Tesla reduced range
Discussion
Seems there's a potential class action lawsuit in Australia because Tesla has been sending updates to Model S/X vehicles over wifi that effectively reduces battery capacity and hence range by ~10%. Not sure I'd be happy if BMW turned up one day and swapped the petrol tank in my car for a smaller one.
Theres already a class action law suit filed I think in the US, there was even one filed over 'FSD' a few years ago.
The reduction in range is actually much more than 10% in some cases, 73kWh usable down to 60kWh for some '85' pack cars so close to 18% drop! Tesla have also capped the SC rates on some cars quite dramatically.
Currently only a smallish number of cars are affected, but Tesla haven't actually explained why they have done this. There is certainly a chance Tesla may find the need to role this kind of energy restriction to the wider fleet.
Its been known for a while the '90' packs were poor performers interms of degradation, in the past it was thought the '85' packs were the gold standard for EV packs, with great historical and real life data on minimal degredation and high charging speed. Clearly Tesla have found an 'issue' with the 85 packs, which means thats no longer true.
There is loads of speculation on this but the people that know aren't allowed to say anything (probably because of the Tesla lawyers camped out on their front door), and Tesla wouldn't say anything.
Audi might have actually played it right by restricting the pack on the eTron to only been 85% usable.
It also shows how little we know about pack behaviour, bare in mind the max SC any of these cars have seen is barely above 100KW. The push for 200KW+ charging currently can really only shorten the lifespan of these packs.
The lawsuit isn't really that interesting, but the story behind it is, however outside of a Tesla no one really knows whats going on or why.
The reduction in range is actually much more than 10% in some cases, 73kWh usable down to 60kWh for some '85' pack cars so close to 18% drop! Tesla have also capped the SC rates on some cars quite dramatically.
Currently only a smallish number of cars are affected, but Tesla haven't actually explained why they have done this. There is certainly a chance Tesla may find the need to role this kind of energy restriction to the wider fleet.
Its been known for a while the '90' packs were poor performers interms of degradation, in the past it was thought the '85' packs were the gold standard for EV packs, with great historical and real life data on minimal degredation and high charging speed. Clearly Tesla have found an 'issue' with the 85 packs, which means thats no longer true.
There is loads of speculation on this but the people that know aren't allowed to say anything (probably because of the Tesla lawyers camped out on their front door), and Tesla wouldn't say anything.
Audi might have actually played it right by restricting the pack on the eTron to only been 85% usable.
It also shows how little we know about pack behaviour, bare in mind the max SC any of these cars have seen is barely above 100KW. The push for 200KW+ charging currently can really only shorten the lifespan of these packs.
The lawsuit isn't really that interesting, but the story behind it is, however outside of a Tesla no one really knows whats going on or why.
It's related to heavy supercharger use and other stuff that degrades the battery. For supercharging there is a counter and once you reach a threshold of X charges it reduces charging speed. Then Tesla did the software update to reduce capacity too, presumably to avoid vast numbers of warranty replacements.
The 90 pack in particular proved unreliable. Lots of people had to have new packs around the 120-150k mile range. Technically out of warranty but because it happened to some big YouTube stars Tesla had to fix it for free.
The 90 pack in particular proved unreliable. Lots of people had to have new packs around the 120-150k mile range. Technically out of warranty but because it happened to some big YouTube stars Tesla had to fix it for free.
kuro68k said:
It's related to heavy supercharger use and other stuff that degrades the battery. For supercharging there is a counter and once you reach a threshold of X charges it reduces charging speed. Then Tesla did the software update to reduce capacity too, presumably to avoid vast numbers of warranty replacements.
.
This issue is not degradation. It was a deliberate voltage cap placed on the cells that suddenly removed 10%+ in range and reduced performance..
The odd thing about the capacity cap is that it isn't consistent. There are owners with 85's and galactic mileage, heavy DC charging who haven't been capped. There are owners with average mileage and mainly AC charging who have been capped. Geographically all over the place too - Scotland, Germany, California, Canada.
The class action is hardly surprising given Tesla's virtual silence - and what they have said has only inflamed owners more, a "small" reduction and to extend the battery life. What seems much more likely, as you allude to, is an attempt to avoid warranty claims as on the face of it, and without any other information, the conclusion one would reach is that there is something wrong with these cells.
DJP31 said:
What seems much more likely, as you allude to, is an attempt to avoid warranty claims as on the face of it, and without any other information, the conclusion one would reach is that there is something wrong with these cells.
Its either the cells for individual packs or much worse for Tesla an issue with the BMS not capturing true degredation, in which cases it a fleet wide issue for every car Tesla has produced to date - Which will kill the company (and probably all EVs) dead.The frustrating thing is third parties already seem to know exactly whats going on but clearly Tesla have some kind of NDA with the individuals in the know, so no one has any actual facts
.The law suit is just a distraction, didn't all that FSD lawsuit got out of Tesla was a $200 rebate or something, and everyone that signed up has now no comeback to Tesla on anything to do with FSD - so no potential AP 3.0 cpu even if they now wanted it?
gangzoom said:
The law suit is just a distraction, didn't all that FSD lawsuit got out of Tesla was a $200 rebate or something, and everyone that signed up has now no comeback to Tesla on anything to do with FSD - so no potential AP 3.0 cpu even if they now wanted it?
I don't know enough about that one other than it was the delay in AP2 features catching up with AP1 that triggered it. Bit of a bummer on such expensive cars. But I do feel like I can't muster full sympathy... It's been pretty clear to me from the get go that buyers of Teslas (and others like Nissan leaf) are early adopters and essentially paying beta testers. That's the price of having tomorrow's tech, today. Rough with the smooth and all that.
