SolarCity Reviews

I'VE BEEN WITH "SOLAR CITY" 2 SOLID YEARS NOW...SO FAR SO GOOD...I feel i did save some money, what sucked is the sales rep that signed me up, she never told me about the "TRU-UP's" bill with PG&E at the end of the year with "Solar City" which is about $1,220.00 which I think that was a sneaky trick so she could get her commission on the sale. But still after breaking it down I'm still saving a little bit. BUT now "TELSA" is taking over, I'll see if there crooked or not, I'm monitoring my bill closely now, ANY SCREW -UPS with these characters, trust me I'll shut them down, and fire them.... and I'll start up with my local vendors like "SUN-SOLAR" which does has very high and good ratings. I just might still make that move anyways...LOL. But I'll give "TELSA" the benefit of the doubt. I'll see what their up to for now and see if I do save $$$ or not. If not,,,,then ADIOS!!! SEE YA~~~~~~~~ Alan S. Bakersfield,Ca

Our system has been operational since 1/15. It's a smaller Lease system. No real issues and everything has been addressed in a reasonable amount of time. This is the first time the whole system has gone down. 2 minor installation issues and SC addressed them without problems. Usually about a week (5-7 days). 8/11/18 our Inverter went south. It's in the 3rd year of its 10 year warranty. (Not a real good sign) And I was thinking of the Power Wall? Lets see how this issue plays out. Of course it goes on a weekend, and one of the hottest months here in Las Vegas. Their guesstimate is up to 2 weeks, a lengthy time considering the inverters should be a standard in stock item and a 10 year warranty, 3rd year out of a 10 year warranty.....It should last PAST the 10 year time frame, not the other way around. Yes I know there are different sizes for larger systems. Or a range of systems. As a retired maintenance manager these components should be in inventory if they were operating under the premise that Customer Service First. What I've found out is..... there ISN'T a service department in Las Vegas. They rely on private companies to perform most if not all their service repairs, this just adds a layer of bureaucracy to overcome. Their performance guarantee kinda falls flat, no sense of urgency. Remember, a company is only as good as its customer service.

My system is highly productive. The product and the service have been good. The problem is the installation! Installers anchored to to the roof by driving nails directly through the shingles. So many people walking around on a hot day took a 20 year roof down to a seven year roof. There are more than 26 holes in my roof that were merely caulked at the end of the job. Caulking is only good for three years! A couple places had metal shingles slipped under before the caulking. It will cost me three thousand dollars to replace the upper portion of my roof where it was nearly worn down passed the tar.

SolarCity installed our solar. When it went down for a week they repaired the system, although not quickly. We installed about three or four years ago when the only offer they gave us was a lease. Had we known they would sell them, we would have done that. The lease is gruesome because we lost the tax benefit (they use it instead). We have never matched the lease cost, but we installed only 5-KW. However, if your weather pattern is such that during the winter you have a lot of clouds, rain, etc., then I suggest you consider comparing your current utility rates to how much it will cost you to install solar. And don't buy into that "helping the environment" pitch. The only environment you'll be helping with Solar city is Elon Musk's bank account.

Solar City's customer service is very poor. You can never get them to give you a call back; you are on hold forever; no weekend service - considering that energy is a very important aspect in day to day life, and that fact that they would not have a job if it were not for its customers - you think they would have excellent customer service - not the case. Unfortunately for us our house we purchased came with the Solar City panels (which we have not had issues with thank the Lord above) - and we assumed the lease of the previous owner - which I will never do again...knowing more about solar energy now and that there are more companies out there (with better ratings) I will be able to pick more wisely.

It is hard to compare but I don't think I am saving as much money as I had hoped to. I had no problems with the installation, although the local utility, Smeco, took their time signing off. The salesman DID disappear as soon as I signed. I really hate them for the $7.50 charge because I refuse to do automatic deduction for bill paying. Who has enough money sitting around in their checking account to let somebody arbitrarily deduct some unknown sum at the time of month at their convenience? I am retired and get one check on the first and another near the end of the month on a variable date. The bill could be any amount according to the sunshine and our usage. I can't just let them stick their hand in my cookie jar like that! I do pay online.

