How I Recovered Half of my Battery's Lost Capacity

[SomeJoe7777]

I kind of doubt this. What is the value of the bleed resistor? Once we know that we can calculate, though...

I guess it is possible that vampire drain (*after rebalancing is complete*) is actually very low on Model 3, but it certainly is hard to determine. My best estimate is around 40W average in an optimized state, but that is derived after a brief period of sitting, and perhaps after longer periods of sitting the average is lower (again, difficult experiment to perform repeatably).

The other comment I would have here is that once the balancing is complete, they don’t bleed anymore regardless of the resistor value, do they? Once the battery is balanced (all bricks at same voltage), there isn’t a need to bleed. So I could see a smaller resistor value leading to greater short term vampire loss (quicker rebalancing), but as far as longer term vampire loss is concerned I can’t see the resistor value as mattering.

I do not know the values of the resistors, nor do I know exactly how they're wired into each brick (parallel group of cells) or if they can be removed from the circuit if the pack isn't balancing. I wish I knew these items because that would tell us a lot.

One further note is that I'm being somewhat deliberately vague in my description of the battery construction. I do not want to reveal the exact items that I was informed about by the Tesla technician, as I believe some of those items may have been proprietary information that he wasn't supposed to share. Thus, the post is a mashup of what I was told and what I can infer on an engineering basis.

I intend the focus of the post to be more on the procedure I used and the results. Changing my charge pattern to allow the car to sleep and sample the battery at different states of charge has contributed to an increase in indicated miles. I am assuming this is predominantly a change in indication and/or a change in how much of the battery's capacity is accessible for use, not an actual change in real battery capacity.

Are you sure the 270 at 100% was not measured at a time when the battery had insufficient time to balance? I could see doing a charge to 100% and then immediately driving. This would lead potentially to a result where your 100% was limited by the voltage cap on your weakest brick (since it would max out soonest). If the battery had been left at that state, of course it would have bled down that brick and then started charging all bricks in series some more - which would have resulted in more energy available than 270 rated miles.

To me that’s the first idea that comes to mind for how available energy would go UP in a battery over time. I assume it is not self-healing! And we know capacity loss in general is real, as the battery has various deleterious physical mechanisms by which it can hold less energy over time.

So what was the exact situation on the charge to 100% (you said the 270 was not an extrapolation, I think - obviously we ignore any extrapolation data points for this discussion)? Did it sit overnight or for 10-24 hours? Or did you charge and then go?

The 270 miles was indicated after a 100% charge where the car did not sit at 100% for more than about an hour.

I agree with you that real capacity loss is inevitable and unrecoverable. So we must assume that the increase in indicated capacity is the result of either (1) better estimation of battery actual capacity by the BMS, (2) accessibility to more energy of what the battery pack is actually holding (i.e. the BMS believes we can discharge deeper than before, or the BMS recognizes we can charge more than we were able to before), or (3) a combination of these two.

I don't know of a good way to compute or observe the actual capacity of the battery without relying on the BMS, other than perhaps discharging the battery to the point where protective circuits will no longer let the vehicle drive, and then charging to the point where the BMS stops charging at 100%, and independently measuring the total energy that flowed into the vehicle. But this is what it might take to get a better idea of what is actually going on here.

 

[Wennfred]

Remember to ignore data points from Stats, except the ones reported with SoC greater than 90%. All the 50% extrapolated points and lower than 90% points can be ignored. They may indicate recovery, but they can and should be aggressively ignored until you have a good datapoint at 90% charge or higher (then you can decide whether they were reasonable datapoints post hoc). Obviously there is a lot of noise on the Stats results (it's good as an estimate of capacity +/- 5-7 rated miles).

Thanks Alan, will give that a go.

Fred

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Yeah, I agree, I don't think that is inconsistent with what I've said. It's really delving into the technical details of BMS, which of course will be quite complicated and intricate since there is likely tons of optimization and cases to deal with. I certainly don't know all of those details at all, and a lot of what I am saying is somewhat speculative, just based on basic electrical engineering knowledge. The devil is in the details!

leaky / shorty / lower internal resistance

I would be careful not to confuse self-discharge of cells with internal resistance. They're kind of different equivalent circuit elements (a leak is a parallel shunt across the internal ideal voltage source, while the internal resistance is a series element modeled in series with the ideal voltage source of a Thevenin equivalent circuit). The shunt resistance of a leaky cell will very very slightly change the short-circuit current, and thus effect the equivalent series resistance, but presumably not by much! (We should certainly hope not!!!)

may increase in voltage quicker than the others

Yes, it would increase voltage faster because it has lower Ah capacity. To be clear, in this case internal resistance is not really that relevant (the internal resistance only affects the voltage when charging is taking place, when current is flowing).

