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I am not having a happy tesla day. I have been a customer for a long time. And this happen. Incredible. Driving home, almost home, 3 percent battery left and car dies. A bit surprise since I “assumed” car should of at least made it up 1percent or less. Right? And what really sucks, I am 3 mins from home!!!!!!!! I had the address on the system which if we had an issue it should of told me to re-route and charge somewhere. Very disappointed to say the least.

Now been on the side of the road for 4 1/2 waiting for a tow truck. Oh and the main screen will not open so I can’t put the car in tow mode so a special truck has to come with a dolly to move my car. Priceless

2014
P85
Model S

Considering selling this car now! I am sure it’s my emotions talking but I am pissed!!!!

And yea, I had the address in the system and it never said go charge here because you are not going to make it!!!
 
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Yeah lithium battery guestimation is not a perfected science. So at best it is just an estimate. I suspect one string in your battery pack is weak and the bms shutdown prematurely to protect the battery. And older battery pack will have worst estimation. I have a 2016 90D with 100K miles and have taken it down to 2% before on multiple occasions. I guess I have been lucky. One thing helps is when you are that low on the battery pack, go very very easy on the throttle. Any hard acceleration will draw a lot of current and might push the weaken cell into the low range where the BMS will shut it down.
 
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I am not having a happy tesla day. I have been a customer for a long time. And this happen. Incredible. Driving home, almost home, 3 percent battery left and car dies. A bit surprise since I “assumed” car should of at least made it up 1percent or less. Right? And what really sucks, I am 3 mins from home!!!!!!!! I had the address on the system which if we had an issue it should of told me to re-route and charge somewhere. Very disappointed to say the least.

Now been on the side of the road for 4 1/2 waiting for a tow truck. Oh and the main screen will not open so I can’t put the car in tow mode so a special truck has to come with a dolly to move my car. Priceless

2014
P85
Model S

Considering selling this car now! I am sure it’s my emotions talking but I am pissed!!!!

And yea, I had the address in the system and it never said go charge here because you are not going to make it!!!
Is this more likely to happen when a pack gets unbalanced?
How long ago was the last time you charged to 100% and let it balance out?
 
Yeah lithium battery guestimation is not a perfected science. So at best it is just an estimate. I suspect one string in your battery pack is weak and the bms shutdown prematurely to protect the battery. And older battery pack will have worst estimation. I have a 2016 90D with 100K miles and have taken it down to 2% before on multiple occasions. I guess I have been lucky. One thing helps is when you are that low on the battery pack, go very very easy on the throttle. Any hard acceleration will draw a lot of current and might push the weaken cell into the low range where the BMS will shut it down.
Thank you for the help feedback. Much appreicate it!
 
Yeah lithium battery guestimation is not a perfected science. So at best it is just an estimate. I suspect one string in your battery pack is weak and the bms shutdown prematurely to protect the battery. And older battery pack will have worst estimation. I have a 2016 90D with 100K miles and have taken it down to 2% before on multiple occasions. I guess I have been lucky. One thing helps is when you are that low on the battery pack, go very very easy on the throttle. Any hard acceleration will draw a lot of current and might push the weaken cell into the low range where the BMS will shut it down.
Thank you for the help feedback. Much appreicate it!
 
Is this more likely to happen when a pack gets unbalanced?
How long ago was the last time you charged to 100% and let it balance out?

Yes, this is more likely the more unbalanced the pack, as well as the better the BMS is calibrated (cell balance as BMS calibration related but slightly different things).

However, my understanding is for some time now you do not need to charge to 100% for the pack to balance. The pack will balance now at any SOC, provided the car is allowed to shut down for a period of time. The period of time the car must shut down is quite a bit different between the pre-Palladium (a.k.a., Plaid) MS/MX and the M3/MY vehicles. This gets into the pack construction and the rate as which the individual strings can balance between the cells.
 
