Nowhere in the release does Tesla refute that owners have "bricked" their batteries. Nowhere in the release do they say that the battery can not be bricked by leaving it for a long period without a recharge. All they say is that it would take a period of weeks for a Tesla roadster to reach 0% charge, and that the Model S has battery disconnect technology that can extend this to several months. They also point out that the car will provide increasingly strenuous warnings to plug it in (which, no matter how loud they are, would be hard to hear from across the country, if you've left it in an airport parking lot).

If it were true that a Tesla battery pack couldn't be destroyed by letting it fully discharge, or that it had never happened, then they would have mentioned it in the release. In fact, they take the opposite tack, re-emphasizing near the top of the document that users should always plug the car in when parked.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still very enamored by Teslas, and I don't think that this is any different than the owner of a gas-powered car letting it run out of oil and seizing the engine -- it's neglect. If you don't get it by now, Tesla owners, you need to plug in your cars.

As it stands, this makes me think that Tesla likes to play with words to dance around hard truths. They also didn't mention the privacy implications of them being able to remotely track your car by GPS, which is a bit worrisome.

Also, nowhere in the post do they mention GPS--only that the car (optionally) phones home its charge level. As best I can make out that's an unfounded rumor based on a single incident.

Responsible owners do not let the battery charge reach zero. The consequences are serious enough that owners with unusual usage patterns that make this difficult will go out of their way to make sure it doesn't happen. There is a strong negative financial incentive for owners to do a simple thing like plugging in the car.

Modifying the warranty means Tesla accepts financial accountability for owners' (in)actions that are beyond Tesla's control. That's a bad deal for Tesla. It could mean financial ruin if there are too many irresponsible owners.

This thing is so blown out of proportion. When I first read the blog article I was thinking it was pretty bad. Once I had some time to think about it I realized there isn't anything unreasonable about this except the price of a new battery, but that's the cost of being an early adopter.

If you let a high end sports car sit in a garage for months with a tank full of gas and then go drive it fast you are going to wreck it. It's going to be expensive to fix. That's if you can even get it to start in the first place. A responsible owner starts the car every couple weeks or has someone else do it while they are out of town. What's the difference in effort between that and plugging in a Tesla? The only difference with the Tesla is the cost of the repair.

I think this is a case of some people being ignorant of their responsibilities as owners and failing to properly maintain their cars.

On the contrary, if there are too many irresponsible owners then Tesla is ruined if they DON'T cover it. Imagine what "too many Tesla bricked cars" would do to their product image.

Look, this is very simple. Warranty systems are underwritten like insurance policies. It's little risk to Tesla -- the question is the underwriter's risk assessment. If the underwriter won't cover it on affordable terms, it suggests the risk is too high and the product is poorly designed. At that point, the path of failure is chosen (expensive underwriting policy vs expensive PR debacle) is irrelevant. The only issue is whether the risk assessment is accurate -- it becomes a gamble.

You're absolutely right. Nonetheless, it's Tesla's problem. Why? Because electric cars are new. After 100 years of internal combustion, there's a common understanding that cars need their oil replaced if it all leaks out. No one would gain any traction with a story about ruining their engine by running it with no oil. But a story about a driver who left his car at the airport for a month and bricked it will gain traction, and will cost Tesla money by spreading FUD in the market. More money than simply covering that case in its warranty, which I predict is exactly where they're going to end up if this story gets picked up by the mainstream media. They're just taking the long way around to get there.

If, after you ran out of gas, you didn't fill your gas tank for weeks and ignored the car's insistent complaints that it should be filled with gas, then you would have a point. But I doubt you've ever done that.

Everyone seems to think that Tesla owners are housebound in these threads.

To fix this problem you need your car in a garage, a replacement pack of 6000 high-tech niche market batteries shipped from wherever they are made, mechanics skilled on a niche sportscar, and responsible disposal of of the old battery pack.

To 'fix' your problem, you need to pour easily available cheap liquid into an empty container. There's no comparison and it's not a Tesla design flaw, it's a battery technology limitation which applies to other li-ion cars, laptops, etc. too, if left long enough to drain past the controller reporting 'empty'.

If you buy and wear a $20k watch, and you irresponsibly destroy it or lose it, it'll probably cost you $20k to replace it. And the obvious lesson for people considering buying $20k watches is you shouldn't buy one if you couldn't afford to lose it or pay to replace it. "If you have to ask the price, you can't afford it."

If we were talking about a regular gas car - many families have cars worth $60k and we'd still be asking serious questions if, by inaction, we ended up with a $24k repair bill.

R < B and R (is proportional to) B

The pattern being that sometimes things which are expensive to buy are also expensive to repair. In a gas-powered car, the engine+transmission is probably the most expensive component to brick and replace. In an electric car, it seems to be the battery system.

Neglected maintenance on a $500k house can easily create situations requiring $100k in repairs or liability.

Even if you didn't change the engine and transmission oil for 18 months that wouldn't happen. I bet it wouldn't happen if you didn't change it for 24 months.

Compare and contrast with not plugging in a car for < 4 weeks.

Which the author of the original article discussed, along with Tesla's obfuscations and downplayng of the issue.

Instead manufacturer could make it very clear in on webpages, in owner manuals, PR materials etc. the importance of keeping batteries charged. Make it common knowledge. Then they would be morally right to treat bricked batteries same as running with no oil or with flat tires.

I am sure you have heard of prorated battery warranties and are familiar with them, aren't you? Granted that, why would you make such an intentionally misleading post suggesting that warranties are prone to abuse when this is a solved problem?

