Shifting to neutral & opening doors manually when battery dead

[ravenk]

Hi! I am asking due to a recent experience that I had when my Tesla MS 2015 had told me to pull over due to low battery (50 miles left) and then suddenly shut off about 20 minutes later. I couldn't turn it back on nor could the tow truck person that came to help take the car. Fortunately he was able to use a method to wedge the car up to pull onto the tow, but it made me question why the car wouldn't be able to force shift to neutral? Is it due the computerization or the inherent nature of the electric motors? I have heard of newer ICE cars that can't force shift to neutral due to the computerization (dunno how true my armchair research was). But my 2002 honda civic was able to do so when there isn't any power.

It also made me question whether or not if there was a manual way to open the car door from the inside if both the 12V and HV battery were out too. I actually rolled down the windows prior to the battery dying in this case (fortunately at this point the 12V was still charged, so the test situation never arose).

 

[Tam]

Hi! I am asking due to a recent experience that I had when my Tesla MS 2015 had told me to pull over due to low battery (50 miles left) and then suddenly shut off about 20 minutes later. I couldn't turn it back on nor could the tow truck person that came to help take the car. Fortunately he was able to use a method to wedge the car up to pull onto the tow, but it made me question why the car wouldn't be able to force shift to neutral? Is it due the computerization or the inherent nature of the electric motors? I have heard of newer ICE cars that can't force shift to neutral due to the computerization (dunno how true my armchair research was). But my 2002 honda civic was able to do so when there isn't any power.

It also made me question whether or not if there was a manual way to open the car door from the inside if both the 12V and HV battery were out too. I actually rolled down the windows prior to the battery dying in this case (fortunately at this point the 12V was still charged, so the test situation never arose).

There is no mechanical linkage from your gear stalk to the drive unit.

When you shift your gear, It sends an Electrical signal to the drive unit.

Prior to 2021 Palladium S and X, front door interior handles open both with electricity and without.

2021 Palladium has 2 separate buttons for each front door: Push one with electricity and pull a different one without electricity. Just like Model 3 and Y.

By the way, what's your battery size?

 

[PCMc]

It's really not about anything unlocking the drive unit. The issue is releasing the parking brake on the rear wheels of the model S. That is a separate caliper from the normal brakes and it takes some energy to disengage and release this parking brake. If you look, I'm sure you can find a video or two of people who have parked cars on a slick incline and the car starts to slide down the incline. In these you'll typically notice that the rear wheels stay fixed, do not rotate, but the front wheels rotate freely. That's because the front motor is able to turn freely but the rear wheels are locked by the brake, but without sufficient traction of the tires to prevent sliding down the incline.

 

[ravenk]

There is no mechanical linkage from your gear stalk to the drive unit.

When you shift your gear, It sends an Electrical signal to the drive unit.

Prior to 2021 Palladium S and X, front door interior handles open both with electricity and without.

2021 Palladium has 2 separate buttons for each front door: Push one with electricity and pull a different one without electricity. Just like Model 3 and Y.

By the way, what's your battery size?

My is just rear wheel 70kwh. Wait you're saying my 2015 can open doors without any power in the HV

There is no mechanical linkage from your gear stalk to the drive unit.

When you shift your gear, It sends an Electrical signal to the drive unit.

Prior to 2021 Palladium S and X, front door interior handles open both with electricity and without.

2021 Palladium has 2 separate buttons for each front door: Push one with electricity and pull a different one without electricity. Just like Model 3 and Y.

By the way, what's your battery size?

Mines a 2015 Rear wheel 70kwh. Wait you're saying the doors from the inside are mechanical? So it'd open if the 12v and HV are both dead?

 

[Tam]

My is just rear wheel 70kwh. Wait you're saying my 2015 can open doors without any power in the HV

Mines a 2015 Rear wheel 70kwh. Wait you're saying the doors from the inside are mechanical? So it'd open if the 12v and HV are both dead?

Correct. When my 12V 2012 Model S died, the car became all dark and non-responsive but fortunately, I left my windows down so I was able to reach inside the front interior door handle and pull it the usual way and the door opened with no power. I had to call for a tow for 12V replacement though.

It happened in real life for me and also on your owner's manual too:

With power, it's power-asssted. Without power, it's traditional classical hand-powered mechanical leverage for your S and X front doors.

 

[Tam]

Mines a 2015 Rear wheel 70kwh.

