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There's no mention of battery degradation. That's what I'd be curious about. Has anyone got a Tesla with a load of miles on the clock?

by rkangel 10y ago

mciancia 10y ago
That was the first things I was looking for in this article... I wonder why they skipped this topic as this is the most important thing related to electric cars
ythl 10y ago
I'm interested in this as well. I was under the assumption that the range of the Model S goes down slightly with every charge.
- alex_hitchins 10y ago
  I assume the batteries aren't under the warrenty? Is it the case with some EV's that you never own the battery, you have a lifetime lease so the unit gets refreshed every so often?
  - ams6110 10y ago
    I'm surprised that Tesla honors the consumer warranty with the car being used for commercial purposes. That's pretty unusual I think.
    - gaadd33 10y ago
      Do most cars have warranties that only apply to non commercial use? I've never heard of that and it would be interesting to see some examples.
      - brianwawok 10y ago
        Most everything does. My lawnmower has a 3 year warranty. 30 days if commercial use. My blender has a 2 year warranty. 0 days if commercial use. I don't know about cars or not having the exclusion, but it wouldn't surprise me.
        estebank 10y ago
        Aren't car warranties for time and mileage, whatever is reached first? That already takes care of commercial use, I'd think.
        brianwawok 10y ago
        Kind of. City miles are harder than highway miles. A taxi is likely all city.
  - mtgx 10y ago
    I believe they have 8 year warranty for 100,000 miles by default, and you can increase that to 8 year and "infinite miles", which is what the taxi driver wanted to do next: https://www.tesla.com/blog/infinite-mile-warranty https://www.tesla.com/blog/infinite-mile-warranty EDIT: It seems to differ based on battery model and other things, and the basic warranty is just 4 years and 50,000 miles now: https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/blog_attachments/model_s_new_vehicle_limited_warranty_2.1.pdf https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/blog_attachments/m...
    - johnward 10y ago
      You never had to increase it. "the warranty extension will apply retroactively to all Model S vehicles ever produced"
  - NickM 10y ago
    The Tesla battery pack comes with an 8 year, infinite mile warranty on all cars. Some small amount of capacity loss is considered normal over time, but from what I've read it's generally been pretty minimal. My own Model S is only about two years old with a bit over 20k miles on it, so I don't know how things will go once the car gets older, but so far it's lost <1% of its range.
  - jsight 10y ago
    The battery has an 8 year unlimited mile warranty. I believe that it is considered to have failed if it is at 70% capacity or below. In general, one should expect to get at least 300k miles (482,000 kms) out of a battery like the one in the Tesla before it gets anywhere close to this level.
- rhinoceraptor 10y ago
  I think the chemistry of the batteries is such that fully charging or discharging it is the most detrimental thing for its life. Charging it from say, 20% to 80% might actually be the optimal case for battery life.
  - Qworg 10y ago
    You are correct - the interesting question is whether or not the Tesla pack has enough extra but unreported cells to cover that drop over time so you don't see the losses.
andykellr 10y ago
I got my car in March 2013 and have 75K miles on it. I haven't noticed any degradation. I'm sure if I were really careful to measure, there's been a few % of degradation, but nothing on the level of what you might experience from a 3 year old mobile phone and I never look back longingly on the days when my car could go further. There's no trip I took 3 years ago that I wouldn't take now. There's an 8 year, infinite mile warranty on the battery, but there have been differing reports on when it gets replaced. I have heard numbers ranging from 15-30% capacity loss, but I plan to drive it for another 5 years, so I'm sure I'll find out.
- azhenley 10y ago
  This is amazing sounding. Laptop and phone batteries degrade so fast it seems! Does anyone have any thoughts on why the Tesla battery isn't like this?
  - FussyZeus 10y ago
    Not universally. At our company we have a mix of Macbooks and Dells. Our 2010 17" Macbooks will still hold a charge for 3 or 4 hours depending on usage, and they spend the vast majority of their time plugged in too. Newer ones are even better. The Dells on the other hand barely manage 20 minutes after about a year in the field, and the HP's aren't any better. For whatever reason the majority of PC manufacturers just suck at making batteries (or charging hardware, not sure which.)
    - hx87 10y ago
      > For whatever reason the majority of PC manufacturers just suck at making batteries They just suck at making battery cooling systems (e.g. all-plastic cases) or neglect to include one altogether. If there is one thing those all-metal MacBooks are good at, it's dissipating heat.
      - FussyZeus 10y ago
        And I, someone who sets these up for a living did not know a battery needed to be cooled. TIL. But yeah, that does explain why Macbooks' batteries hold up so well.
steejk 10y ago
Most EV batteries have a total capacity greater than the usable capacity as some is reserved for degradation - this means you shouldn't experience much (if any) capacity loss until 10years+ of usage. The one to look out for is the P90D which will likely suffer increased degradation in Ludicrous mode.
vvanders 10y ago
From the driver down in the comments: > It was 430 km, and now 400 km, I'm in Canada so its not miles, I made 161,306 km ;)

There's no mention of battery degradation. That's what I'd be curious about. Has anyone got a Tesla with a load of miles on the clock?

