Pop goes the something...

[mknox]

With only a single exception, every other "A" pack owner I personally know has had their pack fail. Most times under poor circumstances, and involving long tow rides (mine was 6 hours).

I'm still rockin' my original A-pack at a bit over 34,000 miles and 16 months. I do take your point, however. Isn't this similar to the hot water GM got in to with faulty ignition switches? (Car stalls out at an inopportune time resulting in crash).

 

[pgiralt]

I'm still rockin' my original A-pack at a bit over 34,000 miles and 16 months. I do take your point, however. Isn't this similar to the hot water GM got in to with faulty ignition switches? (Car stalls out at an inopportune time resulting in crash).

I do agree that if there is a systemic issue with contactors, Tesla should recall them and replace the contactors. Perhaps they are waiting for the service centers to be able to perform this repair in-house before they issue a wide-ranging recall of some kind.

 

[Doug_G]

I'm still rockin' my original A-pack at a bit over 34,000 miles and 16 months. I do take your point, however. Isn't this similar to the hot water GM got in to with faulty ignition switches? (Car stalls out at an inopportune time resulting in crash).

No, GM's issue was much worse. It not only lost power, it disabled power steering, power brakes, and turned off the air bags.

I've driven a car with power steering disabled and it was very hard to turn the wheel - many times harder than a manual steering rack would have been. Without the brake booster many people would have a great deal of trouble exerting enough force to stop the car quickly. So the car triggers an emergency situation, makes it hard to steer and brake, AND kills the air bags. All because of a simple faulty ignition switch.

In the Model S, even if the main pack fails, the 12V system keeps everything else up and running long enough to safely stop the car.

 

[brianman]

@napabill @bluetinc
My point was to +1 bluetinc's "people I know that haven't" counter.

 

[freds]

I've driven a car with power steering disabled and it was very hard to turn the wheel - many times harder than a manual steering rack would have been. Without the brake booster many people would have a great deal of trouble exerting enough force to stop the car quickly. So the car triggers an emergency situation, makes it hard to steer and brake, AND kills the air bags. All because of a simple faulty ignition switch.

Not to be sexists; but hey I don't know of any woman who could drive my Ford Powerstroke F250 when the only serpentine belt breaks; as I barely survived that event on a crowded two lane road on a down hill curve!!! You loose power steering, brakes and all the idiot lights come on, my only assist was to immediately shift into low and over-rev the engine....

 

[Zapped]

My A pack is pro-actively being replaced by TESLA. Should have my car back next week.

 

[apacheguy]

@Zapped - By "replaced" do you mean they are refurbing the pack in Fremont and then loading it back into your car? Or are they swapping yours out and giving you another?

 

[islandbayy]

Just want to voice a thought. It seems that most that are getting packs sent to the factory and then sent back after repaired, are within a more reasonable distance to do so (Cali Based). It's more economical to do that in a reasonable time frame. The further from Cali, the less that is done and the more swap on spot, fix pack later is done it seems.

 

[Zapped]

@Zapped - By "replaced" do you mean they are refurbing the pack in Fremont and then loading it back into your car? Or are they swapping yours out and giving you another?

Re-read the email and it actually says "proactive update ....the HV Battery pack will be updated to include the newest components". The turnaround time was one week so I didn't expect that they were shipping the pack to Fremont and back within that time. During a phone conversation with the Service center I got the impression they were swapping it out.
I could be wrong but I got a picture of my battery pack serial number before it left, so I'll check when it gets back this weekend.

 

[AmpedRealtor]

My A pack is pro-actively being replaced by TESLA. Should have my car back next week.

They did this even though there were no issues? If so, I think this is news.

 

[Zapped]

Something about ....the log indicates the power switch and some power components would benefit from being upgraded...
I had no issues that I could tell.

 

[steve841]

I'm on attempt number two for upgrading of my pack.... First try, SC found errors after reinstalling my pack. Pulled it, put the loaner back in and sent mine back to Freemont again.

It's been about a month and not a word.

 

[napabill]

I'm on attempt number two for upgrading of my pack.... First try, SC found errors after reinstalling my pack. Pulled it, put the loaner back in and sent mine back to Freemont again.

It's been about a month and not a word.

I'm not getting a good feeling about this. Although the SC Manager has attempted to reach me, we haven't made contact yet. Said in his VM that he was sending me an email. Nothing. I checked the loaner pack and it appears to be an "A". It does seem to charge about 3 miles more at 100%. Things start to get complicated as I shortly am packing up for our winter trip to the desert. My 3 emails to ownership have gone unanswered.

Oh, and yes, I do think the world revolves around me.:smile:

 

[apacheguy]

I'm on attempt number two for upgrading of my pack.... First try, SC found errors after reinstalling my pack. Pulled it, put the loaner back in and sent mine back to Freemont again.

It's been about a month and not a word.

@steve - Is your loaner pack also an A?

 

[steve841]

@steve - Is your loaner pack also an A?

Yes. They claim it was already upgraded.

I'd be fine just keeping it.

 

[AmpedRealtor]

Has anyone been able to supercharge above 90 kW with a remanufactured or "upgraded" A pack? I remember Jerome said in an email to an owner that the A packs had different cabling and whatnot that could not handle more than 90 kW, therefore those packs were software limited. I wonder if part of the upgrading of A packs involves changing out this hardware to allow for faster charging?

 

[wk057]

Has anyone been able to supercharge above 90 kW with a remanufactured or "upgraded" A pack? I remember Jerome said in an email to an owner that the A packs had different cabling and whatnot that could not handle more than 90 kW, therefore those packs were software limited. I wonder if part of the upgrading of A packs involves changing out this hardware to allow for faster charging?

Changing the one actual cable (the 2/0 gauge wire that runs down the spine in the D pack I tore down) and the bus bars that connect the modules would be a complicated and time consuming task. My guess would be that they do not touch any of this since it would require a nearly complete breakdown of the pack to get to these components.

I would be curious as to what the actual limiting factor is with the A-packs. Since a P85 with an A-pack can still output 320kW via the same connections, obviously the cabling can handle 120kW. My guess here is that it couldn't do so for more than short periods of time without too much heat.

 

[apacheguy]

That would kind of suck to have it just turn out to be a darn cable. My understanding was that Panasonic released a higher spec cell in Q2 2012 and those cells were implemented in B and later packs. I think that makes more sense actually. Tesla knew from day 1 that they were going to increase SpC rate, my DS said told me that. Why would they limit themselves with a silly cable? Especially with all the talk of Tesla overrating components in the Model S.

 

[wk057]

That would kind of suck to have it just turn out to be a darn cable. My understanding was that Panasonic released a higher spec cell in Q2 2012 and those cells were implemented in B and later packs. I think that makes more sense actually. Tesla knew from day 1 that they were going to increase SpC rate, my DS said told me that. Why would they limit themselves with a silly cable? Especially with all the talk of Tesla overrating components in the Model S.

I'm not sure they've overrated the wiring in the pack... specifically, a 2/0 cable carries nearly 1000A at full throttle... well beyond any rating for 2/0 cable I've ever seen. Sure, it's probably fine for the short periods this actually happens, but definitely not overrated.

The updated cell theory does make perfect sense, though.

 

[qwk]

Tesla did actually come out and say that the cells themselves were different in the A packs.