Spoke with Sunrun today, and recounting here. Some info is regional-specific, but gets you in the ballpark. I’m in central Texas.
Below addresses in turn two different elements of the whole thing: the basic charger installation, vs the separate home-generator related equipment.
To not bury the lead for without solar power: all the expenses, equipment, etc., below is “free” from Sunrun if you also do a concurrent solar installation with Sunrun. You’ll see that comes to about $10K of “free.” I already have a 21kw solar system, so for me all this is now additive cost to the truck.
BTW, all these costs might keep me from completing the vehicle purchase. I assume I’ll end up needing a bigger panel before ever getting to the “normal” costs below. Since the generation capability was a big draw to my purchase of the Lightning, it’s discouraging to learn that might take an additional $10K+ of home equipment to achieve. Maybe up to $15K? I hear the new panel could be very pricey.
Here’s the break-down:
- When I called the number included in the Sunrun email, the person who answered had all my information automatically (name, address, number, etc.) - answer the call by name.
- As an overall matter, the two people I talked with were still working from uncertain scripts. I was told they only started fielding these calls yesterday or day before. Everything still pretty fluid and notional.
- They want to see most recent power bill.
- First contact guy obviously started down path of assessing my solar capabilities (asking roof type, etc.) - I cut him off, so got transferred to ‘electrification specialist.’
- Charger Installation requires an 80amp breaker with sufficient panel space. They’ll need to assess my panel to see whether that’s an additional preparatory step/cost.
- With Ford, when you purchase the “extended-range” Lightning the ER package includes the charger itself (though note that the ER option is a $10K option, so it ain’t free) - without the ER package the charger is an additional cost (I didn’t ask). I believe there’s also a cheaper charger than the big boy that comes with the ER package.
- However, Sunrun is the only distributer that con obtain and install the charging stations before vehicle delivery. If you instead opt to have it installed “yourself,” ford doesn’t ship the charger until “on average of” 5 business days after vehicle delivery to customer.
- Charger Installation labor “in Texas” is ~$1,250 (assuming no additional equipment/labor prerequisite needs such as the panel upgrade, etc.)
- Charger installation only “site survey” is done remotely - they send a Q&A sheet, and customer sends responses with pictures of panels, etc., etc. (This only applies for charger-only install - see below if generator install.)
- Moving instead to the home generation equipment / costs: for a combo charging station / generation install, they send a person for the site survey.
- The generation capability additionally requires mainly a “bi-directional inverter” and a “lag-time battery” with a collective equipment cost of “about $4,000”
- The “bi-directional inverter” is proprietary to Sunrun, jointly developed with Ford, and the only thing that can be used to use the Lightning’s generation function. (I didn’t ask, but assume the answer is the same about the lag-time battery.)
- It is possible to purchase the generation equipment and have someone else install. (He didn’t make clear whether they would hold back and lag time this equipment like the do the charging station - but that seemed the vibe.)
- The all-in cost for both charging station and generator equipment and install is “in Texas, about $8,900” (again, assuming no need for panel upgrade or other such extras).
- Attempting to break that out of the $1,250 install cost for charger, and $4,000 equipment cost for generation, it seems the generator installation labor comes to about $2,750?
- Once the in-person site survey for charger+generation is done, it could be “hopefully sooner but up to 3 weeks” before a plan and estimate are returned.
- He did not say or commit to any time between estimate and install.
