Wiki Sudden Loss Of Range With 2019.16.x Software

[jkennebeck]

He said 'Oh the 85kw? that was to make them last longer so you have a good battery for years to come.' I told him that if I wanted a S60 I would have bought one and paid MUCH less. He suggested I write a letter to Tesla

You should have said, "I did and its signed Edward Chen."

 

[lightningltd]

You should have said, "I did and its signed Edward Chen."

I inferred it when I said " I would rather TESLA fix this than to join that lawsuit I heard about." He suddenly had to go help another customer

 

[David99]

I have tried several days in a row and my car will not charge to 100%. It will always stop saying 'complete' at 95-96% reducing my range to 200 miles down from 270 when I bought it. Totally messed up.

 

[lightningltd]

I have tried several days in a row and my car will not charge to 100%. It will always stop saying 'complete' at 95-96% reducing my range to 200 miles down from 270 when I bought it. Totally messed up.

Welcome to our world, unfortunately.
When I called Tesla when it first happened in June, they suggested I bring it in. Problem is that at the time, you needed the full 90% of the OLD charge level to make it to them. Then when I suggested they flatbed it, they called me back and an engineer gave me the stock BS answer that they looked at the logs and nothing is wrong. It is normal degradation, but could not say why it was all at once. The funny thing is, that the car was parked where it could not get a signal, so HOW could they get to the logs? Hmmmm…. THATS when I realized I was getting played and found this thread.

 

[3ry-reset]

@lightningltd Pre AP cars get Chill mode, they just removed the Accel selector after adding it in 9.1. It's not enabled by itself but they enable it when using Speed Limit Mode. here's my hacked pre-AP car when I enable the AP display and Speed Limit Mode - it changed to say "C H I L L" at the top! Tesla just hides the slider so you buy a newer car without free supercharging.

@Ferrycraigs 100% not being 100%in app might be tesla hiding t he cap. Their BMS setup has 1 field for "Soft Pack Energy Limit" and "UI Energy Limit" that can be different. You asked how to prove you are capped earlier, Capped cars this should be less than 100%. It's Tesla's own dashboard info so not 3rd party either, but you need root or a friendly service tech to show you.

 

[Chaserr]

'Oh the 85kw? that was to make them last longer so you have a good battery for years to come.'

No, that's what the warranty is for.

 

[lightningltd]

No, that's what the warranty is for.

Precisely.

 

[trisgarage]

Are you guys making service appointments for the capping/charge rate issues?

Also, are you charging to 100% now?

This issue is taking up time and thought, and I'm wondering how to best approach this.

 

[AMPUP]

I made my appt. a month ago for this coming Friday(for several other issues as well like not being able to reset my TPMS after changing wheels). But this week the car will not charge above 20%.. Says Battery capacity has been reduced. So maybe my Battery is F'd and Ill get a new one, or maybe 20% is the new 100

 

[Ferrycraigs]

@Ferrycraigs 100% not being 100%in app might be tesla hiding t he cap. Their BMS setup has 1 field for "Soft Pack Energy Limit" and "UI Energy Limit" that can be different. You asked how to prove you are capped earlier, Capped cars this should be less than 100%. It's Tesla's own dashboard info so not 3rd party either, but you need root or a friendly service tech to show you.

I don’t remember asking how I prove I was capped. If I did I blame it on the coffee. It’s not always as strong as it needs to be. I’m sure I know how to do that. Indeed the last time I checked at 100% it showed the voltage was 4.076V. So I’m not in any doubt. But for the last two or three weeks, I have been unable to charge up to 100% (of my reduced capacity battery). It just stops charging at around 97/98%. But I have enough screen grabs.

 

[xbox4me62]

Are you guys making service appointments for the capping/charge rate issues?

Also, are you charging to 100% now?

This issue is taking up time and thought, and I'm wondering how to best approach this.

Yes. They won't do anything about it though. They'll say "we detected no faults" and send you on your way. The moment I leave I make another appointment. I'll be trying a different service center next time

 

[eye.surgeon]

You're wasting your time taking your car into a service center for chargegate or batterygate issues. The only fix for this is a reversal of previously pushed software and the only way that is happening is as a result of mediation and likely subsequent litigation, or alternatively NHTSA intervention. The former could take many months or even years.

