Tesla Model S - what are they like at high mileages?

[LeoZwalf]

Autoweek is a Dutch car magazine which has quite a reasonable online presence. They have a Youtube skit called Klokje Rond which sort of translates to "clock is ticking" = clock in this case meaning the odometer. They get cars with high milages up on the lift and give them a good going over to see how the thing is fairing with such big use.

As they said in this one, it wasn't a case of IF but WHEN there was a Tesla Model S with high enough kilometers to be viable for the show - this one has 271k on it. There are English subs, I thought you guys might find it interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNd3miNU85k

[Otispunkmeyer]

very interesting. Thanks.

I like how the brake discs are still within the acceptable thickness despite having done 270,000 km and he said they could go for much longer still! Of course suspension parts are the things to look for. Its a heavy car and things like ball joints and drop links are going to need replacing at some point. You can't escape that.

[Z3MCJez]

10% battery decline over a quarter of a million km. I think that's pretty damn good.

I hear the biggest problem with EVs is brakes going rusty!

Jez

[LeoZwalf]

Glad you like it guys Further to it, (albeit backwards in time) they also did a 2010 Tesla Roadster with 100,000km in a 2013 episode. Although not high mileage as such, that is a fair amount of km's in only 3 years for such a car. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZhbMw7ys1w

[Lotus Notes]

I've seen this car parked up in Chamonix during the Summer.

[LeoZwalf]

the Model S or the Roadster?

[chandrew]

Z3MCJez said:

10% battery decline over a quarter of a million km. I think that's pretty damn good.

I hear the biggest problem with EVs is brakes going rusty!

Jez

I did wonder whether some of the decline, because he said he gets 10% less now than at new, was due to the hand-brake being stuck on.

[mybrainhurts]

Is there going to be a market for these things when the battery warranty expires?

[EazyDuz]

In for more milk float articles

[anonymous-user]

mybrainhurts said:

Is there going to be a market for these things when the battery warranty expires?

No reason why not, just like the Prius there will be an aftermarket in refurbishing battery packs for a lot less than replacing the whole unit.

[mybrainhurts]

charltjr said:

mybrainhurts said:

Is there going to be a market for these things when the battery warranty expires?

No reason why not, just like the Prius there will be an aftermarket in refurbishing battery packs for a lot less than replacing the whole unit.

Are there proposals on the table, or is that you dreaming?

[anonymous-user]

mybrainhurts said:

Is there going to be a market for these things when the battery warranty expires?

Already, s/h EV batteries are valuable. In a few years, we'll be scrapping perfectly good EVs for their batteries (seriously)

[JonV8V]

chandrew said:

Z3MCJez said:

10% battery decline over a quarter of a million km. I think that's pretty damn good.

I hear the biggest problem with EVs is brakes going rusty!

Jez

I did wonder whether some of the decline, because he said he gets 10% less now than at new, was due to the hand-brake being stuck on.

Probably not - Tesla don't do range based on recent history of consumption, they use a fixed rate of consumption (about 300 wh/m on my 90D) and divide the available battery capacity by that.

Tesla do change this consumption figure from time to time. They constantly make tweaks improving the efficiency and then update the figure to make everyone feel happy. In the overall context of the car, its still pretty good even if its actually lost 15% battery capacity over that time and won 5% back through better efficiency. A petrol car will have probably lost as much and a fair bit of power too.

[ukshooter]

mybrainhurts said:

Is there going to be a market for these things when the battery warranty expires?

Why not? Most engines and transmissions don't have 8 year unlimited mileage warranties yet people still buy them.

Ever priced up a new (from the manufacturer) engine and gearbox? If you look at V8 BMW's as a fair performance comparison, a replacement battery pack is about the same now but getting regularly cheaper as time goes by.

The Tesla battery warranty does not cover normal expected degradation, just like regular warranties don't cover wear and tear.
Mine degraded about 5-6% by the end of year one but has slowed now to about 7% total and a lot of others are finding similar experiences.

[anonymous-user]

mybrainhurts said:

charltjr said:

mybrainhurts said:

Is there going to be a market for these things when the battery warranty expires?

No reason why not, just like the Prius there will be an aftermarket in refurbishing battery packs for a lot less than replacing the whole unit.

Are there proposals on the table, or is that you dreaming?

It's just a very big pack of small lithium cells, there's nothing particularly special about it. There will be a labour cost to get at them, and it will be considerable, but once the demand is there then the aftermarket will catch up just like it always does.