It wouldn't really be free; the car would be out of service for some time. And Tesla could charge some kind of nominal-but-not-insignificant service fee. I doubt that the bricking rate would be sensitive to the actual dollar cost: as Tesla points out, it isn't that easy to do. Just being careless isn't sufficient, there would have to be other circumstances like a long trip away from the car where the cost of repair wouldn't have any impact.

I'm not. I've never heard of any such thing. Perhaps it is you being misleading?

There are definitely car owners who have never dealt with battery warranties.

http://s.shld.net/is/image/Sears/02833023000-2

Sears has a nationwide network of car maintenance shops called Sears Auto Center that has been quite popular for tire, battery, and alignment work for decades.

http://www.sears.com/automotive-services/c-1023947

Information about its warranty are printed in large letters on the side. It would be quite difficult to purchase this battery without understanding it has a warranty. This is not atypical. It is extremely common for batteries to have such information printed legibly on the side. Furthermore, car batteries typically have a punch out on the top designating the month and year of purchase. These are punched out at time of purchase and enable the warranty can be honored even in the event of losing one's receipt.

Battery displays in stores nearly always contain comparative information about the warranty periods, with premium batteries highlighted for having longer warranty periods.

I find it astonishing that people can buy batteries and never notice any of this, and some of these people are here claiming that owners whose Teslas become bricked are at fault because the manual obliquely suggests in an obscure section that bricking is possible, a possibility that is at the same time denied by the same group.

My BMW, for example, has its battery in a very obscure location (behind the seats) and there are mere terminals in the hood for jumping.

I was very skeptical about the blog post up until now, when tesla essentially agreed to all it's claims, by not refuting any.

TL;DR; version of the blog: "Yes, it's true, we charge a lot of money for forgetting to plug in your tesla, don't do that or you'll regret".

I found the 'no oil' comparison to be weak. Sure if you run your gasoline engine vehicle with no oil it will likely seize up and require an engine block replacement. However, you can leave a gasoline powered car in a barn for 20 years and then re-discover it, fill up all the proper fluids and run it. (assuming it was in running condition when it was stored). You won't have to replace the engine.

The part that is missing from the Tesla response is, if your car is in this state (fully discharged), what can be done. Is there a way to 'reboot' the car? And if so what is the procedure? Can anyone do it or only the factory? And why? If the batteries become disconnected does that also brick your car? Or can you just re-attach them ? Why doesn't the Tesla vehicle have a 'full power down' state for storage?

I assume this is because of the nature of Li-ion batteries. Even if you aren't pulling any current from the battery, they will still discharge over time, and eventually go through a chemical process rendering them unusable and/or dangerous. Having a "long-term storage" mode for the vehicle would only serve to make it more likely to happen by lulling owners into a false sense of security. Better to simply reinforce the need to constantly keep the vehicle in a charged-or-charging state.

I've had a lot of experience with rechargeable batteries over the years in doing robotics, and a variety of chemical makeups. My experience is that the "self discharge" function is the result of the anions managing to convert by one means or another not related to electron injection at the anode. The mechanisms that enable this are things like electron tunneling which are probablistic, such that the discharge curve is asymptotic toward zero charge while never achieving it. That sort of discharge does not lead to the development of dendrites in the battery which would create shorts or other hazards to recharging.

My understanding is that because the Tesla has a constant drain on the battery it can drive the battery to zero.

It would be interesting to know the answer to the question can you just disconnect the battery for storage. Not willing to invest $100,000 to find out :-)

According to the GPBatteries guys LiON have no self discharge if they aren't being drawn down by a monitoring circuit. But they also mention that embedded safety circuits can run the batteries down a bit until those circuits stop working because there is insufficient charge in the battery to run them, and then the battery can't be charged (aka its a brick).

Of course you could charge it if you could get around the safety chip in that case it would just require a bit of cleverness.

Again my experience with LiON cells is that once they get to about 3V if you don't put a load on them they don't discharge any further on their own. That would seem to be supported by the chemical energy needed to absorb the anions but I am not a chemist, just an aging EE. Thanks for the links.

http://www.mpoweruk.com/lithium_failures.htm

They are in a difficult situation, as the problem is real, and difficult to address. In fact they are clearly doing a lot trying to address it, which is to their credit -- now if instead of downplaying it, they presented it clearly, and focused on what they are doing and planning to do, and thought about more solutions, it would do them much good.

And solutions don't have to be just technical -- offering insurance (even if high-deductible) would do quite a bit to calm some fears, as would the GPS based service if explained and offered right. Either way, without some kind of fix for such problems, they will never see any adoption beyond the "toys for the rich" market.

Day 1:

We are very sorry that a handful of our thousands of users has had battery problems. It is true that a battery can be irreversibly damaged by a "deep discharge". It has not been covered by our bumper-to-bumper warrantee, as it is considered to be a misuse. This is only possible if a car is not being used on a regular basis, and provided our cars are left with a 50% charge they can last for months without a problem. Please do not leave your Tesla with a low charge if you will be away for a long period of time. This should not be a problem for the vast majority of our customers, but some may need to take special precautions, if they will not be driving their car for a long period of time.

Day 2:

Compare old Tesla to new Tesla. Note how long the new Tesla can last on 50%. Note that all cars have problems (oil, radiators, fan belts); and that it takes time for the new rules to sink in. Note that only a small handful of customers have been bitten, despite it being a completely new system. Note how many people have their engines get cooked, even after 100 years of oil burning cars. Note that electricity is fundamentally simpler, and easier to maintain, and that will only get better with more design work, and as people become accustomed to it.