But certainly internal resistance and changes in that value DO affect energy available (and the efficiency of charging!!!). Hopefully internal resistance stays VERY low!

The slower you charge, the longer the balancing system has to maintain charge balance.

It's not clear to me whether or not the balancing system typically operates during a charge. I got the impression it really only became active above 90%, when not charging, but there's not a requirement that it behave that way. I really have no idea. Obviously the balancing is really only necessary at high SoC (as long as no cell has hit maximum or minimum voltage it isn't really needed, at least temporarily - of course you do have to rebalance, in general).

 

[Battpower]

I got the impression it really only became active above 90%, when not charging

Model S originally balanced at higher SOC. Since total energy disipated depends on time, balancing disipation can be increased by allowing it to happen for longer periods. Now I believe S balances most of the time.

I would be careful not to confuse self-discharge of cells with internal resistance.

Yes, I thought that when I grouped those!

just based on basic electrical engineering

Norton and Thevenin! They seem a long time back in my life, but they still apply!

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

a change in how much of the battery's capacity is accessible for use, not an actual change in real battery capacity.

The 270 miles was indicated after a 100% charge where the car did not sit at 100% for more than about an hour.

Yeah, my guess would be that 270 rated miles result was transiently low (and a real limitation of capacity of your battery during that particular charge), caused by a voltage imbalance. Wouldn't take too much imbalance to lose a couple kWh. But I guess we'll never know. Whenever I ask people for imbalance info from SMT, the data never confirms any imbalance...so...shrug. I could be totally wrong about the reason for the 270 rated miles result.

observe the actual capacity of the battery without relying on the BMS, other than perhaps discharging the battery to the point where protective circuits will no longer let the vehicle drive, and then charging to the point where the BMS stops charging at 100%, and independently measuring the total energy that flowed into the vehicle

I'm just saying you can measure how much energy you add to a battery (with reasonable precision) by measuring the length of a charging event, and knowing the charging overhead - which is quite well understood and as long as you turn off any parasitic drains and you're careful to measure the available voltage and current being fed into the car. To get a very close estimate of capacity, you don't have to drain ALL the way to zero.

We've attempted measurements like this before on TMC for SR vehicles and compared ones showing 200 miles @100% with ones showing 220 miles @100%, and sure enough, the one with 200 miles finishes charging 10% faster, with all charging conditions exactly the same. Fairly definitive. Add 10% more rated miles...takes 10% longer. Obviously you have to be careful during the experiment to not hit the taper, or if you do, account for the increased overhead during that time period (above 97% or whatever) through the appropriate formula.

 

[TEG]

So there are so many factors to contemplate on charging regimen above and beyond just trying to let the computer learn the actual battery capacity.
Along with the "be nice to your battery" discussions, there is also a consideration of "how much performance will I get?" and "do I have enough stored range for any trip I might take?"

Just doing a little personal seat-of-the-pants guesswork, my personal habits have changed a lot during COVID.

Pre-Covid I would nightly charge to 80%, commute to work (which brought it down to ~60%) and then leave it that way during the day, and have a charge timer to go back to 80% first thing in the morning before I left again.
If I was trying to stretch out battery lifespan a little, I could get by doing a daily 60% charge, and drive it down to 40% keeping the car near a battery happier 50%.... *but* I notice less acceleration at lower SoC, so I want to keep it higher for driving fun factor and quick passing safety.
Also, I was tempted to use 90% (for even more performance), but I felt that 80% was nicer to the battery, so went that way instead. 100% is "off the table" for me unless I was doing a once in a long time attempt to retrain the SoC computer.

Now that COVID hit, and my car sits a lot more, and I am not commuting to work, I changed my charge timer to keep it at 50%. This is more sort of a "storage mode" for me, but does give me enough range to be able to make a sudden decision to drive somewhere and not worry about having to charge first.