 

[lightningltd]

I made my appt. a month ago for this coming Friday(for several other issues as well like not being able to reset my TPMS after changing wheels). But this week the car will not charge above 20%.. Says Battery capacity has been reduced. So maybe my Battery is F'd and Ill get a new one, or maybe 20% is the new 100

I would say that since you cannot go above 20% that either a full module went out or something in the charge circuit or cooling system.
Hopefully if you end up with a new battery its a non-infected 90 battery That would make the most financial sense for Tesla, as they could software limit it to an 85 which gives them the extra 5% for wear resistance.

 

[David99]

I have not made an appointment for the batterygate issue because based on all the reports here it's pointless. They stick to their story that everything is fine. It's so frustrating that they just claim all is fine and at the same time don't accept any data acquired on the CAN bus.

 

[Todd Burch]

New things we pre-facelift (non AP) do not get: The one foot driving. Just like chill mode, even though it is possible to do, Tesla has reserved it for AP cars .

One correction here: the reason you don’t have one-pedal driving isn’t because you don’t have AP. (I have a pre-facelift car with AP but no one-pedal driving). The reason you don’t have it is because your car has an induction motor and not a permanent magnet motor.

Permanent magnet motors have a permanent magnetic field in the stator and thus can regen down to 0 mph easily and efficiently.

Induction motors, however, use energy to “induce” a magnetic field in the stator. As a result, they cannot efficiently preserve a strong-enough magnetic field all the way down to 0 mph. Basically induction motors would waste a lot of energy trying to regen down to zero, and would result in a net loss of energy, which is why our cars stop the regen at 5 mph.

 

[omarsultan]

You're wasting your time taking your car into a service center for chargegate or batterygate issues. The only fix for this is a reversal of previously pushed software and the only way that is happening is as a result of mediation and likely subsequent litigation, or alternatively NHTSA intervention. The former could take many months or even years.

I don't think it's that simple. If reversing the SW update results in a safety issue, its a no-go. At that point, they are stuck replacing batteries for however many cars are affected.

 

[eye.surgeon]

I don't think it's that simple. If reversing the SW update results in a safety issue, its a no-go. At that point, they are stuck replacing batteries for however many cars are affected.

Simply changing the battery pack won't restore functionality, the software cap must also be removed or we will simply have a new battery with the same hobbled performance.

 

[cpa]

I suspect that the pernicious parasitic nematode has emerged from its spore state and commenced its noxious ways into my battery. Since this ugly situation surfaced six months ago, I have periodically calculated my maximum range. I have consistently figured my range miles to be 254-256 at 100% until today. My range today is now 250. Seventy-five kilo-watt hours is the consistent result using the energy graph data divided by percent of capacity.

I am out of town for ten days. I’ll continue to verify once I am home to see if this is an aberrant result or not.

 

[Ferrycraigs]

You're wasting your time taking your car into a service center for chargegate or batterygate issues. The only fix for this is a reversal of previously pushed software and the only way that is happening is as a result of mediation and likely subsequent litigation, or alternatively NHTSA intervention. The former could take many months or even years.

I agree. Of the many possible reasons for Teslas actions, I am most persuaded by the weakening battery theory. Perhaps the cut corners during the curing process or used slightly inferior materials, or whatever. But it seems very credible that whilst searching for Dendrites, Tesla found a number of batteries that were ageing' quicker than expected. And whilst they might still be within specification now, they foresaw that at some point within the 8 year Warranty period, they would fail if they kept being used at current rates. So they capped some batteries forcing owners to charge up to or below the old 85%, but for a much wider group of vehicles they have realised that pumping DC into the batteries at 90-100 kWs was more than the batteries could handle, and it was wearing them out much faster than expected. Solution, stop charging them at high kW settings.

If this theory is correct then it explains why they are happy claiming our batteries are healthy (read unhealthy but still within spec) and why so many batteries charge so much slower than they used to. This would also be something they couldn’t advertise, as the Supercharging network, and the 40 minutes to 80% is what sells cars.

 

[Todd Burch]

I suspect that the pernicious parasitic nematode has emerged from its spore state and commenced its noxious ways into my battery. Since this ugly situation surfaced six months ago, I have periodically calculated my maximum range. I have consistently figured my range miles to be 254-256 at 100% until today. My range today is now 250. Seventy-five kilo-watt hours is the consistent result using the energy graph data divided by percent of capacity.

I am out of town for ten days. I’ll continue to verify once I am home to see if this is an aberrant result or not.

Don’t forget that apparent range goes down every winter and back up in the spring. Every year since 2012 my 90% charge would drop a few miles in the Fall/early winter, and go back up a few miles in Spring. Make sure you’re not just seeing that effect.