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Tesla responds to "bricking" issue

teslamotors.com

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Re: Tesla responds to "bricking" issue

#191

Post by ericd »

droithomme wrote: post #157
jm4 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. You buy a car that only needs maintenance once a year, but you have to plug it in at least once every few weeks. They are willing to go well above and beyond what most would expect in order to remind you of that. I think that's a pretty good deal. Responsible owners do not let the battery charge reach zero. The consequences are serious enough that owners with unusual usage patterns that make this difficul…

I screwed up once and my car ran out of gas. Had to walk 3 miles. Didn't cost $40,000 to fix.

You have to realize that when a Tesla or your laptop hits 0% battery, the battery is not actually fully discharged - it keeps some in reserve so that it can still sit for a very long time.

Re: Tesla responds to "bricking" issue

#192

Post by droithomme »

learc83 wrote: post #189
droithomme wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm, interesting. Anyone who has owned a car has had to replace the battery at some point and they all have warranties and all car battery warranties are pro-rated. (Maybe there is some exception, I've never seen it.) Same for lawn and garden batteries for driving mowers. It's possible some of the overseas readers here have never owned a car though and just haven't ever needed to buy a car battery and weren't familiar…

I've always just bought new batteries. They weren't expensive enough to bother with any redeeming a prorated warranty. If a battery goes out after several years, how much I going to get anyway? $10? There are definitely car owners who have never dealt with battery warranties.

Here's a photo of a typical car battery that is sold in the US, in fact this is one of the top brands, Sears DieHard.

http://s.shld.net/is/image/Sears/02833023000-2

Sears has a nationwide network of car maintenance shops called Sears Auto Center that has been quite popular for tire, battery, and alignment work for decades.

http://www.sears.com/automotive-services/c-1023947

Information about its warranty are printed in large letters on the side. It would be quite difficult to purchase this battery without understanding it has a warranty. This is not atypical. It is extremely common for batteries to have such information printed legibly on the side. Furthermore, car batteries typically have a punch out on the top designating the month and year of purchase. These are punched out at time of purchase and enable the warranty can be honored even in the event of losing one's receipt.

Battery displays in stores nearly always contain comparative information about the warranty periods, with premium batteries highlighted for having longer warranty periods.

I find it astonishing that people can buy batteries and never notice any of this, and some of these people are here claiming that owners whose Teslas become bricked are at fault because the manual obliquely suggests in an obscure section that bricking is possible, a possibility that is at the same time denied by the same group.

Re: Tesla responds to "bricking" issue

#193

Post by ericd »

Kynlyn wrote: post #125
marvin wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really don't see the problem. Tesla clearly states in the manual that completely depleting the battery and then leaving it without charging it will cause damage to the car. This would be completely analogous to running a brand-new early car without oil, destroying the engine. It's a serious neglect of your maintenance duties. I mean, yes. You can "destroy" your car by not charging it. You can also destroy it by acc…

I don't know that there is a problem except when people compare it to running a car out of gas. One is a minor annoyance; the other a hugely costly repair. The fact that EVs also consume battery while idle makes the comparison even less useful. You can destroy a Tesla by running it into a brick wall too. Yet there is no warning in the manual for that. Probably because it's not a risk unique to Teslas. Leaving your ca…

Yeah, I think the comparison to running out of gas is extremely misleading and very prone to spreading FUD. The Tesla doesn't destroy itself when you're driving and it runs out of range, so I think we should stay far away from saying things that sound like that, because that's what many less tech savvy people will immediately think.

Re: Tesla responds to "bricking" issue

#195

Post by schiffern »

droithomme wrote: post #157
jm4 wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. You buy a car that only needs maintenance once a year, but you have to plug it in at least once every few weeks. They are willing to go well above and beyond what most would expect in order to remind you of that. I think that's a pretty good deal. Responsible owners do not let the battery charge reach zero. The consequences are serious enough that owners with unusual usage patterns that make this difficul…

I screwed up once and my car ran out of gas. Had to walk 3 miles. Didn't cost $40,000 to fix.

And it wouldn't with a Tesla, either. The car shuts down before you can discharge the battery enough to damage it.

If, after you ran out of gas, you didn't fill your gas tank for weeks and ignored the car's insistent complaints that it should be filled with gas, then you would have a point. But I doubt you've ever done that.

Re: Tesla responds to "bricking" issue

#196

Post by learc83 »

revelation wrote: post #41
blhack wrote: post #36

Here's one of the problems that I have with this whole thing: My iPod goes dead all the time, so does my phone, so does my laptop, my camera, my remote, my everything. I think that every single battery-powered device I've ever owned has, at some point, gone "dead" (as in it won't power on). NONE of these things have ever been completely incapacitated because of this. I've never had to replace my laptop because I let…

The hell? Batteries are not magic black boxes, that when disconnected, will be removed from this world only to be recovered at a pleasing time from a distant galaxy back to you. They will continue to discharge, even if you completely disconnect them. Which is a stupid thing to do, because then the microcontroller drawing <~500mA won't be able to warn you of the impeding battery death.

You can get a microcontroller to draw far less than 500mA. There are plenty of microcontrollers that can spend most of their time in a low power sleep mode where current draw is measured in microamps.

Re: Tesla responds to "bricking" issue

#197

Post by vannevar »

jm4 wrote: post #144
vannevar wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Real PR mastery would be to issue a modification to the warranty to include this condition within X years of owning the vehicle and be done with it. If it really is rare, it will cost them a lot less to cover it than the PR costs of fighting bad press every time it pops up.

