Do you know that you must keep your battery charged?

[smoothoperator]

how did the price of a roadster battery replacement go from 20k to 40k? If you paid for a replacement battery ahead of time and brick the battery, does that agreement allow for a battery replacement or does it void that agreement as well?

[strider]

Tesla needs to both put management firmware in place to help reduce the possibilities of a car "bricking" as well as do a good job explaining this to people seriously interested in buying the car. It's not enough to have a page in the owner's manual.

I agree w/ the cut-off logic but they DID do a good job of explaining this when I bought my Roadster. Didn't you see the paper Cinergi posted? I had to sign the same form. Maybe the early folks weren't told adequately but I can promise you this was beat into me when picking up my car - both verbally and with written forms I had to sign.

I hesitate to use the oil analogy but it is correct in some regards. If I bought a new ICE and never checked the oil the engine would "brick" eventually. But everyone learns to check the oil because ICE's are common. If I had only even owned EV's and then bought an ICE and the dealer, users, etc said, "If you don't do this weird thing called "checking the oil" your car will be unrepairable and will not be covered under warranty - I'd be freaked out.

Yes, I can see how it's scary that you can't just leave an EV sitting for months of years without plugging it in but it's just not going to happen that often. Even blackouts due to storms, hurricanes, etc the power isn't out for that long - the car can go months without power.

[PV4EV]

The big money item in an EV / Tesla is the pack, maybe it costs $20-30-40k. If it needs replacing through neglect, that is the price.

The big money item in a similar performance 'sports' car, Ferrari, Porsche etc, is the engine / transmission, and if you neglect it (run it out of oil despite all warnings etc) it will cost considerably more to replace than a Tesla battery. And as for Lamborghini's, a V12 crank alone will cost a ridiculous $20k+.

(I've owned a few, and know for a fact that there's a higher percentage of sports car owners with considerably more costly failures through neglect and misuse than this one Tesla owning individual, yet we don’t hear them throwing their toys out.)

This all seems to me to be about a friend of an owner who ran his battery SOC to near zero, then left it to die, and then complained to Tesla who politely told him he should have RTFM, and he's pissed off, so he decides to go viral to damage the company and appeal to the anti EV brigade, with FUD. From what I'm reading a large percentage of people are pointing out he was an idiot for neglecting his owner responsibilities on $100k car. End of. 'cept it wont be.

I have to say I agree with him at this point only. There is a difference between "permanently damaged" and "destroyed beyond repair". The former indicates that the battery will still function to some extent. The latter is the correct description.



+1. I am completely unable to understand how it is possible to miss all those warnings, do exactly what you should never do even though you obviously had more than enough time to find a solution, threaten Tesla to make them pay for his own mistake, and finally try damage them when they don't. Sheesh.

++1


He must have also disabled the GSM system that, as a last resort, sends a 'help' message out to Tesla servicing to get a human to contact the careless owner.

I’d love the see the charge logs for this car…

[strider]

A solution to the problem that some might not like would be that if the battery gets to a dangerously low SOC, all systems drawing power from the battery get disconnected/turned off, a flag of this event gets logged in the system when the unacceptably low SOC last for X days, and if X days is greater than what was specified in your manual your warranty instantly gets voided. A similar practice is in place for some smartphones for water damage.

If they do add a disconnect to save the battery an owner would have to bring it to Tesla (or a Ranger would have to visit) and hook up a computer to the diag port or some such thing in order to wake up the system to allow it to charge. So Tesla would be aware that the car had reached disconnect level and could then do a full diagnostic to make sure everything's ok. The thinking being, if I do have to leave my car for 6 months and a breaker trips or whatever I will have to pay Tesla to revive the car but that should be a lot less than $40k.

[bonnie1194]

how did the price of a roadster battery replacement go from 20k to 40k? If you paid for a replacement battery ahead of time and brick the battery, does that agreement allow for a battery replacement or does it void that agreement as well?

My assumption is that a battery replaced due to lowered range still holds value, where a bricked battery would not.

[NigelM]

/\/\
Further to *strider's* post, in the manual there are plenty of warnings , a couple of pages on keeping your battery viable and a whole page on "Energy Depletion" and how the firmware reacts. Plus Tesla Rep handover spiel, plus the seperate paperwork....If that's not enough, what would be? Tattooing it on your arm?

