Wiki Sudden Loss Of Range With 2019.16.x Software

[DJRas]

So if it turns out that Tesla is actually pushing a new firmware version that fixes the range issue, how quickly will you be dropping your class action lawsuit?

There are 19 counts to the lawsuit.
Some will be addressed if the new release restores the range.
Some will not.
Additionally, we have heard ad nauseam from multiple front in this thread about this all being about battery safety.
Tesla still hasn't stated WHY this happened.
If it is for safety... then will rolling this back cause a dangerous condition.
I REALLY need to know that.

 

[MP3Mike]

You made this up 100%. Individual Service Centers have a lot of leeway in their decision making.

They may have a lot of leeway with most things but not with firmware...

Can you show single example anywhere of a SC downgrading firmware? Tesla technicians have said that they would be fired if they were to downgrade a car.

 

[SmartElectric]

I have a 250+ mile round trip commute

4 hours per day. Sorry to hear that. That's 1000 hours per year for a 5 day per week commute.
I can fully understand how commuting in a car you now loathe would be a poor experience.

You're well outside of the norm.
I once had a 3 hour daily commute and I eventually moved to solve that problem.

You might want to consider car pooling, perhaps having company during the drive will make the added inconvenience easier to take.

 

[DJRas]

Nope, you need to pay attention to the actual words. They said the range loss will be mitigated, you said it would be reversed. They mean two different things.

And how do YOU interpret that range will be mitigated?

 

[DJRas]

They may have a lot of leeway with most things but not with firmware...

Can you show single example anywhere of a SC downgrading firmware? Tesla technicians have said that they would be fired if they were to downgrade a car.

They cannot downgrade a car.
BUT they CAN revise a software cap like this. A few people have had THAT done at service centers

 

[SmartElectric]

what's happening additionally with the new charge rates. It now takes forever (a way much more than the previous forever) to charge to 100%. Some impacted owners can not even charge fully to 100% since the charging completes earlier.

Nothing new here. The inability to charge exactly to 100% has been seen in Tesla Model S cars for 6 years, I've seen a significant number of posts on that in this forum, and have experienced this in -30C weather myself one particularly bad week in the winter a few years ago. My 2013 S85 has always charged maximum <90kW since purchase, and I do not consider this "forever", nor did it prevent us from putting 140,000 km on the car, 60% of which are supercharged km. These aren't "new" charge rates, but modifying a subset of cars to match charge rates that earlier cars (like mine) have had all along. My car has 97% original capacity, routinely charged to 100% and daily to 90%, supercharged hundreds of times, and not affected by recent the software updates, you are just experiencing similar charge rates to what our car has always had.

 

[willow_hiller]

Nothing new here. The inability to charge exactly to 100% has been seen in Tesla Model S cars for 6 years, I've seen a significant number of posts on that in this forum, and have experienced this in -30C weather myself one particularly bad week in the winter a few years ago. My 2013 S85 has always charged maximum <90kW since purchase, and I do not consider this "forever", nor did it prevent us from putting 140,000 km on the car, 60% of which are supercharged km. These aren't "new" charge rates, but modifying a subset of cars to match charge rates that earlier cars (like mine) have had all along. My car has 97% original capacity, routinely charged to 100% and daily to 90%, supercharged hundreds of times, and not affected by recent the software updates, you are just experiencing similar charge rates to what our car has always had.

Wait, older models used to be able to charge to 100% rapidly?

I've never gotten my 2019 Model 3 up to 100% before. I always give up waiting around 97-98%.

 

[DaveBC]

@MP3Mike and @SmartElectric it feels narcissistic to ask, but it’s eating me up not knowing. What part of my post do you disagree with?

The way I understood wk057’s explanation is that the software detection of X also detected Z and applied the urgent fix for X to those vehicles.

Do you disagree that wk057 says Z is being mistaken for X?

Presumably if a pack has condition X it is in danger of catching fire. They don’t want to roll back their code intended to detect X (that is also flagging Z condition packs) and have a fire that could have been prevented.

You think X is not an indicator of fire danger?

They need to refine their detection of X and Z and apply the appropriate action to each, which hopefully would be to make safe by software and schedule a pack refurbishment or replacement for those packs that actually have X.

You don’t think X condition packs deserve warranty refurbishment?

(I am not a battery chemistry or BMS expert, this is just what I concluded after spending weeks of my spare time reading this thread)

You think I’m hiding the fact that I’m either secretly an accomplished battery expert or that I didn’t read every post in the thread?

 

[sorka]

All limits on li-ion batteries are "artificial" - for the purposes of safety and longevity - starting from the very day you pick up your car. That's the entire purpose of the bloody BMS. If any aspect of the battery worsens over time - which forces the limits that have been there since the very day you picked up your car to decline - that's known as degradation.

Some products limit Lithium Ion charge and discharge ranges to less than full capacity for longevity. Tesla has never done this until now. They've always allowed access to the top but not the bottom (anti brick buffer). A fully charged Lithium Ion cell has a static non loaded voltage of about 4.2 volts.

Tesla has always made it very clear that if you charge beyond 90% that you will shorten battery life and they even have a dialog warning you if you do it more than two times in a row. When they educate new buyers, they also warn of this and tell owners that they should only charge above 90% when they must. I charge above 90% perhaps 2 or 3 times a year and that's it. Tesla put ME in charge of managing my own battery longevity from a degradation standpoint and made it clear that normal gradual degradation won't be covered under warranty and that the more often I charge higher, the faster the battery will degrade, although it will still be gradual and not a cliff.

