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Wiki Sudden Loss Of Range With 2019.16.x Software

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If 85% battery of battery range remaining after 8 years would be great, would 80% after 8 years be pretty good?

And it looks like battery replacements are about $11,000

Buying an early Tesla, this is far from my worst-case scenario. My greatest concern was Tesla going bankrupt and being bought up for disassembly by an oil company or someone else not wanting to disrupt the status quo. Going into it as an early adopter geek with terrible past experiences with batteries of all kinds, I figured a 15% or less battery degradation after 8 years would be great. My best-case hope was that Tesla would improve battery cost/efficiency so that they would offer a replacement battery much better and cheaper than the original by the time it was needed.
 
If it makes you feel any better the warranty never covered your degradation anyway.

Read your warranty and adjust your expectations accordingly.
My point was, that PRIOR to the last month (settlement), they were NOT calling it degradation. They stated that the range was reduced by the update to protect the longevity of the battery and that MOST if not ALL of the range would be returned in a later update, which was also stated by TESLA in the settlement. They reported that ALL those affected have either had it restored, or the battery replaced. They claimed that several were UNKNOWN status, which could NOT be my case, since I reported it when the update first came out, and several times after. They have also done other service to my car since. So basically, they LIED in the settlement. There was ZERO mention of degradation. NOW they are calling it degradation. And by the way, the ONLY warrantee that is in effect on my Tesla, is the ORIGINAL 2013 one, not the later ones that defined it.
 
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And it looks like battery replacements are about $11,000
Honestly, this is an excellent price for a replacement pack - with a caveat:

What are the minimum specs for the pack in terms of capacity and Supercharging rates? What is the warranty?

Nissan charges a significant fraction of that amount for 24-30 kWh nominal battery packs - like $6500-8500. And those packs don't last nearly as long as a Model S battery pack unless you live in a cool climate. So you could end up spending MORE over the same period of time for LEAF batteries than Model S batteries. Granted, the LEAF batteries are new instead of remanufactured, but still...
 
Honestly, this is an excellent price for a replacement pack - with a caveat:

What are the minimum specs for the pack in terms of capacity and Supercharging rates? What is the warranty?
Agree. If Tesla disable supercharging on salvage titles, isn't there the same risk with non-Tesla rebuilt batteries?

Tesla would supposedly bend over backwards to replace like for like with little or no increase in performance (although I forget how many saw the 350v 'new' replacement batteries).

If these batteries are refurbished by replacing failed bricks or individual cells, then that suggests the majority of the cells in the reman'd battery must have been OK.

That suggests something actually failed in the battery bringing about premature death of the battery as a whole.

Degradation and failure are different things. If the whole battery had degraded to the point of being unusable, then you couldn't fix it by replacing a failed component or subassembly.

Is it degradation that causes a gas motor to die if the water pump fails? Just because you call a complex subassembly ’the battery' clearly doesn't justify claiming the whole subassembly has degraded when one internal component fails.

Although, I'm not sure that's the same issue as pushing out software updates and changing the car's spec as a response to secret issues Tesla can't talk about. Other than by an acknowledgement that they got something wrong.
 
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8 years ago : buy a Tesla with 8 years warranty. The tech is evolving so fast that in 8 years you just replace you batteri with a new one with batter range and faster charging at a much lower price.........
In reality : Buy a remanufactured battery with the same range as you old battery with degradation, that has also been hit by charge-gate and pay 11K. Forget about upgrading this obsolete battery type
 
So, not to potentially open another can of worms around this topic but I've been watching this thread for quite some time, and while I didn't notice the range limitation that others did, I did get affected by the severe reduction in Supercharger speed that is all related to this. However, I took the first road trip with my '13 P85 this weekend in well over a year and a half, and had a very odd experience.

