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Prospering, for your own good, warranty, supercharging, proof of life etc etc....

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[Moderator: this conversation was carved put of How-many-potential-buyers-worry-about-roadtrips as off topic for that thread]


Despite ad hominem attacks which I believe transgress the rules of this forum I will continue.

My interest is to see Tesla prosper and not be brought down by the reckless actions of others.

Statements, that I assume will soon be forthcoming, like " I paid for this car and I should be able to do what the heck I like with it !"
will need to be challenged in some cases.

Mr Musk has brought to market a unique vehicle which was made possible with proven present day technology.

That being said anyone driving these vehicles, especially the Model S, should consider themselves to be an early adopter.
In about twenty years or so lithium battery technology will be mature. It will be resilient to what some may be doing which could be likened to abuse.
I would hate someone to have to berate themselves for ending up with a pooched battery pack, when it was not stupidity that did it, you were just not informed.

They say that experience is what you get - just after you needed it. Please take the time to peruse a few battery pack threads on this forum. You could begin with :
Tesla Motors Forum Model S Model S: Battery and Charging
In particular Long Term Battery Care and Charging Habits

See post #60 particularly the lifetime graph - from Panasonic - of battery capacity against total charge cycles.
I have read this whole thread and the practice which I read here - of high speed driving that entails more supercharger stops yet doesn't improve average speed but is still considered acceptable behavior is what caught my eye. That sort of activity, although somewhat fun, has got to go. It is a recipe for disaster that WILL cause rapid fading of charge capacity.

Reliance should not be placed on the favorable longterm reports of the roadster experience despite its population of 2600 vehicles. This is inapplicable since these models are not equipped to take advantage of the Supercharger. With some of the shenanigans that could be perpetrated regarding the use of the Supercharger network with Model S and beyond, I would almost have to say that this now looks to be a good thing.

That said, perhaps current owners could quote the STANDARD warranty on the battery itself ? I am lead to believe that it is four years or 50,000 miles whichever is earlier. Perhaps the persons now giving their battery packs the "works" could enlighten us.

Here is one way you can look at this. Owners who are contemplating selling in a few years, because that's what their ownership history reveals, are actually holding the car hostage from future buyers. The owner is going to demand a price for release of the car. Naturally the buyer has no way of knowing how the hostage car has been treated. And from a Russell Crowe movie I once watched, the buyer will want "Proof of Life". I do apologise if anyone is offended by this unintentional dark humour.

However providing such information for Proof of Life may not be that difficult. I would think that a suitably modified Supercharger, which already involves a direct DC link, could provide capability of draining the battery almost to the 3.0V cell level, in around two hours say, by sending the power back to the grid. But I expect there to be repercussions when a battery, previously rated at 85Kwh has been found to have slipped below the 40Kwh line, for example. Does anyone think that this is not going to impact resale value ? Worse still is when the news gets expanded by SA,MF and their ilk which may dampen future sales and affect me personally in the value of my stockholdings.

Thank you trigga for responding to my previous post in a polite manner but I am concerned about your battery since the mileage you are racking up may cause the warranty to expire in about a year.

Several other drivers, 7k after 5 months, 16k in 22 months and 40k in 20 months should be ok. Incidently the latter vehicle has the 85Kwh pack.

But aviators99 overuse of the SC may impact longevity of the battery, and trigga survives because the nearest SC is out of his way and the deep cycles are currently being replenished at the lower 6.6Kw rate at the moment.

And now to those who take offence at any of this. GET OFF MY GRASS. Thankyou
 
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Despite ad hominem attacks which I believe transgress the rules of this forum I will continue.

My interest is to see Tesla prosper and not be brought down by the reckless actions of others.

Statements, that I assume will soon be forthcoming, like " I paid for this car and I should be able to do what the heck I like with it !"
will need to be challenged in some cases.

Mr Musk has brought to market a unique vehicle which was made possible with proven present day technology.

