Wiki Sudden Loss Of Range With 2019.16.x Software

[David99]

I took out my 2015 March built Model S 85D for supercharging after a long time, just to test chargegate.

Guess what? I can’t use this car for road trips anymore. It took 1hr 20 minutes to charge from 15% to 90% and it barely stayed at ~60kW charge rate before dropping down to 50s and then settling around 30s.

I have about 52k miles on it and have only supercharged it maybe 20 times or less in about 5 years.

The only good news is that it doesn’t suffer from batterygate as 100% is still pretty good at 265 miles while new was 273 or thereabouts.

Try it again some time. I have 270k miles and I'm heavily affected by the reduced charge speed. I do get 90kW for the first few minutes but it drops quickly down. At 50% I get just over 50 kW. But that's only on good days. Often it's lower. After a day of lots of driving, I go to a supercharger and I only get around 50-60 kW maximum. This is a repeatable behavior. After busy days the charge rate is just sh*t. During the day when I top off at a supercharger, the rate is normal. Maybe the car knows I just want to top off before I go to sleep and I'm not on a road trip so it allows only a limited rate.

 

[tga]

I took out my 2015 March built Model S 85D for supercharging after a long time, just to test chargegate.

Guess what? I can’t use this car for road trips anymore. It took 1hr 20 minutes to charge from 15% to 90% and it barely stayed at ~60kW charge rate before dropping down to 50s and then settling around 30s.

I have about 52k miles on it and have only supercharged it maybe 20 times or less in about 5 years.

The only good news is that it doesn’t suffer from batterygate as 100% is still pretty good at 265 miles while new was 273 or thereabouts.

What should I do? Service? File NHTSA complaint? Sell the car? I’m already dreading the eMMC failure when it arrives.

Very disappointed by Tesla these days. Got shafted by not being honored 1 prepaid service plan by missing it by a few days when they told me not to worry about timing in the previous service. The contract is clear I had no recourse but I shouldn’t have taken their word. Also, my door handle had intermittently stopped working during warranty period but they said water may have gone in but guess what, it stopped working completely a few weeks after warranty. Had to pay for parts and they agreed to waive labor. Small mercies.

Was your battery warm? This time of year it can take well over 30min of highway driving to get the battery warm enough to see a decent charge rate. Your charge curve sounds like a temp limited cold battery. As it warms, the battery can take more, but then you're higher in the taper, so the charge rate becomes limited by SoC. Net result, you don't see over 50-60kW for the whole session.

As @David99 pointed out, you should get at least 90kW. I can get >100kW with the battery <20% after an hour of highway driving (2014 P85+, 86k mi, no batterygate, 254mi @ 100%). My formula is (SoC% + kW) ~= 110.

 

[David99]

Just a general note when determining charge speed at a supercharger. There are many things that can cause a supercharger to deliver less power than the car could take. There is only one reliable way to find out. You use ScanMyTesla and look at the 'BMS Max Charge' value. That's what the car's BMS allows as the maximum charge rate. If that value is higher than what you are getting at the supercharger, then the supercharger station is the limiting factor (for whatever reason). If the 'BMS Max Charge' is the same as the charge rate you are getting, your car is limiting the power. Without that piece of information you really don't know why you are getting a certain charge rate. The odds of the site causing limitations is pretty common based on my experience. If you do any supercharger tests, please make sure to run ScanMyTesla!

Of course also keep an eye on the battery temperature (not outside temperature). The battery needs to be around 30 Celsius to accept full charge rate.

 

[Droschke]

Even more frustrating is that this has happened even to people that did not abuse the battery.

Please be careful with the statements as such. In Tesla's echosystem, there is no such a term as "abuse the battery" by "people"! That's why you have the Tesla's BMS to regulate and protect your battery pack. That BMS has failed to do its job, and might have done the "abuse" part if any.

 

[Droschke]

I took out my 2015 March built Model S 85D for supercharging after a long time, just to test chargegate.

Guess what? I can’t use this car for road trips anymore. It took 1hr 20 minutes to charge from 15% to 90% and it barely stayed at ~60kW charge rate before dropping down to 50s and then settling around 30s.

I have about 52k miles on it and have only supercharged it maybe 20 times or less in about 5 years.

The only good news is that it doesn’t suffer from batterygate as 100% is still pretty good at 265 miles while new was 273 or thereabouts.

What should I do? Service? File NHTSA complaint? Sell the car? I’m already dreading the eMMC failure when it arrives.

Very disappointed by Tesla these days. Got shafted by not being honored 1 prepaid service plan by missing it by a few days when they told me not to worry about timing in the previous service. The contract is clear I had no recourse but I shouldn’t have taken their word. Also, my door handle had intermittently stopped working during warranty period but they said water may have gone in but guess what, it stopped working completely a few weeks after warranty. Had to pay for parts and they agreed to waive labor. Small mercies.

I encourage you to read the wiki portion of the post#1 if you haven't already.

