Topic: Tesla Model S

[rrocket]

Tesla has a fantastic battery management system,

Drive Units are the part that is problematic.

[Blueprint]

Update:  Brought 2013 Model S85 in for it's final service prior to extended warranty end date in mid 2019.

Fixed air suspension.  Both rear struts replaced.   Came back from 10 day vacation and found the Model S rear suspension was lower than the front.   Took picture.  Tesla diagnosed as a leak in the struts, ordered the parts and contacted to book service when parts arrived a few weeks later.

Fixed power steering bolt recall.  Parts had been available for months, but I wanted to do one service to cover any and all items prior to end of warranty.

Rear hatch lift gate strut showed rust, Tesla replaced and updated firm ware to work with the newer strut.

Tesla provided 2016 Model S loaner for the day.
Service started at 9AM, was completed at 1PM, car cleaned and charged.

For the 3 year period of ownership, we have spent $0 on maintenance and were provided loaners or rental for every service, and one of the appointments Tesla came to our house and took the car away and returned it.   Very satisfied.


As noted up thread, the car keeps getting better, the new software/firmware continues to impress.
Tesla has a fantastic battery management system, it's absolutely a charge and drive product, no degradation in 4 years.


Note on the loaner, the 2016 had "auto pilot V1".  I found it useful in the heavy traffic on DVP.  The car display showed the traffic around and made it clear when it recognized traffic merging in and left space, and I felt confident after 20 minutes using it.   My wife didn't like it, and wanted to close her eyes as a passenger when I had the car in auto driving modes on the DVP, but was Ok when the traffic was lighter.

Warranty ended? This will be interesting to follow 

firmware has to be updated for the rear hatch gas struts  Motorized hatch, I presume?

[bye]

firmware has to be updated for the rear hatch gas struts  Motorized hatch, I presume?

Yes, powered rear lift.

Rear hatch right strut was replaced with new part, but left was original (6 years old), firmware actually knows about this and operates them slightly differently, it works, and the way the tech described it really surprised me, in a good way.  Very impressed by Tesla firmware testing and thoroughness.

[bye]

How many km on the S now?

Odo = 132000 km, within 3000 km and/or 2 months of being out of extended warranty.
Drivetrain and battery are good through 2021, which seems a long way off, and gives us confidence to keep the car.
Truthfully, been treated like any other Tesla customer, regardless of buying from CPO/used program or new.

Tesla is my wife's car.   Her intention is to replace the S some day (no time specified) with CPO/used Model X with towing package.

[bye]

Details from "fleetCarma" reports on our 2013 Tesla Model S

36000 km logged since installing fleet carma device
12 MWh energy used during charging with 8.5 MWh electricity consumed
=230 Wh/km efficiency

27% supercharging, mostly done during the day on road trips
60% of all km added during 11PM-6AM overnight period

Meaning, 3% of "slow" charging done during "peak" daily period, so most charging done free (supercharge) or via cheaper overnight rates.

Total spend on charging = $720 for 36000 km = $2 / 100 km
(includes charging and heat loses, taxes and delivery and all other rates/costs)

[bye]

What a great car.
Truly special experience to own and drive a Tesla according to my wife (it's her car).

[bye]

Experienced our first maintenance out of warranty.

Two TPMS sensors failed after 4 years.
Note : Wheels + rims + sensors stored in non-climate controlled conditions.

$160 taxes inc per sensor for full replacement.   
The sensor itself is $90+tax.

[rrocket]

Experienced our first maintenance out of warranty.

Two TPMS sensors failed after 4 years.
Note : Wheels + rims + sensors stored in non-climate controlled conditions.

$160 taxes inc per sensor for full replacement.   
The sensor itself is $90+tax.

No biggie.

[Guy]

Read a FB pot last night about the Taxi driver in Quebec City with a S. He just hit 350,000 km. The 85 kWh battery was replaced under warranty in December 2017 for a used 90 kWh. Thats about it. He claims the car still look and drive like new, inside and out. He put some interior pics and it is true, the leather on the seats show some ripples but I have seen much worse on cars with lower mileage. 

He is the guy who was nice enough to give me a free ride in his taxi, just because I wanted to ride in a Tesla in 2013. 

[EV Dan]

Experienced our first maintenance out of warranty.

Two TPMS sensors failed after 4 years.
Note : Wheels + rims + sensors stored in non-climate controlled conditions.

$160 taxes inc per sensor for full replacement.   
The sensor itself is $90+tax.

No biggie.

I'd say reasonable for a genuine part and dealer service. If you know your part number, ebay is your store. But CAN YOU look up manufacturer's part numbers for a Tesla?

[bye]

CAN YOU look up manufacturer's part numbers for a Tesla?

Yes.

https://epc.tesla.com/

[bye]

Our 2013 Tesla S85 RWD with Nokian R2's worked well in the Ontario snow storm on Saturday, drove 35 minutes one-way to a recreation center, no worries, even plugged in to a Tesla destination charger on site, super!

Came back out to see the car embedded in a snow bank pushed into our car from a private snow plow contractor no doubt.
With traction control on, and low suspension, couldn't get out, so disabled traction control, raised suspension height to max, floored it and OUT, no worries.

