That's Not Ok: Tesla Edition

[Mike K]

So we all know by now that Tesla has three insanely fast iterations of the Model S:

P85D/ Insane - 3.1s 0-60
P85D/ P90D Ludicrous - 2.8s 0-60
P100D Ludicrous - 2.4s 0-60

Many people aren't aware that the cars have a launch control mode. I've found it to be kind of pointless because the difference between 3.1 seconds to 60mph and 3.2 seconds is not noticeable. That is oppressively harsh acceleration no matter how you slice it. But others like to squeeze out every electron and in doing so, use launch control regularly. Just one problem...

Tesla is allegedly cutting the peak power output on the P85D & P90D cars after they reach a certain number of launches. And when I say reducing peak power output I don't mean for a couple minutes. I don't even mean for that particular driving session. Apparently once the affected cars hit the launch limit their peak power is reduced forever.

Tesla hasn't officially responded however they are telling customers with affected cars that the way around this is to upgrade their cars to the 100kwh battery pack. As of right now not all cars are affected and the guys that discovered this can't tell specifically how many launches are required to trigger the output reductions (though it's in the low double digits) but they confirm they exist. I can't imagine Tesla wouldn't quickly address this. I assume it's not something corporate would have approved but that made it into the car anyhow. Either way. If your advertising a car's capabilities, you can't start limiting those capabilities without saying anything, especially when people are buying the car specifically for them.

I'll post when the story is updated.

Click to read more...

 

[Gone_2022]

Sadly this is one major downside to this car. It's so advanced and connected to their network they can do anything at anytime.

This means great things for owners with updates and tweaks like an iPhone, but it can come with a price.

I hope this is all untrue and that individuals car was a fluke or trying to protect itself from damage.

 

[Gone_2022]

Also I am confused how does upgrading to a 100k pack fix this?

Speaking of bad news and batteries. A few members I follow on YouTube have been doing testing on these cars. They have found you are getting less and less actual usable battery from these higher models. Less useable KWs.

Basically what they found was that the original 60kw was the best bang for buck when it came to actual battery usage

 

[BeerOrGasoline]

Tesla will just push an update one day that cuts every cars power in half unless you upgrade for $$$$. Then rinse & repeat.


#DemProfits

 

[Gone_2022]

I do not believe that can happen, however I do wonder if there is something in their agreements or software patches that state this. Such as your massive iTunes update agreements we never read and agree to. Basically saying after x amount of hard launches the car will go into "x" driving mode to protect itself.

I don't own a tesla so I do not even know if there are license agreements every update you have to agree too

 

[Mike K]

Sadly this is one major downside to this car. It's so advanced and connected to their network they can do anything at anytime.

This means great things for owners with updates and tweaks like an iPhone, but it can come with a price.

I hope this is all untrue and that individuals car was a fluke or trying to protect itself from damage.

It is more than one person that's experienced this. They just haven't been able to pick out a common denominator yet or apparently a solid number for how many launches before the car reduces it's power. Also I don't know how much it's reducing power. If I was a betting man I'd assume there is no static number for how many launches it takes but rather a timer that determines how often the car is launched in a given period of time and anything over that might be considered abuse. If that's the case I'd be more inclined to forgive them.

Also I am confused how does upgrading to a 100k pack fix this?

The freakishly fast cars aren't really a result of trying to make freakishly fast cars; they're a byproduct of trying to make drivetrains that will last a million miles per Elon. So people that had P85D's that wanted to add Ludicrous mode weren't just paying for Tesla to flip a switch in their software and unleash the extra power; they actually had to have their batteries retrofitted with larger fuses to accommodate the extra power. Likewise with the P100D. The battery architecture is apparently completely different and better equipped to deal with consistent abuse than the older batteries.

Speaking of bad news and batteries. A few members I follow on YouTube have been doing testing on these cars. They have found you are getting less and less actual usable battery from these higher models. Less useable KWs.

Basically what they found was that the original 60kw was the best bang for buck when it came to actual battery usage

That's really a fake scandal in my opinion. If Tesla advertised only based on kWh then I'd be holding a pitchfork too but they advertise the cars by range and as long as they achieve that range I'm fine.

