while carefully tracking productivity and costs. It really makes you wonder who does Teslas have working for them? The no brainer roll out would have been to start out V3 with the simplest fastest roofs and to simply reject any orders where the complexity would be too big of a slow down of the limited available trained personnel resources at a time of high demand. In the initial online configurator you could ask them to include some pictures of the roof from across the street and a few questions about how many planes, crickets etc. You could reject them outright on the initial order stage and for those that slip through put wording in there like "Please note: If we find your roof exceeds our current complexity limitations during our initial inspection/assessment, we are sorry, but we will have to cancel your order and refund your deposit." In house Tesla roofing teams should have only 1 purpose and that is working on installs with pre-qualified roofing contractors so that they can train as many contractors as possible on the installation of their product. Tesla roofing employees should only be in the training business not the roofing business. After initial training they can have a team of in house experts that go out to sites as needed to deal with edge cases. We've seen stories in here where some roofs take upwards of 3-4+ weeks to complete a roof, which is ridiculous. They should only be doing roofs that can be done in typical roofing time frames of 2-5 days. They should not take any jobs that take weeks to complete.

Also, I don't think this is a product you can price online. Perhaps you could provide a range based on the satellite square footage but specify on the intial order that due to vast differences between roofs and local labor rates your pricing will be determined upon assessment and the current range estimate is just a guestimate. The actual signed committed contract pricing should only happen after on site assessment. To make up for these expenses the deposit should be $500 not $100 and a refund will only be given if the roof is rejected due to complexity or if the price of the roof post assessment exceeds the initial proposed range (and this range should have enough wiggle room to make this an unlikely event).

Job costs should be tracked very precisely and pricing should be constantly adjusted. There is no excuse by year 5 Tesla should easily have had a profound understanding in the install limitations of their product and firm understanding of its total cost to the company.

Well, this is it, basically.

There were a choices to be made early. From what I have read, not personal experience, mind you, it was not really part of the plan to get a roofing crew and train up the roofing crew to do solar roofs. Or if it was, bumps in the road appeared when it became obvious that a solar installation is nothing like any other roofing material, since no other type of roofing material has to be wired together.

So, Tesla found itself re-inventing the wheel. It appears it was almost like taking a bunch of panel installers and training them to be roofers.

I mean, when you just write it out, it seems like kind of an even coin toss, except for one problem which is now obvious. Training an experienced roofing crew on a new type of shingle might be complex, but you are dealing with experienced roofers who have experience with other types of shingles.

Training panel installers in roofing meant, well, we can see.

By comparison, the crew that did my solar panels easily dealt with all the usual stuff, because they had direct experience in the specific trade.

 

[K1Special]

Well, this is it, basically.

There were a choices to be made early. From what I have read, not personal experience, mind you, it was not really part of the plan to get a roofing crew and train up the roofing crew to do solar roofs. Or if it was, bumps in the road appeared when it became obvious that a solar installation is nothing like any other roofing material, since no other type of roofing material has to be wired together.

So, Tesla found itself re-inventing the wheel. It appears it was almost like taking a bunch of panel installers and training them to be roofers.

I mean, when you just write it out, it seems like kind of an even coin toss, except for one problem which is now obvious. Training an experienced roofing crew on a new type of shingle might be complex, but you are dealing with experienced roofers who have experience with other types of shingles.

Training panel installers in roofing meant, well, we can see.

By comparison, the crew that did my solar panels easily dealt with all the usual stuff, because they had direct experience in the specific trade.

I wonder, was Tesla training their solar city panel installers to be roofers? It would be far easier to train roofers on the nuances of installing a solar shingle than it would be to train panel installers to be roofers. Roofers have a far wider skill set given the complexity of installing a typical roof. Around here the good roofers are already booked 2-3+ months out. I imagine it was indeed challenging to find good qualified roofing teams to sub out to as they likely already had enough business without being thrown into this product roll out that turned out to be a big time suck on every job.

 

[bayareaever]

One would think after 5 years worth of prototypes and installs they would have a good handle on the problems and edge cases. My background is in project management and I could single handily have done a far better job in managing the roll out while carefully tracking productivity and costs. It really makes you wonder who does Teslas have working for them? The no brainer roll out would have been to start out V3 with the simplest fastest roofs and to simply reject any orders where the complexity would be too big of a slow down of the limited available trained personnel resources at a time of high demand. In the initial online configurator you could ask them to include some pictures of the roof from across the street and a few questions about how many planes, crickets etc. You could reject them outright on the initial order stage and for those that slip through put wording in there like "Please note: If we find your roof exceeds our current complexity limitations during our initial inspection/assessment, we are sorry, but we will have to cancel your order and refund your deposit." In house Tesla roofing teams should have only 1 purpose and that is working on installs with pre-qualified roofing contractors so that they can train as many contractors as possible on the installation of their product. Tesla roofing employees should only be in the training business not the roofing business. After initial training they can have a team of in house experts that go out to sites as needed to deal with edge cases. We've seen stories in here where some roofs take upwards of 3-4+ weeks to complete a roof, which is ridiculous. They should only be doing roofs that can be done in typical roofing time frames of 2-5 days. They should not take any jobs that take weeks to complete.

