Sold my Model S after 5.5 years...moving on

[Uncle Paul]

I believe that all battery operated products, including electric vehicles, are going to be exposed to cell degradation and slower charging as their products cycle and age.

Believe this is inherent in everything from cell phones, to electric lawn mowers to EVs.

Technology will improve this over time, but most likely never eliminate it 100%.

Same with most mechanical devices. Over time and use most slowly degrade and need continous maintenance and eventually replacement.

Even my stereo speakers slowly degrade and after many years of loud playing they lose their accuracy and can even fail (Blown speaker)

 

[ACA Man]

I'd say this forum and others provide plenty of examples that NDA's are not keeping people quiet. I think more likely is that the vast majority of Tesla owners are happy with their vehicles and the service they've received. Repeated surveys reflect this. This is not to take away from the terrible service and communication that too many people have experienced but it is still a small number in relation to the whole. Don't forget that every OEM has dropped the ball at one time or another yet people still buy their products.

Agreed wholeheartedly.

Having said that, IMO, one bad example is one too many.
Yes, I know, you can’t satisfy everybody but I believe Tesla owners are not the ones to nit-pick on little things and thus...

 

[ACA Man]

I believe that all battery operated products, including electric vehicles, are going to be exposed to cell degradation and slower charging as their products cycle and age.

Believe this is inherent in everything from cell phones, to electric lawn mowers to EVs.

Technology will improve this over time, but most likely never eliminate it 100%.

Same with most mechanical devices. Over time and use most slowly degrade and need continous maintenance and eventually replacement.

Even my stereo speakers slowly degrade and after many years of loud playing they lose their accuracy and can even fail (Blown speaker)

As a former aerospace engineer who worked on power distribution systems, I know a thing or two about battery degradation.

A certain amount of degradation is acceptable.
What’s that amount? It’s up to manufacturers, in this case Tesla, to tabulate their own research data plus real life ones to come up to an acceptable range.

OTOH, when a certain car has suffered severe degradation and they kept saying it’s normal then it’s a different story all by itself.
By severe degradation, I mean in comparison to the norm.

 

[whitex]

I believe that all battery operated products, including electric vehicles, are going to be exposed to cell degradation and slower charging as their products cycle and age.

Believe this is inherent in everything from cell phones, to electric lawn mowers to EVs.

Technology will improve this over time, but most likely never eliminate it 100%.

Same with most mechanical devices. Over time and use most slowly degrade and need continous maintenance and eventually replacement.

Even my stereo speakers slowly degrade and after many years of loud playing they lose their accuracy and can even fail (Blown speaker)

You are absolutely correct, everything ages and nothing lasts forever. I get that some people think once they buy something it should never age, but that's an unreasonable entitlement to things physically impossible. The problem at hand however is not that Tesla batteries degrade, rather it's the fact that they degrade below the specs Tesla sold the car with, while under warranty. People expect products under warranty to perform up to the spec the product was sold with. For example, rather than selling S60 as a 208 mile range car, they could have said "S60 is a 145 mile range car (70% of 208). We offer 8 year warranty for the battery. Note that you will see up to 65 more miles of range while the car is new" - then there would be no problem. Not only that, such a statement lets the customer know that the battery range degrades over time and that it will likely continue to degrade below the speced range after the warranty ends too - so setting proper expectations.

Tesla has recently added a degradation number (30%) to their warranty by the way, which is a step in the right direction, even though they hid it in fine print. Unfortunately for Tesla, the early adopters warranty did not specify such number and sales and service people used to communicate a number between 90% and 80% which was likely a guess, like so many other things Tesla staff tells customers because Tesla corporate doesn't provide them any information. Unfortunately, if you let your employees guess, you set customer expectations.

I suspect Tesla will continue to market numbers which are only achievable on day 0 of the car's life, or sometimes complete vaporware numbers never achievable, until competition catches up to them. Imagine competition offering 0% battery degradation warranty, and doing a marketing campaign around it. Given how VW/Audi/Porsche has been derating their batteries, they might actually be able to do that.

 

[First EV]

I believe most people upset about the battery charge throttling and charge voltage limiting aren't upset about degradation. That should be more than obvious by now. I believe they are upset because they think that the battery settings were reduced to avoid warranty and they are being mislead.

 

[Uncle Paul]

It may be that the battery settings were reduced to avoid warranty, but it could also be done for other reasons.

Tesla has been silent about their reasoning, and people have jumped to that conclusion which make them look like victims.

Truth is that nobody knows for certain the reason for the charging being slowed down.

It could also be due to concerns about damaging fires or any of several reason.

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

As for the cost of selling and buying a new car, without getting into specifics, I bought a new car for what I sold the Tesla for. Basically I traded a 5.5 year old car off warranty for a new car with a new car warranty. I wont' get into the specifics of the car because that always seems to trigger people here but as I mentioned it's not an EV-- you can get amazing deals on cars right now because of the Covid-19 economy. I will own another Tesla someday.

