Early 75/75D pack degradation

[victorg009]

My 1-year old S90D with 30000 miles lost 20 rated miles to degradation. Before buying MS I researched degradation and was happy to see Tesloop S85 cars reported 10 miles of degradation over 200K driven miles, and they only used supercharging. I decided I can live with loosing 10 miles over long time.

Now I see that 90-packs degrade much faster, and this makes me unhappy. I can get used to missing door pockets or lack of blind spot detection feature. This missing stuff is constant, and it is possible to adjust to it in couple months. But degradation eats battery all the time, and it is hard to wake up to a smaller battery every time my phone shows it charged to less miles than last month.

What is even more regretful, 100D option was announced after I completed configuration but 3 weeks before my car went unto production, but Tesla would not allow 3K upgrade and kept my with 90 battery.

I hope in couple years they will allow to upgrade degrading batteries to 100kWh or bigger packs. I will be happy to buy this upgrade if it cost less than new MS

 

[JRP3]

It will be interesting to see wk's data, there has been evidence for a while that there is some issue with some of the pack chemistry. My guess is Tesla will say it's all within acceptable range, no warranty for range loss, it's an algorithm issue, etc., and may quietly do something about the worst cases. Some media outlets will try to make a big deal out of this, certainly some of the more obsessed Tesla haters will, but few in the general public will pay much attention. One benefit of so many inaccurate negative articles about Tesla is that legitimate criticisms have less of an effect. I applaud wk's work and am not afraid of finding out the truth. It's not going to be all perfume and roses all the time people.

 

[sorka]

I think that you can expect to lose up to nearly 30% of your battery capacity as you age the pack which is why Tesla specifically warranties to this level on the M3. They have had to replace or buy back many 90s due to rapid capacity loss. I was very disappointed that my 90 was one of the unfortunate ones to rapidly lose capacity. I think the early 85 packs performed way above expectations which then set our community expectations unrealistically high to expect only small single digit capacity loss over the life of the vehicle.

Nobody has come even close to losing that kind of range unless the pack completely failed shortly after that. Even the 300K packs running around are only down about 6%.

My P85DL with 253 rated is finally down to 248 that last time I did a 100% charge with 50K miles although it was very cold and my experience from two winters is that in the spring that number will rise back up to 250 when it gets warmer. I'd be hopping mad with 8% loss in such a short period.

 

[sorka]

I hope 80% is correct but Tesla is now saying 70% for warranty and they would not have picked that number if they did not have to..

That's for warranty strictly based on degradation alone and only in CA I believe since the other states don't have that threshold.

But the point being is that if a Tesla pack loses 30%, it's not NORMAL degradation and will fail in other ways long before it reaches that.

 

[sshah]

Didn't read the whole thread, but was asked to chime in.

I have information that shows definitively that the early 75 and 90 packs degrade much more quickly than the original 60 (not software limited packs), 85, and 70 (not software limited) packs.

@dennis_d I'd prefer you keep those plots I shared to yourself for now. I'm going to open that full can of worms sometime in the next month or so with a full write-up on this situation. I've reached out to Tesla directly with a summary of my upcoming write-up asking for any official comment, but haven't heard anything back as of yet.

Suffice it to say it's not going to look good for Tesla when I show that a huge percentage of 90 pack owners have less rated range available than similar or higher mileage 85 pack owners. Data is similar with 75/70/60s. The degradation trend lines for the two cross very early on with 90/75 owners having a higher percent degradation than 85 owners at about ~10000 miles, and 90 pack owners having less rated range than their 85 counterparts before 50,000 miles (with a lot of overlap before this).

Overall, I believe Tesla did a huge disservice to customers with the 75/90 chemistry, and all of the restrictions placed on supercharging rates and peak power have been to cover their a** due to the accelerated degradation.

I have limited data on the 100 packs, but they seem to follow a degradation trend much closer to the original 85s.

Can you define which are early and late ?
I have a Nov '16 75D that was software limited to 60 and I unlocked it to 75 around March '17.
This battery is adversely affected?

Also, being someone that lives in Brooklyn, NY I can tell you charging is a mess. In the winter I essentially swap cars with my parents. I had explained my long commute and no charging infrastructure around my apartment and Tesla said I'll be all good, won't have any problems. They were hardly forthright with me.

 

[ucmndd]

Can you define which are early and late ?
I have a Nov '16 75D that was software limited to 60 and I unlocked it to 75 around March '17.
This battery is adversely affected?

Your battery would be in the production range that I'm referring to, yes.

Basically, 75kwh packs produced at the same time 90kwh packs were produced (ie pre 100kwh announcement).

 

[smac]

Do the newer 75's (I presuming we are talking the ones with the 85kWh part label) have 16 modules like the old 85 packs?

(Tesla strangely starts delivering new 85 kWh battery packs software-locked at 75 kWh)

Or are they 14 more densely packed modules like in the 100?

 

[davidc18]

We were "lucky?" that as the battery degraded in the P90 it took the performance with it which made it easy to work out the buy back with Tesla. This P90 charged to 100% with 236 miles after only 26,000 miles and 14 months. Not what I would call reasonable battery loss.

 

[kjm]

My 2013 Leaf is down to half it's original range (180>90km) after 70,000km. But that's got nothing on the ebay jump starter packs for ICEs, claimed capacity 30Ah, actual capacity 3Ah. Somewhere between Teslas & ebay fibbing becomes fraud I reckon.

 

[Krash]

Do the newer 75's (I presuming we are talking the ones with the 85kWh part label) have 16 modules like the old 85 packs?...
Or are they 14 more densely packed modules like in the 100?

