It’s safe to say that Tesla’s long-touted Solar Roof never quite lived up to expectations and has not proved as popular as the company had hoped with just 3,000 U.S. homes fitted with the panels over the past seven years. Now, Tesla has agreed to pay $6 million to settle a class-action lawsuit over the unexpected price hikes made to the solar system.
After Elon Musk launched the Tesla Solar Roof to much fanfare, many customers signed contracts with the company to have the panels installed. However, Tesla made significant price hikes in April 2021 that existing customers would have to pay if they wanted the panels installed. One of the plaintiffs from the class action, Matthew Amans, had his Solar Roof bill jump from roughly $72,000 to an eye-watering $146,000.
Read: Tesla Customer Still Waiting For Solar Panel Roof Installed In 2018 To Be Turned On
CNBC reports that Tesla went on to increase the prices for solar installations a further two times in 2021. Not only that but it also made it a requirement for customers to order the Powerwall storage system.
The amended class-action settlement agreement has revealed that 8,636 customers were affected by the sudden price hikes and that over 6,300 of them canceled their contracts after the prices rose. The filing noted that Tesla had gone ahead and completed 1,656 contracts at the original quoted price and that another 57 customers will have their Solar Roof systems installed at the original price.
The total settlement amounts to $6,080,000. Of this sum, $863,600 will be allocated to an automatic payment fund, $2,220,000 will go towards a new contract roof installation fund, and $1,406,400 will be allocated to an out-of-pocket loss fund.
Tesla’s solar deployments including solar panels and its solar roof tiles amounted to 67 MW in the first quarter of 2023, a 40% gain over the first quarter of 2022 where demand dropped by nearly half from 2021.