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Balanced or not is beside the point IMO. Not rubbing salt into the wound, but running below 5% is a crap shoot. The car gives you plenty of warning by way of the battery icon turning yellow, then red. I’ve actually scared myself sh*tless during the winter one year due to road closures from a snowstorm that necessitated multiple detours. Hit 0% four miles from home, but still made it.
Other times when on road trips, the warning messages do appear about slowing down or else you won’t make it. That’s all it’s intended to do, provide high level warnings based on many factors. It’s not supposed to be accurate down to the last three miles as conditions/parameters are always changing.
Again, it sucks you were stranded, but considering selling because you rolled the dice and got burned one time is overkill IMO. You were three minutes from home. I would’ve walked home, had a couple beers and waited for the tow truck driver to call when he/she was 20mins out and walked back.
I wouldn’t sell my P85D based on a self-inflicted wound that only cost me time.
 
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Sometimes the 8 year old battery in my 2014 iPad Air 2 shuts down unexpectedly at ~5%.

Best to not put aging electronics in a situation like that when the stakes are high. 💡
THIS! Your Tesla is essentially an iPad on wheels, Treat it as such. Driving a 8 year old Tesla is like using a 8 year old iPad - every update everything gets slower, you don't get the latest features even if on the same software version, and the battery may not be able to handle as much as it used to, especially in the sub 5% SoC.
 
Yeah the same thing happened to me last month. It used to pop up with the slow down to make it to your destination but i never got any warning and it died at 2%. I've gone to 1% many times and never had an issue, all these updates lately with the estimated range have been wreaking havoc on actual range.

Also even after getting a 12v jump from the tow truck my frunk wouldn't open so we couldn't use the proper tow point and he had to hook on a different area. And the frunk wouldn't open till the car got up to 15% it was very weird.

 
Yeah the same thing happened to me last month. It used to pop up with the slow down to make it to your destination but i never got any warning and it died at 2%. I've gone to 1% many times and never had an issue, all these updates lately with the estimated range have been wreaking havoc on actual range.

Also even after getting a 12v jump from the tow truck my frunk wouldn't open so we couldn't use the proper tow point and he had to hook on a different area. And the frunk wouldn't open till the car got up to 15% it was very weird.

Weird that jumping it wouldn't open the frunk. Just fyi, there is also an emergency frunk release which is mechanical. It's different in the nose-cone vs. refresh car, likely changed locations in more recent Model S too, but it works even with all batteries dead. I used it once on one of my car after it was totaled in an accident.
 
Weird that jumping it wouldn't open the frunk. Just fyi, there is also an emergency frunk release which is mechanical. It's different in the nose-cone vs. refresh car, likely changed locations in more recent Model S too, but it works even with all batteries dead. I used it once on one of my car after it was totaled in an accident.
I'm gonna need you to elaborate on that one. The only mechanical manual release I can find is jimmying it with a screwdriver.

I know the refresh cars have some fancy crap but I'm not tracking any sort of manual stuff on the nosecones.
 
I'm gonna need you to elaborate on that one. The only mechanical manual release I can find is jimmying it with a screwdriver.

I know the refresh cars have some fancy crap but I'm not tracking any sort of manual stuff on the nosecones.

Yeah, your car is in the weird inbetween where the method is basically as you describe - pull nose cone and jimmy it open.

Earlier cars had a manual release inside under the glove box. Later cars have manual releases in the wheel wells.

Covered in the emergency response guides for various years/configs:

 
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I'm gonna need you to elaborate on that one. The only mechanical manual release I can find is jimmying it with a screwdriver.

I know the refresh cars have some fancy crap but I'm not tracking any sort of manual stuff on the nosecones.
As @ucmndd mentioned, refresh cars have emergency releases in wheel wells (I had to use it on one of out Model S once). For the nosecone, I seem to remember two pull cables, but perhaps that was for Model X (I have never personally had to manually open the frunk on any of our nose-coned Model S). Still, a quick google search and I found this video showing a guy opening the nosecone frunk manually: