Tesla Energy is horrible

[walla2]

I signed up for solar on 8-11-2019 in Washington State.

They began working on my account in September. I sent in my utility agreements and Tesla setup an install in early November.

Tesla no showed this appointment for install. I called and Tesla claims to have never arranged the appointment stating my paperwork had never been returned. I checked my emails and the documents had been returned in mid-September. They finally acknowledged this but never explained or apologized for the delay or the error.

The utlity paperwork was resubmitted but took an additional month to process. I then arranged an install but the soonest date was after December 31 causing a 4% tac credit loss and missing the 2019 write off period.

I have since mid December asked for a price adjustment down to current level pricing as my 7.56 single powerall system is $6,000 more and also have asked for a 4% reduction due to their errors.

3 emails later and 2 calls (hold times exceed 2 hours), and Tesla refuses to respond in any way. Zero contact from my energy specialists since early December. I have repeatedly asked for a managers involvement but no one appears to care about my botched 5+ month install for a tiny array in Washington State. I was originally quoted 6 weeks back in September.

I emailed today that I will be cancelling the order and install entirely. They can send people, but they will not be allowed on the property on 1/16. I have no faith in this installation occurring since they lied in the past and no interest in terrible service of something that could burn my house down.

It is sad to have come to this, but the energy people really suck at their job. It makes the sometimes questionable auto service look like a year at a Four Seasons penthouse in Paris.

 

[JayClark]

Tesla really do need better accountability around their installation management, and post installation support systems and staff. It's just horrible. In my case, I fell into a support and service black hole post installation when my system went down. For over 3 weeks the system was completely non-functional just weeks after having been installed, and no amount of calls provided any clue as to whether or not they'd ever resolve it - so frustrating. At one point a support person indicated it could be 6 months or longer if they had to replace the inverter - WHAT?!? - It was a new installation, only functional for 3 weeks before going down.

They did eventually resolve my broken system (solar and large Powerwall array), with nearly no warning up until a day or so before a Tech suddenly showed up, replaced the inverter in 20 minutes - issue resolved, but only after over 3 weeks of @sshole customer treatment & communication. So even in resolution, it was somehow still a negative ending purely due to a total and complete lack of communication or "care" every step of the way.

Having said all that, now that my particular issue was finally resolved (and with a month or two of distance from that negative experience) - knowing all that, I have to admit... I'd still go through it again. Just because at least in the case of systems with both Solar and Powerwalls there simply is nothing that compares both functionally and in terms of payoff for my particular situation. So for me it was still worth the crazy ridiculous hassle. If I was only doing solar I'd probably go with a local installer. I can totally understand why most people would just walk, because customers really do have to have a war-zone mentality sometimes to survive and persevere when dealing with the "people" side of the Tesla organization which is so poorly organized and managed.

 

[kellymc]

Agree with Jay, the customer service for their solar installs leaves a lot to be desired. In the end, the install team and the tech who was at my house for final inspection was great. However all through the process it was a black hole of communication. If you have the phone number for the sales person in vegas, give them a call, in my case they were able to get me the information i needed in the end.

I'm happy with my system in the end

 

[walla2]

Thanks. I wish I was alone in the difficult customer experience with solar installs but I had guessed I was not.

Electricity is cheap here in Washington so the solar wasn't the sell. I am now considering a general light propane backup as getting a powerwall isn't in the cards at the moment and the powerwall option was the main reason for selecting Tesla for the install.

 

[sperkin]

I deposited $100 in December for solar roof and sent in a year of electric bills, but still no contact from Tesla.l yet. I really don’t care at this point as I’m just trying to get a quote though, but they are moving really slow.

 

[boaterva]

When I had mine quoted and installed, I had a salesperson to guide the process who ran out of the local location (Tysons in NoVa). I assume they no longer do this, because he was really helpful to escalate things and keep things moving.

On the issues after sale, I just keep calling and escalating. I also call Solar Edge themselves to troubleshoot and verify it's an actual inverter problem so when I call Tesla I have an RMA already ready to do. It may help or not, but I've have somewhat better response than the original 6 week appointment times for an inverter replacement ( 2-3 weeks).

 

[Az_Rael]

Having said all that, now that my particular issue was finally resolved (and with a month or two of distance from that negative experience) - knowing all that, I have to admit... I'd still go through it again.

