Wiki Sudden Loss Of Range With 2019.16.x Software

[Gixx1300R]

Why should those have been a recall? Recall are generally only for safety related issues, and neither of those are safety related, or really impair usability.

Even calling the eMMC a safety issue that requires a recall is pushing it. But at least it does impact functionality. (But Ford never recalled their poorly designed/failing HVAC controls that prevented proper operation of the defroster either.)

There are 3 types of recalls. Safety-Related Defect Mandatory Recalls, Voluntary Recalls and Technical Service Bulletins. This is regarded as a mandatory recall and is generally quite serious. Legally, any repairs made under this safety recall must be paid for by the manufacturer of the vehicle. A voluntary recall is when the manufacturer recalls vehicles for a defect that could affect safety.
A Technical Service Bulletin (TSB) is issued when a known problem or condition exists in a certain vehicle or group of related vehicles. The bulletin contains information on the recommended repair for that problem. A TSB can also be issued to notify dealerships of diagnostic procedure changes, modified or improved parts, or service manual revisions and updates.
A Technical Service Bulletin (TSB) is issued when a known problem or condition exists in a certain vehicle or group of related vehicles. The bulletin contains information on the recommended repair for that problem. A TSB can also be issued to notify dealerships of diagnostic procedure changes, modified or improved parts, or service manual revisions and updates.

 

[Droschke]

Why should those have been a recall? Recall are generally only for safety related issues, and neither of those are safety related, or really impair usability.

Even calling the eMMC a safety issue that requires a recall is pushing it. But at least it does impact functionality. (But Ford never recalled their poorly designed/failing HVAC controls that prevented proper operation of the defroster either.)

That's the best apology in behalf of Tesla you can offer today because Tesla is as bad/good as Ford?

 

[MP3Mike]

EMMC / screen related issues are Federal Motor Vehicle Safety standards recall eligible. Rear view displays are legally mandated safety equipment and widespread failures or potential failures of safety equipment is why recalls exist.

That is the best argument I have seen for why the eMMC issued should be a recall. Too bad it doesn't apply to any MCU1 containing vehicle because backup cameras weren't required until May, 2018. And by then Tesla had switched to putting MCU2 in the vehicles, which shouldn't suffer from this in the same way. (Not to mention that the software has been updated to reduce the eMMC wear so it should last even longer now.) Is it a coincidence that they switched to MCU2 just months before the requirement. Probably.

But even then what are the requirements for the backup cameras to continue working out of warranty? Are they required to work forever? And is the failure of the backup camera, out of warranty, an "unreasonable safety risk"?

I see there have been a few backup camera related recalls, most of them being because they saved the user view settings between backup events, which isn't allowed. (So they were just software updates.)

 

[MP3Mike]

That's the best apology in behalf of Tesla you can offer today because Tesla is as bad/good as Ford?

I'm not apologizing for anything, I'm just saying that it is unreasonable to expect that anything that fails out of warranty should become a recall. (Which is what people seem to be saying here.)

 

[Peter_11]

Looking at your previous posts here, I do not see you mentioning any sudden range loss (the topic of this thread), except a reference to "super slow supercharging" but with no data to quantify the super slow rate. It would be helpful to elaborate on your dissatisfaction with your car's battery situation in much more detail, as others have. Would you?

Yes, to quantify, I don't have the electronic analysis many of you have posted. We started paying attention to the battery issues when my wife had to leave our Model S 70D (purchased 12/2015) at home because "SuperCharging" was taking 3 times as long, and she couldn't wait that long over a 540 mile trip to get to her mother's cancer operation. We had called Tesla service many times and were assured that our battery was in great condition, that we had done a lot of supercharging (around 75%) and that the supercharging was wearing our battery out prematurely. We were also told that according to Tesla stats, we had only ever exceeded 80% total charge 3.39% of the time -- true, we were originally told to keep the charging under 80% to preserve battery life, so we only exceed 80% on long trips. The car came with free Supercharging, and we received *no* information that Supercharging would be bad for the car / battery.

Instead of the original 240+ range of the car originally, we are now reading 196 miles as the maximum when we go in for charging. The charge rate maxes out around 38Kw. When we travel around 20 miles, the "miles left" declines around 30, so I'm forced to use 67% of the stated mileage as "actual" available. My wife is afraid to drive anywhere outside the local area. Acceleration has noticeably decreased.

When Tesla service was called on the low charging rates, we were told to switch to a different connection at the SuperCharger station -- that didn't make any difference: we still had the same, slow charging rate.

The battery "degradation" was not gradual: This was a dramatic reduction we noticed around mid-Summer. Tesla refuses to replace our battery under warranty. They quoted $17,500 for a new battery, "plus installation".

