6 ms·

People seem to expect their batteries to work forever at their original capacity.

by mavhc 5y ago

nyxtom 5y ago
I find it reasonable that given the warranty claims, they should be contractually obligated to provide you with the terms they have agreed upon. If they find out with new research and data that given the usage the battery will not last as long as they claimed, then a warranty claim would fall fairly under that use case. Updating the software to to degrade performance/range as an attempt to meet original warranty guidelines feels very much like misleading and unfair practices. Imagine if any appliance you owned did the same thing. > Sorry you can't keep AC at the temperature you want because doing so will reduce the longevity of this appliance and we can't guarantee it will meet under warranty. You would find this scenario absolutely unacceptable
theshadowknows 5y ago
You’re right - they do expect that. Regardless of the availability of information, and I agree there is a wealth of it available, companies should work a little harder on explaining this. It’s a new problem for most people. When the batteries in a remote control, clock, or even a car go bad then it’s trivial to change them. So while this problem has existed for as long as battery powered devices have the difference is that no one noticed. Now you can’t change the battery yourself. So it becomes a much bigger burden to understand “oh, the max ability of my battery to charge has degraded.” It’s just a new piece of knowledge for lots of people.
staticjak 5y ago
I think the confusion may lie in the fact that gas powered vehicles do not have the same concern. Sure maintenance is required and all but you don't have the major drop in range just because the manufacturer pushes an update to "protect" your car. People expect their vehicles to work forever at original capacity.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- consp 5y ago
  Well bad news for all gas powered car owners: performance and mileage will degrade over time. Maybe not by a software update (unless you own a specific diesel car) but they will definitely degrade and quite significantly as well. Edit: do note this applies to older cars, it's a bit slower than EVs but 10year old cars will not have the same mileage and power as a new one even with the same specifications.
  - Unklejoe 5y ago
    > Well bad news for all gas powered car owners: performance and mileage will degrade over time. Maybe not by a software update (unless you own a specific diesel car) but they will definitely degrade and quite significantly as well. This is not true, especially the part about "significantly". The only real mechanism for a loss of performance over time would be if the engine's compression starts to drop as the rings get worn, but this isn't an issue on any modern engine. Take a car with 10k miles and run it on a dyno. Dyno the same car again at 150k miles and it will probably be within 5%. In fact, performance may even go up as the motor "loosens" up. This has been my experience.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - YarickR2 5y ago
    Lime, actually ? Any data confirming that, and any explanation of such a behaviour, if true ? Like, one if my cars has around 300kw engine (400hp). How much I should lose in 10 years, if your claim is true ? And where are the losses ? I can't imagine anything besides loss of compression in cylinders, but that's tiny
    - opwieurposiu 5y ago
      Loss of compression comes from material breakdown, the other big one is from dirt build up. Dirt in the injectors causes bad spray pattern. Dirt in the cooling system reduces heat rejection. Dirt in the lube system increases friction losses. Dirt in the intake and exhaust causes pumping losses. The amount of dirt a car is exposed to varies by 2-3 orders of magnitude between a farm truck compared to a sports car. Rarely will you see an old sports car lose more than 20% power. Farm trucks lose 50%+, and the farmers keep running them until they just don't move at all. *Side note, dirt does sometimes help. As a teen, I had an old ford festiva I shared with my brother. One day we washed the filthy engine bay and after that the thing would not idle. Turns out the dirty grease was plugging a vacuum leak around the pivot on the throttle valve.
KptMarchewa 5y ago
Have you seen the graph in the article? It's clear that the drop has nothing to do with "natural" degradation.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  True, but I would expect the charge level and charge rate to fluctuate as the OEM refines its software over the years. Throttling and limiting capacity in exchange for increase durability are inherent to the lithium battery charging process. It seems perfectly reasonable that as field data comes in the OEM would refine the tune. This is like the EV equivalent of a service bulletin that flashes a new ECU image that actuates some emissions doodad slightly differently to improve longevity or whatever but costs you a fraction of an MPG of a couple horsepower at part throttle. Yes the messaging to consumers was clearly insufficient but I don't see anything fundamentally wrong here and I'm generally no fan of Tesla.
- mavhc 5y ago
  But that assumes the original graph was accurate for a start. Apple slowed down your phone because the battery probably couldn't provide enough power to keep it running at its original speed. But all they need to do is say: do you want us to slow down your device/restrict its battery someway, or run it over spec and it'll be worse in the long term? And let the user pick. But then they'd be 1000 articles about how batteries are terrible and so are the companies who use them, because terrible journalism
sschueller 5y ago
They expect that because it is sold to them this way. Just as FSD is being sold and people are actually expecting their cars to drive themselves without intervention.
cblconfederate 5y ago
How long would be a reasonable expectation?

