7 ms·

1.2M-Mile Tesla Model S Is on Its 14th Motor, Fourth Battery Pack

23 points by Eumenes 3y ago

clouddrover 3y ago
> And doing so in an electric car, which naysayers often state can't go the distance. It didn't go the distance. It's on its 14th motor and fourth battery pack.
- calamari4065 3y ago
  86k miles for each motor. That's pretty terrible. It's pretty common for ICE vehicles to not need major service until 100k or more. Total engine failure is pretty uncommon barring a collision or damage from neglect (or poor design). Put another way, 14 motors over 10 years is 8.5 months per motor. At a rough estimate, you're getting somewhere around 2-4 thousand hours per motor. Imagine replacing the engine in your car every 9 months. Or the transmission, or clutch, or any major mechanical component. We'd call that car a lemon. On the other hand, 2.5 years per battery pack isn't too bad. With the kind of abuse shown here, I'd expect them to last closer to one year.
  - syncsynchalt 3y ago
    It sounds like the owner charges in the range of 20-80?%, which isn't abuse. Unless you mean DC fast charging as abuse.
    - calamari4065 3y ago
      I really mean "extremely heavy use"
  - dzhiurgis 3y ago
    I’m guessing replacing those motors was easier than oil changes on _some_ cars.
  - Arnt 3y ago
    This is far off. The model S has two motors, so you're off by a factor of two. Each of the two motors is smaller than the gearbox, so I'd say it would make more sense to compare it with a fairly small ICE part, not with the much larger engine. But even that doesn't make much sense, because what happened is that he got a series of duds until they found the problem and fixed it. Taking the average lifetime of a dud and a good engine, as you do, isn't going to tell you much about either of the two kinds.
    - tredre3 3y ago
      > I'd say it would make more sense to compare it with a fairly small ICE part, not with the much larger engine. Why would size matter? Without a motor/engine a car goes nowhere. It makes sense to compare engine to motor in that context. > But even that doesn't make much sense, because what happened is that he got a series of duds until they found the problem and fixed it. 14 duds in a row? > Taking the average lifetime of a dud and a good engine, as you do, isn't going to tell you much about either of the two kinds. You're right. But taking the 14 duds vs the usual 0/1 for a production ICE car going the same distance certainly tells us a lot.
      - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
        Allegedly there was a design flaw for that model, so their could have been a lot of dud parts until the problem design was fixed. Also, TFA: > Some early Tesla Model S EVs were known to have issues with their rear motors. This particular Tesla suffered from this. The rear motor was replaced thirteen times, so if we include the original that it came with, that's fourteen motors over the course of about 1.2 million miles. > Most of the replacement motors were actually refurbished units and the problem there is that Tesla didn't know the real issue so it didn't know how to properly fix the motors. Some of these replacement motors failed very quickly. Some were covered under warranty, while others were not.
      - Arnt 3y ago
        It tells us that Tesla shipped early, perhaps too early in the development process, and that Tesla was willing to do a lot of replacing. The former doesn't surprise me. Many ICE cars have several electric motors, e.g. to lower/raise the windows. Why would you expect the electric motors in an EV to behave like the ICE rather than the electric motors in an ICE in terms of maintenance requirements? "Expect replacement after x hours of operation" etc.
- 1letterunixname 3y ago
  But he's haunted by something he cannot define.
syndicatedjelly 3y ago
That’s certainly good for the environment. Meanwhile, this million-mile Toyota Tundra needed only one engine and several dozen oil changes to get that far: https://www.motortrend.com/features/million-mile-tundra-the-tear-down/ https://www.motortrend.com/features/million-mile-tundra-the-...
- reducesuffering 3y ago
  That required 72,000 gallons of gasoline. Which was turned into 1.3 million pounds of CO2
  - syndicatedjelly 3y ago
    How many child laborers were used to mine the precious metals for those 14 motors and 4 batteries?
    - syncsynchalt 3y ago
      Motors are recycled (as cores and copper). Most of the motors in this car were rebuilt from cores, for example. Batteries are also increasingly recycled, either as units or as their components.
      - syndicatedjelly 3y ago
        I genuinely would like to know more about how the material for EV batteries is acquired. If society proposes we all switch to electric cars, then we should know about all the externalities. Not just the ones that are local and convenient for Westerners to think about.
        syncsynchalt 3y ago
        It depends on the chemistry of the particular battery, we're always inventing new ones for better prices or characteristics. Lithium is often mined from saltwater pumped out of the ground and evaporated in ponds. We can also extract it from seawater if desperate, so there's a price ceiling. It's only a few percent of the battery by mass. Iron is mined, along with the nickel, manganese, aluminum, and so on. Steel is alloyed from several mined elements. Cobalt is also mined but has a lot of negative externalities so we've moved to chemistries and cathodes that are cobalt-free or use relatively little. Carbon, oxygen, and phosphorus have many sources.
mtmail 3y ago
> he does take it easy in his Model S. He does not drive the car for long distances without giving it and himself a break. He says he only covers about 62 miles at a time before pausing for a while. [...] For starters, the owner is retired. Article also says 130.000 miles per year average, that's 360 miles per day. That alone is 6 breaks per day assuming he drives 7 days per week. The guy is practically half his life in the car (like a truck driver).
- maximus-decimus 3y ago
  at 130,000 miles per year, 1.2M total and 14th motor... that's more than one motor a year. What the hell is that guy doing?
  - syndicatedjelly 3y ago
    Producing an ad for Tesla
    - ThePowerOfFuet 3y ago
      Not one that makes me want to buy one of their cars.
    - hulitu 3y ago
      > Producing an ad for Tesla A negative one. So the motor in a Tesla does not last for long.
  - syncsynchalt 3y ago
    According to the article that model had motor problems, many of the replacements were refurbs, and it took Tesla a long time to figure out the actual problem. I expect the failures were pretty bursty and front-loaded.
  - hinkley 3y ago
    If he just had the 14th motor put in, that's a little over 90k miles per motor. If he's just about to need his 15th motor, that's 85k miles per motor. Maybe that's okay considering the relative cost of replacing an electric motor versus an ICE drive train, but it doesn't sound great. I would have expected 120k per motor at least.
givemeethekeys 3y ago
"I'm a careful driver. Only 100km per day" Cue shot of car going sideways in the sand in Africa. Something doesn't add up. So, let's assume that the car is being driven much harder than the guy claims. Should that result in 14 motor replacements?
- jacquesm 3y ago
  It's off by a factor of three or four compared to the other stats in the article.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  My dad used to do about 100km (at least) a day before he retired. He lived in Vicksburg MS and commuted round trip to a nuclear plant in Port Gibson MS about 30 miles away. TFA explains the reasoning behind the motor replacements (design flaw).
  - givemeethekeys 3y ago
    Your Dad did about 30 to 40k miles per year. This guy did more than 100k miles per year. Are the batteries also a flawed design?
    - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
      300k miles per battery, that sounds reasonable to me.
1letterunixname 3y ago
When the world can support an EV Otto, let me know, because we're nowhere close yet on the automotive side. (We are at 30% of electricity from renewables globally.)
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  You might be surprised where oil comes from, and how many countries like China have lots of electricity they can bring on line but have to import most of their oil via ship, and then refine it. Going EV is more about economic security, but China is also worried about its environment.
applied_heat 3y ago
I wonder how many miles are on the final motor after Tesla figured out what the design issue was. Nice to get the stat that battery pack is $10k and good for 300k miles.
kristianp 3y ago
> Most of the replacement motors were actually refurbished units and the problem there is that Tesla didn't know the real issue so it didn't know how to properly fix the motors. Some of these replacement motors failed very quickly. I'd be trading my car in for a different brand if this happened to my car!

