E90alex
Active Member
It probably will if he keeps driving it that way. Mine has only seen below 20% once. Much less single digits or anywhere close to 0. It seems like he runs it near dead on the regular.
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HV Battery Died with 7 miles range left showing on Range display
- Thread starter Evolutis
- Start date
I was already aware that bringing the battery to a very low SOC is not good for the battery health. That's not the issue or my question. My question is if others have had the same experience of the car dying when it shows 4+ or 7+ miles of range left. I want to get a sense for if there is a problem with my battery/car or if this is normal. There have also been some people trying to offer troubleshooting steps or ask questions about my usage which is helpful.
For additional context I'm on track to do close to 43,000 miles this year so I'm put in situations where it's easier to run the battery down vs most people doing say 14K miles. All of the "I don't bring my car below 10%", that's great but not helpful and doesn't add much value to the thread.
For additional context I'm on track to do close to 43,000 miles this year so I'm put in situations where it's easier to run the battery down vs most people doing say 14K miles. All of the "I don't bring my car below 10%", that's great but not helpful and doesn't add much value to the thread.
You can do an actual degradation test from within service mode. You'll need to start with an SOC of sub 50, which really doesn't mean 50% shown within any of the screens as the car has a buffer that isn't avail to any of the calculators.
Start this process with the battery somewhere under 42%, it takes quite a long time(unto 24hrs), and requires you to be plugged into a lvl2 charger the entire time. It will discharge the car to 0 and back up to 100%.
Use this information as you wish.
To answer your other question, no I don't experience this and regularly drain well into the 0% range, quite often leaving it sub 10% for long periods of time. Then supercharge / lvl2 to above 80, quite often to 100%. 60k miles of doing this and my abused pack has 89% health as determined from the above procedure.
Start this process with the battery somewhere under 42%, it takes quite a long time(unto 24hrs), and requires you to be plugged into a lvl2 charger the entire time. It will discharge the car to 0 and back up to 100%.
Use this information as you wish.
To answer your other question, no I don't experience this and regularly drain well into the 0% range, quite often leaving it sub 10% for long periods of time. Then supercharge / lvl2 to above 80, quite often to 100%. 60k miles of doing this and my abused pack has 89% health as determined from the above procedure.
Thanks, was planning on doing this. Just waiting to get the battery down to 20% or so from driving so the test won't take as long.
E90alex
Active Member
To answer your question no it’s definitely not normal. There should be a buffer even beyond 0%/0mi so owners won’t get caught out with a dead HV battery like you did. That’s not a great customer experience and as you sad would make people not trust the car.
Most likely your BMS calibration is out of whack and/or battery cells are not balanced. That’s just further exacerbated by your driving and charging habits. People say the BMS doesn’t take calibration readings unless it’s asleep for a few hours. Since you drive so much the car is hardly ever asleep and the BMS doesn’t get a chance to take any readings at various SOC.
You can try the battery degradation test in the service menu mentioned above and the tips for cell balancing and BMS calibration listed on several websites. Might even need to do it a few times. It will require a lot of downtime of the car to go through those procedures though so unless you have another car to use you might not be able to do it.
Have you contacted service to see what they have to say?
BitJam
Active Member
I used to think this but then I was corrected. The HV battery is happiest at low states of charge. The problem with going down to zero is it can harm your low voltage battery, but that may be less of an issue if it is Li-ion.
There are many posts about this here. For example:
TL;DR: "More or less any lithium battery is more happy at low SOC."
Thank you. Yes, I drive a lot but it's not every day, I might go for up to 3 days without driving a long distance, it's very variable. Since reading the advice on this thread I'm letting the car sit at lower SOCs without being plugged in, currently at 62%. Will be doing the degradation test at some point this week. I have a service appointment for March 8th however it's unclear if that will yield anything of value.
Yes I contacted Tesla support and the response was as follows:
I've found some of the responses here more helpful and accurate vs their response. When she said the displayed range factors in driving habits and weather, she lost a bit of credibility.