Having solar I would say is a 10 and I love that. The app for monitoring current and historical production exceeds my expectations and I would say is a 10. My sales rep took all of my calls and responded to all of my issues the best he could but the issues that arose weren't in his control. My price was excellent with the price match. And I'm hopeful that the system itself is top notch. Operations and customer service (excluding my rep) I would rate a 4 at best. They answer the phones relatively quickly and are nice which helps the score. But here is where I had an awful experience. My bid came back wrong a half dozen times. My loan amount on the contract was always wrong to the point where I just said I was going to pay upfront because I had 0 trust in them billing me correctly. Installation took forever. They failed to install it on the first visit and had to reschedule. They brought ugly panels which were different than the all blacks i was told I'd receive. The install failed inspection pushing my turn on time back another month. Communication between the day it was installed and getting it turned on was awful. Having panels on the roof for almost two months of sunny days producing nothing and without being told anything was very frustrating. And finally billing. I called in the day the solar switched on to pay for everything because I hadn't received a bill and wanted to do my part being proactive. They told me I owed $500 more than my last signed document. No one could adjust it so I sent in an email with the agreed on signed document, waited three days, heard nothing, so I called back in. I was on hold and transferred to 3 different people in billing all saying they weren't the right person to help. The last person said she'd get to the right people and I'd get an invoice for the correct amount that day. It still hasn't come. So the waiting continues... The whole process took 5 months from requesting a bid to flipping it on and that is insane. If I was less committed by my friendly sales rep, my desire to get green energy and the great price I was able to price match to I would have cancelled many times over. The city for inspections and the power company for switching the meter both took 1 week and i signed every doc I was told to the day I received them (unless they were wrong in which I contacted you to fix it every time that same day). Your operations on all fronts really is lacking horribly when it takes this long and it's all due to internal failures. Please fix your issues as you have a lot of great things going for you and I am happy now that my interaction with you guys is hopefully nearing its end (hopefully no need for warranty assistance)! Advice for SolarCity: Keep using quality panels, keep making your already great app better, and keep great trustworthy reps around like mine (Dan). But please fix the internal errors, the dropped balls, the run arounds, and compensate when you make mistakes that delay a project.

Similar to another story here, our system went down on New Years Day as soon as the Sun came up :-(. I called it in right away and they have still not given us a replacement date after multiple calls. Worked great for ~6 years until 2019! Riso Low Fail :-( Getting bids from other companies to expand our system, not likely Tesla Energy at this point :-( And we still pay ~$85/Month :-(

My husband set up an in-house appointment for 11:00 A.M., for which no one showed up or called. About 12:30 P.M., my husband called the company and got an answering machine on which he stated our disappointment, he said we were no longer interested in dealing with them and not to call us again, only few days late the manager called us and didn't even apologize :/ he wanted to set up a new meeting. It was irrelevant any more

We own a home in AZ. We live in WA. We tried to help out our daughter an son in law renting the home at cost in AZ. Solar city did not check ownership of home sent contract to ex son in law forged wife Signature and used our credit to install. soon to be ex son in law left non payment followed. Then we were contacted by solar city. I proved this took place by EMAIL and IP address on contracts.. we contacted AZ attorney general. Solar city trying to make amends. To be continued .

I've had a Solar City solar system for three years. The sales and purchase went extremely well. The installation went flawlessly. However, I'm looking at invoking the contract for reimbursement due to drop-off and under performance of the panels. At first the system put out tons of electricity. But, I've noticed that the amount of electricity has dropped a great deal.

SolarCity is great the idea is great. It's the cheapest way to go slower! The visions of the owners is great. That's the reason why I choose them over the competitors. Customer service was great in the beginning. There's a big disconnect with the billing department with the company. Here in Hawaii operations has no follow-up at all. After to sell the forget about you! Overall I like the company is just the Hawaii operation and billing department is obsolete. It is bad for $6 billion plus company.

My system has been up & running for about three months now. Customer service was great, installation was also great, however, I am not saving nearly as much as I'd been told. I'm still getting almost $200.00 bills from the electric company on top of the Solar City bills averaging about $96.00 a month. We have a very large system, but the savings don't amount to much. We keep our a/c on 79 degrees and we are running a pool cleaner everyday for 6 hours. Still, I expected to save much more money and we are pretty disappointed.

I had two house done. The installation went great both times!! On one house, I had water coming into the basement from their wiring. It too 4 days for them to come out and 2 trips to resolve it. Very poor service. Every time asked for my salesmen to call, he never did after the sale.

install was suppose to be a day was a day and a half. but it took another week and a half to come back and I had to schedule the appt. bull. should have been back the next day. and also the info given to me from customer service,have no idea what there doing.i believe there only there for a check . to bad.

purchasing was no problem. communication and installation was a big hassle. to many reps in the kitchen. after a few complaints the panels were installed and they seem to work great for the past 2 1/2 year. my panels of 8 cover my 2000sq feet home with only minimal of a few $ per month.

soalr City installed a system last year on my house. Since then I have had two huge utility bills for electricity, and SC's billing system is inconsistent and incomprehensible. After three months of bright sunshine, I just got a bill from SC for $74. WTH?

Installation had many hiccups. But the biggest disappointment is that I am not really saving any money. My first yearly bill came from so cal Edison for almost the proposed " savings" I was supposed to have.

I don't appreciate the fact that they arbitrarily started charging me for using my credit card to pay their bill.

Install process to system operational was slow going. Not all of it was Solar City's fault though.

Sales person was not upfront about cost savings as relates to NYS Tax Credit

No phone calls returned, no emails returned.