And yes, some of us spend too much time contemplating little details that probably don't matter to most people. Is it worth planing your whole day around making your battery last 15.2 years instead of 15.1 years? Or so you get 0.1 second quicker 0-60 time?

 

[Battpower]

Along with the "be nice to your battery" discussions, there is also a consideration of "how much performance will I get?" and "do I have enough stored range for any trip I might take?"

Absolutely.

My own interest is to be able to differentiate between 'normal', 'abnormal' and 'failure'. Tesla aren't always straightforward in acknowledging when something 'fails' or what the cause might have been. I just want to be on top of that as much as I can so I can relax and enjoy the car.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

some of us spend too much time contemplating little details that probably don't matter to most people.

Yeah. The only reason I keep coming back and discussing these things here is that there seems to be a persistent idea out there amongst some Tesla owners that somehow the rated miles reduction observed on every Tesla vehicle (and every EV in general!) is somehow "not real" or "temporary." But I think we've proved elsewhere here that this is definitely not true. Measured carefully via means other than the car itself, any owner can demonstrate that cars showing lower rated miles take less energy to fully charge. That indicates definitively that vehicles with fewer rated miles at 100% contain less available energy after being fully charged. QED. (I guess you could argue that cars with lower rated miles have lower charging overhead but that would make no sense.) But somehow the idea that this is just an estimate (to be clear: it is an estimate, but accurate within 1-2%, probably) persists!!! It's weird!

 

[drtimhill]

I’m not sure why we keep coming back to this. People do discharges to 5% all the time on road trips, and this is plenty to notice what is your range! Loss of capacity (which is real!) happens, and matters! How much? Not much. I’ve lost a true 10% capacity (287 rated miles, 70.3kWh, vs 78kWh (over 310 rated miles when using the same energy content per rated miles but rated miles are initially swollen to minimize customer consternation and to allow everyone to have 310 (pre-2020) rated miles when new, even if the energy contents of different brand-new packs differed by 1-2kWh. ) Do I notice loss of capacity? Sure. I can’t make certain stretches to Superchargers that I could have made before. Does it matter? Not too much at all, as long as Superchargers are spaced sufficiently closely. Slightly longer waits at Superchargers are needed to make the same legs now.

I wasn't denying that some/many people see real degradation. Just that there are an awful lot of posts on this forum where people scream about "degradation" based on a quick glance at the range shown on the screen, without stopping to think about all possible causes. One of the interesting points the OP made was that Tesla tune the range to be pessimistic (low) to avoid people running out of battery on a journey (which is sensible).

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

Just that there are an awful lot of posts on this forum where people scream about "degradation" based on a quick glance at the range shown on the screen, without stopping to think about all possible causes

Agreed. It appears to be rather too variable for people to fully comprehend. People aren't used to the size of their gas tank changing with temperature, for example.

But I'd argue that when the range shows a particular number, it really is an extremely accurate estimate (within 1-2% I would think, not including the buffer) of actual energy available at that point in time at that pack temperature.

One of the interesting points the OP made was that Tesla tune the range to be pessimistic (low) to avoid people running out of battery on a journey (which is sensible).

I think we generally understand from SMT that (for Model 3) there is a 4.5% buffer below 0 rated miles, which is part of the available pack energy, which is not *exactly* shown on the display. But this manifests as each rated mile containing roughly 234Wh/rmi (pre-2020 AWD M3) rather than 245Wh/rmi (which is the actual total available energy content of the battery, including the buffer, when you take the number of rated miles at 100% and multiply by that scalar). These values differ by 4.5% of course. This results in about 4.5% of pack energy being available still when you hit 0 rated miles. Hard to say how much of that is truly usable though. Don't want to press that accelerator too hard at that point or you'll get a brownout (hopefully not in your shorts though)!

Tesla definitely doesn't want to have the car shutting down when you hit 0 rated miles (or slightly before). That seems to me to be the reason for the buffer.

 

[TEG]

But I'd argue that when the range shows a particular number, it really is an extremely accurate estimate (within 1-2% I would think, not including the buffer) of actual energy available at that point in time at that pack temperature.

I changed my Model 3 battery fullness to report in % instead of miles, so I don't have to sweat the inaccuracy too much.
Heck, the actual miles of range is so variable depending on other factors, like terrain, traffic, wind, lead-food, AC/heat, windows open/closed, etc.

