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Sigs not compatible with battery swap

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Elon said the battery swap station at Harris has suffered from low demand so I figured I'd give them some business. Turns out they don't want it.

Spoke to Mark Brooks of Tesla and he was very nice but politely explained that my VIN range has been flagged by engineering for one reason or another as "incompatible." I told him that's odd because I have a written statement from Tesla Service stating that my vehicle has all necessary hardware (switches, rapid mates, etc.) to participate in fast pack swaps. He didn't know what to say other than corporate hasn't approved my VIN range. I thanked him for his time and mentioned that I would follow up on this.

My MS will be in for service this Friday so I'll be asking them for an explanation to clarify this discrepancy and to find out when my car will be accepted at Harris Ranch for a pack swap. I won't be accepting any BS that my car wasn't configured for battery swap since I have a written statement from them that explicitly states the contrary.
 
The primary thing that comes to mind is while you may have all of the quick connects and such, it's certainly possible that signature cars (especially the early ones) have a different battery pack mounting configuration that is just unique enough to prevent the battery swap. I haven't seen the bottom of a signature vs the bottom of a current Model S but it's the first thing that I thought of.

Jeff
 
Elon said the battery swap station at Harris has suffered from low demand so I figured I'd give them some business. Turns out they don't want it.

Spoke to Mark Brooks of Tesla and he was very nice but politely explained that my VIN range has been flagged by engineering for one reason or another as "incompatible." I told him that's odd because I have a written statement from Tesla Service stating that my vehicle has all necessary hardware (switches, rapid mates, etc.) to participate in fast pack swaps. He didn't know what to say other than corporate hasn't approved my VIN range. I thanked him for his time and mentioned that I would follow up on this.

My MS will be in for service this Friday so I'll be asking them for an explanation to clarify this discrepancy and to find out when my car will be accepted at Harris Ranch for a pack swap. I won't be accepting any BS that my car wasn't configured for battery swap since I have a written statement from them that explicitly states the contrary.
So you have a written statement. Big deal. If engineering says it doesn't work for your early car, all the paper in the world isn't going to change that. Surely you must understand the difference between that and your statement that they don't want your business.
 
Did he mention the VIN range? I wonder if this applies to all A type batteries.


No, sorry, I don't know the specific range.

haha right? Plus, wasn't battery swapping capability one of the checkboxes the Model S had to well, check, from day 1?

Yep, for sure. It was an advertised feature since the day I bought the car.

So you have a written statement. Big deal. If engineering says it doesn't work for your early car, all the paper in the world isn't going to change that. Surely you must understand the difference between that and your statement that they don't want your business.

Sure, but I'm not going to give them a free pass on this one. I'll expect them to rectify it in some form.
 
Sure, but I'm not going to give them a free pass on this one. I'll expect them to rectify it in some form.

I too am kind of getting tired of the "every car in the fleet*" statements.

Just come out and say the signatures and cars less than 20,000 can't do anything new due to our desire to get the cars out. Then start saying "most of our newest cars can . . ."

Hope you can get this handled with the proper amount of attention from Tesla, but my guess is they don't have any way to swap our batteries for our Sig cars except by hand.
 
Yep, for sure. It was an advertised feature since the day I bought the car.

You're Sig 255. At the time you configured your car (design studio for Sig reservations opened March 2012), we didn't even know about the Supercharger network, that the network was free (huge surprise), or 'drive-thru' battery swap. The actual Supercharging (not battery swap) announcement was Sept 24, 2012. The battery swap announcement & demo was almost a year later than that, in June 2013.
 
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Also adding (Bonnie's dates are an awesome reference point, btw) that Elon has made the comment on several occasions - most recently just this past Friday - that Model S goes through approx. 20 engineering changes per week. Though many of those are considered minor/tweaks, it is entirely possible that between the time of the Sigs and when battery swap was being discussed/invented/engineered that something or some things 'under there' had/have changed so that battery swapping is exactly as the OP was just told - not compatible with his vin. Which does not mean his battery can't be swapped out, it just can't be done by the Harris Ranch swap station.

It also seems that the OP isn't really all that interested in doing battery swap as indicated by his opening sentence, more it's an afterthought: Elon said the battery swap station at Harris has suffered from low demand so I figured I'd give them some business.
 
In come the Tesla painters, as they are so want to do.

Over 10 original features that were announced and advertised were never correctly handled and many sigs didnt arrive until after those announcements. Example: December 2012. Using your 20 changes per month arguement, the cars should have changed to allow the swap. The A packs were not up to par with most having contact failures and decreased charging ability was dis covered by us not reported by Tesla. You can and will defend Tesla by saying they can change the terms and car at anytime.

I'm glad the car has improved, but many of us floated $40K for many years for a company near bankruptcy. Had our reservations not been there for investors to see, the company would not have likely survived. When the X comes, I will hope that you fair better than the Sig S car owners, but many here seem to think it's great to have had a less than promised experience. I wouldn't want that for you and don't see why so many lack empathy.

Plus the Sig S tax that model X reservation holders won't likely pay got me an emblem and a travel bag full of stuffing. I got to pay more for my car than the same specs car and was told we'd be taken special care of. Kind of seems like we ended up in a nursing home. The care is there but not exactly what we thought was going to happen to the first large scale backers of what could have been vaporware.
 