 

[sorka]

I'm starting to think that if Tesla could force a remote install of v10 over my v8 they'd have done it by now. I wonder if they added this ability at some point and that perhaps the ability to force install staged software requires the current software to have that ability and that perhaps mine is too old to have that ability. I guess it's possible that leaving the rear door handle fuse out really does work.

At some point I'm going to have a real battery or DU issue that will result in my firmware being updated. Hopefully it's a battery issue before DU issue but I'm 106K miles on both original DUs. How long can they last on a Ludicrous performance model?

 

[Chaserr]

With the others that were force installed from v8 to v10 I had assumed they were all done manually - Tesla employees remoting to each car and using SSH to start a download / install. Your car was probably offline or on a too-slow connection at that time; it seemed to happen to everyone on the same week and mostly within the same day or two. Shush about it you don't want them remembering to manually downgrade your car.

 

[cpa]

I believe Tesla has made a mistake in handling customers with what appears to be some HV battery or BMS fault.

Yes, agreed.

That said, I wholeheartedly believe that Tesla strives to put out the best product possible. Why wouldn't they?

I disagree. Tesla does not strive to put out the best product possible. Tesla strives to put out a product that merely works OK. There have been countless threads on this site that have discussed substandard, flawed software that seems to have a hiccup or two. Sometimes they get resolved, sometimes we are still waiting for resolution. Sometimes (like our Model 3) the radio doesn't work properly, and we anxiously await another software update to maybe fix it.

Tesla does not want to focus on the past. Tesla wants to focus on the future. Spending money on past products does not have near the positive cash flow and other effects that spending money on the Model Y, pickup truck, and semi will bring to the company. I believe that the culture that Tesla inculcates with its employees is to finish up the old and forget about it in order to move on to the new.

My thought is that some miscalculation and then discovery has taken place and I assert they are trying to fix those problems behind the curtain. Obviously, they have downgraded our cars for a reason and I would guess that downgrade is to help the HV battery in some way...

I think Tesla had a hankering about potential deleterious effects when the battery packs and BMS were designed 8-9 years ago. But Tesla was in a rush to sell cars, and Tesla knew, just knew, that they would solve any potential issues within a period of time once they had more data from real life usage. However, they took their eye off the ball by devoting most of their resources to the X, 3, and future vehicles. Now the chickens have come home to roost.

In other words, Tesla mortgaged the future by ignoring the past.

 

[Mweida]

And to add insult how about power limiting at 20%

 

[Evoforce]

think Tesla had a hankering about potential deleterious effects when the battery packs and BMS were designed 8-9 years ago. But Tesla was in a rush to sell cars, and Tesla knew, just knew, that they would solve any potential issues within a period of time once they had more data from real life usage. However, they took their eye off the ball by devoting most of their resources to the X, 3, and future vehicles. Now the chickens have come home to roost.

In other words, Tesla mortgaged the future by ignoring the past.

Why does it have to be some conspiracy theory? Maybe they made a mistake or miscalculation and now it is coming to light. I'm sure we can agree that it is their responsibility to make us whole. We can all continue to speculate till the cows come home but what we need is a remedy to our cars being downgraded. Speculation and conspiracy theories are limitless... we just need Tesla to step up and replace these crippled batteries. Sadly, a lawsuit to get satisfaction looks to be our remedy.

 

[thesnooch]

I think Tesla had a hankering about potential deleterious effects when the battery packs and BMS were designed 8-9 years ago. But Tesla was in a rush to sell cars, and Tesla knew, just knew, that they would solve any potential issues within a period of time once they had more data from real life usage. However, they took their eye off the ball by devoting most of their resources to the X, 3, and future vehicles. Now the chickens have come home to roost.

In other words, Tesla mortgaged the future by ignoring the past.

"Striving to better, oft we mar what's well." (King Lear, Act 1, Scene 4) - Shakespeare

 

[Jonas_man]

Are you sure that using the energy capacity method calculations you get the buffer
Included? It makes no sense to include the buffer on the projected range.

 

[motocheme]

Are you sure that using the energy capacity method calculations you get the buffer
Included? It makes no sense to include the buffer on the projected range.

I agree with your assessment. My 1.5 year old 75D has nearly 10% degradation if I follow the instructions as listed. If I add 4 kWh back for the buffer I have only lost about 3%. I have been unwilling to drive past 0 miles to test out the theory!

 

[omarsultan]

Why does it have to be some conspiracy theory? Maybe they made a mistake or miscalculation and now it is coming to light. I'm sure we can agree that it is their responsibility to make us whole. We can all continue to speculate till the cows come home but what we need is a remedy to our cars being downgraded. Speculation and conspiracy theories are limitless... we just need Tesla to step up and replace these crippled batteries. Sadly, a lawsuit to get satisfaction looks to be our remedy.