Also, I don't think this is a product you can price online. Perhaps you could provide a range based on the satellite square footage but specify on the intial order that due to vast differences between roofs and local labor rates your pricing will be determined upon assessment and the current range estimate is just a guestimate. The actual signed committed contract pricing should only happen after on site assessment. To make up for these expenses the deposit should be $500 not $100 and a refund will only be given if the roof is rejected due to complexity or if the price of the roof post assessment exceeds the initial proposed range (and this range should have enough wiggle room to make this an unlikely event).

Job costs should be tracked very precisely and pricing should be constantly adjusted. There is no excuse by year 5 Tesla should easily have had a profound understanding in the install limitations of their product and firm understanding of its total cost to the company.

I agree that the recent price increases on existing contracts is a terrible business practice.

That being said, from everything I’ve read and more importantly my own personal experience, they already did a lot of what you outlined above. For example, my moderately complex roof was rejected by Tesla twice (first time was when v3 had just launched), but accepted the third time. This indicates that they’ve gradually started accepting more complex roofs. Maybe not gradually enough based on recent events, but of course they’re trying to grow the installation numbers quickly so it’s a tricky balancing act.

The last time I priced out a basic composite shingle roof+solar panels for comparison, it was $15k just for the roof (last summer.). I can only imagine what it would cost now with recent supply shortages, etc. I think much of this discussion is not taking comparable product pricing increases into account.

 

[bayareaever]

I wonder, was Tesla training their solar city panel installers to be roofers? It would be far easier to train roofers on the nuances of installing a solar shingle than it would be to train panel installers to be roofers. Roofers have a far wider skill set given the complexity of installing a typical roof. Around here the good roofers are already booked 2-3+ months out. I imagine it was indeed challenging to find good qualified roofing teams to sub out to as they likely already had enough business without being thrown into this product roll out that turned out to be a big time suck on every job.

I’m quite sure they’re using/hiring roofers. The panel installers are a separate team, afaik. Since they’re also trying to expand panel installs, it would make no sense to pull from those teams.

 

[jimm01]

One would think after 5 years worth of prototypes and installs they would have a good handle on the problems and edge cases. My background is in project management and I could single handily have done a far better job in managing the roll out while carefully tracking productivity and costs. It really makes you wonder who does Teslas have working for them? The no brainer roll out would have been to start out V3 with the simplest fastest roofs and to simply reject any orders where the complexity would be too big of a slow down of the limited available trained personnel resources at a time of high demand. In the initial online configurator you could ask them to include some pictures of the roof from across the street and a few questions about how many planes, crickets etc. You could reject them outright on the initial order stage and for those that slip through put wording in there like "Please note: If we find your roof exceeds our current complexity limitations during our initial inspection/assessment, we are sorry, but we will have to cancel your order and refund your deposit." In house Tesla roofing teams should have only 1 purpose and that is working on installs with pre-qualified roofing contractors so that they can train as many contractors as possible on the installation of their product. Tesla roofing employees should only be in the training business not the roofing business. After initial training they can have a team of in house experts that go out to sites as needed to deal with edge cases. We've seen stories in here where some roofs take upwards of 3-4+ weeks to complete a roof, which is ridiculous. They should only be doing roofs that can be done in typical roofing time frames of 2-5 days. They should not take any jobs that take weeks to complete.

Also, I don't think this is a product you can price online. Perhaps you could provide a range based on the satellite square footage but specify on the intial order that due to vast differences between roofs and local labor rates your pricing will be determined upon assessment and the current range estimate is just a guestimate. The actual signed committed contract pricing should only happen after on site assessment. To make up for these expenses the deposit should be $500 not $100 and a refund will only be given if the roof is rejected due to complexity or if the price of the roof post assessment exceeds the initial proposed range (and this range should have enough wiggle room to make this an unlikely event).

Job costs should be tracked very precisely and pricing should be constantly adjusted. There is no excuse by year 5 Tesla should easily have had a profound understanding in the install limitations of their product and firm understanding of its total cost to the company.

Exactly. When I sold roofing, siding, and rain gutters if I didn't at least supply a fair amount of blowouts to the installers they would have had a fit since we paid by the square or the foot. My incentive was my commission was based on same. When I did estimates factoring for complexity was based on how much time the installer lost on the job and provided them a kicker so their rate would at least be par.

What I witness was inexperienced company on all fronts. trying to overcome a very steep learning curve.

 

[bayareaever]

>> The no brainer roll out would have been to start out V3 with the simplest fastest roofs and to simply reject any orders where the complexity would be too big of a slow down of the limited available trained personnel resources at a time of high demand.

They already did that, see my post above

 

[jimm01]

I’m quite sure they’re using/hiring roofers. The panel installers are a separate team, afaik. Since they’re also trying to expand panel installs, it would make no sense to pull from those teams.

On my house only the tear off and reseal (ice water barrier) was subcontracted. The rest was performed by Tesla employees.

