Tesla Customer Service..... Ugh.. Now I understand the negative reviews.

[buckweet1980]

I just had a great experience with Tesla customer service..Now I understand the negative reviews.

To set this up, I had my system PTO on aug 20, 2020.. Since that time the Tesla app has never worked right. I had to call in initially and they had to do something in the back end to even make it work for me..

The app has always reported half of the data at best. Sometimes it shows power being generated, sometimes not. When it does, it's half of the power at best. For the powerbooster showing grid usage, well that's lucky to ever even work. And even when it does show up, it's not even remotely correct.

After being skeptical of the app, I purchased a Sense device and installed it a few weeks ago. It gives me results like my power meter is showing me. So yes the Tesla reporting is completely wrong. I have recently just setup the inverters to use the SolarEdge monitoring system and it is also closely aligned with the Sense device..

So here we are. 3 other measuring units telling me one thing, Tesla telling me something totally else.

I decided to call Tesla today, only to talk to someone who's a complete idiot.. First I tried to explain what was going on, and just maybe asked if the serial numbers were incorrectly registered, maybe only one inverter is registered, etc.. She said no, it's all in here. And she told me every other device I have is wrong. That my system isn't capable of producing the power that I'm seeing it show. I have a 16kWh system with 2 x 7600 inverters, and when I said my system generated almost 90kWh (based on Sense, my inverters and my power meter all confirming) that it was flat out wrong..

Ultimately the phone started to break up, i kept losing audio for some reason and I thought to myself that this is a lost cause so I just hung up. This is very frustrating and now I understand why their customer service is ranked so low. I'm just going to uninstall this app, remove this power booster from my power panel and then just utilize the devices that are reporting true data.

P.S.... One thing I thought is that when I switched the inverters over to ethernet vs zigbee, that Tesla wouldn't be getting any data still. She said that they are still receiving it..

 

[njhtran]

This has such a close resemblance to my experience (same time frame) that I had to look again at who posted it, to make sure that it wasn’t me. Their first level support are a complete bunch of idiots and that goes for the vehicle side as well. It’s rage inducing trying to deal with them to the point that I no longer recommend Tesla to anyone , like I had used to.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

Yes, it appears that Tesla simply installs extremely inexpensive solar arrays and that's about it. Fortunately, solar hardware general just works and you don't need to touch it. Maybe stick with the SolarEdge app until Tesla gets their service act together over the winter?

I'm fairly confident they'll be running smooth by the 4th of July.

 

[wjgjr]

Did you do a solar-only install? If so, maybe the service option straight from the app that has been appearing is available to you and could work better. Unfortunately, you will probably somehow need to get the ticket escalated to 2nd tier, who should hopefully help.

Absurd it takes so much work to get the support you need.

 

[buckweet1980]

I just did that service request through the app, so we'll see in '3 days' it says someone will respond. The woman on the phone while cutting out acted like she was putting a ticket or something in.. But who knows if she even submitted it since I hung up the phone.

 

[pdx_m3s]

I honestly don't feel comfortable recommending Tesla products to people without giving them a large warning/caveat up-front, along the lines of, "amazing products and technology, but be prepared for overall pretty terrible customer service."

 

[buckweet1980]

If it wasn't for the cost, I would have gone with a local solar company.... But they were 14K higher (before tax credit) than what Tesla was offering, for a smaller system. I knew I was signing up for a company who didn't have stellar reviews, but 14K is a huge chunk of change to throw away..

I had no issues with the local installer crew, they did their job quite well.

 

[Vines]

This is how they reduce prices to the absolute minimum, and you get what you pay for.

 

[buckweet1980]

This is how they reduce prices to the absolute minimum, and you get what you pay for.

Yeap..

I'm just glad I was able to get the SolarEdge account setup easily so that I can monitor the system properly.

 

[SMAlset]

Is it possible that the monitoring equipment wasn’t properly placed on their line and so they are getting bad readings?

The reason I ask is in trying to understand how this whole system works (totally new to solar/PWs) I watched a manufacturer’s YT video of one of the monitoring device installs. Not sure which one. But it made a point of it being important to place the “clip” or whatever it was called in the correct direction of the electrical flow for proper results. There were two clips, one on each colored wire.

