Model S shut down at 32 miles, leaving me stranded - why?

[eruben]

Then I would be worried about the pack battery. Can you get TM-Spy and do a little investigating?
Also try to go down low again, but close to charging and on level ground; if nothing else to enhance your own confidence if it was a one-off.

Tesla reamed me for having Tesla-Fi installed, and said any 3rd party app might be interfering with things and caused my shutdown. Like they were trying to find something to blame me for.

I will try to bring it low in my garage, where I can always charge if need be.

I would take it to a different service center to have someone else check it. While the battery was still in the yellow range and hadn't even gotten down low enough to go red yet and suddenly shut off, there is something straight-up wrong, and someone from Tesla needs to figure it out.

I did forget to mention what @Incredulocious and I think @Gwgan were saying about the 12V battery. That may still possibly be related to this. I think if the car detects the 12V really going out right now, it can also trigger that disconnecting from the main battery and shutting off the car if it has those several seconds to do so. So this may be a 12V dying problem also/instead. Which if you said you've had your 12V replaced a couple of times, may even trace back to a problem with the DC to DC battery charging system, which keeps that 12V battery maintained.

Unfortunately, there's no other service center within range (literally, I could run out of battery going to another haha!). I might try to bring it back and maybe someone else there can look at it...but with their physical diagnostics showing everything working, not sure what that will accomplish. The 12v battery thing is another idea...I guess if it fails a 3rd time then a pattern and underlying cause will be apparent.

 

[ran349]

Finally 2 days before all this, I had charged to full and got 255 miles + 25 ghost miles - where I drove 25 miles before the range started decreasing from 255.

That's another clue that something is wrong. That should never happen.

 

[mongo]

That helps the cells rebalance.

Not so. If Tesla only used a max voltage shunt, it would require a full charge to trip and balance, but they are more sophisticated than that and can rebalance at any time.
A full charge helps the SOC/ battery gauge to calibrate.

 

[Darren Donovan]

The BMS cannot exactly know the state of charge of every cell pack in serial, unless it expiry it go near empty and full now and then.
That said, the balancing is not only done above 90% SOC, but BMS every calibration may require seeing 20...90%

That said, the worst mistake here is to think acceleration that bring down the voltage is a good cause for shutdown.
I sometimes hammer it while approaching SC with low SOC, just to arrive with less than 10% to get a better energy estimate. ( Allow BMS to learn a wider range) and while I get kW limit, it's obvious that the car does reduce torque, not just shut down.

Deep cycles are not good for battery, so don't do that regularly.

That said, you would not usually try to drive in ICE car down to the last drop of fuel, or 0km estimate

Thing is, in an ICE vehicle, at low fuel level, the warning light ALWAYS comes on letting the driver know to refuel soon. And there's usually something like a couple gallons left when the warning light appears. In OP's case, there were 32 miles, and then poof, gone. That's unacceptable. I don't see how Tesla can tell OP that everything's fine diagnostically.

 

[GHammer]

Tesla reamed me for having Tesla-Fi installed, and said any 3rd party app might be interfering with things and caused my shutdown.

That's a bunch of BS.

 

[Az_Rael]

one of the worst things (besides being scared to go low in range ever again) is that Tesla says since everything looked fine diagnostically, I must have run out of charge on my own so I have to pay for the $240 tow truck.

Man, that is a low blow. I would keep that tow receipt and if they do eventually determine your battery is bad I would request reimbursement.

Sometimes when the HV batteries are going bad, they will continue to degrade and eventually Tesla will admit the pack is bad and replace it. Keep tracking your range and document all your interactions with the service center and customer service reps in writing.

There is also an arbitration process for warranty disputes that you can go through if Tesla refuses to address the issue. Folks with the yellow border screens are using that process now, it appears to be fairly simple for the consumer.
Yellow screen? Force Tesla to Replace it!

 

[Electric700]

Tesla reamed me for having Tesla-Fi installed, and said any 3rd party app might be interfering with things and caused my shutdown. Like they were trying to find something to blame me for.

...

Try charging to 95% at least once a year. This should balance the battery. In fact, I believe balancing should occur at a minimum of a 93% charge level.

 

[eruben]

There is also an arbitration process for warranty disputes that you can go through if Tesla refuses to address the issue. Folks with the yellow border screens are using that process now, it appears to be fairly simple for the consumer.
Yellow screen? Force Tesla to Replace it!

Never knew that! Thanks, that might come in very handy.

Try charging to 95% at least once a year. This should balance the battery. In fact, I believe balancing should occur at a minimum of a 93% charge level.

