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

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.

Comments

Uh huh...

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe Tesla could just stop artificially crippling the batteries?

Re: Uh huh...

[BitterOak]

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.

Re:Uh huh...

[TheRaven64]

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.

Batteries that aren't full-cycled last longer

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

-

Re:Batteries that aren't full-cycled last longer

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

Re:Batteries that aren't full-cycled last longer

[Aristos Mazer]

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.

Re:That's disgusting

[PopeRatzo]

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.

Re:That's disgusting

[ShanghaiBill]

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.

Re:Before jumping to conclusions

[DarkOx]

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.