Model s at 40,000 Miles

[wraithnot]

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Everything the other posters have said is true. My wife and I love the car. We fight over who gets to drive it daily (and she never wanted to buy it in the first place). I have had minor issues such as loud panoroof noise at highway speeds, auto-popping door handles, constricting seatbelts, breezy window seals, wiper fluid jets aimed too low...and ALL were fixed by Tesla as warranty. My original 21" Conti tires lasted over 30k miles. The only real issue that I've had (other than be limited to 90kH at superchargers) was a very unbalanced battery when the car passed over 30k.

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My 100% rated range actually dropped as low as 231 miles. But after keeping my car continuously fully charged, I am getting closer to my previous 263 rated miles. So I am pretty confident that I have not had any battery degradation.

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Wow- that's fantastic! I got all excited when I recovered a paltry 4 rated miles, but you recovered 27 miles! Tesla really needs to add some sort of battery rebalancing protocol to the 12,500 service interval. I'm sure they could come up with something that will do the most good with the least potential harm to the battery. Perhaps draining the battery really low with a current taper when the battery is almost depleted and then range charging it while telling the thermal management system to keep the battery as cool as possible. Or whatever the people who do this sort of thing for a living have figured out.

 

[brianman]

I'd avoid doing regular 100% for the sole purpose of bumping up the range estimate on your screen. You're doing real damage to the battery for a purely psychological benefit.

For some reason beer goggles comes to mind.

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I have an "A" battery. To rebalance the pack, I have kept my battery charged to 100% at all times, plugging at every opportunity even if only a few miles have ticked off my battery gauge. I've been doing this since the the first week of Nov '13 after discussing my range drop with Tesla engineers.

Was this based on advice from Tesla directly? If so, can you (asking permission if necessary) post the full information / recommendation you were provided? Thanks!

 

[ChadS]

When my Roadster pack got a bit out of balance last year, Tesla Service sent me a long blurb describing balancing, and suggested I charge the car to 100% and then leave it there, plugged in and not driven, for 3-4 weeks. It did help.

They mentioned that wasn't recommended for most of the time; just to bring a pack back in balance. I had to drive the car after about a week, and the vast majority of the benefit had already occurred by then...I suspect 3-4 weeks is really only for really bad cases, like a wrecked car sitting unplugged for months, or a partial pack rebuild, or something like that.

 

[gameon]

I don't think OP poster asked if it is a worth buying model s after 40k or 50k on the odometer.

One should consider many factors when you spend 70k to 100k upfront and see how things work out over period of time.

If he is considering with 17k to 25k ICE or EV, then it is a pretty different story (not sure he is pointing towards that)

One thing I am not hearing or say a true story from tesla owner is maintenance cost over warranty period or miles, but again, it is a new car so that never happen to many buyers.

 

[FredTMC]

For some reason beer goggles comes to mind.

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Was this based on advice from Tesla directly? If so, can you (asking permission if necessary) post the full information / recommendation you were provided? Thanks!

I'm very surprised tesla would recommend keeping the car at 100% for weeks or months. My assumption has always been that balancing occurs within the first hour or two after a range charge while still plugged in. Hours of balancing needed (IMO), not days or weeks.

 

[djp]

I'm very surprised tesla would recommend keeping the car at 100% for weeks or months. My assumption has always been that balancing occurs within the first hour or two after a range charge while still plugged in. Hours of balancing needed (IMO), not days or weeks.

The first few hours after a charge will bleed off the highest cells. It needs to go through several cycles of topping up and bleeding off to fully balance the pack, which is why several days to weeks are needed.

 

[FredTMC]

The first few hours after a charge will bleed off the highest cells. It needs to go through several cycles of topping up and bleeding off to fully balance the pack, which is why several days to weeks are needed.

