Roadster 3.0

[ggr]

Small update: new charge cable is in, works, car charging at 40 amps (NEMA 14-50). Maybe get it back tomorrow.

 

[AEdennis]

Small update: new charge cable is in, works, car charging at 40 amps (NEMA 14-50). Maybe get it back tomorrow.

Is the charge cable INTERNAL to the Roadster, or is it a new charge port?

Also, I see you signed up for the OC Meetup on 4/24, so excited to see your 3.0 Roadster!

 

[TEG]

Just a guess, but maybe the UMC was bad and they needed a replacement.
( Trying to guess what they meant by "charge cable" )

 

[ecarfan]

Small update: new charge cable is in, works, car charging at 40 amps (NEMA 14-50). Maybe get it back tomorrow.

@ggr, what do you mean exactly by "new charge cable"? Thanks.

 

[ggr]

I have the Roadster back, 10 days after dropping it off. There's mostly good news, I guess.

It seems to work. Subjectively, in performance mode, it feels just a touch faster than it used to be, but I think it's wishful thinking; the G meter peaked at .66G which is about the same as I remember, so I don't think there's any upgrade to performance.

Now the not-so-good news. They wanted to charge me $29k for the battery, another four hundred for a "PCBA", and over $1000 for labor. I complained about that, because I thought the $29k should be all inclusive for the upgrade. We're still negotiating that.

@ggr, what do you mean exactly by "new charge cable"? Thanks.

Misunderstanding inside the service center. They hardly do any work on Roadsters any more, so they had no way to charge it! (It didn't occur to me to take my 14-50 cable to them, and didn't occur to them to ask me.) So they ordered a Roadster charging cable. But they didn't give it to me, and there was nothing special about it. Now they have one .

Then I wanted to check out that the CANs still worked. I began with a silly dance, because it's been a long time since I charged the Roadster in Range mode. So I forgot that every time I'd open the charge port door, it reset to standard mode. When plugged in, all it would tell me was "done charging"... because it was already past the standard mode charging point. There is a solar company in the same complex as the service center, with a "free" J1772, so I took the green machine over there to try it out. I rang their doorbell to ask permission, but no-one answered, so I figured they wouldn't mind too much. Plugged in with CAN jr, but nothing happened. Then a bunch of them came out, I explained about the new battery and what I was trying to do, and they said that the charger had to be activated by a bluetooth app. I downloaded the app, but none of us could make it work; the app didn't believe that this charger existed. Anyway, spent half an hour on that futile effort. Later, after I left, I went past a blink charger on Mission Bay, and the CAN jr worked fine.

CAN Sr, not so much. When I finally remembered that I had to open the charge port door, THEN set range mode, THEN plug in the CAN and Model-S HPWC, it would try to start charging but then complain about loss of synchronization momentarily (didn't get a photo of this), then the ring would go red and another error message. I took a photo of this but for some reason lost it. Henry, @hcsharp, are you there? Is there anything special I needed to do with the CAN Sr in terms of sequence? The only time I've actually used it was a year or so ago, at the exact same HPWC at the service center, just to prove that it worked (and at the time it did). Is there someone at Tesla I should contact about this?

So I came home (via blink above) and tried using the CAN Sr with the Model S' 14-50 charge cable, and got exactly the same result as with the HPWC.

But I can charge it with the original Roadster big-box charge cable, but only at 30 amps (as before). It has the longer range, but unless I can use it with destination chargers, it isn't nearly as useful as I thought it would be.

I'm happy to try things out and answer questions, but if you want the CAC values or anything like that someone'll have to give me a tutorial about how to get them.

 

[ecarfan]

At Tesla — Roadster 3.0 Battery Upgrade it states:

"The price of the battery upgrade is $29,000, including all labor and logistics"

If I were you I would not pay more than that.

Thanks for the photo of your VDS, looks good! And thanks for clarifying about the cable. I can't help much with your questions about the SR adaptor, although I do have one and have used it several times without any problem, I have never used it to Range Charge. Keep us posted..l

 

[Nvbob]

May I suggest the method we have used with the CAN-SR?

Attach CAN-SR to car, hold ring in, plug HPWC into CAN-SR, continue holding ring in for a slow ten count, and then release ring. This results in the charging without any errors/faults for us for about 99% of the time. For those times (very rare now) that fault, we repeat the process after resetting the HPWC.

