Tesla Model 3 Down: Won't Power Up, and is Inaccessible

[mongo]

I don't have a 12V source. And I'd probably break the plastic cover trying to get it off. And if it happens when I'm away from home I'd be totally SOL. If the car is so completely dependent on the 12V battery, perhaps there should be a secondary 12V battery whose only function is to boot the car when the main 12V battery dies. 12V car batteries have limited life and in a few years this is going to become an issue.

I am a total Tesla fanboy. I LOOOOOVE my Roadster. I'm not going to try to get out of my Model 3 order because of this. But I do feel that this is a significant design flaw, and there should be redundancy in a part that is so critical that its failure makes the car completely inoperable and inaccessible.

Unless the 12V battery suffers an internal short, the HV to 12V DC-DC converter should be able to keep 12V power available (different setup than S/X). If the DC-DC fails, then the 12V will drain (at which point a reserve battery would be handy. Could install a SLA/ gel in frunk with remote activation switch, or wireless if so desired. However, one hopes the problem is not frequent enough to warrant such measures)

P.S. you can also click Watch Thread at the top of a page to get it to appear in your New Posts list.

 

[GoTslaGo]

For Costco Members, saw this at the warehouse the other day (didn’t get one, but looks interesting...and pretty small):

Costco Wholesale

 

[FlatSix911]

The truth ...

Well, we know the experts have said calling that 'bricked' is inappropriate.So perhaps your car was Fricked. Firmware 'ricked?

When I've screwed up a flash on a car's computer, we've always said Bricked from at least 1997. This predates the iPhone and the Android phone. Sometimes you can 'unbrick' a ECM with a bench harness. Sometimes it becomes a wheel chock.

But now that I know, I'll say I Fricked the ECM when I drop the 12v supply during a flash or use the wrong file for the car. I'll try to pass it along...

 

[brucet999]

No, that's not what I said. I talked to Tesla several times, explaining the problem in detail. The reason I'm not jump starting the vehicle is because Tesla didn't instruct me to jump start the vehicle. I take the service center's instructions over the manual because they have more details about the situation. (They did also offer to get me a loaner car, but I told them it was unnecessary because I have other transportation.) Note that it's highly unlikely a vehicle would drain its 12 volt so soon unless (1) the battery itself is defective or (2) some other part responsible for keeping the 12 volt charged isn't working properly. The fact is, jump starting may turn the vehicle on, but it wouldn't necessarily fix the underlying issue. I want a long-term fix, not just to get the car running immediately.

They originally were going to get a towing service to flatbed the vehicle, but there were concerns among all involved (Tesla, towing company, and myself) about not being able to put the car in tow mode and potentially damaging something. I suspect they want a Tesla technician there to analyze the situation, potentially jump start it, get it into tow mode, and then safely transport to the Service Center.

You may be interested to know that you are not the only M3 owner to have an early 12V battery failure. I was at a SuperCharger yesterday and was admiring a M3 in one of the stalls. Another guy, thinking it was my M3, asked if I had had any battery problems. It turns out that he was there with a loaner MS because his M3 was in the Tesla service center…due to a failed 12V battery!

 

[Saghost]

I don't have a 12V source. And I'd probably break the plastic cover trying to get it off. And if it happens when I'm away from home I'd be totally SOL. If the car is so completely dependent on the 12V battery, perhaps there should be a secondary 12V battery whose only function is to boot the car when the main 12V battery dies. 12V car batteries have limited life and in a few years this is going to become an issue.

I am a total Tesla fanboy. I LOOOOOVE my Roadster. I'm not going to try to get out of my Model 3 order because of this. But I do feel that this is a significant design flaw, and there should be redundancy in a part that is so critical that its failure makes the car completely inoperable and inaccessible.

It's a pretty rare event to begin with. For a largely redundant, autonomous car like this, I do like the idea of a backup battery.

You'd want it mostly isolated from the main 12V system, with charging links and the ability to actively switch into the system when needed - at which point the car would declare a fault condition and load shed all but the critical 12V loads, so they can be carried a while on the small backup.

The question is whether an occurrence like this is common enough or harmful enough to justify the engineering and cost/weight to put in such a backup.

 

[daniel]

It's a pretty rare event to begin with. For a largely redundant, autonomous car like this, I do like the idea of a backup battery.

You'd want it mostly isolated from the main 12V system, with charging links and the ability to actively switch into the system when needed - at which point the car would declare a fault condition and load shed all but the critical 12V loads, so they can be carried a while on the small backup.

The question is whether an occurrence like this is common enough or harmful enough to justify the engineering and cost/weight to put in such a backup.

I hear you. But given that a dead 12V battery renders the car inaccessible, and that 12V batteries average 4 or 5 years of life, a very small 12V just to give an emergency boot-up seems like a good idea.

 

[Only Trons]

Me too. I wrote my first programs on punch cards...

I'm not that old, but my first programs, while simple, were written in machine language. Had to manually enter each line of instruction (16 bits, if I remember correctly), hit enter, then enter the next line of instruction..........

 

[Chickenlittle]

I hear you. But given that a dead 12V battery renders the car inaccessible, and that 12V batteries average 4 or 5 years of life, a very small 12V just to give an emergency boot-up seems like a good idea.