 

[VT_EE]

Agreed with model S genocide, they seem to want the old cars off the road asap. Now they claim they will seek compensation if you reactivate dc fast charging even on non tesla chargers. Interesting that they think they can seek compensation on a car that isn't their property for dc fast charging on a non Tesla charger, talk about 'evil corp'. This is incredibly unattractive! I have stated this a few times now but there doesn't seem to be a supercharging counter that just cuts supercharging speed after X number of supercharging sessions. Because some cars with significantly lower milage and fewer supercharging sessions have had their supercharging speed reduced significantly more than cars with almost double the milage and supercharging sessions. I believe each supercharging session likely reduces how fast future supercharging sessions will be but I don't think it's as simple as a counter. I believe there is something else being counted and measured.

After reading a good deal of very informative posts on this page and others, it doesn’t appear to me that Supercharging is necessarily the cause of these capped batteries. It was mentioned elsewhere and should be brought up again. Having a pack out-of-balance is probably worse in the long term. This causes some of the cells to overcharge or drop voltage too low, which causes premature wear in areas of the battery. There are plenty of people here stating they barely ever Supercharge and charge only to 80% an a daily basis. At this level, there is little balancing going on. A separate issue is related to the battery cooling design on older packs. There was mention of TeslaFi data showing the tail end of the cooling loop not performing well, which could also cause uneven wear. I don’t think people should obsess over Supercharging as being the predominant Issue here. My two cents.

 

[Droschke]

There is going to be a battery replacement program. I doubt there was much urgency to have a replacement program until the early batteries were out of warranty. I suspect there is more urgency now that they realize some of these batteries aren't holding up as well as planned.

I wish I was as optimistic as you are. I do not see any evidence whatsoever of any battery replacement initiative. Do we wish for such a program? Yes. Is there one we are going to benefit from? Well, we wish

 

[Droschke]

So the assumption that your battery did not degrade due to SUC is an indication of BMS unable to determine degradation.

An unneeded degradation that BMS failed to keep under control? Is that what you are saying?

 

[Guy V]

There is going to be a battery replacement program. I doubt there was much urgency to have a replacement program until the early batteries were out of warranty. I suspect there is more urgency now that they realize some of these batteries aren't holding up as well as planned.

One would certainly think so. It's long overdue for a company built on forward-thinking.

Trying to guess why it hasn't happened yet, perhaps they were afraid revealing one would publicly highlight limited life expectancy and prohibitively expensive replacement cost. Best to put it off as long as possible and hope for a technological cost or longevity solution before it became critical. I.E. cross your fingers and pray for a miracle.

 

[Ferrycraigs]

Tesla's software people probably forgot to program that Regen limit in my car!

Yes, they probably forgot. That’s probably it.

 

[Ferrycraigs]

That I knew about, thanks.

The new report seemed to indicate that Tesla would not reinstate DC charging.

If that’s true (and this is the point I was trying to make) then Tesla could be actively looking for ways to retire vehicles, ours and others that just generate costs for them by tying up service depts, free Supercharging use, and warranty claims.

But that says they are only going to permanently disable Supercharging on cars that have been written off. So no wrecks glued back together and back on the road. Good thing. So write offs, once written off, only useable for spares. Perhaps a bit extreme, but not sure its going to stop me sleeping. And that has been pretty much their position for many years. In the past they would only re-instate Supercharging after they had done a thorough investigation of the car. Did they ever pass one? I have no idea.

 

[Droschke]

Just a general note when determining charge speed at a supercharger. There are many things that can cause a supercharger to deliver less power than the car could take. There is only one reliable way to find out. You use ScanMyTesla and look at the 'BMS Max Charge' value. That's what the car's BMS allows as the maximum charge rate. If that value is higher than what you are getting at the supercharger, then the supercharger station is the limiting factor (for whatever reason). If the 'BMS Max Charge' is the same as the charge rate you are getting, your car is limiting the power. Without that piece of information you really don't know why you are getting a certain charge rate. The odds of the site causing limitations is pretty common based on my experience. If you do any supercharger tests, please make sure to run ScanMyTesla!

Of course also keep an eye on the battery temperature (not outside temperature). The battery needs to be around 30 Celsius to accept full charge rate.

View attachment 511787

Your example shows the "Battery power" is higher than "BMS max charge". What does that mean? The same conclusion as being equal?

 

[Droschke]

Was your battery warm? This time of year it can take well over 30min of highway driving to get the battery warm enough to see a decent charge rate. Your charge curve sounds like a temp limited cold battery. As it warms, the battery can take more, but then you're higher in the taper, so the charge rate becomes limited by SoC. Net result, you don't see over 50-60kW for the whole session.

As @David99 pointed out, you should get at least 90kW. I can get >100kW with the battery <20% after an hour of highway driving (2014 P85+, 86k mi, no batterygate, 254mi @ 100%). My formula is (SoC% + kW) ~= 110.

