How bad is it for the car to be pushed hard often?

Torpedo Ted · Aug 27, 2014

During my daily commute I drive over a small mountain with little traffic, so it's pretty tempting to floor the the watt-pedal and drive "actively". :love:

Other than the obvious extra wear of tires and brake pads, should I be worried about damaging the motor? It has only happened once that it limited the power, I guess I usually don't run it hard for long enough for that to be a problem. But still, I'm conserned about the long term effects.

bollar · Aug 27, 2014

Given the infinite mile drivetrain warranty, I wouldn't be concerned, at least for the first eight years.

scaesare · Aug 27, 2014

Torpedo Ted said:
During my daily commute I drive over a small mountain with little traffic, so it's pretty tempting to floor the the watt-pedal and drive "actively". :love:

Other than the obvious extra wear of tires and brake pads, should I be worried about damaging the motor? It has only happened once that it limited the power, I guess I usually don't run it hard for long enough for that to be a problem. But still, I'm conserned about the long term effects.

I'd suspect it's much less detrimental to this drivetrain that that of an ICE...

ch_model_s · Aug 27, 2014

even with water cooling the battery will get more stressed! so your battery degration will be faster then a normal driving person. you also put more charging cycles one your battery with a higher energy consumption!

invisik · Aug 27, 2014

Yeah roll with the warranty.... I execute regular performance verifications and would prefer to continue with them.

You can sell it back to Tesla in 4 years or whatever too if it gets too problematic.

-m

CanuckS#69 · Aug 27, 2014

I beg to differ on the battery degradation. I've got nearly 100k km on mine and I often drive spiritedly and I still charge to 422. Electric motors don't suffer from torque usage within their spec like high revs affect an ICE. The battery is well managed and cooled. I wouldn't have any concerns with driving however you like.

Zextraterrestrial · Aug 27, 2014

CanuckS#69 said:
I beg to differ on the battery degradation. I've got nearly 100k km on mine and I often drive spiritedly and I still charge to 422. Electric motors don't suffer from torque usage within their spec like high revs affect an ICE. The battery is well managed and cooled. I wouldn't have any concerns with driving however you like.

it is true that overall charge cycles are what matters...

electric motor, 'no' degradation worries

Thud · Aug 28, 2014

Torpedo Ted said:
During my daily commute I drive over a small mountain with little traffic, so it's pretty tempting to floor the the watt-pedal and drive "actively". :love:

Other than the obvious extra wear of tires and brake pads, should I be worried about damaging the motor? It has only happened once that it limited the power, I guess I usually don't run it hard for long enough for that to be a problem. But still, I'm conserned about the long term effects.

The motor would likely be the last thing to ever wear out on the car. It's brushless, so there are no brushes to wear out. I suppose the bearings could wear over time, but that would happen regardless of load. Overheating might be an issue but the car already limits performance when the drivetrain gets too warm.

If you push the car often, it'll mainly cause wear on the tires, and possibly u-joints maybe?

mknox · Aug 28, 2014

CanuckS#69 said:
I beg to differ on the battery degradation. I've got nearly 100k km on mine and I often drive spiritedly and I still charge to 422.

Maybe I need to start driving more "spiritedly". I have about 52,000 km on mine and can only hit about 385 km on a Range Charge.

mnx · Aug 28, 2014

mknox said:
Maybe I need to start driving more "spiritedly". I have about 52,000 km on mine and can only hit about 385 km on a Range Charge.

I seem to be somewhat on track with you. 36k km and range charge is 408km. I'm amazed CanuckS#69 still gets 422km on a range charge!

brianman · Aug 30, 2014

pushed hard often

Can you be more specific on how you define this?

Torpedo Ted · Aug 30, 2014

brianman said:
Can you be more specific on how you define this?

In my specific case:
3 miles regular driving. 5 miles driving with ~10 pedal to the floor accellerations from 10-60mph + several shorter accelerations (20mph-40mph for instance). Then another 8 miles regular driving. And repeat on the way home of course.

brianman · Aug 30, 2014

Torpedo Ted said:
In my specific case:
3 miles regular driving. 5 miles driving with ~10 pedal to the floor accellerations from 10-60mph + several shorter accelerations (20mph-40mph for instance). Then another 8 miles regular driving. And repeat on the way home of course.

For a Tesla (Roadster or Model S), I wouldn't stress about this kind of load at all.

dave · Aug 30, 2014

When I complained about my battery degradation, the engineer came back with detailed logs of some full throttle accelerations I did, citing this as the cause of lower battery range.

