Model S Battery almost impossible to "brick"

[Norbert]

I agree. It appears in Eberhard's case the car was plugged in and it was the error that aborted charging. That's a completely different situation from the guy in the brick story (who knowingly left the car unplugged for more than 2 months at 25% charge according to his letter).

I think we should go slowly here and not make too many assumptions. Eberhard wrote "charging was aborted" but it may simply not have started yet. Is there any experience with red flashing LEDs that says storage mod charging necessarily won't work anymore? Doesn't sound like it so far. It seems we don't know yet what "error msg #286" means, so we shouldn't jump to conclusions.

 

[markwj]

i was just a few days away and put the car to storage mode with 90km IR left. When i returned, i got the error msg #286 "power train error, service required". charging was aborted and the LED was flashing red. The IR dropped to 75km within 5 days. What would happen if i where 6 weeks away. I did charging according to the manual, using my UMC cable on 32A socket.

Hypothetically: Tesla would have to fix the power train issue, and if your battery was damaged, repair/replace it under warranty. You did what you were supposed to do, and an issue covered by warranty would have caused the cascading failure.

Hypothetically: What is more interesting is if this was an out-of-warranty car.

Was your 'power train error' the fans, again?

I have had a lot of failures in my first year of ownership (1x VMS swap, 2x battery fuses necessitating battery swap, 1x PEM swap, 2x high voltage converter swaps, several misc items) - if these don't settle down before warranty expiration, I am really not sure what I will do.

 

[ckessel]

I have had a lot of failures in my first year of ownership (1x VMS swap, 2x battery fuses necessitating battery swap, 1x PEM swap, 2x high voltage converter swaps, several misc items) - if these don't settle down before warranty expiration, I am really not sure what I will do.

I know it's all under warranty, but that much trouble in a year is disconcerting. One of the attractions of the EV for me was higher reliability and less failures. Granted, the Roadster is Tesla's first car where lessons are being learned, but still worrisome. I need the Model S maintenance/repair rate to be low over a very long life to help justify it's expense.

 

[Dan5]

I'm sure someone will "figure out" how to brick one. It's new technology, and like anything else you'll have someone whose not up to speed, doesn't follow directions or just gets it as a show car. Too much money and not enough common sense.
I personally know someone who has a "fleet" of expensive cars, Jags, Aston Martins, Bentleys, Maserati, etc and each of them have about 30,000 miles and he has not changed the oil on any of them- he just resets the warning, and when something breaks he sells them - I bet if he had a Model S, he'd do something stupid and abuse it too.

 

[markwj]

I know it's all under warranty, but that much trouble in a year is disconcerting. One of the attractions of the EV for me was higher reliability and less failures. Granted, the Roadster is Tesla's first car where lessons are being learned, but still worrisome. I need the Model S maintenance/repair rate to be low over a very long life to help justify it's expense.

Not wanting to get too off topic here, but to answer your concerns: As I see it, I've had three main issues in the year:

(1) A faulty VMS. This was just plain faulty and since it was swapped has been very reliable.
(2) A faulty PEM. Something shorted inside (presumably a component failed), and blew a fuse, that also blew an upstream fuse in the battery.
(3) A problem with high humidity and the orange 400V power converter in the front of the car. This has blown a couple of times for me - one time it also blew an upstream fuse in the battery.

The battery itself has been fine both times - it is just the high power fuses are inside the battery housing itself and that is a major undertaking to get out of the car and service.

(1) and (2) are just straight electronics failures. I hope that Tesla can improve the reliability of these sorts of components, given the greater quantities of Models S and X.

(3) is something inherent to high-humidity environments. Tesla are supposedly working on sourcing a replacement part that doesn't suffer from this problem.

There is another known problem of the fans failing (which I guess is the original problem reported by Eberhard here). Similar to (3), this is a problem in snowy/wet environments that we haven't seen in Hong Kong.

Tesla service, in all cases, has been nothing short of amazing. The only thing I would ask for, that they don't provide, is a loaner car.

The Roadster is a proving ground for a lot of this technology, and constrained by the Lotus arrangement. I really hope that Tesla have learned what not to do for the Models S and X. It seems that, at least from the battery management point of view, they have improved the vampire drain levels compared to the Roadster (although, in my opinion, it makes little practical difference). Battery swap is also supposedly down to a few minutes (vs 3 days for a Roadster).

 

[Lloyd]

I'm sure someone will "figure out" how to brick one. It's new technology, and like anything else you'll have someone whose not up to speed, doesn't follow directions or just gets it as a show car. Too much money and not enough common sense.
I personally know someone who has a "fleet" of expensive cars, Jags, Aston Martins, Bentleys, Maserati, etc and each of them have about 30,000 miles and he has not changed the oil on any of them- he just resets the warning, and when something breaks he sells them - I bet if he had a Model S, he'd do something stupid and abuse it too.

What's his name? I don't want to buy his cars!

 

[bonnie]

I know it's all under warranty, but that much trouble in a year is disconcerting. One of the attractions of the EV for me was higher reliability and less failures. Granted, the Roadster is Tesla's first car where lessons are being learned, but still worrisome. I need the Model S maintenance/repair rate to be low over a very long life to help justify it's expense.

In the first year (and over 10,000 fun miles), I've had to have a tire sensor replaced. That's it. Oh, a blown tire. But that was me, not them.