At the end of the day, I won't be planning any trips where I am trying to depend on the range predictions to be precise to get me there.
Tesla has enough superchargers, enough range in the big pack 3s, and a smart enough nav system that I can head out and "play it by ear" and figure it out as a I go.
Watching amount of free slots at upcoming charging locations is another factor as well. An even bigger factor is "when do I want a food and potty break, and what are the nearby facilities like?"
Some, to some degree, all this sweating over range accuracy is just an academic exercise.

I lived through earlier generation EVs with < 100 mile range and limited charging options, so I know how frustrating inaccurate range predictions can be when planning a trip, but to me the 3 just avoids all that concern.

 

[aTri]

I also think that there are too many simple functions which require using the touch screen and that doing so while driving is dangerous. With my previous car I could adjust the temperature and fan speed without taking my eyes off of the road. Same with operating the wipers. Then too there is the problem having the type size too small to read while wearing distance glasses. I really to like the car, but the controls are likely to cause a crash.

I am no rocket scientist. Just a 70 yo grandmother of 11. I gave up 50 years of driving manual transmission ICE cars for the simplicity of a TESLA. I hope you learn to enjoy driving it. Not only is it Simpler, and Safer, but it definitely keeps me as the most popular grandparent around!

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

changed my Model 3 battery fullness to report in % instead of miles, so I don't have to sweat the inaccuracy too much.

Yeah, a 1-2% error in the estimate is pretty inconsequential, but the 10% drop in rated miles (a separate and distinct factor) is important for me to track since it tells me what I can do relative to what I have done in the past (assuming similar conditions of course). That’s personally why I like to track the energy I have. Just a personal choice - I understand the other perspective - and in the end of course I rely on a % number when using the Nav so at that point the miles number “doesn’t matter.”

I won't be planning any trips where I am trying to depend on the range predictions to be precise to get me there.

I do this all the time on trips; I try to target arrival at 5-10%. So accuracy of the estimate is very important (and I’ve never had a problem with the accuracy!). Another reason the occasional conversations going roughly: “it is just an estimate and could be far off” are strange to me. The estimate must be very, very accurate! I would not want to have arrival at 2% rather than 5%, by surprise, for example - it would be stressful, or I might have to slow down (or search desperately for a good rock-spewing draft), which would be super bad - and that would be potentially just a 3% error if you start close to 100%. A headwind could cause that, of course, but that is a known factor early in the drive, so that sort of deterministic error is not my point here.

 

[TEG]

From the LEAF days, I would never try to do anything with a plan to arrive at 5%... When you started getting to the lower end of charge, the GOM ("Guess O'Meter") would just change to dashes and pictures of turtles since the electronics really didn't know how much energy was left.
I guess those past experience have me always trying to keep a 10% bottom buffer (on top of whatever "reserve tank" Tesla already has built-in.)
Along with "range anxiety" finally kicking in down at the bottom of SoC, I also start to feel like I am hurting the battery, so I try to avoid doing that.

 

[AlanSubie4Life]

From the LEAF days, I would never try to do anything with a plan to arrive at 5%...

Certainly understand that!

But that’s the beauty of Tesla’s estimates (which are very very good in my experience notwithstanding known environmental factors like temp or headwind). Target arrival above 5% (not 5%!) and it really can work very very well, without pestering you about having to slow down to “make it”.

Having remaining energy go to “unknown” would certainly be very disturbing.

The battery is what it is for me. It’s not like I draw it down to 5% on a daily basis, and if I’m on a road trip, I have to drive, and I want to get there nearly as fast as a gasoline car (which is quite possible with V3s). For that, 5-10% arrival is optimal.

I don’t find any range anxiety when I’m actually at 5-10%. It’s much more anxiety when I’m at 50-100%, and the prediction is arrival at 5%, or it tells me I have to slow down to make it. The probability of this happening on any given Supercharger hop goes up as my rated miles at 100% becomes lower, of course.

 

[Daniellane]

Like many others, I have been concerned with loss of 100% indicated battery range on one of my Model 3s. My P3D (build date 9/13/2018, delivery date 10/8/2018) had gotten down to 270.3 miles at 100% charge on January 20, 2020, at about 30,700 miles, which is a loss of 40.8 miles since the car was new.

