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For those owners unhappy with drop in maximum charged range

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I have been extremely concerned for a while now about the very significant loss of maximum charging range in my 40kwh car. I am down from the initial 141 mile max rated range upon delivery to a 120 mile range, a decrease of approximately 15% after 9000 miles of driving.

I have been unable to get a meaningful response from Tesla regarding these concerns. I had been told that a new firmware upgrade will increase my maximum rated range by an unspecified amount, but after a couple of delays, I am rapidly losing patience.

Based on postings here and the official Tesla forum, I know that there are other 40, 60 and 85 owners who have similar concerns, although my impression is that 40's have seen more apparent or real degradation than 60's and 85's.

I will be sending a rather firm but polite email to Jerome Guillen in the next few days expressing my extreme disappointment in the performance of my car, as well as in Tesla's failure to address this issue. If anybody has any suggestions for others to contact, and is able to provide contact info, I would very much appreciate it.

I had initially intended to send an email signed by as many disgruntled owners as I could recruit, but that would require much more negotiation regarding content and tone than I currently have patience for. Instead, I would like to collect email addresses of those who are also not happy with the drop in maximum charged range they have experienced and cc them on my email in order to make the point that many others have an interest in this issue. I will make it very clear that the contents of my missive are mine and mine alone.

If you are interested, please post a response or pm me with your email address. I would also like to know if you have personally experienced unexpected range loss or your interest is more academic. If I only get a few responses, I may not cc anybody.

Thanks all.
 
I really wish there was an option to display battery SOC in terms of kWh, rather than Rated Range. Only that would let us distinguish any actual degradation in battery capacity from changes in the Tesla formula used to dtermine Rated Range, which they have clearly tweaked during software updates over the past year.
 
JakeP,

FYI Tesla Service does have the SOC in terms of kWh displayed on their car info web page they can bring up.



Markb,

When you say you have been unable to get a meaningful response from Tesla, would you mind sharing what you have tried already? Have you worked with a Service Center? Have you had a ticket into engineering to look at your cars logs? What answers have you received already? So far I have heard of a number of 40s complain but I haven't heard of any owner working with service/engineering to have the problem carefully looked at.

Peter
 
You may want to ask a technical question first to Tesla:

On the 60kW and 80kWh models, when we lose range it is generally due to the batteries being out of balance. Tesla has advised us to do a 100% charge and keep it there for a few days (in winter) in order to rebalance the pack. This has generally worked for some people.

However... how would you do that on a 40kWh pack?
 
Markb,

When you say you have been unable to get a meaningful response from Tesla, would you mind sharing what you have tried already? Have you worked with a Service Center? Have you had a ticket into engineering to look at your cars logs? What answers have you received already? So far I have heard of a number of 40s complain but I haven't heard of any owner working with service/engineering to have the problem carefully looked at.

Peter

Peter, yes, I have worked with service/engineering, as have others. The response I and others have received after Fremont looked at whatever it is they look at, is that my battery is operating normally. As I stated, I was told that a new firmware release would restore some of the lost mileage. I did not get that from random forum members. I got that from my service mgr, responding to my multiple inquiries.

There are two other threads related to decreasing range and battery maintenance that I follow. Not trying to be obnoxious, but I would very much appreciate it if general suggestions, which I very much appreciate, were posted there, and this thread saved for its intended purpose.
 
Q: My car is charging at a max of 90 kW. How do I get it to charge at 120 kW like Elon said I'd be able to?
A: Buy a new car.
You may want to ask a technical question first to Tesla:

On the 60kW and 80kWh models, when we lose range it is generally due to the batteries being out of balance. Tesla has advised us to do a 100% charge and keep it there for a few days (in winter) in order to rebalance the pack. This has generally worked for some people.

However... how would you do that on a 40kWh pack?
Q: ^
A: Pay for the upgrade to 60 kWh.
 
Interesting. markb, I'd say that it is extremely unlikely that you've actually experienced any real range loss given what we know is the normal behavior of the Model S battery packs so far.

my impression is that 40's have seen more apparent or real degradation than 60's

This part is the part that should make you feel better. Since your car is a 60, but firmware limited to 40, the chances that your pack is different is the same chance as any other randomly selected 60. Matter of fact, since you never charge above 2/3's and the fact that you never Supercharge, your pack's actual capacity loss curve is likely going to be far better than any other 60's that do those two things. Check out islandbayy's 60's capacity after how many Supercharges? However, it is likely that you cannot range charge and force a top balance. Therefore, the capacity loss that you see is either 1) BMS compensation for temperature 2) firmware bug 3) inability to balance 4) really, really bad degradation that Tesla is hiding from you.

I guess I'm interested in understanding your fear. I know the fear is real and I'm curious. Are you worried that at some point, if you elect to upgrade to 60 kWh, it won't be 60 kWh? Or are you worried that your 60 pack has degraded by 30+% already such that it is actually affecting your 40's range? Did Tesla talk to you about possibly doing a rough bottom balance? As in drive it down to near 0 and then slow charge on 110v to your 100% (which is really < 70%) and leave it at the 100% charging for a while?
 
+1 markb, I will PM you my email address. Bottom line is I can't drive as far as I could before by about 20 miles even with the same Wh/mi. That's getting close to Leaf territory after 7 months. I can get about 115 miles on a full charge at 300Wh/mi. The service center said my battery was "operating normally", and gave me an incorrect explanation about how rated range is based on driving habits, which it isn't. I know this because my avg Wh/mi has gone down significantly at the same time as my rated range is in a straight line free fall, plus the 5.8 immediate drop due to algo change.

