Tesla X and S owners Sue over software updates causing battery issues

[tesluv108]

This has often become a heated topic on a few other threads. I think the general consensus is that Tesla probably isn’t sending software updates to purposely damage the battery. But there are many that remain skeptical especially when their battery dails shortly after warranty is over AND after a software update. Thoughts?

Tesla owners sue claiming software update killed EV battery life | Fox Business

Tesla Model S and Model X owners are suing Elon Musk's electric car company over claims that automatic software updates killed their cars' battery life.

www.foxbusiness.com

 

[zoomer0056]

I don't see this lawsuit winning. That "protected computers" phrase is a stretch.

 

[ucmndd]

Whiners gonna whine, and there will always be lawyers standing by to take their money.

I have yet to hear a single good reason as to WHY Tesla would arbitrarily disable/brick batteries that they don’t believe present imminent safety concerns.

 

[NV Ray]

Here's good article summarizing the 35 page complaint. Lawsuit Compares Tesla OTA Updates to Hacker Attacks That Cause BMS_u029 Errors

 

[vcor]

I guess Tesla could modify the software so that battery problems are not detected and just leave owners to have the battery die unexpectedly. As wk056 and others have pointed out when you do a software update, it does a reset of some BMS data to do a deeper battery analysis, which can result in finding the battery is starting to fail. The software update is not causing a problem.

 

[ucmndd]

I guess Tesla could modify the software so that battery problems are not detected and just leave owners to have the battery die unexpectedly. As wk056 and others have pointed out when you do a software update, it does a reset of some BMS data to do a deeper battery analysis, which can result in finding the battery is starting to fail. The software update is not causing a problem.

The problem is “do nothing” in this case is a safety issue. A class action lawsuit for fires is much more likely to succeed than this cash grab.

 

[MP3Mike]

Thoughts?

That it is a garbage suit.

@wk057 has already said that all of the errors reported are actual physical failures, Tesla isn't reporting fake problems to get people to replace their battery packs:

Happy to help Tesla out as an unaffiliated third party expert if they need the assist.

The updates definitely are not the cause of any of these issues. In fact, under older software the same issue would result in the inability to drive at all. The newer one at least gets you some usability to save on towing costs and such.

 

[NV Ray]

Recent article about this lawsuit. First article I've read that leans heavily into the BMS_029 alert.

All what's cited in this article about 029 is from the 35 page complaint.

Other articles I've read, other than article I linked in post #4, make no mention of 029.

Tesla batteries went from fully charged to fully disabled after botched patch, lawsuit claims • The Register Forums

forums.theregister.com

 

[ucmndd]

I’ll ask again - what is Tesla’s presumed motivation for sending battery-killing software updates to old cars if not a pack failure safety issue?

 

[Rocky_H]

I’ll ask again - what is Tesla’s presumed motivation for sending battery-killing software updates to old cars if not a pack failure safety issue?

The conspiracy theory is that Tesla is supposedly destroying old cars intentionally to make people buy new ones. But that doesn't seem all that likely, since it could just as easily make people hate the company and choose some other brand for the replacement car on purpose. Also, if they were doing it, one would think that it would be a blanket action across all of these old cars, but it clearly isn't, and is just a sprinkling of random ones.

 

[tesluv108]

The conspiracy theory is that Tesla is supposedly destroying old cars intentionally to make people buy new ones. But that doesn't seem all that likely, since it could just as easily make people hate the company and choose some other brand for the replacement car on purpose. Also, if they were doing it, one would think that it would be a blanket action across all of these old cars, but it clearly isn't, and is just a sprinkling of random ones.

I’d be pretty pissed if I got this error w only 43k miles on the pack as one gentleman did. People are getting triggered by Elon’s claims of 400k miles etc & the claim that batteries only degrade 12% over many years. How do the total failures figure into the 12%? No one can answer that not even Tesla because they won’t. They have never acknowledged any type of failure numbers because it’s bad for the brand.

 

[ucmndd]

I’d be pretty pissed if I got this error w only 43k miles on the pack as one gentleman did. People are getting triggered by Elon’s claims of 400k miles etc & the claim that batteries only degrade 12% over many years. How do the total failures figure into the 12%? No one can answer that not even Tesla because they won’t. They have never acknowledged any type of failure numbers because it’s bad for the brand.

My response to that is "being pissed" is not standing for a lawsuit. To my knowledge Tesla has honored every BMS_029/018 claim under the terms of their well publicized and well understood warranty of 8 years and unlimited miles.

It doesn't matter if you only drove 43k miles in 8 years.

It doesn't matter if the CEO made some extremely non-committal aspirational comments that they are benchmarking a lifespan target of 400,000 miles for a component.

It doesn't matter if the fleet average degradation is 12% over 8 years.

What does matter is the terms of the warranty that every purchaser was aware of and implicitly accepted when they took delivery.


The accusation here is that Tesla is deliberately disabling batteries shortly after they are out of warranty and forcing people into expensive upgrades for $REASONS that are not due to actual failure or safety issues. That accusation is stupid and unfounded, the result of a class-action firm looking to enrich themselves at the expense of Tesla and butthurt owners that either don't understand how warranties work or don't want to accept the terms that they long ago agreed to.

