Not all batteries are created equal; most are good, but do you want to know what happens when you get a bad one? If so, this is a story you may want to read.
I picked up my brand new Model 3 RWD LR on May 30, 2018. Just 2 days later we set off on our first long road trip from NJ to MA. We pulled over somewhere in CT to Supercharge. It was an 8-stall supercharger with nobody else present. The temperature was on the warmer side, somewhere in the mid 70s, our state of charge was around 30%. We plugged in for the very first time at a supercharger. This is where it all began. The charge rate was very slow, like 30kW. I tried another stall and once again it was low. I tried a 3rd one and was able to get about 60kW. I figured perhaps the supercharger is defective. We charged for about 45 minutes and set off to finish our trip to Cape Cod.
The very next day we went to the supercharger in MA somewhere on the Cape. I don’t recall exactly but I believe it was also an 8-stall charger. Once again we were the only people there. The temperature was lower, somewhere in the mid to high 60s and the state of charge was also around 30%. I plugged the car in and was pleasantly surprised to see the charge rate shoot up to 113kW! Yay! However it was very short lived, within 1 minute the charge rate had dropped to 74kW and as the car charged the rate would decrease quite rapidly. Basically 74kW was the peak. I decided to call Tesla and the person remotely connected to my car, asked about the weather, which stall I was at and confirmed that they are seeing my slower charge rate and that they are not seeing any other errors or any issues with the Supercharger. She had me try another stall with identical results and we concluded the call with no resolution. She advised to try again at another Supercharger. Since we were spending an entire week on the Cape we came back to the same charger a few days later and the results were identical!
On the way back home we stopped once again at the Supercharger we stopped on the way up and once again the charge rate was somewhere between 60-70kW before tapering off to about 20kW. I really did not think much of it at the time. Since I live next to a supercharger here in NJ, I went there once and once again never crossed 74kW for any extend amount of time. At this point I began to wonder, perhaps I have a defective battery? Perhaps the internal resistance is too high? Since getting into R/C back in the 2006 I’ve been playing a lot of with Lithium Polymer batteries and from my experience I am well aware that a slow charge rate on a pack with multiple cells in a series usually indicates unbalanced cells with some having Internal Resistance higher than others. I am not stating that this is what is going on with my car and especially that Tesla uses Lithium Ion type batteries but nevertheless the logic should be somewhat similar.
Fast-forward a few months to sometime in the late summer I take a trip to PA. On the way back I pop into a supercharger. Once again same results, peak to 114kW or similar and right away drop back down to 68-74kW. This time I am not the only one there but nobody else is charging on the same supercharger as I am, i.e.: I was on the A-port and the B-port was not utilized. I check with the other person and I notice he is charging somewhere way past 100kW. I continue my trip back home with the same sore aftertaste that it is beginning to feel like it is not the supercharger but my car. To cut this story short, I took a few more trips with the most recent one being to VA and once again the results were identical. Peak to 114kW and back down to 68-74kW. This is also quite annoying because the States where they charge for supercharging per minute the charge rate above 60kW is double the price of what is below 60kW. I’ve made a few more calls from these superchargers and each time the results were the same. I’ve put in a few requests over the phone and each time I was told remote troubleshooting had been performed and no issues were found.
Finally, the straw the broke the camels back was when I was travelling with my 1-year old and he was crying the entire time we were sitting at the supercharger. Hearing him cry and not being able to do anything about it (dark and scatchy area) I decided I needed to bring the car in. I had to listen to him cry for basically extra 20 minutes because my car is defective. I stopped in at my local service center (less than 1 mile away) and asked to make an appointment. After waiting for nearly 30 minutes I was told they are too busy to schedule me right now and that they will call me in 2 days. They did, the earliest availability was 2 weeks away and I took it. I had a few other issues that I wanted addressed (headlights flickering, condensation in the taillights and some other minor things) but the most important one was the slow supercharger charge rate.
Two weeks later I arrived for my 8:30am appointment and was greeted with a nice message? You got an appointment? We have nothing here for you. After 10 minutes of running around they said that they did remote diagnostics and my car is fine and they cancelled the appointment. Really? You did not even call me! After an hour of going back and forth of this is not a bug but an undocumented feature they said you are right we need to look at the car. They took the car in and put me in a Kia!!! I was already ready to go in this Kia when they told me to hang out for a little longer because the person responsible for the loaners had not arrived to work yet. This was too much to stomach. I asked to see a manager, especially because when I made my appointment I was told a Tesla loaner should be available and suddenly a Model S became available to me.
