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Tesla Temporarily Boosts Battery Capacity For Hurricane Irma (sfgate.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the remote-power-upgrades dept.

Slashdot reader mikeebbbd noticed this in the AP's Florida hurricane coverage: Electric car maker Tesla says it has temporarily increased the battery capacity of some of its cars to help drivers escaping Hurricane Irma. The electric car maker said the battery boost was applied to Model S and X cars in the Southeast. Some drivers only buy 60 or 70 kilowatt hours of battery capacity, but a software change will give them access to 75 kilowatt hours of battery life until Saturday. Depending on the model, that could let drivers travel about 40 more miles before they would need to recharge their cars.

Tesla said it made the change after a customer asked the company for help evacuating. The company said it's possible it will make similar changes in response to similar events in the future.

41 of 328 comments (clear)

  1. Uh huh... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Or maybe Tesla could just stop artificially crippling the batteries?

    1. Re: Uh huh... by BitterOak · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The crippled betteries are sold under cost.

      The problem with that business model is eventually someone will figure out how to "jailbreak" their car and enhance the battery life without paying Tesla for the privilege. This will create all kinds of legal nightmares. Historically car owners have been allowed to "soup up their ride" (as long as the resulting vehicle is street legal), but with this new kind of business model that Tesla has, that could change. When you buy a car will there be an EULA that forbids making improvements? This could be a slippery slope.

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    2. Re:Uh huh... by barc0001 · · Score: 2, Informative

      You act like they're the first people to do this. Spoiler alert: They're not.

      Many companies make a thing on a single assembly line because it's less expensive then running two or more lines, and then artificially limit its capabilities when a version of it is sold as a lower-end model. See Intel, nVidia and others. And IBM. Not sure if they still do it, but one of their old mainframes had a ton of processors under the hood no matter which model you bought, but many were locked off. If you wanted to upgrade you paid IBM their truckload of lucre and they sent out a tech with a pair of wirecutters who would then open the case and cut a few strategically placed wires inside and voila! Extra processors.

    3. Re:Uh huh... by iCEBaLM · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You act like they're the first people to do this.

      The amount of people who do it doesn't make it right.

    4. Re: Uh huh... by dbialac · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Go sign up for a cell phone service that doesn't force you into arbitration. Wait, there aren't any.

    5. Re: Uh huh... by BitterOak · · Score: 3, Interesting

      You're welcome to not buy such a car.

      Of course I'm welcome to not buy such a car. I'm also welcome to buy such a car and "hack" it and extend the battery life. The question is: will there be legal consequences for me if I do? Ultimately it will be up to legislatures to decide this matter and they are supposed to represent us, so do we want to live in a world where car manufacturers can restrict with legal means our ability to enhance our cars or not?

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    6. Re: Uh huh... by Bert64 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Tesla chose to sell them at that cost, noone forced them to.
      They could have made cheaper, smaller (and therefore lighter) batteries available instead.
      Why should customers be forced to have an artificially crippled product, dragging around extra dead weight of artificially disabled battery cells?

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    7. Re:Uh huh... by barc0001 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      > If Tesla can sell the same hardware at different price points and still make a profit then the higher price point is simply profiteering.

      Is it? Is it really? Is it not possible that Tesla can sell that lower price point car at the price it can because the cost is partly offset by the full range buyers? By your logic if I made a thing that cost me $9 and I sold it for $10 partly limited in some way and fully open at $20 for the "high end" version that was unlimited, then on the high end model I am profiteering to the tune of $11 per unit and am a bad person and should probably be lined up against a wall or something. But what if I then shared that I sell 2500 $10 units a month and 300 $20 units a month, and my staff costs on top of the $9 material and build cost are $3000/month. So what's the solution? Market research has shown that if I have just the premium model as the only model and sell it for $12, I won't sell 2800 units a month any more, I'll be moving 1000 if I'm lucky. So I'm supposed to work for free? My investors are supposed to get nothing?

      Pricing in tiers like this is a highly complex subject and way more nuanced than "ZOMG - ripoff!" binary responses. There are some people who wouldn't have been able to afford a Tesla at all if the software limited battery pack wasn't an option, so it works to create more options for people. Same with iPhones for example. Apple could just make one size and say "$1000 on the table right now, or no iPhone for you." But they don't because they want additional market penetration across all classes of consumer.

    8. Re:Uh huh... by steveha · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If Tesla can sell the same hardware at different price points and still make a profit then the higher price point is simply profiteering. I would rather they sell it at a fair price.

