Wiki Sudden Loss Of Range With 2019.16.x Software

[Red_DS]

New to this thread and I definitely haven’t read all 651 pages of stuff here so not sure if it has been discussed already.

I compared a friend’s 2012 85 kWh battery pack against mine (2017 75kWh). We noted the well known issue of the battery being limited to 4.15V (presumably this limit has increased quite a bit in the last few software updates since her range has come back quite a bit).

He also has been throttled on supercharging (DC charging counter above 10mWh).

But what we found really interesting was, his battery “Active cooling target” was set to 35C with a passive cooling target of 30C. Comparatively, mine was set to 52C and 30C respectively.

We looked at this because he had complained about how his supercharging is throttled but also how his cooling system comes on way quicker than before and sometimes even when he’s driven only 2 miles. He also had an instance where supercharging throttled all the way down to 4 kW(!) after cooling came on immediately after connecting and ran at what seemed like full speed.

Not sure what to make of this. Seems like Tesla adjusting the temperature bands to be more narrow on the older packs to reduce degradation?

 

[Droschke]

“Active cooling target” was set to 35C with a passive cooling target of 30C.

Which tool are you getting these datapoints from?

I would like to see @David99's comments on your post.

Seems like Tesla adjusting the temperature bands to be more narrow on the older packs to reduce degradation?

You mean to reduce the possibility of fires?

Also, has your friend experienced a sudden range loss after 2019.16.x software update (the topic of this thread)?

Thanks for the feedback.

 

[AmpedRealtor]

BJØRN NYLAND wants to test your cars. I just received a response from him on his Youtube channel after inquiring about this issue. I told him to get in touch with you guys here. You can also let him know on his Youtube channel. This would finally get this issue the exposure it very much needs.

 

[AmpedRealtor]

Did Tesla start forcing updates without notice? I was never notified—and I did not approve—installing the last update that overhauled SiriusXM. I got into my car a few days ago and saw the release notes on the screen. My car stealthily updated itself. Is this the new normal now?

 

[MP3Mike]

Did Tesla start forcing updates without notice? I was never notified—and I did not approve—installing the last update that overhauled SiriusXM. I got into my car a few days ago and saw the release notes on the screen. My car stealthily updated itself. Is this the new normal now?

Apparently the SirusXM update doesn't require a software update, you should still have the same version installed. It may have been in lots of versions and just finally activated. (Maybe it was waiting on a server-side update?)

 

[Red_DS]

Which tool are you getting these datapoints from?

ScanMyTesla.

You mean to reduce the possibility of fires?

Don’t know. Or to reduce faster degradation. @wk057 May know.

Also, has your friend experienced a sudden range loss after 2019.16.x software update (the topic of this thread)?

Yes. He had a huge range loss with 2019.16. They slowly started giving him back his range over the last several software updates. However, he’s still limited to 4.15V and still can’t charge to 4.20V.

 

[raphy3]

We had a spreadsheet tracking people like six months ago. I wonder how many people have been capped. It almost sounds like ALL 85s have been DC charge capped independent of the counter.

 

[Florian500]

We had a spreadsheet tracking people like six months ago. I wonder how many people have been capped. It almost sounds like ALL 85s have been DC charge capped independent of the counter.

Yes, all have been charge rate reduced.
Some data to play with: Fleet Charging MAX (Firmware)

But some more than others. Best rate, approximated well enough: charge rate = 110 - state of charge
Some others are more reduced.
Again, more data to explore: Fleet Charging AVG

 

[Battpower]

Yes, all have been charge rate reduced.
Some data to play with: Fleet Charging MAX (Firmware)

But some more than others. Best rate, approximated well enough: charge rate = 110 - state of charge
Some others are more reduced.
Again, more data to explore: Fleet Charging AVG

You could spend days in that data. Really interesting, especially comparing models / pack capacities and it likely gives insight into what's going on in Tesla's 'mind' as they made these adjustments.

All those changes and not a single mention in any update notes!