I couldn't find the 2015 Tesla Model S 70 RWD on FuelEconomy.gov, only 70 AWD that is rated 240 miles.

It does show 2016 Tesla Model S 70 RWD though that is rated 234 miles.

But it's only 6 miles difference so it won't make much difference.

Your car died at 50 miles which is about 20% of capacity so what happened?

Are you supposed to make sure to charge well before your battery gauge says 50 miles left?

 

[PCMc]

Your car died at 50 miles which is about 20% of capacity so what happened?

My read of the original post is he stated he had a warning with 50 miles left and then 20 minutes later the car suddenly shut. I do not see anything stated about how much further they may have driven over the 20 minutes.

 

[ravenk]

I couldn't find the 2015 Tesla Model S 70 RWD on FuelEconomy.gov, only 70 AWD that is rated 240 miles.

It does show 2016 Tesla Model S 70 RWD though that is rated 234 miles.

But it's only 6 miles difference so it won't make much difference.

Your car died at 50 miles which is about 20% of capacity so what happened?

Are you supposed to make sure to charge well before your battery gauge says 50 miles left?

Thanks, that's actually reassuring to know it's manually openable!

I hadn't charged to 100% often so I'm not sure true full mileage. I did 80% which displayed 174 (grossing up to full would be 217.5).

Lmk if you need a lot of detail over the situation but abridged is below:

Mid December - did a day trip and at the end (2 miles from home) there was ~50mi displayed left. Car said to pull over due to low voltage/battery. So I did, parked and from there the displayed range started plummeting to 30mi in about 30 minutes. Soon after it basically just shut off and couldn't turn back on (tow truck guy came and also tried). Note the 12v was actually fully charged at this point per the tow person.

Service center did a quick reset so in 2 days I picked up the car. According to the invoice, gateway was overloaded and they performed a reset. None of which I really understand. Displayed ranges showed normally again.

However, I was sus, so to test the reliability of the battery range, I drove it down to 60 one day (the range did decrease slightly faster than usual but I chalked it up to cold weather). Parked it overnight and the next day found it phantom drained 20mi which was abnormal to me. Then it showed error "BMS_u018" saying battery charge limit reduced -schedule service. At that point took it to service center on 1/6, and they confirmed that it needed HV replacement. And here I am now.

 

[sorka]

So where are the jump terminals in S's without the nose cone?

 

[Tam]

...it needed HV replacement...

That makes sense now. Thanks for your report.

I am concerned about the car dying at 50 miles and not at 0 miles but it's allowable in your case because it needs replacement.

It's a good thing to replace it while it's still under the warranty due to the high cost.

So, congratulations on beating the high-cost replacement!

 

[ravenk]

So where are the jump terminals in S's without the nose cone?

Don't know

That makes sense now. Thanks for your report.

I am concerned about the car dying at 50 miles and not at 0 miles but it's allowable in your case because it needs replacement.

It's a good thing to replace it while it's still under the warranty due to the high cost.

So, congratulations on beating the high-cost replacement!

Thanks yeah, it was just a weird thing since there isn't a clear way if any, to shift to neutral in situations like this. Kind of concerning tbh.

 

[PCMc]

So where are the jump terminals in S's without the nose cone?

You can find a variety of videos on youtube where people show how to do this, but this does require opening the frunk. If you've not popped the frunk before the 12V died, you need to use the emergency release pulls that you access via the front wheel liners. Here's one video that seems pretty decent.

I've seen comments that possibly you can remove the toe eye cover and potentially there are wired back behind there, but I've not checked that out myself and do not find a video that confirms that method.

 

[ucmndd]

Thanks yeah, it was just a weird thing since there isn't a clear way if any, to shift to neutral in situations like this. Kind of concerning tbh.

There is nothing to “shift” in a car without a transmission. The only thing that holds your car in place when you park it is an electronic parking brake. Electronic parking brakes need… electricity… to engage and disengage.

This isn’t just a Tesla thing… lots of ICE cars have electronic parking brakes that are a huge pain to release when the battery is dead (ask me how I know…).

 

[ravenk]

There is nothing to “shift” in a car without a transmission. The only thing that holds your car in place when you park it is an electronic parking brake. Electronic parking brakes need… electricity… to engage and disengage.

This isn’t just a Tesla thing… lots of ICE cars have electronic parking brakes that are a huge pain to release when the battery is dead (ask me how I know…).

I did hear about more ICE cars having this issue now too, has it been just a thing since the shift from analog to electrification of internal items in cars nowadays?