Don’t know all the details of this one but the model s was vulnerable to this as well. In 2013 I got a call from tesla service telling me my battery was going to fail in 2 weeks. Told me to bring it in before for replacement. I prefer that to a backup battery. BTW how many ICE cars have spare batteries?

 

[Saghost]

I hear you. But given that a dead 12V battery renders the car inaccessible, and that 12V batteries average 4 or 5 years of life, a very small 12V just to give an emergency boot-up seems like a good idea.

The same is true for every Tesla after the Roadster - none of them have mechanical keys, and none of them can be accessed without 12V power on the car.

(Which isn't to say the backup is a bad idea - but they've built a couple hundred thousand cars that way without folks getting too mad at them so far.)

 

[MikeBur]

Pretty sure he has no ability to update it after the fifteen minute edit window. We've had a friendly moderator following the thread and modifying the initial post. He hasn't committed to continuing to do so, but I suspect he might do it anyway.

@TEG has been awesome updating the original post with updates, after only minimal prompting, so only the crustiest enthusiasts need the pleasure of reading the meandering posts whilst we wait with baited breath for @MarkS22’s next post.

 

[MikeBur]

I received what I believe to be the latest firmware at the time about 5 days prior to the problem. It wasn't the firmware that came with the car.

I wonder if they ever have feature regressions and run multiple branches of updates. Please lord no...

 

[mongo]

I hear you. But given that a dead 12V battery renders the car inaccessible, and that 12V batteries average 4 or 5 years of life, a very small 12V just to give an emergency boot-up seems like a good idea.

The typical history is an ICE (which drains the 12V while off and then needs full power to crank a cold engine) or the S/X (deep cyclical charge/ discharge cycles). My understanding is that the 3 has a new 12V converter integrated in the pack that operates continuously (no extra loss due to using main contactors) so the 12V battery only serves as load leveling/ backup (post crash supply).

Pack electronics note connector 7
12V disconnection procedure post 3

 

[arnis]

My understanding is that the 3 has a new 12V converter integrated in the pack that operates continuously

I have wet dreams about that being true. But I wouldn't put all eggs in that basket just yet.
Having secondary parallel low-power "idling" DC-DC converter would solve all* dead 12V battery issues and will make 12V battery almost immortal.

*Except when software goes nuts and discharges that battery for fun.

 

[daniel]

I wrote my first programs on punch cards...

I wrote my first program on punch cards in Fortran. All I ever got were lists of compiler errors. I never got the program to compile. This would have been 1966. I don't even remember what the program was supposed to do. I was entirely self-taught from a book. Obviously, badly.

 

[ölbrenner]

BTW how many ICE cars have spare batteries?

My truck does. Well, its actually for secondary systems, but when called upon for primary duties it will.

OMG all this programming talk is bringing back basic, fortran, cobol, pascal, c+ nightmares LOL.

 

[davedavedave]

I'm not that old, but my first programs, while simple, were written in machine language. Had to manually enter each line of instruction (16 bits, if I remember correctly), hit enter, then enter the next line of instruction..........

16 bits!?!? LUXURY!!!!

 

[P&J-W]

Paper tape ..Bah, we had to hand wire the sorting boards. (Later we did get paper tape and punch cards and even later a Winchester Drive surplussed from the Air Force DEW stations)
Crap I am old ..... Fortran forever. Excuse me while I talk to the DOT to get the Neato Bot to vacuum and Nest to cool the house, PowerView to close the curtains, and Hue to dim the lights.. Looking forward to the 3 for more fun
Another day in paradise

 

[davedavedave]

Paper tape ..Bah, we had to hand wire the sorting boards. (Later we did get paper tape and punch cards and even later a Winchester Drive surplussed from the Air Force DEW stations)
Crap I am old ..... Fortran forever. Excuse me while I talk to the DOT to get the Neato Bot to vacuum and Nest to cool the house, PowerView to close the curtains, and Hue to dim the lights.. Looking forward to the 3 for more fun
Another day in paradise

Thanks for sparing us the rubberband/pencil mark on the card stack stories ;-). I'm just old enough that I'm starting to tell my stories multiple times without realizing it - and NO ONE wants to hear about self-modifying JVM byte code, not even the first time....

 

[DR61]

I wrote my first program on punch cards in Fortran. All I ever got were lists of compiler errors. I never got the program to compile. This would have been 1966. I don't even remember what the program was supposed to do. I was entirely self-taught from a book. Obviously, badly.

Me too, but I got my program to work! Still have the little packet of cards.

 

[brucet999]

Don’t know all the details of this one but the model s was vulnerable to this as well. In 2013 I got a call from tesla service telling me my battery was going to fail in 2 weeks. Told me to bring it in before for replacement. I prefer that to a backup battery. BTW how many ICE cars have spare batteries?

ICE car batteries commonly go 6 years, having to deliver high discharge rates cranking the engine. Why do tesla's 12V fail in a year or two with only tiny loads?
For that matter, why is that thing lead acid? wouldn't a small lithium battery be far longer lasting and more reliable?