Ha, the specifics of the new car is all I really cared about when I saw this thread.

To me "experienced battery gate" is a good enough reason to exit from Tesla, and never look back.

So the question becomes what does a person jump to after Tesla?

I was rooting for the Taycan, but that doesn't sound like your path. A Taycan isn't exactly a "COVID-19 economy" vehicle.

 

[S4WRXTTCS]

I believe that all battery operated products, including electric vehicles, are going to be exposed to cell degradation and slower charging as their products cycle and age.

But, this isn't any of that.

This is waking up overnight to a vehicle that isn't the same as it was before due to new SW limitations where the company hasn't been clear about those limitations, and hasn't given compensation to the owner for any of the sudden lose in charging speed or range.

When I bought my first Tesla I felt pretty comfortable with Tesla battery knowledge despite my inherent dislike/fear of Lithium ion based products. The warranty Tesla offered on the battery combined with the resale guarantee pushed me over my fear.

The fear was really about how fragile they are.

Like I forgot to charge my cordless lithium battery drill for about a year, and it didn't take a charge. I tried all sorts of things to get it to accept a charge. So I had to get a new one, and it was cheaper to get a new one than the battery cost for the old one.

What did I need the drill for? I needed it to turn the wheels of my Boosted Electric Longboard because I left that too long as well. At least with that one I was able to hook the drill up to a wheel to regen energy slowly to the point where it would accept the charge from the normal charger.

 

[EVortex]

It may be that the battery settings were reduced to avoid warranty, but it could also be done for other reasons.

Tesla has been silent about their reasoning, and people have jumped to that conclusion which make them look like victims.

Truth is that nobody knows for certain the reason for the charging being slowed down.

It could also be due to concerns about damaging fires or any of several reason.

It would be interesting to see consumer reaction had Tesla been transparent about their reason(s). Tesla has been deliberately silent and there must be reasons for that, too. People will speculate when they don’t know and usually they will draw negative conclusions. How should Tesla respond? CEO for a day... what would you do? Interesting to “speculate.”

 

[cpa]

It would be interesting to see consumer reaction had Tesla been transparent about their reason(s). Tesla has been deliberately silent and there must be reasons for that, too. People will speculate when they don’t know and usually they will draw negative conclusions. How should Tesla respond? CEO for a day... what would you do? Interesting to “speculate.”

I think a clear, concise, and truthful explanation before the software was updated would have been appropriate. They need not bare their souls, but there should be enough information. My personal belief is that battery temperature is the most likely culprit, and the BMS did not do the job as well as it should have. I am no lawyer. But I think if Tesla notified us in advance that we had a choice: Reject the software update and with it the new vehicle warranty is changed to the lesser of the remaining 8-year original period or one year. If we accept the update, then we can purchase a new, not refurbished, battery after the 8-year warranty period at cost. This will give Tesla an idea as to how many new batteries they need to manufacture and have available and can scale accordingly.

If the panicked buying of toilet tissue, flour, and other staples during the COVID-19 pandemic is any indication, we will have a segment of owners who will sell their cars and embrace social distancing from Tesla.

There might be a public relations and image hit for Tesla at the outset, but I think that would be overcome with their candor and responsibility to their customers. That warm fuzzy feeling will eventually return as complimentary word-of-mouth prevails.

(This assumes that Tesla has more or less solved whatever the problems are with these batteries, and whether the different chemistries in the Model 3 and Y cells will also acquire these same issues.

(If these problems are still present or probable with all batteries, then what I suggest will not work. Tesla has a much larger problem on its hands.)

 

[AMPd]

I think a clear, concise, and truthful explanation before the software was updated would have been appropriate. They need not bare their souls, but there should be enough information. My personal belief is that battery temperature is the most likely culprit, and the BMS did not do the job as well as it should have. I am no lawyer. But I think if Tesla notified us in advance that we had a choice: Reject the software update and with it the new vehicle warranty is changed to the lesser of the remaining 8-year original period or one year. If we accept the update, then we can purchase a new, not refurbished, battery after the 8-year warranty period at cost. This will give Tesla an idea as to how many new batteries they need to manufacture and have available and can scale accordingly.

If the panicked buying of toilet tissue, flour, and other staples during the COVID-19 pandemic is any indication, we will have a segment of owners who will sell their cars and embrace social distancing from Tesla.

There might be a public relations and image hit for Tesla at the outset, but I think that would be overcome with their candor and responsibility to their customers. That warm fuzzy feeling will eventually return as complimentary word-of-mouth prevails.

(This assumes that Tesla has more or less solved whatever the problems are with these batteries, and whether the different chemistries in the Model 3 and Y cells will also acquire these same issues.

(If these problems are still present or probable with all batteries, then what I suggest will not work. Tesla has a much larger problem on its hands.)