Drove home with traction control on and ride height normal, did "snow plow" some deeper snow on the street, no issues for us, but did see a bus crashed into a pedestrian cross walk sign, another half dozen cars stranded, and one crazy thing, a car attempted to turn right into my lane, I let off (and regen'd), and he finally saw me coming over the snow bank and realized he should have been more cautious, so he steered his car right onto the sidewalk and high sided it in the snow bank, didn't even make the turn...strange.

For fun, I did disable traction control on a 4 lane local road near our house with no one around and did some donuts in the >10cm of snow.
My son regaled my wife with the story of the donuts and how dizzy he got ... sigh, thought we were keeping that one between the boys, but oh well (it is her car by the way!!).

Tesla makes a great winter car.

[bye]

Time for summer tire switch over in the next few weeks.

The winter nokian R2s have 5 years on them, so I am selectively turning off traction control and roasting them when the opportunity arises, got as much life out of them as makes sense.

[rrocket]

Time for summer tire switch over in the next few weeks.

The winter nokian R2s have 5 years on them, so I am selectively turning off traction control and roasting them when the opportunity arises, got as much life out of them as makes sense.

Sounds good to me!   

[bye]

Thought I would be replacing the winter tires and rims, but the 2020 spring (COVID) situation means we're not going anywhere, so kept them on.
Figured, I've got some tread left, and I was out of the city (buying a used more comfortable home office chair), so ...

Had some fun today, hustled the Model S on back roads outside the city, found a willing BMW 4 series chasing, and let him fly off as I headed back.
Stopped at supercharger on the way home to see if the recent firmware changes have throttled, found no issue.
Charged at 86 kW peak (!!) starting at ~30% battery, kept above 50 kW until 70% and then slowed way down as battery got above 80%.

Charge log from Fleet Carma


Start Date           Duration   Energy (kWh)   Start SOC (%)   End SOC (%)   
April 24 2020       01:05:54   45.75           32                   93   

That's about 260 km of range added.
This is one of the rare supercharger sessions when I had time to waste so I wanted to see what happened the further up to the top of battery.
One interesting thing, the battery was warmed up (drove hard), the battery cooler (front louvers opened, fan on) ran when charge got above 70% until I unplugged and then stopped.


From the trip report, drove 80 km with 50% hard acceleration, 30% hard braking, used 30% of the battery, so in this scenario, the car has 250 km range.
Efficiency was 30 kWh/100 km, if I was paying for the trip fuel (which I didn't, supercharging is free), that would be $3.50.

[bye]

Hmm, thought I wrote a note on the power usage of the Tesla when Idle, but don't see it here, so adding now.

The fleet carma report shows ~3 kWh daily power consumption when the car is actively "listening" and responding to remote connectivity.
Can be disabled, but we like the convenience of pre-condition, etc.

Over a month, that's nearly 100 kWh or $13 in electricity (taxes, distribution, etc inc).
With free unlimited supercharging, that would be a few half battery charging sessions if we parked at the mall and went in (which we would normally do in a month).
With the solar on our roof, that is the equivalent of 3x320W panels power output (averaged over a year, summer is better than winter, etc).

My average daily usage of the Smart is only 7 kWh daily averaged over the year, so the Tesla uses half the energy staying online compared to me commuting to work and back (40 km round trip).  My Smart ED uses zero energy when parked, but it's basic transportation and no remote connectivity.

[bye]

Sept 2020 update.

Winter tires still on the car due to low km driving in COVID times.   
Buying new winter tires as we are keeping the Tesla S till we get the Cybertruck.

Did a 1200 km road trip over a week to Northern Ontario, multiple supercharges where we got the 90 kW maximum rate for our car (same as new).  Newer Model S will charge at 250 kW max with the improved battery chemistry and cooling systems.

Charged to 100% before the trip, car reported 404 km range, which is 5% degradation after 7.5 years, great!   Car sat for a week and lost a few percent of range sitting in the sun.  Car responded immediately when we got back to it, the "walk up door handle greeting" is always a treat.

We didn't need to store anything in the cabin due to the large amount of cargo capacity.  Whereas we saw the Model 3's at the superchargers with stuff in the back seats.  Saw two Model Y on the trip, one at a supercharger, nicer looking car than the Model 3 IMHO.

Drove to visit family last week, used 9/10ths of the car performance on some back roads, a lot of fun, and the car still accelerates like it was new, as strong as my Camaro Z28 did back in the day, but in this case, I didn't need to focus on the RPM's to get within the power band, Tesla is just press accelerator and GO!

The efficiency of the Tesla on the highway at 130+ km/h was incredible, we were seeing 350 km range (assuming 100-0%) at that speed.

All in all, still impressed with our Tesla, not a squeak, rattle or sign of aging.

[rrocket]

Good stuff! Good to hear the batteries are holding up. That's always a question on many peoples' minds about EV ownership.

I don't think the integrity of the batteries has been a Tesla issue.  Seem to hold up fine.

[bye]

Was cleaning the garage and found the original floor mats chewed by creatures who presumably had batter uses for them (building a home) than I... sigh, guess when we trade/sell it the next owner will only get the rubber mats we put in the car.   

[rrocket]

Was cleaning the garage and found the original floor mats chewed by creatures who presumably had batter uses for them (building a home) than I... sigh, guess when we trade/sell it the next owner will only get the rubber mats we put in the car.

Those same critters love to chew electrical wire covers.

Put some mouse traps down ASAP.