Wiki Sudden Loss Of Range With 2019.16.x Software

[avesraggiana]

With all this drama going on around "capping the battery," and everything else that's going on, in future I'll just lease my Teslas.

 

[swegman]

What's the warranty violation?

I never said anything about a warranty violation. I’m just relaying my range experience and my interactions with Tesla.


There may not be a “warranty violation” per se, unless one can show the capping (not talking about degradation but talking about the intentional software limiting of the usable capacity of the battery to less than its full amount) is due to a failure of the battery cells (such as a manufacturing defect or the battery cells are unsuitable for their intended use (meaning, for example, Tesla intended the battery pack to be suitable for supercharging but later determined that said supercharging damages the cells).

I think one would have a greater success alleging that Tesla did an unpermitted taking; meaning you paid X dollars to upgrade to a battery of a certain capacity (ie, 85 kWh) and Tesla thereafter caps that battery to only allow a lesser capacity (ie, 70 kWh), depriving you of the full enjoyment of the battery.

 

[Droschke]

With all this drama going on around "capping the battery," and everything else that's going on, in future I'll just lease my Teslas.

Don't blame you. It's ironic how distrust can present opportunity.

 

[DJRas]

The informed induction is that the BMS was changed to detect, and mitigate, condition Z, a product of battery age, usage, environmental history and resulting condition i.e., degradation.

That is only your guess.
Wk057 did not say this is degradation.
He DID say they are serious concerns to the engineer. Which nobody would call degradation a serious concern. They would just let it degrage.
They "degraded" the pack by 10 years worth of degradation over 2 weeks.
Thus something other than normal degradation.
Which later was determined to be voltage capping that is restricting usage of a portion of the battery that we were able to just days earlier.

Again, your logic says that they can do that at any time they determine they want to.

We however believe this to be theft of a feature we paid for. Or undisclosed discovery of a manufacturing defect or defect of the BMS to properly protect the bsttery under normal use. Tesla repeatedly said that condition is Tesla's fault and we would be covered.

 

[Droschke]

That is only your guess.
Wk057 did not say this is degradation.
He DID say they are serious concerns to the engineer. Which nobody would call degradation a serious concern. They would just let it degrage.
They "degraded" the pack by 10 years worth of degradation over 2 weeks.
Thus something other than normal degradation.
Which later was determined to be voltage capping that is restricting usage of a portion of the battery that we were able to just days earlier.

Again, your logic says that they can do that at any time they determine they want to.

We however believe this to be theft of a feature we paid for. Or undisclosed discovery of a manufacturing defect or defect of the BMS to properly protect the bsttery under normal use. Tesla repeatedly said that condition is Tesla's fault and we would be covered.

He has been making up as he shows up every now and then to spread falsehood. wk057 never said it was normal degradation, and that's why he left it rather ambiguous by calling it condition Z which needs to be addressed. In fact, he strongly did advise against not updating the cars, the connotation being the condition is serious enough for a possible safety issue, leading a reasonable owner to assume battery damage/defect.

 

[Ferrycraigs]

Yes, that is what Tesla told me. I was also told that I will get another BMS update shortly and may see my range start increasing again (the last 5+ charging sessions have not resulted in a range increase after prior charging sessions yielded a 7 mile range increase).

I don’t think the capping has anything to do with how you charge the car or whether you supercharge. I normally charge to 89%. In the 6+ years I’ve owned the car I’ve charged to 100% less than a dozen times and timed those charges to complete just prior to leaving on a trip. I’ve got 64K miles on the car now and supercharge when on trips. There are people that supercharge almost exclusively that are not capped. There are high mileage cars that are not capped. Tesla would not tell me the criteria for how they chose cars to cap.

Also, I’ve had numerous CAC battery tests performed since the end of June. The first test indicated my battery was 10% better than model S’s of similar age and mileage. The last CAC test less than a week ago, with the latest BMS firmware, indicates the battery is now 30% better than similar age and mileage cars. Assuming what I was told is accurate, it really appears the capping is random or may be have been done to obtain a cross-section of cars on the road.

I haven’t had a CAC test done; a number of reports on here report that Tesla charge for it but then refuse to show you the results - they just tell you the battery is fine and is about average, or above average, for its age and mileage. Tesla have ‘examined' my battery and I have been told it is absolutely fine, and indeed is slightly above average when compared to other batteries of a similar age and mileage. When I asked them to clarify how they tested, and what they tested, no details were given. I was left with the impression they tested how my new 58kWh battery was doing. It held its charge fine, and the amount of charge when compared to the new capacity, was fine. I would have liked to see how it compared with other 70 kWh batteries. Because I’m pretty sure it now holds about 16% less.

