My 24 hour Tesla

[edschifman]

See new post...this was changed and edited. My apologies.

 

[edschifman]

Yesterday, I received my Tesla S in Naples. I was able to spend the day tooling around Naples in the new Tesla S today and drove into my garage when a friend came by to take a look. I was startled to be unable to show him how the car works becuase as of that moment, the car was DEAD. Yes, after just 24 hours, completely dead. I called Roadside Assistance, knowing this was a weekend, and the best that they could do was to have someone call me on Monday. I sent an email out to my delivery specialist and the person that handled my sale in Palo Alto to see if they can help out. Thankfully, Brandon, the Delivery Specialist did call back on Saturday night and within thirty minutes, one of the service technicians had arranged to pick up my car on Sunday. I am certainly unhappy about the problem, but it is not nearly as bad when I know that the Tesla team is serious about getting it right. And they are very focused on that. After looking over the Forums, I found that the 12 volt battery seems to be the most likely villan here, but that is only a guess on my part. As an early adopter, I recognize that there are issues with any new car, but this is well beyond anything that I would have expected in the way of a problem. Small issues, yes, but a dead car is no small issue. For those of you that have yet to take delivery, I would suggest that you continue to watch the Forums and I would also offer that you should ask prior to delivery if the 12 volt battery that is in the Tesla is totally charged and operable. This was going to be a great weekend to tool around and it doens't look like it will turn out that way. But thankfully, I have a taste of the way that the Tesla team is focused on customer service. To pick up a car on Sunday after a Saturday night call is pretty awesome. They get it! I am sure that they will get it right.

 

[ClearwaterBchSteve]

We have been fortunate with our Model S with no problems even worth mentioning. However, it's comforting to know they are responsive to serious problems. Funny how the 'ole 12v battery found in millions of old style ICE cars is the Tesla's Achilles heel.

 

[araxara]

I'm sure someone else would know more about this than me, but from what I've heard you can pull off the nose cone and there are is a 12V connector on the driver's side that is accessible. I guess it's made for emergency "jump starting". Probably hooking up a 12V battery to it would allow you to boot up your car. But maybe someone else who is more knowledgeable about this would like to comment. I would hate to see you fry your car.

 

[edschifman]

Great info. The car is so new to me, I think I will let them do their magic and let me know what it was. But very interesting. Thank you!

 

[edschifman]

Yesterday, I received my Tesla S in Naples. I was able to spend the day tooling around Naples in the new Tesla S today and drove into my garage when a friend came by to take a look. I was startled to be unable to show him how the car works becuase as of that moment, the car was DEAD. Yes, after just 24 hours, completely dead. I called Roadside Assistance, knowing this was a weekend, and the best that they could do was to have someone call me on Monday. I sent an email out to my delivery specialist and the person that handled my sale in Palo Alto to see if they can help out. Thankfully, Brandon, the Delivery Specialist did call back on Saturday night and within thirty minutes, one of the service technicians had arranged to pick up my car on Sunday. I am certainly unhappy about the problem, but it is not nearly as bad when I know that the Tesla team is serious about getting it right. And they are very focused on that. After looking over the Forums, I found that the 12 volt battery seems to be the most likely villan here, but that is only a guess on my part. As an early adopter, I recognize that there are issues with any new car, but this is well beyond anything that I would have expected in the way of a problem. Small issues, yes, but a dead car is no small issue. For those of you that have yet to take delivery, I would suggest that you continue to watch the Forums and I would also offer that you should ask prior to delivery if the 12 volt battery that is in the Tesla is totally charged and operable. This was going to be a great weekend to tool around and it doens't look like it will turn out that way. But thankfully, I have a taste of the way that the Tesla team is focused on customer service. To pick up a car on Sunday after a Saturday night call is pretty awesome. They get it! I am sure that they will get it right.

As of Sunday, the Tesla team drove from Dania Beach to Naples to pick up my Tesla S and they were great. It is possible, but not yet known for sure, but it might be that I have a bad charger (car to 240 volt). It sometimes works and other times it does not. It is possible tha the car went into a fail safe mode, whcih caused it to shut down totally. There are still unanswered questions, but they are really working towards finding the solution.

 

[edschifman]

As of Sunday, the Tesla team drove from Dania Beach to Naples to pick up my Tesla S and they were great. It is possible, but not yet known for sure, but it might be that I have a bad charger (car to 240 volt). It sometimes works and other times it does not. It is possible tha the car went into a fail safe mode, whcih caused it to shut down totally. There are still unanswered questions, but they are really working towards finding the solution.

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As of Tuesday, my car will be returned tomorrow with a repaired front door handle and a new charging cord. It appears when speaking with the service manager in Dania that another customer had a similar problem. In both cases, they are replacing the charging cord from the 240 plug to the Tesla connection. I am cautiously optimistic that this will resolve the problem. They have been class acts all the way along. I even had a call from the service manager as late as 8pm one evening. They work hard!

 

[Larry Chanin]

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As of Tuesday, my car will be returned tomorrow with a repaired front door handle and a new charging cord. It appears when speaking with the service manager in Dania that another customer had a similar problem. In both cases, they are replacing the charging cord from the 240 plug to the Tesla connection. I am cautiously optimistic that this will resolve the problem. They have been class acts all the way along. I even had a call from the service manager as late as 8pm one evening. They work hard!

Hi Ed,

I'm sorry to hear that you had this difficulty, and I'm glad that you seem to be taking it in stride.

There is one thing that I don't fully understand. If this was due to a faulty Mobile Connector what is Tesla's explanation for the total loss of charge in just 24 hours? It seems to me that even without any charging it would take a long time to totally discharge either the 12 volt or traction battery and this shouldn't happen in just 24 hours.

Thanks.

Larry

 

[edschifman]

Larry...sorry, I didn't see your last posted request. I am sorry to say that the answer is not really clear. It appears that when the car went dead, they were able to repeat the red light on the charger, which meant there was a problem, but it was never totally understood by me what the issue was. They chose to take the car back and did a thorough check, but all they could find was the charger was bad. The fact it went totally dead is still a mystery to me (and perhaps, to them as well). I have to admit ignorance and all I can say is that as of that day, the car has been operating perfectly. I do worry a bit that this could happen again, but I still don't really know what would cause the car to go completely dead. It was not the 12 volt battery, nor was it anything other than the bad charging cable as far as I am able to tell.