      "profiteering" is one way to describe it. "Selling different products that have different profit margins" is another, and IMHO better, way to describe it.

      I get it, you have a visceral reaction that this is bad. I feel the same way about how Intel sells deliberately-crippled parts to maximize profits at all levels in the market they serve.

      But prices are between a company and their customers. If you don't like how they do things, you don't have to buy the product, that that also doesn't make it immoral (as you implied in your +5 moderated post).

      Tesla was trying something new: selling the first battery electric vehicle that doesn't suck. Safe, reliable, fun to drive, and usable for long trips. Nobody had made a car like that before. They weren't sure they would be able to sell enough cars with the bigger battery size, so they offered the 60 with the software limit on size, and tried selling that for a while. It let them set the starting price lower.

      Tesla had (and still has) lots of expenses. They had to build their own network of Superchargers. They had to build out their factory. They built their own battery "Gigafactory". All of these investments will make it possible for people to buy the Model 3 at a less-crazy price than the Model S or X. And just maybe someday Tesla will be able to sell a car for the same cost as a Honda Civic, and BEVs will become truly mainstream.

      So I am personally happy and grateful that a bunch of rich people spent a bunch of money buying Tesla cars, helping Tesla get to where it could start making the Model 3. And if that means Tesla made a higher profit margin on the fancier cars, I'm personally okay with that.

      And by the way, Tesla's battery management software strongly encourages users to avoid charging their cars to 100%. Tesla owners routinely charge to 90% or less to preserver battery life. But since the Tesla 60 battery is actually a larger battery, owners of those cars simply charge them to 100% every day. Also, even a Tesla 60 has dramatically better range than the Nissan Leaf or the Volkswagen eGolf or various other options, yet people buy those. For many users who just want to drive around town, the 60 has plenty of range just the way it is, and they would rather have the car at the lower cost.

      Finally, on the gripping hand, Tesla doesn't do this anymore. They now just sell 70 and 90 cars, neither one software-limited. But there are a fair number of 60 cars out there still.

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    9. Re:Uh huh... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The battery comes with an 8-year warranty. If they discharge to 60%, then it will last for longer than if they discharge to 50%. Battery failures are not 100% predictable though, they're statistical. The extra 10% capacity translates to a higher probability that the battery will fail under warranty. The price of the increase is designed to compensate for this.

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    10. Re: Uh huh... by MachineShedFred · · Score: 2

      Who's forcing Tesla customers to do anything at all? You're talking like someone put a large caliber gun to their head and said "buy this car, and not the one that costs 5% more for 20% more battery, or I'm going to turn your head into a canoe"

      They bought the capacity that they bought, with the specs listed. And I think you'll find that the number of Tesla owners that are complaining about this is astonishingly small. The only people grousing about this are people that won't buy a Tesla to begin with and just want to bitch and moan.

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    11. Re: Uh huh... by torkus · · Score: 2

      The tractor is not free.

      But yes, they most certainly do software-lock their tractors. They've also taken to suing people over trying to break the firmware locks and are causing quite a stir over it. They'll likely be the example case for SCOTUS to decide on ownership vs. DMCA anti-circumvention bullshit.

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    12. Re: Uh huh... by torkus · · Score: 2

      No one forced consumers to buy a tesla either. It's easy to make the opposite argument - by selling a version with fewer features for less money Tesla has made it easier for those of lesser means (giggle, $70+k car) to afford one.

      It's not like they lied to consumers - the OTA update is readily available if you don't buy it with purchase. Same for several other features on their cars. Hell, they openly state that all the cars have the hardware for autopilot but you don't get autopilot unless you pay for it - either before delivery or afterwards.

      I don't see any issues with any of this. In fact, I rather doubt tesla is going to fuss over people hacking the firmware to run some custom code. With the exception of 1) end users distributing modified tesla code (which is copyrighted) and 2) a GTFO on related warranty claims for cars using hacked firmware.

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    13. Re: Uh huh... by omnichad · · Score: 2

      It is not illegal, you just lose your warranty

      That's not true. It's a violation of the DMCA and you keep your warranty. Some claims may not be honored if they can be proven to be a direct result of the modification - but it's otherwise illegal to nullify an entire warranty over a single change. And yes - the company will try to claim that everything is a direct result, so you may have a burden of proof.