That being said anyone driving these vehicles, especially the Model S, should consider themselves to be an early adopter.
In about twenty years or so lithium battery technology will be mature. It will be resilient to what some may be doing which could be likened to abuse.
I would hate someone to have to berate themselves for ending up with a pooched battery pack, when it was not stupidity that did it, you were just not informed.

They say that experience is what you get - just after you needed it. Please take the time to peruse a few battery pack threads on this forum. You could begin with :
Tesla Motors Forum Model S Model S: Battery and Charging
In particular Long Term Battery Care and Charging Habits

See post #60 particularly the lifetime graph - from Panasonic - of battery capacity against total charge cycles.
I have read this whole thread and the practice which I read here - of high speed driving that entails more supercharger stops yet doesn't improve average speed but is still considered acceptable behavior is what caught my eye. That sort of activity, although somewhat fun, has got to go. It is a recipe for disaster that WILL cause rapid fading of charge capacity.

Reliance should not be placed on the favorable longterm reports of the roadster experience despite its population of 2600 vehicles. This is inapplicable since these models are not equipped to take advantage of the Supercharger. With some of the shenanigans that could be perpetrated regarding the use of the Supercharger network with Model S and beyond, I would almost have to say that this now looks to be a good thing.

That said, perhaps current owners could quote the STANDARD warranty on the battery itself ? I am lead to believe that it is four years or 50,000 miles whichever is earlier. Perhaps the persons now giving their battery packs the "works" could enlighten us.

Here is one way you can look at this. Owners who are contemplating selling in a few years, because that's what their ownership history reveals, are actually holding the car hostage from future buyers. The owner is going to demand a price for release of the car. Naturally the buyer has no way of knowing how the hostage car has been treated. And from a Russell Crowe movie I once watched, the buyer will want "Proof of Life". I do apologise if anyone is offended by this unintentional dark humour.

However providing such information for Proof of Life may not be that difficult. I would think that a suitably modified Supercharger, which already involves a direct DC link, could provide capability of draining the battery almost to the 3.0V cell level, in around two hours say, by sending the power back to the grid. But I expect there to be repercussions when a battery, previously rated at 85Kwh has been found to have slipped below the 40Kwh line, for example. Does anyone think that this is not going to impact resale value ? Worse still is when the news gets expanded by SA,MF and their ilk which may dampen future sales and affect me personally in the value of my stockholdings.

Thank you trigga for responding to my previous post in a polite manner but I am concerned about your battery since the mileage you are racking up may cause the warranty to expire in about a year.

Several other drivers, 7k after 5 months, 16k in 22 months and 40k in 20 months should be ok. Incidently the latter vehicle has the 85Kwh pack.

But aviators99 overuse of the SC may impact longevity of the battery, and trigga survives because the nearest SC is out of his way and the deep cycles are currently being replenished at the lower 6.6Kw rate at the moment.

And now to those who take offence at any of this. GET OFF MY GRASS. Thankyou

What attacks? What evidence do you have that an 85 kWh pack would slip to below 40 anytime this decade.

Lead to believe by whom? Please provide links as the battery has an 8 year 100,000 or unlimited mileage warranty depending on battery pack size.
 
In about twenty years or so lithium battery technology will be mature. It will be resilient to what some may be doing which could be likened to abuse.

Can you quote proof? Why 20? Why not 2 years? Why not 200 years?


See post #60 particularly the lifetime graph - from Panasonic - of battery capacity against total charge cycles.

So if I follow your cool graph for that battery chemistry unused by Tesla, I see that a 85kwh will drop to 66kwh after 120'000 miles. I'm not sure how 66Kwh is "below the 40Kwh line"?


That said, perhaps current owners could quote the STANDARD warranty on the battery itself ?

I could... or you could just Google it:

* 60 kWh battery has an eight year or 125,000 mile, whichever comes first, battery warranty
* 85 kWh battery has an eight year, unlimited mile battery warranty

Both battery warranties cover damage from improper charging procedures and battery fire, even if the fire results from driver error



I am lead to believe that it is four years or 50,000 miles whichever is earlier.