Then wait a while, and find (or make) some good news. Free replacements for the handful of effected customers?

The more time people spend reading and arguing over the fine points of PR spin, the more time your name is dragged through the mud. Get it over with quickly.

Barring a fuel leak, your car won't run out of gas sitting in your garage while you're on a long business trip.

There's a lot of variables at play here. The fact that the battery is so expensive vs. what a consumer has become accustomed to paying for vehicle maintenance on a traditional gasoline car. The tech is new. The way the vehicles operate is fundamentally different, and require different attention to different things. But it's all noise convoluting the argument.

The root: if you neglect your vehicle -- any vehicle -- you are in store for an expensive repair bill. It could be a $2,000 transmission. It could be a $10,000 engine replacement. Or it could be a $40,000 electric car battery. Because of all the aforementioned variables, the largest of which being the cost associated, there has been a massive amount of FUD surrounding bricking your Tesla. This response from the company is attempting to bring things back down to earth. If you plug in your car, you won't brick your car.

Which should really be common sense for anything at this point. Regardless of cost, if you take care of your possessions, they will last longer.

It might be the tires (check your owner's manual!), it might be the AC (again, manual - it should be turned on from time to time), you might now notice a strange smoke due to new oil leaks inside the combustion chamber, it might make horrible noises for a couple of seconds (because the oil drained to the bottom of the engine), etc, etc.

Hell, last extended trip we went on, we had someone to start the engines (and the damn AC) for a few minutes at least every week. It is just good practice.

If indeed the battery management system on a Tesla is able to keep the batteries alive for months at 0% reported charge, then it is a non-issue. Noone is going to leave such a car unattended for months, really. Specially if it is a Roadster.

Secondly, you could leave your fuel injected car idle for months on and end without having to worry about the car slowly slurping the fuel down and then leaving you an empty.

So it is much easier to run a EV out of battery power and far more expensive to fix it when it does happen. No amount of PR spinning, FUD or wishful thinking changes that.

PS: Gas can noticeably degrade in as little as one month depending on ambient conditions. But, condensation is the largest risk for mid term storage. After 1 year you will probably have trouble starting the engine even after replacing the battery. And 3-7 years your probably looking at major repair work.

The point is simply that Tesla should give more warning and attention to the very high cost of repair when you forget to plug the vehicle in or leave it unattended for long periods of time.

Second most cars don't cost 40k, but if your talking about a say a bugatti veyron it's not that hard to do 40k of damage. If you want to compare it to the cost of the car then for an older car having a few thousand dollar repair bill can easily cost more than the car is worth.

I mean, yes. You can "destroy" your car by not charging it. You can also destroy it by accidentally running it into a brick wall. No PR spin will change that either. That the repair would be very expensive is a moot point - this is a maintenance responsibility to you as the owner. As long as you are aware that this is an issue - just plug it in. It's not like you can forget by accident when you're aware that letting it completely deplete over a couple of months will cause an incredibly expensive repair job.

So where is the problem?

Is this Tesla's fault? Not entirely. But let's be honest, a small warning in the middle of the owners manual is not good enough.

I'm sure they feel it would be stupid to advertise something that to the general public looks like a defect with the technology. But I think it would have been better for them in the long-run if they were more informative. Now they are doing damage control, and a number of people have probably been turned off due to this whole saga.

tl;dr This information needs to be common knowledge amongst owners, Tesla could have avoided this if they handled it upfront instead of waiting for it to leak out on a blog.

They definitely inform the owner that completely depleting the battery will damage it. Why does everyone seem to think they don't?

The newer Roadsters even come with a system to notify Tesla if the batteries are too low. What else could they do to educate the owners? Make them take a weekend class?

You can destroy a Tesla by running it into a brick wall too. Yet there is no warning in the manual for that. Probably because it's not a risk unique to Teslas. Leaving your car at the airport for two weeks and coming back to find it suddenly worth $40K less than when you left it is more-so unique.

Tesla seems to be somewhat downplaying the high costs involved in forgetting to plug it in or leaving it too long.

It's not reasonable to assume that ordinary people know the inherent risks in lithium ion batteries. As such, the massive risk should have extreme emphasis in the instruction manuals, be explained in detail by the sales people, exist as clear warnings in the car, and so on.

If I leave my house long enough, the roof will decay and I'll get massive water damage. Halfway-intelligent homeowners know they need to get their roof done once in a while. Bike owners know that if they leave their bike in the rain, it will rust.

Many of the trappings of modern day life require active measures to ensure they work properly, and this is no different.

Actually no, the common wisdom is that you should expect your users to be idiots when developing a product.

It's different because people are familiar with all the things you mention: roofs and rain, bikes and rust. People aren't familiar with electric automobiles. Once someone buys them, sure, they'll become familiar and the vast majority won't brick them. Tesla's problem isn't the owners, it's the people thinking about becoming owners. And those people (if they've heard the story) are now fearful of bricking their cars, where they're not at all afraid of bricking the Mercedes they were considering as an alternative to the Tesla. Now they're thinking, maybe I'll wait another few years on this electric car thing. That's Tesla's problem right now. Not bricked cars, but the fear of bricked cars. And that's why they should cover this under warranty.

If that happens in the space of 1-2 months of no maintenance, you have a very, very, very shoddy house.