BTX8 85 is 400v so 16 modules. The 100s are all 400v 16 module packs as well.

 

[smac]

BTX8 85 is 400v so 16 modules. The 100s are all 400v 16 module packs as well.

Interesting so could be reversion back to the original chemistry.

Would certainly explain why the few uncorked RWD 75's were nigh on identical in performance to the original P85's

 

[MIT_S60]

Interesting so could be reversion back to the original chemistry.

Would certainly explain why the few uncorked RWD 75's were nigh on identical in performance to the original P85's

If the chemistry has been changed in the 75 battery, it may also explain why Tesla has been so secretive about why they won't uncork S75 RWD pre-July 2017.

 

[fcharland]

When it was a 60, I charged every night to 100% under the mistaken notion that the "battery headroom" of the software limited 60 battery was on the top end. When I made the conversion it became obvious that the "headroom" was actually on the low end not the top: 20+ miles of range suddenly "appeared" during my first charge as a 75.

Actually, few friends of mine told me they get full supercharger speed up until "100%" on their 60 locked Model X. So... your assumption might be wrong. supercharging would be verrrry slow if the 100% was a real 100% on the locked 60.

 

[smac]

If the chemistry has been changed in the 75 battery, it may also explain why Tesla has been so secretive about why they won't uncork S75 RWD pre-July 2017.

Not just the chemistry, but the upgrade to 16 modules / 400v would give less voltage sag.

Here is a CAN plot I took from my old S60. (pre-AP)

It seemed to me the car was attempting to limit torque artificially through software for around the first 3.5 seconds, after which point it hits a hard limit of around 850A / 250V.

This in theory suggests even an old S60 has more performance potential left in it, but due to the voltage sag the torque would drop off earlier, meaning ultimately it wouldn't be able to match a 400v car.

Someone was bound to time a 0-60 run and notice it didn't tally to the advertised figures. (A road surely Tesla don't want to go down again).

Besides a line had to be drawn somewhere, otherwise Tesla would have had a flood of requests from all owners for some sort of "uncorking lite".

 

[Peter Lucas]

Didn't read the whole thread, but was asked to chime in.

I have information that shows definitively that the early 75 and 90 packs degrade much more quickly than the original 60 (not software limited packs), 85, and 70 (not software limited) packs.

@dennis_d I'd prefer you keep those plots I shared to yourself for now. I'm going to open that full can of worms sometime in the next month or so with a full write-up on this situation. I've reached out to Tesla directly with a summary of my upcoming write-up asking for any official comment, but haven't heard anything back as of yet.

Suffice it to say it's not going to look good for Tesla when I show that a huge percentage of 90 pack owners have less rated range available than similar or higher mileage 85 pack owners. Data is similar with 75/70/60s. The degradation trend lines for the two cross very early on with 90/75 owners having a higher percent degradation than 85 owners at about ~10000 miles, and 90 pack owners having less rated range than their 85 counterparts before 50,000 miles (with a lot of overlap before this).

Overall, I believe Tesla did a huge disservice to customers with the 75/90 chemistry, and all of the restrictions placed on supercharging rates and peak power have been to cover their a** due to the accelerated degradation.

I have limited data on the 100 packs, but they seem to follow a degradation trend much closer to the original 85s.

I have an S 90D from early 2016. It was an "inventory" car. Dealer demo for 6 months, 7,500 miles. From day one of my ownership at 7,500 miles, the cars battery has had a capacity of 72-75 kwh. It does not appear to have deteriorated any further. Tesla refuses to acknowledge that there is any problem.

 

[Peter Lucas]

The cars display of range may have nothing to do with the actual range and the actual battery capacity. That is, your battery could be seriously degraded and still display a "normal" range. My 90D when fully charged (done only a few times) shows a "rated" range of 275 miles or so. No way. Even when consuming only at the rated consumption of 324 wh/mi (difficult to do), my actual range is about 220 miles.

 

[Peter Lucas]

Nobody has come even close to losing that kind of range unless the pack completely failed shortly after that. Even the 300K packs running around are only down about 6%.

My P85DL with 253 rated is finally down to 248 that last time I did a 100% charge with 50K miles although it was very cold and my experience from two winters is that in the spring that number will rise back up to 250 when it gets warmer. I'd be hopping mad with 8% loss in such a short period.

What makes you think that the actual range is anywhere near the cars display of range? My cars actual range (and battery capacity) are 15% to 20% less than the displayed range. 2016 90D.

 

[Buster1]

My cars actual range (and battery capacity) are 15% to 20% less than the displayed range. 2016 90D.

They all are. This is normal.

Yet another reason why you can’t determine actual battery capacity and health with this number.

 

[dhanson865]

I agree ... Tesla owners seem too concerned about extreme battery degradation that the data does not support
The data clearly shows that for the first 50,000 miles (100,000 km), most Tesla battery packs will lose about 5% of their capacity, but after the 50,000-mile mark, the capacity levels off and it looks like it could be difficult to make a pack degrade by another 5%. The trend line actually suggests that the average battery pack could go another 150,000 miles (200,000 miles total) before coming close to 90% capacity.

Age matters more than miles in most cases so you should be looking at

 

[Buster1]

My 2013 Leaf is down to half it's original range (180>90km) after 70,000km. But that's got nothing on the ebay jump starter packs for ICEs, claimed capacity 30Ah, actual capacity 3Ah. Somewhere between Teslas & ebay fibbing becomes fraud I reckon.

Leafs have a totally different system, and no battery thermal management system. Many many Leaf owners have documented incredible degradation in a short time.

Battery Capacity Loss Warranty Chart For 2016 30 kWh Nissan LEAF