Interesting, thanks for pointing this out. I'm going to reserve judgment as this seems to be heavily debated.
It's worthwhile to note that Tesla's manual is consistent with what you said about the LV battery getting damaged if the HV battery goes to 0%. It's also noteworthy that Tesla does not explicitly say the HV battery gets damaged at 0%. See below and here is the source: Model Y Owner's Manual | Tesla
fiehlsport
Tire Guy
Kyle from Out of Spec Reviews has well over 120,000mi on his Model 3 now, and runs it to near 0% every time he goes on a road trip, multiple times. His battery is still fine.
I wouldn't worry too much about damaging the battery, it's impractical not to use your battery below 20% SoC. You can safely use the range you paid for as long as you're smart about it.
100%, or 1% - as long as you're driving the car and not storing it at those SoCs, the battery will be fine. People treat these batteries as if they're made of glass sometimes, and they're not. Just don't hammer the car when the SoC is low.
When it comes to Teslas, nothing matters. People abuse these batteries and they still come back for more. How many "I supercharged exclusively for x0,000 miles" threads have we seen and the degradation is still minimal?
I wouldn't worry too much about damaging the battery, it's impractical not to use your battery below 20% SoC. You can safely use the range you paid for as long as you're smart about it.
100%, or 1% - as long as you're driving the car and not storing it at those SoCs, the battery will be fine. People treat these batteries as if they're made of glass sometimes, and they're not. Just don't hammer the car when the SoC is low.
When it comes to Teslas, nothing matters. People abuse these batteries and they still come back for more. How many "I supercharged exclusively for x0,000 miles" threads have we seen and the degradation is still minimal?
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Battery issues like this aren't generally seen in the short-term. They are basically life shortening events. i.e. Many people smoke and don't see harmful benefits for all their life, until they don't exist anymore.
During the time I was renting our MY, there was this one renter that did not return the car and we ended up going to get it. The car was sitting for a while at 0%. There's a lot to the story but when the flatbed arrived, the car drove normal showed no errors as you were showing. When we arrived at the Super Charger, it took a while before the amps came up. It sat at 0 for a good bit. Bjørn has some interesting videos where he drives to 0 and sees how far you can still drive. I'm thinking there is a good buffer on the 3/Y.
My advise is to place a service ticket to ensure there are no underlying complications associated with the HV battery. There's more examples of running down to 0 without the car stopping.
My advise is to place a service ticket to ensure there are no underlying complications associated with the HV battery. There's more examples of running down to 0 without the car stopping.
fiehlsport
Tire Guy
And 10 years down the road, does it even matter for the first owner?
People go crazy with PPF, 3,000 mile oil changes, and baby their car, only to trade it in or total it within the first 5 years. Enjoying the car should be top priority, use it how it fits your lifestyle, and don't stress over this small stuff.
@Evolutis I haven't seen one of these threads in a while, but I am a longtimer, and there is a lot of history on these. For example:
teslamotorsclub.com
teslamotorsclub.com
teslamotorsclub.com
teslamotorsclub.com
I do have a few bits of history and thoughts on this.
I was following the forums in 2012 and 2013 and bought my car in January 2014. During the first year or two of the Model S software versions, there was intentionally some driving buffer below 0. Some owners experimented to find out EXACTLY how many miles that was and then proudly told people on the forum EXACTLY how many it was so they could use it (stupidly exact numbers like 23). That was a terrible idea for two reasons. Determining energy in a large multi-cell battery pack just can't be that precise. Secondly, in a further software revision around 5.x, Tesla switched it so that they moved more of that energy up into the usable area above 0 on the display, and ZERO REALLY WAS ZERO. There was no driving buffer below 0 anymore! But people kept repeating this tribal knowledge on the forum, and people started getting caught with shut downs with 3 or 4 miles left, because they thought there were supposed to be 20+ below 0.
Most of the newer cars I think are set up to try to have a little below 0, but please don't count on it.