I routinely drive mine until it runs out of gas (don't ask) and I haven't had any adverse problems.

There were some natural gas kits sold that would not disable the fuel pump when you switched to gas. Some owners, when running out of gasoline, would switch to the gas. The fuel pump would keep running dry and melt. Something like this: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_WafeVL7IZss/S5VP0fVNvuI/AAAAAAAAJP...

I'm sure in the early days of gas-powered vehicles, plenty of engines seized up because people were unaware they had to change the oil and keep it at a certain level. And it certainly still happens on occasion.

See my other post in this submission: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3630466

Assumine new vehicles, doing nothing to a Tesla for ~30 days means $40k. Changing your oil 6 month later than the service schedule in most cases means inmeasurable (by owner) reduction in overall engine lifetime.

Apparently, some fuel pumps are cooled by the fuel itself. If the level gets too low, it can't dissipate the heat fast enough and the pump fails.

It didn't "brick" right away, but it got increasingly harder to start, because the pump could no longer pressurise que fuel line fast enough.

The original story got play because it was a surprising, unknown, and frankly, sucks.

If all of my fuel-injected laptops had never been damaged when they ran out of fuel, I would be pretty shocked and disappointed when it was a problem with the Kugelfischer. Much like the Tesla owners this affected.

Tesla isn't a "cause" it's just a product. So whatever happens to Tesla one way or the other has a smaller influence on "the rise of EVs" than you can imagine. Mahalo.

And even so, Tesla (and others like Nissan) has made available a warning system just in case, and all the blogger managed to do was to point out the privacy concerns with this solution.

Comprising all Tesla owners. It's in the Owner's Manual, and I would be very surprised if new owners aren't informed of it when they purchase the car.

[1] The other: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3631295

Unfortunately, that's exactly the issue: many uninformed people are getting people like you wrong simply because they lack perspective on the Tesla "bricking" issue. Electrical cars are a new technology and people don't have the perspective to shrug off serious but very unlikely problems.

This is why Tesla's post isn't simply "PR bullshit" -- it provides context for the discussion and perspective. As others have pointed out, perspective exists with ICE vehicles today: we know that there are potential bricking issues, but we keep perspective and shrug them off because we understand how unlikely they are.

It's fair to over-focus on the Tesla bricking issue, but it's more fair to place this discussion in a context: how likely is this problem to occur, and what can be done to prevent it, to spot it before it occurs.

And the release doesn't reference the actual blogger which is this:

http://theunderstatement.com/post/18030062041/its-a-brick-te...

They reference an ad hominem of sorts about the "rumour" at this link:

http://green.autoblog.com/2012/02/23/tesla-bricked-battery-s...

which has the title: "Tesla bricked battery story may have a short circuit"

Which is presumably why they're doing this:

> Starting with Roadster 2.0, owners can also elect for their car to contact Tesla headquarters once the state of charge falls below a specified level, and we can then contact the owner.

Plus, it means the company gets to have a personal connection to all of their users, and when you're talking about a $100k buy-in, that might be the sort of attention a lot of these owners are expecting.

It reminds me of a notice of late payment I received from The Economist magazine some years back. It was so darn polite and diplomatic, I kept it in a shoebox ever since.

Now, whenever there's an outstanding payment issue with a client, I read the letter for inspiration.

Anyway, here`s the link: http://www.picamatic.com/view/8244745_economist-invoice/

I happen to have first-hand experience with a gas-powered Porsche that was left parked for so long (years), with no starts, that the engine eventually became effectively "bricked", and had to be written off. And I had to fork out 1000's of dollars on engine repair (attempts) to even reach the point of deciding it had to be written off. This is with a gas-powered engine, a traditional car. So there is precedent where a car owner can misuse and/or fail to maintain the vehicle properly per the manufacturer's guidelines, and it becomes bricked. This is not a new kind of problem introduced by Tesla.

Q. Is it true that the battery has catastrophic failure when it drains to zero and is left in that state for a sustained period?

A. The company has built in countless safeguards to ensure that the battery never drains to zero.

Q. That is not what I asked. Please answer the question.

A. It is an unfounded rumor that many owners have incurred such a catastrophic failure and only an irrational fear would permit anyone to believe that.

Q. I didn't ask about many owners, only whether it is possible to incur a catastrophic failure as described. Please answer the question.

A. Our documentation clearly tells owners that it is vital to keep their car plugged in and we give them ever-escalating warnings to ensure that no rational person could ever let the car get close to that state.

Q. I didn't ask about the likelihood of this happening, only whether it can happen. Please answer the question.

A. We value our customers more than you can imagine and it is slanderous to suggest that we would subject them to risks that can be avoided.

Q. Again, not what I asked, please answer the question.

A. Every car has risks of catastrophic failure if it is badly misused.

Q. Does this mean the Tesla does too with its engine?

A. We will not dignify a mere rumor with an answer to that question.

Q. And is it true that it costs $40K to replace the battery?

A. I object to that as irrelevant.

Q. And that it is not covered under warranty?

A. Ditto - irrelevant.

Q. And constitutes an uninsurable risk?

A. We really are off track here. I will not answer.

Q. So you do not regard it as worthy of disclosure to your buyers that, should their battery drain to zero for any sustained period, the only remedy is to replace it at their own expense at a $40K cost.

A. That disclosure would not fit with our marketing plans. Plus we say something of the sort at page 487 of our owner's manual.

Q.Well I guess this was all pretty pointless.