I recommend being more selective about who you believe.


Thank you trigga for responding to my previous post in a polite manner but I am concerned about your battery since the mileage you are racking up may cause the warranty to expire in about a year.

As an actual owner, trigga can luckily rely on his own actual warranty information, so you don't have to be concerned on his behalf.
 
The warranty on 60kWh batteries, is 8 years or 125k miles, whichever comes sooner. The warranty on 85kWh batteries is 8 years, unlimited mileage.

I have spoken to Elon Musk personally about supercharging and he was adamant that owners should use Superchargers "as much as they wish" without fear of the impact it might have on long term battery capacity. He said that he expected significant numbers of owners in London (who may not have access to off street parking at home) would use them for all their charging, which was absolutely fine.

Panasonic have never released data on the cells supplied to Tesla (which are not a standard product, even if they are based on one), and certainly not for the expected lifetime behaviour of their cells when contained in a temperature controlled liquid cooled enclosure with the most advanced battery management software available. Speculating based on what happens to a generic panasonic cell when contained in a passively cooled laptop battery enclosure really is just inflammatory nonsense.

Also while a supercharger sounds like a really big aggressive beast it's actually not particularly high powered relative to the size of the battery. 120kW is only 1.5C, and the large majority of charging with a supercharger is around 1C or below, which is no problem at all for a modern lithium ion battery and especially one which is being actively temperature managed.

Please provide a credible reference, source, etc to support your assertion that "It is a recipe for disaster that WILL cause rapid fading of charge capacity".
 
I haven't done the math but I believe at my current rate the car warranty will expire in an year or so. The separate battery warranty will be 2/3 years.
I believe the thread was split for this reason but if the (my) battery is replaced what warranty is on the replacement?
 
If the battery is replaced under warranty the new one will be warranted until the original warranty expires (i.e. you will get 8 years / 125k miles of total warranty included and no more).

If you buy a new battery it will come with a new warranty, obviously.
 
I asked
perhaps current owners could quote the STANDARD warranty on the battery itself ?

deonb writes in his own inimitable style :
I could... or you could just Google it:

* 60 kWh battery has an eight year or 125,000 mile, whichever comes first, battery warranty
* 85 kWh battery has an eight year, unlimited mile battery warranty

deonb that is not a scientific statement it tells us nothing about what constitutes failure.
The allowable drop off is usually 20% but sometimes 30% is used for commercial batteries elsewhere. That is a necessary part of the warranty which is strangely missing here. Basically there are two types of deleterious effect. Loss of Charge obviously, but also increase of the Internal Impedance which may be detected as an excessive battery voltage droop on full load. Most decent controllers monitor this and will automatically reduce the value at which current limiting starts to be applied. In the car you will notice this primarily above 40mph as it will manifest itself as drop off in acceleration.
On more reputable postings on the Gen III forum sometime in May 2014 and of which I was unaware until yesterday, it appears that the anxiety of overuse of superchargers relative to battery pack warranty has already been raised by Kitt and others. Had I have known that I can assure you I would have stayed lurking and you would never have heard from me. But that's my job - fixin' up the internet. And I will have more to say here on this subject but I have to leave right now.

 
I asked
perhaps current owners could quote the STANDARD warranty on the battery itself ?

deonb writes in his own inimitable style :
I could... or you could just Google it:

* 60 kWh battery has an eight year or 125,000 mile, whichever comes first, battery warranty
* 85 kWh battery has an eight year, unlimited mile battery warranty

deonb that is not a scientific statement it tells us nothing about what constitutes failure.
The allowable drop off is usually 20% but sometimes 30% is used for commercial batteries elsewhere. That is a necessary part of the warranty which is strangely missing here. Basically there are two types of deleterious effect. Loss of Charge obviously, but also increase of the Internal Impedance which may be detected as an excessive battery voltage droop on full load. Most decent controllers monitor this and will automatically reduce the value at which current limiting starts to be applied. In the car you will notice this primarily above 40mph as it will manifest itself as drop off in acceleration.
On more reputable postings on the Gen III forum sometime in May 2014 and of which I was unaware until yesterday, it appears that the anxiety of overuse of superchargers relative to battery pack warranty has already been raised by Kitt and others. Had I have known that I can assure you I would have stayed lurking and you would never have heard from me. But that's my job - fixin' up the internet. And I will have more to say here on this subject but I have to leave right now.



Do you have or are you getting a Tesla? Some of us have driven over 40,000 miles in one and haven't seen anything close to the drop in range you are attempting to scare people with. Please provide some evidence of 20-30% drops in range in anything approaching a decade. One owner at TMC Connect had 100,000 miles on his car in about 18 months and wasn't even at a 5% decrease in range after more than weekly Supercharging.

Link to this reputable post you use as evidence?
 
dsm363, regarding a reputable post on this subject. People usually don't write about their failures, but in my 35yrs associated with electric vehicle construction there have been stories floating around about 96v Pb-acid battery packs being reduced to lead soup within eighteen months of hard driving at 60+mph.

It would therefore be natural to assume that fast charging is probably as bad as rapid discharge. Back in the day fast charging at race tracks was accomplished by having another Pb-acid pack trailered in for the purpose. But it was a given that longevity in calendar months was clearly not a consideration with the racing crowd.

Fast forwarding to today, a a 300amp supercharger is also clearly not in the same class as a 30amp dryer receptacle . As for your side I don't think there are any reliable stats either, for regular use of superchargers although I have to say that making them completely free may not have been the wisest decision in retrospect, human nature being what it is. All we really have is individual accounts and I am not going to extrapolate them on to include thousands of other users many of whom may not use superchargers at all. All I can say is that I acknowledge that you are 40K miles down the road and haven't yet seen anything close to the drop in range you think I am attempting to scare people with, well good for you. So.. what is the degradation you have measured ?
Of course Seattle is a temperate climate no extremes of heat or cold so I would expect the figure to be better than almost anywhere else in North America.
What can you tell us that Tesla doing to placate those who are nervous about continuous supercharger use ? I would like to see some qualification before we get to the 40Kw GEN III stage that perhaps lesser batteries will be getting lesser miles per 20 minute charge than the 85Kwhr is able to get. I do happen to be aware that charging current tapers against rising pack temperature and that maybe there are plans afoot to prep the pack with supercooling prior to arriving at the SC station.
There are other people here who think as I do, but probably not many, like TEG below.
Finally - yes I do intend to get a GENIII in about four years, following the first year of production. I intend to use superchargers when I need to. Hopefully by then we will have a handle on their effect and maybe this will turn out to be just a storm in a teacup and perhaps some potential buyers will have read these words and decided that moderation in their use of the SC will safeguard their investment.

From charging only at supercharging stations bad for battery life?
TEG writes 2012-10-22

I still wonder about this. In general, quick charging can cause cell heating which can cause accelerated cell degradation.

For instance, see this:
http://www.americas.fujielectric.com...%208-13-12.pdf

Will Quick Charging Harm the Battery?
...
Cell and Module Overvoltage and High Heat will Damage Battery Systems
...

But Tesla Model S has:

* Largest pack capacity in the industry.
* Active cooling system.
* Recent cell chemistry update.

So, maybe they have overcome issues that can affect other EVs?

I think this is a very valid question / concern, so hopefully Tesla is very clear if they think it is OK to use lots of Supercharging or not.

Also, the answer for 60kWh pack could be different for 85kWh pack.
 
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dsm363, regarding a reputable post on this subject. People usually don't write about their failures, but in my 35yrs associated with electric vehicle construction there have been stories floating around about 96v Pb-acid battery packs being reduced to lead soup within eighteen months of hard driving at 60+mph.