Tesla has not taken that choice away and something people paid for. If I were to install v9 (I'm the only guy left in North America with my version of Software that subscribes to Teslafi), and if I suffered the same restriction as others have, I'd have not been able to make my trip to Arizona this last week as I do every year.

 

[DaveBC]

Tesla still hasn't stated WHY this happened.
If it is for safety... then will rolling this back cause a dangerous condition.
I REALLY need to know that.

The concern has crossed my mind that they are only bowing to the legal and PR pressure. Reverting the code, putting it in a new release and shutting up the squeaky wheels.

I hope it’s only coincidental that they were pushing their new and improved algorithms into production release when the lawsuit was publicized and the issue hit major media.

 

[sorka]

Yes, that's what a BMS does, from day 1 of vehicle ownership. That's the very reason why the BMS exists - to impose artificial limits on the battery, for safety and longevity reasons.

Name one product that restricts access to more and more existing battery capacity either through a software update or via algorithm over time.

 

[sorka]

You say that like that's supposed to be a shock, or like it's supposed to change anything that I wrote.

The cells are not charged to their physical maximum voltage when new, either. It's the job of the BMS to impose limits.

No but they are charged to 99.9% of their maximum in the case of the 85 packs...or at least they used to be. Still are on mine. I don't have the software installed yet so I'm unaffected still. If you've read the thread, you'll see the whoops I've jumped through to keep Tesla from destroying my car with a software update.

 

[SO16]

Name one product that restricts access to more and more existing battery capacity either through a software update or via algorithm over time.

Even when I received my Tesla new in 2017, I was embarking in unknown territory because the history of the cars and batteries have not been proven over many decades. But rather than waiting decades to find out, I CHOSE to buy one then.

If/when Tesla finds issues and needs to make adjustments, then by all means, do it.

The part where Tesla fails often is their communication and does need improvement. However, I think this lawsuit is ridiculous as it really just rewards the lawyers. Tesla will lose millions on defending themselves with lawyers, lost sales AND the bad PR for which places like CNBC are so eagerly waiting to dish out.

 

[sorka]

Would you rather the BMS not do its job?
If you want the BMS to do its job, do you not want it doing its job as well as possible, based on the best information available, including that accumulated after the first software release?

Older Tesla's racked up hundreds of thousands of miles on original batteries just fine without the BMS capping access to the top.

The BMS's job is to manage temperate while being used and or charged, discharge limits to prevents individual cells in strings from being exposed to negative polarity while being discharged. This means the BMS can cut you out at low SOCs if you draw too much current. It will slow the charge rate if the battery is too warm OR too cold. It might even prevent charging at all until the battery is warm enough.

The BMS has been doing it's job. It's been given a new job and that is to impose artificial limits on the existing capacity on certain batteries that Tesla thinks might catch fire if you charge all the way to the top. That is not normal degradation and Tesla SHOULD cap the charge on those batteries until they can get those cars in to replace the batteries under warranty. Instead, they're using a software bandaid to prevent those batteries from charging to full in order to avoid the costs of replacing the defective cells.

 

[sorka]

Even when I received my Tesla new in 2017, I was embarking in unknown territory because the history of the cars and batteries have not been proven over many decades. But rather than waiting decades to find out, I CHOSE to buy one then.

If/when Tesla finds issues and needs to make adjustments, then by all means, do it.

The part where Tesla fails often is their communication and does need improvement. However, I think this lawsuit is ridiculous as it really just rewards the lawyers. Tesla will lose millions on defending themselves with lawyers, lost sales AND the bad PR for which places like CNBC are so eagerly waiting to dish out.

Or they could just replace what they claim is a very small number of effected by this since it's NOT normal "gradual" degradation.

 

[SO16]

Or they could just replace what they claim is a very small number of effected by this since it's NOT normal "gradual" degradation.

It seems the situation is still in flux. But hey....if the situation doesn’t get resolved/fully explained in a couple months....then sue sue sue sue sue sue sue

 

[Leeboy22001]

Since 2019.28.2 my Max cell voltage has increased to 4.077V, Prior to update Max cell voltage was 4.061V.

Usable is now 47.1kWh, was 46.5kWh.

Rated (ideal) is now 207 miles, was 204.

 

[willow_hiller]

Since 2019.28.2 my Max cell voltage has increased to 4.077V, Prior to update Max cell voltage was 4.061V.

Usable is now 47.1kWh, was 46.5kWh.

Rated (ideal) is now 207 miles, was 204.

I'm waiting for someone to report in with 2019.28.2.5. That's the version that's only been going to S85 according to TeslaFi.

 

[lightningltd]

Don't mean to get anyone's hopes up, but 2019.28.2.5 seems to be specifically targeted at Model S 85. Could be a coincidence it started rolling out the same day the lawsuit was filed, but that possibility of random chance decreases as each successive install is an S85.

View attachment 439595

Hopefully one of them is one of the affected card in this forum who can report back.

 

[isentropik]

...It's been given a new job and that is to impose artificial limits on the existing capacity on certain batteries that Tesla thinks might catch fire if you charge all the way to the top...

Do you have a reliable source for this information?