11 MONTHS, AND STILL WAITING
Tesla has their own bureaucracy, and I've rated each one:
Sales/Customer Contact: 0 stars. They lie; they lie without conscience. If their lips are moving it's a lie. I've had four, and not a single thing they've ever said has proven true. I use email for everything now.
Design Team: 1 star. "Clearly incompetent" is the best term to use. It took six months for a company that supposedly specializes in exactly this construction to prepare plans that were approved.
Installation Team: 5 stars. The single bright spot. They were fast, thorough, friendly, and professional. They answered every question fully and completely, and followed up to make sure I understood the answer.
Interconnection Team: 1 star. Seriously; one of the biggest installers doesn't know that they can get final permission in only one day and refuses to use that procedure? That's just corporate arrogance run wild.
I did lots of research and knew what I wanted. Several companies offer that system, and I spoke with three different sales reps. In late June, 2017, I signed the Solar City contract for a solar system and Tesla Powerwall. Then the real problems started. It's now early June, 2018, and I still don't have a system.
Do not trust your designated representative. Period. Ever. I'm on my fourth, and not a single one tells a consistent or truthful story. I won't even talk to mine anymore after I called out the lies. Not mistakes; lies. If the caller isn't a supervisor I tell them to call back when they have a supervisor on the line. Every communication is confirmed in an email.
The system was supposed to be installed in August. By September, when there wasn't even an appointment to install, I was calling to inquire. I was told that the City was sitting on the plans. So I went to my City Building Department and asked. It turned out that the plans had been rejected two weeks earlier. The Inspector said that if the system was installed as designed it would never work; they actually drew the wiring diagram with a short circuit. He said that Solar City submitted the same plan for a dozen homes or more, with cut and paste circuits and multiple violations of the applicable codes.
I called the rep back, and told him the plans had been rejected. The next day he said the rejection must have been lost in the mail and they would track it down. I told him I had the rejection notice and reviewed the issues, then scanned and emailed it. A few weeks after that I called and he said that they were waiting for the City to provide the rejection notice!
In December, he said that the City was being "tight" on permits, and blamed bureaucrats. The City Inspector told me he'd received nothing from Solar City for at least two months. And he also said that he talks with other cities' inspectors, and that his plan review experiences mirrored other Inspectors. He said Tesla had recently centralized design services, and that he spoke to the responsible person who signs their plans about specific issues common to every design. He described the engineer as "clearly incompetent."
The plans were approved a few days after they were submitted again in February, and I got a call to schedule an install date. Two weeks later they called to change the date because, I was told, the inventory that was set aside for me was actually used on another house. A neighbor who used Solar City a couple of years ago said they did the same thing to him. He's a supply chain manager, and said that he couldn't understand setting aside inventory for two months and didn't believe it either.
Two weeks before the install I met with an electrician who would supervise the install. A bright spot appeared, as he was thorough, efficient, and professional. He expressed some concern about the original design and asked for some changes, which I approved.
Installation day came and they were present bright and early, completing the entire project the second day after a total of about eight hours work. Panels were in; system was in and tested; City Inspector signed off on everything. They walked me through the system, programming the backup system, etc. The system was actually producing more than the design figure! It was a great day.
But then it took a full week for the "Interconnection Team" to submit the paperwork to my utility, and I'm told that the utility might take three weeks or more for permission to operate. I might not have an operating system for more than a year from the contract signing!
I called the utility, and was told that it might indeed take a month, but that they had a "fast track system" or a few months that would give approval in 24 hours or less. I checked with my Tesla rep - the lying face of the company to me - and he said that Tesla doesn't participate in that process. read more