Do you know that you must keep your battery charged?

[markwj]

That's a pretty scary thought... if that was the way the world worked nobody would ever fix anything that was broken simply because they'd be afraid of being sued for admitting their error.

Interesting... Maybe it is an urban legend? Certainly in the case of personal injury, US federal law seems to go out of its way to make remediation inadmissable as evidence (with a bunch of exclusions, of course). But, logic tells me that if they could come up with a fix in a matter of weeks, and they've known about this for years, liability would be implied.

Anyway, any fix would take months to test, and I don't reckon on it being dramatically effective anyway.

The parallels with 'that little battery' case, in the early days of the roadster, are interesting.

 

[JRP3]

Experiences with single cells over the long term are good.
But, suppose that 1 in 100 million cells has a construction flaw that can cause thermal runaway if not managed.
That becomes 1 in 15000 cars.
A single cell failing and getting hot might not be a big deal. A single cell in 6 ( laptop battery ) might also be unlikely to cause a problem. A single cell surrounded by hundreds dramatically increases the chance of one bad cell affecting others.

Tesla has repeatedly pointed out that they don't have to worry about one cell affecting the entire pack, they feel they have a way to isolate thermal issues in a single cell. Also cells have improved from the early laptop fire days, the cells have thermal runaway counter measures built into them. The internal separators are constructed to fuse together during a thermal event and prevent current flow, effectively "putting out the fire". Cells are also just better constructed than those earlier cells that caused issues in laptops.
Regarding laptop battery pack life, if you want to increase their life don't leave them plugged in with a full charge most of the time and don't drain them to zero. Unfortunately most people leave their laptops plugged in most of the time, and then drain them very low when they need to be mobile, about the worst thing you can do. Same with a cell phone or mp3 player, mine are 5-6 years old still going on the original batteries because I avoid keeping them fully charged or letting them fully discharge.

 

[the scrub]

Your "facts" still do not corroborate a leap that he's working for the Mossad no more than he is working for the KGB (maybe his grandparents were Russian) or even for the USA under the Patriot act; conjecture, counselor.

Why do you put "facts" in quotes, but then admonish me to "stick to uncovering facts (as you did quite well)"?

It is entirely possible that Mr. Drucker works for the US intel community in some capacity, as I stated in the report I did on him:

"The Scrub can think of one place (link to CIA) that could open those doors AND provide the type of tech training one could use but not claim to have received publicly. There are plenty of others (link to Mossad) if you're the right ethnicity though."

Note that I first mentioned the US intel community. You overlooked or ignored this fact.

Second, the only reason I mentioned the Mossad link specifically was because...Mr. Drucker is Jewish and is a supporter of Israel. If Mr. Drucker had been affiliated with some other group that lent itself to making a completely different conclusion, like the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, then I would have made that connection.

Actually, there is a very specific reason I mentioned the US intel community first:

Source:

New Service Adds Your Drunken Facebook Photos To Employer Background Checks, For Up To Seven Years - The Consumerist

If you read the fine print at the bottom of their report, you will see that the boilerplate language says "SIC" at first, then it transitions into "CIA" in the last sentence. SIC is Social Intelligence Corporation. CIA is...well, we don't know for sure. This discrepancy is not explained and I am unaware of any news outlet asking about this. Yes, it is entirely possible that this is easy to explain. Maybe they just copied and pasted this boilerplate from somewhere...but, to tie this back to the Drucker v Tesla fiasco, doesn't this, at a bare minimum, support the view that Mr. Drucker cannot be bothered with reading the fine print on anything important?

So to conclude:

It is entirely possible that Mr. Drucker is an intel asset who happens to be Jewish.

It is also entirely possible that this guy has been able to leverage his poli sci/econ degree into all sorts of unconnected careers that happen to involve the collection, storage, and leaking of highly sensitive personal data.

Or he may be using his personal, business, and/or political connections to get into these fields.

Nobody on the outside knows for sure. But I am confident in my conclusions based on my analysis of the facts. Feel free to disagree, you disgusting ANTI-ULSTERITE

 

[eledille]

Norbert, stopcrazypp: I can't stop myself. Sorry.

