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A customer recounts Solar City/Tesla installation hell
- testware 9y agoLovely bit of fuckery. Customer support and ease of installation usually make or break products. That said, Tesla is probably experimenting several things by letting David be the Guinea pig.
- westondeboer 9y agoMy solar city installation of the solar panels was a breeze.
- samstave 9y agoits always sunny in the windy city
- dotancohen 9y agoAnd nobody will report that because it is not "news". Therefore we will see a disproportionate amount of bad installation experiences reported. Actually, expect _all_ of the bad experiences to be recounted publicly, while the happy majority stays silent.
- oculusthrift 9y agowhy do they have bad ones? they shouldn't. don't try to blame the media
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- hudibras 9y agoThis isn't a "oh, I waited for two hours for the cable guy to show up!" situation. This is some next-level incompetence.
- viraptor 9y agoWe also hear about every major Tesla accident. In a way it feels safer this way. If single instances (from a large group of users) are newsworthy, it can't be bad compared to average rate.
- imustbeevil 9y agoCould you explain the process so we can compare it with the steps the OP went through?
- sunstone 9y agoThe guy in the original article was having a Power Wall installed. This poster had solar panels installed. The processes won't be the same.
- plexicle 9y agoI had both installed at the same time and it was pretty close to the same. Just an extra permit and they had to have engineers inspect the roof and mounting planes.
- greglindahl 9y agoThe guy in the original article also had panels installed by Solar City, that went smoothly.
- dweekly 9y agoOP here. Yes, SolarCity panel install was pretty straightforward.
- sxates 9y agoMine was surprisingly quick and easy as well.
- plexicle 9y agoThrowing in my hat too. Mine went very well. My Tesla concierge was awesome and the whole process was timely. It took a few months (survey, permits, inspections, etc.) which is standard. 18.85kW system with 2x Powerwalls in Florida.
- smsm42 9y agoSame here, installed twice, no problems. Recently had a problem with invertor, which took some time (couple of weeks) to fix (ended up in replacing the thing), but also went fine. Must be either an exception or their processes with Powerwall are not that polished.
- Animats 9y agoBelongs on #InternetOfShit. It shouldn't need an Internet connection. Adds a point of failure. It might have one, but it shouldn't need it. Tesla is sending some of their battery units to Puerto Rico. Will they work with the network down? Tesla FAQ: "Powerwall needs internet (wired Ethernet or your home Wi-Fi) or cellular service to communicate with the Tesla mobile app and receive software updates. A reliable connection is required to provide new product features over time. Powerwall can function if the connection is temporarily lost but should not be installed in a location without internet or cellular service."
- ukulele 9y agoThis is a bit unfair -- charging / discharging / safety on that scale in a home should be actively monitored and managed, otherwise you end up with real danger a few years down the road.
- Animats 9y agoThat's what local alarms are for. Green, yellow, and red lights, and a message display, both on the unit and remotable to the house, should be sufficient. If you want remote maintenance, you go to the unit and push the "remote maintenance" button, and then it phones home, if it can. The service it connects to probably won't last as long as the device. "Cloud" services seem to have a life of about 5 years. Sometimes less.
- ukulele 9y agoThis is essentially how it does work, except the maintenance button is pressed automatically for you. You can take a Darwinist approach and say anyone who forgets to press the button deserves to potentially die in a fire, or you can say if it's really a potential problem don't release it, or you can actively monitor it. Also note that if your internet goes down the unit doesn't just shut off -- that would be a poor feature for a backup power source.
- smsm42 9y ago> That's what local alarms are for. Ideally, yes. In practice, people neglect them and then sue the company for $millions if something happens because "they clearly should have made alarms more prominent so I couldn't neglect them". Remote monitoring ensures there a) independent record of what was going on and b) ability to monitor the system and take proactive steps if something goes south. That's not even getting into situations of how unreliable the users are in reporting both what they did (the dreaded "I didn't do anything and it doesn't work!") and what happens with the system (the dreaded "it doesn't work, fix it NOW!"). If you install a complex system on user's side which requires maintenance (and what system doesn't) you better have remote diagnostics or you'd be a very frequent guest there. I don't see a reason why Tesla things would be different.
- ukulele 9y agoSounds like the issue is stemming from the PowerWall (Tesla) side of things more than the panel (SolarCity) side. Not surprising, since Tesla has been more product & marketing focused and likely has some growing pains for something as involved as a home installation. It feels like this could still be in the window of two large-ish business units coming together and working out the kinks (~9 months post acquisition), so it will be interesting to see if more of these stories of clearly botched service emerge or if OP is just unlucky on timing.
- eyeareque 9y agoI have a feeling Elon will be reaching out to fix this customer’s issue soon. Hopefully this can help them fix whatever issues they’ve been having.
- DannyBee 9y agoErrr. Seems infinitely more their style so far to use whatever data the customer has given them to point out why it's entirely the customer's fault that something happened.
- smnrchrds 9y agoI have asked this question before on HN and did not receive an answer: Tesla's level of access and handling of customer data scares me. Are there any car manufacturers who respect their customer's privacy? Or does buying a car in 2017 mean I should expect my every move watched by the manufacturer and available to them to use as they please without my consent?
- QAPereo 9y agoUntil the law catches up...
- DannyBee 9y agoI believe, sadly, it's the latter. They are also required by law (IIRC) to include more and more invasive black boxes in the cars anyway. So i guess they figure they might as well use the data. (I'm just waiting till my car says "Tired of stomping on the brake so much? Maybe you should stop commuting and try UberPool!")
- smnrchrds 9y agoI would be OK if the black box is just that: a black box. A data source that can only be accessed via physical connection does not concern me. But 24/7 data transmission to manufacturer's severs is way too 1984 for my taste.
- markatkinson 9y agoAs a South African this just sounds like a standard process for doing anything at all in this country. Took me 8 months to get a fiber line and several strange holes in my wall.