It would therefore be natural to assume that fast charging is probably as bad as rapid discharge. Back in the day fast charging at race tracks was accomplished by having another Pb-acid pack trailered in for the purpose. But it was a given that longevity in calendar months was clearly not a consideration with the racing crowd.

Why do you think that poorly treated Pb-acid batteries should react the exact say way as conditioned Litium-ion? That's like saying lemons are sour so oranges should be also. Also it's possible that technology has moved on in the last 35 years.

BTW, you quoted TEG (I fixed your quote formatting and added a hyperlink) so I assume you read the rest of that thread and you also know now that Tesla has said you can supercharge as often as you like without causing harm to the battery.
 
This is a segment from post #5 by mgboyes
I have spoken to Elon Musk personally about supercharging and he was adamant that owners should use Superchargers "as much as they wish" without fear of the impact it might have on long term battery capacity. He said that he expected significant numbers of owners in London (who may not have access to off street parking at home) would use them for all their charging, which was absolutely fine.

From NigelM post #12 you also know now that Tesla has said you can supercharge as often as you like without causing harm to the battery.

Nigel I don't see this in the car warranty. What I do see happening is an awful lot of trust placed on previous hearsay which now gets trotted out as company policy.

Then there is the Fuji Electric link. Fuji wants to supply chargers hence this pamphlet. They include a graph of A123's number of charge cycles versus retained capacity for a non specific cell chemistry. Note this manufacturer is no longer in business.

Fujitsu then uses Mitsubishi MIEV marketing. Again note the words in bold. text.
Repeated use of a DC Fast Charge, "Level 3" quick-charge unit negatively affects the long-term performance of the battery pack that powers most plug-in vehicles, right? Wrong, according to Mitsubishi. Officials over at Mitsubishi believe that even daily use of a quick-charge unit won't have much overall affect on the battery pack found in the 2012 Mitsubishi i. "We expect a daily quick charge not to have a significant toll on battery life." According to Arnett, the automaker expects its battery packs to retain around 80 percent of their original capacity after ten years of real-world use. That 80 percent estimate reportedly includes frequent use of a quickcharge station. Still, Mitsubishi is smart enough not to really encourage exclusive use of quick-charge stations. Rather, the automaker is implying that a once-a-day quick-charge won't hurt life or capacity much, so go ahead and quickcharge your i whenever necessary."

No direct statements but reportedly, believe, expect, implying, according to.......hmmmm
In the past Mr Musk has been misled by others several times and in major ways, but those mistakes have been rectified and it serves no one to bring them out now.

I liken the use of superchargers as eating candy. OK in moderation.

Am I to be reassured when I read :
Panasonic have never released data on the cells supplied to Tesla (which are not a standard product, even if they are based on one), and certainly not for the expected lifetime behaviour of their cells when contained in a temperature controlled liquid cooled enclosure with the most advanced battery management software available.
Speculating based on what happens to a generic panasonic cell when contained in a passively cooled laptop battery enclosure really is just inflammatory nonsense.
Is that so Mr Boyes. Unless the speculations are accurate what then ? I guess time will tell in time.

See, it is not up to me to provide any proof. The onus is on you to prove the ongoing safety of the practice. You are the ones making the claim.

BTW Nigel thanks for fixing the link
 
The warranty on 60kWh batteries, is 8 years or 125k miles, whichever comes sooner. The warranty on 85kWh batteries is 8 years, unlimited mileage.

I have spoken to Elon Musk personally about supercharging and he was adamant that owners should use Superchargers "as much as they wish" without fear of the impact it might have on long term battery capacity. He said that he expected significant numbers of owners in London (who may not have access to off street parking at home) would use them for all their charging, which was absolutely fine.

Panasonic have never released data on the cells supplied to Tesla (which are not a standard product, even if they are based on one), and certainly not for the expected lifetime behaviour of their cells when contained in a temperature controlled liquid cooled enclosure with the most advanced battery management software available. Speculating based on what happens to a generic panasonic cell when contained in a passively cooled laptop battery enclosure really is just inflammatory nonsense.

