The blogger might be an ignorant, but the OP post doesn't reassure me. If I go in a 5 months travel doing consulting abroad, and I'm living alone; who guarantee that my car is being constantly put on the charger? There are many cases (plug dysfunction, electric problem...) and $40K is not a trivial amount.
Tesla: Not so easily bricked
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Re: Tesla: Not so easily bricked
#32If there are 8k individual cells in the battery pack, what happens when an individual cell reaches zero? Will that individual cell be permanently dead, or can it be revived? You would think with 8k individual cells, if you left it unplugged for just a couple of weeks (instead of the 6 weeks needed to brick the entire battery pack), using a normal distribution you could expect that at least some of the cells would rea…
Most battery management systems incorporate some sort of cell balancing algorithm to make sure cells stay close to a common voltage. Usually this is some sort of resistor (per cell) that dissipates a small current from that cell and bleeds it off as heat. This is usually used while charging to get everything in line.
That said, if a cell goes bad or has an extremely low capacity compared to the rest, there's not much you can do...
Re: Tesla: Not so easily bricked
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
The response from Tesla does not contradict that notion. Note this quote: "It's true that a full discharge to zero percent state of charge can potentially be damaging to a battery. " Notice that "can potentially be damaging" is a weasel phrase for "brick". Further Tesla argues that to avoid discharge to zero percent "all that needs to be done is to tow the vehicle to a charger". Again, this misses the main point of t…
My understanding of what this post meant is that a full discharge is prevented by the controller in the battery itself - much like in laptops, and much like everyone here was surprised that the Tesla battery does not have. So, to be clear, my understanding of this post, with full clarity, is: "A full discharge is disastrous. However, the situations reported were not full discharges. The controller in the battery shut…
Actually, it seems to me the article doesn't really contradict the accusation at all.
There is a fundamental problem when any rechargeable battery is discharged and then left to sit for months. Any boat owner understands that that's why you plug in a trickle charger when the craft is put into storage.
The line above indicates, on the contrary, that yes, if you don't drive it for a while and it wasn't plugged in to a sufficient power source, your car will in fact be bricked, and potentially damage its batteries. Apparently this is a problem with boats too, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a problem with electric cars.
This "response" is in fact full of double speak... Check this one out:
Another error on the part of the blogger is the claim that if the cars discharge fully, the battery packs will be damaged. This is blatantly false. The battery management system of the Tesla Roadster keeps the battery from being discharged to a damagingly low state of charge under normal driving conditions.
"This is blatantly false"......."under normal driving conditions". The original article was not talking about normal driving conditions. This reads like a deliberate attempt to mislead.
If anything, it seems to me that this article validates the claims made in the other article. It states:
This is the most likely explanation for the five "bricks" that the blogger claims to have heard about. They probably aren't actually bricks, but cars in need of servicing.
This is hardly the kind of certainty-filled rebuttal that one would expect if the original article's claims were, in fact, incorrect.
Re: Tesla: Not so easily bricked
#34The headline should read "Tesla: Not so easily bricked under normal circumstances".
The problem here is that not everyone lives in California, and most people think of cars as durable (vs. perishable) goods. Those two things cause problems for people who are edge cases. In places like Michigan or New York or Massachusetts, it's not 70F all year round. We have this quaint concept called "winter". In the winter, the local governments dump salt on the roads, snow and slush make driving dangerous, and when it doesn't snow, you get dusty blowing salt on the highways.
Because of this, people with the means to buy $50,000 sports cars leave them in garages for the winter. Or they head to the Caribbean for a vacation. Or both. For a car with an internal combustion engine, you usually remove the battery or trickle charge it, but the consequence of not doing so is buying a $100 battery at your local mechanic.
Another thing to consider is the meaning of "normal" as it applies to the market. If you're a working stiff, you drive every day. You may even drive to get to your vacation. People buying $50,000 cars with the limitations that electric cars have today aren't working stiffs, and their leisure patterns are probably quite different than most folks.
Re: Tesla: Not so easily bricked
#35The blogger might be an ignorant, but the OP post doesn't reassure me. If I go in a 5 months travel doing consulting abroad, and I'm living alone; who guarantee that my car is being constantly put on the charger? There are many cases (plug dysfunction, electric problem...) and $40K is not a trivial amount.
I'm sure a reliable person could be located to look in on such a parked vehicle once or twice. Especially if they are offered a couple hundred a pop to do it.
If such batteries become prevalent, I would think that monitored charging garages and bonded maintenance services will spring up.