It's hard to have precision on the bottom end of a battery measurement. If you look at a graph of the voltage on Y axis versus total state of charge on the X axis, it's really flat voltage through most of the middle, but the voltage drops off really steeply on the last few percent before 0%. So it can be kind of twitchy, and the voltage can fall off pretty fast sometimes in that last few %. And expecting correct 1 or 2 % accuracy levels in anything is a challenging demand.
I will say that the cases we usually saw this were mostly higher mileage cars at least a few years old, where things had longer time for something to get out of balance. I'm a little surprised to see this in a 2022 car that's so new.
I consider that way too risky, since I don't want to have to deal with the hassle of getting my car towed, when it is so much easier just to slow my cruise control down by a few mph on the previous hour or half hour of the drive to make sure my arrival target is not getting much below 10%. I would consider that a personal failure of my planning if I got to 3%, and I would deserve to get hit with a shutdown as consequence.
Shut down with supercharger in sight
It was bound to happen to me. For years I was bragging that I regularly drive my car down to single digits and it has never shut down. Now it finally did. And to punish me a little extra for my big mouth, it happened at 3:30 am just before the exit for the supercharger. I could literally see it...
teslamotorsclub.com
Has your car shut down before it hits zero?
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.
teslamotorsclub.com
0 miles rated range
So yesterday we went 3 miles after it hit 0 rated miles. This got me wondering how far can you drive after you hit 0? Our 3 miles was basically 30mph-40mph the entire time. Anyone else run into this yet? We were expecting it to shut down right at zero considering we have a Leaf and that's...
teslamotorsclub.com
Driving past 0 miles
In case you have not found yourself in this position yet, so far the lowest we have had to go is about 20 miles past the 0 miles remaining. I do not recommend it but it can be done if you get stuck in high headwind or not keeping an eye on your charge level.
teslamotorsclub.com
I do have a few bits of history and thoughts on this.
I was following the forums in 2012 and 2013 and bought my car in January 2014. During the first year or two of the Model S software versions, there was intentionally some driving buffer below 0. Some owners experimented to find out EXACTLY how many miles that was and then proudly told people on the forum EXACTLY how many it was so they could use it (stupidly exact numbers like 23). That was a terrible idea for two reasons. Determining energy in a large multi-cell battery pack just can't be that precise. Secondly, in a further software revision around 5.x, Tesla switched it so that they moved more of that energy up into the usable area above 0 on the display, and ZERO REALLY WAS ZERO. There was no driving buffer below 0 anymore! But people kept repeating this tribal knowledge on the forum, and people started getting caught with shut downs with 3 or 4 miles left, because they thought there were supposed to be 20+ below 0.
Most of the newer cars I think are set up to try to have a little below 0, but please don't count on it.
It's hard to have precision on the bottom end of a battery measurement. If you look at a graph of the voltage on Y axis versus total state of charge on the X axis, it's really flat voltage through most of the middle, but the voltage drops off really steeply on the last few percent before 0%. So it can be kind of twitchy, and the voltage can fall off pretty fast sometimes in that last few %. And expecting correct 1 or 2 % accuracy levels in anything is a challenging demand.
I will say that the cases we usually saw this were mostly higher mileage cars at least a few years old, where things had longer time for something to get out of balance. I'm a little surprised to see this in a 2022 car that's so new.
I consider that way too risky, since I don't want to have to deal with the hassle of getting my car towed, when it is so much easier just to slow my cruise control down by a few mph on the previous hour or half hour of the drive to make sure my arrival target is not getting much below 10%. I would consider that a personal failure of my planning if I got to 3%, and I would deserve to get hit with a shutdown as consequence.
@Evolutis said:
This text from tesla is probably stored as a boilerplate response somewhere, and they just copy / paste it to people because they probably answer a dozen or more "Range" questions a day. I dont know, but would not be surprised in the slightest if every single service center had at least 5 questions on the topic of "Range" and "why is my car not getting its range?"
