Score
Tesla Energy reviews
• updated JUN 17, 2026Loading map...
The Verdict
Tesla Energy is gambling with your home. We analyzed thousands of reviews and found a company that can't activate systems, miscalculates energy production, and leaves customers trapped in 20-year leases with higher bills than before they went solar. One homeowner paid $78.69 into their utility's credit bank but could offset only $6.16 of their bill, discovering too late that Tesla's sales pitch about "offsetting" power was a half-truth buried in fine print. Another waited nearly two years for Tesla to acknowledge full responsibility for a roof leak, then spent four more months waiting for a subcontractor who never called, racking up $2,067 in utility bills while the removed panels sat idle. The workmanship score (3.5) is the only metric above water, but post-sale support (2.2) and project management (2.5) scores reveal a company that disappears after install. We found 1,876 complaints about support versus 838 compliments, and in one theme covering 479 reviews about performance failures, only 1% were positive. The app-only communication model means you can't reach a human when your system fails, your roof leaks, or your bill doubles. Some reviewers report threatening legal action just to get a callback.
If you're willing to chase a company through apps and voicemail for years while paying two energy bills, Tesla offers a low up-front cost. But if you want a system that works as promised and a company that answers the phone when it doesn't, spend more elsewhere.
3 Stories That Stood Out
Two years ago Kate M. and her husband signed on with Solar City, drawn by the environmental benefits and the promise that their normal utility bill would all but disappear, replaced by a predictable flat payment. Instead, their DWP bill stayed the same and they began paying $65 a month to Solar City on top of it — roughly $100 more every DWP billing cycle than before. They found themselves bounced between the two companies with nobody taking responsibility. Repeated messages to DWP’s dedicated solar line never reached a person, and regular DWP operators either told them they didn’t understand how solar works or suggested Solar City had ripped them off. DWP repeatedly refused to inspect the connection, even though other solar customers were initially not connected by the utility. Solar City answered by blaming higher household usage or asking them to trim a tree — a puzzling suggestion given that the tree’s shadow is off the house by 6 a.m. in summer and the family hasn’t added any power-hungry appliances. The panels are producing less than the output spelled out in the lease, which she believes contributes to the problem. Last spring Solar City said they wouldn’t consider any 0
Patricia ended up with a damaged residential roof after a Tesla solar installation nearly two years ago; Tesla accepted responsibility twice and eventually removed the panels. The array has been offline since 4/15/2023, and she has spent four months waiting for the subcontractor to call and schedule a full roof replacement. That delay wiped out her solar production and left her with a PG&E bill for $2,067.52 — PG&E told her the system didn’t generate the expected energy while it was disconnected. She hesitated at first, hoping Tesla would make things right, but months of silence pushed her to escalate: she filed a complaint with the California Solar & Storage Association and reached out to the CALSSA ethics board without success, and she’s been advised to contact the Contractors State License Board. As of August 18, 2023 she still hadn’t heard back from Tesla and took to social media to try to force a resolution. The lasting image: panels down and off since April 15, 2023, and a four-figure utility bill hanging over the household while the company delays the roof repair.
Daniel L. had SolarCity panels for nearly four years, and what started as a misleading sales pitch escalated into a long, frustrating battle over a leaking roof and an alleged botched installation. When he filed a warranty claim for a leak, the company denied it; after months of back-and-forth he hired three independent roofing contractors, and they all found the same thing — poor design and a sag caused by improper installation — and refused to reroof with the SolarCity array in place. SolarCity brought in their insurer, and after more than three months a company rep arrived the same day as the insurance engineer. The rep and engineer acted like acquaintances, the engineer concluded the work didn’t meet snow-load standards, but the insurer pressed on what actual damage had occurred rather than taking responsibility. He wondered whether someone had to be hurt before the system would be corrected. Meanwhile six to eight roof tiles came loose in a recent storm; panels remained mounted over the damaged area despite earlier assurances they’d be removed, and that ongoing presence continued to damage the roof. A project manager named Jamal never crawled into the installation area to look
Platforms Monitored
Performance by Work Type
How We Got To Trust Score 37
Buyer Beware
Unauthorized Activities
20 reports
Misleading Claims
75 reports
Background Check
Serving customers for 18 years
Among the longest-standing installers in the market.
BBB Rating: F
Poor BBB standing. Significant complaints.
Natural Review Patterns
Reviews were posted naturally over time.
What You Can Expect
Steven came away impressed by how upfront the company was about pricing, but what really set the experience apart was the speed. They hustled to get his solar-plus-battery setup installed before Hurricane Milton arrived in October 2024, and when the grid went dark for three straight days, his home still stayed powered through the battery and daytime sun. More than a year later, the system was still running smoothly, and he found the app especially useful for checking instant and historical energy use and sorting out whether changes came from cloud cover or the house drawing more power.
