Another 12v battery bites the dust

[kevincwelch]

Argh. We were planning to take the Tesla on our Thsnksgiving travels tomorrow. The 12v warning light came on today. Tesla service said don't drive it. No loaners available by tomorrow and I'm 3 hrs from service center. Have to drive gas car now. Boo.......

Interesting that they told you jot to drive it. Tesla told me that when the warning light came on it wasn't necessarily urgent. I went about 2 weeks with the warning before the Lt came out to replace the battery. Maybe they are playing it safe with you.

 

[carrerascott]

Maybe because ours was flashing? Or they logged in and saw how bad things were? Can't say. I do know his words were "I would recommend not taking the Tesla, there is a chance the car will be fine with no issues but I would not want you to get stuck trying to leave the airport." -- a chance that the car will be find doesn't sound too confident.

Interesting that they told you jot to drive it. Tesla told me that when the warning light came on it wasn't necessarily urgent. I went about 2 weeks with the warning before the Lt came out to replace the battery. Maybe they are playing it safe with you.

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A Ranger can do it on site. They just did mine last week. (21 months, 35,000 miles)

Thanks. Nothing scheduled yet so hopefully they can come while i'm in Iceland! (I have a housesitter who can give them access).

I'm at 37,400 miles and 20months old. Very similar...

 

[Joe]

My car is a Dec 2012 model. Tesla swapped out the 12V battery preemptively in April of 2013. The message to service the 12V battery came on last thursday - called and Tesla could only set it up for this tuesday. Interestingly, they too told me that its better to sit in the garage. The service coordinator actually asked me "don't you have another car as a backup?". Ranger came by yesterday and the replacement was pretty quick. As per the ranger, its the same manufacturer (not the original one, but the same as my first replacement) - looked the same, but forgot to take a picture.

I have the same experience as kevincwelch - I've had my Tesla in for more service visits (and Ranger visits) than I've had to do with my 2004 LS430 My friends now tell me that I need a backup Tesla for my original Tesla! (Old DeLorean Joke!)

 

[carrerascott]

Pretty disappointed in Tesla service. 12v light comes on 11/24. They tell me not to drive it. Soonest a ranger can come? Dec 4. Yes it's during the holidays, but 10 days with my car dead in the garage is not acceptable.

 

[wycolo]

If I should see a '12v battery light' or a screen msg re 12v batt, I would simply hook up a good 12v battery to the frunk posts and drive car to nearest service center. This 2nd battery can be any good motorcycle or physically larger 12v battery, just be sure it is good i.e. holds a charge. And be sure the weak battery (the car) is not shorted out such that the 2nd battery is being depleted. In this case you cannot drive car at all. But from what I gather shorting out is not the usual failure mode re the 12v battery, so this ploy should get you to the Service Center asap. A voltmeter plugged into the console outlet will allow you to monitor: normally it should indicate approximately 14v. When 12.1v becomes 12.0v the car is DEAD!!

PS: They replaced my 1.5 year old 12v battery last week during annual service. It tested 'borderline'. The ModelS really operates this battery in ways not previously anticipated by the battery industry, but progress is being made with more deep-cycling capable batteries being sourced by Tesla nowadays.
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[clea]

Pretty disappointed in Tesla service. 12v light comes on 11/24. They tell me not to drive it. Soonest a ranger can come? Dec 4. Yes it's during the holidays, but 10 days with my car dead in the garage is not acceptable.

... that is strange as my light came on last Thursday and they swapped it out right away but that is only because they had a cancellation the same day and told me that I would've been able to drive it for a few weeks still. I was told that the light is more of a warning that it should be addressed soon rather than immediately.

 

[carrerascott]

I am 3 hours from the nearest service center. This is not something I should need to do on a $100k+ car where I paid the additional $8,000 service plan.

