5 ms·

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 ba

by abruzzi 15y ago

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.

feralchimp 15y ago
"If you leave your $40k battery pack alone for months without a trickle charger, you will kill it" is no more challenging to communicate or implement than "if you run your ICE without oil, you will kill it."
- politician 15y ago
  There is a world of difference between overuse leading to failure, and non-use leading to failure. It's disingenuous to claim that the messages are similar because they have abOut the same number of words.
  - feralchimp 15y ago
    From a marketing and CRM perspective, the messages are identical: "Here is a simple and cheap routine maintenance behavior that will prevent a catastrophic repair bill: X". In the ICE case, X is "maintain a minimum oil level while the engine is running." In the Tesla case, it's "maintain a minimum battery level, even during storage." Given that the underlying drivetrain technologies actually are worlds-of-difference apart from each other, that strikes me as a pretty minimal difference in terms of routine maintenance. Unless it's somehow difficult to understand or costly to implement, we should assume Tesla customers aren't f'ing morons and go about our business.
    - vacri 15y ago
      'simple and cheap': ICE: park it out the back... or in the street Tesla: Park it out the back... plugged into a trickle-charger... which is a $2k specialist item you have to have installed... and you can't use a long extension cord... and you can't just have it in the street, it'll need to be undercover, protected from rain... and away from the public, even in a nice neighbourhood...
      - lutorm 15y ago
        Somehow, I don't think someone buying a Roadster has a problem parking it under cover, away from the public...
        vacri 15y ago
        Might they take a while to visit someone who doesn't have undercover parking or a $2k power adaptor installed? From the article, it seems that while the roadster owners aren't burger-flippers, they're also not so wealthy that they can take a $40k loss on the chin.
- azov 15y ago
  It is not about communication, it is about function. "You have to constantly pay to keep your car alive. If you leave it alone for a few weeks, it will die". This is the way I read it. PS. If the battery management system won't allow the car to reach dangerously low level of charge, if it is very unlikely that I will damage my battery by accident - why won't Tesla guarantee it and subsidize battery replacement? Make it a $1K repair, that's enough money to keep people from not plugging their vehicles out of pure carelessness, but don't make it a $40K event that in insurance terms would be a total loss.
outworlder 15y ago
Restart, yeah. But I'd imagine that a car left unused for decades would require quite a lot of servicing before returning to the roads. Namely, there are many rubber parts, seals and so on. It might run, but you really shouldn't.
- abruzzi 15y ago
  Even so, bleed the brakes, look for leaks, check fluids, and at worst, you are out a couple of hundred. My current truck is a 1972, and had been sitting for 10 years when I bought it. It needed the above, plus new tires.
- replax 15y ago
  Well, the sole fact that it will run is already assuring. Store your Tesla in a garage for a month unplugged and then get it serviced how? Have four guys come and let them pull it out of the garage taking hours, just to be able to even load it on a truck... IMO, there are two things Tesla could do, one is an automated notification when your battery runs low, presenting you the options to a) let it just sit, b) turn off all electronics to preserve a little more battery and c) to let a Tesla service guy come to save your battery. The other thing is, that you should be able to enter tow mode just from an external power supply, so it will be trivial to pull it out of your garage.
Terretta 15y ago
> 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 Interestingly, the same applied to some models of RX-7. If you ran out of gas, you'd potentially need a service to re-prime it. Didn't stop me from buying one. // Not sure if myth. Never ran out.
- abruzzi 15y ago
  Fuel injected vehicles have a much higher pressure fuel pump than carbed vehicles. Some designs might have trouble with priming, but most these days are submerged pumps that are installed in the tank. This solves the priming problem, and cools the pump. This is a perfect example of what is happening here--any new technology is going to have hiccups. Fuel injection had _lots_ of hiccups, that have mostly been resolved. EV is bound to have hiccups, and is bound to get resolved.
X-Istence 15y ago
I've been driving for 6 years now and I have never ran out of gas. Is this really so uncommon that you can safely say that at some point or another most of us have run out of gas? I keep an eye on my odometer and on the gas gauge and know when it is time to get gas. My car doesn't have a low fuel light warning so paying attention is definitely required.
- abruzzi 15y ago
  Where I drive, I am frequently 100 miles from the nearest gas station. Plus in small remote areas, gas stations can be out of gas, out of business, or just closed for unknown reasons.
- MartinCron 15y ago
  There's a huge difference between running out of gas (which is bad) and running the car without any oil in it (which is terrible). When I was a child, my mother "bricked" our car by ignoring the oil light and taking us out for a nice drive in the country.
- PotatoEngineer 15y ago
  I ran out of gas three times when I was first driving; the gas gauge was bad, and would show "half full" when it was dead empty. The odometer was reasonably reliable at telling me when I was about to run out of gas, but I was cheap and didn't want to spend money if I could get the car to go a little further. And yes, I cede all claims of being a car genius.