My charging speed experience mirrors @caps04. Using the battery preheating (till the battery heating icon disappears) and the Nav destination set to supercharger, I still don't get the charging speeds you are mentioning. ~90kW might teases up for few seconds but then quickly dives down to ~60kW and lower. I do not charge beyond 80% on my capped car to avoid electron barfing.

 

[tga]

My charging speed experience mirrors @caps04. Using the battery preheating (till the battery heating icon disappears) and the Nav destination set to supercharger, I still don't get the charging speeds you are mentioning. ~90kW might teases up for few seconds but then quickly dives down to ~60kW and lower. I do not charge beyond 80% on my capped car to avoid electron barfing.

After an hour or more drive in winter, I've seen better temps well beyond 20C. The battery heater turns off well before that when you preheat in the app. I have never seen the "on route battery warmup" work on my car, ever. I think "on route battery warmup" is reserved for cars with later chemistry S (90/100) or Model 3.

Any supercharger test that is not proceeded by a 1+ hr highway drive that runs the battery down below 20% isn't really worth discussing, IMHO.

 

[Droschke]

After an hour or more drive in winter, I've seen better temps well beyond 20C. The battery heater turns off well before that when you preheat in the app. I have never seen the "on route battery warmup" work on my car, ever. I think "on route battery warmup" is reserved for cars with later chemistry S (90/100) or Model 3.

I use the battery pre-heating via Tesla app before departure. Sometimes it takes about 40 minutes for the little red battery icon to disappear. I then set the Nav. destination to supercharger. That's what I meant.

Any supercharger test that is not proceeded by a 1+ hr highway drive that runs the battery down below 20% isn't really worth discussing, IMHO.

Well, it's all matter of perspective. The supercharging speed has been almost halved since last year (same conditions last year vs. this year). That's for sure worth discussing.

 

[David99]

Your example shows the "Battery power" is higher than "BMS max charge". What does that mean? The same conclusion as being equal?

I don't have an explanation, but the battery power is always a little higher than what the BMS Max Charge allows. Usually it's just 1 or 2 kW. Nothing significant. For the first 2-3 minutes after plugging in at a supercharger, the car often exceeds the limit or stays below the limit. For example the BMS allows 90 kW but the car will peak to 120 kw and then drop down within 2 min to the BMS set limit. Or the car won't charge at the BMS limit and within 1 or 2 min the BMS value goes down to what the car is charging it. In other words, the first 2 min after plugging in "don't count". But after that it's consistent.

 

[David99]

. I believe each supercharging session likely reduces how fast future supercharging sessions will be but I don't think it's as simple as a counter. I believe there is something else being counted and measured.

I doubt it's a counter in number of sessions or amount of energy on DC. It must be something more sophisticated that the BMS is looking for. I'd say it's a combination of a few things they can measure. My car has supercharged close to 2000 times and has 270k miles. Other cars with far less use and supercharging see the same charge speed reduction that I see.

 

[tga]

I use the battery pre-heating via Tesla app before departure. Sometimes it takes about 40 minutes for the little red battery icon to disappear. I then set the Nav. destination to supercharger. That's what I meant.

I'm not convinced that will give you a warm enough battery to get good speeds at a local supercharger. I'm testing now, but I think the pre-heat turns off when the battery is still pretty cool. I just turned on the pre-conditioning and confirmed the battery icon came on in the app. Cell temps were -3.31/-2.59/-1.53 and the coolant heater is at 100%. We'll see what they say when it turns off.

And, like I said, I don't believe setting a supercharger in the Nav does one iota of good in our older cars. It certainly doesn't warm the battery to 40C like new cars.

Well, it's all matter of perspective. The supercharging speed has been almost halved since last year (same conditions last year vs. this year). That's for sure worth discussing.

True, relative comparisons of this year/last year under the same conditions makes sense. But when someone posts an absolute kW number, with no discussion of the conditions, temp, etc, that's pretty meaningless. That's my point.

 

[David99]

But that says they are only going to permanently disable Supercharging on cars that have been written off. So no wrecks glued back together and back on the road. Good thing. So write offs, once written off, only useable for spares. Perhaps a bit extreme, but not sure its going to stop me sleeping. And that has been pretty much their position for many years. In the past they would only re-instate Supercharging after they had done a thorough investigation of the car. Did they ever pass one? I have no idea.

My car is worth maybe $20k because it is so old and has so many miles. If I scrap along a wall or something scratching one side of my car, the cost of replace front and rear quarter panels and two doors would way exceed the value of my car. The insurance would total the car. Yet there is no reason to disable supercharging if I decide to buy those parts and fix it myself. No critical parts that would affect the battery or any electrical parts were damaged.

 

[tga]

My car is worth maybe $20k because it is so old and has so many miles. If I scrap along a wall or something scratching one side of my car, the cost of replace front and rear quarter panels and two doors would way exceed the value of my car. The insurance would total the car. Yet there is no reason to disable supercharging if I decide to buy those parts and fix it myself. No critical parts that would affect the battery or any electrical parts were damaged.

I wonder how they find out.