I've used ABRP pretty heavily for the 4 years I've owned my MS, and it's generally spot on <>2% when it comes to it's SOC predictions on a route, and during my trip my wh/mi averaged 290-310 the entire way, which was to be expected. It predicted I'd hit the planned supercharger with ~15%, I made it there with 2%! I've done this trip before, so was really caught off guard about 45 minutes prior to the SC stop seeing my SOC trending much lower than I remembered.

Fast forward, I get where we were planning to go - much slower thanks to the nerfed SC speeds, but it prompted me to do something I hadn't checked in awhile - the battery report on TeslaFi. Sure enough, it fell off a cliff recently and either by coincidence (or not) it seems to revolve around my car going from 2020.48.37.2 to 2020.48.37.6. I also pulled out my MX+ and loaded up ScanMyTesla for the first time in a long time, and sure enough at 100% charge (Which I almost never do, but needed to for the first leg of our roundtrip home to have some extra buffer), the battery/cell voltages are topping out at 4.08-4.09v. Cell Dif was very small, so things are relatively balanced - however this seems to align with what others ran into with capping.

So - I guess where I'm confused is they were said to have reversed this limitation in the fleet - yet I'm just hitting it now? So it begs the question, is anyone else also seeing this? Of course, as luck would have it the 8 year warrantee on my powertrain expired near the end of July. The "Coincidence" is too questionable to me to ignore.
Well great this is just scary AF. warranty ending in December here!
 
Much of the suffering and upset in this thread is caused by legal ignorance and ignorance of the fact that wear and tear on physical items might not have been detected by earlier software versions, but when it is detected by later software versions it is still a physical characterestic caused by wear and tear or by a manufacturing defect. The detection by the software doesn’t change the underlying fact of Condition X or Condition Z or any other physical characteristic the developed over time and use of the product.

It is truly amazing that all the upset and anger in this thread sails along completely oblivious to the details of the underlying Conditions X and Z and what those are, how they are caused, how they are (now) detected and distinguished, and how they are remedied.
it trully is amazing that we all had that capacity, and then didn’t, and now some of us do. i didn’t know wear and tear is reversible by itself. Or are you saying they are laying now and we actually don’t have that capacity?
for all the legal wording references you make, maybe take a look at what wear and tear is.
As you mentioned manufacturing defect…maybe a typo, but that is exactly what warranties cover.
btw, prior to capping, I did drive throughout 96% of my range, and battery was capped by 12%. Your theory about undetected degradation just doesn’t add up.
when referring to conditions x y and z, you do realize this is info provided by non-Tesla folks, and in no way verifiably is it the whole story (For them as well), so maybe, just maybe, we are wondering what else is part of this story as Tesla simply won’t communicate anything It we have several negative consequences that came along with battery capping (and those stayed).
 
it trully is amazing that we all had that capacity, and then didn’t, and now some of us do. i didn’t know wear and tear is reversible by itself. Or are you saying they are laying now and we actually don’t have that capacity?
for all the legal wording references you make, maybe take a look at what wear and tear is.
As you mentioned manufacturing defect…maybe a typo, but that is exactly what warranties cover.
btw, prior to capping, I did drive throughout 96% of my range, and battery was capped by 12%. Your theory about undetected degradation just doesn’t add up.
when referring to conditions x y and z, you do realize this is info provided by non-Tesla folks, and in no way verifiably is it the whole story (For them as well), so maybe, just maybe, we are wondering what else is part of this story as Tesla simply won’t communicate anything It we have several negative consequences that came along with battery capping (and those stayed).

Yes, I rely on @wk057's analysis because I haven't seen any other analysis that makes more sense or better explains the facts.

It is amusing that the complainers still lingering on this thread completely and utterly refuse to engage in any detailed way with his analysis and the facts about the condition of the battery and its sensors and ancillary hardware and how the software and hardware work together, and specifically how the software measures and responds to a wide variety of variables about the battery system hardware and how those hardware components (not just the battery itself, but also sensors) can degrade over time and whether the cause of the degradation is a defect or a function of wear cycles and usage.