by abruzzi 15y ago

feralchimp 15y ago

"If you leave your $40k battery pack alone for months without a trickle charger, you will kill it" is no more challenging to communicate or implement than "if you run your ICE without oil, you will kill it."

politician 15y ago
There is a world of difference between overuse leading to failure, and non-use leading to failure. It's disingenuous to claim that the messages are similar because they have abOut the same number of words.
- feralchimp 15y ago
  From a marketing and CRM perspective, the messages are identical: "Here is a simple and cheap routine maintenance behavior that will prevent a catastrophic repair bill: X". In the ICE case, X is "maintain a minimum oil level while the engine is running." In the Tesla case, it's "maintain a minimum battery level, even during storage." Given that the underlying drivetrain technologies actually are worlds-of-difference apart from each other, that strikes me as a pretty minimal difference in terms of routine maintenance. Unless it's somehow difficult to understand or costly to implement, we should assume Tesla customers aren't f'ing morons and go about our business.
  - vacri 15y ago
    'simple and cheap': ICE: park it out the back... or in the street Tesla: Park it out the back... plugged into a trickle-charger... which is a $2k specialist item you have to have installed... and you can't use a long extension cord... and you can't just have it in the street, it'll need to be undercover, protected from rain... and away from the public, even in a nice neighbourhood...
    - lutorm 15y ago
      Somehow, I don't think someone buying a Roadster has a problem parking it under cover, away from the public...
      - vacri 15y ago
        Might they take a while to visit someone who doesn't have undercover parking or a $2k power adaptor installed? From the article, it seems that while the roadster owners aren't burger-flippers, they're also not so wealthy that they can take a $40k loss on the chin.
azov 15y ago
It is not about communication, it is about function. "You have to constantly pay to keep your car alive. If you leave it alone for a few weeks, it will die". This is the way I read it. PS. If the battery management system won't allow the car to reach dangerously low level of charge, if it is very unlikely that I will damage my battery by accident - why won't Tesla guarantee it and subsidize battery replacement? Make it a $1K repair, that's enough money to keep people from not plugging their vehicles out of pure carelessness, but don't make it a $40K event that in insurance terms would be a total loss.

outworlder 15y ago

Restart, yeah. But I'd imagine that a car left unused for decades would require quite a lot of servicing before returning to the roads. Namely, there are many rubber parts, seals and so on. It might run, but you really shouldn't.

abruzzi 15y ago
Even so, bleed the brakes, look for leaks, check fluids, and at worst, you are out a couple of hundred. My current truck is a 1972, and had been sitting for 10 years when I bought it. It needed the above, plus new tires.
replax 15y ago
Well, the sole fact that it will run is already assuring. Store your Tesla in a garage for a month unplugged and then get it serviced how? Have four guys come and let them pull it out of the garage taking hours, just to be able to even load it on a truck... IMO, there are two things Tesla could do, one is an automated notification when your battery runs low, presenting you the options to a) let it just sit, b) turn off all electronics to preserve a little more battery and c) to let a Tesla service guy come to save your battery. The other thing is, that you should be able to enter tow mode just from an external power supply, so it will be trivial to pull it out of your garage.

Terretta 15y ago

> 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 Interestingly, the same applied to some models of RX-7. If you ran out of gas, you'd potentially need a service to re-prime it. Didn't stop me from buying one. // Not sure if myth. Never ran out.

abruzzi 15y ago
Fuel injected vehicles have a much higher pressure fuel pump than carbed vehicles. Some designs might have trouble with priming, but most these days are submerged pumps that are installed in the tank. This solves the priming problem, and cools the pump. This is a perfect example of what is happening here--any new technology is going to have hiccups. Fuel injection had _lots_ of hiccups, that have mostly been resolved. EV is bound to have hiccups, and is bound to get resolved.

X-Istence 15y ago

I've been driving for 6 years now and I have never ran out of gas. Is this really so uncommon that you can safely say that at some point or another most of us have run out of gas? I keep an eye on my odometer and on the gas gauge and know when it is time to get gas. My car doesn't have a low fuel light warning so paying attention is definitely required.

abruzzi 15y ago
Where I drive, I am frequently 100 miles from the nearest gas station. Plus in small remote areas, gas stations can be out of gas, out of business, or just closed for unknown reasons.
MartinCron 15y ago
There's a huge difference between running out of gas (which is bad) and running the car without any oil in it (which is terrible). When I was a child, my mother "bricked" our car by ignoring the oil light and taking us out for a nice drive in the country.
PotatoEngineer 15y ago
I ran out of gas three times when I was first driving; the gas gauge was bad, and would show "half full" when it was dead empty. The odometer was reasonably reliable at telling me when I was about to run out of gas, but I was cheap and didn't want to spend money if I could get the car to go a little further. And yes, I cede all claims of being a car genius.