Well they did change the battery warranty for new cars so I think that’s their way of saying the batteries aren’t as long lasting as they had thought and Tesla can no longer afford to replace batteries for high mileage cars. 150k miles and they’re off the hook.

 

[Chaserr]

It could also be due to concerns about damaging fires or any of several reason.

that's what makes people mad. If it's safety, it's illegal. Same if it's over warranty. We shouldn't be even suggesting "maybe Tesla did it because they're criminals" but we are.

New warranty basically confirms they still have to cap 30%

@cpa is right I think. Every negative thing Tesla changed is about lowering battery temperature, so much they're ok with doing it illegally and throwing the safety reputation away

 

[alloverx]

The Tesla brand is very strong and given the highlighting of EV fires they certainly dont want to "stoke that fire".

i.e. the Marketing folks & board likely agree with
-improve detection of issue (that causes the fire)
-replace packs as detected by improved detection. The key is what is the alert criteria.
-scale back usage of pack via reducing charge rate & capacity.
-no need to inform NTSA/regulators as we can claim we are not sure if its a real issue or not.

Ideally if Tesla will not replace packs that might be impacted then they should simply extend the warranty by x years.

Since they raised cash previously as I suggested, they should have earmarked some of that for pack replacements on the down-low/internally.

Telsa is becoming a real company and trying to make money

 

[faughtz]

Are you saying Tesla was "trespassing" when they installed a software update after the owner clicked the button to schedule, or install it?

Yeah, I know a few people have reported forced updates, but most people approved the updates.

CA penal code is clear:

Paragraph 502 c 1

(c) Except as provided in subdivision (h), any person who commits any of the following acts is guilty of a public offense:

(1) Knowingly accesses and without permission alters, damages, deletes, destroys, or otherwise uses any data, computer, computer system, or computer network in order to either (A) devise or execute any scheme or artifice to defraud, deceive, or extort, or (B) wrongfully control or obtain money, property, or data.

 

[David.85D]

The Tesla brand is very strong and given the highlighting of EV fires they certainly dont want to "stoke that fire".

i.e. the Marketing folks & board likely agree with
-improve detection of issue (that causes the fire)
-replace packs as detected by improved detection. The key is what is the alert criteria.
-scale back usage of pack via reducing charge rate & capacity.
-no need to inform NTSA/regulators as we can claim we are not sure if its a real issue or not.

Ideally if Tesla will not replace packs that might be impacted then they should simply extend the warranty by x years.

Since they raised cash previously as I suggested, they should have earmarked some of that for pack replacements on the down-low/internally.

Telsa is becoming a real company and trying to make money

my experience recently followed this pattern. I’ve lost range with the updates then my car wouldn’t go at all. Not a good 5 months for my Tesla. Anyway, Tesla put in a new pack (could be refurbished, don’t know) and now I’m back to close to the as-new rated range (100% = 245 miles for P85D). Hope it doesn’t go away again. And hope others get made whole as well.

 

[faughtz]

my experience recently followed this pattern. I’ve lost range with the updates then my car wouldn’t go at all. Not a good 5 months for my Tesla. Anyway, Tesla put in a new pack (could be refurbished, don’t know) and now I’m back to close to the as-new rated range (100% = 245 miles for P85D). Hope it doesn’t go away again. And hope others get made whole as well.

Is it a 350v pack? Have you looked at current at max acceleration?

 

[David.85D]

400V pack. It’s still cold here at night so haven’t tried any hard runs. Part # 1088934-01-E

 

[JRP3]

Like I forgot to charge my cordless lithium battery drill for about a year, and it didn't take a charge. I tried all sorts of things to get it to accept a charge.

Did you try hooking up a 9 volt battery to it? Sometimes that's enough to boost the voltage so the regular charger will start charging it again.

 

[Uncle Paul]

Printer companies did a similar thing when they installed computer communication chips in their cartridges.

They would flash a toner low signal when there was still over 30% left in the cartridge. If end user did not replace the cartrige they would shut the printer down. Even worse, they also installed date sensitive cartridges. At the end of the year or two the cartridge will also shut down. Consumers were not given the opportunity to contunue printing if the quality of prints was still up to their standards.

Remanufacturers were sued for intellectual property infringements when they would install cartridges that worked until they were empty,

 

[Chaserr]

-scale back usage of pack via reducing charge rate & capacity.
-no need to inform NTSA/regulators as we can claim we are not sure if its a real issue or not.

that would be federal crime and the nhtsa would punish Tesla pretty harshly.

Per federal law every manufacturer has to notify the NHTSA within 5 days of discovering or investigating anything potentially safety related, and all reports. They can't take action for no reason, taking action means they investigated and learned action was necessary. Yet, they covered up the safety investigation and response from the government. Crime.

The nhtsa is who determines if it's a real issue or not. They have to be told immediately and involved in the fact gathering and decisions making.