[mybrainhurts]

ukshooter said:

mybrainhurts said:

Is there going to be a market for these things when the battery warranty expires?

Why not? Most engines and transmissions don't have 8 year unlimited mileage warranties yet people still buy them.

Ever priced up a new (from the manufacturer) engine and gearbox? If you look at V8 BMW's as a fair performance comparison, a replacement battery pack is about the same now but getting regularly cheaper as time goes by.

The Tesla battery warranty does not cover normal expected degradation, just like regular warranties don't cover wear and tear.
Mine degraded about 5-6% by the end of year one but has slowed now to about 7% total and a lot of others are finding similar experiences.

I was wondering if anyone would take on an 8 year old car with the threat of a battery failure costing £000s to replace.

You can generally tell if an engine/gearbox are worn, but I'm not sure I'd be happy to guess a battery might be ok.

[anonymous-user]

mybrainhurts said:

I was wondering if anyone would take on an 8 year old car with the threat of a battery failure costing £000s to replace.

You can generally tell if an engine/gearbox are worn, but I'm not sure I'd be happy to guess a battery might be ok.

Precisely the opposite in fact. The battery pack tells you EXACTLY how worn it is, by reporting its usable capacity. The spinny, oily, mechanical bits in your conventional powertrain have no idea how knackered they are. You could buy a car, and plenty of people have, that feels just fine on the test drive, but wrecks its DMF or main bearings, pops its turbo, scores it's bores, blocks its DPF, snaps its cam belt, or a hundred other failures the very next day.

In fact, this is broadly why cars get cheaper the more miles they have done, because they are more likely to fail as they get older. But increasingly, a 5yo 100k miles car feels very similar to drive than a 1yo 10kmile equivalent.

[JonV8V]

Max_Torque said:

mybrainhurts said:

I was wondering if anyone would take on an 8 year old car with the threat of a battery failure costing £000s to replace.

You can generally tell if an engine/gearbox are worn, but I'm not sure I'd be happy to guess a battery might be ok.

Precisely the opposite in fact. The battery pack tells you EXACTLY how worn it is, by reporting its usable capacity. The spinny, oily, mechanical bits in your conventional powertrain have no idea how knackered they are. You could buy a car, and plenty of people have, that feels just fine on the test drive, but wrecks its DMF or main bearings, pops its turbo, scores it's bores, blocks its DPF, snaps its cam belt, or a hundred other failures the very next day.

In fact, this is broadly why cars get cheaper the more miles they have done, because they are more likely to fail as they get older. But increasingly, a 5yo 100k miles car feels very similar to drive than a 1yo 10kmile equivalent.

I think that's only partly true. We know the slow degradation but no idea if there's a terminal failure just around the corner due to something else. No idea what they'd be, but I've had the same batteries in a torch and one min they're ok, the next they're dead. Corrosion on terminals. Doesn't really matter, stuff fails.

Edited by JonV8V on Saturday 14th January 13:57

[Z3MCJez]

charltjr said:

mybrainhurts said:

Is there going to be a market for these things when the battery warranty expires?

No reason why not, just like the Prius there will be an aftermarket in refurbishing battery packs for a lot less than replacing the whole unit.

There was an article that I saw about this the other day, which basically said that Tesla control the car remotely, and would (possibly) disable any car that had a battery pack changed like this post-warranty. I couldn't tell if this was scare-mongering or likely to be the truth. But we won't know until the first cars are out of warranty.

Jez

[Blaster72]

charltjr said:

mybrainhurts said:

Is there going to be a market for these things when the battery warranty expires?

No reason why not, just like the Prius there will be an aftermarket in refurbishing battery packs for a lot less than replacing the whole unit.

Once the cars get down to around £20k any battery issue will make the car uneconomical to repair with a new battery but as above I'm sure already some enterprising firms will be looking at refurbishment options.

I've read that the cars mainly affected with bad degradation are those that are used for high mileage and always charge to 100%. If you're careful and don't charge them fully as recommended there seems to be no reason why the car can't do 200-300 thousand miles and still have 70+ % of it's original battery capacity. Not bad I'd say.

When it comes to the end of its life Tesla already seem to have a decent recycling scheme ready

https://www.tesla.com/en_GB/blog/teslas-closed-loo...

The Nissan leaf however seems to suffer quite badly with degradation which added to an already poor original range is going to make for some 2nd hand cars with comical ranges. It is an issue but not for now with the Model S it seems.