Interesting to see the effect on different packs when 'abundance of caution' was first applied. Also the changes in charge profiles for new(er) models.

Makes it obvious how meaningless it could be to boast that charging increased to 150 kw or whatever unless you only supercharge between very narrow range of SOC.

FWIW (@Droschke) pretty hard to identify 'degradation' in all those changes. Much more aligned with trying different settings to deal with an issue than any gradual and inevitable decay.

 

[David99]

Which tool are you getting these datapoints from?

I would like to see @David99's comments on your post.

Scan My Tesla has these new data points available now. The passive cooling targets are more or less irrelevant. The car doesn't do anything to reach those as far as I can tell. As long as the battery is below the active cooling target, the car will just circulate the coolant through the battery at low speed without going through any radiator or heat exchanger or anything.

If the cooling target is below the battery temperature it will use the AC system to cool the battery down actively. The higher the difference the harder the AC system is working.

Again, based on watching the battery temperature and new active cooling targets in Scan My Tesla for a while now I can't come up with a complete explanation what is going on. One thing that is clear is that when the battery is at high state of charge the cooling target is somewhat lower and the car will use a more or less significant amount of energy to cool the battery. Even if you park the car it will still continue to cool the battery. But I also noticed that the cooling target isn't only linked to SoC. It seems it is lower if you supercharged recently.

Here is how messed up Tesla's thermal system is with affected batteries at the moment:
When you supercharge, the car will cool the battery down a lot to reach the relatively low cooling target as the battery fills up. Typically the battery is between 40 and 54 C while supercharging and the cooling target at 95% is 27 C. That's a lot of energy (in form of heat) that needs to be removed from the battery pack. It takes up a significant amount of range. My only choice is to stay at the supercharger longer to wait for the battery cools down. At least to a degree so I don't lose too much range from battery cooling needs. This comes after my already reduced charge speed. I get hit twice with a time penalty.

Now I drive and the car continues to cool the battery down. As I drive the DU, which is normally on it's own coolant loop, is getting warmer. At some point it reaches it's active cooling target and at this point the car connects the coolant loops of the battery and DU . That pushes the hot coolant coming from the DU into the battery. Basically it dumps the heat into the battery. As a result the drive unit gets cooled but the battery gets hot. To compensate the AC system tries to cool down the coolant but it can do only so much. On hot days, the AC is running full speed (using 4-5 kW) trying to cool both the battery and DU and the cabin. At this point it's simply overwhelmed. The last 20 miles before my next supercharger the AC is drawing full power (taking away range) and the battery ends up being well over 50C. Now the cycle begins again. Supercharging heats up the battery even more and as I get to higher state of charge the car has to bring the battery down again to the low cooling target. The amount of energy wasted and range lost in this is just stupid.

The lawsuit is only about the lost range. There are several other issues that all pile up and negatively affect the car's usability. People don't get it. It's not just a few miles of range loss. When people only drive 40 miles a day and aren't affected it's easy to say, 'oh what's the big deal'. My car is seriously crippled in so many ways and it affects my daily driving significantly.

 

[Droschke]

Yes, all have been charge rate reduced.
Some data to play with: Fleet Charging MAX (Firmware)

But some more than others. Best rate, approximated well enough: charge rate = 110 - state of charge
Some others are more reduced.
Again, more data to explore: Fleet Charging AVG

Very nice informative charts. Thanks for posting them.

I do agree with the "charge rate = 110 - state of charge" as the best rate applicable only to some cars. At 50% SoC, my supercharge rate is well below 50kW.

FWIW (@Droschke) pretty hard to identify 'degradation' in all those changes. Much more aligned with trying different settings to deal with an issue than any gradual and inevitable decay.

Yes, that's why any discussion about any natural "degradation" in this thread is misleading and definitely a useless exercise. It's off-topic.