by rkangel 10y ago

There's no mention of battery degradation. That's what I'd be curious about. Has anyone got a Tesla with a load of miles on the clock?

mciancia 10y ago

That was the first things I was looking for in this article... I wonder why they skipped this topic as this is the most important thing related to electric cars

ythl 10y ago

I'm interested in this as well. I was under the assumption that the range of the Model S goes down slightly with every charge.

alex_hitchins 10y ago
I assume the batteries aren't under the warrenty? Is it the case with some EV's that you never own the battery, you have a lifetime lease so the unit gets refreshed every so often?
- ams6110 10y ago
  I'm surprised that Tesla honors the consumer warranty with the car being used for commercial purposes. That's pretty unusual I think.
  - gaadd33 10y ago
    Do most cars have warranties that only apply to non commercial use? I've never heard of that and it would be interesting to see some examples.
    - brianwawok 10y ago
      Most everything does. My lawnmower has a 3 year warranty. 30 days if commercial use. My blender has a 2 year warranty. 0 days if commercial use. I don't know about cars or not having the exclusion, but it wouldn't surprise me.
      - estebank 10y ago
        Aren't car warranties for time and mileage, whatever is reached first? That already takes care of commercial use, I'd think.
        brianwawok 10y ago
        Kind of. City miles are harder than highway miles. A taxi is likely all city.
- mtgx 10y ago
  I believe they have 8 year warranty for 100,000 miles by default, and you can increase that to 8 year and "infinite miles", which is what the taxi driver wanted to do next: https://www.tesla.com/blog/infinite-mile-warranty https://www.tesla.com/blog/infinite-mile-warranty EDIT: It seems to differ based on battery model and other things, and the basic warranty is just 4 years and 50,000 miles now: https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/blog_attachments/model_s_new_vehicle_limited_warranty_2.1.pdf https://www.tesla.com/sites/default/files/blog_attachments/m...
  - johnward 10y ago
    You never had to increase it. "the warranty extension will apply retroactively to all Model S vehicles ever produced"
- NickM 10y ago
  The Tesla battery pack comes with an 8 year, infinite mile warranty on all cars. Some small amount of capacity loss is considered normal over time, but from what I've read it's generally been pretty minimal. My own Model S is only about two years old with a bit over 20k miles on it, so I don't know how things will go once the car gets older, but so far it's lost <1% of its range.
- jsight 10y ago
  The battery has an 8 year unlimited mile warranty. I believe that it is considered to have failed if it is at 70% capacity or below. In general, one should expect to get at least 300k miles (482,000 kms) out of a battery like the one in the Tesla before it gets anywhere close to this level.
rhinoceraptor 10y ago
I think the chemistry of the batteries is such that fully charging or discharging it is the most detrimental thing for its life. Charging it from say, 20% to 80% might actually be the optimal case for battery life.
- Qworg 10y ago
  You are correct - the interesting question is whether or not the Tesla pack has enough extra but unreported cells to cover that drop over time so you don't see the losses.

andykellr 10y ago

I got my car in March 2013 and have 75K miles on it. I haven't noticed any degradation. I'm sure if I were really careful to measure, there's been a few % of degradation, but nothing on the level of what you might experience from a 3 year old mobile phone and I never look back longingly on the days when my car could go further. There's no trip I took 3 years ago that I wouldn't take now. There's an 8 year, infinite mile warranty on the battery, but there have been differing reports on when it gets replaced. I have heard numbers ranging from 15-30% capacity loss, but I plan to drive it for another 5 years, so I'm sure I'll find out.

azhenley 10y ago
This is amazing sounding. Laptop and phone batteries degrade so fast it seems! Does anyone have any thoughts on why the Tesla battery isn't like this?
- FussyZeus 10y ago
  Not universally. At our company we have a mix of Macbooks and Dells. Our 2010 17" Macbooks will still hold a charge for 3 or 4 hours depending on usage, and they spend the vast majority of their time plugged in too. Newer ones are even better. The Dells on the other hand barely manage 20 minutes after about a year in the field, and the HP's aren't any better. For whatever reason the majority of PC manufacturers just suck at making batteries (or charging hardware, not sure which.)
  - hx87 10y ago
    > For whatever reason the majority of PC manufacturers just suck at making batteries They just suck at making battery cooling systems (e.g. all-plastic cases) or neglect to include one altogether. If there is one thing those all-metal MacBooks are good at, it's dissipating heat.
    - FussyZeus 10y ago
      And I, someone who sets these up for a living did not know a battery needed to be cooled. TIL. But yeah, that does explain why Macbooks' batteries hold up so well.

steejk 10y ago

Most EV batteries have a total capacity greater than the usable capacity as some is reserved for degradation - this means you shouldn't experience much (if any) capacity loss until 10years+ of usage. The one to look out for is the P90D which will likely suffer increased degradation in Ludicrous mode.

vvanders 10y ago

From the driver down in the comments: > It was 430 km, and now 400 km, I'm in Canada so its not miles, I made 161,306 km ;)