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100% drive unit failure rate??
- Thread starter yobigd20
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- Driving Dynamics Model S
islandbayy
Active Member
That is correct.
And to add, since I still have DU #4 in my car until I hear back from the service center; I did about 900 miles between yesterday afternoon and this evening. Drove to Appleton Wisconsin, where one of my very AWESOME Viewers, took us to see the location of the worlds first Hydro Electric Plant, and it's reproduction, old electric trolley he restored, and Hydro Plant #2. Following that, went to Sheboyan, WI to charge up at WI's Newest Supercharger, and first SC built in WI in 1 1/2 years (To allow those mean Bears fans from Illinois to make it to Green Bay) to film a YouTube Video (Oh, and we got to play with his Wurlitzer Pipe organ thats in his basement...)
I then left my boys with Grannie and Grandpa, and headed to Wisconsin Dells, Stayed overnight, and headed out again this morning to Wausau, at the University, Where I taught the Auto Mech Class today (Of course, Taught about Electric Cars, components, and the inner workings of the Model S).
Then back to the Mauston Supercharger, madison supercharger, then milwaukee (HOME, FINALLY! I"M FREAKIN TIRED).
What I'm getting at (I know I was rambling on) is over the course of 900 miles, and about 30 hours, I got to drive with this DU on many different road types, from freshly paved to gravel, to Hilly, to flat, to STEEP. And add in some High speed Rural WI Driving (Areas where I didn't see another vehicle for 15-20 minutes....).
Findings, current drive unit, Like DU #2, Milling noise, but as I said earlier somewhere, it's not the "Electrical" Milling that was blamed on current passing through a Bering. This was purely mechanical Milling. But today, it actually went away for a while. That while, was while traveling between 45 and 65mph. Once I got on the higher 70+ MPH Rural Freeway and Roads, I opened er up a bit more. Starting at about 78, A droning noise. I tried to record it, but even with my new microphone, I couldn't capture it, it was just too low of a pitch for my camera or external mic's. As well as vehicle vibration. It actually got rather loud, so I dropped speeds back down (And unfortunately added about a hour to my total drive).
It was not alignment or wheel balance, handled perfectly, and also kept in straight as a arrow line when removing pressure from the steering wheel .
I will play a bit with it tomorrow, unfortunately, I will not be able to take it to the service center, My lil Vinny is having surgery Wednesday Morning, so I will not be able to take it in. Either way, I'll wait for a call back from the TSC, or it fails.... If I don't hear back by Friday I will leave a message.
I would also like to add, from information I was told by other Tesla employees, when a DU is "Manufactured", the only thing that is kept is the casing, the internals, as in the Armature, is replaced every time. That is for the "Motor", I'm not sure how much of the rest of the Drive Unit is reused.
I hope the above information can be of some value to the discussion. My post is not meant to "rant", just share my findings on the subject, and information I was given.
Cheers!
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
Of course if the casing is out of spec in some way it could cause misalignment of any parts placed within.
Indeed. And, it's interesting that a prior 200K mile goal was disclosed which they haven't met either. I wonder if that had always been their goal w/Model S prior to the "million mile" goal.
green car reports now using this same data: Two-Thirds of Earliest Tesla Drive Trains To Fail In 60,000 Miles, Owner Data Suggests
While Tesla has noise issues with it's drivetrains, whoever wrote that article is braindead. If 2/3 of Tesla drivetrains really failed before 60k miles, there would be Tesla's dead on the side of the road everywhere. Anybody with any brain cells knows that a public company isn't going to disclose insider info to some lame blog site(or anybody else for that matter), just because they ask. Making a big deal of that in the article just makes him look like a fool. I guess you really "can't fix stupid".
That article alludes to data that it does not provide. Where are the numbers?
And owners contributing to a Plug in America database are not a random sample of all owners. Without a statistically valid random sample set of data, no valid conclusions can be drawn.
That article means nothing to me.
And owners contributing to a Plug in America database are not a random sample of all owners. Without a statistically valid random sample set of data, no valid conclusions can be drawn.
