Do you know that you must keep your battery charged?

[mpt]

There's an interesting meme going that battery electric cars can be destroyed if their battery is left to go flat. As an enthusiast and owner I'm in no doubt about the need to keep the battery from becoming completely depleted but are you?

Let me know in the poll. Perhaps there's a message to send out to new owners, perhaps not?


(Note: I altered the date on this post to move it to the top after threads were merged)

[howabout2]

There's an interesting meme going that battery electric cars can be destroyed if their battery is left to go flat. As an enthusiast and owner I'm in no doubt about the need to keep the battery from becoming completely depleted but are you?

Let me know in the poll. Perhaps there's a message to send out to new owners, perhaps not?

_______________________________________________________________


What is this business about?

A Tesla Roadster that is simply parked without being plugged in will eventually become a “brick”. The parasitic load from the car’s always-on subsystems continually drains the battery and if the battery’s charge is ever totally depleted, it is essentially destroyed. Complete discharge can happen even when the car is plugged in if it isn’t receiving sufficient current to charge, which can be caused by something as simple as using an extension cord. After battery death, the car is completely inoperable. At least in the case of the Tesla Roadster, it’s not even possible to enable tow mode, meaning the wheels will not turn and the vehicle cannot be pushed nor transported to a repair facility by traditional means.

Has this blog entry/article already been discussed in another thread?

[Robert.Boston]

This doesn't appear to be gibberish to me. I would like to hear an equally dispassionate rebuttal about the risk of "bricking" a Model X or S.

[stopcrazypp]

A Tesla Roadster that is simply parked without being plugged in will eventually become a “brick”.

This can happen to any EV (and any battery) that you discharge completely and leave it uncharged. Self-discharge alone will wreck the battery, even without other drain (and in an EV there are typically other systems that can drain your battery).

The only thing special about the Tesla Roadster is it has a lot of subsystems that keep running, which may increase the speed of discharge. The self discharge of lithium batteries is actually very slow (typically only a couple percent per month).

The Roadster manual actually makes it pretty clear the rate of discharge:

Keep in mind that when the vehicle is left unplugged with a full Battery, the initial rate of decline can be significant. When fully charged, the Battery’s charge level can drop as much as 7% a day and 50% within the first week. When the Battery’s charge level falls below 50%, the rate of decline slows down to approximately 5% per week.

The only one that had an unexpected situation was the person with the 100 ft extension cord (that's a corner case where the drain is greater than the gain, something the Tesla firmware should detect and turn off certain subsystems to reduce the drain; esp. battery conditioning that may happen when plugged in).

[Lloyd]

While there are some truths in this blog, there are also some mistruths. 1. Voltage in Japan, 2. Knowledge that you should not plug in with an extension cord. 3. Parking the car with a discharged battery for an extended time, and more.....

The problem with this type of blog is that there is no effective means of refuting the basis of the post. Some contact should be made to assure that this does not become an issue for new buyers. Like an ICE, you can't run the car without oil or coolant, or damage will result. With an electric car, you can't leave the car in a discharged state, or damage will result. New owners should b e aware. It would be great if there were a procedure to attempt to recover "damaged batteries"

[Tommy]

Assuming the "bricking" did occur, I am surprised that none of the Roadster owners didn't post here or on Tesla's forum about what occurred. Not being able to move the vehicle and being saddled with a $40k repair wouldn't sit well with me.

[JRP3]

Operator error is not covered under warranty. No battery takes well to being completely drained. The extension cord incident is the exception, the car should have compensated or tossed up a warning. The large "idle" loads of the Tesla system has always seemed like something of a drawback. I've had the LiFePO4 cells in my car sitting unattended for 6 months with almost no noticeable self discharge. They don't need any active management when just sitting so I can disconnect the pack from the system to avoid parasitic draw. I think Tesla would be better off just having the pack disconnect from all loads after a certain discharge level is reached, instead of allowing the system to "manage" itself to death.

[Lloyd]

Does anyone know if storage mode disconnects the systems that can continue to drain the battery while unattended?

[dsm363]

While the article is a little one sided, I hope Tesla has a system on the Model S that simply shuts the car down before that critical level. I'd rather have someone have to tow the car to get charged than replace the battery outside of warranty and have more article like that.

[Lloyd]

Tesla needs to address this immediately! There are those out there who would like to see Tesla fail and blow this out of proportion!