John J. Jacobs went into his solar install with a Powerwall 3 expecting the Cybertruck to be able to share power, and that promise was a big part of the decision. Two years later, the software still hadn’t arrived, and the system never delivered the amperage he’d been led to expect. Even though the array was sized around his household’s energy needs, it ended up covering only about 60 percent, leaving him short of the mark. When he looked into adding more panels, he was told the only path forward was to start over with an entirely new system. What he has now works acceptably, but the missing power-sharing feature and the undersized performance left him disappointed.
Mazen added two batteries to a home that already had solar, expecting them to trim the electric bill, but the opposite happened: the monthly cost went up. After repeated calls to Tesla for an explanation or fix, he spent a full year getting nowhere before the company finally sent someone out to inspect the setup, with him covering the inspection cost. The visit uncovered an installation mistake that kept the batteries from tracking the whole house’s usage properly, so power was being pushed to the grid instead of serving the home’s needs. What stuck with him wasn’t just the higher bill, but the gap between the promises made before signing and the dismissive way his problem was handled afterward.
Hari Nam S. has maintained a relationship with Tesla Energy for 15 years and recently completed a new solar-panel array with a Powerwall at his home. He ended up with hardware that performs exactly as promised and an installation that was swift and efficient — Tesla Energy managed every phase, honored his preference for the Powerwall location, and hired a contractor to dig a trench and run conduit between the main structure and the battery site. During design and pre-install, Kelsey served as his knowledgeable liaison and answered all his questions, but he discovered that finding her contact required digging through the Tesla phone app. The app prioritized Tesla car content, buried energy contacts, and made reaching Energy support counterintuitive even for someone with long IT experience. Once set up, the app proved powerful for monitoring production and usage, yet it remained complex and difficult to configure. He appreciated the installation crews and Kelsey’s help, and recommends Tesla Energy as knowledgeable and competent, but assigned three stars because accessibility and finding help for specific questions felt cumbersome. Across his decade-and-a-half relationship, Tesla has
Damon came away impressed with the planning crew and the installers on his solar project, but the story stalled where it mattered most: more than a year after the panels went up, his system still wasn’t allowed to go live because it remained stuck waiting on a PG&E upgrade. The work had been scheduled more than once during the winter, only to get pushed back by East Coast weather systems, and when he tried asking about the next steps, he felt brushed off rather than helped. What he ended up with was a finished solar array that still couldn’t show its full value because the utility side of the job never caught up.
Nichole King ended up with solar panels on a roof that was barely a year old, and the installation left her dealing with damage that cut what should have been a 30-year roof down to something that felt far less durable. During the install, the crew drilled a round of holes in the wrong places, then had to patch those and start over with new ones, leaving the roof compromised. Years later, when she tried to reach the company to get the panels looked at and repaired, the phone line rang once and dropped, leaving her unable to get a real person on the line. The whole experience left her frustrated not just with the installation itself, but with the lack of any working customer support when problems surfaced.
Fred D. had solar on his home for about a year but kept getting daytime outages, so he bought three Tesla Powerwalls to keep the lights on. He chose OC Solar to handle the install because they had done a solid job on his original solar array; he could have shaved some cost by buying directly from Tesla and accepting a Tesla-selected installer, but after owning three Tesla cars he preferred OC Solar’s level of service at his house. He ended up with three Powerwalls that provide reliable backup power and have driven his electricity bill down by roughly 95%. He remains on SCE’s NEM 2 billing plan (the version that closed in 2023) and also claimed the 30% federal tax rebate. His takeaway for buyers: meaningful savings and incentives still exist, but you need to shop carefully to capture them.
Scott had lived with Tesla solar panels on his roof for 15 years, and the system itself had held up well since the original installation. The trouble started when a leak developed underneath the panels and the roof needed repair, which meant the array had to come off first. What turned a simple roofing fix into a long wait was Tesla’s permit process: more than four weeks passed without the permits being pulled, and he was told the delay could stretch to eight weeks. What stood out most was how a problem that needed quick coordination turned into a drawn-out pause, leaving the repair stuck behind Tesla’s slow response.
Chuck spent nearly a year watching his solar setup behave unpredictably, only to see it go completely offline starting in November 2025. Even while the system sat idle on his property, the bills kept coming, and he was told the company couldn’t stop the charges because of how the account was set up. What stood out most was the indifference he ran into while dealing with a system that never stayed reliably on.
Long-term Satisfaction
Long-term satisfaction for Tesla Energy drops to 1.9 ★ compared to early reviews. This decline is worse than 75% of installers we looked at.
Long-term reviews carry the most weight in our methodology because they are most representative of what you should be paying for: a system that will perform for years.