23 points by Eumenes 3y ago

> And doing so in an electric car, which naysayers often state can't go the distance. It didn't go the distance. It's on its 14th motor and fourth battery pack.

calamari4065 3y ago
86k miles for each motor. That's pretty terrible. It's pretty common for ICE vehicles to not need major service until 100k or more. Total engine failure is pretty uncommon barring a collision or damage from neglect (or poor design). Put another way, 14 motors over 10 years is 8.5 months per motor. At a rough estimate, you're getting somewhere around 2-4 thousand hours per motor. Imagine replacing the engine in your car every 9 months. Or the transmission, or clutch, or any major mechanical component. We'd call that car a lemon. On the other hand, 2.5 years per battery pack isn't too bad. With the kind of abuse shown here, I'd expect them to last closer to one year.
- syncsynchalt 3y ago
  It sounds like the owner charges in the range of 20-80?%, which isn't abuse. Unless you mean DC fast charging as abuse.
  - calamari4065 3y ago
    I really mean "extremely heavy use"
- dzhiurgis 3y ago
  I’m guessing replacing those motors was easier than oil changes on _some_ cars.
- Arnt 3y ago
  This is far off. The model S has two motors, so you're off by a factor of two. Each of the two motors is smaller than the gearbox, so I'd say it would make more sense to compare it with a fairly small ICE part, not with the much larger engine. But even that doesn't make much sense, because what happened is that he got a series of duds until they found the problem and fixed it. Taking the average lifetime of a dud and a good engine, as you do, isn't going to tell you much about either of the two kinds.
  - tredre3 3y ago
    > I'd say it would make more sense to compare it with a fairly small ICE part, not with the much larger engine. Why would size matter? Without a motor/engine a car goes nowhere. It makes sense to compare engine to motor in that context. > But even that doesn't make much sense, because what happened is that he got a series of duds until they found the problem and fixed it. 14 duds in a row? > Taking the average lifetime of a dud and a good engine, as you do, isn't going to tell you much about either of the two kinds. You're right. But taking the 14 duds vs the usual 0/1 for a production ICE car going the same distance certainly tells us a lot.
    - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
      Allegedly there was a design flaw for that model, so their could have been a lot of dud parts until the problem design was fixed. Also, TFA: > Some early Tesla Model S EVs were known to have issues with their rear motors. This particular Tesla suffered from this. The rear motor was replaced thirteen times, so if we include the original that it came with, that's fourteen motors over the course of about 1.2 million miles. > Most of the replacement motors were actually refurbished units and the problem there is that Tesla didn't know the real issue so it didn't know how to properly fix the motors. Some of these replacement motors failed very quickly. Some were covered under warranty, while others were not.
    - Arnt 3y ago
      It tells us that Tesla shipped early, perhaps too early in the development process, and that Tesla was willing to do a lot of replacing. The former doesn't surprise me. Many ICE cars have several electric motors, e.g. to lower/raise the windows. Why would you expect the electric motors in an EV to behave like the ICE rather than the electric motors in an ICE in terms of maintenance requirements? "Expect replacement after x hours of operation" etc.
1letterunixname 3y ago
But he's haunted by something he cannot define.