  2. Re: That's disgusting by MattKeith · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I wonder if they are also doing this so the battery pack lasts longer. A larger pack has more miles worth of charge cycles, so if it's sold as a 60 but really is a 75 it'll be capable of the same total number of miles of use. I'd actually like that.

  3. Before jumping to conclusions by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If anyone, you should know that there may well be a reason to "cripple" hardware despite its possible ability to function at higher spec. CPUs and graphics card anyone? What happens when an i7 CPU doesn't quite pass the QA tests? Switch off the cores that didn't pass and sell it as an i3. How many here have "unlocked" cores of cheap CPUs to turn it into a more powerful one? Do you think Intel does that because they enjoy making CPUs then sell them cheaply with some cores switched off for ... reasons? Or could it rather be that they switch off the cores because they fail inspection and can't be relied on, and it's still more interesting for Intel to sell it at a lower price than to throw it away?

    I could imagine the same applies to other hardware.

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    1. Re:Before jumping to conclusions by niftydude · · Score: 2, Informative

      That's not the case here. The extra installed battery capacity is perfectly fine, and under normal conditions, Tesla will allow you to unlock it for a fee. It is just part of their business model that they purposely cripple the hardware because they know that for the most part eventually their users will get peeved at the limited mileage and pay to unlock the extra battery capacity. People have different views on the morality of this.

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    2. Re:Before jumping to conclusions by DarkOx · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It might not be quite so simple as a pure money grab on Tesla's part. Many battery designs will last longer if you don't cycle them quite a deeply and if capacity does diminish but still is greater than what you paid for you'll never know and Tesla does not have to replace it.

      Given they grantee the batteries for a period of the time the extra cost for the 'higher capacity' version might essentially be what amounts to a pre-paid insurance policy for the battery by actuarial spreading the cost of the increased likelihood the batters used at higher capacity will need replacing under warranty among the buyers of the higher capacity.

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    3. Re:Before jumping to conclusions by viperidaenz · · Score: 4, Informative

      This is done on basically every piece of test equipment with optional features.
      What's the difference between a Rigol 1054Z 50MHz DSO and the 1104Z 100MHz model?

      One costs $399 and the other costs $619.
      The physical hardware that provides the bandwidth is identical. There is switch in the front-end to lower the bandwidth controlled by software. Doing this means the hardware costs more, but they can sell it at difference price points to get a larger market.
      They offer software upgrades to increase the memory depth as well.

      No to mention extra upgrades to unlock protocol decoding.

    4. Re:Before jumping to conclusions by DarkOx · · Score: 2

      No but it almost certainly is. Its pretty basic economics. Your manufacturing costs include both the units you sell and the units you are forced to replace. Tesla's Li batteries are not filled with some magic unicorn poop that makes them work differently than other Li batteries in terms of failure modes and life cycle. So its pretty obvious this is the plan.

      It gives them both price discrimination (which you might find objectionable but I would call good business) and allows them to better match revenue to cost at the same time, which helps avoid hidden masks like cross subsidization and makes it easier to understand the business. Both are wins.

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  4. Batteries that aren't full-cycled last longer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hello,

        With Lithium-Ion batteries, they last longer if you don't take them from 100% capacity to 0% capacity all the time. If instead you charge/discharge them from 80% to 40%, they last a lot longer.

        I think it's likely that Tesla limits the batteries for lifetime purposes. And that this temporary software change is trading a little battery life, for, well, maybe saving the life of the Tesla car owner by getting him out of dodge?

    -

    1. Re:Batteries that aren't full-cycled last longer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You don't think the decision to get oneself out of dodge on the cost of some of the car's service life should belong to the owner and not to the manufacturer?

    2. Re:Batteries that aren't full-cycled last longer by Aristos+Mazer · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I wish we could leave it to the owner, but in USA, I'd expect owners to sue the manufacturer when the battery life comes up unexpectedly short because of the owner's abuse. Even if the lawsuits are frivolous, making such lawsuits go away becomes expensive. Given that, it seems prudent to me for the company to produce a device that works to some specific spec and the customer buys that specific spec rather than a device that the user can use how they want. Then if they jailbreak, they know they're voiding their warranty and any guarantees the manufacturer provided.

    3. Re:Batteries that aren't full-cycled last longer by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 3, Informative

      More information:
      http://batteryuniversity.com/l...

      Look at tables 2 and 3.

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    4. Re:Batteries that aren't full-cycled last longer by TheRaven64 · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Most of what you say is wrong.

      The battery can put through a total of X kWh power in it's entire life (through charge/discharge).