Two days have gone by and the car just sat on the lot, no work was being done. Finally on the 3rd day at 4pm the car was pulled into the shop. They forgot to disable the app so I was getting all these updates where they kept plugging it and unplugging it from the internal supercharger. They tried like a dozen times and never were able to obtain a charge rate above 68kW. The car’s state of charge at that time was 17%, so they bumped it up to 25% and left it inside overnight. I suppose to let it warm up. The next morning the process began, plugged, unplugged, plugged, unplugged. Than someone went on a 30-mile road trip and back again to the supercharger. Same thing, 68-74kW charge rate. Then I noticed they plugged it into a regular charger and set the climate control to 80 degrees. Following that 30 minutes later they tried the supercharger again, once again the results were the same. 68kW. Finally they just gave up and left it there. Shortly after I got an automated text that the car’s service is finished and it is getting washed now. Ha! I replied asking how come it was not fixed as I noticed it was charging quite slowly. Immediately after they disconnected my app service and the car was showing that it is “in service”. An hour later I got a call from a very arrogant service advisor by the name of Ryan, he advised me that the car is ready. I asked him what did they have to do to fix the issue. He began reading the notes, which clearly stated they did nothing. I asked him so what you are saying is that you did nothing. He says, “Yes!” Great I say, what charge rate were you getting? He says 113kW! Really? I tell him I’ve been watching the process the entire time from my phone. He is caught red-handed and starts telling me that I could not have seen that because they disable the app. Well, guess what? You guys forgot! He tries telling me that the car needs to be at 100 degrees Fahrenheit in order to achieve the full charge rate! Really? Did you just make that up? He says just come down and get your car, we are not going to do anything else. Thanks buddy! I showed up and he began telling me that the car charged at 113kW or something. I said no it didn’t, here are the screenshots. At which point he pulls up a picture that they took when the car peaked at 113kW and show it to me! “See” he says! He begins to accuse me that I told him it never crossed 100kW! Good job you took a picture of the exact thing I’ve been telling you, it peaks and drops. See your notes I tell him. He says I don’t have such notes, the guy that took the car in is standing right next to him all terrified (Kamal). He was supposed to write all of that down. The mechanic (Matt) that I also spoke with when I was dropping the car off said that peak and drop is not normal.
This is where I lost it and that is totally my fault. I should have behaved better but my blood was boiling. I tell him that you are lying to me and the fact that you are lying to me is “bullshit”. I should have not said the word bullshit but I did. Immediately after I said that he says he will not be working with me if I “keep” cursing. I said I am sorry for saying that one word. I literally said the word “bullshit” and no other offensive words. However at which point he says well there is nothing else I can do for you, do you want me to get your car? I said go get it and I drove off. My next plan is to go down the Lemon Law route. This is not acceptable. The number of calls I’ve placed and the number of times I’ve asked them to fix it is too many. What else can I do? It’s not like there is another service center I can go to.
I picked up my brand new Model 3 RWD LR on May 30, 2018. Just 2 days later we set off on our first long road trip from NJ to MA. We pulled over somewhere in CT to Supercharge. It was an 8-stall supercharger with nobody else present. The temperature was on the warmer side, somewhere in the mid 70s, our state of charge was around 30%. We plugged in for the very first time at a supercharger. This is where it all began. The charge rate was very slow, like 30kW. I tried another stall and once again it was low. I tried a 3rd one and was able to get about 60kW. I figured perhaps the supercharger is defective. We charged for about 45 minutes and set off to finish our trip to Cape Cod.
The very next day we went to the supercharger in MA somewhere on the Cape. I don’t recall exactly but I believe it was also an 8-stall charger. Once again we were the only people there. The temperature was lower, somewhere in the mid to high 60s and the state of charge was also around 30%. I plugged the car in and was pleasantly surprised to see the charge rate shoot up to 113kW! Yay! However it was very short lived, within 1 minute the charge rate had dropped to 74kW and as the car charged the rate would decrease quite rapidly. Basically 74kW was the peak. I decided to call Tesla and the person remotely connected to my car, asked about the weather, which stall I was at and confirmed that they are seeing my slower charge rate and that they are not seeing any other errors or any issues with the Supercharger. She had me try another stall with identical results and we concluded the call with no resolution. She advised to try again at another Supercharger. Since we were spending an entire week on the Cape we came back to the same charger a few days later and the results were identical!
On the way back home we stopped once again at the Supercharger we stopped on the way up and once again the charge rate was somewhere between 60-70kW before tapering off to about 20kW. I really did not think much of it at the time. Since I live next to a supercharger here in NJ, I went there once and once again never crossed 74kW for any extend amount of time. At this point I began to wonder, perhaps I have a defective battery? Perhaps the internal resistance is too high? Since getting into R/C back in the 2006 I’ve been playing a lot of with Lithium Polymer batteries and from my experience I am well aware that a slow charge rate on a pack with multiple cells in a series usually indicates unbalanced cells with some having Internal Resistance higher than others. I am not stating that this is what is going on with my car and especially that Tesla uses Lithium Ion type batteries but nevertheless the logic should be somewhat similar.