The purpose of a sequence of events document is to highlight the important stuff hidden within reams of logs and stacks of witness accounts. It does that by omitting all the irrelevant detail.

First you describe system state just before the failure started to develop. This is what Tesla is doing in the first two entries (they establish that charging worked as expected on Nov. 19, the car was parked without being plugged in Nov. 22, at this point SoC starts slowly decreasing from 21%, pump and fan operate as intended to maintain battery pack temperature. Everything behaves as expected).

Then you describe only state changes and changed inputs to and outputs from the system. You don't want to include a full state dump per entry, given the description of the initial state all that is needed to specify what actually happened is to keep adding new events. Imagine that you're trying to determine what happened when a Boeing 747 crashed - would you for every step list all five hundred or so flight parameters that did not change? Why an event occurred is also irrelevant - all that matters in the sequence of events is "what" and "when". All the "why"s belong elsewhere.

If at some point the fan is still operating, this means that as far as the fan is concerned status quo is maintained. This is not an event and will not normally be included in the sequence of events. Exactly how components work will not be described either, only whether they have stopped or started working as they should, plus various readouts and observations when relevant.

So when no mention is made of the fan or the pump after Nov. 22, that does not mean that their status is unknown, or unimportant. It means that their status had not changed. Of course they eventually stopped, but the fact that no mention of them is made means that the system did not take any action to stop them, and that either the fan and pump failures did not affect the final outcome, or that no information about when they stopped exists due to the CAN bus failure.

That's within the entry for November 22nd. There is no mention of the fans or any other "continuation" at December 28th or further on. And on November 22nd, "continue to operate" means only that entering the idle mode has not stopped the pump from coming on whenever needed to maintain the temperature. It would be (in my opinion) reasonable to assume that this continued until December 28th, but not more than that, in so far as this letter is concerned.

You have completely misunderstood this. See my explanation above.

That's all the letter mentions directly, but it doesn't say that's all that happens at that point.

Exactly as expected - only the relevant state and events are listed.

Anything else is pure speculation, and you are overstating what can be said based on the letter.

I assume of course that the Tesla engineers wrote a correct sequence of events. If there is relevant data missing, then it is incorrect. But I have to assume that it is correct until I know that the opposite is true, otherwise I would just have to assume that it is worthless and ignore it in the first place.

If it is correct, seemingly missing data means that that data was irrelevant to the outcome or unchanged from the previous entry.

Throughout what?

Throughout the whole sequence of events, from the beginning and up to the point where their continued operation had become irrelevant.

Perhaps throughout its intended time of operation, if there were such a commonly known mode of operation, but as far as I know it doesn't say anywhere what the intended operation is,

I quote: "Both the fan and the coolant pump continue to operate as needed to keep the battery pack at its optimal storage temperature". What do you think that means? Fans and pumps require electric power to operate, and I can think of no way to more clearly state the intended purpose of running them.

In absence of that, we can only make an assumption for the duration of the November 22nd entry [until Decmber 28th], but even that is more than the letter "clearly" says.

Maybe it's not clear to you, but it is to me.

 

[Norbert]

Throughout the whole sequence of events, from the beginning and up to the point where their continued operation had become irrelevant.

From the point of view of the letter intent, it is irrelevant altogether except to highlight that the Roadster was operating as it was supposed to operate.

There are many points where the pump etc could have stopped, points named in the letter are: SOC 4%, SOC 0%, end of logging, or even later than that.

It could have been any of those or some other point not mentioned (why not SOC 2% ?), the letter simply doesn't mention that. To think that the letter would imply SOC 0% (if that is what you think), or that it would imply 'later than SOC 4%', is merely based on your own expectation of what appears to make sense to you, but not based on anything written in the letter.

 

[Norbert]

Tesla has repeatedly pointed out that they don't have to worry about one cell affecting the entire pack, they feel they have a way to isolate thermal issues in a single cell. Also cells have improved from the early laptop fire days, the cells have thermal runaway counter measures built into them. The internal separators are constructed to fuse together during a thermal event and prevent current flow, effectively "putting out the fire". Cells are also just better constructed than those earlier cells that caused issues in laptops.