Note that I realize thats not exactly what you are asking. Even though thats the case, I am betting thats what whomever sent that response to you read it as, and simply copy / pasted one of their few stock "range" response boilerplates.
Doesnt make it "right" but I doubt they even looked at any logs for your car, for example.
In any case, you are probably better off calculating 10 miles as 0, like I believe you said somewhere else in this thread.
This text from tesla is probably stored as a boilerplate response somewhere, and they just copy / paste it to people because they probably answer a dozen or more "Range" questions a day. I dont know, but would not be surprised in the slightest if every single service center had at least 5 questions on the topic of "Range" and "why is my car not getting its range?"
Note that I realize thats not exactly what you are asking. Even though thats the case, I am betting thats what whomever sent that response to you read it as, and simply copy / pasted one of their few stock "range" response boilerplates.
Doesnt make it "right" but I doubt they even looked at any logs for your car, for example.
In any case, you are probably better off calculating 10 miles as 0, like I believe you said somewhere else in this thread.
At the investor call today, Tesla said that they use AI to automatically triage, respond to, and order parts for ~33% of service requests. So, it is possible that a person wasn't even involved in that response.
OxBrew
Active Member
I worked on grid storage battery designs for several years. I was not involved, but watched from the next cubicle, for 18 ish months while the BMS engineers debated and tested hundreds of iterations of algorithms to determine SOC of the systems.
It was a total mess. So many variables like temperature, cell imbalance, discharge rate, make it amazingly difficult to pin down. As they stack up racks of modules, it gets even harder to know what the hell is going on. They often couldn't agree on what they were even measuring, how to average the readings, how often to sample them, how to predict and filter smaller swings in voltage, just crazy complicated.
Customer contracts depended on it, warranties accounted for it, it was nuts.
They drank a lot after work.
It was a total mess. So many variables like temperature, cell imbalance, discharge rate, make it amazingly difficult to pin down. As they stack up racks of modules, it gets even harder to know what the hell is going on. They often couldn't agree on what they were even measuring, how to average the readings, how often to sample them, how to predict and filter smaller swings in voltage, just crazy complicated.
Customer contracts depended on it, warranties accounted for it, it was nuts.
They drank a lot after work.
Yes BMS gives you an extremely educated guess of current state.
But future state guesses depend on how well you know what is going to happen in the future. That's crystal ball stuff
Electric700
Active Member
Sorry that happened but it's really better for the battery to stay within 10% to 90% always, plus you have a buffer in case there is a detour or for other reasons. Occasionally going a little bit lower than 10%, like to 7% is fine, but with the number of Superchargers available now, there should be no reason. There are also a lot of J1772 Level 2 chargers available and you can just use the adapter to plug-in.
That being said, I think you should schedule an appointment in the Tesla app and mention that the car shut down with 7 miles of range remaining. I think it should be able to go to 0 miles as others have indicated. May be the 7 miles is actually 0 and it just needs to be recalibrated by Tesla to say that (or they can walk you through how to do that using the app/call).
That being said, I think you should schedule an appointment in the Tesla app and mention that the car shut down with 7 miles of range remaining. I think it should be able to go to 0 miles as others have indicated. May be the 7 miles is actually 0 and it just needs to be recalibrated by Tesla to say that (or they can walk you through how to do that using the app/call).
fiehlsport
Tire Guy
I think OP is still waiting to perform a BMS calibration at various states of charge before bringing the car in again. Tesla won't even schedule an appt because it is running within their tolerances.
I think this is easily correctable once the battery can get an idea of its capacity at 10%, 20%, 50% etc. overnight a few times.
I think this is easily correctable once the battery can get an idea of its capacity at 10%, 20%, 50% etc. overnight a few times.
1. I'm currently running BMS calibration, currently at 52%, haven't charged in a few days.
2. Once I get down to a low SOC say 20% or so I will run a battery health test from the service menu.
3. I have a service appointment set for March 8.
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