Thx. Still surprising to me since balancing of lithium batteries for RCs doesn't take very long (under an hour) and the basic process for balancing the car's battery cells is the same. Maybe it takes longer because the balancing process can't balance ALL the banks of cells in parallel across the entire pack at once

 

[Alexander]

I'm very surprised tesla would recommend keeping the car at 100% for weeks or months. My assumption has always been that balancing occurs within the first hour or two after a range charge while still plugged in. Hours of balancing needed (IMO), not days or weeks.

I apologies for getting off topic with a newb question, but this is the first time I've heard about pack balancing. Is this something you should do when the car is brand new or if your constantly depleting the battery?

I do a standard charge each night, and wake up with about 233-234 miles of range. I've only had my car for about 10 days now, but during that time I've already put 1,688 miles on the odometer. 6 days out of those 10, I made it home with less then 20 miles of range left. With the amount of driving I do, I will be charging and almost fully depleting the battery on a daily basis. Is balancing something I'm going to need to do if I'm constantly ridding my battery to its last slivers of juice? Anything I should look out for?

BTW: If Tubby the OP is still reading this. Not sure if you live in Valencia, CA. But if you do I live there too. If your thinking about buying one to commute to the city (like I do), I'm more then happy to invite you over for a beer and share my ownership experience (as short as it might be). So far I'm VERY happy. I've done a lot of research and I for one think these batteries are very solid. On a different note, Sothern California Edison lets us check our daily energy usage online and calculates what your bill will be. I've driven 1,668 miles to date and only spent $67.67 on electricity to drive that far. If I was still in my old ICE car, I calculated that I would of spent $334.43 in gas. That alone puts a massive grin on my face

Also, when they finish that construction on the 5 we'll finally have car pool lane access. Double grin

 

[Odenator]

For some reason beer goggles comes to mind.

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Was this based on advice from Tesla directly? If so, can you (asking permission if necessary) post the full information / recommendation you were provided? Thanks!

I do not have an email discussion with Tesla. I had discussed this issue with Justin, the service manager at Bellevue SC, who then discussed it with the Tesla engineers after parsing my logs. Since they could not find anything wrong with my battery, they suggested keeping my battery ALWAYS topped off at 100%. It has something to do with the computer sensing a lower voltage from the battery and calculating a lower estimated SOC. Supposedly keeping the battery at 100% for a period of time resets the computer detection of the battery voltage. But I'm no electrical engineer so my layman's interpretation might be completely off.

I had planned to stop range charging when I hit 255 rated miles, but when it shot up to 258 rated miles, I decided to keep going to see if I could get back to 263 rated miles on a range charge. I know some people think this is damaging to my battery, but I think this fear of battery degradation is somewhat exagerated for the period of time that I have been range charging. I look at it like smoking. I know its bad for me, but if I only smoke for 3 months, my overall risk of developing emphysema/COPD/Lung cancer is still low. Just my 2 cents. And I really do need every mile on my battery driving from Olympia to Portland and back for TrailBlazer games. When my battery showed a max of 231 rated miles, I couldn't make it back (to the Centralia SC) without stopping for an extra hour at a j1772 on the I-5 (including a 3 hr Blink charge at the Moda Center).

 

[lloyds]

I do not have an email discussion with Tesla. I had discussed this issue with Justin, the service manager at Bellevue SC, who then discussed it with the Tesla engineers after parsing my logs. Since they could not find anything wrong with my battery, they suggested keeping my battery ALWAYS topped off at 100%. It has something to do with the computer sensing a lower voltage from the battery and calculating a lower estimated SOC. Supposedly keeping the battery at 100% for a period of time resets the computer detection of the battery voltage. But I'm no electrical engineer so my layman's interpretation might be completely off.

I had planned to stop range charging when I hit 255 rated miles, but when it shot up to 258 rated miles, I decided to keep going to see if I could get back to 263 rated miles on a range charge. I know some people think this is damaging to my battery, but I think this fear of battery degradation is somewhat exagerated for the period of time that I have been range charging. I look at it like smoking. I know its bad for me, but if I only smoke for 3 months, my overall risk of developing emphysema/COPD/Lung cancer is still low. Just my 2 cents. And I really do need every mile on my battery driving from Olympia to Portland and back for TrailBlazer games. When my battery showed a max of 231 rated miles, I couldn't make it back (to the Centralia SC) without stopping for an extra hour at a j1772 on the I-5 (including a 3 hr Blink charge at the Moda Center).