In a subsequent discussion with a service manager he said it was probably just an inaccurate algorithm. Frankly I don't know who to believe, but I'm still down about 20 miles of range, it has never come back, and now I think twice before flooring the accelerator...

blues · Aug 30, 2014

I have 16 months and 29,000 miles and I drive "spiritedly" all the time. My battery still charges to the same basic 233 +/- 5 mile range at a standard charge. Plus, with an 8 year unlimited mile warranty, I could care less. That's part of the reason you buy this car, so you don't worry about anything. I don't and my car is still as great as the day I got it. Stop worrying about minutia, and enjoy the car you bought the way you want to enjoy it. That's what makes the S great, I drive it without worrying whether or not this or that will break down.

David_Cary · Aug 31, 2014

blues said:
I have 16 months and 29,000 miles and I drive "spiritedly" all the time. My battery still charges to the same basic 233 +/- 5 mile range at a standard charge. Plus, with an 8 year unlimited mile warranty, I could care less. That's part of the reason you buy this car, so you don't worry about anything. I don't and my car is still as great as the day I got it. Stop worrying about minutia, and enjoy the car you bought the way you want to enjoy it. That's what makes the S great, I drive it without worrying whether or not this or that will break down.

- - - Updated - - -

I have 16 months and 29,000 miles and I drive "spiritedly" all the time. My battery still charges to the same basic 233 +/- 5 mile range at a standard charge. Plus, with an 8 year unlimited mile warranty, I could care less. That's part of the reason you buy this car, so you don't worry about anything. I don't and my car is still as great as the day I got it. Stop worrying about minutia, and enjoy the car you bought the way you want to enjoy it. That's what makes the S great, I drive it without worrying whether or not this or that will break down.

Ok - but of course the warranty doesn't cover battery degradation. There is no question that fast acceleration heats up everything more than gentle acceleration, uses more energy and will likely degrade the battery faster despite anecdotes that it doesn't. Is it a big deal? - probably not. It fast acceleration less of an issue than an ICE - absolutely. But pretending that it is zero issue is not right either.

Does anyone really buy a new car and worry whether or not will break down?

The Tesla is not invincible.

I honestly doubt that spirited driving would affect any new owners of a BMW either. 2nd owners perhaps. But very rarely anything that would show up in the first 8 years anyway. More energy use - sure. Worse than the Tesla - sure. But either way, more energy use.

scaesare · Aug 31, 2014

dave said:
When I complained about my battery degradation, the engineer came back with detailed logs of some full throttle accelerations I did, citing this as the cause of lower battery range.

In a subsequent discussion with a service manager he said it was probably just an inaccurate algorithm. Frankly I don't know who to believe, but I'm still down about 20 miles of range, it has never come back, and now I think twice before flooring the accelerator...

I understand your concern, as a sudden 20 mile range loss is pretty significant.

However, I think this is an anomaly... not saying the loss hasn't occurred (although it could indeed be an algorithm issue...but that still seems awfully high), it's just that's lots of folks have done some driving to push the car to it's limits... even to the point of taking them to track days and having the thermal controls kick in to limit the car. As far as I know, losing 20 mile of range immediately after isn't a common result.

I myself floor the car pretty regularly for short bursts. When the auto-lowering issue came up in a firmware revision, I did some runs to >100MPH to test it. I've never seen that kind of loss.

How many/long were these accelerations the engineer is laying blame on?

AmpedRealtor · Aug 31, 2014

The fact that a Tesla engineer pointed to full throttle accelerations as a reason for battery range loss is concerning. I'm inclined to believe something said by an engineer. Dave, can you confirm again that it was, in fact, an engineer and not your service advisor who made this statement? If true, our warranties would not appear to cover this situation at all. This may also explain the various reports of lost range or presumed pack imbalance.

brianman · Aug 31, 2014

When I complained about my battery degradation, the engineer came back with detailed logs of some full throttle accelerations I did, citing this as the cause of lower battery range.

AmpedRealtor said:
The fact that a Tesla engineer pointed to full throttle accelerations as a reason for battery range loss is concerning. I'm inclined to believe something said by an engineer. Dave, can you confirm again that it was, in fact, an engineer and not your service advisor who made this statement? If true, our warranties would not appear to cover this situation at all. This may also explain the various reports of lost range or presumed pack imbalance.

Also, please confirm whether the language/phrasing/context was more along the lines of "degradation concern" or "reported range variances". The latter is just an algorithmic/display/heuristic/algorithm thing.

tliving · Aug 31, 2014

People like Teslarati are racing them on the track. If they can do that I dont see how a little aggressive (but safe) driving will hurt things.
The Tesla Racing Series - TESLARATI.com

How bad is it for the car to be pushed hard often?

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