 

[bhzmark]

an unpermitted taking

You got the standard for warranty claim correct, with a correct analysis to these facts that we have so far. And also I agree with you that I don’t rule out there could be an underlying battery defect — that would be indicated, by, for instance, showing that the affected batteries were all from a certain batch or used a certain part, or used a certain design, that the unaffected batteries did not use. But there is no information indicating that, and in fact since the the affected batteries appear to be from a wide variety of the older batteries, it seems to be just a normal statistical distribution over the fleet’s older batteries that all happened to be subjected to a wide variety of usage and environmental exposures. Some combination of usage and environment and perhaps pure randomness, are likely the causes, not particular batch of batteries.

But finding that a warranty claim won’t likely fly, I suggest you do better than inventing an “unpermitted taking.” As a legal claim that won’t get you far.

They "degraded" the pack by 10 years worth of degradation over 2 weeks.

You are not using “degradation” in the way people normally use the word, but again, trying to look past the uninteresting semantic quibbles, I’m trying to find a persuasive legal or even moral claim that Tesla did something wrong other than disturb people’s expectations and keep proprietary trade secret information, (surprise!) secret.

And meanwhile even the affected batteries are yielding better range over time and cycle usage for cars than most people thought when they bought the cars which was at a time when there was little data, and explicitly no assurances from Tesla on range over time.

This whole thread is really a great example of the endowment effect — especially evident when people resort to childish insults to defend their endowment effect generated emotional upset.

 

[MP3Mike]

I would think at a bare minimum, Tesla owes an explanation to those affected, explaining why they are not allowed to use their cars like most people, and offer at least some compensation if not a new battery. Otherwise you're certainly going to have people claiming unfair business practices.

Any chance of Tesla communicating about this issue was ended the second the class action lawsuit was filed. Most likely everything now has to go through lawyers.

We however believe this to be theft of a feature we paid for. Or undisclosed discovery of a manufacturing defect or defect of the BMS to properly protect the bsttery under normal use. Tesla repeatedly said that condition is Tesla's fault and we would be covered.

It seems like you are sort of talking against yourself there. First you say Tesla has said that they would use the BMS to protect the battery. (Which you think they should.) And now that they have used the BMS to protect the battery you are saying that they aren't allowed to do that without your permission.

I, also, find it weird that your case seems to have stalled. The summons was issued on 8/8, but I haven't seen that your lawyer has filed the proof that Tesla has been served with it. (Which is what starts the 21 day deadline for their initial response.) Of course their initial response is likely to be along the lines of denying everything.

 

[Ferrycraigs]

that would be indicated, by, for instance, showing that the affected batteries were all from a certain batch or used a certain part, or used a certain design, that the unaffected batteries did not use. But there is no information indicating that,

Would you not consider that as the 60, 70 and 85 pack (in all its variants) did not use the newer Silicon Cells, whereas all the non effected packs did, meets that criteria of all using a certain part that unaffected batteries did not? (a genuine question. I am much more interested in finding a credible reason that point scoring)

 

[swegman]

I, also, find it weird that your case seems to have stalled. The summons was issued on 8/8, but I haven't seen that your lawyer has filed the proof that Tesla has been served with it. (Which is what starts the 21 day deadline for their initial response.) Of course their initial response is likely to be along the lines of denying everything.

I am not the attorney that filed the case. Nor am I the plaintiff in the case or a member of the class. However, I was told that Tesla was formally served this past week.

 

[bhzmark]

Would you not consider that as the 60, 70 and 85 pack (in all its variants) did not use the newer Silicon Cells, whereas all the non effected packs did, meets that criteria of all using a certain part that unaffected batteries did not? (a genuine question. I am much more interested in finding a credible reason that point scoring)

But aren’t there lots of batteries that also did not use the newer silicon cells and they are not affected? Indeed nearly all?

The old cells aren’t a defect because the vast majority of them are doing great — indeed even the affected ones are well above what anyone could have expected when purchased so long ago.

Would be interesting to see affected batteries plotted here to see the magnitude of the difference. Sorry if I missed it in an earlier post. Seems a pretty obvious bit of data — would be surprised if no one plotted the affected batteries on top of existing Scatter plots on batteries of various age and usage and thus degradation.

Tesla Battery Survey

 

[MP3Mike]

I am not the attorney that filed the case. Nor am I the plaintiff in the case or a member of the class. However, I was told that Tesla was formally served this past week.

Then we should be seeing the proof filed soon so that we know when to expect Tesla's initial response.

 

[DJRas]

Any chance of Tesla communicating about this issue was ended the second the class action lawsuit was filed. Most likely everything now has to go through lawyers.



