Tesla Solar Roof Cost

So years ago I put down a deposit for the Tesla solar roof, the cool ones with the solar tiles. Not sure what they are now selling, and I've asked for clarification. They do link to a FAQ: https://www.tesla.com/support/energy/solar-roof/learn/overview

but at least I got a price, which is about $25k more than they had originally estimated:


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$4/watt is a ripoff. I think it's a bad idea to install these on ones roof. You will have to remove the system in order to repair or replace the roof. Better to have it on a standalone area separate from the roof. Creative ways for that are use it for a covered patio(s) and/or covered guest parking like a carport. Plus it looks a lot better on a flat surface like those where they are hidden from view unlike on the roof as an eyesore even if they are supposedly designed to blend in...they still don't match the rest of the house.

 

the system is the roof. The take off your existing roof and install these as roof tiles

 

It's more of semantics, but when I refer to the roof I'm talking about the entire roof structure including steel or wood beams, plywood or whatever sheets, and then the sealing materials on top of that. Tile, asphalt, slate, metal, and now solar are what I consider to the be top layer of the roof. If one is constrained for space the roof is the only option for solar so a system like this can do both jobs. However, if you have enough room I think it would be easier to service and maintain both a solar system and a roof system if they stay separate.

Also looking at Tesla's updates on this product from when they announced it they seem to have cut the design down to 1 option and it's pretty basic looking in terms of design presumably to fit most style homes. That can't be good for anyone that had an earlier system installed if something breaks or needs replacing as a replacement is probably not cheap or quick to get.

 

It is my understanding that they remove the existing roof, underlayment and repair any wood surface areas. Install new underlayment and install the system in tiles, which are replaceable. At least that is what I signed up for in 2017 and have asked for clarification.

My house is now 30 years old and just replacing the underlayment is $30k. To replace the entire roof would probably be $75k, maybe less.

I’ll find out more details and report them as they become available.

 

This is what my deposit was on, don’t know if that is what they are now offering :


What is the Tesla solar panel roof?
Tesla roof panels are unlike traditional solar panels in that every tile contains one solar cell. They not only look like, and function as, conventional roofing materials, such as terracotta, slate, or asphalt, they also produce electricity!

The Solar Roof line of products is unique among other solar options because it doesn’t resemble a typical solar installation. Every solar cell is embedded invisibly within every glass tile. The tiles are then installed like traditional roofing shingles or tiles. If you didn’t know the roof was a Tesla product, you’d probably never realize it.

Unlike other solar products, Tesla systems are designed to collect up to 98 percent of the solar energy that traditional arrays collect. The unique type of louvered glass tile works in much the same way as window blinds by reflecting sunlight to appear opaque while still absorbing the rays of the sun.

 

Mark,

Couple of areas you may want to research

* I thought I recently read - in techcrunch or similar tech rag - Tesla may discontinue this product and stick with normal above the roof panels. I could be completely wrong.

* A touchy area for any solar panel company are the microinverters. Most traditional panels have microinverters installed into each panel. I leased our SunPower panels for various reasons; one reason was because I was concerned about the microinverters failing. Well, ALL of our microinverters failed in less than 3 years. SunPower had to send a team of 4 people to carefully remove each panel, uninstall each microinverter, and install new gen 2 microinverter; 6 hours, 4 guy affair = SunPower basically lost money for 2 years on my house. I am GLAD that I did not buy; the lease took care of the service. Question - where are the microinverters installed on the Tesla solar roof? If these fail, who pays? Microinverters definitely have a useful life....what and where is Tesla putting their microinverters and are these easily service-able? I doubt they built their own microinverters, but I could be wrong. BTW, I asked the team leader who came out how many microinverters have been failing. He didn't blink....a LOT.