Otispunkmeyer said:
Bit of a bummer on such expensive cars. But I do feel like I can't muster full sympathy... It's been pretty clear to me from the get go that buyers of Teslas (and others like Nissan leaf) are early adopters and essentially paying beta testers. That's the price of having tomorrow's tech, today. Rough with the smooth and all that.
Not sure anyone has asked for sympathy?Anyone buying a Tesla thinking they aren't taking a risk with the tech or company is deluded.
If you want cheap/reliable motoring plenty of other options.
Dave Hedgehog said:
Any of them run 10.5 qtrs?
Its nothing to do with the performance, many people (my self included and I suspect many new Model 3 buyers) have bought these cars partly based on the previous rock solid battery longevity of the 85 pack cars, which we now know is not true.On the face of it, our car at 27K has at the most 3% degradation (2% on some days according to the BMS), can currently DC at 117KW peak some 18KW MORE than when we first bought the car, and can now use CCS Rapid chargers. It's not a lie to say its the only car I've owned that's got better post-purchase.
All of that, however, is pointless if the battery is going to die at 5 years. Tesla have by far the most real-life DC rapid charging data, and if you truly believe the future of EVs is more powerful DC charging than any data linking DC charging to poor battery longevity is bad news for all EVs.
The lack of info from Tesla isn't really confirming anything, apart from there is a real issue with these battery packs, the question is how big an issue. The frustrating thing is the answer is almost certainly known by Tesla and individuals outside of Tesla, but one is telling us, the consumer.
Am sure am the manufactures have done tests for battery packs charging at 100KW, but theres nothing like real world user experience.
No other brand or battery manufacture has as much data on DC Rapid charging consequences than Tesla.
Anyone with sense would leave EVs for now and wait till we know whats going on.....but I suspect most people on this forum have little sense when it comes to wasting money on any car EV or not
.Edited by gangzoom on Thursday 15th August 10:23
Dave Hedgehog said:
i would be interested to find out what cars have been software restricted
is it all S and X, some S and X, specific years, high mileage cars, high fast charge cars, all gen 1 battery cars?
It is only some older (3 year +) Model S cars. The software affected ones are the 85's, some 70's and a very few 75's who had 85 batteries and were software capped when they bought (i.e. they bought a 75 but Tesla put an 85 battery in to use up stock). I'm not sure if any of the original 60's are affected.is it all S and X, some S and X, specific years, high mileage cars, high fast charge cars, all gen 1 battery cars?
There seems to be no discernible pattern to those that are affected. It isn't just high mileage, or those that have DC charged up to 100% all day every day (e.g. taxi's). It's not climate related as cars in Scotland are affected as are those in Arizona. That's what's making it so difficult to work out what has happened to cause these cars to be capacity restricted - and Tesla are saying nothing except a statement issued via the press which is waffle about a "few" cars that probably won't even notice the "small" range reduction, and it being done to extend the battery longevity.
The lack of answers and bulls
t coming from the Service Centres has led to a class action lawsuit being launched.There is a 184 page thread on the US TMC forum just on this subject. https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/sudden-los...
It is weird how random it is.
My 70 has been fine but my Dads 90 had limited supercharging after 8 months (uses them a lot) which really annoyed him. But there doesn’t appear to have been any degradation at all.
As usual with Tesla though when we questioned the charging slowing down were told they would look into and call us back. They did that around 5 times before we gave up asking. Still waiting for that phone call.
They don’t help themselves.
My 70 has been fine but my Dads 90 had limited supercharging after 8 months (uses them a lot) which really annoyed him. But there doesn’t appear to have been any degradation at all.
As usual with Tesla though when we questioned the charging slowing down were told they would look into and call us back. They did that around 5 times before we gave up asking. Still waiting for that phone call.
They don’t help themselves.
DJP31 said:
There is a 184 page thread on the US TMC forum just on this subject. https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/sudden-los...
99% of the stuff in that thread is garbage, the last post on there by the one guy who knows whats going on pretty much confirms Tesla knows there's a real issue with these packs but are refusing to tell owners ."Regrettably, I've been advised to stay out of this issue.
Suffice it to say, I'm less than convinced they're going to do the right thing here... but, unfortunately I just don't have the resources to waste defending myself should Tesla actually decide to try something stupid against me on this.
Best of luck with the class action case."
ntiz said:
It is weird how random it is.
My 70 has been fine but my Dads 90 had limited supercharging after 8 months (uses them a lot) which really annoyed him. But there doesn’t appear to have been any degradation at all.
As usual with Tesla though when we questioned the charging slowing down were told they would look into and call us back. They did that around 5 times before we gave up asking. Still waiting for that phone call.
They don’t help themselves.
They absolutely don’t help themselves that’s for sure. Sometimes I don’t think they could make more of a mess of things if they tried. The uncorking of the 75D’s taking the 0-60 down by a 1sec for free should have been a PR payday. But no, Tesla incensed most eligible owners by having a list of VIN’s that was about 20% complete and telling everyone else their car wasn’t compatible. Took about 2 months to get that shambles sorted out.My 70 has been fine but my Dads 90 had limited supercharging after 8 months (uses them a lot) which really annoyed him. But there doesn’t appear to have been any degradation at all.
As usual with Tesla though when we questioned the charging slowing down were told they would look into and call us back. They did that around 5 times before we gave up asking. Still waiting for that phone call.
They don’t help themselves.
The supercharging throttling, and I’m not certain which packs but think it is the 90’s, starts when the DC charging reaches 2,625kWh. It then continues to taper down until 13,125kWh and then levels out. This was the case 18 months or so, no idea if it still is.
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