Battery Degradation – 10 year report

Our Feb 2013 Model S 85 delivery is approaching its 10th Anniversary, and I thought I would post observations and battery degradation.

History: We took delivery of our early production (40xx VIN) in early February 2013. The battery pack was replaced under warranty during the first year, and has had no issues since then.

Charging: I charge almost every day, with the following settings: 90%, charging at 25 Amps after arriving home from work every day. It is only charged to 100% for trips, which is maybe 3 times a year.

I keep documented logs on all my cars. My present mileage is 102,003 miles.

Here are the numbers as of today: Max charge range when new: 264 miles. Current max charge range is 248-250 miles. This equals a battery degradation of 6% over 9 years.

Charging at 80 – 90% at a lower charge rate was recommended by the Tesla service center when we purchased the car. I do not know if is of any consequence, but our Model S is equipped with the optional dual chargers which was available as an option for the 2013 models.

Still loving the car and drive it every day as my daily driver. Just this morning coming into work I turned off the radio and enjoyed the silence (except for tire noise).

"Tesla Model S at a Supercharger" by Open Grid Scheduler / Grid Engine is marked with CC0 1.0.
(Image added by admin for purpose of TMC Blog)

 

[stacelina]

As miles vary significantly based on speed and other factors, I use a simpler rule of thumb measurement. I add 50% during a number of charges while parked and unoccupied. (15% to 65%, 20% to 70%, etc.). double the kwh number and it should come out very close to remaining kwh life in battery. This is the important number to measure degradation over time. It's a rough estimate, but easy to obtain and follow.

Can you explain this estimating system to me please? Maybe it's Xmas bc this just flew over my head like Santa Claus! LOL

 

[karlos22]

Our Feb 2013 Model S 85 delivery is approaching its 10th Anniversary, and I thought I would post observations and battery degradation.

History: We took delivery of our early production (40xx VIN) in early February 2013. The battery pack was replaced under warranty during the first year, and has had no issues since then.

Charging: I charge almost every day, with the following settings: 90%, charging at 25 Amps after arriving home from work every day. It is only charged to 100% for trips, which is maybe 3 times a year.

I keep documented logs on all my cars. My present mileage is 102,003 miles.

Here are the numbers as of today: Max charge range when new: 264 miles. Current max charge range is 248-250 miles. This equals a battery degradation of 6% over 9 years.

Charging at 80 – 90% at a lower charge rate was recommended by the Tesla service center when we purchased the car. I do not know if is of any consequence, but our Model S is equipped with the optional dual chargers which was available as an option for the 2013 models.

Still loving the car and drive it every day as my daily driver. Just this morning coming into work I turned off the radio and enjoyed the silence (except for tire noise).


View attachment 876041
"Tesla Model S at a Supercharger" by Open Grid Scheduler / Grid Engine is marked with CC0 1.0.
(Image added by admin for purpose of TMC Blog)

Thanks for the post!

Your battery health is fantastic. Do you leave it sitting at 90% for long periods when you don’t drive the car? Also, how has the interior worn over 100k miles, seats etc?

Car still looks great!

 

[RCFLMA]

2017 Model S 90D Odometer112,500

48 states + Canada, 20+ National Parks​

Battery Degradation 90KWH version C has been excellent:

Initial 100% range 2/17 294 miles​

12/18= 285 miles (odometer 36k) – net loss 3.1%​

12/22= 276 miles (odometer 112k) – net loss 6.1%​

Since Oct 2018, data recorded daily by TeslaFi (see data graph below)​

Supercharging – Max typically set to 80%, 90-95% if necessary

478 supercharges at 265 locations​

Average charge time of 26 minutes​

Total of 14,503 KWH added​

AC Charging - vast majority at home on a 50 amp 220V circuit, Max typically set at 80%

1004 charges at 21 locations​

Total of 14,925 KWH added​

Software – 86 updates

average of 18 days between updates​

average of 4 days from release to download and installation​

Service –

4/17: Initial issues with 12v battery failure and shut down (x4) in first 2months. Required replacement of junction box and rear subframe wiring harness (resolved, warranty).​

5/18 Yellow border on MCU – replaced (warranty)​

10/18: FSD purchased (already had EAP).​

5/19 Yellow border on MCU again – replaced (resolved, waranty)​

9/19 AC failure (resolved, waranty)​

6/20 HW3 retrofit upgrade for FSD​

9/20 Infotainment upgrade (AP2 to AP3)​

2/21 12v Battery replacement (no problems, elective replacement in anticipation)​