 

[AEdennis]

I have the Roadster back, 10 days after dropping it off. There's mostly good news, I guess.
View attachment 172299

It seems to work. Subjectively, in performance mode, it feels just a touch faster than it used to be, but I think it's wishful thinking; the G meter peaked at .66G which is about the same as I remember, so I don't think there's any upgrade to performance.

Now the not-so-good news. They wanted to charge me $29k for the battery, another four hundred for a "PCBA", and over $1000 for labor. I complained about that, because I thought the $29k should be all inclusive for the upgrade. We're still negotiating that.


Misunderstanding inside the service center. They hardly do any work on Roadsters any more, so they had no way to charge it! (It didn't occur to me to take my 14-50 cable to them, and didn't occur to them to ask me.) So they ordered a Roadster charging cable. But they didn't give it to me, and there was nothing special about it. Now they have one .

Then I wanted to check out that the CANs still worked. I began with a silly dance, because it's been a long time since I charged the Roadster in Range mode. So I forgot that every time I'd open the charge port door, it reset to standard mode. When plugged in, all it would tell me was "done charging"... because it was already past the standard mode charging point. There is a solar company in the same complex as the service center, with a "free" J1772, so I took the green machine over there to try it out. I rang their doorbell to ask permission, but no-one answered, so I figured they wouldn't mind too much. Plugged in with CAN jr, but nothing happened. Then a bunch of them came out, I explained about the new battery and what I was trying to do, and they said that the charger had to be activated by a bluetooth app. I downloaded the app, but none of us could make it work; the app didn't believe that this charger existed. Anyway, spent half an hour on that futile effort. Later, after I left, I went past a blink charger on Mission Bay, and the CAN jr worked fine.

CAN Sr, not so much. When I finally remembered that I had to open the charge port door, THEN set range mode, THEN plug in the CAN and Model-S HPWC, it would try to start charging but then complain about loss of synchronization momentarily (didn't get a photo of this), then the ring would go red and another error message. I took a photo of this but for some reason lost it. Henry, @hcsharp, are you there? Is there anything special I needed to do with the CAN Sr in terms of sequence? The only time I've actually used it was a year or so ago, at the exact same HPWC at the service center, just to prove that it worked (and at the time it did). Is there someone at Tesla I should contact about this?

So I came home (via blink above) and tried using the CAN Sr with the Model S' 14-50 charge cable, and got exactly the same result as with the HPWC.

But I can charge it with the original Roadster big-box charge cable, but only at 30 amps (as before). It has the longer range, but unless I can use it with destination chargers, it isn't nearly as useful as I thought it would be.

I'm happy to try things out and answer questions, but if you want the CAC values or anything like that someone'll have to give me a tutorial about how to get them.

Thanks for the update @ggr good to have the update.

 

[pharma5]

I have the Roadster back...

ggr, thanks for sharing this. It's good to see one installed for a TMC member and get the inside scoop. Hope the Can SR observations are just a momentary hiccup, given the continued expansion of the destination charger network.

 

[dpeilow]

Thanks for the update @ggr. Be great if you can post some higher quality photos of the VDS when you get a chance.

I must say, if 325 miles is with it "brimmed" in range mode that's a little underwhelming compared to what we thought we might get.

 

[Stefan T]

a fast calulation will give a useble power of near 75 kWh

 

[dpeilow]

It's seriously stretching the definition of Bay Area to LA.

We need to work out if the 3.0 calculates ideal range in the same way or if it has been brought into line with the newer EPA method.

 

[AEdennis]

It's seriously stretching the definition of Bay Area to LA.

Just add the "ish" after Bay Area and LA and it works.

 

[hcsharp]

Misunderstanding inside the service center. They hardly do any work on Roadsters any more, so they had no way to charge it! (It didn't occur to me to take my 14-50 cable to them, and didn't occur to them to ask me.) So they ordered a Roadster charging cable. But they didn't give it to me, and there was nothing special about it. Now they have one .

Why didn't they just use your CAN SR? That's what a lot of people are doing.