A. Of course, nothing wrong here. Ignore the man behind the curtain. What a stupid thing to ask about anyway. The revolution is apace and you shouldn't bother me with little details.

This question is answered multiple times in the owner's manual and buyer contract (where buyer is required to initial after reading). I'm not sure why it would need to come up in a depo.

Why can't I down vote your post? :(

PS: Don't buy any RC model (or diesel engines!), they all suffer from the same "catastrophic failure".

All that over the span of ten years and I still drive it actually the engine is the best part the rest of the truck is falling apart around the engine.

Add to those no spark plugs, no spark plug wires, no distributor, a more durable engine design, higher efficiency compared to a gasoline engine.

My iPod goes dead all the time, so does my phone, so does my laptop, my camera, my remote, my everything.

I think that every single battery-powered device I've ever owned has, at some point, gone "dead" (as in it won't power on).

NONE of these things have ever been completely incapacitated because of this. I've never had to replace my laptop because I let it go flat.

I'm sure some of the 5 owners who have had this happened knew that the car would go dead, but I'm sure that all of them figured that that just meant that they would have to charge it.

Tesla: here is how to fix this, and I'm asking that you do this on behalf of all electronic vehicle manufacturers (to keep people from being scared off the things by blogs like this).

Release a statement that follows the standard 3-step press release of oops:

---

1) "Own it". -- We fucked up here. This was our bad. We were stupid to believe that the general public would understand that letting the battery on their car go dead would cost them $40,000. This was incredibly stupid of us, and is 100% our fault. We take responsibility for this.

2) "How we're fixing it" -- The 5 people who have had this happen have all been contacted by Tesla motors. We're shipping a tech and a battery to all of them, and all of their cars will be back on the road by next week.

3) "Why this won't happen again" -- From now on, we're including a physical battery disconnect. A device will attach to the battery terminals that is normally off, and requires that the battery be at 5%[1] charge to close. If the battery drops below this, it physically disconnects the battery from the rest of the system, and doesn't allow for any parasitic electronics to drain it further.

[1]: 5% is a made up number.

---

Of course this won't happen, but a PR-spectator can dream.

Tesla: you bungled this one. Badly. You're hurting the entire EV industry. Suck it up and admit you were wrong.

Tesla cars aren't mass market products (yet). They're for early adopters who can afford what is essentially a $100.000+ toy. If you then don't read the manual and leave the car on a parking lot for months, then yes, you can ruin the battery.

So let's compare it to other early adopter technology. It took decades before motherboards didn't occasionally die during a BIOS update. For decades stereo equipment (and other expensive electronics) had a little slider on the back of the power supply labeled "110v - 220v". It wasn't always in the right position when you bought the device. If you forgot to switch it to the correct setting the device breaks, simple as that. Expensive cameras that you couldn't clean on the inside -- take them to the beach once and they're ruined forever. Cars with breaks that would fade so quickly that driving down a mountain became tantamount to suicide. Or how about power tools? They don't come with any manual and if you use them in the wrong condition you risk severe injury. Forget to turn off the stove before you leave for holiday? Your house might burn down.

So let's not lose perspective here. If you forget to plug in your Roadster before you go on holiday, in the absolute worst case scenario you have to replace the battery. Not the end of the world. As with any other piece of equipment, you can break it if you're sufficiently careless.

Have you read the original blog post? (http://theunderstatement.com/post/18030062041/its-a-brick-te...) Battery replacement costs $40k in cash and all of Tesla's documentation only gently "suggests" that the car be plugged in when convenient.

That article includes an incident where someone parked their car at a garage and the battery died within less than 2 months.

It sounds like Tesla has put multiple redundant systems in place to protect the owner from a bricked battery. Warning lights and sounds. An alert to Tesla that triggers them to respond. A sleep mode that preserves the life of the battery for up to a year.

Yes, the car requires a minimum level of effort. Barring that, it provides many chances for the owner to see the problem coming.

As far as I know Tesla strongly recommends owners buy a charging station for their home and plug in their Roadsters every night.

From the article: "Of course you can drive a Model S to 0 percent charge, but even in that circumstance, if you plug it in within 30 days, the battery will recover normally."

So just discharging the battery to 0% gives you a month to charge it back; if you're at ~50% and leave it in the airport, it will be fine for over a year. (12 months to discharge to 0% and more time after that while it's still recoverable.)

This is the best example I've read so far. If you own expensive stuff, you have to be careful. That's life. If you're not careful, don't buy a $100,000 electric car. Buy a $750 used pickup truck or something. That way, if you break it, you'll be able to afford the replacement.

Your way of reasoning is pretty much the same as when iPhone 4 first came out. You pay good money for something that shatters easily. At least, in iPhone case, Apple came out, admitted faults and tried to make its user happy.

The iPhone is a mass market product with millions of users. Tesla's cars are experimental products for early adopters, with a few thousand users. Completely different situations.

More generally, you jumped to conclusions based on personal anecdotal evidence, ignored the entire preceding discussion, then pretended you were some kind of PR expert based on stuff you just made up.

(Edit: I guess the accusations are that some earlier battery models discharge in a week or a few, not months. I'm told the charge management circuitry of the 6000+ cell battery is extremely complicated, so improvement over time is to be expected. Nevertheless it's not a case of "duh just disconnect the battery"--these things self-discharge and also discharge very slowly over the disconnection circuitry!)

From the manual "Important! Caution: If the battery’s charge level falls to 0%, it must be plugged in immediately. Failure to do so can permanently damage the battery and this damage is not covered by the New Vehicle Limited Warranty."