7/22 FSD Camera replacement​

8/22 FSD beta​

Tires:

OEM tires lasted 25k mi, replaced with Michelin Primacy (50k) and Michelin snow tires (15k) in season​

Now using Michelin CrossClimate2​

 

[rogbmw]

I guess I am lucky regarding my battery degradation. I believe living in Florida may help in my minimal decline. My setting is set to "rated", not "Ideal", but having said that, I look at my actual mileage I drive as opposed to these two estimations. What do I find over the past 10 years that has the greatest impact on mileage? Of course, cold weather does, but we don't really get that cold here in central Florida. One of the biggest things that I have found that negatively impacts range is rain. Believe it or not, driving any distance in heavy rain, or with a lot of water on the road, due to increased resistance, really does decrease mileage, in some cases up to 20%. The other thing I have noticed is that if I let the car sit for times after charging, the range will drop the longer it sits without being plugged in. As we have solar, I plug the car in, but most times unplug it after charging stops. As I said, I keep extensive logs on my cars, so my degradation is based on actual miles driven, not against some rated or ideal figure. My charging rate is and has always been 25A, up to 90%.

Here are some pictures of "Rudy" on his 10th Birthday:

 

[Droschke]

The other thing I have noticed is that if I let the car sit for times after charging, the range will drop the longer it sits without being plugged in.

I believe you are referring to the vampire drain issue and I suppose you are still on MCU1. When my car was on MCU1, my vampire drain experience was the same as yours when the car was plugged-in vs. unplugged. Since my upgrade to MCU2, my vampire drain is 3 times higher which is now around 6 miles every 24 hours for the car unused and garaged, no matter if it is plugged in or not (with no powered accessories or a 3rd party monitoring app used).

Very clean looking car BTW.

 

[tivoboy]

I guess I am lucky regarding my battery degradation. I believe living in Florida may help in my minimal decline. My setting is set to "rated", not "Ideal", but having said that, I look at my actual mileage I drive as opposed to these two estimations. What do I find over the past 10 years that has the greatest impact on mileage? Of course, cold weather does, but we don't really get that cold here in central Florida. One of the biggest things that I have found that negatively impacts range is rain. Believe it or not, driving any distance in heavy rain, or with a lot of water on the road, due to increased resistance, really does decrease mileage, in some cases up to 20%. The other thing I have noticed is that if I let the car sit for times after charging, the range will drop the longer it sits without being plugged in. As we have solar, I plug the car in, but most times unplug it after charging stops. As I said, I keep extensive logs on my cars, so my degradation is based on actual miles driven, not against some rated or ideal figure. My charging rate is and has always been 25A, up to 90%.

Here are some pictures of "Rudy" on his 10th Birthday:

You’re definitely onto something there with the RAIN impact on RANGE.. I’ve only started to notice it more now that here in the Bay Area we’re finally GETTING some rain again!.

I would put the impact at near 20% as well, as tracked by my trips to the same place at nearly the same time - very low traffic - and the times with RAIN - and somewhat heavy at times - were about 75% efficiency, whereas I can land closer to 92-95% when it’s NOT raining.

Is it some battery adjustment? Impact to rolling resistance? Effective change in temperature? (although, you get rain in FL and it probably doesn’t change the temp too much at the time). Is it WEIGHT, or just the fact that the increased moisture in the air (effectively 100%+, duh its RAIN!) creates much more wind resistance and impact to Cd overall?

I’d be interested to know, I haven‘t seen it show up in the Tesla efficiency dashboard listed as RAIN was the impact to some of the loss of efficiency. Wind shows up, maybe temp - haven’t really seen that, but I haven’t seen rain as indicated. It‘s clearly happening though for sure

 

[rogbmw]

I believe you are referring to the vampire drain issue and I suppose you are still on MCU1. When my car was on MCU1, my vampire drain experience was the same as yours when the car was plugged-in vs. unplugged. Since my upgrade to MCU2, my vampire drain is 3 times higher which is now around 6 miles every 24 hours for the car unused and garaged, no matter if it is plugged in or not (with no powered accessories or a 3rd party monitoring app used).

Very clean looking car BTW.

I have upgraded to MCU2.

 

[Lasttoy]

Since upgrade to mc2 Infotainment my car has gone crazy. Doors open by themselves, lights go on and off in daytime. It goes on and on. My TPMS has not worked period. They say I need to buy 2022 Senors. They want $700 to replace them.
As for vampire drain. This is in the manual.

