@wk057 What about a monitoring / checkup service? i.e. I don't necessarily want to buy a warranty but I'd be willing to pay for a BMD checkup especially if it gives me any insight into a likely failure in the next 14 months of my remaining OEM warranty and whether that could give me any leverage right before the warranty expires.
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Vendor Tesla Model S Battery Extended Service Plans from 057 Technology
- Thread starter wk057
- Start date
At the moment, we're planning to do a non-service BMD monitoring plan, but for customers outside the USA who can't make practical use of our service plan.
We've discussed offering this to the USA folks as well, but we probably won't since that would just be undercutting our own offerings by diminishing the value of the service plan itself for in-warranty folks. The incentives to purchase the service plan while still under Tesla's OEM warranty are the BMD's early alerts and monitoring, along with mild discounts. Take away the former while still offering plans to folks who are out of warranty and it's lost a lot.
On a personal note, I don't ever want to sell anything that I myself would never consider purchasing... like, you'll never catch me pedaling expensive wallets, VPNs, or shaving clubs... and I probably wouldn't buy the service plan myself, at least until my warranty expired, if there were a cheaper way to get the BMD. As it stands, I think what we're offering is an awesome value, and if I didn't own the company I'd get plans for my own vehicles.
In any case, the plans are refundable until active, and they're not actually active until after the OEM warranty is up. In the meantime you still get to benefit from the BMD. Hopefully folks don't take advantage of that and purchase, get the BMD, and decide to cancel last minute or something. I have sufficient faith in folks to believe that won't happen often enough to worry about I suppose.
Also, the BMD is a leased item property of 057 Tech. We're not planning on actually selling them currently.
This faith is what grows a lot of businesses. Unfortunately a few bad apples might ruin it for everyone else.At the moment, we're planning to do a non-service BMD monitoring plan, but for customers outside the USA who can't make practical use of our service plan.
We've discussed offering this to the USA folks as well, but we probably won't since that would just be undercutting our own offerings by diminishing the value of the service plan itself for in-warranty folks. The incentives to purchase the service plan while still under Tesla's OEM warranty are the BMD's early alerts and monitoring, along with mild discounts. Take away the former while still offering plans to folks who are out of warranty and it's lost a lot.
On a personal note, I don't ever want to sell anything that I myself would never consider purchasing... like, you'll never catch me pedaling expensive wallets, VPNs, or shaving clubs... and I probably wouldn't buy the service plan myself, at least until my warranty expired, if there were a cheaper way to get the BMD. As it stands, I think what we're offering is an awesome value, and if I didn't own the company I'd get plans for my own vehicles.
In any case, the plans are refundable until active, and they're not actually active until after the OEM warranty is up. In the meantime you still get to benefit from the BMD. Hopefully folks don't take advantage of that and purchase, get the BMD, and decide to cancel last minute or something. I have sufficient faith in folks to believe that won't happen often enough to worry about I suppose.
Also, the BMD is a leased item property of 057 Tech. We're not planning on actually selling them currently.
Good luck on your ventures. I will be getting something when the time is right. Haven't had my M3 for a year yet.
i am exciting by this offering. As I consider it, I have a couple of questions:
Do you install drive unit/controllers you sell?
While investigating how much shipping would cost, I wondered how one loads the car with a dead battery onto the transport vehicle? Are There specific transporters you recommend?
Thanks.
Do you install drive unit/controllers you sell?
While investigating how much shipping would cost, I wondered how one loads the car with a dead battery onto the transport vehicle? Are There specific transporters you recommend?
Thanks.
Our drive unit packages with our controllers are made for use with EV conversions and other non-Tesla applications. We can do drive unit replacements on most Tesla vehicles, however, but that's unrelated to our drive unit packages for EV conversions.
For vehicle freight costs, it really depends. If the vehicle is inoperable we still have quite a few options for transport. Generally will need to use a carrier that can winch it on to a hauler. On our end, we can use a CAT 938 wheel loader with 16' forks to unload inoperable vehicles if they can't be easily unloaded in other ways. This only becomes an added cost once we're looking at more than about 1500 miles of transit, since getting an inoperable vehicle loaded on to a large hauler for cross-country transport adds an extra step, but it's never really a problem with rollable vehicles with all of their wheels.
We ship cars all the time, almost every day at times, so no issues with setting up transport.
In your particular case, or anyone else anywhere east of the Mississippi, transport is pretty easy for us as we work with quite a few haulers regularly. For Maryland I might even just send one of my own guys.
At some point I'll make a shipping cost estimate map.
Additionally, our battery monitoring device can unlock an ultra low power limp mode in many failure cases, which would be enough for a vehicle shipper to drive it on to a hauler. It can't always do this, as some failures are pretty hard failures, but if it's possible we make it happen.
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Hi @wk057
I'm very interested. Just had a few questions -
Thanks for starting this service!
I'm very interested. Just had a few questions -
- If a battery is replaced (or upgraded if available), will the car still have Supercharging? If it was previously capped, will a better battery remove the restriction?
- Do you plan to have any renewal discounts? You'd have continuous data about the pack for 2+ years, so it should make it easier for you to anticipate degradation right? So a renewal discount for existing customers will be very beneficial for all.
- The monitoring device - is it connected to the OBD port or the port below the MCU?
- If OBD: Will removing it temporarily in certain cases: e.g. users who use add-ons like the HDMI input box that uses OBD during supercharging / yearly inspections etc. cause any issues? i.e. will it reset the monitoring and we'll have to drive 50-100mi again?
