23M3P - Burning and/or Overheating Electric Smell During High Performance Driving

[M3Papi]

I have a relatively new (~3000 miles) Model 3 Performance. I was aggressive on the accelerator for a solid 20-30 seconds today (wasn't flooring it but close) and a few seconds after I let off the pedal, a distinct smell of overheating electronics (possibly burning?) started filling the car.

If anyone's ever had electronics (such as AV receivers or other equipment) get really hot, they start to give off a smell which I've thought was normal. Is this expected in this car too?

And before anyone says it was the brakes, I was not using the brake pedal. However - I didn't start noticing the smell until after I let off the pedal completely and the car was fully slowing down using regen braking for ~15 seconds.

I've seen a post made 2 years ago with a very similar title before but there was not much discussion on it.

I fully let off the pedal once I hit ~120 and I've pushed the car much harder than this (145+) and never noticed the smell). It was only about 82F outside and I've never noticed the smell when pushing the car hard on 100+F days.

Is this normal?

Can anyone that takes their car to the track often confirm that this electrical heat smell is normal and common when pushing the car hard?

Note: I was not in track mode.

 

[jjrandorin]

Maybe @Lindenwood, @MasterC17, @canasion35 or @MountainPass might have some feedback (tagging them here so they see it).

 

[Adam3]

Weird. Well it's under warranty, keep it up!

 

[Zcd1]

I’ve never smelled anything like that even during track driving…

 

[MasterC17]

I certainly have never noticed a burning smell under acceleration/declaration. If something was legitimately arcing or overheating, I'd expect some alerts pretty quickly.

That being said, brake pads can create a very similar smell. So, I wonder if the car was using the friction brakes to help slow the car down at that high speed? That would make more sense to me.

 

[M3Papi]

I'm tempted to put it in track mode and try again, but I know the cooling system is operating at higher levels as soon as you put the car in track mode so I don't know if it'll heat up as quickly.

Does anyone know if my warranty would still cover any issues if something were to overheat and breakdown while I was in track mode ?

 

[MasterC17]

I'm tempted to put it in track mode and try again, but I know the cooling system is operating at higher levels as soon as you put the car in track mode so I don't know if it'll heat up as quickly.

Does anyone know if my warranty would still cover any issues if something were to overheat and breakdown while I was in track mode ?

Heat and burning are two completely separate things. Again, if there's some sort of arcing or extreme heat/melting from electrical current occuring, track mode can do nothing to stop that, and the car would go into an undrivable state very quickly.

So, given it's still driving, I'm still leaning towards brake pad smell, or maybe even something environmental that wasn't from your car.

There's no reason using track mode would void your warranty.

 

[M3Papi]

Heat and burning are two completely separate things.

You're absolutely right. I'm inclined to believe what I'm smelling is heat - now the source of the heat is what I'm trying to figure out.

I noticed the smell again today and I was literally just cursing around local road never even accelerated hard.

However, this time I had the music turned up to near full volume and my bass and sub are probably one notch away from full output in the equalizer.

There's this one song I've been playing that has a lot of bass (basically feels like I have massage seats). After the song played, the next one on my playlist is also pretty bass-heavy. I have a feeling the smell is actually coming from the speakers now and I had the volume turned up nearly as high last time I noticed the smell too.

Has anyone noticed the heat smell from their speakers?

 

[leoita]

The smell should be coming from the amp and not the speakers.

 

[ARKEBUS]

You can certainly smoke speakers if you drive them too hard.
Been there, done that, but not in a Tesla.

Sorry, I will not test this in my car.
It is not good for the speakers, and they can catch fire if not properly fused.

Any volunteers ?

 

[one2many]

Well I burned up some house speakers, smelled smoke,
next day the plastic knobs were melted on the crossover.
Burned up a big kenwood amp, did not smell any smoke,
oh the days of 400wp. I got a crown amp and floor standing
JBL's , think its rated at 800 w rms, never blow that puppy.
Never blew car speakers that I know of..