Driving home today, I was going a steady 40 mph or so and suddenly got a "Car Needs Service, Power reduced" warning. (I'm at 2000 miles on the odometer). Car drove normally, except I had maybe 10% of normal power. Although a power limit dashed line was drawn at about 200 kW, it took about 15 seconds (flooring it)--ok, maybe 10--to get from 0 to 30 mph....clearly way less than 200 kW was available. (I happened to be at the front at a stoplight and was a bit embarassed to accelerate so slowly!)
I drove another 5 minutes to my wife's cousin's house (where I was going to pick up my son) and parked. Immediately called roadside assistance. They pulled my log and identified a fault: Drive inverter. Asked me to reboot the touchscreen. No joy. Asked me to reboot the console. No joy--fault remained. Tesla contacted the Rockville, MD service center and told me I'd hear back momentarily. 10 minutes later, the service center called. They had pulled the logs and said the engineering team in CA is reviewing the data. They advised not driving the car, and initiated flatbed towing services. (Tesla DID offer a rental, which I declined as I have another car I can drive).
45 minutes later, the flatbed driver called and said he'd arrive within minutes. The plan was to tow my car back to my house (10 minutes away), then have a Ranger look at it tomorrow morning. Since the tow truck driver was close--and knowing the car was driveable--I went out to move the car from the driveway to the side of the residential street so it would be easier to load onto the flatbed. And what do you know--no fault. Car seemed to drive perfectly normally, although I didn't try gunning it to see if I had full power back. Roadside assistance advised that, even though the fault was gone, for safety it would be best to tow it home anyway.
Loaded the car onto the flatbed and took it home, where I drove it under it's own power into the garage. Again, car seemed perfectly normal.
I expect to hear back from Tesla in the morning. Either it was a bug/false positive (an unnerving one at that), or I really have an inverter issue. If the former, hopefully they can fix it via software. If the latter, the Ranger will come in the morning to fix, and if needed take it up to the Rockville service center for repair.
A few things:
1. Boo. I'm going to miss driving this car for a day or two!
2. Tesla was pretty good and responsive in helping. I was home within about 2 hours of the initial fault.
3. This has shaken my confidence in the drivetrain, although I suspect this is just an early production glitch and expect these sorts of kinks to be worked out. It's what I signed on for as an early reservation holder.
4. I thought it was so damn cool that Tesla was pulling logs and CA engineers were diagnosing the problem while I was still waiting for a flatbed. Totally cool.
5. The tow truck driver was totally impressed by the cockpit. He took pictures with his smartphone of the car loaded on the truck, and the touchscreen.
I'll report back what I find out tomorrow. Hopefully this is my one major drivetrain issue and it's smooth sailing from here on!
