Unusual energy graph after I left my car at Discount Tire overnight

TennTSLA · Mar 20, 2014

So last week I got a nail in one of my tires when driving home from work. Since they already had close to 18K miles on them I decided to just go ahead and replace the whole set. I ended up ordering a set of 21" Hankook Ventus tires and arranged through Tesla to have the car towed from my home to the nearest Discount Tire which was the closest Tesla recommend tire shop near me. I went off to work thinking everything would be fine...I should have known better.

My wife picked up the car this afternoon and told me it seemed like there were a lot more miles ticked off the range than she expected (about 13). I didn't think much of it until I got home and brought up the energy statistics for the last 30 miles the car was driven. I think this picture speaks for itself and I bet everyone can guess when I suspect the guys at Discount Tire were having A LOT of fun with my Model S

...

From what I can tell they had the pedal pinned to the floor for a good two miles. I guess I'm thankful that these guys didn't seem to damage the car of get in a major accident but boy seeing something like that pisses me off. I'll be calling Tesla first thing in the morning to request that they take at least this Discount Tire location off there recommended list and then will be stopping by Discount Tire to have a not-so-friendly conversation with them.

UPDATE: After reading through these posts and talking with Tesla themselves I do not believe that my car was subjected to an extremely spirited joyride by someone at Discount Tire. More than likely the spike on this energy graph was the result of the car being left on while the tires were being replaced. My full updated apology is on post #39.

nwdiver · Mar 20, 2014

Do they have a dyno and would they have had a reason to use it? That's another explanation...

andrewket · Mar 20, 2014

It is a bit unusual to see a straight line up and a straight line down on a peak like that. I suspect that's what a dyno run might look like?

JPP · Mar 20, 2014

...download and install VisibleTesla. It will record all trips with graphs and GPS.

AoneOne · Mar 20, 2014

Ignorance was bliss: in most other cars you wouldn't have known about the joy ride, but once again Tesla shows us the wanton behavior we've always suspected of car dealers and service shops is sometimes real. A PIN-controlled valet/limit mode seems even more like a necessary enhancement.

Benjamin Brooks · Mar 20, 2014

JPP said:
...download and install VisibleTesla. It will record all trips with graphs and GPS.

Unfortunately there's no way to password protect (or otherwise secure) the disabling of Remote Access feature in the car once someone has the key...

Shumdit · Mar 20, 2014

Hasn't it happened before that people thought Tesla was doing the same thing when servicing their cars, but it turned out that the gauge will show such spikes when there is big electrical load during sitting while messing with the A/C, Radio, etc.?

Odenator · Mar 20, 2014

May I recommend that before you accuse a business of unprofessional behavior to consider that the spike in energy use may be due to the car running and using battery power while parked. I saw a similar spike in my power graph after picking up my car from the auto body shop and I am 100% sure none of the techs were joyriding in my car without a front end.

TennTSLA · Mar 20, 2014

I guess in my fury I never stopped to think about how I probably couldn't emulate that kind of spike even if I tried. I'm not sure what they would have done to create it. As far as I know all they did was tow and then swap out the tires which would have involved putting the car in the highest suspension setting and then putting it in "jack" mode for when they had to take the wheels off...I don't suppose either of those could have created a spike? Plus it lasts on the chart for at least two miles. I'll give the Tesla service guys (who have been great to deal with) a call first thing in the morning to see if they can shed some light on what may have happened. Until then, I'm open to entertaining any and all theories.

dsm363 · Mar 20, 2014

Tesla should be able to pull logs for you like you said. Hopefully no one took it for a joyride.

paulkva · Mar 20, 2014

For what it's worth: a month or two ago I had to wait in my car for ~30 minutes in cold weather (close to 32F, maybe below, but I forget). The car was on and heat was running, and I basically didn't move. I lost maybe 5-10 miles of rated range in that time. And after I got going again, my energy graph looked VERY similar to the one at the top of this thread -- it stayed pegged at 900+ for >3 miles, even though I was driving conservatively.

I can't say for sure if that's what happened in this case, but it could be consistent with just leaving the car "on" for an hour or more.