If I should see a '12v battery light' or a screen msg re 12v batt, I would simply hook up a good 12v battery to the frunk posts and drive car to nearest service center. This 2nd battery can be any good motorcycle or physically larger 12v battery, just be sure it is good i.e. holds a charge. And be sure the weak battery (the car) is not shorted out such that the 2nd battery is being depleted. In this case you cannot drive car at all. But from what I gather shorting out is not the usual failure mode re the 12v battery, so this ploy should get you to the Service Center asap. A voltmeter plugged into the console outlet will allow you to monitor: normally it should indicate approximately 14v. When 12.1v becomes 12.0v the car is DEAD!!
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I was told not to drive the car. The soonest Ranger service date is Dec 4th, so they say. But what if I didn't have other cars??

... that is strange as my light came on last Thursday and they swapped it out right away but that is only because they had a cancellation the same day and told me that I would've been able to drive it for a few weeks still. I was told that the light is more of a warning that it should be addressed soon rather than immediately.

 

[Lifeguard(ret.)]

Interesting that they told you jot to drive it. Tesla told me that when the warning light came on it wasn't necessarily urgent. I went about 2 weeks with the warning before the Lt came out to replace the battery. Maybe they are playing it safe with you.

I was reassured by both the service center and Tesla Ownership that with normal driving the 12v would be OK for at least 2 weeks. The Service Center called me about 5 days before the warning appeared on the dash - the Model S sent a distress call back to the mother ship before the warning actually showed up. This was about 2 weeks after the annual service at 15 months, about 13500 miles. The Service Center was waiting on a shipment of 12v. Ranger replaced it at home last week - about 10 days after the warning appeared. No issues during the interim.

 

[carrerascott]

No pre-emptive call here. Called them when the warning came on and they basically said if I drive it I "might make it where I'm going."

So it's been sitting in the garage since Nov 24.

I was reassured by both the service center and Tesla Ownership that with normal driving the 12v would be OK for at least 2 weeks. The Service Center called me about 5 days before the warning appeared on the dash - the Model S sent a distress call back to the mother ship before the warning actually showed up. This was about 2 weeks after the annual service at 15 months, about 13500 miles. The Service Center was waiting on a shipment of 12v. Ranger replaced it at home last week - about 10 days after the warning appeared. No issues during the interim.

 

[Cottonwood]

I am 3 hours from the nearest service center. This is not something I should need to do on a $100k+ car where I paid the additional $8,000 service plan.





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I was told not to drive the car. The soonest Ranger service date is Dec 4th, so they say. But what if I didn't have other cars??

I would probably do something like wycolo suggests if I really needed the car.

There are items in the Model S that are very Tesla centric and Tesla may be justified in wanting to do their own work, but replacing a lead acid battery is 100 year old technology that any reasonable mechanic can do.

If you did not have another car available, then Tesla should provide a loaner or rental car in this situation.

When the Ranger does show up, please try to take a picture of the replacement battery, getting a clear view of the manufacturer and model number. Thanks ahead of time for that info.

Tesla really needs to do an update on its processor designs and supervisory, offline functions to drive a stake into the Vampire's heart. Until the Vampire is vanquished, it will continue to suck the life from the 12V, lead-acid batteries.

 

[rogbmw]

My 12 V Battery needs service notice came up this morning. I called the Orlando center, and they said I could drive it and be fine. After checking the schedule, then they were able to work the car in today, and then they called me back and a Road Ranger came at noon and installed the new 12 V battery here at my work. I hope we don't have another round of bad 12 Volt betteries. This will make my 3rd one, but to Tesla's credit, they have been excellent at replacing them.

 

[Cottonwood]

If possible during one of these Ranger visits, would someone please take a picture of the battery that Tesla is using for the replacement? Please get the manufacturer and model number.

Thanks!

 

[Modelxvin1365]

My 12 V Battery needs service notice came up this morning. I called the Orlando center, and they said I could drive it and be fine. After checking the schedule, then they were able to work the car in today, and then they called me back and a Road Ranger came at noon and installed the new 12 V battery here at my work. I hope we don't have another round of bad 12 Volt betteries. This will make my 3rd one, but to Tesla's credit, they have been excellent at replacing them.