No way would I go thru it again. You can get Powerwalls installed by third parties, I would have gone with the other company who quoted me the exact same system as Tesla installed, including Powerwalls. Having Tesla Energy install my solar system is a huge regret of mine.

 

[Pismo]

At what point do they move on to 3rd party companies and certified contractors?

 

[Vines]

Only a small portion of Tesla Energy products get installed by Tesla Energy.

I'm not sure what percentage exactly but its something like 5%. Some people prefer to get the cheapest price, and stay with Tesla directly. The service unfortunately leaves something to be desired. Others choose to go to 3rd party installers and generally get the service proportionate to the price that they pay.

 

[d21mike]

Just got PTO on December 28, 2019. Started around August 2019. My biggest wait time was because of my CITY (about 3 weeks) and ELECTRIC Utility (about 4 weeks) Inspections. But, the communication from Tesla Energy is not good. You really have to stay on top of things yourself. I am a bit surprised at some of the comments here about providing information to Tesla. Everything for me was on the Tesla.com web site. Everything they needed from me was listed under the Solar/Power wall section. I had an issue where some of my pictures (of my utilities) was not uploaded and had to email but then I verified that the needed items were crossed on the list "on line". I made sure that if anything was waiting for me I completed asap. And if I did not hear from them on status (which was regular) I would contact them. My main contact worked Sunday thru Thursday. So I knew on Sunday she was working and could get in touch with her. I was probably a nag but I did not want things to fall thru the crack.

Everyone on my job were Tesla Energy Employees. And the people that came to my house to do the work were great and very helpful.

 

[Ampster]

At what point do they move on to 3rd party companies and certified contractors?

If I understand your question that has always been an option. In California, Tesla was out of SGIP allocations so I went with a third party because the extra cost was less than the incentive. I don't think that is still the case. The SGIP incentives did come with some restrictions.

 

[jjrandorin]

My tesla (both energy and car) experiences have been, in person (Service center / On site powerwall installer) great. Email communication, not very responsive. I also dont think Tesla does "exceptions" very well in general, so I tried to keep everything as boilerplate as possible.

I will say, my powerwall installers were incredible. My local SC employees are also very good. The place tesla fails at is communications, and this could be partially because they want (and are staffed for) people submitting things through an app, and sitting back and waiting, with little / no interaction, questions.

Thats not how most people "the average age of affording this stuff" want to operate. I want "a guy / lady" that is my "go to" person who will respond to my questions, and who is fairly responsive. My grown child (26) wants to submit something to an app, get a response in an app, and doesnt need to talk to anyone about answers that may not fit the boilerplate.

I keep telling her "as long as humans are making the decisions, there is a benefit in making a connection with someone who can be an advocate for you, provided you manage that relationship properly", but younger people prefer to connect with an app instead of a person. I am an IT professional, so the technology doesnt bother me, but I still want to talk to someone when I am spending a lot of money.

I sort of give tesla a pass, because when you finally get someone in person, they tend to be very helpful, especially if you are reasonable with them. The tesla model doesnt fit for a lot of people, and its difficult for me too, only because I like to be communicated to, and tesla sucks at that.

 

[jjrandorin]

If I understand your question that has always been an option. In California, Tesla was out of SGIP allocations so I went with a third party because the extra cost was less than the incentive. I don't think that is still the case. The SGIP incentives did come with some restrictions.

When I got my quotes, the third party installers were telling me "we cant guarantee the SGIP, its waitlisted"... yet the cost from both of the third party installers I called for quotes was more than tesla. Strange enough, both of them were about the amount of the SGIP higher (in effect, charging enough to take the SGIP rebate as a payment. I decided that dealing with tesla was worth the significant discount, and am extremely happy with my recently installed powerwalls.

 

[Az_Rael]

At what point do they move on to 3rd party companies and certified contractors?

You will have to get separate bids from 3rd party Tesla certified companies if that is what you want. I highly recommend that, Tesla Energy won’t be able to work within the very tight schedules required during a house build.

 

[jjrandorin]

I also dont think tesla energy will be able to work with a completely new build. I dont think they can handle the timelines / schedules.

 

[Odiemac]

My tesla (both energy and car) experiences have been, in person (Service center / On site powerwall installer) great. Email communication, not very responsive. I also dont think Tesla does "exceptions" very well in general, so I tried to keep everything as boilerplate as possible.