Let us know how this goes in a few weeks. I'm interested to know if this helps

 

[djp]

I do a standard charge each night, and wake up with about 233-234 miles of range. I've only had my car for about 10 days now, but during that time I've already put 1,688 miles on the odometer. 6 days out of those 10, I made it home with less then 20 miles of range left. With the amount of driving I do, I will be charging and almost fully depleting the battery on a daily basis. Is balancing something I'm going to need to do if I'm constantly ridding my battery to its last slivers of juice? Anything I should look out for?

I wouldn't worry about balancing with your use. It should take care of itself whenever you do a standard charge, and the deep cycles will help calibrate the capacity estimates. Enjoy the car and keep driving it!

If you start to notice a drop-off in estimated range you can do a few 100% charges to balance the pack. Best to do this in colder weather and when you actually need the range. Leaving it at 100% in the heat degrades the cells, so I'd avoid doing this on a regular basis.

 

[roblab]

I do a standard charge each night, and wake up with about 233-234 miles of range. I've only had my car for about 10 days now, but during that time I've already put 1,688 miles on the odometer. 6 days out of those 10, I made it home with less then 20 miles of range left. With the amount of driving I do, I will be charging and almost fully depleting the battery on a daily basis. Is balancing something I'm going to need to do if I'm constantly ridding my battery to its last slivers of juice? Anything I should look out for?

May I make a suggestion? Charging to full is maybe almost as bad as draining the battery, or put another way, draining the battery is almost as bad as charging to full. It looks to me like you are charging to a little under 90%, rather than driving a lot of times to less than 10%, which might be hard on the car, too.

If your car is like mine, you can vary the charge level in small increments (though nobody seems to know what they are...) and you might want to nudge your charge up a notch so you are charging at closer to 90%, maybe a little more, but not dropping so far down. I don't know. There are a few hidden miles sometimes at the bottom, but you are dropping it low, and a notch up on the charger might not hurt. I charge mine to 250 miles range most of the time and I guess I don't feel it hurts it any being a tick over 90%. Notice, though they don't warn you about using it up below 10%, but when I first got mine (over a year ago) they would email me if my charge got near 10-20 miles warning me to plug it in and keep it charged. I was driving at the time, on a trip, and could not plug it in, you understand, so it was really just funny: I had 6 miles to go to get to my destination and 7 miles of range one time.

Anyway, you might want to put your usage more in the middle of the charge range. Just a thought, and I disclaim any knowledge.

 

[Trnsl8r]

...

The range "lost" from being out of balance isn't really gone, it can be recovered at any time by balancing the pack. However the range lost from degradation is gone for good.

I'd avoid doing regular 100% for the sole purpose of bumping up the range estimate on your screen. You're doing real damage to the battery for a purely psychological benefit.

...

...
And I really do need every mile on my battery driving from Olympia to Portland and back for TrailBlazer games. When my battery showed a max of 231 rated miles, I couldn't make it back (to the Centralia SC) without stopping for an extra hour at a j1772 on the I-5 (including a 3 hr Blink charge at the Moda Center).

I'm trying to wrap my head around these two statements...
djp, you say that the range lost isn't really gone and the benefit is psychological, but for Odenator to make his trip he has to go through this exercise of balancing in order to get the range back... or not?

 

[Johan]

I'm trying to wrap my head around these two statements...
djp, you say that the range lost isn't really gone and the benefit is psychological, but for Odenator to make his trip he has to go through this exercise of balancing in order to get the range back... or not?

If the car senses 0 miles left it won't let him drive more. There may be cells with quite some energy left but since the pack is out of balance some are near "empty". The car senses the cells with the lowest voltage and protects them from becoming bricked by saying the pack is empty.