And they still doubt his analysis by mere assertion without any basis for doing so. The power of their confirmation bias is truly amazing.

And indeed they don't even bother to read my own posts that they purport to quibble with which clearly stated that the manufacturing defect units got battery replacements under warranty. smh
 
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how those hardware components (not just the battery itself, but also sensors) can degrade over time and whether the cause of the degradation is a defect or a function of wear cycles and usage

Is it reasonable or possible for Tesla to police itself (it's warranty obligations) and determine / declare if a failure is down to premature degradation?

Premature degradation (aka failure) and unsolicited tweaking of software that happens to maybe mask or delay the effects of said 'failure' ?

It's all too convenient for Tesla and with minimal communication from Tesla and no official transparent diags I don't see any black and white 'right and wrong'.

I think the idea that wear and tear can be reversed and some get half a solution while others get nothing and Tesla still does nothing to provide official verifiable explanation does not hold water.
 
Premature degradation (aka failure)

This right here shows that you refuse to educate yourself about the facts and details. There is no aka relationship between these two very different concepts, especially they apply to the variety of hardware components in the whole battery system.

Read @wk057 ’s analysis and then show some sign, any sign, that you read and understood it. And if you think you disagree with anything about it, explain and try to muster something coherent on the topic applying relevant facts and details.

Your tagline states “here to have my mind changed” — to do that you must educate yourself by reading the relevant best information to date.
 
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Yes, I rely on @wk057's analysis because I haven't seen any other analysis that makes more sense or better explains the facts.

It is amusing that the complainers still lingering on this thread completely and utterly refuse to engage in any detailed way with his analysis and the facts about the condition of the battery and its sensors and ancillary hardware and how the software and hardware work together, and specifically how the software measures and responds to a wide variety of variables about the battery system hardware and how those hardware components (not just the battery itself, but also sensors) can degrade over time and whether the cause of the degradation is a defect or a function of wear cycles and usage.

And they still doubt his analysis by mere assertion without any basis for doing so. The power of their confirmation bias is truly amazing.

And indeed they don't even bother to read my own posts that they purport to quibble with which clearly stated that the manufacturing defect units got battery replacements under warranty. smh
WK057 is probably the most knowledgeable member of the Tesla ownership base. People who don't believe him and continue to trash him because his facts don't fit with their personal beliefs also are not vaccinated, engage in conspiracy theories, and those issues likely pervade all aspects of their lives. Just ignore the trolls—they are useless, selfish, narcissistic people who don't believe facts and should be summarily removed and blocked from this forum. I wish the mods would grow a pair.
 
There is no aka relationship between these two very different concepts

I see it differently. And having determined many warranty claim outcomes myself, I am very clear that premature degradation (within warranty period) is exactly what the warranty is there to deal with.

Just because there is a valid reason / explanation why something fails / degrades prematurely / eventually wears out through use has nothing to do with who is responsible to deal with the issue.

Many of WK's posts have slagged off Tesla for the way they deal with this stuff. Tesla should not leave this to 'the best a public forum can come up with'.
 
Read this: Explaining Changes post-firmware 2019.16 Regarding Range Loss | wk057's SkieNET

And then read the actual text of the Tesla warranty.

And then write a post that shows that you read and understood at least some of both.

Tesla seems pretty clear that the 30% degradation warranty thing doesn't apply to vehicles from before it was implemented (ie: every car affected by issues in this thread). Also... 30% degradation is a LOT of degradation. I'd be surprised if Tesla ever actually replaces a battery pack under this term. Even if this applied to 85s, you'd have to be down to ~185 miles at 100% charge to be at 30% degradation... I've never seen a pack that bad (not counting non-degradation issues that can cause a lack of access to capacity, of course).