Also while a supercharger sounds like a really big aggressive beast it's actually not particularly high powered relative to the size of the battery. 120kW is only 1.5C, and the large majority of charging with a supercharger is around 1C or below, which is no problem at all for a modern lithium ion battery and especially one which is being actively temperature managed.

Please provide a credible reference, source, etc to support your assertion that "It is a recipe for disaster that WILL cause rapid fading of charge capacity".
Mr Boyes you want me gone ? OK I want one thing from you. What exactly is the new battery warranty ? OR
What conditions do I experience that may indicate that I should require a new battery during the eight years that the warranty runs for ?

Some of the regular posters don't have quite the technical background needed which can then cause them to shout 'troll' when it is unwarranted. Recently a poster by the name of Red Sage inadvertantly demontrated that he didn't understand the meaning of mpge. Others were trying to set him right so I didn't jump in. There are a lot of followers here who want every car that is introduced, including the Model III, to be a track car. I think Tesla should be on guard against those who lease the car, i.e. have only a small financial stake in the car, with the intention of running the wheels off it. I, as an investor, have a right to be sure that the warranty protects the company against misuse. So far I have not been able to find that assurance.
 
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I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill.

For most people, the ratio of supercharger charges to normal charges will be ridiculously small. So the net impact of driving faster on road trips that requite superchargers will be essentially zero.

There are a very small percentage of people who will primarily supercharge. While we don't have data on supercharger impact on cell longevity, the folks at Tesla get data from every battery pack on the road. I'm quite sure they have this data and are continuously refining their battery lifetime models and charging curves.

I think the key technical factors are:

1) Tesla's battery cooling system is much better than anything you'll see on any other EV. That allows them to keep the cells from overheating while fast-charging.
2) My guess it that Tesla is better than anyone else at using the battery pack data to control fast-charging voltage and amperage in real time.

The combination of the two should allow frequent fast charges without significant impact on battery lifetime.

Tesla is clearly ahead of everyone else in mitigating battery wear. I've suffered zero range loss in 1.75 years and almost 30K miles. And I keep my car parked out in the open where the battery can get pretty hot. The Idaho National Lab folks testing Leafs report an average of 14% range loss at the 30K mile mark. Of course, their test cycle looks like a deep-charge cycle to me whereas my typical charge cycle is fairly shallow (typically 40/50 - 80%).

I think it's possible that if you really did supercharge instead of L2 charge for years, your battery degradation might be bad, especially if you were doing really deep charges. But I think the number of people who will actually do this is so small that Tesla will be better off replacing the handful of batteries that have problems as opposed to trying to prevent the rest of us from doing something we would never do anyway.
 
I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill.

For most people, the ratio of supercharger charges to normal charges will be ridiculously small. So the net impact of driving faster on road trips that requite superchargers will be essentially zero.

There are a very small percentage of people who will primarily supercharge. While we don't have data on supercharger impact on cell longevity, the folks at Tesla get data from every battery pack on the road. I'm quite sure they have this data and are continuously refining their battery lifetime models and charging curves.

I think the key technical factors are:

1) Tesla's battery cooling system is much better than anything you'll see on any other EV. That allows them to keep the cells from overheating while fast-charging.
2) My guess it that Tesla is better than anyone else at using the battery pack data to control fast-charging voltage and amperage in real time.

The combination of the two should allow frequent fast charges without significant impact on battery lifetime.

Tesla is clearly ahead of everyone else in mitigating battery wear. I've suffered zero range loss in 1.75 years and almost 30K miles. And I keep my car parked out in the open where the battery can get pretty hot. The Idaho National Lab folks testing Leafs report an average of 14% range loss at the 30K mile mark. Of course, their test cycle looks like a deep-charge cycle to me whereas my typical charge cycle is fairly shallow (typically 40/50 - 80%).