I am glad to hear that they are replacing them so expediently and taking proactive measures but i can't help but think that known more reliable suppliers would be a better solution such as. Lead acid batteries are not hard to make we have had them for a century and then some, AcDelco is just one of many reliable brands

 

[Cottonwood]

I am glad to hear that they are replacing them so expediently and taking proactive measures but i can't help but think that known more reliable suppliers would be a better solution such as. Lead acid batteries are not hard to make we have had them for a century and then some, AcDelco is just one of many reliable brands

Even the time tested, lead-acid battery has a limit to its total charge-discharge cycles. A very good deep-cycle battery, used in a lot of small, off-grid systems it the Trojan T-105RE. It is limited to about 800 cycles, 1,600 half cycles, 4,000 20% cycles, etc, or 800 cycle equivalents.

Let's do some round number math on the Tesla lead-acid battery. Assume about 4 rated miles per day vampire load or 1.2 kWh per day vampire cycling, and a 60 Amp-hr battery at 12 Volts for 0.72 KWh lead-acid battery capacity; then the Tesla goes through 1.2/0.72 or 1.67 cycle equivalents per day. If the life of the battery is 800 cycles, then that is a 480 day life, or about 16 months. It seem obvious to me that the vampire cycling of the 12V battery due to the Vampire load is sucking the life of the 12V batteries.

The reason that I am asking for the manufacturer and model number info is to look up the exact capacity and other specs on the current Tesla Model S 12V battery.

Here is the life curve for the Trojan T-105RE from http://www.trojanbattery.com/pdf/datasheets/T105RE_TrojanRE_Data_Sheets.pdf:

 

[SteveS0353]

[snip]

It seem obvious to me that the vampire cycling of the 12V battery due to the Vampire load is sucking the life of the 12V batteries.

[snip]

Agreed 100%. The vampire load must be tamed before any 12V battery has a hope of being reliable long term. The 1.2kWh per day is equivalent to ~50 Watts running continuously, even when the vehicle is parked and "off". That's enormous! It needs to come down by an order of magnitude, which in this day and age, should be easily possible with attention to engineering detail.

 

[qwk]

Agreed 100%. The vampire load must be tamed before any 12V battery has a hope of being reliable long term. The 1.2kWh per day is equivalent to ~50 Watts running continuously, even when the vehicle is parked and "off". That's enormous! It needs to come down by an order of magnitude, which in this day and age, should be easily possible with attention to engineering detail.

The vampire drain should have been adressed a long time ago, but the Tesla software department has better things to work on, like the ability to name your car.

 

[wycolo]

The MS 12v battery has a single cable to the Negative terminal as you would expect. BUT it has 5 or 6 cables siamesed onto the POSITIVE battery post. To observe this in your car you really have to remove the tubular aluminum half-crossmember and peer carefully at all angles, or use a dental mirror. So replacing the battery or even just checking all the cables for tightness is a difficult job. Hence the suggestion to simply jumper in a second battery using the posts behind the nosecone (but more on this below).

Those 5 or 6 cables on the POS symbolises Tesla's problem here: every engineering team wants their project hooked into the 12v batt. Its an addiction. For a lame symbolic example take the radio - it cannot be turned OFF. I want to turn mine OFF permanently so there are no more voices appearing when I accidently hit one of the steering wheel switches. I know the radio is likely a miniscule load, but give me a switch or a separate fuse!

TM is thrashing this poor battery but they *are* charging it properly with pulsed input to retard sulfation (as posted here some time ago). If you jumper in a fresh battery it likely will NOT be able to supply enough amps for the heavy users: pumps and the like. So you better pray you make it to the Servive Center. Bottom Line: Be sure TM installs a NEW Battery every 12 months since there will be no magic 12v solution appearing any time soon.
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[glhs272]

My 12volt battery is still original. 16 months of ownership, 36K miles, and winter.... I am getting nervous. During my last annual they didn't replace it, at least according to the paperwork.

 

[wycolo]

See if they tested it during your annual. It might have passed with flying colors. Next time for sure though! Its a $100- item so why push your luck.
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[glhs272]

See if they tested it during your annual. It might have passed with flying colors. Next time for sure though! Its a $100- item so why push your luck.
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They performed "Courtesy Inspection and pulled logs" so I expect they did test it and it tested fine. It's still working so it seems like it was a valid test. I am just going to keep whistling past that graveyard until it's ready for it's next annual and recommend to Tesla that they proactively replace it. It just has to last until May 2015....