I own a Model 3. There are flaws to it. This isn't one of them. The entire article is dumb. It hinges on one owner being upset that his 12v battery died and he's "speculating" it's because of the...
I own a Model 3. There are flaws to it. This isn't one of them.
The entire article is dumb. It hinges on one owner being upset that his 12v battery died and he's "speculating" it's because of the heat. That's it.
I had it happen to me too. About every 3-4 years the lead acid battery will die. Just like in every other normal vehicle.
The issue with a Tesla is when the 12v dies, you can't use any of the passive electronics, including the door locks (you can open the doors, but it's a PITA to do). The 12v also doesn't charge via the normal outlet either, so the complaint by the person in the article about moving it to charge it is...well, bullshit. Even if you could open the car to plug it in, it won't do anything...the same thing as if you had a dead battery in your car and you can't turn the car over to start it.
This has nothing to do with the car being hot from the Texas heat. It's just because the battery died. You don't see articles from people saying, "MY TOYOTA WOULDN'T TURN ON BECAUSE OF THE TEXAS HEAT!" because 12v car batteries die all the time. It's a common occurrence and usually requires a trip to AutoZone to get a new one.
All this person needs to do is just call Tesla service. They'll send a mobile mechanic to swap out the battery. When this happened to me, they sent someone out within an hour, took literally five minutes to replace the battery and I was on my way. This didn't need an article.
Edit: Literally, read the article and the dude just says, "this is annoying as hell." Yeah, when your car battery dies and you can't turn it over, it's annoying as hell. That's annoying to every human being who owns a car. Tesla isn't immune to it.
Again, this entire article is just dumb. The person could have easily opened the frunk via the methods above, swapped out the battery...or even jump started the vehicle.
You shouldn't have to call a mobile service to replace your battery. I can run to the auto store, be back home, and have a new battery in my car in 15 minutes. If Tesla makes it unnecessarily...
You shouldn't have to call a mobile service to replace your battery. I can run to the auto store, be back home, and have a new battery in my car in 15 minutes. If Tesla makes it unnecessarily difficult to do a simple task like replacing this particular battery, to the point you have to call their mobile service, then that's a pretty bad design flaw.
With the exception of the early Model S, the 12V is pretty easy to get to. They don’t require mobile service, you can go get a 12V from the store like anyone else. As the article mentions Tesla...
With the exception of the early Model S, the 12V is pretty easy to get to. They don’t require mobile service, you can go get a 12V from the store like anyone else. As the article mentions Tesla installs LiIon LV batteries now that are 16V, but you can install a normal 12V if you want. The LiIon ones just last longer for this use case.
From the article:
attempting to jump the 12-volt battery and wasn't even able to get the access point to the charging port open.
So this is really no different than writing an article about any car owner who doesn’t know the service details of their vehicle. The charge point is the high voltage pack access. The spot to jump the 12V is in the front. The user manual documents the process in detail, and is featured prominently in the app so it can be accessed even if you can’t get into the vehicle.
As another poster pointed out, it's not hard to get to and you can replace it yourself. You can absolutely take preventative maintenance to mitigate this problem, just like any other car. You...
As another poster pointed out, it's not hard to get to and you can replace it yourself. You can absolutely take preventative maintenance to mitigate this problem, just like any other car. You literally pop the frunk, remove the plastic cover and remove two bolts. My Audi was a bigger pain in the ass to replace the battery than the Tesla.
Seriously, here's the instructions. All it requires is popping off the plastic and undoing the negative and positive terminals with a 11mm socket.
I only mentioned the Tesla mobile technician because if the car is under warranty, they'll come and replace it for free. If it's not under warranty, it's ~$150 which includes a $100 battery. It's no different than calling AAA...which if you're stranded and don't have access to a second car, a lot of people do.
Thanks for the clarification. When you mentioned that the doors are a PITA to get into, I assumed (my bad!) that in order to pop the frunk, you need access to the interior of the car like a lot...
Thanks for the clarification.
When you mentioned that the doors are a PITA to get into, I assumed (my bad!) that in order to pop the frunk, you need access to the interior of the car like a lot iof ICE cars. Of course, I've only ever had cars with mechanical locks and handles, so I'm sure there are other vehicles that have the same issue with electronic doors as Tesla.
I appreciate your insight. Journalism is frequently just wrong and even more frequently gets priorities and nuances wrong. I'm still curious about the strengths and weaknesses although no pressure...
I appreciate your insight. Journalism is frequently just wrong and even more frequently gets priorities and nuances wrong.
I'm still curious about the strengths and weaknesses although no pressure to respond if you don't want to. I don't/can't park near my home and my work doesn't have dedicated parking, so I won't consider an electric vehicle until charging can reasonably be done as an errand on a busy day. But we are getting closer to that point with the new battery technology.
