Wiki Sudden Loss Of Range With 2019.16.x Software

[cpa]

First and foremost, a big thank you to DJRas and his mongoose-like determination to get at that cobra.

What is unclear, and what I hope that will be made clear:

(1) The battery fans run at odd times. This results in the AC fan in the cabin to be reset to setting #1. Will the interior fan be restored to the previous setting going forward, or will we have to crank up the speed manually every day?

(2) Vampire drain has become outrageous. I mean, 4-5% of battery can vanish overnight. I presume that this is the new normal.

So, I presume that the $625 is part punitive and part compensatory.

harge rate reduction was not part of this lawsuit because that occurred AFTER we filed. Though that affects many more people, it will be difficult to bring action because there was never a guaranteed charge rate (the wording was always "up to"). Additionally, it is legally difficult to assess and assign a monetary loss due to the extra time now required.

I regret that this is sadly the case. Slippery things, those words. Tesla always promoted their charging times, and we all knew that our times could be slower because of stall sharing and cold or extremely hot temperatures. But we never inferred that the meaning of the phrase "up to" also applied to an intentional act by Tesla. I mean, what is to prohibit Tesla from maxing out our Supercharging speed at 25kW?

It is further true that our tort rules have to put a dollar amount to a loss, or failing that some sort of injunction or restriction against future acts.

It puzzles me why this settlement took essentially eighteen months to reach an agreement. And I don't want to hear the hackneyed COVID pandemic excuse.

We will never find out the answer to what I think is the most important issue: Who owns our cars and all the components, and does a manufacturer or purveyor of these cars and components have the right to change the factory settings without our full knowledge and consent?

 

[lightningltd]

Well I was wrong, it appears that they didn't put the wrong date, it just took a little longer than the expected...

Big news: There is a proposed settlement.

CAND-ECF

ecf.cand.uscourts.gov

They estimated that actual damages were $175/vehicle, and that it would be risky to even get that at trial, so the $625/vehicle settlement is a good deal for the class.



Of course the attorney's take 27%, ~$410k, of the settlement fund. While DJRas gets $1,000 for his effort.

So what about those of us who STILL have NOT had our range restored AT ALL?????? Am I included under 'missing data' even though i have reported it MANY times??? Jeez.

 

[Droschke]

How does one confirm whether his car is an affected car?

Have you read the first post of this thread (the wiki)?

 

[bigsmooth125]

Have you read the first post of this thread (the wiki)?

Yes but I don't have CANBUS reader. Was wondering if there's another way to determine this.

 

[Droschke]

(1) The battery fans run at odd times. This results in the AC fan in the cabin to be reset to setting #1. Will the interior fan be restored to the previous setting going forward, or will we have to crank up the speed manually every day?

I'm still fully capped but have not noticed the the AC fan in the cabin to be reset to setting #1. Has Tesla looked into this for you?

(2) Vampire drain has become outrageous. I mean, 4-5% of battery can vanish overnight. I presume that this is the new normal.

I lose about 2 miles a day with the car parked and plugged in. That's always been the case for me even when I was not capped.

But we never inferred that the meaning of the phrase "up to" also applied to an intentional act by Tesla. I mean, what is to prohibit Tesla from maxing out our Supercharging speed at 25kW?

Absolutely. Need regulations to stop this kind of abuse.

It is further true that our tort rules have to put a dollar amount to a loss, or failing that some sort of injunction or restriction against future acts.

It puzzles me why this settlement took essentially eighteen months to reach an agreement. And I don't want to hear the hackneyed COVID pandemic excuse.

We will never find out the answer to what I think is the most important issue: Who owns our cars and all the components, and does a manufacturer or purveyor of these cars and components have the right to change the factory settings without our full knowledge and consent?

These obscure updates and the negative consequences for the owners prove we really don't 'own' these cars. Need regulations to stop this kind of abuse.

 

[Droschke]

Yes but I don't have CANBUS reader. Was wondering if there's another way to determine this.

Then you missed it. There is a method offered under "CALCULATION OF AMOUNT OF CAPACITY BLOCKED BY CAPPING" section.

 

[bigsmooth125]

Then you missed it. There is a method offered under "CALCULATION OF AMOUNT OF CAPACITY BLOCKED BY CAPPING" section.

I read that section but having reduced capacity could be due to degradation. A couple of sections later, it says that a CANBUS reader is necessary to calculate the voltage.

 

[Droschke]

I read that section but having reduced capacity could be due to degradation. A couple of sections later, it says that a CANBUS reader is necessary to calculate the voltage.

Can you provide the detail about your car, the result of that calculation and the % of kWh loss you come up with?

 

[Gixx1300R]

This is BS!!!!

Tesla agrees to pay $1.5 mln to settle claims over battery voltage reduction

Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) has agreed to pay $1.5 million to settle claims a software update temporarily reduced maximum battery voltage in 1,743 Model S sedans, court documents show.

www.reuters.com

 

[BPeter]

Nice to see this finally resolved.
I'm actually pretty surprised that Tesla was so secretive about this issue considering the number of cars was that low. Interesting also that they went through all this versus just replacing the battery packs. Given the secrecy and refusal to replace batteries, I thought the affected number would be massive.