[markb1]

Wired says they learned of Drucker's identity from the leaked letter on Green Car Reports ("Drucker, first identified by Green Car Reports, took delivery ...") and so it still seems that Tesla leaked it.

I don't think it can be concluded that Tesla leaked the email. The Jalopnik article states that Drucker told them he sent the emails to a couple of friends. So it's possible the leak came from one of those friends, or one of those friends forwarded the email to the person who leaked it.

[daniel]

I received this from my customer advocate today.

<...snip...>

Owners of Roadster 2.0 and all subsequent Tesla products can request that their vehicle alert Tesla if SOC falls to a low level.

<...snip...>

I presume this refers to the Remote Diagnostics, which can be turned on or off. I have it turned on. But can someone tell me if my supposition is correct, or if there is a separate setting?

For the rest, my thoughts:

1. I ain't gonna leave my $100K+ car parked at the airport. I'll drive the stinker to the airport, or take a cab.

2. Nigel's post #335 sure looked familiar. I wonder why that was? Oh, maybe because I read the manual. Yep. They tell us that it's really, really important to plug the car in. My customer advocate also has told me several times to always plug the car in. (For non-owners: Every Roadster owner is given a contact person at Tesla for any and all questions.) And I'm not sure, but I think my salesman told me also.

3. I do agree that it would be a good idea to have the car shut down all systems before the battery goes completely dead. Not a problem for me, but a little added idiot-proofing probably wouldn't hurt.

4. Why would anyone buy a Roadster and then not drive it? This is such a cool car. But if you don't drive it, then it's just a $100K+ paperweight.

5. The EV industry is in its infancy, and as such, charging infrastructure is limited, and in some areas nonexistent. This makes planning your trips more important than with a stinker. Gas stations are more common than charge points, so, yes, stinkers are more convenient (until the next oil shortage and gas lines). Nobody who is unwilling or unable to plan their trips should buy an EV. Nobody should buy an EV that lacks the range for the driving they want to do in it. But rather than taking these as simple, obvious, common-sense facts, some folks shout it from the roof tops as a sort of Jeremiad against electric cars. They say: Don't buy an electric car because if you drive it until the battery goes flat at a place without a plug, you'll ruin it. They might as well say: Don't buy a car because if you drive it off a cliff you'll kill yourself. What they should be saying (and what we all say) is: Be aware of your range and don't excede it.

Just my thoughts. I love driving this car, and it's worth the minimal care it requires, such as plugging it in, even though it does take me all of a quarter of a minute to do. <Wipes sweat off of brow from effort of plugging in the car.>

[strider]

1.) Although I understand the risks in not charging your battery often, this does concern me. Does this prohibit me from driving a long distance to the airport and leaving it there with the battery already well below full capacity for several weeks? It's unlikely I would ever do this, but it's still something we'd all have to be conscientious about.

Where do these people live that you would leave a car at the airport for weeks? At SFO I would go broke. It was WAY cheaper to take a cab to the airport instead of paying the parking fee if you're going to be gone for a long time.

2.) Considering the relatively low self discharge rate of LiIon batteries, is Tesla not to partly to blame for exacerbating the issue by consuming excessive energy when the car is not in use? There should be a provision to manually disconnect the batteries to prevent any unnecessary drain. And there could perhaps be an automatic disconnect through the use of mechanical relays once the battery level reaches below a certain amount and if let uncharged beyond a certain amount of time.

Yes. Hopefully they address this in future cars.

3.) I feel Tesla needs to be more forthright with this including explicitly stating the ramifications of not charging your battery consistently and should go so far as to verbally tell all future customers about the potential dangers of allow the battery to completely discharge. They should also quantify just how long you can go from full charge/50% charge/etc. to 0% charge.

They DO do this. It was beat into me both verbally and in writing when I picked up my Roadster. There was not a doubt in my mind that I could leave my car unplugged for weeks or months without causing damage. They can't give you exact dates because there are too many variables - temperature, starting SOC, age of battery, etc.

4.) Besides alerting Tesla of a low-battery condition, so that they may then alert you, there could and should be a way to alert the owner directly via Text Message, Email, Phone Call, or Push Notification directly to the Tesla App.

I'm sure this will be a feature of the app. If it wasn't before I'm sure it will be after this flap.

[dsm363]

I don't think his car would have the GSM built in given his VIN# (not sure about this). Still, he didn't read the manual. It sucks but still is his problem.