syndicatedjelly 3y ago

That’s certainly good for the environment. Meanwhile, this million-mile Toyota Tundra needed only one engine and several dozen oil changes to get that far: https://www.motortrend.com/features/million-mile-tundra-the-tear-down/ https://www.motortrend.com/features/million-mile-tundra-the-...

reducesuffering 3y ago
That required 72,000 gallons of gasoline. Which was turned into 1.3 million pounds of CO2
- syndicatedjelly 3y ago
  How many child laborers were used to mine the precious metals for those 14 motors and 4 batteries?
  - syncsynchalt 3y ago
    Motors are recycled (as cores and copper). Most of the motors in this car were rebuilt from cores, for example. Batteries are also increasingly recycled, either as units or as their components.
    - syndicatedjelly 3y ago
      I genuinely would like to know more about how the material for EV batteries is acquired. If society proposes we all switch to electric cars, then we should know about all the externalities. Not just the ones that are local and convenient for Westerners to think about.
      - syncsynchalt 3y ago
        It depends on the chemistry of the particular battery, we're always inventing new ones for better prices or characteristics. Lithium is often mined from saltwater pumped out of the ground and evaporated in ponds. We can also extract it from seawater if desperate, so there's a price ceiling. It's only a few percent of the battery by mass. Iron is mined, along with the nickel, manganese, aluminum, and so on. Steel is alloyed from several mined elements. Cobalt is also mined but has a lot of negative externalities so we've moved to chemistries and cathodes that are cobalt-free or use relatively little. Carbon, oxygen, and phosphorus have many sources.

mtmail 3y ago

> he does take it easy in his Model S. He does not drive the car for long distances without giving it and himself a break. He says he only covers about 62 miles at a time before pausing for a while. [...] For starters, the owner is retired. Article also says 130.000 miles per year average, that's 360 miles per day. That alone is 6 breaks per day assuming he drives 7 days per week. The guy is practically half his life in the car (like a truck driver).

maximus-decimus 3y ago
at 130,000 miles per year, 1.2M total and 14th motor... that's more than one motor a year. What the hell is that guy doing?
- syndicatedjelly 3y ago
  Producing an ad for Tesla
  - ThePowerOfFuet 3y ago
    Not one that makes me want to buy one of their cars.
  - hulitu 3y ago
    > Producing an ad for Tesla A negative one. So the motor in a Tesla does not last for long.
- syncsynchalt 3y ago
  According to the article that model had motor problems, many of the replacements were refurbs, and it took Tesla a long time to figure out the actual problem. I expect the failures were pretty bursty and front-loaded.
- hinkley 3y ago
  If he just had the 14th motor put in, that's a little over 90k miles per motor. If he's just about to need his 15th motor, that's 85k miles per motor. Maybe that's okay considering the relative cost of replacing an electric motor versus an ICE drive train, but it doesn't sound great. I would have expected 120k per motor at least.

givemeethekeys 3y ago

"I'm a careful driver. Only 100km per day" Cue shot of car going sideways in the sand in Africa. Something doesn't add up. So, let's assume that the car is being driven much harder than the guy claims. Should that result in 14 motor replacements?

jacquesm 3y ago
It's off by a factor of three or four compared to the other stats in the article.
seanmcdirmid 3y ago
My dad used to do about 100km (at least) a day before he retired. He lived in Vicksburg MS and commuted round trip to a nuclear plant in Port Gibson MS about 30 miles away. TFA explains the reasoning behind the motor replacements (design flaw).
- givemeethekeys 3y ago
  Your Dad did about 30 to 40k miles per year. This guy did more than 100k miles per year. Are the batteries also a flawed design?
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    300k miles per battery, that sounds reasonable to me.

1letterunixname 3y ago

When the world can support an EV Otto, let me know, because we're nowhere close yet on the automotive side. (We are at 30% of electricity from renewables globally.)

seanmcdirmid 3y ago
You might be surprised where oil comes from, and how many countries like China have lots of electricity they can bring on line but have to import most of their oil via ship, and then refine it. Going EV is more about economic security, but China is also worried about its environment.

applied_heat 3y ago

I wonder how many miles are on the final motor after Tesla figured out what the design issue was. Nice to get the stat that battery pack is $10k and good for 300k miles.

kristianp 3y ago

> Most of the replacement motors were actually refurbished units and the problem there is that Tesla didn't know the real issue so it didn't know how to properly fix the motors. Some of these replacement motors failed very quickly. I'd be trading my car in for a different brand if this happened to my car!