 

[jboy210]

Is it possible that the monitoring equipment wasn’t properly placed on their line and so they are getting bad readings?

The reason I ask is in trying to understand how this whole system works (totally new to solar/PWs) I watched a manufacturer’s YT video of one of the monitoring device installs. Not sure which one. But it made a point of it being important to place the “clip” or whatever it was called in the correct direction of the electrical flow for proper results. There were two clips, one on each colored wire.

That "clip" is a current transducer. It goes around the outside of the wire and measures the current flow. And it has to be wired the correct way. If you put it on backward it reads inputs as output and visa versa and your numbers are messed up.

 

[buckweet1980]

Yes, I checked that it's wired right. It's facing the right way too assuming it matches the other device that it closely resembles (name is escaping me)..

I did just test taking the gateway box offline for a bit and it stopped reporting. So at least that is right, then I just disconnected the powerblaster to see if it stops reporting. So far nothing is reporting back in now. After checking the gateway box it was showing no signal, so I reconnected the power blaster and now the no signal is gone..

So we'll see if this starts showing back up. This acts like the only thing talking to the gateway box was the powerblaster because of that no-signal light, which is what I expected, but how would the Solar be showing anything in the App if they aren't talking.

I guess I'll keep peeling this onion back.. Question for folks who've messed with the setapp solaredge. When you go into the zigbee status, does it show connected to you? Mine has never shown connected (even before switching to ethernet).

 

[Chris25]

Yeap..

I'm just glad I was able to get the SolarEdge account setup easily so that I can monitor the system properly.

@buckweet1980 did you get SolarEdge access thru Tesla or on your own?

 

[buckweet1980]

@buckweet1980 did you get SolarEdge access thru Tesla or on your own?

My own.. Did an installer account.

 

[jboy210]

Yes, I checked that it's wired right. It's facing the right way too assuming it matches the other device that it closely resembles (name is escaping me)..

I did just test taking the gateway box offline for a bit and it stopped reporting. So at least that is right, then I just disconnected the powerblaster to see if it stops reporting. So far nothing is reporting back in now. After checking the gateway box it was showing no signal, so I reconnected the power blaster and now the no signal is gone..

So we'll see if this starts showing back up. This acts like the only thing talking to the gateway box was the powerblaster because of that no-signal light, which is what I expected, but how would the Solar be showing anything in the App if they aren't talking.
...
.

On my app screen the only place it lists how stale the data is is the screen with the powerwall status. The app will show current flows that are many hours old and even no longer occurring.

 

[buckweet1980]

I've been messing around with this today, turning each device off/on individually to see what the app does and how the gateway responds..

This morning I just had the powerbooster feeding data into it and the app seemed somewhat right as to what was being used. So I then went back and changed the inverters to use zigbee again..

Now, it's saying my Solar is producing 14kw right now (when there's no sun today, I can't even reliably get this on a sunny day so far), my house is using 13kw and i'm feeding the 1 remaining back into the grid. Then if I go look at my Sense system, it's saying 5kw generated, 2kw being used right now. LOL this is just comical...

My desire to use this was to maybe return this Sense device as it is 350 bucks, but it looks like I'm going to have to keep this if I want to see real-time usage from the grid.

 

[BrettS]

Maybe I’m just overly optimistic, but I believe that if you keep pushing with Tesla they will eventually be able to figure out what’s wrong and fix it. Obviously yelling at them won’t help, but if you remain calm and polite and just keep working through the system eventually you should be able to get through to someone who can resolve the issue for you.

The other thing that’s worth noting is that the system doesn’t measure what your house is using directly. It measures what your solar is producing and how much you are drawing from or sending to the grid, and based on those numbers it uses math to work out how much power your house is using. So if it’s not getting an accurate number for the solar production or for the grid usage (or both) then your house usage data will be off as well.

 

[buckweet1980]

Maybe I’m just overly optimistic, but I believe that if you keep pushing with Tesla they will eventually be able to figure out what’s wrong and fix it. Obviously yelling at them won’t help, but if you remain calm and polite and just keep working through the system eventually you should be able to get through to someone who can resolve the issue for you.

