Has anyone else had a Tesla battery module failure? Are there statistics posted somewhere?
My freshly charged 2014 60KwHr Tesla (22,000 miles) exhibited a completely dark screen one morning last week when I went into my Garage to drive to work. Deep sleep reboot was to no avail. Tesla sent out a Tow truck. I did not know this, but behind the removable front grille there is an emergency 12V battery post from which the computers and displays can be booted from a portable lead acid battery. There was good news and bad news. The car could be placed in tow haul mode through the lit displays, BUT there was insufficient power for the car to be driven. So we pushed the car out of the garage by hand and they took it away. 2 Days later they called back and said they found one of the high voltage lithium battery modules contained at least one or more failed cells, a fault detected by the monitoring electronics, so the car would not allow operation. Tesla will give me a loaner module, return the car, and send my module back to the factory to be rebuilt.
This raises interesting questions. Although the cells are said to be exceedingly reliable, if the car has over 4000 of them, then the odds of a failure increase. Apparently there is no mechanism to automatically lock out a bad battery cell, and continue driving, unless perhaps a fuse is blown, so it will be interesting to see how many modules Tesla will have to be rebuild within the 8 year warranty period!
FYI, I had the previous week driven 150 miles and back to Loon Mountain NH to Ski. I used the supercharger in Hooksett twice, and the 30 amp charger at Loon. I would not have wished this failure to happen in ski country, 180 miles from the nearest Tesla service center.
My freshly charged 2014 60KwHr Tesla (22,000 miles) exhibited a completely dark screen one morning last week when I went into my Garage to drive to work. Deep sleep reboot was to no avail. Tesla sent out a Tow truck. I did not know this, but behind the removable front grille there is an emergency 12V battery post from which the computers and displays can be booted from a portable lead acid battery. There was good news and bad news. The car could be placed in tow haul mode through the lit displays, BUT there was insufficient power for the car to be driven. So we pushed the car out of the garage by hand and they took it away. 2 Days later they called back and said they found one of the high voltage lithium battery modules contained at least one or more failed cells, a fault detected by the monitoring electronics, so the car would not allow operation. Tesla will give me a loaner module, return the car, and send my module back to the factory to be rebuilt.
This raises interesting questions. Although the cells are said to be exceedingly reliable, if the car has over 4000 of them, then the odds of a failure increase. Apparently there is no mechanism to automatically lock out a bad battery cell, and continue driving, unless perhaps a fuse is blown, so it will be interesting to see how many modules Tesla will have to be rebuild within the 8 year warranty period!
FYI, I had the previous week driven 150 miles and back to Loon Mountain NH to Ski. I used the supercharger in Hooksett twice, and the 30 amp charger at Loon. I would not have wished this failure to happen in ski country, 180 miles from the nearest Tesla service center.
