2015 85D post warranty: help me rank wk057 options

[Dukeybootie]

My factory 8 yr battery/DU warranty will be up in Aug 2023 and I am researching my options as I would like to keep the car as long as it is practical to do so. From what I gather, these are some options I have as they pertain to the battery:

1. everything has been fine on original battery, just save $ and roll the dice, then go to nearest Tesla service center for replacement battery when current one fails
2. sign up for @wk057 battery service plan for ~ $1,999 and get about a year out of it (annual mileage 22,000)
3. upgrade to 90 pack ($7,345) or 100 pack ($23,435) at any point before existing battery fails

Some questions I have for wk057...figured I'd ask in this forum so others could see the responses:

1. Can the battery service plan be renewed over and over? Is there a limit?
2. Is there a warranty on battery pack upgrades?

Other thoughts and input welcome!

 

[wk057]

The Tesla replacement option isn't a horrible one. It's just significantly more costly and usually has a comparable wait period to us based on input from our customers.

Keep in mind our service plan doesn't start the clock until your OEM warranty is up, but you'll get monitoring and such in the meantime after signup (after we get you a BMD, which is likely a few months after signup at our backlog).

Your mileage is higher than average, so yeah would burn through that. We're working on options for folks in such situations to renew/upgrade the plan for additional time or mileage as long as battery health is good.

We've not committed to renewals, but most likely will have renewals available with pricing based on actual vehicle data. I'd expect the cost per year to increase over time however as the vehicles age, and there will be a point where it's likely not worthwhile anymore to continue to cover it. We're also going to be adding an age/mileage cap or additional cost on the signups (most likely a non-refundable % of some kind to cover our costs in the event the BMD rejects the vehicle, vs a full refund), since the data we've gathered thus far has had our BMD reject enough older vehicles to justify it.

We don't warranty the battery pack upgrades, however we offer a discounted rate on the extended service plan with all battery upgrades (as much as 50% off, depending on the upgrade). This is also currently the only way to get a service plan on a 100 kWh pack, but we'll be adding those soon once we have sufficient modern market data to ensure supply of replacements.

Hope this helps.

 

[geordi]

Hey Jason, I'm still roaming the countryside, thank you again for your help.

Generally speaking, how many miles can reasonably be expected from a pack / how much supercharging before the BMS decides to slow things down?
Since I have that newest-gen 90 pack, I've already put over 40k miles on it and over 18,000 kWh from superchargers (86% according to the new stats available from the app)... So what kind of lifespan is theoretically reasonable? Obviously I'd be munching through that mileage limit on your warranty setup, but if you are interested in the stats I'd be happy to talk to you about the monitor thing, certainly for any early warning. I'm not happy with my own usage in some cases, b/c the wh/mile have been higher than I'd like when hauling tools and sometimes the stations are closer to the edge than I'd like. I usually try to keep it above 15%-20% and below 85% though.

Apparently my 2014 tops out at 120kw, and I have definitely seen it hit that when the temperatures are right.

 

[wk057]

Hey Jason, I'm still roaming the countryside, thank you again for your help.

Generally speaking, how many miles can reasonably be expected from a pack / how much supercharging before the BMS decides to slow things down?
Since I have that newest-gen 90 pack, I've already put over 40k miles on it and over 18,000 kWh from superchargers (86% according to the new stats available from the app)... So what kind of lifespan is theoretically reasonable? Obviously I'd be munching through that mileage limit on your warranty setup, but if you are interested in the stats I'd be happy to talk to you about the monitor thing, certainly for any early warning. I'm not happy with my own usage in some cases, b/c the wh/mile have been higher than I'd like when hauling tools and sometimes the stations are closer to the edge than I'd like. I usually try to keep it above 15%-20% and below 85% though.

There's no mileage number, really. It's based on what the pack estimates its health to be. If it's healthier, it'll allow faster charging. If it's not, it won't. It bases this decision on a lot more than mileage or energy used. (Edit: I'll note for completeness that the "Battery Health" number in the recently available service menus has nothing to do with this. I'm also not entirely sure if the number it gives there actually has anything to do with actual battery health either, based on some limited testing... but, I digress.)

Apparently my 2014 tops out at 120kw, and I have definitely seen it hit that when the temperatures are right.

This is a limitation of your charge port type and rear junction box type. These weren't updated to handle the higher currents until late 2014, so you barely missed that if I recall correctly. 120kW on a 350V pack is actually more current than they used to allow there, so, there's that.

 

[geordi]

@wk057 I understand what you are saying about the conector and wiring - I've felt some warmth in the inside of the rear quarterpanel that I gather is from those cables handling that many electrons at speed. It really only hits 120 (highest I've seen is 122) with the right conditions, especially around now with the colder temps, fastest I have seen is like 110 or so.

Is that 120kw higher than the pack should get... Or could it handle more, and by not super-speeding it, am I theoretically being kinder to it for a longer lifespan?

 

[cleverscreenam]

Since our cars regen at 60 KW on a daily basis, I would expect the car to continue handling 60 KW of fast charging forever.