* Spoke to two tax accountants who put in solar (BayArea) before I installed in 2016. One purchased normal solar panel and the other leased. Both did the ROI, independently. Unless your ROI is under 10 years, you really should consider leasing given the life of these panels are 20 to 25 years. The microinverters / related equipment will probably last a lot shorter = more risk getting a sub 10 year ROI. One said if your electric bill isn't over $500/month Bay Area, its going to take a long time to ROI if you buy outright. That guy had $800 plus electric bills (pool / whirlpool)....pumping water was the driver = he purchased panels outright with an 8 year ROI. The best I could calc was a 13 year ROI, and that's with 2 EV cars.....= I leased.

food for thought and research.

-stu

 

Wow, that looks awesome. I'm impressed with how cheap it is. Thats only 2x the cost of a regular panel system. If you need a new roof anyway, its a no brainer. If not it might make more sense to just do traditional panels, but with your roof layout that may not really be feasible. I would imagine if you can use all that power your ROI will be quite short on that system. I paid $3/watt and my ROI is only 4 years.

There are certainly a ton of variables in the lease vs own equation, but the whole "25 year" life thing is quite overblown. Good solar panels now will still produce 85% of their rated capacity after 25 years. I don't believe Tesla uses micro-inverters on the solar roof, but even if they do, and they did happen to fail prematurely the system has a 25 year warranty.

 

Heard Tesla roof service is the worst in the industry.
They recently reduced prices on conventional PV cells that mount above your roof shingles. Think they are in need of cash flow.....but do research service from them.

 

If it is at all helpful, a year ago August we had the typical Tesla solar panels (not the roof but the externally mounted panels) installed 9.9kw along with 2 of the PowerWall2's for power backup and I've been very grateful.

Our house is in the mountain area and we have electric only with no realistic generator space or LP tank to feed it (unless we wanted to use a gas generator and deal with the maintenance) but we lose power so frequently I deemed the generator option not viable.

The first time we lost power it was amazing the lights just barely even flickered, none of the clocks even reset.

I absolutely LOVE the app and how you can control and monitor the system.

The downsides are:
+) Our roof was small and frankly the 9.9kw array is not as powerful as I hoped given how it is mounted and all the trees surrounding our house. That being said in the summer months we can go a very long time off grid completely using solar during the day and converting to battery power at night.

+) we have an electric instant water heater for showering and that is the only thing that had too large a draw for the batteries to deal with so when we are off grid we have no hot water.....

It feels amazing in the summer to see the app with day after day of 99 or 98% off grid and being to charge my wife's car at the same time.

Neat stuff.

Tesla was going to farm out the full upgrade of the electrical panel on my house and they ended up doing it themselves and I'm sure the amount of work it required to do that piece of the project (I recall it was a little over $4k for that) had to be a thin or losing margin exercise for them as it took more time than we all thought and they stuck with the panel price estimate they gave me.

Overall I would have done it the same way and if anything maybe I would buy a 3rd PowerWall unit to capture even more electricity during the summer months.

 

Eric, can you give us “ballpark” cost on your 9.9 installation? Also, did you have a pre-install analysis of expected efficiency? ie tree cover, roof angle, etc....
TIA

 

I was able to find my receipt for the entire main panel upgrade to my house and that was $4500.

The panel system all inclusive with install of the panels and the PowerWall2’s was $51,416.

Timely post as with the wind storm we lost power Monday night shortly after midnight and am still running on battery/solar right now. So grateful as again we lose power so frequently in the mountain.

A few drone photos....
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The app is what sealed the deal for me...

These screen shots of the app are from this summer.

the one shot is me connecting yesterday to understand the status while off grid due to the outage...
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Try a solar hot water system. Might never use your electric one again.

 

It was amazing to me when we bought this house 8 years ago that they were doing nothing with the water system and were running direct demand well pump. It was nuts. Maybe $12k or more later and I have a full ozonator system, 3k gallon tank, and an “at house” Culligan treatment system plus a Culligan reverse osmosis filtration for drinking. If there was a better water heater solution I’m very interested in learning more.

 

https://www.solarreviews.com/blog/solar-water-heaters-which-one-works-best-for-your-home

Assuming you don't have freezing temperatures where you are makes it more ideal.

 

Thanks for the reply Eric!
did they give you a 'payback' timeframe?
TIA

 

We can do some rough math....

let’s say $51k purchase and then take off $15k tax benefit on my income taxes net cost $36k.

add back the main panel service $5k so you are about $41k all in?

