Guy #1 had what sounded like quotes or paraphrases from Tesla people verifying the issue. If #1 truly has a deposit on a Tesla X, I’d be inclined to believe him, on the assumption that he isn’t just the anti-electric zealot that #2 implies.
Has Tesla come out and said the bricking scenario is false? I can’t imagine they’d let this percolate otherwise. I think Taco Bell and the not meat rumors showed that a determined defence is a good idea, assuming you have one.
According to the OPs link, the battery completely discharges in 11 weeks from 100% charge, according to Tesla themselves; Wikipedia states that the battery capacity is 53 kWh, which implies an average drain of about 28 watts, which seems rather high to me, since one would expect a battery powered device to consume minimal power when off, even if it isn’t really “off” (speaking as somebody who has made such on/off circuits, both battery and AC powered). Also, the battery apparently needs cooling even when not being used if it is near full charge, which consumes 146 watts for the coolant pump. That doesn’t make much sense either, since the self-discharge of a lithium ion battery isn’t that high (assuming it releases heat).
I’d also think that they would have overdischarge protection, as is standard for smaller lithium-ion batteries; even if it cut off to protect the battery (at a level higher than the danger point for overdischarge), it should still be able to recharge, unless it was overdischarged.
One reason I am damn glad I am not a Tesla service manager.
Li-ion chemistry does not like low discharge states, it destroys the battery. Many manufacturers limit how low the battery can go, so when your device is saying it’s at 0% it may be at 20% which the device will not allow you to tap into. I believe this also happens at the high end (100% charged means there is more that can be charged but it’s blocked out because that too eats the battery) Tesla may have pushed this limit too much and once your at their zero the battery is already suffering damage.
So, it’s $40,000 car that needs it’s own support staff to look after it, lest it die from neglect?
Anybody want to place bets as to when Tesla will go under?
This followup article in Wired magazine seems to confirm the original blogger’s complaint.
Tesla needs to address this with more than just “it’s the same as not putting oil in your gas engine!” It’s not the same. This is relatively new technology and owners won’t understand the hazard unless it’s directly pointed out. Other EV makers apparently have built-in fail safes to prevent exactly this. If Tesla can’t provide the fail safe, they ought to at least offer some kind of brick insurance.
If they continue to deal with issues like they are this one, they won’t last another year.
The thing is, a lot of people who can afford pricey cars like this can also afford to take long trips or live in seasonal homes with vehicles at each home. I would think they are quite a bit more likely to be away from their Tesla for extended periods than the rest of us (who can’t afford them anyway, but that’s another story). Even if they leave the car plugged in, some kind of power surge could trip a breaker, and then they’re out 40 grand with no recourse.
One of the articles suggested that owners are better off if the car rolls off a cliff, since the insurance would cover it. I’m expecting to see quite a few pics of crumpled Teslas at the bottom of cliffs over the next few years.
it’s a minor nitpick, but the way he rails on it deserves a correction. The Tesla has a battery. the battery is made up of ~8,000 cells. A single cell is not a battery even though colloquial usage equates the two.
I don’t want to see Tesla go under (likely they would be bought instead) but if they do fail to some extent, the vengeful side of me would really love to stick it up the asses of Tesla-philes* who crowed about how this plucky little startup in saintly California was “going to show the rest of the automotive industry how it’s done.”
It seems a simple fix might be a small 50cc engine hooked up to a generator that automatically kicks on when the charge goes below a specific level. Beats 40k for new batteries.
One would think a small solar cell would suffice to produce a trickle charge - then you’d only have to park on the top of the stack if you’re leaving at the airport. . . But if it can run down while plugged in through an extension cord, there/s not enoughtsurface area to hold the necessary solar cells.
That’s the part I can’t grok. How much continuous energy does this thing need to be consuming?!?
How big a fuel tank will it need? If you’ve jetted off to your winter home and the breaker that your Tesla is on trips the next day, you might be gone 2-3 months.
The only real solution is some kind of Tesla hotel that you can put it at when you leave town for a while. Maybe some pet hotels can expand their business offerings.
Or maybe some kind of redesign of the power system. Tesla should never have put out a car with an issue like this, at least without a crystal clear explanation of the consequences of letting the battery fully discharge – including the cost of fixing it.
I’m not so sure about that. Every auto company that makes electric cars is having trouble selling them. They’re the dollar coins of the automotive world: they get lots of hype, but few people have any interest in getting one.
Then you would have a Chevy Volt.