 

[hpartsch]

Scan My Tesla has these new data points available now. The passive cooling targets are more or less irrelevant. The car doesn't do anything to reach those as far as I can tell. As long as the battery is below the active cooling target, the car will just circulate the coolant through the battery at low speed without going through any radiator or heat exchanger or anything.

If the cooling target is below the battery temperature it will use the AC system to cool the battery down actively. The higher the difference the harder the AC system is working.

Again, based on watching the battery temperature and new active cooling targets in Scan My Tesla for a while now I can't come up with a complete explanation what is going on. One thing that is clear is that when the battery is at high state of charge the cooling target is somewhat lower and the car will use a more or less significant amount of energy to cool the battery. Even if you park the car it will still continue to cool the battery. But I also noticed that the cooling target isn't only linked to SoC. It seems it is lower if you supercharged recently.

Here is how messed up Tesla's thermal system is with affected batteries at the moment:
When you supercharge, the car will cool the battery down a lot to reach the relatively low cooling target as the battery fills up. Typically the battery is between 40 and 54 C while supercharging and the cooling target at 95% is 27 C. That's a lot of energy (in form of heat) that needs to be removed from the battery pack. It takes up a significant amount of range. My only choice is to stay at the supercharger longer to wait for the battery cools down. At least to a degree so I don't lose too much range from battery cooling needs. This comes after my already reduced charge speed. I get hit twice with a time penalty.

Now I drive and the car continues to cool the battery down. As I drive the DU, which is normally on it's own coolant loop, is getting warmer. At some point it reaches it's active cooling target and at this point the car connects the coolant loops of the battery and DU . That pushes the hot coolant coming from the DU into the battery. Basically it dumps the heat into the battery. As a result the drive unit gets cooled but the battery gets hot. To compensate the AC system tries to cool down the coolant but it can do only so much. On hot days, the AC is running full speed (using 4-5 kW) trying to cool both the battery and DU and the cabin. At this point it's simply overwhelmed. The last 20 miles before my next supercharger the AC is drawing full power (taking away range) and the battery ends up being well over 50C. Now the cycle begins again. Supercharging heats up the battery even more and as I get to higher state of charge the car has to bring the battery down again to the low cooling target. The amount of energy wasted and range lost in this is just stupid.

The lawsuit is only about the lost range. There are several other issues that all pile up and negatively affect the car's usability. People don't get it. It's not just a few miles of range loss. When people only drive 40 miles a day and aren't affected it's easy to say, 'oh what's the big deal'. My car is seriously crippled in so many ways and it affects my daily driving significantly.

Just curious, for cooling your cabin.... I used to be able to set my cabin temp at 73 and it was consistency comfortable. I now found myself having to put it down to 66. Does this happen to you? I'm going to break out the fridge temp and see what the real temp is -- the mobile app says the interior is 66 when I set it to that -- there is noo way this is true.

 

[David99]

Just curious, for cooling your cabin.... I used to be able to set my cabin temp at 73 and it was consistency comfortable. I now found myself having to put it down to 66. Does this happen to you? I'm going to break out the fridge temp and see what the real temp is -- the mobile app says the interior is 66 when I set it to that -- there is noo way this is true.

In the past 6 years I had my car I never noticed what you described. They updated the HVAC system a few times over the years and how it works but nothing I noticed recently. When starting the AC via the app it will cool less than when I sit in the car. Precooling the car seems to run on a reduced power setting.

 

[Droschke]

Scan My Tesla has these new data points available now. The passive cooling targets are more or less irrelevant. The car doesn't do anything to reach those as far as I can tell. As long as the battery is below the active cooling target, the car will just circulate the coolant through the battery at low speed without going through any radiator or heat exchanger or anything.

If the cooling target is below the battery temperature it will use the AC system to cool the battery down actively. The higher the difference the harder the AC system is working.

Again, based on watching the battery temperature and new active cooling targets in Scan My Tesla for a while now I can't come up with a complete explanation what is going on. One thing that is clear is that when the battery is at high state of charge the cooling target is somewhat lower and the car will use a more or less significant amount of energy to cool the battery. Even if you park the car it will still continue to cool the battery. But I also noticed that the cooling target isn't only linked to SoC. It seems it is lower if you supercharged recently.