It seems like you are sort of talking against yourself there. First you say Tesla has said that they would use the BMS to protect the battery. (Which you think they should.) And now that they have used the BMS to protect the battery you are saying that they aren't allowed to do that without your permission.

I, also, find it weird that your case seems to have stalled. The summons was issued on 8/8, but I haven't seen that your lawyer has filed the proof that Tesla has been served with it. (Which is what starts the 21 day deadline for their initial response.) Of course their initial response is likely to be along the lines of denying everything.

Tesla was served the day before release 2019.28.2 was issued that restored 10 miles of range outt of the 30 I lost.
The court selected a federal magistrate to oversee the case.
We have received no response from Tesla.

 

[MP3Mike]

Tesla was served the day before release 2019.28.2 was issued that restored 10 miles of range outt of the 30 I lost.
The court selected a federal magistrate to oversee the case.
We have received no response from Tesla.

Are you sure about that? It looks like 2019.28.2 was released on 8/2, so you are saying they were served on 8/1? That isn't possible since your case wasn't filed with the court until 8/7 and the court didn't make the summons available to serve to Tesla until 8/8.

It would also mean Tesla was in violation of the 21-day response requirement and that you would have won a default judgement.

 

[DJRas]

But aren’t there lots of batteries that also did not use the newer silicon cells and they are not affected? Indeed nearly all?

The old cells aren’t a defect because the vast majority of them are doing great — indeed even the affected ones are well above what anyone could have expected when purchased so long ago.

Would be interesting to see affected batteries plotted here to see the magnitude of the difference. Sorry if I missed it in an earlier post. Seems a pretty obvious bit of data — would be surprised if no one plotted the affected batteries on top of existing Scatter plots on batteries of various age and usage and thus degradation.

Tesla Battery Survey

 

[DJRas]

Are you sure about that? It looks like 2019.28.2 was released on 8/2, so you are saying they were served on 8/1? That isn't possible since your case wasn't filed with the court until 8/7 and the court didn't make the summons available to serve to Tesla until 8/8.

It would also mean Tesla was in violation of the 21-day response requirement and that you would have won a default judgement.

You are correct. Tesla received official notice of the suit being filed on 8/1.

 

[cpa]

There have been posts that mentioned a CAC test. Well, the only CAC test that I am aware of is the coronary artery calcium test. I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but I seriously doubt that this is the test that is being done on batteries.

It would be really helpful for others if on occasion someone with intimate knowledge of technical issues did not resort to acronyms and the like and actually explain in lay terms what procedures or other diagnostic tools were performed, what they examine, and what they mean.

 

[DJRas]

Are you sure about that? It looks like 2019.28.2 was released on 8/2, so you are saying they were served on 8/1? That isn't possible since your case wasn't filed with the court until 8/7 and the court didn't make the summons available to serve to Tesla until 8/8.

It would also mean Tesla was in violation of the 21-day response requirement and that you would have won a default judgement.

Tesla was served a summons Aug 8

 

[DJRas]

There have been posts that mentioned a CAC test. Well, the only CAC test that I am aware of is the coronary artery calcium test. I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed, but I seriously doubt that this is the test that is being done on batteries.

It would be really helpful for others if on occasion someone with intimate knowledge of technical issues did not resort to acronyms and the like and actually explain in lay terms what procedures or other diagnostic tools were performed, what they examine, and what they mean.

CAC is what Tesla calls it.
It is not in writing anywhere from Tesla.
But, I believe they called that Charge Amperage Capacity test.

 

[Ferrycraigs]

But aren’t there lots of batteries that also did not use the newer silicon cells and they are not affected? Indeed nearly all?

The old cells aren’t a defect because the vast majority of them are doing great — indeed even the affected ones are well above what anyone could have expected when purchased so long ago.

Would be interesting to see affected batteries plotted here to see the magnitude of the difference. Sorry if I missed it in an earlier post. Seems a pretty obvious bit of data — would be surprised if no one plotted the affected batteries on top of existing Scatter plots on batteries of various age and usage and thus degradation.

Tesla Battery Survey

But I think that’s exactly the point. The suggestion is not that all cars with Gen 1 Cells have been affected. They haven’t. On the contrary. Of all the pre facelift fleet, only a very small fraction of cars have been selected by Tesla for capping. And I can’t remember anyone saying that ANY cars with the new cells were affected. So of all the cars affected they are are pre facelift, and smaller (60, 70 or 85) batteries. The only thing I can find that is common to those vehicles selected, and not common to all the cars not affected, is the Cells. The suggestion is a small batch of the many hundreds of thousands of Gen 1 Cells that may be not quite as good as the majority.