- If MCU: Do users have to take out panels to reach under the MCU to connect it?
- If we are local / near to your Hickory location, can we drive by to collect the device instead of waiting for it to be shipped? Will your team be able to help us with connecting it (if underside the MCU)?
- Edge case - I'm assuming it is negligible, but any idea how much power it uses? Any visible reduction in miles / estimated range due to this? I've done some long road trips where I've been very close to empty by the time I reach a supercharger. So would like to know if anything affects the estimated range in any meaningful manner. Do I need to even worry about it?
- What do you anticipate the estimated turn-around time be like in case of failures considering the interest you've seen in the service? Again, would it help if someone is local and can limp the car to your shop haha ;-)
Thanks for starting this service!
I asked about drive unit install because I wanted to know if I had repair options for both of the high cost failures. I have a 2014 S85.
I thought a winch could be used but I wondered about other options and you answered my question. Thanks!
Supercharging isn't affected by our replacements. We've done many many upgrades and replacements already for customers over the years without issues. In full disclosure, we can't predict what Tesla themselves will do in the future (for example, they already remotely reach into salvage vehicles and disable all DC charging without the owner's permission), but in the case of clean title vehicles I don't foresee any issues.
As for speeds, we can be sure they won't be any worse than before, but we can't change any firmware restrictions Tesla places on the BMS firmware without potentially incurring their wrath down the road. It is possible you'll end up with a better or higher capacity pack during a replacement, just with any such repair, but we can't guarantee that of course.
Possibly. Keep in mind that the youngest pack will be 10 years old by the time it's up for renewal. It's more likely that the added risk of continued coverage will negate any discount we could offer for already having the BMD... but, we won't really have enough data to make such a determination.
At some point we'll probably have to draw some lines as to what renewals will even be permitted, but as of now, our plan is for renewals to be whatever the current "out of warranty" price is for your model/year/etc at the time, with a small discount for already having the BMD.
It connects to the Tesla-specific CAN diagnostic port below the MCU.
Any time the device is disconnected, service plan coverage is suspended until it's re-installed and everything is re-confirmed. This is to keep everyone honest, mainly, and is pretty much a non-negotiable part of this service. If you plan on using other devices that require the CAN diagnostic port, we'd suggest using some kind of splitter. (We've considered selling one.)
I don't think an HDMI input box would need the CAN diagnostic port...? That seems weird to me.
Most users will only have to pull down the MCU cubby to install the unit, which is extremely low effort. Users with retrofitted center consoles and such may have a harder time, but it's still not a terrible process.
We can definitely install the unit for you if you come by, sure!
While it may seem dumb, we'd still prefer to ship it first for tracking and accountability purposes, however, and to keep everything streamlined.
Our beta variant uses an obscene amount of power for such a tiny device... and still wasn't even noticeable on range loss. The production version uses roughly 25 Wh/day absolute max (generally less), which would be something like 0.1 miles of range per day. We're actively tweaking the firmware, so, will likely be even less over time.
Either way, it's pretty negligible.
Turnaround is going to vary depending on our workload at the time of the failure, and the exact nature of the issue. Our turnaround time for repairs/replacements/upgrades varies from a week to about 8 weeks worst case right now, and we're actively working to improve that. We don't anticipate times to get any worse regardless of interest in our service plan program, since we're already improving this all around and the program is helping us to do so even more.
If you're local, we've got no issue with you getting the car to us yourself. Depending on the failure, though, you might not be able to limp all the way here on public roads. That said, if you're local and the BMD predicts a failure, you should probably get the car to us as soon as possible while it's still fully functional so that we can investigate.
Hope this helps!
Thank you very much for all the detailed answers. Very helpful and much appreciated!
As for your comment quoted here, no the HDMI box does not use the CAN port. It only uses the OBD port for power (which is why I asked if your device also uses it. That's not the case so there should be no issue hopefully).
One last question - any thoughts on providing raw BMS data from our own batteries via API directly from the device or through your servers so that we can also track it?
Thanks again!
Deciphered battery information will be on our service plan management page, along with historical data. "Raw" data perhaps not, since there's some things that we use in our communication with the pack that are... well, let's go with "trade secrets".
Not as of yet, although will probably post one eventually. The box documentation has some photos. Overall, it's pretty easy. Just pull down the cubby and it's right there. If there's a console you might have to remove one other piece.
Some quick notes: Made a few tweaks to the signup pages. Once you get to the details page it will estimate when the plan will start and finish now. Hopefully eliminates confusion about when it takes affect.
We have two production versions, an LTE and Bluetooth. The latter requires an app to uplink, of course. We'll make a determination as to which is shipped based on availability and location.
Clarifying this:
Pricing for in-warranty folks will be more granular and increase every tick closer to expiration you get. Basically if you're in the "I'll wait until I get closer to X cutoff before signing up" we're killing that loophole entirely. You should signup now because it'll be more expensive than it would be otherwise (unless you're already in the 90-days-left window, then doesn't matter). Honestly, I didn't expect this to be needed, but when we've got dozens of people outright noting that they're just going to wait X months (and who knows how many more not telling us)... well, obviously our pricing structure is wrong.
Also, our promo for out-of-warranty folks is getting an automated per-minute decline towards a zero discount. Too many people asking when this is going away and basing decisions on their guesses on this.
Bottom line is we can't disincentivize the purchase of our services over minor pricing stuff.
I also want to share a reply I recently wrote to someone in California (might even be someone from here, not sure) who was concerned about shipping costs. Hopefully this helps someone else out that way understand the value here:
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