      From the cited table, the total number of full discharge-equivalents (NMC, LiPO4 ) for can be calculated as:

      • 100% (full discharge): 300, 600
      • 80%: 320, 720
      • 60%: 360, 900
      • 40%: 600, 1,200
      • 20%: 300, 1,800
      • 10%: 1,000, 1,500

      I'm not sure what the discontinuity at 20% for NMCs is about - I suspect a copy-and-paste type in their table. Most large LiIon battery installations advertise 60% capacity in the underlying storage as empty. From the cited table, you get twice as much total storage (five times as many 40% cycles than 100% cycles) by doing this. Discharging only down to 80-90% capacity will be even more efficient, but has the downside that you need twice the mass of battery if you're going to 80% than discharging to 60% for the same per-charge capacity, which is prohibitive in automotive applications (though not for fixed storage for renewable power plants - they cost might be).

      These aren't lead acid cells which get damaged with a 100% discharge

      No, they get completely destroyed. This is why the charging circuit doesn't let you completely discharge any LiIon batteries. If you want to see what happens, get a laptop battery, run the laptop until it reports empty, and then leave the battery for a few months for the remaining charge to leak. Don't store it near anything flammable...

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    5. Re:Batteries that aren't full-cycled last longer by uncqual · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Mainframe manufacturers did this many decades ago. A different "boot" floppy on one mainframe I used would result in a substantially faster machine (of course, that floppy cost far more than the cost of manufacturing the floppy and the field engineers seemed really hard to bribe to "inadvertently leave the wrong floppy in the drive"). It was simply cheaper to give every machine the capability to run at the higher speed and "dumb it down" than it was to build two or more models and this manufacturer needed an array of models to compete at different price/performance points with IBM (who had baked enormous profits into every price point and, due to volume, could have more distinct model cost effectively).

      Another mainframe had a feature (I don't recall the exact mechanism to enable it) where we could speed it up for some number of hours for a fee to the manufacturer - no hardware change nor (IIRC) a need to load new firmware or reboot.

      I've not been around mainframes for 25+ years so I don't know, or care, if they still do this (I'm sure others here will know).

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    6. Re:Batteries that aren't full-cycled last longer by hord · · Score: 2

      I've not been around mainframes for 25+ years so I don't know, or care, if they still do this (I'm sure others here will know).

      I can assure you IBM does this. Customers have been complaining about this since forever.

    7. Re:Batteries that aren't full-cycled last longer by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      That's not the case here.

      Tesla sold a 75kWh and a 65kWh model with the same battery in both. You could pay to unlock the extra capacity at any time. Even in the 75kWh car you could only use about 72kWh at most, the rest being reserved to prevent excessive battery degradation.

      That's really all you need. Tesla and other manufacturers have found that the batteries will likely outlast the car, certainly outlast the warranty, with that much reserve.

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    8. Re:Batteries that aren't full-cycled last longer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      I've not been around mainframes for 25+ years so I don't know, or care, if they still do this (I'm sure others here will know).

      I can assure you IBM does this. Customers have been complaining about this since forever.

      Find me an IBM mainframe customer who complained about this, and I will show you a poorly managed IT department.

      I have worked with Linux and Windows machines in the past, and now work with mainframes. The ability to increase a machine's capacity with just a flip of a switch is a godsend in quite a few unexpected surge situation.

      Who cares what the machine, physically, could be capable of? Business made a decision to buy a certain amount of computing power at a certain price, and they got what they paid for. On top of that, would you rather they gave you a machine exactly to the spec and you would need to move to another machine (meaning delays and effort) to upgrade after you paid more? Or would you rather have the option just pay and then magically have the additional capacity? Any sane IT department would want the magic.

      Build your own machine if you want to squeeze every last bit from it. Companies buy IBM mainframes to serve a need, and that need was served very well by the mainframes.

  5. Re:That's disgusting by PopeRatzo · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's actually quite common for manufacturers to sell the same product at different price-points with different performance limits engineered in.

    Thank goodness none of the companies in the computer business do this.

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  6. What I get from this by fluffernutter · · Score: 2

    On the other hand, if you have to flee an emergency that isn't quite so highly publicized, anyone with an EV will be on their own.

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  7. Re:That's disgusting by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Obviously they can afford to ship those batteries at the lower price point

    Why is that "obvious"? The people that pay a premium for extra capacity are subsidizing those who don't. That doesn't mean Tesla would make money on the batteries if no one paid the premium.

    My wife has a Tesla with a 240 mile range instead of the 300 mile range. That was our choice. No one "cheated" us. Whether it is more cost effective for Tesla to make two different battery configurations, or to make one with a artificial limit, is their choice. Neither option is more "moral" than the other.

  8. Not necessarily by SeattleLawGuy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The proof is the fact that they did it.

    Not really--suppose they are not turning enough of a profit on the cheaper model to justify turning out the line. Then the cheaper model lets them increase economies of scale and also make the car available to more people (driving down the production cost of the more expensive model and possibly its cost if the external market forces are right), while the more expensive model pays enough to justify having the line and gives you an economy of scale to knock down the price of the cheap model a bit. If you sold just the expensive model to everyone it might then need to be at a higher price point than the cheaper model, which would make it unavailable to people who would otherwise be able to buy the cheap one and reduce the number of consumers able to purchase the car.

    Or suppose that they could sell the cheap one with a cheaper battery at the same price point, but by including the bigger battery they make it cheaper to produce due to economies of scale. The customer is still getting the cheaper car but with it being easier to upgrade than it otherwise would be, and the company is producing it more inexpensively. Because of the easy upgrade, the customer actually has a benefit as compared to if the company had decided to sell it with 100% control of a smaller battery.

    I understand the urge to hate companies that introduce unnecessary structural monopolies into the marketplace and are unnecessarily hostile to the right to repair or the right to fully control your own property--but just because a decision sets off our radar about that doesn't mean the decision is necessarily harmful to consumers.

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  9. Re:That's disgusting by maglor_83 · · Score: 2

    I would be annoyed if I have to pay for the electricity to lug around a bunch of batteries that I can't use everywhere I drive. If the offer made it clear that I'd get a software-crippled battery rather than just a smaller battery, that would be OK (I've no idea if this is the case or not).

  10. Re:But you paid for the battery by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Informative

    You car is carrying battery weight it does not need and cannot use

    The unused extra capacity increases the life of the battery. So it is not useless.

  11. Wow! by Excelcia · · Score: 2

    Agreed. Tesla cars have just gone from desired items to never buy. I had profound respect for that company, and it's gone in a flash. I will not buy from a company that charges more for access to hardware I've already purchased, nor will I support the "Windows 10" mentality of the manufacturer being able to push out any changes they want to something I own. I had even considered buying some of Tesla's latest issue of bonds simply to support the company. I'm glad this came up now.

    It's no wonder all the manufacturers and governments have hard ons for electric cars. It has nothing to do with the environment, they haven't cared about that past providing lip service any time in the last century. It's because of the level of control they afford.

    1. Re:Wow! by tippen · · Score: 2

      News flash: Products aren't sold at their BOM costs! They aren't ripping the customers off. As long as customers get what they paid for (ie., per spec), then what difference does it matter how much margin is in the design?

      There are design margins in everything. Some are razor thin (typical consumer goods), some are quite large because it can make more sense for the company to optimize costs related to manufacturing and inventory management over absolute per unit costs. There is also margin in designs for reliability purposes.

  12. Re:But you paid for the battery by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Or maybe because there is a warranty on the battery, Tesla is the one who gets screwed with a less reliable product, and they price it accordingly.

  13. Tesla's Hurricane Irma Update Taps Into Our Fears by antdude · · Score: 2

    http://jalopnik.com/teslas-hur...

    "Earlier this week, Tesla remotely upgraded select Florida Tesla ownersâ(TM) cars to expand their mileage capacity in an effort to ease and assist with Hurricane Irma evacuation efforts. The move was praiseworthy and appropriate, but at the root of the gesture lies a terrifying prospect of our automotive future..."

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  14. Almost the same on petrol cars by havana9 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This happens also on regular petrol cars. The 1400 cc 16 valves turbocharged petrol engine made by Fiat is available in three versions: 120 HP, 145 HP and 170 HP. You can reprogram the ECU from a 120 HP to a 175 HP version quite easily and It will works for some time. But transmission, brakes, air manifold and exhaust are different. This is the official FIat upgrade kit So you can for a moment overboost the petrol engine power, but without changing other components you'' get a coffin on four wheels. I suppose that the power capacity difference could be linked to some different parts for the car that coul do the work ok for some times but can't be span the same lifetime if used on higher power.

  15. Re:That's disgusting by dave420 · · Score: 2

    No, they just have to make a profit on all the battery packs sold, not on each individual one.