I will say, my powerwall installers were incredible. My local SC employees are also very good. The place tesla fails at is communications, and this could be partially because they want (and are staffed for) people submitting things through an app, and sitting back and waiting, with little / no interaction, questions.

Thats not how most people "the average age of affording this stuff" want to operate. I want "a guy / lady" that is my "go to" person who will respond to my questions, and who is fairly responsive. My grown child (26) wants to submit something to an app, get a response in an app, and doesnt need to talk to anyone about answers that may not fit the boilerplate.

I keep telling her "as long as humans are making the decisions, there is a benefit in making a connection with someone who can be an advocate for you, provided you manage that relationship properly", but younger people prefer to connect with an app instead of a person. I am an IT professional, so the technology doesnt bother me, but I still want to talk to someone when I am spending a lot of money.

I sort of give tesla a pass, because when you finally get someone in person, they tend to be very helpful, especially if you are reasonable with them. The tesla model doesnt fit for a lot of people, and its difficult for me too, only because I like to be communicated to, and tesla sucks at that.

I think there’s definitely some truth to that. There is a fair amount of backlash among younger people about talking to a human, especially when that person may be a less-than-truthful sales person and/or under-informed because they are working a not particularly well paid job.

That demographic doesn’t really line up (today) with homeowners of $200K to $2M houses who have an additional $10k-$100k to spend on solar and powerwalls. But that’s Elon for you, his distaste for sales people and love of video games makes his tastes a little more millennial-aligned than your average CEO.

 

[aesculus]

I have to post most of my experience with Tesla Energy was great. There was a bit of a hiccup at the first in that after 12 days of the initial purchase I was not contacted. I sent a tickler email and then got a response in two days and from that point on, every bit of communications through four different parties/stages was either same day or next day responses, sometimes even on weekends.

Then I got caught up in the end of the year scheduling debacle that I sort of anticipated and was not surprised about. Tesla always maximizes end of quarter opportunities. This is how I got my Model X months earlier than others. My cash was just easier and bigger than others were so them moved me up.

They offered to make up the difference of the tax credits (see below) because it was their fault. They put it in writing that they were going to offer me a rebate and even called beforehand to ask if that was OK.

During the install they came out on the 2nd with two Tesla employees and worked much of the day and did real good work. Were very professional and constantly kept me informed on what they were doing and asked my opinion on placement of panels etc.

Of course they communicated quickly (day after install) to invoice me.

What was missing on the invoice was my 4% rebate per above. I called that out to my last contact (the scheduler who was the one that first reported the rebate offer). She got back to me immediately and forwarded my concern to the financial contact. That request is still waiting for a reply but it has been during a weekend so I have to give them some slack. In retrospect I should have probably heald back paying them the full amount and have them buy down the invoice amount but I was under the impression they were going to do it in two passes and I needed to pay the full amount to get the full tax credit.

 

[walla2]

What was missing on the invoice was my 4% rebate per above. I called that out to my last contact (the scheduler who was the one that first reported the rebate offer). She got back to me immediately and forwarded my concern to the financial contact. That request is still waiting for a reply but it has been during a weekend so I have to give them some slack.

Tesla has yet to reply to my request to even just cancel after failing to respond to multiple requests for clarification since mid December. This is several phone calls and emails in. I hope the reason for my poor response times are due to them terminating the people that have "helped" with my "install." That would do a lot to help future potential customers in my opinion.

I'd love to not have to be on top of these people but they lied about my install date via automated text when in actuality they hadn't even started the permitting. They have consistently reached out via text but just ghost me whenever I reply. There appears to be no boilerplate process at least in my experience unless the boilerplate includes constant fail models.

 

[charlesj]

.... In retrospect I should have probably heald back paying them the full amount and have them buy down the invoice amount but I was under the impression they were going to do it in two passes and I needed to pay the full amount to get the full tax credit.

That is my impression as well that after you pay in full they will send you the 4%. Hopefully that will not drag out. Hope it happens and not an empty promise.

 

[StarLog]

I had my 40 panel system with one PW installed by a contractor, they used a different companies solar panels, but the Powerwall was Tesla. This install was on time, but further contact with the contractor, they are pretty big in FLA. was futile. They hardly ever returned phone calls, or emails. So I went to BBB and shamed them, that got their attention. Still a bit slow in responding, but I now have my system working.