In the first link here you can even see the emails between Tesla representatives and Drucker, so Tesla is 100% aware that this car was bricked and the cost to fix it was over $40,000, which was the "friends and family" price for "loyal supporters", not the standard repair rate, which is presumed to be much higher.

Because they have emails on the subject, which note that even Musk is aware of the situation, their PR efforts to suggest the cars can't be bricked and the allegations in their statement are not only false, but are intentional lies and misrepresentations by Tesla, showing bad faith. It is absolutely a cover up, coupled with the start of a media smear campaign that we see getting in gear in the technical press.

http://jalopnik.com/5887499/who-is-trying-to-smear-the-tesla...

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2012/02/the-tesla-roadster-...

edit: I see that people are so threatened by reality they are paralyzed into downvoting because they have no coherent response and so censorship is the only action that makes sense to their tiny reptilian brains. Above are actual emails between Tesla and an owner that prove Tesla is aware of the problem, bricking is possible, the repairs are a minimum of $40,000, the blogger is telling the truth, and Tesla is blatantly lying and misrepresenting the situation in their response. Downvote all you want, it only shows what a failure you are and won't change reality.

If you tell people to plug their cars in IMMEDIATELY then maybe they won't let it sit around for more than a week or two.

I'd love to see a comparison on how long the battery can sit if it is physically disconnected from anything drawing current, and how long it can last when plugged into Tesla's phone home system.

The consequences of failing to maintain the battery are clearly stated by Tesla Motors in the owner's manual.

Is it the fault of Tesla Motors that an owner did not read, understand and follow the maintenance procedures outlined in the owner's manual? Is it not the buyer's responsibility to perform due-diligence in this regard?

From the Roadster 2/Roadster Sport owner's manual (italic emphasis is mine):

"Important! Caution: If the battery’s charge level falls to 0%, it must be plugged in immediately. Failure to do so can permanently damage the battery and this damage is not covered by the New Vehicle Limited Warranty. Also, if you allow the battery to fall to a critically low level it may not be possible to charge the vehicle. If you are unable to charge the vehicle, contact Tesla Motors."

[...]

"However, situations may arise in which you must leave the vehicle unplugged for an extended time (for example, at an airport when traveling for a couple of weeks). If this is the case, it is your responsibility to ensure that the battery does not become fully depleted."

[...]

"If for some reason, you are unable to keep the vehicle plugged in when it is not being used, it is up to you to preserve battery life by paying attention to the charge level and the temperature [...]"

[1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3625527

Of course, Tesla may emphasize the point in other ways.

That's the general problem with the omnipresent safety warnings you get with products. The important and possibly non-obvious get drowned out by the all the boilerplate silliness.

I don't really disagree with you though.

For sure they are well documented in the owners manual.

However, the idea of getting a $40,000 repair bill for a car is going to turn many buyers off. Tesla should cover it for the sake of their business. If Tesla was paying for these repairs I guarantee you they'd figure out a way to prevent the failure.

That does not change the fact that the thing -- and especially its' handling -- is an absolute PR disaster that WILL greatly (likely fatally) hurt any wider adoption. If Tesla thinks that saving 5x40 = 200k is worth it, they are free to do whatever they feel like.

They can fix this. They have the technology.

We haven't fixed this. Have we the technology?

Imagine the flip side, that electric cars were normal, and internal combustion engines were unusual. Then we could have stories about owners ruining their engines because they never changed their oil.

Second, again you're proving the point. If EVs were the norm and suddenly internal combustion engines burst onto the scene, people would be breaking those because they're not used to what you can or can't do.

You're making a point about what is best for Tesla from a marketing perspective.

I thought it would be clear enough that this is not "your average car".

Everyone buying electric car would automatically know the difference. If I would buy it, first thing I would ask myself is: OK this is $50,000 piece of machinery [a car] and there is new key element here: there is no gas injection, rather electronic plug. here come the question: "how do I maintenance the battery/vehicle not to fuck this up".

Simple.

I'll make an assumption here; most people expect to have to plug in an electric car on a regular basis. The expectation is to plug in the car regularly.

The EV actually has a distinct advantage here -- all you really have to do is plug in a power cord. A conventional car has several much more involved steps to be taken.

Maybe you're fortunate, but I've definitely had to replace laptop batteries because they got bricked. If you leave your battery discharged for a long enough time, you can never charge it again.

Well at least this whole saga has taught me more about Li-ION batteries. I feel like this information is something that should be more generally known amongst the population, not just for cars but for all the products we use with Li-ION.

The conversation surrounding this issue reminds me of an adult explaining to a child why their goldfish died. If you don't feed the fish, the fish dies. If you don't take care of your toys, your toys break. In this world, entropy is the natural order of things. And there's no world but this world. So stop complaining and plug your car in.

I do wonder why the batteries become 'bricked', though. All I've heard so far is just that 'they do', not why.

He referenced http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery#Electrochem...

"The overall reaction has its limits. Overdischarge supersaturates lithium cobalt oxide, leading to the production of lithium oxide, possibly by the following irreversible reaction:"

* Edit. Missed the 'No'.

I've had plenty of devices nearly bricked (only working with an external power source, battery lasts seconds/minutes) by leaving them unattended for months. My 1st gen iPod dies in less than an hour after being left at 0% charge for a few weeks.

Seriously, I find it breathtaking, for all the reasons people have already given. It's a case study in saying "yes" while giving the impression of saying "no".

