Range and charging speed is everything for an EV. Imagine if you owned a Merc or Jag and that legacy automaker coming to your home, taking the motor out and installing a smaller motor that gets worse gas mileage, less performance and installing a smaller orifice filler neck on the fuel tank that takes 15 minutes longer to fill at a gas station...……..what would you do?
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Wiki Sudden Loss Of Range With 2019.16.x Software
- Thread starter Dutchmeeuw
- Start date
Decreased range and decreased charging speed was understood by me at the time of ordering, in 2014, to be a part of the expected aging of a battery devices including cars. I was and remain agnostic as to whether those aging factors are caused by the hardware directly, or by the software based on the hardware data.
Glad Tesla continually tweaks the BMS to improve the optimal balance of range, discharge, recharge, longevity, safety risk profile, mtbf, and probably other important factors I’m not thinking of, of the battery.
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2017S&XLftBhnd
Member
When I ordered mine and took delivery in 1st quarter 2017, range loss over a long period of time, years was expected. I have seen the loss curve slowly increase to the sharp decline around 50,000 back to the slow/trickle loss over time.
I knew and expected that loss, I am not at 220 of the rated 249 or 88% from when I purchased. Haven’t seen any loss noticeable loss in past couple months however Supercharger speed has reduced drastically and caps out for me at 80, typically runs at 78kw.
Something has changed, maybe it was to protect the battery life, but you can’t use software to mask identified hardware issues you propped up as a selling point backed by a really long “infinite” mile warranty instead of replacing them.
I have zero doubts I’ll eventually need to have a module or pack replaced on my S unless they offer me a great trade in deal. I just hope it isn’t being masked because of stock financials and they are trying to delay it for another quarter where they can take the hit.
I knew and expected that loss, I am not at 220 of the rated 249 or 88% from when I purchased. Haven’t seen any loss noticeable loss in past couple months however Supercharger speed has reduced drastically and caps out for me at 80, typically runs at 78kw.
Something has changed, maybe it was to protect the battery life, but you can’t use software to mask identified hardware issues you propped up as a selling point backed by a really long “infinite” mile warranty instead of replacing them.
I have zero doubts I’ll eventually need to have a module or pack replaced on my S unless they offer me a great trade in deal. I just hope it isn’t being masked because of stock financials and they are trying to delay it for another quarter where they can take the hit.
Yes, comes from the same school as “...cosmetic anomaly...” reply regarding Yellow Border issue for MCU display.
Since my last post, I've gathered quite a bit of electronic and physical data on this issue. At this point, I'm reasonably certain of the details at this point, but I don't think going into detail here is going to help anything at this moment. I'd also like to gather additional physical datapoints, and give Tesla some room on this for now. So, apologies for being a little vague here for now.
I have a dialog going with two different groups at Tesla on this issue at the moment. (Admittedly, seems like neither group knows the other is communicating with me, but that's Tesla's excellent internal communication for you. /s) Both seem to be productive, however, so I'm going to continue them in the hopes of a solution.
Neither contact will admit to anything bad, obviously. But a few takeaways:
Again, sorry to be vague. Suffice it to say the details won't really help anyone right now anyway.
I'm also hesitant to say it, since, again, I don't want to inflate this issue beyond where it already is and cause further speculation, but: If you have a car with an 85-type pack (85 or 70) then you should probably update if you either supercharge a lot, charge to 100% often, or both.
No, I'm not saying your car is going to explode or otherwise have other issues if you don't update, so don't take it like that, but I do believe that what is being detected is an issue that will eventually need to be addressed one way or another, whether or not there is a safety issue involved, and if you are in that group it'd be better to know than not know.
Again, I want to give Tesla a good faith opportunity to work this all out before I start throwing things out their publicly. Right now, I do believe this particular situation isn't something they were originally aware of and just kind of stumbled across once this update hit the masses. They have been working to determine a reason for. I'm pretty sure my input is pushing that along in the right direction.
We're all painfully aware that Tesla has serious internal and public communication issues. Since the changes in the updates don't appear to have been intended to impact anyone at all at this point, they definitely did not seem to be prepared for reports of lost range and such, hence the canned responses to the same. Hopefully they'll better address this soon.
As most here are aware, I give Tesla a lot of grief on things when they, well, screw people over and deserve to be called out on their shenanigans. At this point, I don't believe there was any bad intention, so unless that changes, let's cut them a little slack for now and give them a chance to get things right.
And, if they don't, I think there is a lot of pressure that affected owners can put on them one way or another.
I have a dialog going with two different groups at Tesla on this issue at the moment. (Admittedly, seems like neither group knows the other is communicating with me, but that's Tesla's excellent internal communication for you. /s) Both seem to be productive, however, so I'm going to continue them in the hopes of a solution.