Basically I guess the "worst" cell i.e. the cell with the lowest voltage will be the limiting factor (probably not cell but module, 1/16th of an 85kWh pack).

 

[djp]

I'm trying to wrap my head around these two statements...
djp, you say that the range lost isn't really gone and the benefit is psychological, but for Odenator to make his trip he has to go through this exercise of balancing in order to get the range back... or not?

What I mean is - if you don't need the range and you're only doing 100% charges so you can feel better about seeing a higher number on your screen, then you're actually doing more damage than good.

If you need the range then by all means do a 100% charge. As a side benefit you'll help keep the pack in balance by spending more time at 100%, so range "loss" will be less of an issue.

My recommendation is to do range charges when you need them and let the balancing take care of itself. And if you're going to let the pack sit at 100% for an extended period of time to balance it, at least do it in the winter when cold temperatures will help protect the cells.

 

[tubby]

The 5 has been under construction since I moved out to Valencia in 1998. I want the 405 carpool to be completed. I would like to see the ride. I have seen a couple of blacks, a red and dark grey. Which one is yours.

 

[brianman]

If the car senses 0 miles left it won't let him drive more.

Nitpicker's corner:
At "0 range" in the UI below the speedometer on the instrument cluster, the car will let you drive a bit further. Don't rely on that buffer, or you will hit the "you're screwed now, call a flatbed" point at some point by testing the limits. But it's definitely not "hit zero and car immediately stops". Also, when you do the hit "car now stops" point some time past zero, you still have ~5% SOC left so you're not bricked even at that point.

 

[Johan]

Nitpicker's corner:
At "0 range" in the UI below the speedometer on the instrument cluster, the car will let you drive a bit further. Don't rely on that buffer, or you will hit the "you're screwed now, call a flatbed" point at some point by testing the limits. But it's definitely not "hit zero and car immediately stops". Also, when you do the hit "car now stops" point some time past zero, you still have ~5% SOC left so you're not bricked even at that point.

Correct of course but I meant in principle.

 

[mckemie]

I am at about 29k miles since April 2013. Despite minor problems, I still consider it to be the best car I've owned. By far. During the Spring, Summer, and Fall, I typically drove 100-150 local miles per day making deliveries. I recently made a ~1200 mile road trip:
http://www.austinfarm.org/homegrown/tripreport.html
Also have made multi-day trips of ~400 miles and ~800 miles.

I think they finally fixed the "door handle present" problem. Before, only the driver's door handle would present reliably.

I rotated the tires at about 25 k miles. Too late. Rears were badly worn on the inside. I haven't yet replaced any tires, but will soon. At the same time the service center fixed (probably) the door handle problem, they diagnosed two "bent" wheels. They declined to replace under warranty and I declined to buy more at $500+ each. The car rolls VERY smoothly so I'll just keep a closer eye on tire wear.

Here are some photos at rotation time:
December 1, 2013
Those photos can be zoomed to get more detail.

Full charge is now 255-260 miles rated range. I've been a couple of miles below zero. That is, gone a couple of miles after the rated range reached zero. Seems like I've read that it should go about 10 miles below zero before refusing to go farther. I have been down to about 10 miles rated range several other times.

 

[JRP3]

What I mean is - if you don't need the range and you're only doing 100% charges so you can feel better about seeing a higher number on your screen, then you're actually doing more damage than good.

Maybe not. Let's say there are two cells that are out of balance and when charging one of them gets to 95% full and the other to 80%. Each trip the lower cell is more deeply discharged because it starts at a lower SOC, and also because it's operating at a lower voltage it has to put out more current to produce the same power as the other cell. That cell sitting at a lower SOC is being worked harder all the time. In reality of course the differences will be small and you have many parallel cells working as one, but I'm not sure that fully balancing a pack occasionally is more damaging than driving around with an out of balance parallel sheet in relation to the others.