I posted about going to the service center to talk with them about battery degradation, which I did on March 9, 2020. It was a great service appointment and the techs at the Houston Westchase service center paid attention to my concerns and promised to follow up with a call from the lead virtual tech team technician. I detailed this service visit in the following post:

Reduced Range - Tesla Issued a Service Bulletin for possible fix

While that service visit was great, the real meat of addressing the problem came when I spoke to the virtual tech team lead. He told me some great things about the Model 3 battery and BMS. With the knowledge of what he told me, I formulated a plan to address it myself.

So here is the deal on the Model 3 battery and why many of us might be seeing this capacity degradation.

The BMS system is not only responsible for charging and monitoring of the battery, but computing the estimated range. The way it does this is to correlate the battery's terminal voltage (and the terminal voltage of each group of parallel cells) to the capacity. The BMS tries to constantly refine and calibrate that relationship between terminal voltage and capacity to display the remaining miles.

For the BMS to execute a calibration computation, it needs data. The primary data it needs to to this is what is called the Open Circuit Voltage (OCV) of the battery and each parallel group of cells. The BMS takes these OCV readings whenever it can, and when it has enough of them, it runs a calibration computation. This lets the BMS now estimate capacity vs the battery voltage. If the BMS goes for a long time without running calibration computations, then the BMS's estimate of the battery's capacity can drift away from the battery's actual capacity. The BMS is conservative in its estimates so that people will not run out of battery before the indicator reads 0 miles, so the drift is almost always in the direction of estimated capacity < actual capacity.

So, when does the BMS take OCV readings? To take a set of OCV readings, the main HV contactor must be open, and the voltages inside the pack for every group of parallel cells must stabilize. How long does that take? Well, interestingly enough, the Model 3 takes a lot longer for the voltages to stabilize than the Model S or X. The reason is because of the battery construction. All Tesla batteries have a resistor in parallel with every parallel group of cells. The purpose of these resistors is for pack balancing. When charging to 100%, these resistors allow the low cells in the parallel group to charge more than the high cells in the group, bringing all the cells closer together in terms of their state of charge. However, the drawback to these resistors is that they are the primary cause of vampire drain.

Because Tesla wanted the Model 3 battery to be the most efficient it could be, Tesla decided to decrease the vampire drain as much as possible. One step they took to accomplish this was to increase the value of all of these resistors so that the vampire drain is minimized. The resistors in the Model 3 packs are apparently around 10x the value of the ones in the Model S/X packs. So what does this do to the BMS? Well, it makes the BMS wait a lot longer to take OCV readings, because the voltages take 10x longer to stabilize. Apparently, the voltages can stabilize enough to take OCV readings in the S/X packs within 15-20 minutes, but the Model 3 can take 3+ hours.

This means that the S/X BMS can run the calibration computations a lot easier and lot more often than the Model 3. 15-20 minutes with the contactor open is enough to get a set of OCV readings. This can happen while you're out shopping or at work, allowing the BMS to get OCV readings while the battery is at various states of charge, both high and low. This is great data for the BMS, and lets it run a good calibration fairly often.

On the Model 3, this doesn't happen. With frequent small trips, no OCV readings ever get taken because the voltage doesn't stabilize before you drive the car again. Also, many of us continuously run Sentry mode whenever we're not at home, and Sentry mode keeps the contactor engaged, thus no OCV readings can be taken no matter how long you wait. For many Model 3's, the only time OCV readings get taken is at home after a battery charge is completed, as that is the only time the car gets to open the contactor and sleep. Finally, 3 hours later, OCV readings get taken.

But that means that the OCV readings are ALWAYS at your battery charge level. If you always charge to 80%, then the only data the BMS is repeatedly collecting is 80% OCV readings. This isn't enough data to make the calibration computation accurate. So even though the readings are getting taken, and the calibration computation is being periodically run, the accuracy of the BMS never improves, and the estimated capacity vs. actual capacity continues to drift apart.

So, knowing all of this, here's what I did:

1. I made it a habit to make sure that the BMS got to take OCV readings whenever possible. I turned off Sentry mode at work so that OCV readings could be taken there. I made sure that TeslaFi was set to allow the car to sleep, because if it isn't asleep, OCV readings can't get taken.