That may all be true, but it is probably not a question black and white. The laptop issues are not that long ago, and Tesla may have chosen to stay strictly on the safe side, perhaps due to known risks or perhaps for the event of unknown risks with the cells used at the time, as Tesla did not have that much long-term experience yet. And may not have constructed the Roadster such that it could be changed later by a mere firmware update or flipping some other switch, for the case that some risk would turn out lower than was considered a possibility not to be ruled out, *if* that were the case with those cells. We don't have enough data to second-guess what they were doing and why. We do know that with a few custom conversions, there have been issues once in a while, and to know that Tesla keeps the packs from crossing high-temperature limits is not the worst thing to know. And we do know that the Model S battery cell design/chemistry is somewhat different.

 

[NigelM]

The thread that won't die.....What's the thread equivalent of a stake through the heart? :wink:

 

[JRP3]

Something more interesting for us to talk about? Distract us with another shiny object. :wink:

 

[JRP3]

That may all be true, but it is probably not a question black and white. The laptop issues are not that long ago, and Tesla may have chosen to stay strictly on the safe side, perhaps due to known risks or perhaps for the event of unknown risks with the cells used at the time, as Tesla did not have that much long-term experience yet. And may not have constructed the Roadster such that it could be changed later by a mere firmware update or flipping some other switch, for the case that some risk would turn out lower than was considered a possibility not to be ruled out, *if* that were the case with those cells. We don't have enough data to second-guess what they were doing and why. We do know that with a few custom conversions, there have been issues once in a while, and to know that Tesla keeps the packs from crossing high-temperature limits is not the worst thing to know. And we do know that the Model S battery cell design/chemistry is somewhat different.

I wasn't suggesting that Tesla could change early Roadsters with an update necessarily, just that they claimed to be quite confident that a single cell issue would not affect the entire pack. Custom conversions are of course another matter, and I am fairly sure that some of the conversion issues had to do with the BMS not functioning properly and failing to shut off the charger when it should have, which severely overcharged the packs. A BMS is a tricky item as it adds many more points of failure to the system. That's part of the reason I run without one, I've seen enough people pay a lot of money for a BMS that killed the cells it was supposed to protect. This is not to suggest that Tesla or any OEM could do the same, and they have access to better technology than the DIY crowd.

 

[dsm363]

I wasn't suggesting that Tesla could change early Roadsters with an update necessarily, just that they claimed to be quite confident that a single cell issue would not affect the entire pack. Custom conversions are of course another matter, and I am fairly sure that some of the conversion issues had to do with the BMS not functioning properly and failing to shut off the charger when it should have, which severely overcharged the packs. A BMS is a tricky item as it adds many more points of failure to the system. That's part of the reason I run without one, I've seen enough people pay a lot of money for a BMS that killed the cells it was supposed to protect. This is not to suggest that Tesla or any OEM could do the same, and they have access to better technology than the DIY crowd.

Could they possibly be so confident about one cell not affecting the entire pack because of the battery management system?

It's possible this is a Zombie thread. In that case, just hit it in the head with something hard. Shaun of the Dead....awesome movie

Shaun: If you get cornered...
[Hits himself on head with cricket bat]
Shaun: ...bash 'em in the head, that seems to work. Ow.

 

[JRP3]

Could they possibly be so confident about one cell not affecting the entire pack because of the battery management system?

Maybe, but if a cell goes into internal thermal runaway I don't think there is anything a BMS can do, unless it fires a mini fire extinguisher at it :wink:

 

[NigelM]

NYT article coming:

Of Bricks and Batteries: The Anatomy of a Controversy

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.
.
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Garlic cloves! We need garlic cloves!!

 

[dsm363]

NYT article coming:

Of Bricks and Batteries: The Anatomy of a Controversy

.
.
.
.
Garlic cloves! We need garlic cloves!!

This is news to me (the 36 days from 0% SOC to battery being ruined). That's much longer than I thought.

Q. Under what conditions would an electric vehicle battery become drained beyond saving?

A. An electric car’s battery will fail totally only under extreme circumstances, according to Tesla. This occurs if the battery has been discharged “for an extended amount of time.” Chemical changes that take place will make recharging impossible.