CAN Sr, not so much. When I finally remembered that I had to open the charge port door, THEN set range mode, THEN plug in the CAN and Model-S HPWC, it would try to start charging but then complain about loss of synchronization momentarily (didn't get a photo of this), then the ring would go red and another error message. I took a photo of this but for some reason lost it. Henry, @hcsharp, are you there? Is there anything special I needed to do with the CAN Sr in terms of sequence? The only time I've actually used it was a year or so ago, at the exact same HPWC at the service center, just to prove that it worked (and at the time it did). Is there someone at Tesla I should contact about this?

The CAN SR was tested on a 2.5 that was upgraded to a 3.0 at multiple HPWC locations. I never got a detailed report except to say it worked and "performed as expected".

I'll make some inquiries. Don't hold your breath.

 

[dpeilow]

Now the not-so-good news. They wanted to charge me $29k for the battery, another four hundred for a "PCBA", and over $1000 for labor. I complained about that, because I thought the $29k should be all inclusive for the upgrade. We're still negotiating that.

When I enquired about the price increase told to me this year vs the email from last year, I was told that was to cover installation and shipping costs. When I pointed out these were included in the original quote, they said that they would honour the original quote. Sounds like the same thing is being tried here.

Just add the "ish" after Bay Area and LA and it works.

Remember the blog?

For our first test outing, we evaluated the prototype package on a historic route down the I-5 from our first Tesla store in San Jose to the Santa Monica Pier (via the Tesla Store on the 3rd Street Promenade), a distance of approximately 340 miles.

The trip was smooth, with no disruptions. On the highway, we set cruise control to stay right around the speed limit. We turned on the heater for a 40-minute stretch going over the Grapevine. And less than six hours from leaving San Jose, we pulled into the Santa Monica Pier, with 20 miles remaining in the battery pack.

340 / 6 = 57 mph which is a little over ideal range speed in my experience.


Actually their route is 345 miles according to Google Maps.

 

[ggr]

Why didn't they just use your CAN SR? That's what a lot of people are doing.

They didn't know it was in the trunk, and no-one I spoke to even knew they existed.

The CAN SR was tested on a 2.5 that was upgraded to a 3.0 at multiple HPWC locations. I never got a detailed report except to say it worked and "performed as expected".

I'll make some inquiries. Don't hold your breath.

Appreciate it.

When I enquired about the price increase told to me this year vs the email from last year, I was told that was to cover installation and shipping costs. When I pointed out these were included in the original quote, they said that they would honour the original quote. Sounds like the same thing is being tried here.

This morning I got a new invoice that reflects this, so they are honoring it.

 

[ecarfan]

It's seriously stretching the definition of Bay Area to LA.

We need to work out if the 3.0 calculates ideal range in the same way or if it has been brought into line with the newer EPA method.

Keep in mind that Tesla's blog post about driving a prototype 3.0 Roadster from San Jose to Santa Monica said, quote:

"As we announced in December, the Roadster 3.0 upgrade will feature enhancements in battery cell technology, aerodynamics, and rolling resistance. These modifications should boost the Roadster’s range by 40 to 50%."
Roadster Road Trip Update: San Jose to Los Angeles on a Single Charge

The implication is that the Roadster driven on that trip had all the 3.0 mods, not just the new battery. But since that time Tesla has been quiet on whether or not those mods will be available to buy.

So @ggr's displayed Ideal Range is based on the new battery but does not factor in the other 3.0 mods, which his Roadster does not have.

 

[shrink]

Great feedback. Congrats on the upgrade. Thanks for the update.

Quick question about the pricing - is it still $29,000 USD installed or is there some sort of price increase for new orders - or is it just that Service Centers don't know what to charge and are mistakenly trying to add in labor costs, but are then corrected by corporate?

Is it me or is it a little crazy that this costs $29,000 especially when Tesla just received 400,000 reservations for the Model III starting at $35,000? Regardless, I've plunked my Model III deposit down. I'll probably get this battery upgrade eventually. I just hope it's still offered once I decide to upgrade.

 

[JRP3]

Is it me or is it a little crazy that this costs $29,000 especially when Tesla just received 400,000 reservations for the Model III starting at $35,000?

That's the unfortunate consequence of essentially a one-off hand built product.

 

[thefortunes]

Thanks for sharing your brief experience with the upgrade.

62k miles here, still standard charging to 180/181 ideal miles.

I'm excited about the 3.0 battery, but hope it is a looooong time before I need to replace mine and that the performance/range/cost value proposition is even better at that time.