In this case a lot of folks are getting emotionally involved because this story serves as proof that electric cars can't be maintained with the exact same habits that an ICE car is maintained. Habits are a personal things, and can be difficult to change. A lot of people will fight to preserve them rather than adapt them.

Tesla, stop beating around the bush like a politician, grow up and answer the million-dollar question like a man:

What will happen once the car's battery is completely depleted?

(life-line hint: it will get bricked)

If Tesla cars come with a bright red warning on the driver's side window saying IF YOU DO NOT KEEP THIS CAR CHARGED THEN YOU RUN THE RISK OF REPAIRS COSTING UP TO $40,000 then I'd say Tesla is completely in the right here.

If they didn't mention this anywhere and it's just something owners discover because they use it in a way that Tesla didn't think they should, then Tesla is completely in the wrong.

If they did something in between, then it's in between. I may have missed it, but so far I haven't seen this explained.

In Australia (where I'm originally from) LPG (Propane to everyone in the US & Canada) conversions on Petrol (Gas?) cars is a common thing. Its the same situation, LPG is not available everywhere, and while most LPG cars can run on both fuels...you simply think ahead before you go on some unusual route. It becomes part of your planning for a long trip and that's all there is to it. If you run out of LPG, its a bad situation...you cant just go grab bottle of LPG, its a compressed gas, you actually need to either run the car on normal fuel (Petrol) or get it towed.

My bias opinion here is that someone probably mistreated their car, and Tesla told them something like "We tried to help you before this happened, but you ignored us...its in the terms you signed when you bought the car and now there is nothing else we can do to help"

Completely reasonable.

PR mastery indeed..

Bricking, at least in my mind, is something that happens suddenly usually when attempting something at least slightly risky. Jailbreaking iPhones, replacing your laptop harddrive, desoldering components in an audio amplifier and other 'warranty voiding' all carry some 'bricking' risk.

The situation with Tesla is more akin to leaving your (very expensive) bike out in the rain: Given enough time it will rust up and need to be extensively repaired but I don't think you would say you 'bricked' it...

> "something that causes something to lose all function and become inert"

add "suddenly and without warning" and I'd agree with that definition.

By now, gasoline powered cars have been around for a hundred years. Everyone knows they are complex machines with lots of movings parts, and that they require regular maintenance to keep in working shape. What Tesla is putting forward here is the fact that the same principle applies to their electric cars: they need their own kind of TLC to be kept in good shape.

However, there is another point Tesla fails to get across. Over those hundred or so years, not only has the need to care of a gas-powered car entered into the public psyche, but also how that care must be carried out. Everyone knows that cars need oil changes and exhaust checks and all that. It's obvious by now.

However, that sort of awareness doesn't exist when it comes to electric cars. Saying they need care is great, but Tesla is missing an opportunity to develop the same sort of intuitive public awareness with regard to their vehicles. It's not just 'these cars need care,' it's 'these cars need care, and its of a kind you don't expect, that's OK because you haven't need raised on these vehicles since you were young.'

This way, the message would move from being an ever-so-slightly condescending implication that you forgot that electric cars need electricity, and refocuses on the need to augment the way in which people think about maintaining their vehicles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-denial_denial

What exactly are the conditions for this statement to be true? My laptop battery has lost some of its capacity over the past 2 years - how much capacity do Roadsters lose over time? If I had bought one of the first 100 or whatever, what would that discharge figure be now?

There is also a jab at a "single blogger" bringing the issue up, as if he is some rogue on a vendetta or looking for attention. But then not denying his claims makes this look like an insidious corporate attack on a journalist who actually brought to the public's attention a serious flaw with a product. Very similar to how GM's attacks on Ralph Nader back in the 1970s started. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unsafe_at_Any_Speed#Industry_re...

On the other hand, I manage to keep my cell phone charged at all times, so I can imagine that I'd be able to keep my car charged at all times. But I ride a bike, so this doesn't really affect me.

1- All modern battery packs, including laptops, have internal management circuitry that, among other things (like controlling charge so that they will not explode) not allow the damn thing to deplete. When 0% charge is reported the battery still has plenty of juice left.

2- With the given parasitic drain, the battery will last for at least a month left at 0% charge

3- If you leave you car at the airport, you kinda expect to be able to get back, so you won't leave the car at 0% when you depart. And even at 0%, you have a month to plug it in

So, barring a zombie apocalypse, what is the expected use-case that actual owners would encounter, to be able to destroy the batteries? It is certainly not normal usage.

"Please to be using this when leaving vehicle at airport. Thank you much, Tesla."

Maybe there's some reason this won't work, but... you need to work with your customers' expectations. Some of them are going to leave the vehicle unplugged for a while, and they're going to be pissed if the vehicle battery is destroyed.

Won't work in the parking garage, snow, or Seattle. Just don't leave your tesla at the airport of 12 weeks. That's expensive all by itself.

I mean seriously. Cost doesn't matter? Time doesn't matter? Equating going on vacation without your car to never changing your oil?

Just because someone says it's neglect, or even has a contract that defines it that way, doesn't mean it's reasonable or even anywhere near the realm of common sense. That's just lawyer speak that is.

Both are valid points. Why are you arguing? The points don't seem mutually exclusive to me. Tesla has a lot going for it. They make innovative cars, and I would love to own one. That doesn't make the company's PR responses any less defensive and cagey. The response for this particular issue is a big turn off for me. I would definitely prefer that they didn't contradict themselves within the first three paragraphs.