I'm trying to get into the habit of noting my odometer reading (or trip meter mileage) when I drop my car off with a valet (fortunately very rare for me).

If you're still suspicious, I wonder if Tesla is able to pull up logs in cases like these. I don't remember reading a situation where anyone has even asked them to try.

Kraken · Mar 20, 2014

TennTSLA said:
I guess in my fury I never stopped to think about how I probably couldn't emulate that kind of spike even if I tried. I'm not sure what they would have done to create it. As far as I know all they did was tow and then swap out the tires which would have involved putting the car in the highest suspension setting and then putting it in "jack" mode for when they had to take the wheels off...I don't suppose either of those could have created a spike? Plus it lasts on the chart for at least two miles. I'll give the Tesla service guys (who have been great to deal with) a call first thing in the morning to see if they can shed some light on what may have happened. Until then, I'm open to entertaining any and all theories.

discount tires logs the mileage of the vehicle... If you didn't. This looks exactly like what happens any time the car is being serviced. Energy usage doesn't mean mileage spent. Just like if you left a gas car sit in idle long enough... All the gas burns and you have a zero mpg.

Energy used while in service appears to get spread out over the next few miles. While they are in and out of the car, it will stay active and use energy. They likely didn't take the car for a joy ride. Constant ups and downs would be more evident than a solid max out like that.

VolkerP · Mar 21, 2014

While stationary energy usage will produce a spike in Wh/mi, the energy app has distance as its axis, not time. The peak lasts for 2 miles.

Still unclear where to run the car full flat for 2 miles.

Mookuh · Mar 21, 2014

VolkerP said:
While stationary energy usage will produce a spike in Wh/mi, the energy app has distance as its axis, not time. The peak lasts for 2 miles.

Still unclear where to run the car full flat for 2 miles.

The axis is distance, but I think the graph is still "average consumption", not "live" consumption? If it is, then the solution is that having the car sit idle, while using energy, will let the average energy/mile tend towards infinity.
You don't notice this at a red light because the graph spreads it out over the next/last few meters, but if it's sitting there for a day it might look like that.

Rainbow · Mar 21, 2014

The evidence does seem to suggest that there was a joyride that seems abusive. I would suggest contacting Tesla and have them take a better look and give you their interpretation before making more accusations. Maybe there is some other explanation.

Sometimes a test drive it is necessary when a car is serviced. Though I'm skeptical that for just changing tires it would be necessary to take such an apparently long test drive, and to seemingly lay into it so hard.

steve841 · Mar 21, 2014

I had something similar at the SC once and thought the same thing .... I asked the service manager and he said he had no idea why it was off the scale but that no one drove it. 2nd trip to SC, same thing. Asked again and service manager and I both deduced (like Mookuh), the doors were open, the a/c running and the entire system being on was the culprit.

So, the worry for me is no longer there.

dhrivnak · Mar 21, 2014

I would really call discount tire first. It seems more probable that they used a dynamic to balance the wheels or they were using the AC while parked than the drive the car 2 miles floored. That would be 130 mph. 5 here are very few places where that can be done near a tire store.

ElSupreme · Mar 21, 2014

Looks to me like idle power consumption, averaged over ~2 miles. If you do floor it for that long, the initial rise is not vertical, and neither is the trailing edge. Your graph is not indicative of driving behavior.

And I would fully understand if I had all four tires replaced and they did at least drive a few miles on them. Either on roads, or a test rig of some sort. Seems prudent given the task at hand.

Gizmotoy · Mar 21, 2014

Sometimes when I go get takeout, while I'm inside waiting on my food I fire up the app, set the climate control full blast on HI. Then drive back with my food under the heater and the sunroof open. Wasteful, but I love me some hot takeout.

To the point, my graph after a takeout run looks like the one you pictured here. It really freaks out the energy display graph.

wycolo · Mar 21, 2014

Suggest TITLE of thread be changed until proven otherwise.

Discount Tires been very very good to both Roadster and Model_S in various ways - excellent people there at *several* different locations.

This problem must be some strange anomaly with the GUI.
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Unusual energy graph after I left my car at Discount Tire overnight

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