Roadster 3.0

[Austrianer]

CAC value of 214 is interesting.

The new battery cells are LG HG2 which have a nominal capacity of 3000 mAh.
If Tesla has replaced all old cells 1 by 1 with the new ones, there are still 69 cells in a brick which means an Ah value of 207 = CAC.

Maybe the LG HG2 cells are a little bit better than officially stated (3100 mAh).

 

[ElectricLove]

I use the LG HG2 cells and have to say they are excellent! Don't know how the CAC is being calculated (ie. at what discharge rate...) but its possible that whatever its parameters are set up for the LG HG2 out performs its rating (3Ah)!

 

[Adrian Cockcroft]

My Roadster has been at the Palo Alto shop for the last few weeks as they (very slowly, with delay after delay) did a standard service and replaced an abs cable that had been rubbing on the wheel. They always had no info about the battery upgrade when we asked, but on our last call they finally figured out that they have their first 3.0 battery coming in so, I think we are just going to leave the car with them for a few more weeks and get it installed.

 

[TEG]

Maybe you can take your Roadster to Refuel races again and see what effect (if any) the new pack has on your track times?

Did you run into performance limit modes on the track before? If so, were they ESS, motor or PEM related?

 

[wiztecy]

In most cases its the motor that (over)heats first, followed by the PEM, but the motor beats it to the power-limit.

 

[ggr]

Update on standard mode charging of the 3.0 battery. I wrote off to my contact at Tesla Service:

When we do a standard mode charge on the Roadster, it is only charging to about 230 miles, which is about 66% of the full range mode charge. The battery gauge shows about 85% (of the standard range), whereas it used to charge to almost the 100% mark. This is quite repeatable. Now, I'm actually perfectly fine with this, since we never need the longer range unless we REALLY need it, and will do a range mode charge, and it will presumably help the battery to live effectively forever. But I wanted to check with you that this is actually what it is supposed to do, since there are no notes or anything about what to expect.

Today I got back the answer:

Yes, you are correct. It is designed to be charged in that fashion for longevity of the battery. Whenever you need the extended range, just charge it in range mode.

 

[asgard]

Seems like they patched (hacked) the firmware
There is no reason why it can't go to 80% and still maintain reasonable longevity.

 

[wiztecy]

I also think they should have provided release notes on the new battery pack and what's different. I don't like that they changed the std. mode look, meaning the battery icon is not full. That's a very easy fix unless they didn't want to do a full VMS build. Curious if the VMS / VDS versions changed.

 

[dhrivnak]

Seems like they patched (hacked) the firmware
There is no reason why it can't go to 80% and still maintain reasonable longevity.

But is this not the same as with the current charging limits? On my Roadster the bottom 17% and top 17% are locked so it seems like they are guiding you into the same middle 66% of standard mode we have now.

 

[ggr]

But is this not the same as with the current charging limits? On my Roadster the bottom 17% and top 17% are locked so it seems like they are guiding you into the same middle 66% of standard mode we have now.

Before the upgrade, our Roadster's standard charge was about 76-78% of the range mode charge. I had always heard that the top and bottom reserves were 10%, not 17%. Anyway, whatever the reserves, the behavior is definitely different. In a standard mode charge, the battery icon used to show nearly full when it stopped charging; now it stops at about 85%. If I then switch to range mode, where it used to show about 75%, now it shows about 65%.

 

[ecarfan]

@ggr, thanks for that update. It does seem odd to me that with the 3.0 battery a standard charge only goes to 66% of a range charge. Seems to me that the more modern cells Tesla is using in the 3.0 battery could handle being routinely charged to at least the same level as the original Roadster cells! (if I am understanding your posts correctly)

I was hoping that the revised firmware for the 3.0 battery would offer a slider control for the user to set the charge level instead of remaining restricted to storage/standard/range.

