Wiki Sudden Loss Of Range With 2019.16.x Software

[Robbie]

Just to add my data point...

I have a May 2015 build Model S 85 and have experienced about a 30 mile loss of range since the 2019.16.1.1 update.

Attached is a screenshot from Teslafi data showing my range from 8/15/2018 through 7/1/2019 where my range dropped from about 250 to 219. I scheduled a service center visit and they tried to get me to cancel it saying they remotely determined my battery stats were within spec. After pushing back I was texted this:

"Hey Robbie, we did review your data and confirmed it. In 2019.16+ firmware the battery management software was updated to increase the performance and long term reliability of the battery. Older battery's (sic) with high wear from mileage, DC charging, etc. may have a range drop but it was done to improve the battery's overall health. There are no indications of internal or hardware issues with your battery. If you would still like to talk we can but the most we can give you are the talking points we were provided explaining this condition. I will resend them."

Then...
"1. As part of our recent revision of the charge and thermal management settings on Model S and Model X vehicles to protect the battery and improve battery longevity, a very small percentage of owners who own older vehicles may notice a slight small reduction in range when charging to a maximum state of change.
2. The drop in range is not expected to continue and should stabilize quickly.
3. This change is the result of the updated charging profile as well as increased cooling, which helps improve the overall health of the battery.
4. Charging behavior will vary based on how the vehicle is driven, charged, and the age of the vehicle."

When I visited the service center I said that if there are a "very small percentage of owners" affected, this implies some defect and that I believed the update was motivated by safety concerns, not performance, and if so, they should replace the batteries on the "very small percentage of owners" rather than cut 30 miles of range from the vehicles which I do not consider a "slight small reduction".

The manager at the service center (Costa Mesa, CA) said there were going to have an engineering meeting and would contact me at some future point to let me know what was going to happen.

They showed me a printout saying that the actual SOC was actually 80% when the car showed 90% and that this behavior would affect all battery types in a future update including 90 kWh and 100 kWh. I tend not to believe this last part.

If I do not get a response or Tesla does not fix the problem or compensate me for degrading the performance of my car I am open to joining a class action suite or starting arbitration.

 

[Blu Zap]

"Tesla assured Roadshow that this update wouldn't be noticed by most of its customers in operation and that in addition to improving safety in the long-term, it should also help improve the life of Tesla's already notoriously long-lived packs." From this Roadshow article
Tesla updates battery software on Models S and X after Hong Kong fire - Roadshow
So Tesla is betting many owners effected won't notice. That is not what I am seeing on this and other forums on this topic.

Also, even if only a small fraction of the owners have had their range chopped, it still totally sucks if you’re one of those few.

As an effected owner, I couldn't agree more! Not to ignore the huge issue that Tesla is not communicating with us. That means they are not stepping up and talking about the issues at hand. Looks like a cover-up when they aren't talking. Especially when they tell Roadshow that most owners won't notice. Leaves for speculation, which as a screwed owner, does not set well.

 

[jaitch]

J.......

They showed me a printout saying that the actual SOC was actually 80% when the car showed 90% and that this behavior would affect all battery types in a future update including 90 kWh and 100 kWh. I tend not to believe this last part.
................

So we are all screwed then. How did they communicate this last bit (90 and 100 kWh)?

In my short ownership I have become flabbergasted.

 

[Droschke]

this behavior would affect all battery types in a future update including 90 kWh and 100 kWh

If that's the case then they should let all new 100 kWh buyers know the advertised 300+ miles range is meant to be temporary.

 

[Target]

If that's the case then they should let all new 100 kWh buyers know the advertised 300+ miles range is meant to be temporary.

I think they are seeing the start of the decline already. They are going through what we should have gone through all these years.
2017 Ms P100d Max Charge Rate?
Here is a 100D that is seeing the likely impacts of this already.
There is a 90D thread also that is quite new. In that thread they discussed merging with this thread, but decided not to.

The guys reversing the code will likely answer this one eventually, but I expect this affects all packs, just those packs aren't old enough to have seen the drastic drop off we have seen with the oldest packs in the fleet.

As a EV enthusiast for more than a decade I can say that all EV's experience range decline, how fast is always the question. Original Leaf owners have us beat on this one, and the Lead Acid conversion cars have cycled through two to four packs already in seven years.

 

[MartinPF]

I think they are seeing the start of the decline already. They are going through what we should have gone through all these years.
2017 Ms P100d Max Charge Rate?
Here is a 100D that is seeing the likely impacts of this already.

There are two separate issues:

• reduced range, introduced with the 2019.16.x updates. This change seems to affect 60/70/75/85 packs
• earlier taper of charge rate, introduced with 2019.20.x. This change does not significately reduce the max charge rate. For some US battery packs, max charge rate was actually increased. This change affects all battery packs and all cars as far as I can tell.

To further muddle things, there's another charging issue, where max charge rate went way down - 70kW for some cars. I don't think I've seen this reported for 80/100kWh packs.

The range loss effect has - so far - not been reported for the 90/100 kWh battery packs.

 

[MartinPF]

A self-selected subset of owners (such as those who would answer TMC forum polls) is not likely to be representative of the population as a whole.

I think that getting a handle on magnitude of the problem is a good idea, just this approach isn’t likely to work, other than to prove the existence of both affected and unaffected owners, but we knew that already.

One relevant source of data to determine actual percentage of affected cars would be teslafi database - given a data set of > 2900 reporting cars it should be possible to get statistically significant information. No idea if James would be willing to assist though.

 

[DJRas]

Just to add my data point...