In come the Tesla painters, as they are so want to do.

Over 10 original features that were announced and advertised were never correctly handled and many sigs didnt arrive until after those announcements. Example: December 2012. Using your 20 changes per month arguement, the cars should have changed to allow the swap. The A packs were not up to par with most having contact failures and decreased charging ability was dis covered by us not reported by Tesla. You can and will defend Tesla by saying they can change the terms and car at anytime.

I'm glad the car has improved, but many of us floated $40K for many years for a company near bankruptcy. Had our reservations not been there for investors to see, the company would not have likely survived. When the X comes, I will hope that you fair better than the Sig S car owners, but many here seem to think it's great to have had a less than promised experience. I wouldn't want that for you and don't see why so many lack empathy.

Plus the Sig S tax that model X reservation holders won't likely pay got me an emblem and a travel bag full of stuffing. I got to pay more for my car than the same specs car and was told we'd be taken special care of. Kind of seems like we ended up in a nursing home. The care is there but not exactly what we thought was going to happen to the first large scale backers of what could have been vaporware.

Walla, I get what you're saying and sympathize. But I don't understand how people can say that battery swap was an expected feature. That's why I pulled the dates for different events. All the rest of what you posted is worthy of discussion (and certainly has been discussed at least a few times :) ). I was responding to the OP's assertion that ability to battery swap at a station was an advertised feature. I don't remember it that way, so I went and pulled dates.

Just as you want to categorize certain people as people who will defend Tesla no matter what, you might also look around and see if there are some people being unfair with constant criticism of the company. Facts matter. In this case, the facts don't support that a drive through battery station swap was an advertised feature.

Let's leave name-calling out of it, okay?
 
In come the Tesla painters, as they are so want to do.

Over 10 original features that were announced and advertised were never correctly handled and many sigs didnt arrive until after those announcements. Example: December 2012. Using your 20 changes per month arguement, the cars should have changed to allow the swap. The A packs were not up to par with most having contact failures and decreased charging ability was dis covered by us not reported by Tesla. You can and will defend Tesla by saying they can change the terms and car at anytime.

I'm glad the car has improved, but many of us floated $40K for many years for a company near bankruptcy. Had our reservations not been there for investors to see, the company would not have likely survived. When the X comes, I will hope that you fair better than the Sig S car owners, but many here seem to think it's great to have had a less than promised experience. I wouldn't want that for you and don't see why so many lack empathy.

Plus the Sig S tax that model X reservation holders won't likely pay got me an emblem and a travel bag full of stuffing. I got to pay more for my car than the same specs car and was told we'd be taken special care of. Kind of seems like we ended up in a nursing home. The care is there but not exactly what we thought was going to happen to the first large scale backers of what could have been vaporware.

I have a very low Sig VIN and this doesn't bother me. Sure if there were swap stations all around the U.S., maybe. I paid the same Sig tax but wasn't forced to.

Tesla painters? That's a new one.
 
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Not that I care, because I see this swap thing fading away anyway, but... if you watch the Pack Swap launch video, Elon does say that the Model S was designed from the "beginning" to facilitate it.

Fair point ... but it was at least a YEAR after people committed to buying a Sig. That doesn't constitute advertising a drive through battery swap and a sale contingent upon that. That's my only point.

I do believe (but would have to go back in time to confirm) that it's likely Tesla did state that the flat battery pack skateboard would enable swapping. But until they announced the ability to drive through a year later, my assumption (and others that I know) was that the design would enable easy swapping at a service center, by technicians. Not to enable long-distance travel.
 
Unless you've also got in writing a promise to deploy swap stations, that promise of compatibility is basically worthless. OTOH, I think they rectified it with a proliferation of Superchargers anyway. Just my 2c.

Red herring. I'm not talking about the expansion of battery swap stations. I'm talking about compatibility of my MS with existing infrastructure that I should be able to take advantage of.

You're Sig 255. At the time you configured your car (design studio for Sig reservations opened March 2012), we didn't even know about the Supercharger network, that the network was free (huge surprise), or 'drive-thru' battery swap. The actual Supercharging (not battery swap) announcement was Sept 24, 2012. The battery swap announcement & demo was almost a year later than that, in June 2013.


Hmm, not what I recall. Tesla said they would design the Model S to have a fast swap battery pack since the beginning.
 
I thought Tesla did talk about the pack being swap capable but never said anything about there being a network of swap stations for owners. Most people took it to mean the battery was easily swapped out if something was wrong with it or hopefully in the future battery upgrades might be offered. Unlike the Roadster which takes over 4 hours to remove the battery pack, this held out hope it could be done quicker and cheaper. They touted it as a design feature benefit.

Don't see it here though from late 2009
Tesla Motors - Model S 2009 website
 
Hmm, not what I recall. Tesla said they would design the Model S to have a fast swap battery pack since the beginning.

I've looked and can't find anything to support that (but the internet is a vast place). I do remember very early on, before manufacturing had started, *someone* might have seen a battery out in the open. And may have been questioned later by other owners along the lines of 'what kind of connectors did it have, how many, did it look like it could be replaced easily', etc. The nature of the questions were about how hard it would be to pull it from the car.