supersnoop
Tesla Roadster #334
You're correct; I forgot about that. On 2.x cars, it's also increases the maximum current draw from the battery. On 1.5 cars, it does allow increase the temperature threshold before the a/c turns on to cool it down.
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Roadster Sport will not stay in Performance Mode
- Thread starter John W. Ratcliff
- Start date
supersnoop
Tesla Roadster #334
So, I got a definitive answer from the service center this morning. After having the car for a week, they finally contacted the main roadster techs in California and got an immediate answer. The answer? There's nothing wrong with my car. This is just how it works.
The response also had kind of a 'blame the owner' tone as well. To be clear, I have owned this car for about three months. In that time I have put 2,000 miles on the car. This car had an original sticker price of over $150,000 and, even used, I paid $70,000. It was always advertised as a high-end performance car and, in particular, the sports edition having the best performance of a 0-60 time of 3.7 seconds and a quarter mile of 12.5 seconds.
My car is not a commuter car. It's a sports car, and I drive it that way. Almost all of the 2,000 miles I have put on the car have been very aggressive hard driving; either at the race track or on back country roads where I really enjoy pushing my sports cars.
Basically, the tech just said you can't drive the car that hard and expect it to stay in performance mode. He also said that the sensitivity of the vehicle popping out of performance mode is worse on the 2.5 models and happens less on the older 1.5 models.
I think the gist of the message is that if I drive the car very conservatively and only use performance mode once in a while, on rare special occasions, it should work. That's hardly a reasonable expectation out of a 150k sports car but, maybe, it's a reasonable expectation for buying what amounts to a garage science experiment.
I'm willing to accept their answer on this, though I don't accept the criticism of driving the car hard. You can't tell someone who bought a high end sports car they shouldn't be driving it all of the time like a sports car. Would you tell a Corvette or Ferrari owner that they shouldn't be driving their car aggressively all of the time? That's kind of the point of owning such a vehicle.
All that said, I now know my car is fine. It has passed every test possible and more. It's been looked at in tremendous detail and it has been performing fine. I don't even know if I could tell the difference if performance mode was actually working. The car is already insanely fast without it.
The response also had kind of a 'blame the owner' tone as well. To be clear, I have owned this car for about three months. In that time I have put 2,000 miles on the car. This car had an original sticker price of over $150,000 and, even used, I paid $70,000. It was always advertised as a high-end performance car and, in particular, the sports edition having the best performance of a 0-60 time of 3.7 seconds and a quarter mile of 12.5 seconds.
My car is not a commuter car. It's a sports car, and I drive it that way. Almost all of the 2,000 miles I have put on the car have been very aggressive hard driving; either at the race track or on back country roads where I really enjoy pushing my sports cars.
Basically, the tech just said you can't drive the car that hard and expect it to stay in performance mode. He also said that the sensitivity of the vehicle popping out of performance mode is worse on the 2.5 models and happens less on the older 1.5 models.
I think the gist of the message is that if I drive the car very conservatively and only use performance mode once in a while, on rare special occasions, it should work. That's hardly a reasonable expectation out of a 150k sports car but, maybe, it's a reasonable expectation for buying what amounts to a garage science experiment.
I'm willing to accept their answer on this, though I don't accept the criticism of driving the car hard. You can't tell someone who bought a high end sports car they shouldn't be driving it all of the time like a sports car. Would you tell a Corvette or Ferrari owner that they shouldn't be driving their car aggressively all of the time? That's kind of the point of owning such a vehicle.
All that said, I now know my car is fine. It has passed every test possible and more. It's been looked at in tremendous detail and it has been performing fine. I don't even know if I could tell the difference if performance mode was actually working. The car is already insanely fast without it.
thefortunes
Active Member
John,
I do not use performance mode all that often (in fact, rarely), but to the best of my recollection I have never had it immediately drop out of performance mode. Especially when the car is cold, as you mentioned in your first post, and the motor has just been cleaned.
I am traveling on business, but will do some testing when I return to see how long I can stay in performance mode.
Maybe others can gather some "test data" also?
I do not use performance mode all that often (in fact, rarely), but to the best of my recollection I have never had it immediately drop out of performance mode. Especially when the car is cold, as you mentioned in your first post, and the motor has just been cleaned.
I am traveling on business, but will do some testing when I return to see how long I can stay in performance mode.
Maybe others can gather some "test data" also?
