So, as many of you may or may not know, more than a few cars have had their entire high voltage pack replaced under warranty.
I recently had mine replaced, and it has brought up what could be a serious policy issue at Tesla. Tesla has proposed a workaround for me, but I am skeptical about it. Here goes:
So in January, my pack fails and leaves me mildly stranded. Tesla Ranger service is awesome. They come and get the car the next day and replaced the pack in 1 day. I'm told my high voltage pack failed but not given much else.
The car is brought back to me and I immediately notice that my standard rated range is less than I was expecting. I had known my max rated range just before the pack failed to be 257 miles. So I range charged my replacement battery and now can only get 250 miles rated.
I contacted Tesla and was told:
1. Engineering since 2 firmwares ago has been altering how the rated range is calculated adjusting for how the driver drives. It's a work in progress and not a published one.
If this is true, why would the ideal range also be less? Is ideal also affected by driver style and why would that be? I asked why Tesla has said anything about this change and recommended they do so.
2. Engineering recommends that I charge the car to 100%. Unplug it for 30 minutes and then drive it down to 20% and leave it unplugged for 30 minutes. Then recharge to 100%, unplug, and repeat 3 times total. This is supposed to have the pack relearn how I drive and is supposed to increase rated/ideal range.
This is quite the protocol and not going to be easy with my 10 minute or less commute, but I will do it. I want the miles back if possible.
3. Finally, engineering recommended balancing. They told me to charge to 100% and leave it that way for 3 days without driving.
I hadn't heard this method of balancing.
I haven't followed some of the threads here, but I am skeptical as to why doing any of this will restore my range to a higher state. I'm still going to do it, but I suspect my refurbished type A pack has more miles on it (a lower SOC) than my original type A pack, and that the current corporate policy is just to replace it with what is available, get the car on the road quickly, and not worry about SOC. It's new territory in terms of policy for sure. I hate to have had to trailblaze again. I know several others that have had a new pack replaced with a better battery (B) with higher range (272 reported here). So some driver's driving styles don't affect rated and ideal range? Others have received refurbished A packs, B packs, and I even saw a D pack here that looked like a refurb sticker. What happened to their SOC's? Better, worse, the same? I can't see how it could be right that my replacement battery for their pack failure can do less than what I turned in and that some technical feat of charging will change magically things. I think I just received a worn pack that will never do what my original pack was able to do.
Again, I am going to go through the motions and then recontact Tesla and recontact you here, because I think this is an important issue. Anyone else going through something like this?
I recently had mine replaced, and it has brought up what could be a serious policy issue at Tesla. Tesla has proposed a workaround for me, but I am skeptical about it. Here goes:
So in January, my pack fails and leaves me mildly stranded. Tesla Ranger service is awesome. They come and get the car the next day and replaced the pack in 1 day. I'm told my high voltage pack failed but not given much else.
The car is brought back to me and I immediately notice that my standard rated range is less than I was expecting. I had known my max rated range just before the pack failed to be 257 miles. So I range charged my replacement battery and now can only get 250 miles rated.
I contacted Tesla and was told:
1. Engineering since 2 firmwares ago has been altering how the rated range is calculated adjusting for how the driver drives. It's a work in progress and not a published one.
If this is true, why would the ideal range also be less? Is ideal also affected by driver style and why would that be? I asked why Tesla has said anything about this change and recommended they do so.
2. Engineering recommends that I charge the car to 100%. Unplug it for 30 minutes and then drive it down to 20% and leave it unplugged for 30 minutes. Then recharge to 100%, unplug, and repeat 3 times total. This is supposed to have the pack relearn how I drive and is supposed to increase rated/ideal range.
This is quite the protocol and not going to be easy with my 10 minute or less commute, but I will do it. I want the miles back if possible.
3. Finally, engineering recommended balancing. They told me to charge to 100% and leave it that way for 3 days without driving.
I hadn't heard this method of balancing.
I haven't followed some of the threads here, but I am skeptical as to why doing any of this will restore my range to a higher state. I'm still going to do it, but I suspect my refurbished type A pack has more miles on it (a lower SOC) than my original type A pack, and that the current corporate policy is just to replace it with what is available, get the car on the road quickly, and not worry about SOC. It's new territory in terms of policy for sure. I hate to have had to trailblaze again. I know several others that have had a new pack replaced with a better battery (B) with higher range (272 reported here). So some driver's driving styles don't affect rated and ideal range? Others have received refurbished A packs, B packs, and I even saw a D pack here that looked like a refurb sticker. What happened to their SOC's? Better, worse, the same? I can't see how it could be right that my replacement battery for their pack failure can do less than what I turned in and that some technical feat of charging will change magically things. I think I just received a worn pack that will never do what my original pack was able to do.
Again, I am going to go through the motions and then recontact Tesla and recontact you here, because I think this is an important issue. Anyone else going through something like this?
Last edited: