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Tesla Model S Battery Drain Issue Fixed
cartechboy writes "Does the Tesla Model S suck down power even when the car is switched off? Recently, a tweet to Elon Musk with an article saying so sparked the Tesla CEO's attention. He tweeted that it wasn't right and that he'd look into the situation. Then a few hours later, he tweeted that the issue had to do with a bad 12-volt battery. Turns out Tesla had already called the owner of the affected car and sent a service tech to his house to replace that battery — and also install a newer build of the car's software. Now it appears the 'Vampire Draw' has been slain. The car went from using 4.5 kWh per day while turned off to a mere 1.1 kWh. So, it seems to be solved, but Tesla may either need to fix some software, or start sending a few new 12-volt batteries out to the folks still experiencing the issue."
" to a mere 1.1 kWh per day, while doing nothing.."
- sorry, I am actually a Tesla fan (or would be, given the chance..) - but 1100w (per day) for doing sweet fuck all, presented as progress?
it's stuff like this that makes me say, thanks, call me when you have the finished article.
1.1kWh is equivalent to having a ~40W light bulb on. If you have a couple of circuits powered on, given it is a fully electric car with all kinds of gizmos built into it, this discharge rate is actually quite nominal.
Face your daemons!
"1100w (per day)" ... whatever that means, it is wrong.
1.1 kWh = 45 watts for a day
You do realize the thing does not have a key. Hell you can not even open the doors without the fob they are literally retracted into the car.
No sir I dont like it.
That's 4.5 kilowatt-hours per day. I.e. in a day, it draws 4.5 kWh of energy.
A watt is a unit of power. A watt-hour is a unit of energy. 1 Wh = 1 W x 1 h. Similarly, 1 kWh = 1 kW x 1h. A 200-watt motor left on for an hour will draw 200 Wh of energy. A 200-watt motor left on all thetime will draw 200 W x 24 h = 4.8 kWh of energy per day.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
There's a 12-volt lead-acid battery in the thing to power the auxiliary systems. It's the same size as a regular automotive battery, but apparently is a sealed type, intended to last the life of the vehicle. Since it doesn't need to provide cranking power, a high-current battery isn't necessary.
Tesla owners have been reporting 12 volt battery failures for months. Usually the charging system reports "12 volt battery failure", but apparently a partial failure is possible, where the aux battery is an energy drain but still functional.
Wan't to completely turn the battery off? You sure can, but that clicker to open/lock the door won't work, nor would the security alarm. These are the first two things that come to mind. There might be many other essential things that you might have to do without.
Face your daemons!
"According to Tesla, the car needs a constant flow of power to keep its computers and systems switched on 24/7, ready to boot up instantly when the driver gets into the car. (It's a popular myth among Model S owners that much of the vampire power goes to keep the battery warm during cold nights. This is simply not true.) According to Tesla, there is no thermal management of the Model S battery when the car is turned off and not charging--no matter how cold it gets."
"Ironically, the Model S had very little vampire drain when it was first introduced. My owner's manual is based on the original software in the car. "When you're not driving Model S, the Battery discharges very slowly to power the onboard electronics," it purrs reassuringly. "On average the battery discharges at a rate of 1 percent per day. Unfortunately, the "sleep mode" software in those early cars triggered all sorts of glitches in the car's other systems. Eventually, the problems became so persistent that Tesla simply disabled the sleep mode. With sleep taken away, the vampires came out to play. And instead of draining 1 percent every 24 hours, the Model S battery suddenly began losing 5 or 6 percent of its charge every day. (In the case of 60-kWh cars like mine, it's closer to 7 or 8 percent.)"
"So far I've run three overnight tests with the kWh meter. For each test, I charged the car up in the evening to its usual selected level (In my case, about 80 percent). Then I removed the charge plug. I allowed the car to sit unplugged overnight and on into the next day, until I needed to drive it. (Typically a span of 12 to 24 hours.) Before driving it, I plugged it back in to top off the vampire-depleted battery back to its original level. Then I checked the kWh-meter. Test results: The three tests showed vampire losses of 2.3 kWh in 17 hours, 1.9 kWh in 23 hours, and 4.2 kWh in 18 hours. Total vampire power lost was 8.4 kWh in 58 hours. That's an average of 3.5 kWh per day--roughly 25 percent lower than the losses I measured previously. I can't explain the wide variation in the vampire draw over the three tests. Clearly, more than three tests will be required to come up with an accurate figure. But it's clear to me that the new vampire-slayer software is pretty weak stuff. It's better than nothing, I suppose. A 25-percent improvement means that the 20,000 Model S cars now on the road will only waste about 70 megawatt-hours of power a day, down from 90 MWh. And it means that Musk's anti-vampire prediction has turned out to be one-quarter true in twice the time. Update 6.0, anyone?"
http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1088648_life-with-tesla-model-s-even-after-update-vampire-draw-remains
Yes, but a mobile phone can't drive dual large displays with Nvidia GPUs
My phone drives a full HD (1920x1080) screen with desktop class graphics, more than enough for what Tesla does. They should be able to power down their GPU and screen when not in use.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Take SpaceX for example - where the fanbois refuse to acknowledge the problems the Falcon 9 has experienced and who also treat the Falcon Heavy as if it were a proven craft rather than vaporware.
So you hate Elon Musk because you imagine that people (who are not Elon Musk) are not adequately upset by all the "problems" that Falcon 9 has experienced? Are you sure fanbois (nice ad hominem by the way) refuse to acknowledge the "problems," it seems to me you are blowing them out of proportion. What Falcon 9 problems are out of line for developing a completely new rocket, including engines? I'm not saying there haven't been problems and I know it took longer than they thought, but I don't see anything out of the ordinary in the course of developing a new rocket. Also, kindly list any comparable rockets that had fewer problems during their development and shakedown phases. Most currently flying rockets have had catastrophic failures during their development and service. The "worst" incident so far for the Falcon 9 was an engine failure, and it still reached orbit and deployed it's cargo - albeit in a lower than optimal orbit. Here is a sampling of some respectable rockets, from respectable companies having real problems:
No rocket technology has ever been perfect right off the drawing board and most rockets flying today are using engines originally designed in the 60s and 70s. Those engines failed a lot during their early flights.
The only currently inservice rocket (that I am aware of) that has not had an outright failure is the Atlas V. That thing is amazing, but it costs 4x as much to launch as a Falcon 9 even though ULA gets launch subsidies. Orbital Services' Antares also looks like a solid platform. Its first flight was originally planned to be in December 2010 (when it was called the Taurus II). Its first launch was actually late April 2013. Two and a quarter years behind schedule (which is about the same delay as the Falcon 9.) Yet it's a much less capable rocket than the Falcon 9, using "off the shelf" engines and therefore should have been easier to design and build. But it turns out that building rockets is hard, even for companies that have been doing it for decades.
I want to be clear, I'm not bagging on any of the existing manufacturers nor their rockets. I just don't understand your animosity towards SpaceX, Elon Musk, and those of us excited that space flight is becoming less expensive.
And I feel the same way about Tesla. I don't expect a car to be perfect. It seems like a damn cool car and most the people that own one seem more than pleased with it. As for this problem existing for quite a while, it sounds like Tesla addressed it once they where made aware of it.
Facts aren't hate - except to the fanbois.
If this has to be explained to you... well, then you're either among the fanbois or terminally clueless as to the world around you.
You didn't list any actual facts and calling people fanbois and terminally clueless is pretty rude.
Some privacy policy Slashdot.