People seem to expect their batteries to work forever at their original capacity.

by mavhc 5y ago

People seem to expect their batteries to work forever at their original capacity.

I find it reasonable that given the warranty claims, they should be contractually obligated to provide you with the terms they have agreed upon. If they find out with new research and data that given the usage the battery will not last as long as they claimed, then a warranty claim would fall fairly under that use case. Updating the software to to degrade performance/range as an attempt to meet original warranty guidelines feels very much like misleading and unfair practices. Imagine if any appliance you owned did the same thing. > Sorry you can't keep AC at the temperature you want because doing so will reduce the longevity of this appliance and we can't guarantee it will meet under warranty. You would find this scenario absolutely unacceptable

theshadowknows 5y ago

You’re right - they do expect that. Regardless of the availability of information, and I agree there is a wealth of it available, companies should work a little harder on explaining this. It’s a new problem for most people. When the batteries in a remote control, clock, or even a car go bad then it’s trivial to change them. So while this problem has existed for as long as battery powered devices have the difference is that no one noticed. Now you can’t change the battery yourself. So it becomes a much bigger burden to understand “oh, the max ability of my battery to charge has degraded.” It’s just a new piece of knowledge for lots of people.

staticjak 5y ago

I think the confusion may lie in the fact that gas powered vehicles do not have the same concern. Sure maintenance is required and all but you don't have the major drop in range just because the manufacturer pushes an update to "protect" your car. People expect their vehicles to work forever at original capacity.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
consp 5y ago
Well bad news for all gas powered car owners: performance and mileage will degrade over time. Maybe not by a software update (unless you own a specific diesel car) but they will definitely degrade and quite significantly as well. Edit: do note this applies to older cars, it's a bit slower than EVs but 10year old cars will not have the same mileage and power as a new one even with the same specifications.
- Unklejoe 5y ago
  > Well bad news for all gas powered car owners: performance and mileage will degrade over time. Maybe not by a software update (unless you own a specific diesel car) but they will definitely degrade and quite significantly as well. This is not true, especially the part about "significantly". The only real mechanism for a loss of performance over time would be if the engine's compression starts to drop as the rings get worn, but this isn't an issue on any modern engine. Take a car with 10k miles and run it on a dyno. Dyno the same car again at 150k miles and it will probably be within 5%. In fact, performance may even go up as the motor "loosens" up. This has been my experience.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- YarickR2 5y ago
  Lime, actually ? Any data confirming that, and any explanation of such a behaviour, if true ? Like, one if my cars has around 300kw engine (400hp). How much I should lose in 10 years, if your claim is true ? And where are the losses ? I can't imagine anything besides loss of compression in cylinders, but that's tiny
  - opwieurposiu 5y ago
    Loss of compression comes from material breakdown, the other big one is from dirt build up. Dirt in the injectors causes bad spray pattern. Dirt in the cooling system reduces heat rejection. Dirt in the lube system increases friction losses. Dirt in the intake and exhaust causes pumping losses. The amount of dirt a car is exposed to varies by 2-3 orders of magnitude between a farm truck compared to a sports car. Rarely will you see an old sports car lose more than 20% power. Farm trucks lose 50%+, and the farmers keep running them until they just don't move at all. *Side note, dirt does sometimes help. As a teen, I had an old ford festiva I shared with my brother. One day we washed the filthy engine bay and after that the thing would not idle. Turns out the dirty grease was plugging a vacuum leak around the pivot on the throttle valve.

KptMarchewa 5y ago

Have you seen the graph in the article? It's clear that the drop has nothing to do with "natural" degradation.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
True, but I would expect the charge level and charge rate to fluctuate as the OEM refines its software over the years. Throttling and limiting capacity in exchange for increase durability are inherent to the lithium battery charging process. It seems perfectly reasonable that as field data comes in the OEM would refine the tune. This is like the EV equivalent of a service bulletin that flashes a new ECU image that actuates some emissions doodad slightly differently to improve longevity or whatever but costs you a fraction of an MPG of a couple horsepower at part throttle. Yes the messaging to consumers was clearly insufficient but I don't see anything fundamentally wrong here and I'm generally no fan of Tesla.
mavhc 5y ago
But that assumes the original graph was accurate for a start. Apple slowed down your phone because the battery probably couldn't provide enough power to keep it running at its original speed. But all they need to do is say: do you want us to slow down your device/restrict its battery someway, or run it over spec and it'll be worse in the long term? And let the user pick. But then they'd be 1000 articles about how batteries are terrible and so are the companies who use them, because terrible journalism

sschueller 5y ago

They expect that because it is sold to them this way. Just as FSD is being sold and people are actually expecting their cars to drive themselves without intervention.

cblconfederate 5y ago

How long would be a reasonable expectation?