Here is how messed up Tesla's thermal system is with affected batteries at the moment:
When you supercharge, the car will cool the battery down a lot to reach the relatively low cooling target as the battery fills up. Typically the battery is between 40 and 54 C while supercharging and the cooling target at 95% is 27 C. That's a lot of energy (in form of heat) that needs to be removed from the battery pack. It takes up a significant amount of range. My only choice is to stay at the supercharger longer to wait for the battery cools down. At least to a degree so I don't lose too much range from battery cooling needs. This comes after my already reduced charge speed. I get hit twice with a time penalty.

Now I drive and the car continues to cool the battery down. As I drive the DU, which is normally on it's own coolant loop, is getting warmer. At some point it reaches it's active cooling target and at this point the car connects the coolant loops of the battery and DU . That pushes the hot coolant coming from the DU into the battery. Basically it dumps the heat into the battery. As a result the drive unit gets cooled but the battery gets hot. To compensate the AC system tries to cool down the coolant but it can do only so much. On hot days, the AC is running full speed (using 4-5 kW) trying to cool both the battery and DU and the cabin. At this point it's simply overwhelmed. The last 20 miles before my next supercharger the AC is drawing full power (taking away range) and the battery ends up being well over 50C. Now the cycle begins again. Supercharging heats up the battery even more and as I get to higher state of charge the car has to bring the battery down again to the low cooling target. The amount of energy wasted and range lost in this is just stupid.

The lawsuit is only about the lost range. There are several other issues that all pile up and negatively affect the car's usability. People don't get it. It's not just a few miles of range loss. When people only drive 40 miles a day and aren't affected it's easy to say, 'oh what's the big deal'. My car is seriously crippled in so many ways and it affects my daily driving significantly.

Thanks David. It's a big mess. Knowing all of it prevents me from using the car all together. Imagine replacing all these over-worked parts once out of the so called "warranty"!

 

[Chaserr]

cooling target at 95% is 27 C

27C is below ambient air temperature for half the country, and even where it is colder mild use will warm the battery over. This must be how they are perpetrating Draingate.

Why are they modifying battery software to keep charged packs colder than ambient?

Imagine replacing all these over-worked parts once out of the so called "warranty"!

Imagine "The world's best service and warranty program" was more than a bait and switch fraud

 

[mymagiccarpet]

Scan My Tesla has these new data points available now. The passive cooling targets are more or less irrelevant. The car doesn't do anything to reach those as far as I can tell. As long as the battery is below the active cooling target, the car will just circulate the coolant through the battery at low speed without going through any radiator or heat exchanger or anything.

If the cooling target is below the battery temperature it will use the AC system to cool the battery down actively. The higher the difference the harder the AC system is working.

Again, based on watching the battery temperature and new active cooling targets in Scan My Tesla for a while now I can't come up with a complete explanation what is going on. One thing that is clear is that when the battery is at high state of charge the cooling target is somewhat lower and the car will use a more or less significant amount of energy to cool the battery. Even if you park the car it will still continue to cool the battery. But I also noticed that the cooling target isn't only linked to SoC. It seems it is lower if you supercharged recently.

Here is how messed up Tesla's thermal system is with affected batteries at the moment:
When you supercharge, the car will cool the battery down a lot to reach the relatively low cooling target as the battery fills up. Typically the battery is between 40 and 54 C while supercharging and the cooling target at 95% is 27 C. That's a lot of energy (in form of heat) that needs to be removed from the battery pack. It takes up a significant amount of range. My only choice is to stay at the supercharger longer to wait for the battery cools down. At least to a degree so I don't lose too much range from battery cooling needs. This comes after my already reduced charge speed. I get hit twice with a time penalty.