That article means nothing to me.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
If you look at the anecdotal data we have collected here, it appears that the drive units are getting better. There are a few people who are having continuing problems (and the remanufacturing process may not be fixing the problems) but if you look at this poll, it shows a problem with drive units in late 2013 and early 2014 but a sharp drop off in failures since then (in spite of greatly increased production):
Drive unit replacement - getting better? - View Poll Results
This poll also shows that most people have only had one replacement so they do seem to be able to fix the problem most of the time.
Drive Unit Replacement Poll - View Poll Results
Drive unit replacement - getting better? - View Poll Results
This poll also shows that most people have only had one replacement so they do seem to be able to fix the problem most of the time.
Drive Unit Replacement Poll - View Poll Results
those polls are flawed too because they don't reflect the amount of mileage driven on the drive units. newer cars have less mileage thus the statistical sample set is intuitively going to be much smaller for new cars until they also start to rack the miles up. the other poll is also flawed because after drive units are replaced again hte replacement units don't have enough mileage on them yet.
my whole point is that when you take a sample from high mileage drivers almost every one (well around 100% from what I can tell) have had drive units replaced. Tesla replaces the units from 'noise' since they themselves consider the noises a precursor to failure so yes they are failures even if it is just noise.
Yeah, well. Nobody has taken a sample. All of this data is anecdote, and the plural of anecdote is not data. Sadly, without reaching out to a randomly chosen subset of owners and asking the right question, we're dealing with straight up anecdotal "evidence", which of course is worse than no evidence at all.
LargeHamCollider
Battery cells != scalable
Please describe, in detail, your sampling technique. I am very interested in hearing about it.
Uh, a bit of a leap there. The noises annoy people and clearly shouldn't be happening. It doesn't automatically imply there would be a "failure".
Original DU here, almost 50k, noisy for 40k+. I just don't think that noise=failure. Some Roadster gearboxes develop noise with higher mileage, and a bearing kit fixes the issue.
mspohr
Well-Known Member
In an attempt to get better data (still anecdotal), I've started a poll to find high mileage drivers who still have their original drive units and also to see if the claim of "100% failure" in high mileage cars has any veracity.
High mileage cars and drive units
Another bit of data that isn't in the sample is the reason the drive unit was replaced before 60,000 miles. From all I've read here, it looks like Tesla was pulling any drive unit that had any kind of minor problem so their engineering department could troubleshoot them in the lab and figure out what the problem was. That's at the opposite end of the spectrum from a failure. If an ICE develops a fan noise in its first 60,000 miles and the dealer replaces the fan mechanism, is that counted as an engine failure?
Tesla's drive unit is highly integrated and it's easier to replace the entire unit instead of one component, so they do that in a lot of cases. ICE engines are the opposite and about the last thing you want to do it replace the core motor assembly, so they rarely get pulled. To the media who are more used to ICE engines and the way they are maintained, Tesla's behavior is very concerning. But while it's clear Tesla has had some problems with motors, especially in early cars, it isn't as bad as the media thinks.
Tesla's drive unit is highly integrated and it's easier to replace the entire unit instead of one component, so they do that in a lot of cases. ICE engines are the opposite and about the last thing you want to do it replace the core motor assembly, so they rarely get pulled. To the media who are more used to ICE engines and the way they are maintained, Tesla's behavior is very concerning. But while it's clear Tesla has had some problems with motors, especially in early cars, it isn't as bad as the media thinks.
Operating outside of original specification, ie. noise, is something I would consider failure.
stopcrazypp
Well-Known Member
That report is getting coverage in Jalopnik and it is easy to see the author was misled. They think the green car reports author did a deep analysis of actual parts failures within the drivetrain and a "failure" means that a majority of components in it have failed and that is why it needs replacement (basically he assumes it is like an ICE with transmission).
The reality is that he only took the data on drivetrain swaps from the survey (which does not note what the actually issue was) and that counts as a "failure".
http://jalopnik.com/report-two-thirds-of-early-tesla-model-s-drivetrains-m-1747222846
The reality is that he only took the data on drivetrain swaps from the survey (which does not note what the actually issue was) and that counts as a "failure".
http://jalopnik.com/report-two-thirds-of-early-tesla-model-s-drivetrains-m-1747222846
JRP3
Hyperactive Member
I'd consider that noise. There is a distinct difference between a noisy part and a broken part. Some brake pads are noisy while functioning perfectly, a fan belt can be noisy but functioning perfectly, quite different from a broken fan belt, which would be a failure.
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