The electronic vehicle log from the Roadster with the failed battery recorded a span of 36 days from when the state of charge reached zero percent until Tesla said a complete replacement was needed.

 

[richkae]

This is news to me (the 36 days from 0% SOC to battery being ruined). That's much longer than I thought.

I think that was the time til it was confirmed to be ruined. It was ruined sometime before that, and not discovered until then.

 

[markwj]

WTF? An extra 12V battery can solve the bricking problem and allow a bricked battery to be recovered? In what universe?

 

[stopcrazypp]

This is news to me (the 36 days from 0% SOC to battery being ruined). That's much longer than I thought.

36 days was the time from 0% til the car reached Tesla. The battery was likely "bricked" before that. It's pretty clear though that it still wasn't over-discharged until 14 days after 0% (when logging stopped at 250V pack voltage). That means if he were to plug it in then, it probably would have still allowed him to charge.

WTF? An extra 12V battery can solve the bricking problem and allow a bricked battery to be recovered? In what universe?

The "Experts" seem to be talking about something else. For example the GM guy keeps talking about a "fail-safe" and "waking-up" system with the 12V battery. They are probably talking about resuming charging functionality after plugging in. That clearly isn't the issue in the Tesla case, since the technicians have direct access to the battery pack and can charge it directly with another charger if they wanted to.

And it seems like the experts are referring to other chemistries (for example the EV1 never had lithium batteries), in terms of recovering batteries. And it's unclear if it applies to a 6831 cell battery pack.

And the Nissan PR:

Nissan said in a statement that the Leaf’s battery pack “will never discharge completely, thanks to an advanced battery-management system designed to protect the battery from damage.”
And, said a Nissan spokeswoman, Katherine Zachary, “Never means never.”

I'd like them to explain then, why the battery warranty is voided after 14 days at or near 0% charge, if the battery "will never discharge completely". Unless they have a different meaning for "discharge completely".

 

[eledille]

There are many points where the pump etc could have stopped, points named in the letter are: SOC 4%, SOC 0%, end of logging, or even later than that.

It could have been any of those or some other point not mentioned (why not SOC 2% ?), the letter simply doesn't mention that. To think that the letter would imply SOC 0% (if that is what you think), or that it would imply 'later than SOC 4%', is merely based on your own expectation of what appears to make sense to you, but not based on anything written in the letter.

Did you even read what I wrote?

 

[JRP3]

I thought Roadsters do in fact have a 12V battery? There seems to be a lot of confusion in that article, by "experts" as well. If a cell is damaged by sitting at 0% SOC there is no "waking it up" as far as I know. I also don't buy the statement from Nissan that "never means never". Their pack is eternal? What is meant by the statement from Tesla that “less than 10” cars are “susceptible” to bricking? How does that fit with "Ms. Brooklyn of Tesla said there was “no facility to prevent this full discharge” in the more than 2,000 Roadsters produced since 2008." Sounds as if all Roadsters are susceptible. They need to be clearer than that and get on the same page.

 

[markwj]

I thought Roadsters do in fact have a 12V battery?

From first hand experience, that battery is used to power brake lights, hazard warning flashers, alarm, etc. The VMS, VDS, DIAG port connector, and other systems are powered directly from the ESS in the boot and NOT from the emergency battery.

I guess what the idiots (sorry, 'experts') in that article are saying is that if there was a separate 12volt battery that could power the VMS/VDS then you could still have enough control to start a charge even if the ESS power level was low enough not to be able to run the internal systems. This does nothing to address the 'brick' issue in that even if you could power up the VMS/VDS to start a charge, the batteries when 'bricked' are dead enough not to accept one.

Again, from first hand experience, even with a completely dead ESS (fuse blown), Tesla rangers can plug in a maintenance power source and bring up the VMS/VDS in order to get logs and do whatever else is necessary, just fine.

 

[ChargeIt!]

I thought Roadsters do in fact have a 12V battery?

AFAIK v1.x Roadsters don't. Probably started after VIN 500. Anyone can confirm ?