Tesla: Not so easily bricked • Hacker News Board

Re: Tesla: Not so easily bricked

#61

Post by scott_s » Thu, Feb 23, 2012, 3:50 PM UTC

rdtsc wrote: post #52

scott_s wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Well I am running with what the original post had in it. Yeah it could be an lie, and if it is, it would be very easy to check, it is not a nebulous claim. Tesla just has to respond and say "no we never charged $40k" if it is in fact not true.

This is my frustration with getting news from blogs. Had this appeared in a standard newspaper, I am confident the reporter would have contacted Tesla and asked them directly if they did indeed charge $40,000. Hence, I am not comfortable taking the original post completely at face value, since the author (from what I can tell) did not perform the kind of reporting I expect from journalists. That leads me to doubt basic questions of fact, such as whether or not Tesla charged those people $40,000.

Re: Tesla: Not so easily bricked

#62

Post by smacktoward » Thu, Feb 23, 2012, 3:55 PM UTC

onemoreact wrote: post #55

grannyg00se wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think it's reasonable to expect the consumer to do research of any sort. It would be very easy for Tesla to mention this at the time of purchase, document it, and also provide a dashboard notification of some sort.

Based on what drzaiusapelord said I don't think there is any research required of any sort. When you buy a Tesla the following happens: You are vebally told about this. You are then shown a document to sign that you were told about this Your car will beep loudly when its under 5% charge If its a newer Tesla it will beep and also log an issue with the service center, who will then continue to call you to tell you to p…

Funny how neither the linked post nor Tesla's official statement on the subject [1] mention any of that stuff.

That omission is either just monumentally bad PR, or they're not really that fastidious or consistent about educating the customer. (Not that I doubt drzaiusapelord, but if they were, you think they'd be shouting that from the rooftops rather than leaving it to random commenters on HN to explain.)

[1] http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/22/tesla-roadsters-ev-accuse...

Re: Tesla: Not so easily bricked

#63

Post by motoford » Thu, Feb 23, 2012, 4:03 PM UTC

yardie wrote: post #24

motoford wrote: post #19

Earlier 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…

Nobody said an electric car is maintenance free. The problem here is that it can total itself in a relatively short time just from not being used.

Your statements about seized engine and deformed tires are not valid in the timeframe we are talking about here. It's unlikely even for the battery to go, and if it does that's a trip to the store and $100, not a $40k service plus getting an UNTOWABLE vehicle to California.

Oh, and those abandoned university cars are normally beaters that barely made it to the campus after many years of neglect, not a brand new premium vehicle.

Re: Tesla: Not so easily bricked

#64

Post by jwr » Thu, Feb 23, 2012, 4:07 PM UTC

Well, the truth is really somewhere in the middle. The article says that the battery management system of the Roadster won't allow the car to discharge the battery fully. But batteries lose charge over time and if they are not charged, there is nothing that any battery management system can do about it.

So I guess while the original article was overly sensationalistic, this one is overly optimistic — if you park your car with batteries very low at the airport and leave for vacation, you might kill some cells.

Re: Tesla: Not so easily bricked

#65

Post by abruzzi » Thu, Feb 23, 2012, 4:08 PM UTC

swombat wrote: post #33

scott_s wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Agreed 100%. This post was kind of a non-denial denial by focusing on "normal driving conditions" and not some of the scenarios the previous author brought up like leaving your car at the airport with 5% charge while you go on a trip.

Also the author stoops to ad hominem by insinuating that the author of the original post is part of a conspiracy to discredit electric vehicles. The author of the original post claims to have a $5000 deposit in on a Tesla X which, if true, is not the usual behavior of an EV skeptic.

Re: Tesla: Not so easily bricked

#66

Post by ajays » Thu, Feb 23, 2012, 4:08 PM UTC

driverdan wrote: post #46

ajays wrote: post #36

I 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…

Considering the original article didn't actually cite sources, just made stated that a manager claimed this, a customer claimed that, it'd be pretty hard for him to talk to the service manager.

Really? The original article lists sources like "Tesla’s Los Angeles area service center manager", "340th customer", etc. And it also includes an incident involving Elon Musk and J. Joost de Vries. I'd say there are enough sources listed there that someone could do some verification.

Re: Tesla: Not so easily bricked

#67

Post by notJim » Thu, Feb 23, 2012, 4:11 PM UTC

swombat wrote: post #33

scott_s wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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.

Your attack on this point is spot on. The point of the original post this one fails to rebut is that the cars are in need of servicing! Maybe that posts use of the word “bricked” is imprecise, but the real thrust of it was that it costs $40,000 to perform this servicing, which this post does not even dispute.

Re: Tesla: Not so easily bricked

#68

Post by Nelson69 » Thu, Feb 23, 2012, 4:13 PM UTC

feralchimp wrote: post #51

This whole bricking story is a little ridiculous. There are any number of easy ways to 'brick' an internal combustion engine, and yet we're not all torches 'n' pitchforks over them. Partially because ICEs have been around so long that the relatively short list of "things to avoid" is burned indelibly into the popular consciousness. Partially because over a hundred-odd years of continuous engineering, a typical ICE ca…

Many of the things that "brick" an ICE can be repaired at relatively low costs. And almost all of those things brick the car by using it, Teslas will brick when you don't use them, you lock it safely in the temperature controlled garage and go away for too long and it dies.

It strikes me as a design problem of sorts, you've got a relatively expensive and sophisticated sports car with piles of electronics. I would think that maybe they could detect a certain critical level of energy is left in the batteries and flip a toggle that just shuts them off which wouldn't last forever but could buy you some more time maybe.

My grandfather's Buick has GM's onstar stuff in it, couldn't your roadster send a text message or something? Maybe they could have some sort of emergency mechanism to just plug a normal car battery in to gain a little charge from.

I like what Tesla is trying to do, they're changing the conversation and ultimately when I look at the auto industry I think more startups are needed. They're a startup though, the Top Gear story, I don't think it was bad or inaccurate, the Tesla just doesn't look like it's in the same league as many of the other sports cars they drive around and then this battery thing, rare as it might be they need a good story for it. How many drivers have run out of gas when they are experienced and know better? Stuff happens, it's more common than you might think, with an ICE it's just embarrassing and inconvenient, with a Tesla it might set you back some serious money.

Re: Tesla: Not so easily bricked

#69

Post by richardw » Thu, Feb 23, 2012, 4:16 PM UTC

Tesla needs to publish an exhaustive analysis of the problem. What will brick it, what will harm the battery X%, what happens when you discharge fully repeatedly, what it will cost to fix at each point of damage.

Re: Tesla: Not so easily bricked

#70

Post by abruzzi » Thu, Feb 23, 2012, 4:17 PM UTC

feralchimp wrote: post #51

This whole bricking story is a little ridiculous. There are any number of easy ways to 'brick' an internal combustion engine, and yet we're not all torches 'n' pitchforks over them. Partially because ICEs have been around so long that the relatively short list of "things to avoid" is burned indelibly into the popular consciousness. Partially because over a hundred-odd years of continuous engineering, a typical ICE ca…

If you run your ICE without oil, yes, you will kill it. And maybe these should be thought of in the same way, but people worry about this because draining a battery to zero seems like running out of gas, and most of us have run out of gas at some point or another. Granted it's not the same because in the short term the battery management system should reserve the bottom 5% for the health of the battery.

But the second reason people are worried about this is killing that last 5% and bricking the battery happens by doing nothing. Bricking an ICE while it is unused, sitting in your driveway takes decades. With a replacement $50 battery and $30 oil change I've restarted engines that have been sitting unused in junkyards for 40 years.