Let me also add that I've tried the 110V slow charge at various amperages. I've tried running it down close to 0 a few times. I have used NEMA 14-50, J1772, HPWC and 14-30. I've tried multiple combinations of all of these with never an increase in rated range, it's always the same or ticking lower by a mile. And as much as I appreciate people chiming in with suggestions, I would rather hear exactly what is going on and how they intend to restore the lost real world driving range which is very excessive for the mileage on the car.
 
I guess I'm interested in understanding your fear. I know the fear is real and I'm curious. Are you worried that at some point, if you elect to upgrade to 60 kWh, it won't be 60 kWh? Or are you worried that your 60 pack has degraded by 30+% already such that it is actually affecting your 40's range? Did Tesla talk to you about possibly doing a rough bottom balance? As in drive it down to near 0 and then slow charge on 110v to your 100% (which is really < 70%) and leave it at the 100% charging for a while?

I think almost all 40's "100%" charge every day. I don't think it would help. Actually, charging to 70% every day is the fastest way to throw a larger battery out of balance, so I don't know what a 40kW owner is supposed to do about that.

However, I think Mark's original point, more than the technical issue, is that he's getting the typical Tesla communication runaround - which is endemic of most of the problems we've all experienced with them. That issue should well be taken up with Jerome.


I hope that at the next Teslive / TMC Connect, or shareholders meeting, someone brings up the Tesla communication issues in person with Elon as well.
 
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MarkB,

You might want to post about this on the "teslamotors.com" forum as I recall there were a large number of the 40 owners over there. I've certainly seen the same issue with range loss. I received the car in May and would get around 145 rated miles at full charge now I typically get around 120 although I believe it will be a bit higher when the weather gets warmer. The troubling part for me is the actual range I'm getting has dropped below even the rated range (I do expect the rated range to achievable once the weather warms up)
 
Let me also add that I've tried the 110V slow charge at various amperages. I've tried running it down close to 0 a few times. I have used NEMA 14-50, J1772, HPWC and 14-30. I've tried multiple combinations of all of these with never an increase in rated range, it's always the same or ticking lower by a mile.

Well that really does suck. I wonder if they can temporarily "upgrade" you to a 60 and do a top balance. Has any of the Tesla service people given you a real read on the capacity?
 
This part is the part that should make you feel better. Since your car is a 60, but firmware limited to 40, the chances that your pack is different is the same chance as any other randomly selected 60.
I'm fairly confident this is incorrect. I expect, statistically speaking, more 60 owners are in the sweet spot [20,80]% of their battery than 40 owners. I don't have any data to back it up, but that's my expectation. I expect 40 owners to reach below 20% a lot more than 60 owners.

If Tesla put the 40 charging in the [20,N+20] range instead of the [0,N] range, then what you're suggesting is likely.
 
The cold weather may be a factor as well. I "lost" about 30 miles on my round trip to work and home yesterday. Tempearture here was < 20 F for most of the day. I think our lithium powered devices would also deplete their charge faster if they were out in the cold. On the 60 kW I also have the "vampire drain", which to me is more of a problem than the cold weather drain.
 
Interesting. markb, I'd say that it is extremely unlikely that you've actually experienced any real range loss given what we know is the normal behavior of the Model S battery packs so far.



This part is the part that should make you feel better. Since your car is a 60, but firmware limited to 40, the chances that your pack is different is the same chance as any other randomly selected 60. Matter of fact, since you never charge above 2/3's and the fact that you never Supercharge, your pack's actual capacity loss curve is likely going to be far better than any other 60's that do those two things. Check out islandbayy's 60's capacity after how many Supercharges? However, it is likely that you cannot range charge and force a top balance. Therefore, the capacity loss that you see is either 1) BMS compensation for temperature 2) firmware bug 3) inability to balance 4) really, really bad degradation that Tesla is hiding from you.

I guess I'm interested in understanding your fear. I know the fear is real and I'm curious. Are you worried that at some point, if you elect to upgrade to 60 kWh, it won't be 60 kWh? Or are you worried that your 60 pack has degraded by 30+% already such that it is actually affecting your 40's range? Did Tesla talk to you about possibly doing a rough bottom balance? As in drive it down to near 0 and then slow charge on 110v to your 100% (which is really < 70%) and leave it at the 100% charging for a while?

It is not my fear, it is my reality. Soon after I got my car, I took a 120 mile trip and had 30 or 40 rated and 50 projected miles remaining. There is no way I would attempt that trip again, probably not even in the summer.

It is a 75 mile round trip to visit my son. When I start out with 116 or 118 rated miles in our NY winter, that is not a comfortable trip. My lost 20+ miles would provide an adequate cushion of comfort.

And it doesn't matter to me if it is a software or hardware problem. The miles ain't there anymore - that is all that is important.
 
Brianman,

But isn't your 20-80% numbers raw Li-Ion percents which are not the same as the cars range *20%-80%. Using my 85kWh as an example, 0 Range ~= 8% SOC, which, because of the protected lower end of about 5% is really about 13%. That means when talking 20%-80% you really are talking about Tesla SOC 13% - 85%, or in my car (248 max), 13-230 rated miles.

Peter


I'm fairly confident this is incorrect. I expect, statistically speaking, more 60 owners are in the sweet spot [20,80]% of their battery than 40 owners. I don't have any data to back it up, but that's my expectation. I expect 40 owners to reach below 20% a lot more than 60 owners.

If Tesla put the 40 charging in the [20,N+20] range instead of the [0,N] range, then what you're suggesting is likely.