I get it. Owners of Tesla cars need to charge their cars or they will be out $40,000. That makes sense to me. Batteries don't last forever. My Mother however doesn't care how the car works. She just wants it to work. She'll do the maintenance that you ask her to do, but she's not going to know why. So, she won't know why she can't leave the car at the airport for a month.

That's why it's important for Tesla to say, "yes this is an important issue that is part of maintaining your car." Not, "A single blogger is spreading a rumor about electric vehicles becoming inoperable." If my Mother read that last sentence, she might say to herself, "oh, I guess that blogger was just lying," and move on without reading the whole article, now assuming that it's not possible to "brick" her car.

I also lay some blame at Michael Degusta's feet. I don't think that it was appropriate for him to title his article "'It’s A Brick' – Tesla Motors’ Devastating Design Problem." I don't see this as a design problem. It works. The potential for bricking your car is just something you'll have to watch out for, just like not changing your oil is something you need to watch out for.

I think that Tesla was just reacting against the accusation that they had a design flaw. As long as they make sure that all of their customers know of the issue, it's not a design flaw. At that point it's maintenance. That's where I think that Tesla failed today. They skimped on their responsibility of informing the customer of important facts, so that they could come out smelling like roses.

P.S. Incidentally, if I were to take a trip to my mountain home in Italy for half a year, roughly how much would I expect to pay in electricity to keep my Tesla vehicle charged? Does it draw a constant amount of power for the entire time that I'm away?

If you are, in fact, unable to grasp that, then you will pay the cost.

How is this even a thing?

You don't keep your laptop or phone charged on penalty of battery replacement, so why pretend that you're not surprised at the Tesla result?

Also, quite obviously, the batteries used in the Tesla are the same kind used in your laptop or phone, just a vastly greater number of them.

So yes, maintaining a laptop means keeping it charged.

(How do people not know this? Battery 101)

I did know that it's not good for the life of a battery to continuously deep discharge it. (Though I've seen so much different advice over the years about various battery technologies that someone might easily think it was better for batteries to run them down now and then, a belief that had at least some relevance to NiCads.)

However, I confess to not knowing that running down, say, a laptop and then letting it sit uncharged for a long period was a very bad thing.

Who just leaves his car for 12 months somewhere, without caring about it? I know someone who left his motorcycle outside for too long and now rust killed it.

On my car that's a $6-7000 fix if it happens. I bet if there were only 2,500 of those engines in the world it would be a $40k fix, but economies of scale have made it cheaper.

turns out in this case the rumor is true...

well the first automobiles needed to be started with a crank on the front grill. sometimes the crank would catch and whip around an break the user's arm.

its a neat thing that even in this day and age, people aren't completely shielded from being on the cutting edge.

the 2020 Teslas are going to be amazing.

edit: and yes, I realize it would probably make sense to check it out when buying a type of car that is relatively new, but that doesn't mean even a significant minority of new owners will.

Quote - "Nissan spokeswoman Katherine Zachary tells Motoramic that the all-electric Nissan Leaf "will never discharge completely, thanks to an advanced battery management system designed to protect the battery from damage." Thanks to a combination of different management and battery cells custom-designed for the car, Nissan has sold 22,000 Leafs and never suffered a similar failure. Tesla's acolytes may find no fault in the charges, but other automakers know there's little margin in blaming customers for not asking the right questions."

I would like to ask if it's true or not that any batteries have become inoperable due to being drained completely. Also If that does occur, what is the cost of replacement, and is it at all covered by warranty.

It doesn't seem like that answer is forthcoming...

All this has happened before, etc.

Here we learn that they need juice constantly to run "vital systems" and therefore consume energy at all times, even when not running. The owner cannot choose to let his car unplugged because then it'll break down completely and need to be repaired at a cost of 40% of the original price.

This is not progress.

That is the comparison I would like to see.

* Fuel starts to turn into a syrup from evaporation requiring you to drain the tank. (This is a big issue on 2-stroke engines, you need to do a lot more work)

* Oil should be replaced due to acidic oil eating away sediment from crank case.

* Depending on time of year coolant should be flushed (depends on what mix is already in).

* Battery will be dead.

* Brake fluid might need to be changed as well.

Half of these you can ignore but it will cause wear and isn't good thing.

The running down of batteries in an electric car to the point where they're damaged is definitely a corner case. It's not one that's out of the realm of possibility. (Someone goes to winter house for a few months, leaves car in garage, and the charger isn't hooked up properly or something.) It sounds like the current generation vehicles make it even more of a corner case although I have to wonder what the failure modes of the various protection systems are.

As to your other thought, some of us do not want to ghettoize ourselves. Some of us have friends in areas that are, unfortunately, difficult to reach via public transportation. Living locally would mean disconnecting from a great number of people that I care about quite deeply.

Maybe a big, red warning sticker on the door would make people happy?

40K replacement basically tells user that go get a gas-powered car. If a fuel-injected engine fails, would it still cost just as much to replace? How about a BMW? or Mercedes? or Lexus?

It will eventually be "bricked".

Just like gas-powered vehicles need to be maintained, so do electric ones. EVs actually happen to require less maintenance. Simpler too. I would say that the EV equivalent of oil changes is to keep it charged above some minimum.

The blogger should write a follow-up article: "Tesla admits that cars can be bricked. They are just a little harder to brick than assumed."

Just to add to the PR observations, I like how they have a few positive comments, but it is actually impossible to make comments on the post.