I actually have the worst pack I've ever seen in my daily driver right now to beat the heck out of it and see how things go. For science! It's an original 60 pack, 100% charge: 152 rated miles. That's still only 27% degradation from new, and this pack is 8 years old and has ~300k miles worth of usage... plus was charged to 100% very often (out of necessity, given the abysmal range!). This pack also has no non-degradation issues. All of the lost range is actual degradation. It's so bad that at room temperature the pack's max discharge current is ~400A. 0-60 in 2-4 weeks. Supercharging? Forget it... a wall connector is just as fast. This car can barely even make use of the 80A built in charging that's how bad this pack has degraded. At about 65% charge it's already tapering the 20kW input power. Regen is almost non-existent except after the pack is warm and below about 60%, otherwise the high internal resistance from the degradation causes regen to push it to max voltage almost immediately, despite being at lower than max charge levels.

Suffice it to say, this is the worst pack I've ever seen out of hundreds I've personally worked on and many more I have direct data about... and it wouldn't even qualify for replacement under Tesla's new warranty. The newer packs (100, Model 3/Y, Plaid) will just never see 30% degradation within the warranty period, even with the harshest possible use. Tesla has all the data, and they're well aware of this... but putting this note in the warranty sells more cars because people don't know any better. So, good for the marketing team I guess.
 
Hope there are no 'don't quote me' restrictions.

From the above linked WK post:

'f = m - a - b - c - d - e'

And a smart undisclosed work around to avoid compounding errors gets <15mV.

'Whether or not this satisfies their obligations to the customer as far as warranty goes… I’m not a lawyer.

I do think Tesla should be more transparent on this stuff.'


I honestly don't think that changes very much.

WRT the warranty, I can't read what isn't written. I don't think owners are looking for an Apollo 13 experience, but they should reasonably get consistent performance throughout the warranty period at least. Spec's that are likely to change and materially effect to vehicles performance need to have unambiguous limits stated in the warranty along with transparent tools to monitor such changes.

(Referring to the original wty working, not the current one.)
 
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it wouldn't even qualify for replacement under Tesla's new warranty.

but putting this note in the warranty sells more cars because people don't know any better.

IMO it is more honest (than no firm limit) and actually enforceable - even if it's super unlikely to ever happen.

Without such a limit I don't see how the original warranty actually warranted anything. But that's a different issue.

It's interesting to consider if the software work around is sufficient reparation. It must have reduced an element of redundancy as they have traded reliance on the suspect module / sensor. They most likely couldn't do that trick again for a second suspect module.

I don't think you can escape the fact that something failed (degraded prematurely!) and isn't getting fixed. Just a work around found, which is an OK approach for Apollo 13, but I'm not sure it works for warranty purposes.
 
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IMO it is more honest (than no firm limit) and actually enforceable - even if it's super unlikely to ever happen.

Without such a limit I don't see how the original warranty actually warranted anything. But that's a different issue.

It's interesting to consider if the software work around is sufficient reparation. It must have reduced an element of redundancy as they have traded reliance on the suspect module / sensor. They most likely couldn't do that trick again for a second suspect module.

I don't think you can escape the fact that something failed (degraded prematurely!) and isn't getting fixed. Just a work around found, which is an OK approach for Apollo 13, but I'm not sure it works for warranty purposes.

Of course it works for warranty purposes.

Let's take this hypothetical:

  • Your pack has an issue that causes it to make less range available than it should be.
  • You take your car to Tesla.
  • They take your battery and loan you a loaner pack. (This pack may or may not have the range you normally get, but it's temporary.)
  • Your car is usable in the meantime.
  • Some unspecified amount of time later, you take your car back to Tesla and they install your repaired battery pack.
  • Your car has the range it should have again.

You don't know what they did to your pack, if anything. All you know is that the car has the range it's supposed to now. This would be an appropriate fix under warranty, no? Perhaps they only applied the software fix and did no physical repair... but it's still repaired.

Now, in the real world, the exact same thing happened... except without needing to take your car to Tesla, and the loaner pack was your own temporarily de-rated pack. End result is the same: pack is back to normal usability.