I agree that it doesn't 'sound right' but the answer I got from Tesla was fairly unequivocal. They are saying that this is normal/correct behavior and there is nothing they can do.
wiztecy
Active Member
I'd find a Roadster owner in your area who also owns a 2.5 Sport and close to the same PEM / Blower / Motor / Annual cleaning if Tesla did that correctly, start recording temps before, during, and after your spirited drive. If both are cutting out at fairly close the same point, he's right, if there's a significant difference, report back to them calling out BS.
I think what the Roadster needs is a modern battery pack and digital computer system that will supercharge just like a Model S. I was very disappointed that a $29,000 battery upgrade was still not supercharger compatible. Why? Until then, I'm still skeptical of this car. Yes, I'm being critical, but I came close to buying a Roadster and my gut wouldn't let me. Ratliff really gets to the bottom of a subject, very impressive. He spent his 70K, but still tells it like it is. I'll keep reading and maybe my gut feeling will change.
wiztecy
Active Member
There's a whole thread on the topic of SuperCharging the Roadster and the development, implementation, and cost of it. Its not feasible for the cost plus there were other reasons why they needed to come up with an updated battery, such as for warranties/battery replacement agreements Tesla was legally bound to. Again there's a huge discussion about this.
I have no problem with my Roadster, assumed the risks of buying a very limited hand produced vehicle for $67k about 4 years ago and don't regret it. I also don't mind that it doesn't have supercharging, its a fantastic daily commuter, and charging at 240V/70amps suits me for speed just fine. I also prefer the 1.5's over the 2.x sports / non-sports. 0.2 seconds quicker for the Sports was just a great marketing option Tesla came up with to bring in more money. Its not something I'd jump on to pay more for. If it shaved of 1 seconds, then yes. Also the PEM was built like a tank on the 1.5 compared to the 2.x's and it stays clean of debris / dirt compared to the 2.x's which have shown to pick up all types of crap on the road and clog up, reducing your performance and acceleration.
I have no problem with my Roadster, assumed the risks of buying a very limited hand produced vehicle for $67k about 4 years ago and don't regret it. I also don't mind that it doesn't have supercharging, its a fantastic daily commuter, and charging at 240V/70amps suits me for speed just fine. I also prefer the 1.5's over the 2.x sports / non-sports. 0.2 seconds quicker for the Sports was just a great marketing option Tesla came up with to bring in more money. Its not something I'd jump on to pay more for. If it shaved of 1 seconds, then yes. Also the PEM was built like a tank on the 1.5 compared to the 2.x's and it stays clean of debris / dirt compared to the 2.x's which have shown to pick up all types of crap on the road and clog up, reducing your performance and acceleration.
Yeah, I'm with wiztecy. I love my Roadster. The simple fact is that one of the main reasons I bought my car is specifically because of how rare it is. I like driving a car that virtually no one else owns. However, that doesn't come for free. If I wanted a great sports car that was easy to get fixed anywhere, then I would have just bought a Corvette.
Not only is this car rare but it also uses some highly customized exotic technology which was experimental at the time it was made. Buying one of these on the hopes that Tesla will continue to support and repair them is a major, major risk.
If I had bought a Ferrari instead then, just here in the St. Louis area, there are over five shops which will gladly keep that Italian monster running (for an absurd cost of course). With the Tesla, I can't take it to anyone other than Tesla and, worse yet, they don't really know how to work on it that well themselves.
If the sound of all of this is a bit scary; well it should be. Nobody owns an extremely rare exotic sports car without exposing themselves to major challenges keeping the thing running.
If you want a reliable and performant sports car, one which can be easily repaired by any shop and has wide access to parts, then buy a Corvette or a Porsche or a BMW. They are all great cars and you will really enjoy them. Just don't expect to stand out as a 'one and only' at your next car show.
Not only is this car rare but it also uses some highly customized exotic technology which was experimental at the time it was made. Buying one of these on the hopes that Tesla will continue to support and repair them is a major, major risk.
If I had bought a Ferrari instead then, just here in the St. Louis area, there are over five shops which will gladly keep that Italian monster running (for an absurd cost of course). With the Tesla, I can't take it to anyone other than Tesla and, worse yet, they don't really know how to work on it that well themselves.
If the sound of all of this is a bit scary; well it should be. Nobody owns an extremely rare exotic sports car without exposing themselves to major challenges keeping the thing running.