The original 60kWh car is the worst bang for the buck. I think they might have been referring to the newer software limited 60kWh cars which are an amazing deal. The reason for that is because you're really not supposed to charge these cars to full every night because batteries don't like sitting at full charge. So most people charge to 90% but with a software limited 60kWh car you can charge to 100% since it's a software limited 75kWh battery and the difference between a 90% charge 75 (233 miles) and a 100% charge 60 (218 miles) is just 15 miles but a $7,500 price difference. So if you can live with the lower range the 60 is a smoking deal for that car right now.

Basically $60,000 after tax credits and as full autonomy comes online you can buy that if you like it or unlock the larger battery.

 

[Mike K]

I should add that Elon Musk is historically a pretty stand up guy. They're not going to extort people to restore their car's power output. If they have a car that's seeing multiple launch control launches every day, day after day and there's some sort of algorithm in the car that lowers power to protect itself from abuse, I can deal and I think that's somewhat fair.

I think BMW was doing something similar with M vehicles that were being launched only they were denying warranty work and temporarily limiting the vehicle's ability to launch. A permanent (if that's what it really is) reduction in power isn't a suitable solution for me.

 

[Gone_2022]

It is more than one person that's experienced this. They just haven't been able to pick out a common denominator yet or apparently a solid number for how many launches before the car reduces it's power. Also I don't know how much it's reducing power. If I was a betting man I'd assume there is no static number for how many launches it takes but rather a timer that determines how often the car is launched in a given period of time and anything over that might be considered abuse. If that's the case I'd be more inclined to forgive them.







The freakishly fast cars aren't really a result of trying to make freakishly fast cars; they're a byproduct of trying to make drivetrains that will last a million miles per Elon. So people that had P85D's that wanted to add Ludicrous mode weren't just paying for Tesla to flip a switch in their software and unleash the extra power; they actually had to have their batteries retrofitted with larger fuses to accommodate the extra power. Likewise with the P100D. The battery architecture is apparently completely different and better equipped to deal with consistent abuse than the older batteries.







That's really a fake scandal in my opinion. If Tesla advertised only based on kWh then I'd be holding a pitchfork too but they advertise the cars by range and as long as they achieve that range I'm fine.



The original 60kWh car is the worst bang for the buck. I think they might have been referring to the newer software limited 60kWh cars which are an amazing deal. The reason for that is because you're really not supposed to charge these cars to full every night because batteries don't like sitting at full charge. So most people charge to 90% but with a software limited 60kWh car you can charge to 100% since it's a software limited 75kWh battery and the difference between a 90% charge 75 (233 miles) and a 100% charge 60 (218 miles) is just 15 miles but a $7,500 price difference. So if you can live with the lower range the 60 is a smoking deal for that car right now.



Basically $60,000 after tax credits and as full autonomy comes online you can buy that if you like it or unlock the larger battery.

Well I think their argument was their 90kw cars have degraded massively since purchase. When I say massively 100% charge is down 25-30 miles or so with only 20k miles on the car. They began doing testing on the batteries and found that info out.

Idk it's way above me, these guys are way out of my league with time and brains.

As far as the first post with abuse, I would agree I wouldn't be mad, but at the end of the day those customers purchased the car, it's not Teslas car anymore it's mine to do with as I please. So that argument can be made.

If it was more like with what Subaru does now and keeps track of every single time the car went WOT, I would agree with that type of monitoring for warranty purposes

 

[sickmint79]

what's the difference how did people first notice their 3.2s launch turned into a 3.4s launch?

 

[Turbocharged400sbc]

Heavy discharge rates significantly shorten a batteries life as well as its recovery time.
I'm going to guess that the 100 battery pack has great A+ quality grade cells instead of lower-grade cells that the rest of the battery packs use.... that would make them far more likely to experience a single cell or pack failure under heavy discharge rates

 

[Lord Tin Foilhat]

We just need new types of batteries. Current ones just don't cut it for a lot of situations IMO.

 

[Turbocharged400sbc]

For those kinds of launches and current draw demands on a regular basis...it would require a supercapacitor more than a chemical thermal reaction.

 

[guspech750]

Interesting story and cool technology.

But I'll stick to my "dumb" cars no tech thank you. I'm not a fan of automatic overreach from corporate or government entities.

 

[Mike K]

Well I think their argument was their 90kw cars have degraded massively since purchase. When I say massively 100% charge is down 25-30 miles or so with only 20k miles on the car. They began doing testing on the batteries and found that info out.