Now I drive and the car continues to cool the battery down. As I drive the DU, which is normally on it's own coolant loop, is getting warmer. At some point it reaches it's active cooling target and at this point the car connects the coolant loops of the battery and DU . That pushes the hot coolant coming from the DU into the battery. Basically it dumps the heat into the battery. As a result the drive unit gets cooled but the battery gets hot. To compensate the AC system tries to cool down the coolant but it can do only so much. On hot days, the AC is running full speed (using 4-5 kW) trying to cool both the battery and DU and the cabin. At this point it's simply overwhelmed. The last 20 miles before my next supercharger the AC is drawing full power (taking away range) and the battery ends up being well over 50C. Now the cycle begins again. Supercharging heats up the battery even more and as I get to higher state of charge the car has to bring the battery down again to the low cooling target. The amount of energy wasted and range lost in this is just stupid.

The lawsuit is only about the lost range. There are several other issues that all pile up and negatively affect the car's usability. People don't get it. It's not just a few miles of range loss. When people only drive 40 miles a day and aren't affected it's easy to say, 'oh what's the big deal'. My car is seriously crippled in so many ways and it affects my daily driving significantly.

I couldn't agree more with you. Another example is if the garage is let's say at 85-90, as soon as i open the door, the fan kicks in, whether i am getting something out of the car, or i actually want to drive somewhere, so it doesn't even wait to see if I'm actually going to drive, it just kicks in cooling immediately...that is how aggressive it is. Why???? It wasn't like that before infamous FW update.
And like you said, the car is affected in several ways that critically changed its behavior and usability since the update, and they keep playing with it to see how far it can go without being fixed. And they just keep ignoring all these issues and telling customers that everything is ok with your $80k+ car.
- reduced range - in more ways than just battery capping (capping, reduced regen, increased use of cooling, using pump to reduce SOC below 80% or even lower, etc...there is probably more)
- reduced cabin cooling, especially in hot weather (when you need it the most)
- reduced charge rate
- reduced car value
- reduced power

It's such a good car, and yet, the company's response couldn't be more frustrating.
Making wide public aware of all of this usually has positive impact on company behavior.

 

[mymagiccarpet]

Just curious, for cooling your cabin.... I used to be able to set my cabin temp at 73 and it was consistency comfortable. I now found myself having to put it down to 66. Does this happen to you? I'm going to break out the fridge temp and see what the real temp is -- the mobile app says the interior is 66 when I set it to that -- there is noo way this is true.

I've been complaining about this for about a year now maybe more. It's documented in this thread.
Also SC "checked out" my HVAC twice and "all is good"
I'll repost something here that i wrote but keep it short. Recently, i was driving the car after it was sitting in the sun at 95F. It was so hot in the car and after having AC on 68-69, I put the temp at lowest (I think 62?) and I increased the fan to 11...within 2 seconds, car reduced the fan speed by itself several notches from 11 without actually showing it on the display. So it still showed 11, but was blowing at probably 8ish.

 

[Battpower]

It's not just a few miles of range loss.

It is quite unbelieveable that you could be expected to regard your car's behavior as anything near acceptable. It is crazy that the net energy consumption of your car can change so much and apparently be of minimal concern. And are owners really expected to just take all this as 'normal' and 'business as normal'? What the heck has to happen before there is a recognized 'failure'????

 

[Droschke]

And are owners really expected to just take all this as 'normal' and 'business as normal'? What the heck has to happen before there is a recognized 'failure'????

Good rhetorical questions. Before you started posting here, we had spent a good chunk of this thread to pose questions similar to yours to those who did their best to stifle the topic of this thread. Few are still posting. It's best to address your question to them (privately please) if you are still interested in some answers.

 

[JustADude]

I suppose range mode could help the temperature issue right?

Tesla said range mode limits cabin climate and also more or less passively manages the battery temps. It doesn't heat/cool the battery as much to maintain perfect temps. It doesn't preheat the battery for charging.

If it doesn't preheat the battery for charging then theres less heat to worry about right?