If you want a reliable and performant sports car, one which can be easily repaired by any shop and has wide access to parts, then buy a Corvette or a Porsche or a BMW. They are all great cars and you will really enjoy them. Just don't expect to stand out as a 'one and only' at your next car show.
supersnoop
Tesla Roadster #334
John, it's unfortunate that the communication is so weak, but I do believe there's much more detail that could explain the situation. You keep saying the car is "cold" but that's not a technical term. Do you have an OVMS, or can you put the car in debug mode to see the actual temperatures of the PEM, Battery, and Motor? As was stated earlier, there is a strict threshold where Performance Mode quits. Is your car constantly on the edge of that threshold? Is it heating up more quickly than it should? Or is "cold" not really all that cold right now?
I'm not a mechanic. I pay mechanics to work on my cars for me. I can't answer any of your technical questions. What I do know is that Tesla mechanics have looked at my car for a week solid and ran every diagnostic imaginable. When they sent the information to the top Roadster tech in California, his response that this was normal behavior. They say my car is in perfect condition in every way; PEM, fans, cooling system, etc. etc.
By 'cold', I mean the car has been in the garage. It's cool outside. I pull the car out of the garage and the first time I 'punch it' the performance mode light goes from white to red.
Tesla has looked at the PEM, battery, motor, cooling systems, sensors, and all of that stuff. I'm not really in a position to try to diagnose something myself that Tesla has already done. To their credit, even though they have had my car for a week, they are only charging me for a couple of hours of labor diagnosing this. I hardly think I should be paying for their mechanics to learn how to work on my car.
By 'cold', I mean the car has been in the garage. It's cool outside. I pull the car out of the garage and the first time I 'punch it' the performance mode light goes from white to red.
Tesla has looked at the PEM, battery, motor, cooling systems, sensors, and all of that stuff. I'm not really in a position to try to diagnose something myself that Tesla has already done. To their credit, even though they have had my car for a week, they are only charging me for a couple of hours of labor diagnosing this. I hardly think I should be paying for their mechanics to learn how to work on my car.
wiztecy
Active Member
If you capture your logs / dump them to the USB stick you can parse through them to find the temps of every component, PEM, motor, battery. They have timestamps too, so you can correlate it to your drive. There's also a Mac application that graphs them nicely in a plot format. All of these applications / parsing tools were from long hard contributions from TMC members.
supersnoop
Tesla Roadster #334
My car has been sitting in an 80 degree garage for two days, and the PEM is still at 115 degrees. "Cold" is subjective.
This isn't an exercise in diagnosing it; but rather and attempt to understand and relate how the car responds to the environment. If you're driving a Ferrari, you better have a rudimentary understanding of octane and oil weights. Component temperature is the rough equivalent in the Roadster.
So, what you are saying is that you can only drive a Roadster in performance mode if it's like 50 degrees outside? Frankly, if you can't drive a sports car in 80-90 degree weather, that's certainly a severe limitation; one I was not aware of before purchasing the car.
@wiztecy
Wow, never knew that - "Also the PEM was built like a tank on the 1.5 compared to the 2.x's and it stays clean of debris / dirt compared to the 2.x's which have shown to pick up all types of crap on the road and clog up, reducing your performance and acceleration."
So, the 1.5 is more reliable.
Wow, never knew that - "Also the PEM was built like a tank on the 1.5 compared to the 2.x's and it stays clean of debris / dirt compared to the 2.x's which have shown to pick up all types of crap on the road and clog up, reducing your performance and acceleration."
So, the 1.5 is more reliable.
wiztecy
Active Member
Note I have a 1.5, so I will/may be more biased for the 1.5's 
From just watching the forum, I see more 2.x PEMs that were replaced vs. the 1.5, however there nearly 5 times as many 2.x's built by Tesla than 1.5's!
What I see with the reliability of electronic parts on these cars, is that the higher mileage Roadsters appear run and work problem free. If the car has made it past 25k miles, whatever was weak or not quite to spec should/would have blown, for example like the switch packs. I feel the lower mileage Roadsters are in a sense the one's with the most risk for not being as reliable as one that's been on the road and being used. I do feel the 1.5's are quite a reliable and solidly built car.
I'm beyond pleased with the quality and reliability of mine that's for sure. But there are many 2.x's that are just as good with just as pleased owners as I. I do know that the early 2.0 Roadsters were blowing PEMs due to some inferior parts Tesla threw in there, but they got that squared away later and replaced the PEMs under warranty when they did go out.
