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When we installed solar, Tesla's was the most expensive out of all the proposals. Their solar roof looks very very cool, but it's definitely not "cheap stuff".

epistasis 3y ago
Never heard of anything like that, but most of my experience is from 2+ years ago. Is your install recent? Are you sure they were equivalent proposals? If you add storage, that's no longer just solar, and their storage offerings are far more expensive than others. I couldn't find a local solar installer that wanted to use the type of cheap inverters that Tesla wanted to use. My neighbor has to have Tesla come out about once a year to fix issues.
Syonyk 3y ago
Tesla has two solar products. Don't confuse them. The first is the "solar roof" sort of thing that... we'll see how maintainable it is, but you get to write a properly large check for it, and most of the people I know with it have a couple Powerwalls, and are quite adverse to sharing any sort of actual pricing on it, muttering about "Well, wife acceptance factor" and "But it'll be worth it in power outages..." and such. In other words, almost certainly north of $5/W, and they likely didn't get an itemized invoice of materials/labor/etc. Tesla also, in some markets, has a "standard solar panel" offering that typically comes in around $2.50/W, give or take, and... well, you get what you pay for, typically. It ranges from "decent and a good deal" to "a hot mess," and you've no idea what you're going to get ahead of time. ... and then there are people like me who have sub-$1.50/W installs (DIY). Mine came in around there, but after figuring out how to optimize it better, a neighbor's build came in around $1/W for a 21kW system. //EDIT: And, yes, it takes a lot of learning to do. Cross that with the tens of thousands of dollars saved, I think it's well worth the hassle.
- hectormalot 3y ago
  $2,50/Wp seems very high! Dutch market is somewhere between 0.8-1.5€/Wp installed, and we’re not exactly a low wage country. (Small commercial can be as low as 0.65€/Wp, at around 250 panels) Any ideas on what’s driving the cost for installs in the US compared to the EU? I just drove through Florida on vacation and it’s mind boggling to me how few roofs have PV here.
  - GenerWork 3y ago
    Florida doesn't have overwhelming incentives for solar roofs, although I believe our governor vetoed a change to the rules last year. Also, many people will replace their roof at the same time that they get solar which drives up the cost. There's also the issue of roof maintenance in Florida because our weather is super extreme and necessitates the replacement of asphalt shingle roofs around every 15-20 years or so due to insurance costs.
- GenerWork 3y ago
  When you did your DIY install, was that for everything (purchasing the necessary parts, wiring, roof mounting, etc), or did you DIY certain parts of it and leave the rest up to professionals?
liketochill 3y ago
In utility scale solar tesla product is vapor ware or under development to the point a 50 MW project is having major difficulties

epistasis 3y ago

Never heard of anything like that, but most of my experience is from 2+ years ago. Is your install recent? Are you sure they were equivalent proposals? If you add storage, that's no longer just solar, and their storage offerings are far more expensive than others. I couldn't find a local solar installer that wanted to use the type of cheap inverters that Tesla wanted to use. My neighbor has to have Tesla come out about once a year to fix issues.

Syonyk 3y ago

Tesla has two solar products. Don't confuse them. The first is the "solar roof" sort of thing that... we'll see how maintainable it is, but you get to write a properly large check for it, and most of the people I know with it have a couple Powerwalls, and are quite adverse to sharing any sort of actual pricing on it, muttering about "Well, wife acceptance factor" and "But it'll be worth it in power outages..." and such. In other words, almost certainly north of $5/W, and they likely didn't get an itemized invoice of materials/labor/etc. Tesla also, in some markets, has a "standard solar panel" offering that typically comes in around $2.50/W, give or take, and... well, you get what you pay for, typically. It ranges from "decent and a good deal" to "a hot mess," and you've no idea what you're going to get ahead of time. ... and then there are people like me who have sub-$1.50/W installs (DIY). Mine came in around there, but after figuring out how to optimize it better, a neighbor's build came in around $1/W for a 21kW system. //EDIT: And, yes, it takes a lot of learning to do. Cross that with the tens of thousands of dollars saved, I think it's well worth the hassle.

hectormalot 3y ago
$2,50/Wp seems very high! Dutch market is somewhere between 0.8-1.5€/Wp installed, and we’re not exactly a low wage country. (Small commercial can be as low as 0.65€/Wp, at around 250 panels) Any ideas on what’s driving the cost for installs in the US compared to the EU? I just drove through Florida on vacation and it’s mind boggling to me how few roofs have PV here.
- GenerWork 3y ago
  Florida doesn't have overwhelming incentives for solar roofs, although I believe our governor vetoed a change to the rules last year. Also, many people will replace their roof at the same time that they get solar which drives up the cost. There's also the issue of roof maintenance in Florida because our weather is super extreme and necessitates the replacement of asphalt shingle roofs around every 15-20 years or so due to insurance costs.
GenerWork 3y ago
When you did your DIY install, was that for everything (purchasing the necessary parts, wiring, roof mounting, etc), or did you DIY certain parts of it and leave the rest up to professionals?

liketochill 3y ago

In utility scale solar tesla product is vapor ware or under development to the point a 50 MW project is having major difficulties