Bricking a Tesla

Executioner · Post by **Executioner** » Fri Feb 24, 2012 3:43 pm

$40k for new batteries

http://jalopnik.com/5887265/tesla-motor ... gn-problem

b-man1 · Post by **b-man1** » Fri Feb 24, 2012 5:26 pm

well that sucks. that could happen to me too...i leave my non-winter car parked for extended periods sometimes. hopefully they can get around the problem and not set back the technology progress being made.

normalicy · Post by **normalicy** » Fri Feb 24, 2012 7:30 pm

I think it'll be another decade before electric cars have had the major bugs worked out.

EvilHorace · Post by **EvilHorace** » Fri Feb 24, 2012 7:35 pm

Wow, that will probably be the death of Tesla unless they come up with a better solution. No one reading that would ever buy one now.

renovation · Post by **renovation** » Sat Feb 25, 2012 12:08 am

EvilHorace wrote:Wow, that will probably be the death of Tesla unless they come up with a better solution. No one reading that would ever buy one now.

i agree fully ! I think Jay leno owns one. im guessing he having his mechanics checking it to make sure it start !

EvilHorace · Post by **EvilHorace** » Sat Feb 25, 2012 8:16 am

that could happen to me too...i leave my non-winter car parked for extended periods sometimes

No (unless you own a Tesla), all you'd ever need is a simple 12V battery if it went dead, froze solid in winter. For cars that aren't used for long periods of time, get a battery tender (or "maintainer"). They're inexpensive and keep the battery fully charged. I keep one on my Mustang as it sits all winter and come spring, it starts right up.

b-man1 · Post by **b-man1** » Sat Feb 25, 2012 9:46 am

EH...that's what i meant...it could happen to me if i had a Tesla. of course, same idea though, just plug the thing in if it's at home.

DaMaN · Post by **DaMaN** » Sat Feb 25, 2012 9:50 am

Damn, now I can't buy one..... :bull

Post by **FlyingPenguin** » Sat Feb 25, 2012 12:08 pm

Actually this is a known issue with ALL Lithium Ion batteries. You never want to run a Lion battery completely dead. There is a minimum threshold beyond which the battery won't recover.

Early Lion batteries has a lot of issues with this. People would run down their laptop batteries and brick them.

Modern laptops, phones, etc get around this with advanced battery management. There's a LOT of electronics in the battery itself and the phone to individually manage each cell in the pack to prevent overcharging, over heating, shorts and complete discharge. This is why laptop batteries nowadays have such complex connectors. The laptop's battery management needs to communicate with each individual cell in the pack (and a pack may have 6 or 9 cells).

I suspect the problem with the Tesla is that their battery management sometimes fails to deal with a total discharge because the discharge rate is so high AND the batteries they use are off-the shelf laptop batteries.

Other electric vehicles use batteries specially designed for electric car use, and probably are less prone to this problem because of that.

EvilHorace · Post by **EvilHorace** » Sat Feb 25, 2012 4:39 pm

Privately though, Tesla has gone to great lengths to prevent this potentially brand-destroying incident from happening more often, including possibly engaging in GPS tracking of a vehicle without the owner's knowledge.

I wonder what the thinking is on that, like will they then call the owner and tell him to do something if the car's been parked in one spot too long?

I was discussing this with a co-worker who has a relative who bought a Hybrid Lexus RX 400H a while ago. That vehicle is often parked in the basement of a condo unit in Florida for weeks, months and there's no electrical outlets (no options) and the owner isn't there for months (has 2 homes) so yes, costly Hybrid batteries (like $5K) could fail BUT it being Toyota/Lexus, they'd warranty it.