Re: Tesla: Not so easily bricked
#36I think the original article also made the same claim: Tesla is "not so easily bricked" (given the fact that 'only' 5 cases could be found). So this isn't a rebuttal.
If it was to be a rebuttal, the claim would be "Tesla cannot be bricked" or something like that.
This article did not do any background work. Why didn't he talk to the Tesla service manager(s) who were quoted in the original article? Even if he managed to talk to 1 of the 5 and showed that it was not a bricking, then he would have a point. But the way it is, the current article does almost nothing to refute the original.
Re: Tesla: Not so easily bricked
#37Hang on, at what point did anyone claim they were 'easy' to brick? The argument is not about how easy they are to brick, it's about the fact that the entire car is rendered useless if bricked unless you're willing to pay $40k to get your vehicle back on the road again. If the cars were easy to brick there would be a significantly larger number of documented cases than what currently exist.
When I read the blog post in question, and the comments here, I left with the understanding that if you left a Tesla car unused for a dozen or so weeks, it would be bricked and it would cost $40,000 to replace the battery. This post directly contradicts that notion.
> This post directly contradicts that notion.
How does it _directly_ contradict that? Ok so he mentions how the management system will stop the charge from dropping too low. How does it do that, does have a robotic arm and goes and finds the nearest outlet, does it expand solar panels, because batteries will discharge even if completely disconnected. And it also highly depends on the ambient temperature. So I don't see a direct contradiction I see this post building a straw man and then proceeded to demolish it.
Look at this another way. So let's say this post is correct and those Tesla roadsters were not bricks. Why in the world would Tesla then charge owner $40k then? Is it saying that a routine recharge and tow costs $40k? Or did Tesla, like a shady mechanic decided to scam the guy and make $40k off of him?
Re: Tesla: Not so easily bricked
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I read the blog post in question, and the comments here, I left with the understanding that if you left a Tesla car unused for a dozen or so weeks, it would be bricked and it would cost $40,000 to replace the battery. This post directly contradicts that notion.
It contradicts it, but which account is correct. This new blog post says 'you just need to re-charge to fix'. The original post says 'you just need $40,000' to fix. The orignial post appears to have better sources than this one, so I would say that it has been contradicted, but not refuted.
If $40k is not needed why would Tesla charge that then for a re-charge? That would be terrible, terrible PR for them.
Re: Tesla: Not so easily bricked
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
The link to this article is down unfortunately, so I can't comment on it. But Tesla's statement did nothing to refute the article, it just stated that you have to put oil in a regular car, and that you can optionally have the car contact Tesla if it gets low. The oil analogy Tesla and others are using just doesn't work. A normal car doesn't total itself after sitting idle for a few weeks to few months depending on wh…
A normal car engine unused for a long time has to be handled just as well. If you're lucky the worst you'll have is a dead battery. If you're unlucky the engine has seized and the tires are deformed and need to be replaced. Ask any university town mechanic what happens when students leave cars parked in the lot, untouched, for months. Actually as a former car owner (city dweller now), my biggest concern was making su…
I've run down the battery on my car, motorcycle, mower, or other vehicles I don't often use. It is not an expensive ($40,000) fix -- often it just takes a recharge because lead-acid batteries are not as easily damaged as lithium-ion. Replacement is relatively cheap too.
When you talk about tire deformation, this is rare and would not happen before many years of disuse. And engine seizure? Again, unlikely to happen even if left to sit for a decade. You're more likely to have issues with rust in the gas tank and bad, coagulated gas, than a seized engine.
The point is that it is relatively safe to leave a vehicle unattended in a garage for long periods of time. The vast majority of its value will remain undamaged. Contrast to the Tesla, where if left for a year with a low charge it is alleged that it's likely to lose fully half of the car's value ($40,000).
This is a big deal.
Re: Tesla: Not so easily bricked
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I read the blog post in question, and the comments here, I left with the understanding that if you left a Tesla car unused for a dozen or so weeks, it would be bricked and it would cost $40,000 to replace the battery. This post directly contradicts that notion.
> This post directly contradicts that notion. How does it _directly_ contradict that? Ok so he mentions how the management system will stop the charge from dropping too low. How does it do that, does have a robotic arm and goes and finds the nearest outlet, does it expand solar panels, because batteries will discharge even if completely disconnected. And it also highly depends on the ambient temperature. So I don't s…
Why in the world would Tesla then charge owner $40k then?
Did they? I'm not being glib. Was that conjecture in the previous post, or was it an established fact?