Neither contact will admit to anything bad, obviously. But a few takeaways:
- I'm pretty convinced that the people who made this "fix" were unaware there was going to be any significant impact to anyone's usable range.
- Specifically, my understanding is that the change was a proactive measure to detect a very uncommon long-term failure mode of the battery. The conditions they were testing for didn't appear to exist in any battery in the fleet, but adding a check and mitigation was to be a preventative safety measure.
- The new test/fix they added seems to have inadvertently activated based on another completely separate set of triggers in some batteries.
- The people I've spoken to so far seemed genuinely unaware of this particular trigger being the trip up here, and are looking into it in more detail.
- Detecting this is a good thing, but the "fix" applied is not the best for what's actually the trigger here.
Again, sorry to be vague. Suffice it to say the details won't really help anyone right now anyway.
I'm also hesitant to say it, since, again, I don't want to inflate this issue beyond where it already is and cause further speculation, but: If you have a car with an 85-type pack (85 or 70) then you should probably update if you either supercharge a lot, charge to 100% often, or both.
No, I'm not saying your car is going to explode or otherwise have other issues if you don't update, so don't take it like that, but I do believe that what is being detected is an issue that will eventually need to be addressed one way or another, whether or not there is a safety issue involved, and if you are in that group it'd be better to know than not know.
Again, I want to give Tesla a good faith opportunity to work this all out before I start throwing things out their publicly. Right now, I do believe this particular situation isn't something they were originally aware of and just kind of stumbled across once this update hit the masses. They have been working to determine a reason for. I'm pretty sure my input is pushing that along in the right direction.
We're all painfully aware that Tesla has serious internal and public communication issues. Since the changes in the updates don't appear to have been intended to impact anyone at all at this point, they definitely did not seem to be prepared for reports of lost range and such, hence the canned responses to the same. Hopefully they'll better address this soon.
As most here are aware, I give Tesla a lot of grief on things when they, well, screw people over and deserve to be called out on their shenanigans. At this point, I don't believe there was any bad intention, so unless that changes, let's cut them a little slack for now and give them a chance to get things right.
And, if they don't, I think there is a lot of pressure that affected owners can put on them one way or another.
Many thanks @wk057 for being so helpful.
You said:
Does this mean the SW update is just a preventative measure for the (bad) state X to occur and that their testing shows no batteries are showing the (bad) state X to this date?
You said:
Does this mean the SW update is just a preventative measure for the (bad) state X to occur and that their testing shows no batteries are showing the (bad) state X to this date?
This is my understanding of the situation from their perspective. Again, they've obviously not being super forthcoming, but this is what I've put together from conversations with both groups.
Basically they went looking for X and found Z instead. X is pretty bad, but doesn't seem to have happened anywhere. Detecting X is definitely a good thing. Z is not good, but not as bad as X. The process of looking for X's ended up finding a bunch of Z's as well. Z was not being looked for and wasn't known. Detecting Z is still a good thing. The people with a rapid range loss have condition Z.
Hopefully that's less ambiguous, and also still ambiguous.
dark cloud
Active Member
This is my understanding of the situation from their perspective. Again, they've obviously not being super forthcoming, but this is what I've put together from conversations with both groups.
Basically they went looking for X and found Z instead. X is pretty bad, but doesn't seem to have happened anywhere. Detecting X is definitely a good thing. Z is not good, but not as bad as X. The process of looking for X's ended up finding a bunch of Z's as well. Z was not being looked for and wasn't known. Detecting Z is still a good thing. The people with a rapid range loss have condition Z.
Hopefully that's less ambiguous, and also still ambiguous.
Thanks so much. To make it unambiguous for myself (I'm suffering from the Z condition
), I substituted the X and Z with two different known conditions of different risk levels and it now makes sense. We will hopefully find out if the Z condition warrants battery replacement or not .Thanks again.
anything beyond 20% degradation within the warranty period
Decreased range due to normal degradation is understood, not from a software update. Also it didn't matter what the battery degraded to, the charging speed was the same until this update.(at least on my car)
Guy V
Member
"before I recycled them"
How long was that?
I have never had a battery have a useful life anywhere near Tesla's 8-year warranty period. I was very skeptical but buying the car was a leap of faith that they could manage it, that they would survive to honor the warranty and that there would be some economically viable post-warranty replacement/refurbishment option other than scrapping the car.
I do not think anyone would expect Tesla can survive if it becomes common wisdom that their cars only have an 8-year lifetime, so I have to believe they are working diligently on this.
I considered all of this in my downside risk calculations and would never have bought into this experimental experience if I couldn't financially accept the cost as possibly a total right-off. It's been far from that so I am satisfied and will be more satisfied the longer it remains useful, fun and interesting.