I have a May 2015 build Model S 85 and have experienced about a 30 mile loss of range since the 2019.16.1.1 update.

Attached is a screenshot from Teslafi data showing my range from 8/15/2018 through 7/1/2019 where my range dropped from about 250 to 219. I scheduled a service center visit and they tried to get me to cancel it saying they remotely determined my battery stats were within spec. After pushing back I was texted this:

"Hey Robbie, we did review your data and confirmed it. In 2019.16+ firmware the battery management software was updated to increase the performance and long term reliability of the battery. Older battery's (sic) with high wear from mileage, DC charging, etc. may have a range drop but it was done to improve the battery's overall health. There are no indications of internal or hardware issues with your battery. If you would still like to talk we can but the most we can give you are the talking points we were provided explaining this condition. I will resend them."

Then...
"1. As part of our recent revision of the charge and thermal management settings on Model S and Model X vehicles to protect the battery and improve battery longevity, a very small percentage of owners who own older vehicles may notice a slight small reduction in range when charging to a maximum state of change.
2. The drop in range is not expected to continue and should stabilize quickly.
3. This change is the result of the updated charging profile as well as increased cooling, which helps improve the overall health of the battery.
4. Charging behavior will vary based on how the vehicle is driven, charged, and the age of the vehicle."

When I visited the service center I said that if there are a "very small percentage of owners" affected, this implies some defect and that I believed the update was motivated by safety concerns, not performance, and if so, they should replace the batteries on the "very small percentage of owners" rather than cut 30 miles of range from the vehicles which I do not consider a "slight small reduction".

The manager at the service center (Costa Mesa, CA) said there were going to have an engineering meeting and would contact me at some future point to let me know what was going to happen.

They showed me a printout saying that the actual SOC was actually 80% when the car showed 90% and that this behavior would affect all battery types in a future update including 90 kWh and 100 kWh. I tend not to believe this last part.

If I do not get a response or Tesla does not fix the problem or compensate me for degrading the performance of my car I am open to joining a class action suite or starting arbitration.

View attachment 429725

Contact me.
I am starting class action suit regarding this.

 

[Droschke]

One relevant source of data to determine actual percentage of affected cars would be teslafi database - given a data set of > 2900 reporting cars it should be possible to get statistically significant information. No idea if James would be willing to assist though.

Who is James, may I ask?

 

[VT_EE]

If that's the case then they should let all new 100 kWh buyers know the advertised 300+ miles range is meant to be temporary.

Any EV buyer should know that your max range is temporary. It is well advertised that Li-Ion batteries degrade including on Tesla’s website. 30% loss over the warranty period should be expected. Now, your sudden mysterious loss of range may be something else, but ALL batteries will eventually degrade.

 

[MartinPF]

Who is James, may I ask?

That's the Teslafi administrator/software developer account.

 

[Alysashley79]

Any EV buyer should know that your max range is temporary. It is well advertised that Li-Ion batteries degrade including on Tesla’s website. 30% loss over the warranty period should be expected. Now, your sudden mysterious loss of range may be something else, but ALL batteries will eventually degrade.

I disagree with this. 30% over 8 years shouldn’t be expected. My old p85 was around 9% and almost 5 year old p85D is around 4.5% which is up a full percent from this one update.

I do agree that the batteries will degrade over time starting with the very first plug in. But to say that you should expect to lose that much. No. Just no.

 

[sorka]

Any EV buyer should know that your max range is temporary. It is well advertised that Li-Ion batteries degrade including on Tesla’s website. 30% loss over the warranty period should be expected. Now, your sudden mysterious loss of range may be something else, but ALL batteries will eventually degrade.

That's not what he meant. What he meant is that Tesla owners can no longer expect to have range consistent with this chart:

Because now Tesla is removing range in some cars that have battery defects that are 300 to 400% more than what owners were previously expecting.

My P85D is currently at about 4% after nearly 100K miles. Really glad I'm still on v8.

 

[sorka]

One relevant source of data to determine actual percentage of affected cars would be teslafi database - given a data set of > 2900 reporting cars it should be possible to get statistically significant information. No idea if James would be willing to assist though.

Did you ask him?

 

[Robbie]

So we are all screwed then. How did they communicate this last bit (90 and 100 kWh)?

In my short ownership I have become flabbergasted.

The statement about other battery sizes being affected in a future update was made during a face to face conversation with the manager. I'd asked what my options were including a discount on updating the 85 kWh battery with a 90 kWh battery presuming that the issue didn't affect the 90 kWh batteries. This was when he told me that updating the battery would not avoid the problem as they would be receiving firmware updates with the same behavior.

 

[Robbie]

Contact me.
I am starting class action suit regarding this.

Thanks for the info. My SC visit was just last Friday and I want to allow them the opportunity to follow up with me like they said they would before pulling the trigger on something drastic.

 

[CuriousG]

They showed me a printout saying that the actual SOC was actually 80% when the car showed 90% and that this behavior would affect all battery types in a future update including 90 kWh and 100 kWh. I tend not to believe this last part.

If this part does become true, there will be a s***storm coming.

Taking 10% of one's battery without it being normal degradation in addition to increased charging rate at Superchargers will not go well.

 

[MartinPF]

Did you ask him?

Yes, waiting for an answer.

 

[Gixx1300R]

For those of us that are experiencing abnormal range loss, just wait until winter. It's going to be a lot worse if the range loss issue is not corrected.

 

[Droschke]

That's not what he meant. What he meant is that Tesla owners can no longer expect to have range consistent with this chart

Thanks @sorka. You would think that in the context of this very long thread this would have been obvious. Apparently not .