I disagree. You buy a car that only needs maintenance once a year, but you have to plug it in at least once every few weeks. They are willing to go well above and beyond what most would expect in order to remind you of that. I think that's a pretty good deal. Responsible owners do not let the battery charge reach zero. The consequences are serious enough that owners with unusual usage patterns that make this difficul…

I think this is a case of some people being ignorant of their responsibilities as owners and failing to properly maintain their cars.

You're absolutely right. Nonetheless, it's Tesla's problem. Why? Because electric cars are new. After 100 years of internal combustion, there's a common understanding that cars need their oil replaced if it all leaks out. No one would gain any traction with a story about ruining their engine by running it with no oil. But a story about a driver who left his car at the airport for a month and bricked it will gain traction, and will cost Tesla money by spreading FUD in the market. More money than simply covering that case in its warranty, which I predict is exactly where they're going to end up if this story gets picked up by the mainstream media. They're just taking the long way around to get there.

Re: Tesla responds to "bricking" issue

#198

Post by vannevar »

bittermang wrote: post #95
wtallis wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not saying that the circumstances are completely irrelevant, he's saying that the specific circumstances don't matter (as long as they add up to neglect), because it takes different circumstances to cause different problems. That's not at all like trying to ignore who's at fault in a traffic collision.

Precisely. There's a lot of variables at play here. The fact that the battery is so expensive vs. what a consumer has become accustomed to paying for vehicle maintenance on a traditional gasoline car. The tech is new. The way the vehicles operate is fundamentally different, and require different attention to different things. But it's all noise convoluting the argument. The root: if you neglect your vehicle -- any ve…

The circumstances do matter here. First, electric cars are novel which means the market is susceptible to FUD, and manufacturers like Tesla have to be sensitive to their customer's fears even if those fears are overblown. Secondly, I don't know of any conventionally powered car that can be permanently ruined simply by parking it in a garage for a month, unless that garage is on fire or underwater. For every other vehicle on the road, a reasonable person would say that leaving it parked in a garage is taking good care of it. It's up to Tesla to overcome the cognitive dissonance that comes from the idea that simply parking your car for a long time without plugging it in can actually destroy it.

Re: Tesla responds to "bricking" issue

#199

Post by vannevar »

redthrowaway wrote: post #91
tlb wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a little different. Replacing the fuel pump and injectors cost maybe 5% of the cost of the vehicle. Replacing roadster batteries costs 40%.

Repair cost doesn't matter. It's up to the owner not to be an idiot, and to take care of the vehicle. The vast majority of owners of early fuel-injected cars knew not to let them run out of gas, and didn't. Similarly, when Tesla tells you not to let the battery go completely flat, you take care of your property and follow their instructions. If I leave my house long enough, the roof will decay and I'll get massive wa…

Many of the trappings of modern day life require active measures to ensure they work properly, and this is no different.

It's different because people are familiar with all the things you mention: roofs and rain, bikes and rust. People aren't familiar with electric automobiles. Once someone buys them, sure, they'll become familiar and the vast majority won't brick them. Tesla's problem isn't the owners, it's the people thinking about becoming owners. And those people (if they've heard the story) are now fearful of bricking their cars, where they're not at all afraid of bricking the Mercedes they were considering as an alternative to the Tesla. Now they're thinking, maybe I'll wait another few years on this electric car thing. That's Tesla's problem right now. Not bricked cars, but the fear of bricked cars. And that's why they should cover this under warranty.

Re: Tesla responds to "bricking" issue

#200

Post by grellas »

Deposition line of questioning suggested after reading this piece:

Q. Is it true that the battery has catastrophic failure when it drains to zero and is left in that state for a sustained period?

A. The company has built in countless safeguards to ensure that the battery never drains to zero.

Q. That is not what I asked. Please answer the question.

A. It is an unfounded rumor that many owners have incurred such a catastrophic failure and only an irrational fear would permit anyone to believe that.

Q. I didn't ask about many owners, only whether it is possible to incur a catastrophic failure as described. Please answer the question.

A. Our documentation clearly tells owners that it is vital to keep their car plugged in and we give them ever-escalating warnings to ensure that no rational person could ever let the car get close to that state.

Q. I didn't ask about the likelihood of this happening, only whether it can happen. Please answer the question.

A. We value our customers more than you can imagine and it is slanderous to suggest that we would subject them to risks that can be avoided.

Q. Again, not what I asked, please answer the question.

A. Every car has risks of catastrophic failure if it is badly misused.

Q. Does this mean the Tesla does too with its engine?

A. We will not dignify a mere rumor with an answer to that question.

Q. And is it true that it costs $40K to replace the battery?

A. I object to that as irrelevant.

Q. And that it is not covered under warranty?

A. Ditto - irrelevant.

Q. And constitutes an uninsurable risk?

A. We really are off track here. I will not answer.

Q. So you do not regard it as worthy of disclosure to your buyers that, should their battery drain to zero for any sustained period, the only remedy is to replace it at their own expense at a $40K cost.

A. That disclosure would not fit with our marketing plans. Plus we say something of the sort at page 487 of our owner's manual.

Q.Well I guess this was all pretty pointless.

A. Of course, nothing wrong here. Ignore the man behind the curtain. What a stupid thing to ask about anyway. The revolution is apace and you shouldn't bother me with little details.

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