Fast-forward a few months to sometime in the late summer I take a trip to PA. On the way back I pop into a supercharger. Once again same results, peak to 114kW or similar and right away drop back down to 68-74kW. This time I am not the only one there but nobody else is charging on the same supercharger as I am, i.e.: I was on the A-port and the B-port was not utilized. I check with the other person and I notice he is charging somewhere way past 100kW. I continue my trip back home with the same sore aftertaste that it is beginning to feel like it is not the supercharger but my car. To cut this story short, I took a few more trips with the most recent one being to VA and once again the results were identical. Peak to 114kW and back down to 68-74kW. This is also quite annoying because the States where they charge for supercharging per minute the charge rate above 60kW is double the price of what is below 60kW. I’ve made a few more calls from these superchargers and each time the results were the same. I’ve put in a few requests over the phone and each time I was told remote troubleshooting had been performed and no issues were found.
Finally, the straw the broke the camels back was when I was travelling with my 1-year old and he was crying the entire time we were sitting at the supercharger. Hearing him cry and not being able to do anything about it (dark and scatchy area) I decided I needed to bring the car in. I had to listen to him cry for basically extra 20 minutes because my car is defective. I stopped in at my local service center (less than 1 mile away) and asked to make an appointment. After waiting for nearly 30 minutes I was told they are too busy to schedule me right now and that they will call me in 2 days. They did, the earliest availability was 2 weeks away and I took it. I had a few other issues that I wanted addressed (headlights flickering, condensation in the taillights and some other minor things) but the most important one was the slow supercharger charge rate.
Two weeks later I arrived for my 8:30am appointment and was greeted with a nice message? You got an appointment? We have nothing here for you. After 10 minutes of running around they said that they did remote diagnostics and my car is fine and they cancelled the appointment. Really? You did not even call me! After an hour of going back and forth of this is not a bug but an undocumented feature they said you are right we need to look at the car. They took the car in and put me in a Kia!!! I was already ready to go in this Kia when they told me to hang out for a little longer because the person responsible for the loaners had not arrived to work yet. This was too much to stomach. I asked to see a manager, especially because when I made my appointment I was told a Tesla loaner should be available and suddenly a Model S became available to me.
Two days have gone by and the car just sat on the lot, no work was being done. Finally on the 3rd day at 4pm the car was pulled into the shop. They forgot to disable the app so I was getting all these updates where they kept plugging it and unplugging it from the internal supercharger. They tried like a dozen times and never were able to obtain a charge rate above 68kW. The car’s state of charge at that time was 17%, so they bumped it up to 25% and left it inside overnight. I suppose to let it warm up. The next morning the process began, plugged, unplugged, plugged, unplugged. Than someone went on a 30-mile road trip and back again to the supercharger. Same thing, 68-74kW charge rate. Then I noticed they plugged it into a regular charger and set the climate control to 80 degrees. Following that 30 minutes later they tried the supercharger again, once again the results were the same. 68kW. Finally they just gave up and left it there. Shortly after I got an automated text that the car’s service is finished and it is getting washed now. Ha! I replied asking how come it was not fixed as I noticed it was charging quite slowly. Immediately after they disconnected my app service and the car was showing that it is “in service”. An hour later I got a call from a very arrogant service advisor by the name of Ryan, he advised me that the car is ready. I asked him what did they have to do to fix the issue. He began reading the notes, which clearly stated they did nothing. I asked him so what you are saying is that you did nothing. He says, “Yes!” Great I say, what charge rate were you getting? He says 113kW! Really? I tell him I’ve been watching the process the entire time from my phone. He is caught red-handed and starts telling me that I could not have seen that because they disable the app. Well, guess what? You guys forgot! He tries telling me that the car needs to be at 100 degrees Fahrenheit in order to achieve the full charge rate! Really? Did you just make that up? He says just come down and get your car, we are not going to do anything else. Thanks buddy! I showed up and he began telling me that the car charged at 113kW or something. I said no it didn’t, here are the screenshots. At which point he pulls up a picture that they took when the car peaked at 113kW and show it to me! “See” he says! He begins to accuse me that I told him it never crossed 100kW! Good job you took a picture of the exact thing I’ve been telling you, it peaks and drops. See your notes I tell him. He says I don’t have such notes, the guy that took the car in is standing right next to him all terrified (Kamal). He was supposed to write all of that down. The mechanic (Matt) that I also spoke with when I was dropping the car off said that peak and drop is not normal.
This is where I lost it and that is totally my fault. I should have behaved better but my blood was boiling. I tell him that you are lying to me and the fact that you are lying to me is “bullshit”. I should have not said the word bullshit but I did. Immediately after I said that he says he will not be working with me if I “keep” cursing. I said I am sorry for saying that one word. I literally said the word “bullshit” and no other offensive words. However at which point he says well there is nothing else I can do for you, do you want me to get your car? I said go get it and I drove off. My next plan is to go down the Lemon Law route. This is not acceptable. The number of calls I’ve placed and the number of times I’ve asked them to fix it is too many. What else can I do? It’s not like there is another service center I can go to.