My question is (and I'm not expecting you to answer it) are the cells in the 3.0 battery much less likely to degrade if regularly range charged, e.g. a couple of times a month? If the reserves are really 17% of max then the 3.0 battery should be very tolerant of frequent range charging.

@wiztecy, I agree that Tesla should provide some formal information about the 3.0 battery. All we have now are statements from various Tesla personell at the sales/service level.

 

[shrink]

Any idea if the 3.0 battery cells are "less brickable" so to speak?

 

[wiztecy]

With ggr's pic of the SOC) with a normal standard mode charge, the charge stops at 77% SOC (SOC LIM). So compare that with the legacy ESS which stopped around 82% (on my 1.5), If my calculation is right, then the difference or reduction in SOC is only 1.2%.

 

[slcasner]

I would prefer that the SOC display not be rescaled at all for standard mode. If it is charged to 66% of the true, full charge, then just show 66%. When I'm on road trips I charge in range mode but drive in standard mode and the rescaling just gets in the way.

 

[dpeilow]

Looks like Tesla are trying to make the 3.0 last many thousands of charges and hence not revisit the issue again.

 

[wiztecy]

Does anyone know if Tesla addressed the "bricked" battery pack issue with the release of the 3.0 pack? This was the issue where if the user forgot to plug in the Roadster and the state of charge or SOC went down to 0, and stayed down there for a short period of time, that they no longer would take a charge hence the "brick" terminology.

 

[ggr]

Does anyone know if Tesla addressed the "bricked" battery pack issue with the release of the 3.0 pack? This was the issue where if the user forgot to plug in the Roadster and the state of charge or SOC went down to 0, and stayed down there for a short period of time, that they no longer would take a charge hence the "brick" terminology.

They certainly didn't say anything to me about it. But clearly the firmware has changed, so I guess it's possible that they did something that would put it in a very low consumption mode. My personal guess is that they didn't make very many changes at all, so probably it's still possible to brick the battery, but that's just a guess.

 

[wiztecy]

They certainly didn't say anything to me about it. But clearly the firmware has changed, so I guess it's possible that they did something that would put it in a very low consumption mode. My personal guess is that they didn't make very many changes at all, so probably it's still possible to brick the battery, but that's just a guess.

@ggr - Could you inquire if you don't mind. I'd also ask them if there's anything else that may be different between the two. Good information to know.

Thanks!

 

[ElectricLove]

Any idea if the 3.0 battery cells are "less brickable" so to speak?

The LG batteries are much better than the old Panasonic's, the larger capacity and the better chemistry should both play into a LESS brickable battery, however there is not NON-brickable battery... The vehicle can more aggressively try to protect the batteries but in the end draining them down to 0 and letting it sit there after will result in bricked batteries...

Now the question for ggr is, how much of that 214 CAC is "usable"; to know this you would have to basically drive it down until the car shuts down (after the range low warning re-cycle)... At that point you could check and see how much energy is remaining, then on a metered charging connection recharge the car and see how much it takes back in... You should be able to figure out how much actual energy it was allowed to use... My guess is it'll use at least 200Ah (ie. 73.26kwh) and in that case we can say the car is allowing itself to "use" 100% of the total capacity and I'd say that is a very bad thing, but TESLA did that with the first ones so they just may continue to do it (it gives better ratings but at the cost of battery longevity and potential failures... reason you won't see this sort of behavior in the Bolt and don't see it in the Leaf)...

 

[hcsharp]

You should be able to figure out how much actual energy it was allowed to use... My guess is it'll use at least 200Ah (ie. 73.26kwh) and in that case we can say the car is allowing itself to "use" 100% of the total capacity and I'd say that is a very bad thing, but TESLA did that with the first ones so they just may continue to do it

Maybe I'm missing something but why are you saying Tesla "did that with the first ones"? They only charge the Roadster (existing cells) up to about 4.15v in range mode and discharge to something like 3.50v. That is not 100% of full capacity, although I don't think they can get any more from the bottom. Tesla rated the whole ESS at 56kWh and 53kWh usable.