 

[maximizese]

Since upgrade to mc2 Infotainment my car has gone crazy. Doors open by themselves, lights go on and off in daytime. It goes on and on. My TPMS has not worked period. They say I need to buy 2022 Senors. They want $700 to replace them.
As for vampire drain. This is in the manual.

Vampire drain appears to be quite normal for the connected Model S, even more so with the MCU2 retrofits and those with Sentry Mode. Our 11/13 built S85 would experience about a 2-3mi loss in range after sitting for a 24hr period up until 2022 with the old MCU1. Now with the MCU2 and software update from 4/22, I'm seeing about 6-8mi loss each day and I'm noticing the contactors clicking open and close a few times a day. It's not a big hinderance, but it odd how much less taxing our 2013 Fiat 500e is: losses about 1kW per week, 3G modem (not sure if it does anything anymore), HV contactors only open when charging, turning the car to Ready, or when the driver side door opens. 83K miles and I'm still on the original 12V battery.

Before you go and have the sensors replaced, I would start by asking to have the software reinstalled, your profile reconfigured, and checking your 12V battery health and grounding points. I remember some folks having issues with the MCU2 retrofits when the SC did not reconfigure the profile correctly...there are so many different combinations of Tesla hardware out there and I'm wondering if there's a conflict with the way yours is currently setup. Maybe try a different SC too.

 

[Droschke]

Now with the MCU2 and software update from 4/22, I'm seeing about 6-8mi

The same for me every 24 hours. I just got a low voltage message on a four year old 12v. Hoping to see decrease in vampire drain after the 12V is replaced.

I'm still on the original 12V battery.

On a 2013 model year car? That's almost 10 years of life for your 12v battery?

 

[maximizese]

The same for me every 24 hours. I just got a low voltage message on a four year old 12v. Hoping to see decrease in vampire drain after the 12V is replaced.



On a 2013 model year car? That's almost 10 years of life for your 12v battery?

I've been getting that same low voltage message since 3/22 but my 12V battery readings (from the nosecone) ranges between 12.7V-13.7V. I've just carried on over the last 11 months/14K miles and take a reading a day before I need to drive the car. I'm not sure what's causing the warning to be triggered but the battery is about 3yr/30K miles old. Tesla SC preemptively replaced my old 12V battery when they replaced the HV contactors so I'm not familiar with what a dying 12V battery is like.

As for the Fiat battery, yes it's 2 months shy of its 10 year birthday. It's a Mopar Group 47 lead-acid battery that unexpectedly quite large considering the small Bosch SMG 180/120 motor (bare motor weighs 70lbs!). 12V battery is still measuring no less than 12.6V on a cold 34F morning. I'll probably swap out the battery for an AGM motorcycle battery when the time comes.

 

[Droschke]

I've been getting that same low voltage message since 3/22 but my 12V battery readings (from the nosecone) ranges between 12.7V-13.7V. I've just carried on over the last 11 months/14K miles and take a reading a day before I need to drive the car. I'm not sure what's causing the warning to be triggered but the battery is about 3yr/30K miles old. Tesla SC preemptively replaced my old 12V battery when they replaced the HV contactors so I'm not familiar with what a dying 12V battery is like.

Thanks for the info. Would you register this very informative comment in the thread I've created here for others to see as well? Thanks.

 

[rogbmw]

Yup - that sounds about right for my drain too since the upgrade to MCU2.

 

[Lasttoy]

I wrote letter to HQ service in Palo Alto. My SC called. They refuse to admit the new SW is not rearwards compatible. If u remember? Microsoft did this with version 10. Tesla SW coders don't test updates on antique cars, they don't care. SC tells me to buy 00-C sensors and want $700. I am buying theses now. And guess what, there is matching TPMS control module in left front wheel well. U know after they replace the sensors they will come back and say "oh u need new controller". . if u ever get the truth out of your SC good luck. Mine has lied for 7 years.

 

[AndrewT]

Seems to me, the range estimate is just a calculation by the software and it's not accurate anyway. I think the number goes down because it's trying to get more accurate over time, and I don't think that necessarily means the battery holds less energy. For example, I have a 2015 with 110,000 miles and I can still make the same trip now that I could make when the car was new, which is 192 miles from my house to a supercharger. Hence, I don't really see any battery degradation, even though as you noted the odometer definitely shows less available range when full than it did when the car was new.

Same for me. I have been doing same trip every month for 5 years. Odometer fully charged has dropped from 384km to 350km (in winter). I arrived with not a lot in the tank in 2017. Same today. I have a 2014 Model S 85 RWD.