You answer your own question. The complete lack of communications, let alone any forthright communication has lead to mistrust. A company committed to do the right things would minimally communicate their intent, even if they were not clear on how to make things right.

A simple and straightforward "hey, we found something weird going on with the packs, although we are not sure what the long-term fix is, we commit to honoring warranties and keeping you whole" would have saved us 9000 posts and a lot of stress for everyone involved.

 

[Evoforce]

You answer your own question. The complete lack of communications, let alone any forthright communication has lead to mistrust. A company committed to do the right things would minimally communicate their intent, even if they were not clear on how to make things right.

A simple and straightforward "hey, we found something weird going on with the packs, although we are not sure what the long-term fix is, we commit to honoring warranties and keeping you whole" would have saved us 9000 posts and a lot of stress for everyone involved.

And so.. what has speculation got us? Debating over speculation of what went wrong really is a rabbit hole. This lawsuit or Tesla having a change of will can't come soon enough. Yes, I feel that Tesla has handled this situation poorly...

 

[omarsultan]

That is the best argument I have seen for why the eMMC issued should be a recall. Too bad it doesn't apply to any MCU1 containing vehicle because backup cameras weren't required until May, 2018. And by then Tesla had switched to putting MCU2 in the vehicles, which shouldn't suffer from this in the same way. (Not to mention that the software has been updated to reduce the eMMC wear so it should last even longer now.) Is it a coincidence that they switched to MCU2 just months before the requirement. Probably.

But even then what are the requirements for the backup cameras to continue working out of warranty? Are they required to work forever? And is the failure of the backup camera, out of warranty, an "unreasonable safety risk"?

I see there have been a few backup camera related recalls, most of them being because they saved the user view settings between backup events, which isn't allowed. (So they were just software updates.)

For folks looking to make some noise in social media about Battery and Charge gate, be accurate and credible. Resist the urge to throw in the kitchen sink to try and strengthen your message, it will likely have the opposite effect. For example, if Tesla is replacing failed MCUs under warranty, then don't claim otherwise, as it undermines your credibility and anything further you have to stay. Keep you messages simple, focused and verifiable.

 

[omarsultan]

And so.. what has speculation got us? Debating over speculation really is a rabbit hole. This lawsuit or Tesla having a change of will can't come soon enough. Yes, I feel that Tesla has handled this situation poorly...

Granted all 9K posts are not gems, but some of the speculation has led to better understanding the "shape" of the issue and helped de-bunk some of the "you are using it wrong" scenarios (your daily charge to high, you DC charge too much, you let the battery run to low SoC too much, etc.)

I think its also important for folks to have a place where the can share thoughts, frustrations, etc so they don't feel like they are alone in dealing with this issue.

 

[faughtz]

Has anyone examined module voltage deltas under load? My modules are within a few mv, at both low and hi SOC, but when I look at module deltas under load, I see almost 500mv at 500A. Defective cells/modules or sampling artifacts?

 

[Droschke]

I'm not apologizing for anything

Your entire history of posts in this thread says the opposite

 

[Droschke]

Yes, to quantify, I don't have the electronic analysis many of you have posted. We started paying attention to the battery issues when my wife had to leave our Model S 70D (purchased 12/2015) at home because "SuperCharging" was taking 3 times as long, and she couldn't wait that long over a 540 mile trip to get to her mother's cancer operation. We had called Tesla service many times and were assured that our battery was in great condition, that we had done a lot of supercharging (around 75%) and that the supercharging was wearing our battery out prematurely. We were also told that according to Tesla stats, we had only ever exceeded 80% total charge 3.39% of the time -- true, we were originally told to keep the charging under 80% to preserve battery life, so we only exceed 80% on long trips. The car came with free Supercharging, and we received *no* information that Supercharging would be bad for the car / battery.

Instead of the original 240+ range of the car originally, we are now reading 196 miles as the maximum when we go in for charging. The charge rate maxes out around 38Kw. When we travel around 20 miles, the "miles left" declines around 30, so I'm forced to use 67% of the stated mileage as "actual" available. My wife is afraid to drive anywhere outside the local area. Acceleration has noticeably decreased.

When Tesla service was called on the low charging rates, we were told to switch to a different connection at the SuperCharger station -- that didn't make any difference: we still had the same, slow charging rate.

The battery "degradation" was not gradual: This was a dramatic reduction we noticed around mid-Summer. Tesla refuses to replace our battery under warranty. They quoted $17,500 for a new battery, "plus installation".

I'm the one who asked for more detail. Thanks so much for providing the detail. It's very helpful and pretty much aligned with the ordeal many of us have been going through. It's also no surprise to see no honest answer was provided to you either. If telling you to "switch to a different connection at the SuperCharger station" is not insulting, it's definitely laughable. These canned responses are infuriating.

Thanks again.