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Has your car shut down before it hits zero?

Has your car shut down before it hits zero?

  • I have not driven to low double or single digits

    Votes: 80 31.3%
  • No

    Votes: 163 63.7%
  • Yes

    Votes: 13 5.1%

  • Total voters
    256
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Matias

Active Member
Apr 2, 2014
3,986
5,836
Finland
Has your car shut down before it hits zero? This poll is mainly for those who have driven to low double or single digits.

I have read about a couple of cases, when car has shut down before reaching zero.

I have driven couple of times to red range and car has not stopped.
 
This is like the last two ml of gas left. It just depends on the driving circumstances of that last little bit. Sometimes you can go quite far, and other times not.
 
I've driven until 8 rated miles remaining. When I started the last leg of the trip 42 miles (if I recall correctly), I received a warning that I would reach my destination with less than 0. I immediately slowed down (approx 10 mph below the speed limit). Fortunately, very little traffic where I was. Over the next ~10 miles I began to recover range, and climbed above 0%. I reached my destination with 2% remaining. I had a backup location planned ~ 6 miles before my destination to charge, so I felt some range anxiety, but not much. However, I would have been pissed if it shut down with range showing.
However, now that I'm writing this, I just thought of a situation that could cause the car to shutdown early that I hadn't previously thought of. When I was running close, I was really babying my range, no quick accelerations, no high speed, i.e. Just feathering the throttle so gingerly to keep amp draw low. My old Prius would have killed me in a 1/4 race at that point. Anyway, let's assume I had ~10 miles of range remaining and I could see the supercharger 1/2 mile in the distance. I decided to gun it and caused the pack volts to drop low enough (if only for a moment) to cause the battery protection to disengage and shut me down. Maybe this would be a way where the rated range couldn't account for my sudden acceleration and resulting dropping of the battery volts into "danger" zone causing a shutdown.
 
  • Informative
Reactions: wcfinvader
1 Mile one time, been down to 5 miles a few times, down to 20 miles quite a bit. We need of more chargers in central Wyoming.
Every trip out of state as to be carefully planed out. With RV parks closing in the winter and being full often in the summer it's been kind of tricky going on long trips. I liked the challenge the first few times. It's getting a bit old now. When I ordered the car in December I was told there would be a bunch of destination chargers in a few months and super chargers later this year. Not looking good for winter travel me right now. I hope Tesla can expedite the super charger build out with all the new cash raised from the stock sale.
 
  • Informative
Reactions: Vic4Model3
I decided to gun it and caused the pack volts to drop low enough (if only for a moment) to cause the battery protection to disengage and shut me down. Maybe this would be a way where the rated range couldn't account for my sudden acceleration and resulting dropping of the battery volts into "danger" zone causing a shutdown.
I suspect that is exactly the problem people have seen. The battery's voltage sags when you pull a lot of current (because there is internal resistance). It also sags in low temperature conditions. Thus when you are very close to "0" it's possible to trigger the pack to shut you down.
 
My car was dropped off by a transport 2.5 miles from my home with 0 miles of range. I was afraid to drive the car home so the Delivery Specialist did it and we made it with no issues. Had to charge up in my garage for about an hour before he could show me the car though.

Have not been close to zero since that first day.
 
Many times to zero and sometimes beyond. Never did the car shut down, even when I went further. The key thing is how you drive and how you have been driving before. I have heard of only two cases where the car shut down before it said zero and in both cases they were pushing it. Going 70 uphill when there is only 4 miles left is asking for it. A battery do not work like a gas tank. An ICE has 100% power until the last drop of gasoline. A batter does not work that way, It gets weaker the lower the level of charge is. The voltage drops and trying to draw lots of power from it when near empty is causing massive voltage drops and is harmful to the battery. If you drive carefully for the last 30 miles and mostly avoid strong acceleration you can definitely make it to zero and often beyond.

Rated range is based on conservative driving. We all know better to expect that exact range when we drive normally. With that in mind and know that the battery gets weak towards the end, it is really silly to expect the battery to deliver rated range when you try to go fast on those last 5 miles pulling a lot of power from it.

The trip planner warns you to drive slowly to reach your destination one it predicts that the battery level will be under 7% at the end. That should give you a good clue that going down to zero is risky
 
Well, I'm the only one who answered yes, so far. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that this happened to me after about 2 1/2 years of ownership.

I had 3 miles remaining on the dash and I was about a mile from home driving on a 40 mph road, so I made a bad assumption that I would make it ok. It immediately gave the "pull over, shutting down" (or something like that) warning when it hit 2 miles remaining and all power was gone from the accelerator. Luckily, I had enough speed that I was able to coast to a safe place to stop.

Tesla initially tried telling me the tow fees would be my responsibility, since they don't cover running out of juice. Once I explained that, according to the car, I still had 2 miles left, they agreed to cover it, but also said that this was normal behavior.

IMG_3926.JPG
 
Just wondering why you let it go to such low levels?

From what I've read, it's as unhealthy for the pack to go to 0 as it is to sit at 100%. Correct?

It is, but because of anti-bricking it never actually gets to zero. Nevertheless, the cells will heat up more at low SOC (metre is orange or red) as compared to delivering the same amount of power at high SOC. My guess is that most cases of very low SOC are due to:

1. Unexpected weather (particularly headwinds).

2. A wrong turn added additional miles to the trip.

3. Trying to speed up a trip by only charging just enough to make it to the next SC.

It probably takes a combination of two of these to get you down to very low (in my case it was #1 and #2).
 
Anyway, let's assume I had ~10 miles of range remaining and I could see the supercharger 1/2 mile in the distance. I decided to gun it and caused the pack volts to drop low enough (if only for a moment) to cause the battery protection to disengage and shut me down. Maybe this would be a way where the rated range couldn't account for my sudden acceleration and resulting dropping of the battery volts into "danger" zone causing a shutdown.

Don't you get the yellow line limiting pack output once you drop below 20ish miles remaining? I seem to recall this from my one stint below 20 rm (caused by primary & backup chademo chargers being offline).