 

[Rocky_H]

You're mixing several things that aren't related to each other.

I’d be pretty pissed if I got this error w only 43k miles on the pack as one gentleman did. People are getting triggered by Elon’s claims of 400k miles etc

The cars that are failing are using older kinds of batteries that were years before Musk started talking about the longer lifetime batteries they were building into the new 3 and Y cars. So they are not the same batteries.

& the claim that batteries only degrade 12% over many years.

Degradation is not the failure modes of these. My early 2014 car still has about 96% of its original capacity, but it is still just as likely to have a failure from this moisture ingress corrosion problem that has been catching a bunch of these.

How do the total failures figure into the 12%?

Failure rates aren't related to a 12% degradation values.

No one can answer that not even Tesla because they won’t. They have never acknowledged any type of failure numbers because it’s bad for the brand.

The vast majority of companies don't publish failure rates like that. It's normal.

 

[brainhouston]

The conspiracy theory is that Tesla is supposedly destroying old cars intentionally to make people buy new ones. But that doesn't seem all that likely, since it could just as easily make people hate the company and choose some other brand for the replacement car on purpose. Also, if they were doing it, one would think that it would be a blanket action across all of these old cars, but it clearly isn't, and is just a sprinkling of random ones.

More believable conspiracy would be, Tesla doing it to prevent possible fires on old cars vs getting bad rep when one catches on fire... but yeah i don't buy any conspiracy exists...

 

[Rocky_H]

More believable conspiracy would be, Tesla doing it to prevent possible fires on old cars vs getting bad rep when one catches on fire... but yeah i don't buy any conspiracy exists...

I would call that just pretty straightforward reasoning, and I think is at least partly the actual purpose.

 

[wwu123]

You're mixing several things that aren't related to each other.

The cars that are failing are using older kinds of batteries that were years before Musk started talking about the longer lifetime batteries they were building into the new 3 and Y cars. So they are not the same batteries.


Degradation is not the failure modes of these. My early 2014 car still has about 96% of its original capacity, but it is still just as likely to have a failure from this moisture ingress corrosion problem that has been catching a bunch of these.


Failure rates aren't related to a 12% degradation values.


The vast majority of companies don't publish failure rates like that. It's normal.

I agree with you that failure rates and degradation rates are different things, I wouldn't say that they're unrelated at all, but certainly degradation is only one aspect of failure, so many other (more important) pieces of data are needed to look at failure and failure rates.

I don't have any expertise or insight to add on the BMS029/018 failure issue or the validity of the lawsuit. I will say though, that the 12% degradation value comes from their own Impact Report 2022, which is basically a sustainability report. Vehicle failure rates and lifetimes ARE a significant factor in sustainability, esp when it comes to mining battery materials, and recycling or disposal of end-of-life HV batteries. So that 12% degradation over 200,000 is also just a bunch of cherry-picking of data that has little insight into the environmental sustainability or impact of Tesla vehicles, because by itself gives almost no insight into the lifetime of the vehicles, and thus the sustainability of EV's. That Impact Report is basically just selective PR - in a different section, even suggests that the average vehicle in the U.S. is scrapped after 17 years or 200,000 miles, while offering no Tesla vehicle or battery failure rates to suggest that they would last as long as the average U.S. vehicle. Maybe they are on track to last much longer than 17 years; maybe they are on track to last much less than 17 years - who knows without the right data?

But if wk057's analysis is right that basically 100% of 2012-2014 batteries will fail in the next few years due to moisture ingress, that is already a strong implication that the vehicles are not likely to last 17 years, at least not without repair costs equal to the remaining value of the vehicles.... what else does Tesla already know or not about 2015+ batteries, that the rest of us haven't yet learned?

 

[brainhouston]

I’d be pretty pissed if I got this error w only 43k miles on the pack as one gentleman did. People are getting triggered by Elon’s claims of 400k miles etc & the claim that batteries only degrade 12% over many years. How do the total failures figure into the 12%? No one can answer that not even Tesla because they won’t. They have never acknowledged any type of failure numbers because it’s bad for the brand.

Like my statistics professor said back in the college days:
If the Light bulb (incandescent at the time) company would test 100% of their product lifetime they would be out of business

Small batches are tested, the rest is statistically extrapolated... (don't quote me i'm not a pro at this)
There will always be a bell curve with standard deviation on any product...

 

[Lasttoy]

I remember when our antique cars had our batteries throttled back. It was revision number 9 I think. Like five years ago. My range went from 250 to 225 overnight after OTA update. It also disabled my supercharging for months. The SC couldn't fix it, Fremont couldn't fix it. Finally programmers wrote sw patch to fix it. I have a 2012 S. So many of the patches don't work. Just spent 3 hours in SC, still don't work. I'm a computer sciencetist, I think they don't test any updates on any older cars. Their business model doesn't include out of warranty cars, period. I bought infotainment upgrade, first MCU wouldn't work, ordered second, took week to get it to work. Half of my options don't work, screen is still not correct. Back to the basics, test , test. Battery life is controlled, no matter what anyone says.