Yeah, I was charging to a straight 100% about once a month for road trips. But I had only been to 100% once since the software update.

 

[Tam]

Tesla reamed me for having Tesla-Fi installed, and said any 3rd party app might be interfering with things and caused my shutdown. Like they were trying to find something to blame me for.

The only interference that I can think of Teslafi is it documents clearly how your car shut down which make it difficult for Tesla to rebut against the objective data.

 

[N..8]

Eruben, I also have a S75 Dec/2017. I can say that you should have had @32mles about 10kWh plus the 4kWh buffer of battery left. That's a lot of energy left to have the car shut off. Just messing around with TM-Spy I can say I've never seen restriction until around 10 miles left in the pack. Not being able to see your pack using TM-spy at the time it's hard to tell what the BMS was doing. I would say that in the next few weeks either the car will be no issues and it was fluke or they will be calling you to let you know the pack is failing.

 

[Target]

I was previously more certain about the 12V battery not being an issue, but if the car really stops charging the 12V battery below X% main battery, then it has a very high chance of being the problem.

 

[croman]

I've driven my car to nearly 0 several times. While at about 10 miles it restricts the top end power (progressively as the SoC drops), I've never had it restricted to the levels OP showed in his photo (like 20kw). I've even gone to 2 miles in the winter when my car was a 60D and I NEEDED to make it to my destination from Erie PA to ithaca NY before there were ANY superchargers for the 238 miles. I only push it on road trips and less so now that superchargers are more abundant but I don't hesitate or even think at all about range until I'm below 20 miles.

This is bad and Tesla needs to address it better. I would contact the service center manager and demand an accounting because its clear your battery failed you and put you in a dangerous situation. That is unacceptable.

For the record, I've floored it while my range was low without issue. The car limits the power and controls everything, so if it really can't take the acceleration, it should limit it to prevent a failure (and does in my experience).

I think OP has a dead module (32 miles of range seems to indicate at least one bad module for a 75 pack).

 

[Target]

For the record, I've floored it while my range was low without issue. The car limits the power and controls everything, so if it really can't take the acceleration, it should limit it to prevent a failure (and does in my experience).

I agree with this! This shouldn't have happened. I didn't express it clearly early in thread except to encourage you to continue fighting, but the car shouldn't ever let the voltage sag to the point it shuts down, it should limit power draw. Keep fighting the good fight, it is worth $240, and likely a repaired battery pack.

 

[eruben]

Thanks all, I do plan to keep up the fight. It's inexcusable for the car to say it has 32 miles of range and then leave me stranded. Decrease the output, fine, sending warnings, fine, but not to crap out like that.

I'm going to try to run my battery down again to that range and see how it goes. If it's truly a failed module, then I think it should fail at 10-20 miles of range, and I'll have more evidence to get the service center to do something about it.

 

[Tam]

I think it is a mistake to normalize that Tesla battery gauge is so inaccurate that it's normal to not risking driving at a certain SOC such as 13%, 20%, 40%, or to be safe how about 80%, 100%...?

It is true that the battery gauge would gradually drift and become inaccurate but in the driver's favor in term of safety.

That means, when it says it has 32 miles, it might actually have more such as 50 miles due to calculation drift which gives the driver a safety margin of more miles than what is calculated.

The inaccuracy is not the other way around: When it says 32 miles and the car shuts down, then that is not how calculation drift works, it's time for a new battery!

That's why some people would do a battery balance to gain miles and I never heard to lose miles!

Tesla changed Tesloop's battery because its battery gauge said 10 miles but the car shut down:

"Though the car didn’t actually lose any range, the estimator would say it could go another ten miles—and then power down. Tesla looked into the issue, and told Tesloop that there’s a battery chemistry state that high-mileage cars go into, and the software isn’t properly compensating for that change. "

 

[croman]

Fwiw. I drove my leaf to *** on the guess o meter and kept going for 8 miles after that and it didn't enter turtle mode either. I did only use 20kw max but that car only tops out at 80kw.

 

[Gwgan]

Tesla reamed me for having Tesla-Fi installed

While Tesla-Fi might keep the car awake (not typically), TM-spy actually connects by dongle and gives information on the pack sections but is also only a read-only system. Not the same thing at all. Demo starts about 0:4

Also, go to a different SC if that is the level of customer service you get there.

 

[Ludalicious]

 

[Az_Rael]

View attachment 430628

OP has already been through door #1 and door #2

 

[eruben]

OP has already been through door #1 and door #2

I've actually been through all three doors now!