Guy V
Member
If I had happily been enjoying the car for several years but then it became at at risk of catastrophic failure and they gave me choice to do that for free or replace the original engine for around $20K I'd consider my repair or replace options as I would for any car facing major breakdown. It happens all the time.
This is my understanding of the situation from their perspective. Again, they've obviously not being super forthcoming, but this is what I've put together from conversations with both groups.
Basically they went looking for X and found Z instead. X is pretty bad, but doesn't seem to have happened anywhere. Detecting X is definitely a good thing. Z is not good, but not as bad as X. The process of looking for X's ended up finding a bunch of Z's as well. Z was not being looked for and wasn't known. Detecting Z is still a good thing. The people with a rapid range loss have condition Z.
Hopefully that's less ambiguous, and also still ambiguous.
To carry that thought forward a bit farther the software that was looking for X assumed X was really bad and took drastic measures, like limiting max voltage and all that. Hopefully we will see an update that properly detects and responds to Z proportionately to it's risk. If my understanding is correct that would return some range to those that have lost it as Z is less of an issue.
lightningltd
Member
Actually the value shown is available KW / a constant for the rated range.
The constant never changes.
They reduced available KW, thus the change in the range displayed.
TRON
Member
Good to hear someone is caring about it. I didn't post it but my P85+
LOST 30 miles (50 km) of RANGE
after being at the Service Center.
Battery is having only 110.000km means 68.350 miles old and
having a range of 196 miles on a full charge (316km)
I assume Tesla did the software update discussed here.
This loss of range is hard to understand and not ok in my eyes.
When I bought the car on 110.000 km it had still 380km, means 236 miles of range.
See you all next year at 3rd edition of Around the world in 80 days in electric cars the epic around the world trip. Welcome to join the Nothamerica tour from Halifax over NY through Rocky Mountains and Death Valley to San Diego to visit the 80edays tree planted in 2016 80edays Halifax Tree continuing over LA, Hollywood, Palo Alto (Tesla), San Francisco up to Vancouver, more than 5200 miles epic trip.
Rafael de Mestre
LOST 30 miles (50 km) of RANGE
after being at the Service Center.
Battery is having only 110.000km means 68.350 miles old and
having a range of 196 miles on a full charge (316km)
I assume Tesla did the software update discussed here.
This loss of range is hard to understand and not ok in my eyes.
When I bought the car on 110.000 km it had still 380km, means 236 miles of range.
See you all next year at 3rd edition of Around the world in 80 days in electric cars the epic around the world trip. Welcome to join the Nothamerica tour from Halifax over NY through Rocky Mountains and Death Valley to San Diego to visit the 80edays tree planted in 2016 80edays Halifax Tree continuing over LA, Hollywood, Palo Alto (Tesla), San Francisco up to Vancouver, more than 5200 miles epic trip.
Rafael de Mestre
I call BS as well. Why, in every instance, does "recalibration" cause loss of range? This doesn't pass the most basic sniff test.
My understanding is that EPA range is determined by driving the vehicle, under test conditions, until it shuts down. This is probably where 295 Wh/mi multiplier comes from. However, I thought that zero wasn't really zero and that there was still some drivable range past zero. Is it possible Tesla displays the correct EPA range, but then decrements that range based on a lower 276 Wh/mi multiplier so that when you hit zero, you still have some drivable range as opposed to the vehicle shutting down (as in the EPA test)? Totally speculating.
This behavior by Tesla shouldn't be a surprise. Tesla happily uses its customers as Guinea pig beta testers for everything. Most Tesla owners, at least those at TMC, happily pay for the privilege because it makes them feel cool. Point this out to them and they will call you a Tesla-hating troll. While other vehicle manufacturers spend many millions testing every aspect of their cars, Tesla delivers leaking cars to owners while it figures out how to make them not leak. Bend over, please.
The squeaky wheel usually gets the grease, let us know how things progress.
^^ This one gets me the most. All Tesla did in the first few years was promote their vehicle acceleration by publishing videos showing people flooring it. That's what they did in the initial test drives for the media. They promoted the hell out of their vehicles' acceleration, only now to recommend those same customers, who were sold on acceleration, to refrain from using it? Tesla can't have it both ways, I'm afraid.
Protect the battery from what, exactly? The answer to this question is key.
Without evidence to the contrary, it would appear Tesla is doing exactly this. The discussion has now hit my FB group with over 1,400 Tesla owner members. Out of 20 who responded to our survey, 5 indicated range loss immediately following installation of 2019.16.x. It would be in Tesla's best interest to get on top of this issue before it spirals out of control.
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