Also, from an environmental standpoint, how much energy is being wasted while the car sits unused?
Reminds me of what happened when I bought a brand-new personal watercraft from Sea-Doo. It had a small warning sticking on it that said, “caution, if turned over in the water, tilt this way to drain (arrow) if engine is stopped.”
It didn’t say what the consequences were if you didn’t tilt it that way, nor how important it was, but I found out the hard way that if you allowed water to get in the engine, then started it up, the engine could be destroyed since water is not compressible like fuel. The precaution wasn’t needed if the engine was still running and you turned it upside down, just if the engine was NOT running.
The dealer said, “But you’re not supposed to get water in the engine! Everyone knows that!” To which I replied, “Imagine that, putting a boat in an environment like a lake without adequate warning to a non-mechanic!”
And if a pipe breaks, your whole house can be destroyed.
I don’t think that this problem rises to the level of catastrophe for Tesla (although it certainly sucks for someone who has to bear it personally). Someone who can afford a Tesla and a winter home is going to have someone who can check on them periodically, as long as they know to do so. It’s more a problem of education.
If we assume the numbers in the first article are correct, that it costs $40k to replace the battery, and let’s even assume that the failure rate is underreported by more than a factor of 4, and 1% of roadsters will be so afflicted during the normal life of their battery pack, then the cost of replacing the battery just adds about $400 to the cost of a roadster in aggregate. That’s a cost that certainly isn’t worth adding a small motor for, and should be easily insurable against. Combine the insurance with greater awareness and some automated alerts, and this doesn’t seem like it’s a major issue for Tesla. More of a minor engineering annoyance and a PR issue.
I’m curious about the insurance not covering battery failure. Is that because insurance specifically doesn’t insure the battery, or does insurance generally only cover specific defined losses, and if yours doesn’t mention battery replacement, you’re out of luck? I’ve only ever carried liability insurance, so I’m pretty ignorant about how any other auto insurance works.
But, I thought Nikola Tesla himself solved this problem a century ago:
[QUOTE=Wireless Power, New-York Tribune Sunday Magazine, March 3, 1912]
“By this system,” he continues, "wireless power can be transmitted with absolutely the same facility to the antipodes as it can to a distance of a few blocks. The quantity of energy the transmitter delivers is immaterial; but, in view of the fact that the earth is immense, and that there are practical limits in the amount of energy collected in any individual receiver, it is necessary to have a very powerful transmitting plant.
“However,” he explains, "the volume of energy–the indicated horsepower of the generating plant–will not in the least affect the limit of transmission. That is, a plant generating two hundred horsepower will transmit its energy to the same unlimited terrestrial distance as that of a plant generating two hundred thousand horsepower. Neither will the energy or power decrease in efficiency as the distance of transmission increases, as in the case with electrical energy transmitted by wire. The efficiency of transmission will be the same, irrespective of the distance or the amount.
[/QUOTE]
According to Wiki it is a 375 Volt battery. A 28 watt draw is .0746A. When you factor in that the coolant pump draws 146W during the top 10% of the charge cycle, the car draws quite a bit less after the coolant pump shuts down (at or below 90% charge)
This puts the Tesla in the same neighborhood as many other cars in parasitic draw levels. In addition since the Tesla is an electric car, my guess the designers didn’t spend much time trying to minimize the draw since they probably envisioned the car always being plugged in.
Why would your car insurance cover the battery? Your car insurance does’t cover the battery in your gas car, nor does it cover the engine. Those are maintenance issues not covered by an auto policy.
The whole “every car needs to be maintained” thing is a cop-out because regular cars don’t need to be maintained thusly while in storage for a few months or risk complete, catastrophic failure. At worst the battery might need a jump, and its lifespan might be reduced a bit. A $100-$200 problem in the worst case.
So it turns out electric cars are not only range-limited, but time-limited as well, but the industry hasn’t done a very good job (at all) of letting the general public know this. The public knows and expects batteries to decrease in health over time, but as a matter of percentage capacity loss over a period of years, not complete death in a matter of weeks.
As somebody who’s followed the Tesla dream since their inception, if “Too bad, educate yourself” is their response to this problem… well, I can only hope that they find their snobby selves in bankruptcy proceedings sooner rather than later.
I agree that it’s a PR issue, but they handled this remarkably poorly. The public now has a conception that “random expensive things might happen to my car and Tesla won’t help me out because I’m not smart enough to foresee all the problems”. Nice.