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Solar Roof pricing funkiness

C

cobra

Member
Feb 8, 2021
348
115
Lansdale, PA, USA
#1
Anyone else notices odd pricing changes in solar roof over the weekend? I've been pricing and looking at the numbers off and on for a couple weeks now and solar roof jumped $8-15k around Sat for me (~15-16kW, ~2500 sqft estimate). What's odd about it is the change wasn't in the solar component and the number has been changing up and down over the weekend.

It seems the only place to see component breakdowns is in the compare tab when you go looking at the pricing. If you expand for details you will see a 'roof cost' and 'solar cost'. For a while these were about $22k each for our area. On Sat the 'roof cost' jumped about $10k and has varied from $8k to $15k over the weekend. Oddly, the compare price for a 'premium roof' also jumped the same amount, or slightly less. So looking at the comparison, it looks like the premium roof cost is ~$30k now and the 'roof cost' portion of a solar roof has been $30-36k and varying. The 'solar roof' portion has stayed at $22k the whole time...

Anyone know what's going on? I think it may be a website bug, given we saw some solar panel price changes last weekend. Maybe when CA wakes up Tesla will see it and start fixes. 🤣
 
#3
I think Tesla may have increased the solar roof pricing. Powerwall has gone up too since last September but not by much. My 2 Powerwalls with solar roof ordered last September would cost me 2,000.00 more now. The roof is more interesting, the price actually has gone up a week ago by 6,000.00 and today by 18,000.00. If my installation is deemed moderate by Tesla then the difference would be 24,000.00 or complex by 33,300.00. Roof complexity was added only a few days ago, I think it is fair to charge by complexity since labor cost is high. I remember they had a crew of 15 doing my roof and a big truck with conveyer belt sending materials to the roof.
 
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#4
SaveOurPlanet said:
I think Tesla may have increased the solar roof pricing. Powerwall has gone up too since last September but not by much. My 2 Powerwalls with solar roof ordered last September would cost me 2,000.00 more now. The roof is more interesting, the price actually has gone up a week ago by 6,000.00 and today by 18,000.00. If my installation is deemed moderate by Tesla then the difference would be 24,000.00 or complex by 33,300.00. Roof complexity was added only a few days ago, I think it is fair to charge by complexity since labor cost is high. I remember they had a crew of 15 doing my roof and a big truck with conveyer belt sending materials to the roof.
Click to expand...
To me, there are two interesting things about the solar roof pricing changes. First is the complexity pricing. It is not clear how much this was taken into account in the past since, unlike panels, there will likely be a price change after review of the roof. So, in principle, they could always have been adjusting for this. However, it did appear some time back like Tesla had a model of $X per kW of PV + $Y per sq. ft. of non-PV. So maybe they are now better accounting for the higher costs of complex roofs. At the least, they are making it more clear to customers that this matters.

The second is that all three options claim to provide the same sized system when maxed out on a roof. That is, if I enter a 2,000 sq. ft. roof, the price they return is for a 12 kW system (and I entered a high electric bill so it is not 100% offset.) This is true for all complexities. However, the reality is that in most cases, a complex roof will be able to support a smaller system than a simple roof because of all the different planes and other obstructions.

With all of that said, it definitely appears to be a big price increase from our install (which was priced about 18 months ago) - it looks like 17%, assuming that the permitting/roof-prep/pre-construction charges are included in the current Tesla estimate - more if they are not. And this assumes our roof is "simple" - it may qualify as moderate since, in addition to a main roof, we have two smaller segments that were covered entirely by non-producing shingles.
 
#8
SoCalSolarRoof said:
Supply and demand...

electrek.co

Tesla drastically increases price of Solar Roof

Tesla appears to have drastically increased the price of its Solar Roof tiles in an update to its configurator and...
electrek.co electrek.co
Click to expand...

For all we know, they could have lifted the heads up for that information from this thread. Would definitely NOT be the first time that electrek "reported" on something by trolling TMC and reporting stuff that members here have posted about.
 
#9
jjrandorin said:
For all we know, they could have lifted the heads up for that information from this thread. Would definitely NOT be the first time that electrek "reported" on something by trolling TMC and reporting stuff that members here have posted about.
Click to expand...
Multiple timing of many of their articles are interesting. I read about things here first, then they post the same stuff
 
#10
cobra said:
So maybe the new steel shingle is not cheaper than the glass non-active shingle? Because here the price is in roof cost portion, not in the solar roof portion. The solar roof portion didn't change at all since last week, which seems odd.
Click to expand...
I would guess both that the steel is cheaper and they are increasing prices because they have found the costs of the non-solar portions of the roof are higher than they anticipated.

SoCalSolarRoof said:
Supply and demand...
Click to expand...
While that may be it (and, as others noted, the linked article doesn't really offer good evidence of that,) it will be interesting to see how the increase might affect demand. The solar roof has some unique benefits, but it is still competing with the premium roof + solar panel option. Even though Tesla apparently also increased their estimate for a comparable premium roof, the reality may be that more customers are turned off by the new price.
 
#11
wjgjr said:
I would guess both that the steel is cheaper and they are increasing prices because they have found the costs of the non-solar portions of the roof are higher than they anticipated.


While that may be it (and, as others noted, the linked article doesn't really offer good evidence of that,) it will be interesting to see how the increase might affect demand. The solar roof has some unique benefits, but it is still competing with the premium roof + solar panel option. Even though Tesla apparently also increased their estimate for a comparable premium roof, the reality may be that more customers are turned off by the new price.
Click to expand...
I would not have gone solar roof for the new price they are quoting for my house, it's almost back to V2 prices!
 
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#13
Viabahn said:
If you already have a signed purchase agreement would Tesla honor that price? The calculator now yields a price $20K higher than the total on my purchase agreement from over a month ago.
Click to expand...
Yes, they should, you have a signed contract. I imagine it like home loan interest rates, they fluctuate, and once you lock in, they still change, but you're not affected because you're locked.
 
#14
Viabahn said:
If you already have a signed purchase agreement would Tesla honor that price? The calculator now yields a price $20K higher than the total on my purchase agreement from over a month ago.
Click to expand...
Without question they will honor your contracted price. The only situation where a price may change is if they have a price drop post signing and pre-install. That happened to me and I got a "rebate check" from Elon after I paid in full on the original amount and reached PTO.
 
#19
aznt1217 said:
I wish. It looks like they built in a bit about pricing in the purchase agreement.
Click to expand...
Is that just in the new agreements as of today or also the old ones? Just wondering when they added that since they did not used to (but that was a year ago.) It is also worth noting that there was a 30-day period to opt out of arbitration, which would be applicable to anybody who wanted to try to enforce an existing agreement that does not have any language in their contract about pricing changes.
 
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