2. I quit charging every day. Round-trip to work and back for me is about 20% of the battery's capacity, and I used to normally charge to 90%. I changed my standard charge to 80%, and then I began charging the car at night only every 3 days. So day 1 gets OCV readings at 80% (after the charge is complete), day 2 at about 60% (after 1 work trip), and day 3 at about 40% (2 work trips). I arrive back home from work with about 20% charge on that last day, and if the next day isn't Saturday, then I charge. If the next day is Saturday (I normally don't go anywhere far on Saturday), then I delay the charge for a 4th day, allowing the BMS to get OCV readings at 20%. So now my BMS is getting data from various states of charge throughout the range of the battery.

3. I periodically (once a month or so) charge to 95%, then let the car sleep for 6 hours, getting OCV readings at 95%. Don't do this at 100%, as it's not good for the battery to sit with 100% charge.

4. If I'm going to take a long drive i.e. road trip, then I charge to 100% to balance the battery, then drive. I also try to time it so that I get back home with around 10% charge, and if I can do that, then I don't charge at that time. Instead, let the car sleep 6 hours so it gets OCV readings at 10%.

These steps allowed the BMS to get many OCV readings that span the entire state of charge of the battery. This gets it good data to run an accurate calibration computation.

So what's the results?

On 1/20/2020 at 30,700 miles, I was down to 270 miles full range, which is 40.8 miles lost (15.1 %). The first good, accurate recalibration occurred 4/16/2020 at 35,600 miles and brought the full range up to 286 miles. Then another one occurred on 8/23/2020 at 41,400 miles and brought the range up to 290 miles, now only a 20 mile loss (6.9 %).

Note that to get just two accurate calibration computations by the BMS took 7 months and 11,000 miles.

So, to summarize:

1. This issue is primarily an indication/estimation problem, not real battery capacity loss.
2. Constant Sentry mode use contributes to this problem, because the car never sleeps, so no OCV readings get taken.
3. Long voltage stabilization times in the Model 3 prevent OCV readings from getting taken frequently, contributing to BMS estimation drift.
4. Constantly charging every day means that those OCV readings that do get taken are always at the same charge level, which makes the BMS calibration inaccurate.
5. Multiple accurate calibration cycles may need to happen before the BMS accuracy improves.
6. It takes a long time (a lot of OCV readings) to cause the BMS to run a calibration computation, and therefore the procedure can take months.

I would love if someone else can perform this procedure and confirm that it works for you, especially if your Model 3 is one that has a lot of apparent degradation. It will take months, but I think we can prove that this procedure will work.

That’s a crazy amount of technical detail and execution! I was not even aware of OCV before reading your excellent post. I can say from my own personal experience that your OCD readings are off the chart!
Take this as a compliment. Thanks for all the hard work.

 

[SigNC]

I still don't understand the letting batteries at low SoC "rest." I get that they will be warm due to high amps but the car should be able to just cool them off right? Seems like it would be best to get it back up to 25%+ as soon as possible. What am i missing?

 

[AZAV8R]

(Thank you so much for the informative post! I just joined this group to escape the troll-battles going on at the Telsa Forum.)

This is the kind of info that I've been hoping to find on my M3. Aside from the crap on the Tesla forum driving me away, it surprised me that Telsa is not posting these vs. us having to kind of drag it out of them. There is so much to learn about our amazing machines. It's nice to see fact vs. the rampant speculation we have to engage in to better understand them better.

 

[immolated]

After your experiment was complete, continuing the calibration routine seems like a lot of work to change what is essentially a display inaccuracy. As long as you understand the "why", I am not concerned about small changes in the displayed range estimate until I'm at <100 mi and I need to worry about making it to the next charging stop. My old gas car had a "distance to empty" estimate that I treated the same way. Its full tank value changed by +/- 10% easily

 

[TEG]

(Thank you so much for the informative post! I just joined this group to escape the troll-battles going on at the Telsa Forum.)
This is the kind of info that I've been hoping to find on my M3. Aside from the crap on the Tesla forum driving me away, it surprised me that Telsa is not posting these vs. us having to kind of drag it out of them. There is so much to learn about our amazing machines. It's nice to see fact vs. the rampant speculation we have to engage in to better understand them better.

Welcome to TMC. I abandoned Tesla's official forums years ago for many reasons. Glad you found us.