 

[Chad CT]

NY Times has taken up the story see link below:

Tesla’s Latest Solar Stumble: Big Price Increases (Published 2021)

The company is charging tens of thousands of dollars more to cover roofs with its much-anticipated solar shingles, angering some customers.

www.nytimes.com

 

[Dmahone]

One would think after 5 years worth of prototypes and installs they would have a good handle on the problems and edge cases. My background is in project management and I could single handily have done a far better job in managing the roll out while carefully tracking productivity and costs. It really makes you wonder who does Teslas have working for them? The no brainer roll out would have been to start out V3 with the simplest fastest roofs and to simply reject any orders where the complexity would be too big of a slow down of the limited available trained personnel resources at a time of high demand. In the initial online configurator you could ask them to include some pictures of the roof from across the street and a few questions about how many planes, crickets etc. You could reject them outright on the initial order stage and for those that slip through put wording in there like "Please note: If we find your roof exceeds our current complexity limitations during our initial inspection/assessment, we are sorry, but we will have to cancel your order and refund your deposit." In house Tesla roofing teams should have only 1 purpose and that is working on installs with pre-qualified roofing contractors so that they can train as many contractors as possible on the installation of their product. Tesla roofing employees should only be in the training business not the roofing business. After initial training they can have a team of in house experts that go out to sites as needed to deal with edge cases. We've seen stories in here where some roofs take upwards of 3-4+ weeks to complete a roof, which is ridiculous. They should only be doing roofs that can be done in typical roofing time frames of 2-5 days. They should not take any jobs that take weeks to complete.

Also, I don't think this is a product you can price online. Perhaps you could provide a range based on the satellite square footage but specify on the intial order that due to vast differences between roofs and local labor rates your pricing will be determined upon assessment and the current range estimate is just a guestimate. The actual signed committed contract pricing should only happen after on site assessment. To make up for these expenses the deposit should be $500 not $100 and a refund will only be given if the roof is rejected due to complexity or if the price of the roof post assessment exceeds the initial proposed range (and this range should have enough wiggle room to make this an unlikely event).

Job costs should be tracked very precisely and pricing should be constantly adjusted. There is no excuse by year 5 Tesla should easily have had a profound understanding in the install limitations of their product and firm understanding of its total cost to the company.

 

[dboya]

NY Times has taken up the story see link below:

Tesla’s Latest Solar Stumble: Big Price Increases (Published 2021)

The company is charging tens of thousands of dollars more to cover roofs with its much-anticipated solar shingles, angering some customers.

www.nytimes.com

They buried the part about reneging on contracts deep in the article. Most of the article just makes it sound like a quote was given then raised later. They do mention a contract being signed but it’s not the main point, like it should be.

 

[Dmahone]

I've been dealing with Tesla about my solar roof system design for two years now. I'm an architect so I'm used to dealing with the trades and contractors. The Tesla people, while polite and attempting to be helpful, were semi-competent at best. And the company policies were arrogant and clueless. Every. step. of. the. way. Here's the list:

1. Before they would give me a quote, they needed to survey my roof. It took three separate auditor visits (photographs, measurements, climbing on the roof) to get it completed.

2. First quote insisted that they had to put solar roof or blank shingles on every roof surface. I have an upper roof, which is continuous and where the shingles will go, plus a bunch of lower roof sections that butt up against the house. I told them it was stupid to do all those lower roof sections (very complex). They insisted it was company policy to do all roof surfaces. They only relented after I cancelled the order. They requoted for just the upper roof.

3. Second quote insisted that they had to change out my architectural gutters with their cheap replacements. After insisting they could not touch my gutters and charge me for inferior replacements, they relented. New quote without the gutters.

4. After we settled those matters, they computed areas for each roof segment and solar output. Their first three calculations were obviously wrong: incorrect orientations, incorrect outputs per orientation, etc. After getting them to fix their numbers, we finalized the design.

5. We signed a Contract in Dec, 2019, and our project went into the queue. They couldn't get a permit with the city for over a year. Granted that year included the COVID pandemic and CA wildfires, so it wasn't entirely Tesla's fault. But they didn't exert themselves very hard to get the permit. We finally got it in Feb, 2021.

6. Finally, Tesla scheduled my installation for April 19th. On April 13 they sent me a revised price that was 34% higher, and threatened to cancel my install date if I didn't sign right away. On April 14th, they cancelled my install date.

7. The revised price had clear errors and arbitrary increases: used the full roof area, not the agreed roof area (see #2 above), doubled the price of the solar shingles, took back credits that were in the Contract pricing, and added an $8100 roof deck replacement charge based on their guess that I needed one (it's a new roof deck so I do not). Over the following weeks they offered a free Powerwall, then that offer went away. I got calls from three Solar Roof Advisors who admitted errors in the pricing and promised to get back to me; never could reach either one again. Finally a third Advisor called. This guy did get back to me with some answers, but affirmed that theirs was a "take it or leave it" offer. They were refusing to honor their Contract, apparently thinking the pricing there was just a preliminary proposal, not a firm quote.

I've since filed a complaint with the California Contractors State License Board, which enforces the laws about construction contracting. Tesla is a licensed contractor, but doesn't feel unduly constrained by those laws, which require contractors to abide by their contracts. I urge others to also file complaints.