Ah ok, you misread it then. Battery degradation problems are completely nonexistent. In fact, the batteries are holding up even better than Tesla thought they would. There are guys with 100,000 miles that have lost just 5 or 6 miles of range on the original A-revision packs. That's insanity. The video you saw was about available battery capacity versus the exact number Tesla advertises. So the 85kWh battery is really something like 81kWh of capacity. The new 60's actually have something like 59kWh available which is what makes them the best bang for the buck.

As far as the first post with abuse, I would agree I wouldn't be mad, but at the end of the day those customers purchased the car, it's not Teslas car anymore it's mine to do with as I please. So that argument can be made.

If it was more like with what Subaru does now and keeps track of every single time the car went WOT, I would agree with that type of monitoring for warranty purposes

Does Subaru do that? That's ridiculous to me. The car should be able to go WOT as often as you want. I do tend to think that using launch control excessively is an issue though and I'm not sure Tesla should be on the hook if someone is using that excessively. It would appear that instead of denying claim, they've resorted to just limiting power. That's all odd to me since there are no common powertrain issues with the cars anyhow.

 

[Mike K]

what's the difference how did people first notice their 3.2s launch turned into a 3.4s launch?

I don't think they noticed their times being slower. They noticed their reported kW output being lower.

 

[Sprayin]

Heavy discharge rates significantly shorten a batteries life

This is *exactly* why they are doing this. Discharge/charge rate has an adverse effect on the life of the battery. Tesla seems to do a ton of testing on charge rates (ya know cuz important) but discharge rates don't seem to be as front and center (they didn't forget, I assure you.) This is their insurance.

 

[Stink Star]

What's this I hear about Tesla's new update limiting autopilot to the speed limit on non-divided roads?

 

[Gone_2022]

What's this I hear about Tesla's new update limiting autopilot to the speed limit on non-divided roads?

I mean I don't see an issue with that. Being safe and covering their ass. Basically if you want to use our autopilot on that road you have to allow it to obey the law.

 

[Gone_2022]

Ah ok, you misread it then. Battery degradation problems are completely nonexistent. In fact, the batteries are holding up even better than Tesla thought they would. There are guys with 100,000 miles that have lost just 5 or 6 miles of range on the original A-revision packs. That's insanity. The video you saw was about available battery capacity versus the exact number Tesla advertises. So the 85kWh battery is really something like 81kWh of capacity. The new 60's actually have something like 59kWh available which is what makes them the best bang for the buck.







Does Subaru do that? That's ridiculous to me. The car should be able to go WOT as often as you want. I do tend to think that using launch control excessively is an issue though and I'm not sure Tesla should be on the hook if someone is using that excessively. It would appear that instead of denying claim, they've resorted to just limiting power. That's all odd to me since there are no common powertrain issues with the cars anyhow.

Subaru does it for warranty purposes. Basically protecting themselves from that shitty teen coming in with his blown sti engine. Pull the data and find it's been floored 800 times and when the engine blew it was wot at redline etc

 

[Yaj Yak]

yeah, that's lame as shit.

a bone stock car should be able to go WOT as often as the driver wants, "shitty teen" or not...

 

[Thirdgen89GTA]

This is *exactly* why they are doing this. Discharge/charge rate has an adverse effect on the life of the battery. Tesla seems to do a ton of testing on charge rates (ya know cuz important) but discharge rates don't seem to be as front and center (they didn't forget, I assure you.) This is their insurance.

Heavy discharge rates not only shorten the life of the battery but also affect its ability to sustain voltage under heavy loads.

The lipo batteries in my bug RC truck are an example. When new they had enough punch to make the truck do a standing backflip. Now it can barely lift the front wheels on the ground. And it can only do that if you allow it to rest for a few minutes between pulls.

Same thing eventually happens to the packs inside full size cars.

 

[Turbocharged400sbc]

Just remember that modern cars are only engineered to handle wide open throttle for less than 1% of it's life

 

[Stink Star]

I mean I don't see an issue with that. Being safe and covering their ass. Basically if you want to use our autopilot on that road you have to allow it to obey the law.

Then why does any car do over 65mph? Going exactly the speed limit is quite dangerous is most real world situations

 

[Gone_2022]

Then why does any car do over 65mph? Going exactly the speed limit is quite dangerous is most real world situations

Because those cars are under your control, they are not under the control of a companies software causing possible legal issues.

I mean if you set the cruise to 90 mph on autopilot and kill someone that's not something they want.

 

[Stink Star]

Yea but you can still set autopilot on a highway to any speed you want so where's the logic there?