The other thing that’s worth noting is that the system doesn’t measure what your house is using directly. It measures what your solar is producing and how much you are drawing from or sending to the grid, and based on those numbers it uses math to work out how much power your house is using. So if it’s not getting an accurate number for the solar production or for the grid usage (or both) then your house usage data will be off as well.

Now it just updated again, Solar is at 2kw, no house usage... I'm just going to dump this thing, the SolarEdge app is correct, Sense is correct.. Tesla = way off and I've lost interest in fighting with it.

 

[TheTalkingMule]

This is how they reduce prices to the absolute minimum, and you get what you pay for.

That's not really correct. The reason Tesla can afford to sell solar at this price is they've eliminated the standard expensive one-to-one sales model. For various reasons, the US residential marketplace has a MASSIVE percentage of cost dedicated to customer acquisition, around 25-40% on average. Cutting this out and still maintaining sales is obviously quite a cost advantage.

Problem is, Tesla threw out ALL service when they eliminated sales from the old SolarCity structure. They're essentially rebuilding the organization from scratch and started in the right place....installation(rather than sales).

We keep seeing them tweak the overly-rigid system offerings, and I think they'll soon realize they can simply offer a more logically flexible product while still driving overall efficiency. The step after that, hopefully worked on in parallel, is to realize service is not a drag on efficiency.

The sales org set up within SolarCity was not only expensive, it also kept the entire operation from scaling. Scaling requires lean efficiency, but with sales running everything they were actually incentivized to keep the average install cost flat. I assume Elon and crew are rightfully VERY worried about slipping back to that model.

We need to keep pushing them to provide proper service because it most certainly will NOT be a hindrance to scaling. As noted above, the buying process and install crews are great, we now only need great service to have an insurmountable advantage in the marketplace. One that will eventually drive efficiency marketwide.

So for now.........just use the SolarEdge app with the 3hr delay.

 

[Vines]

That's not really correct. The reason Tesla can afford to sell solar at this price is they've eliminated the standard expensive one-to-one sales model. For various reasons, the US residential marketplace has a MASSIVE percentage of cost dedicated to customer acquisition, around 25-40% on average. Cutting this out and still maintaining sales is obviously quite a cost advantage.

Problem is, Tesla threw out ALL service when they eliminated sales from the old SolarCity structure. They're essentially rebuilding the organization from scratch and started in the right place....installation(rather than sales).

We keep seeing them tweak the overly-rigid system offerings, and I think they'll soon realize they can simply offer a more logically flexible product while still driving overall efficiency. The step after that, hopefully worked on in parallel, is to realize service is not a drag on efficiency.

The sales org set up within SolarCity was not only expensive, it also kept the entire operation from scaling. Scaling requires lean efficiency, but with sales running everything they were actually incentivized to keep the average install cost flat. I assume Elon and crew are rightfully VERY worried about slipping back to that model.

We need to keep pushing them to provide proper service because it most certainly will NOT be a hindrance to scaling. As noted above, the buying process and install crews are great, we now only need great service to have an insurmountable advantage in the marketplace. One that will eventually drive efficiency marketwide.

So for now.........just use the SolarEdge app with the 3hr delay.

We can agree to disagree, but it seems like your point supports mine really. They reduced prices by eliminating many of the technical people who dealt with the customers, or at least eliminated the customer ability to directly email them. That one to one sales model had advantages in some cases.

Currently Tesla is cheapest, but this comes at a price. Whether Tesla can scale up and deal with this issue in the future partly depends on how accepting customers are of how they do business. Also, as all the easy business flows to Tesla its even harder for any small shop to compete at all, unless they have a significant advantage somewhere. Anyone who's core business was similar PV installs to those Tesla does is hurting, trying to stay cost competitive. These smaller shops will likely follow suit with Tesla and cut sales and service further.

If you serve a market that Tesla does not serve you are ok, and if you serve a clientele that Tesla does not well serve you are OK.

While I agree that the customer is better served by the lowest prices and removal of inefficient processes, there are still some things to work out to keep customers happy.