I think it's possible that if you really did supercharge instead of L2 charge for years, your battery degradation might be bad, especially if you were doing really deep charges. But I think the number of people who will actually do this is so small that Tesla will be better off replacing the handful of batteries that have problems as opposed to trying to prevent the rest of us from doing something we would never do anyway.
Molehill ? Well that is a matter of opinion. So did you see the video btw? Seems unlikely. To your next point. From the video it would be unwise to use superchargers if the battery pack is warm through spirited driving. OTOH supercharging of a cool pack is preferable to the longer charge of an L2 charger. It hinges on the temperature of the cells. You want them to be as cool as possible for as long as possible. But conversely you want them above room temperature while driving. At the supercharger they should be cooled. I think that is why a software change is in the works such that when the driver indicates that the car is to be supercharged at the next stop, the system will take the opportunity to prep the batttery to a low temperature.

- - - Updated - - -

This one hour video begins by discussing battery longevity issues brought on by charging.

It is known that charging cells when cold is beneficial to slow the formation of a coating on the surface of the cathode material. Consequently a useful strategy is to ensure a limit to the time that the cell is heated by the charging process. It follows that speeding up the process at a rate of around 1.5C gets the process over quickly so that the cell can be cooled immediately and so curtail the time window for the coating to form.

Throughout this video, made last year, Prof Jeff Dahn makes several references concerning Tesla Motors. In particular mention is made that one of the original researchers, Aaron Smith, had moved over to Tesla in March of 2012.
At Dalhousie, Smith was involved with the assembly of test equipment to measure the exothermic generation, at the tens of nanowatt level, during the parasitic formation as separate from other heat sources within the cell.

Prof Dahn goes on to say that apparently discerning the difference between microwatts and nanowatts is key in predicting the coulomb efficiency drop off. Of course when the cell cathode is totally plastered -so to speak - and drop off in performance now becomes more rapid, well that particular condition remains harder to quantify. However the enhanced measuring techniques mean that you don't have to put a cell through thousands of cycles to determine when its useful end of life (80%) is likely to be.

Further insight into cell design was given that it is not just one compound that improves longevity but the synergism of several additives and that is making scientific progress difficult. It appears that a twentyfold increase in cycle life can be made by a mere 1% addition of one new substance providing other electrolyte additives are present in the right quantity. On the other hand if you're not optimising the additives but think that you can just try to figure out the mechanism of why they work the way they do then you're CRAZY ! That's with the equipment now being used at the current SOTA, I am assuming.

Hopefully this all makes sense to some people otherwise this will be yet another lecture that I only thought I was understanding.
 
The car will actively run the cooling system to make sure that the battery is cool enough to take the charge. You are throwing up a straw man argument without even knowing what you are talking about. Why should anyone have to "indicate that the car is going to be supercharged" when it already takes care of the situation? There is no such software change in the works... there doesn't need to be.
 
I can confirm that the car starts the cooling fan and then shortly thereafter starts to drop amperage. This was during a recent supercharge where I was driving at reasonably spirited highway speeds for well over an hour and arrived at the supercharger with about 25 miles of rated range with the battery indicator showing yellow, not green.

The climb to max charge rate was careful. It reached a very high rate quickly and then slowly increased amperage until it hit peak. It held at peak for a short period of time, the cooling fan kicked in, then some minutes later the amperage dropped a bit. I didn't need too much charge so I left at about the 100 mile mark before any major tapering happened.

And if I understand your post, one of the researchers who is capable of accurate predictions of battery degradation moved over to Tesla in 2012. We are pretty certain that Tesla is able to make adjustments to its battery chemistry and packaging. My own experience (and I have one of the earliest packs) and evidence I can find on the web says that Model S battery pack is showing much better longevity than the Roadster or the Leaf.

Elon and the Tesla engineers aren't stupid. The evidence I see indicates that Tesla has things under control.