Here in CA you have to pay I think $15/mo to be connected to the grid. They buy back excess at a stupid low wholesale rate which we would have to check but I think it’s something crazy like $0.06/kWh vs the average I was paying at $0.25/kWh....and they do a true up at the 12 month mark.

I think I paid under $1k for the extra net electricity I used...

Let’s say my Bill used to average $375 so net net my annual savings was around $3.5k

take $41k divided by $3.5k = 11.7 year payback?

here is the reality....as I type this the grid has been down for 54 hours and given the battery backup system we have had power continuously.

a true analysis would also figure the generator play but it’s impossible at my house due to us living in the mountain and having no space for an LP tank or the interest in dealing with a generator.

overall I would have done it all again in a heartbeat and wish I had done it sooner because whenever the real bad rains were maybe 3 or 4 seasons ago and we were out of power for over 4 days that was a PITA for my wife and mother in law with 2 small kids at home while she had to work and I was on the road and the 4 of them spent 4 nights in a hotel.

hope this is interesting/helpful for people here. — Eric

 

We can do some rough math....

let’s say $51k purchase and then take off $15k tax benefit on my income taxes net cost $36k.

add back the main panel service $5k so you are about $41k all in?

Here in CA you have to pay I think $15/mo to be connected to the grid. They buy back excess at a stupid low wholesale rate which we would have to check but I think it’s something crazy like $0.06/kWh vs the average I was paying at $0.25/kWh....and they do a true up at the 12 month mark.

I think I paid under $1k for the extra net electricity I used...

Let’s say my Bill used to average $375 so net net my annual savings was around $3.5k

take $41k divided by $3.5k = 11.7 year payback?

here is the reality....as I type this the grid has been down for 54 hours and given the battery backup system we have had power continuously.

a true analysis would also figure the generator play but it’s impossible at my house due to us living in the mountain and having no space for an LP tank or the interest in dealing with a generator.

overall I would have done it all again in a heartbeat and wish I had done it sooner because whenever the real bad rains were maybe 3 or 4 seasons ago and we were out of power for over 4 days that was a PITA for my wife and mother in law with 2 small kids at home while she had to work and I was on the road for work....they spent 4 nights in a hotel that run and we have had a few other 2 and 3 day out of power situations since that big one.

 

We can do some rough math....

let’s say $51k purchase and then take off $15k tax benefit on my income taxes net cost $36k.

add back the main panel service $5k so you are about $41k all in?

Here in CA you have to pay I think $15/mo to be connected to the grid. They buy back excess at a stupid low wholesale rate which we would have to check but I think it’s something crazy like $0.06/kWh vs the average I was paying at $0.25/kWh....and they do a true up at the 12 month mark.

I think I paid under $1k for the extra net electricity I used...

Let’s say my Bill used to average $375 so net net my annual savings was around $3.5k

take $41k divided by $3.5k = 11.7 year payback?

here is the reality....as I type this the grid has been down for 54 hours and given the battery backup system we have had power continuously.

a true analysis would also figure the generator play but it’s impossible at my house due to us living in the mountain and having no space for an LP tank or the interest in dealing with a generator.

overall I would have done it all again in a heartbeat and wish I had done it sooner because whenever the real bad rains were maybe 3 or 4 seasons ago and we were out of power for over 4 days that was a PITA for my wife and mother in law with 2 small kids at home while she had to work and I was on the road for work....they spent 4 nights in a hotel that run and we have had a few other 2 and 3 day out of power situations since that big one.

 

Must be a power surge!

 

Thank you
Thank you
Thank you

 

OP did you ever get any solar installed?

 

This is cute and the timing is perfect.
My inverter stopped working Sunday January 31st so I called tesla and they said in 3 days or less I’d get a call from scheduling for a crew to come out and address my issue.

I just got the text and this is comical because they are coming March 17th!
Hilarious!
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Can you buy an inverter to put in. Your off the grid correct?
If not ask them to reimburse you for electric utility costs....