 

[Gixx1300R]

Nice to see this finally resolved.
I'm actually pretty surprised that Tesla was so secretive about this issue considering the number of cars was that low. Interesting also that they went through all this versus just replacing the battery packs. Given the secrecy and refusal to replace batteries, I thought the affected number would be massive.

I would say the number is massive, Possibly every Model S and X built from 2012 through 2016 to when the battery chemistry changed

 

[BigNick]

Need regulations to stop this kind of abuse.

Has this sort of thing ever happened with ICE cars (not including VW Dieselgate, since that was more about emissions than worn-out/insufficiently-engineered hardware)?

For example, Fodge releases a new 1200 HP street legal HellPony and they get an arseload of warranty claims about broken crankshafts. To prevent broken cranks, instead of replacing cranks with a better forged crank, they do an OTA update that tames the HellPony down to 1050 HP that prevents breaking the original cast cranks.

 

[Droschke]

Has this sort of thing ever happened with ICE cars (not including VW Dieselgate, since that was more about emissions than worn-out/insufficiently-engineered hardware)?

For example, Fodge releases a new 1200 HP street legal HellPony and they get an arseload of warranty claims about broken crankshafts. To prevent broken cranks, instead of replacing cranks with a better forged crank, they do an OTA update that tames the HellPony down to 1050 HP that prevents breaking the original cast cranks.

Good analogy. This was for a safety issue. What does a capacity miscalculation by BMS to overcharge the battery result in?

 

[aerodyne]

Has this sort of thing ever happened with ICE cars (not including VW Dieselgate, since that was more about emissions than worn-out/insufficiently-engineered hardware)?

For example, Fodge releases a new 1200 HP street legal HellPony and they get an arseload of warranty claims about broken crankshafts. To prevent broken cranks, instead of replacing cranks with a better forged crank, they do an OTA update that tames the HellPony down to 1050 HP that prevents breaking the original cast cranks.

With aircraft this has happened. A regulation known as a AD is issued, and the air speed or power setting is limited. In most cases, no recourse for the owner.

 

[BigNick]

With aircraft this has happened. A regulation known as a AD is issued, and the air speed or power setting is limited. In most cases, no recourse for the owner.

RGL Home Page

rgl.faa.gov

Wow. The NHTSA has nothing on the FAA.

 

[Chaserr]

Sorry if the focus / interest of the thread has moved away from technical and more towards legal process, but I stumbled on an old 2018 Design News article on Dendrites (and also pre-Dendrites and non-dentrites) that seems fairly easy reading and still interesting / pertinent.

"Without seeing what is happening inside, you could be easily fooled by the seemingly reasonable voltage, but, really, your battery has already failed."

Three Ways That Lithium Dendrites Grow

New research shows that lithium metal crystals grow in three different ways in lithium batteries, depending upon the current level at which charging takes place.

www.designnews.com

I did search to see if this has previously been posted and found nothing. Kind of old, but made me wonder what monitoring could be done outside of the cells purely based on electrical characteristics that would be able to determine these different states developing.

Temperature. They are looking for elevated temperatures between groups of cells especially when parked. This is why the pumps run without cooling for drain gate. They move coolant without actively cooling it to see if heat is higher in a specific group of cells than the next group or module over.

 

[BPeter]

I would say the number is massive, Possibly every Model S and X built from 2012 through 2016 to when the battery chemistry changed

I don't think so. This new information agrees completely with what @wk057 wrote in his post a couple months ago. The issue was the electronics on the battery management boards on each battery module, nothing to do with the actual cell chemistry.

 

[Droschke]

The issue was the electronics on the battery management boards on each battery module

Which would effectively result in overcharging (a safety issue) and triggering battery fire, correct?

 

[MP3Mike]

Which would effectively result in overcharging (a safety issue) and triggering battery fire, correct?

No, WK057 said that even the old firmware would detect the fault and shut down the car before any over charging happened.

 

[BPeter]

Which would effectively result in overcharging (a safety issue) and triggering battery fire, correct?

My point was more that this is unrelated to battery chemistry, so dates of battery chemistry changes aren't the endcaps, it's whenever these BMBs were revised to no longer have this defect.

If WK057 is correct, then there never was any safety risk. The super old firmware would detect this issue and protect against it, but not show any reduced range to the user and would not prevent the car from getting to a voltage range that would cause it to shut down if the voltage sense error happened while it was in that range.

I'd have to re-read his writeup for the exact details, here is the link to it

Explaining Changes post-firmware 2019.16 Regarding Range Loss | wk057's SkieNET

wk057 project site

skie.net

EDIT: Just skimmed it again. It all makes sense to me, except one thing. Why would they limit the UPPER voltage, if the erratic readings read LOWER voltage than actual. Having an erratic reading at the bottom makes sense that it would shut the car down, but how does limiting the upper voltage do anything? Not sure.

Only thing I can think of is if they're unsure of that voltage reading then it could be that the lower erratic voltage is the correct one, and the more consistent, higher voltage is actually the incorrect one. And with enough data they can know which the voltage actually is using the algorithm they made.

Also, if they're only capping the upper voltage, wouldn't the car still shut down if there was an erratic reading at the low end? Or did they also increase the minimum voltage? Or possibly ignore erratic low readings?