 

[NigelM]

In the first year (and over 10,000 fun miles), I've had to have a tire sensor replaced. That's it. Oh, a blown tire. But that was me, not them.

10 months, 6k miles and the only problem was a window which leaked. Tesla fixed it.

The Roadsters were not perfect, they were groundbreaking, and anything that innovative was almost certain to have some issues. I think Mark was unlucky but also have to agree with him that Tesla service has always been amazing. Everything I've heard and seen so far leads me to believe that they have incorporated a huge learning into the Model S; I hope they can also keep the incredible service as they scale up.

 

[markwj]

I think Mark was unlucky but also have to agree with him that Tesla service has always been amazing

Yes, and I don't want to suggest anything else. The problems I had with the VMS and PEM were just down to luck. A percentage of things fail, and I was just in that percentage. I have heard of precious few other people with similar problems.

But, the problems with high-humidity blowing the 400V orange power converters at the front, and wet/snow causing the fans to fail at the back, are down to components not working in 'extreme' conditions. Not certain of the percentages, but these two issues are keeping the service teams busy. I am sure the chosen components worked just fine in California, but once the Roadsters started to go to more extreme climates, the problems appeared. The aircon improvements, over time, are more evidence of this.

Traditional car companies avoid (or solve early on) these issues by extensive extreme testing in all sorts of environments. Hence the spy shot videos we see of cars baking in the desert and spinning their wheels on the frozen tundra. I realize that Tesla didn't have the budget (or time) to do that for the Roadster, but really hope they are doing it with the Model S and X. From what I've seen, they are - and if they need any help in testing in hot+humid environments, they know my address ;-)

In response to 'Model S Battery almost impossible to "brick"', I disagree. I am certain that Model S batteries will be bricked over time. Sure, with better management and cellular connectivity, it will be harder than in the Roadster, but it will happen. According to the rough poll on this site (MPT's), almost 3% of the well-educated, technologically capable viewers of this site who own an EV said that it wasn't made clear to them that they must keep it from being discharged. At 20,000 cars a year, that is 588 new owners a year.

I think MPT said it well - education and insurance (for those that need it).

 

[markwj]

I need the Model S maintenance/repair rate to be low over a very long life to help justify it's expense.

Given the lower prices and profit margins on the Models S+X vs the Roadster, Tesla themselves need this as much as you.

 

[dsm363]

I'm sure Tesla will revise their battery care agreement that you sign when you buy the car to include stronger language and instructions than 'permanently damage'. They should also document that they told the customer verbally somehow and repeat with a follow up phone call or e-mail soon after delivery.

 

[neroden]

Traditional car companies avoid (or solve early on) these issues by extensive extreme testing in all sorts of environments. Hence the spy shot videos we see of cars baking in the desert and spinning their wheels on the frozen tundra. I realize that Tesla didn't have the budget (or time) to do that for the Roadster, but really hope they are doing it with the Model S and X. From what I've seen, they are - and if they need any help in testing in hot+humid environments, they know my address ;-)

I believe that it was explicitly part of Tesla's plan to use the Roadster as the proving ground for a lot of this stuff, as a learning experience; you know they won't make the same mistake with the fans' resistance to gravel, etc. Hopefully any part which is entirely new to the Model S (rather than being an evolution of a Roadster part) has been really heavily tested in different conditions, but as you say, they seem to be doing the testing.

The major car companies all screwed up on thermal battery management (with Nissan correcting this for its *second year* Leaf), while Tesla got that right first time; so I trust Tesla more than the majors, in terms of dealing with this stuff before my car arrives.

 

[shark2k]

Traditional car companies avoid (or solve early on) these issues by extensive extreme testing in all sorts of environments. Hence the spy shot videos we see of cars baking in the desert and spinning their wheels on the frozen tundra. I realize that Tesla didn't have the budget (or time) to do that for the Roadster, but really hope they are doing it with the Model S and X. From what I've seen, they are - and if they need any help in testing in hot+humid environments, they know my address ;-)

Pretty sure Tesla at least did the extreme cold testing with the Roadster. I believed they blogged about it way back and how they took it to some frozen tundra.

-Shark2k

 

[TEG]

Pretty sure Tesla at least did the extreme cold testing with the Roadster. I believed they blogged about it way back and how they took it to some frozen tundra.

That was well documented
Slip-Sliding Away | Blog | Tesla Motors

Lots of other stories of Roadsters doing very well on snow and ice...

 

[shark2k]

That was well documented
Slip-Sliding Away | Blog | Tesla Motors

Lots of other stories of Roadsters doing very well on snow and ice...

Thank you TEG!!!

-Shark2k

 

[VolkerP]

Take for instance how we (almost) all reacted to the falcon doors. I knew I was getting an X, but I stood there at the unveiling thinking, 'do I like those?? why am I feeling negative? is there anything wrong with them other than they're different? .. etc' ... and a few days later, we're all over our initial falcon door reaction because (my theory, anyway) they look familiar.

We are all rather amusing.

IFDR = initial falcon door reaction
Thanks Bonnie, that acronym will serve us well in the future! Like in "I got a severe IFDR when I opened the last Tesla newsletter"... :biggrin:

 

[AnOutsider]

Speaking of, I haven't gotten a newsletter in a while

 

[malcolm]

Please make this thread a sticky. When the cars are delivered there will be a resurgence of this particular rumour.