One thing for sure with the 1.5 is you don't have to worry about cleaning the PEM as much as you do with the 2.x's. Last time I pulled my PEM out for a cleaning was back around March of 2014. And when I removed it back then it wasn't dirty at all after driving 1 year past the last annual service. I feel Tesla made a design flaw by pulling the cooled air from the rear lower part of the car, that's the dirtiest place to get it!
From just watching the forum, I see more 2.x PEMs that were replaced vs. the 1.5, however there nearly 5 times as many 2.x's built by Tesla than 1.5's! What I see with the reliability of electronic parts on these cars, is that the higher mileage Roadsters appear run and work problem free. If the car has made it past 25k miles, whatever was weak or not quite to spec should/would have blown, for example like the switch packs. I feel the lower mileage Roadsters are in a sense the one's with the most risk for not being as reliable as one that's been on the road and being used. I do feel the 1.5's are quite a reliable and solidly built car.
I'm beyond pleased with the quality and reliability of mine that's for sure. But there are many 2.x's that are just as good with just as pleased owners as I. I do know that the early 2.0 Roadsters were blowing PEMs due to some inferior parts Tesla threw in there, but they got that squared away later and replaced the PEMs under warranty when they did go out.
One thing for sure with the 1.5 is you don't have to worry about cleaning the PEM as much as you do with the 2.x's. Last time I pulled my PEM out for a cleaning was back around March of 2014. And when I removed it back then it wasn't dirty at all after driving 1 year past the last annual service. I feel Tesla made a design flaw by pulling the cooled air from the rear lower part of the car, that's the dirtiest place to get it!
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That's complete rubbish. How do they explain that my Roadster will stay in perf mode for as long as I want in 85 deg F weather? I've stayed in perf mode for over an hour, periodically driving it hard (but not continuously hard) and it never goes red. The techs you're dealing with have no long-term experience with Roadsters and they have not spoken to the right engineering staff at Tesla because Tesla won't let them.
Sorry but this is simply not true. @wiztecy has a 1.5 bias although he's a great contributor to the forum. The only way that the 1.5 PEM is "built like a tank" is that it's heavier than the 2.x PEM. It is not more reliable. In fact the last time I looked at the PIA Roadster study the 2.x PEMs were more reliable but it's not a good sample size. The 2.x PEMs also have significantly better cooling than the 1.5 PEMs when everything is clean. That's a big "if" because the 2.x Roadsters have an issue with the PEM fans getting dirty but if you stay on top of that they do a good job for aggressive street driving.
supersnoop
Tesla Roadster #334
Don't put words in my mouth; I didn't say that at all. I said your PEM is likely getting too hot. There could be a number of reasons for that.
Habious
Member
I agree with @John W. Ratcliff, at least as much as the "Now what do I do?" attitude.
On the one hand, he's got his local service center, in concert with Tesla corporate, telling them "There's nothing wrong with your car, this is how it's supposed to work, there's nothing we can do"...and folks on this forum (like @hcsharp (who I know knows his stuff)) telling him that the Service Center is flat-out wrong...that's not how the car is supposed to work.
As I've mentioned (in this very thread, I think), my car works more like @John W. Ratcliff 's car and less like @hcsharp 's car. I can't tell you what my 0-60 time in performance mode is, because my car (on a mild summer day) will not stay in Performance mode long enough for me to get to 60...ONCE...first run of the day.
But, what's the solution? How does one tell the Service Center "No, you don't understand...someone on the Internet says you're wrong!"
Should he take the car to another service center? Well, how will that help, since they're just going to call the SAME corporate headquarters? Should he go to one his many Independent auto shops that specialize in Teslas? Oh...wait...
On the one hand, he's got his local service center, in concert with Tesla corporate, telling them "There's nothing wrong with your car, this is how it's supposed to work, there's nothing we can do"...and folks on this forum (like @hcsharp (who I know knows his stuff)) telling him that the Service Center is flat-out wrong...that's not how the car is supposed to work.
As I've mentioned (in this very thread, I think), my car works more like @John W. Ratcliff 's car and less like @hcsharp 's car. I can't tell you what my 0-60 time in performance mode is, because my car (on a mild summer day) will not stay in Performance mode long enough for me to get to 60...ONCE...first run of the day.
But, what's the solution? How does one tell the Service Center "No, you don't understand...someone on the Internet says you're wrong!"
Should he take the car to another service center? Well, how will that help, since they're just going to call the SAME corporate headquarters? Should he go to one his many Independent auto shops that specialize in Teslas? Oh...wait...
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