Nowadays, more and more people choose the Tesla Solar Roof or solar shingles as their new option for re-roofing. Tesla Certified Installers should very accurately bid and propose these Tesla solar roof systems to the customer. Elon Musk specified how Tesla proved that “assessing the difficulty of certain roofs” may be more challenging than expected which has led Tesla to under-bid many of their Tesla Solar Roofs projects and not turn them into profitable jobs. This scenario should be avoided by any solar contractor, all jobs should be profitable.
It is no secret in the solar industry that Tesla has a very questionable bidding process. In the particular case of the Tesla Solar Roof, Tesla will promise an alluring low price to a customer, make the customer sign a contract to subsequently have to get another solar contractor involved in the installation because the level of “custom requirements” are too specific for Tesla to get deeply involved. If the new contractor has a streamlined Tesla Solar Roof bidding process they will come-in with a higher price than that which Tesla originally bided and this obviously results in an angry customer.
Tesla’s recommended bidding process for Tesla Solar Roof bids:
Tesla will provide their certified installers with the “Tesla Solar Roof Size Estimator”, a spreadsheet for which the solar contractor will have to make a complete Roofr report to then fill the spreadsheet out with the purpose of estimating what is the max size of the Tesla Solar Roof system that can be installed on that particular roof.
The “Tesla Solar Roof System Size Estimator” is a spreadsheet that has tens of variables to fill out. The installer must specify the area of the roof face, eve, hip, valley etc…
Note: if the roof has 20 faces the chart above will not have enough rows.
To finalize the filling of the “Tesla Solar Roof System Size Estimator” you will have to select a complexity (per roofing ft.) factor based on the complexity of the roof which they haven’t set any specify parameters to exactly determine it’s complexity:
Therefore, the process is not only very time consuming, prone to human error and lacking information but also not accurate.
our bidding process for the Tesla Solar Roof:
Our approach is a mix between roofing bidding standards and those of a regular solar system.
The 5 variables we use to accurately bid the Tesla Solar Roof:
- We use the software Roofr to get the exact pitch of the roof. This is very important to calculate an accurate roof area
- We use salletile based software Aurora to place custom Tesla PV tiles on the roof strictly following Tesla’s design parameters
- In our interface, we input the exact amount of “dry-in” the Tesla Solar Roof will need
- If it’s not a new construction, we will bid the roofing tear-off amount based on the roof type (Tile, Shingle or Metal)
- We input your custom sales-commission structure in our interface
What information will you require?
Based on the variables inputted above and using some math and coding, we’ll provide a table with the prices for the PV portion and the roofing portion of the Tesla Solar Roof that you are bidding. Additionally, you may include any other electrical scope price such as Powerwalls, EV. chargers, SPAN panels, etc…
At SolarExamine, we take great pride in being accurate and precise on your solar bids. Our customizable approach allow us to seamlessly adapt our processes to your sales department. If you are interested in our service visit our pricing page and request our 30 day-free trial.