But the fact that you can't unlock the car and need a 9v battery to open the frunk is a bit of an oversight. Every car I've driven so far that uses keyless still has a physical key that actually...
But the fact that you can't unlock the car and need a 9v battery to open the frunk is a bit of an oversight. Every car I've driven so far that uses keyless still has a physical key that actually turns the lock mechanism so you can get in the car and provide access to the battery (or jum points)
Yes, I've had car batteries die on me too. Although I did have AAA, it takes a while and it felt like a failure at planning ahead and maintaining a vehicle properly. What did I expect? It's...
Yes, I've had car batteries die on me too. Although I did have AAA, it takes a while and it felt like a failure at planning ahead and maintaining a vehicle properly. What did I expect? It's ignoring an inevitable problem until it finally fails on you instead of doing scheduled maintenance.
Nowadays you can buy a portable jump starter for $100 or so and keep it in the car, but you still need to keep it charged, and how long those batteries last seems kind of dubious. Jumper cables will last longer, assuming you can get help.
This is a flaw compared to an imagined ideal. When I bought a Prius I was a bit surprised that it didn't have anything fancier than a regular car. Having two separate batteries, one of which starts the other one, seems inelegant? But you jump start a Prius the same way as any other car. You need to buy a special battery and it's installed on one side of the trunk space, so that's a bit worse from a maintenance perspective.
Some Tesla buyers probably imagined it would be better due to high-tech magic.
Admittedly I’ve never owned or researched owning a Tesla, but I’m definitely now one of those people faintly surprised it can’t start at all without the 12V. I’m not considering it some grave...
Admittedly I’ve never owned or researched owning a Tesla, but I’m definitely now one of those people faintly surprised it can’t start at all without the 12V.
I’m not considering it some grave design flaw or anything, I just would’ve thought there’d be some manual override to power on the basics directly from the main battery for at least one journey. Am I right in understanding that the low voltage systems are physically isolated from the main battery, so in reality it can’t read the key even if there were a way to connect it? Intuitively I would’ve expected those systems to be more efficient running from the lithium battery on a long drive, so I was thinking they’d support both, but it’s also pretty far from anything I have actual expertise with.
The voltage difference needed to power the minor electronics like the stereo vs the motors is huge. 12v vs 400v (for the Model 3 in this instance). The high voltage battery does charge the 12v...
The voltage difference needed to power the minor electronics like the stereo vs the motors is huge. 12v vs 400v (for the Model 3 in this instance).
The high voltage battery does charge the 12v battery though.
Totally clear on that, I certainly wouldn’t have expected there to be 400V running through the infotainment or anything. The bit I don’t have the background for is why the voltage converter...
Totally clear on that, I certainly wouldn’t have expected there to be 400V running through the infotainment or anything. The bit I don’t have the background for is why the voltage converter bringing it down to ~15V to charge the 12V battery can’t also be used to feed the LV system directly, that’s the configuration I would have intuitively assumed. Since people far more knowledgeable than me designed this I’m sure there is a good reason, I just haven’t quite figured it out yet!
Since they can apparently still be jump started I could also see that as an even more isolated option: just a manual jump function that jolts the 12V back to life with a one-off boost from the main battery via that same existing voltage converter, rather than running the circuit through it continuously, but perhaps that still brings in safety or complexity issues that rule it out as an option.
The portable jump starter doesn't stay plugged into the 12v "power port" and keep itself topped off? Obviously I'm suffering from the "high tech magic" delusion. There's power right there in the...
The portable jump starter doesn't stay plugged into the 12v "power port" and keep itself topped off? Obviously I'm suffering from the "high tech magic" delusion. There's power right there in the other battery. My powerwall shut itself off last year and had to be "jumped" despite being fully charged. It will boot just fine from the grid, but not it's own DC supply. Madness.
So if a boxer dies you can't open the hood to jump the battery. You have to open the car, access the fuse panel, pull out a contact, hook up the jumpbox to said contact...THEN you can pop the...
The issue with a Tesla is when the 12v dies, you can't use any of the passive electronics, including the door locks (you can open the doors, but it's a PITA to do)
So if a boxer dies you can't open the hood to jump the battery. You have to open the car, access the fuse panel, pull out a contact, hook up the jumpbox to said contact...THEN you can pop the hood.
Thank you for this. Without even reading the article all I could think about is "how is this any different from my fiance's Grand Caravan?" Am I in the minority where I don't think every car...
About every 3-4 years the lead acid battery will die. Just like in every other normal vehicle.
Thank you for this. Without even reading the article all I could think about is "how is this any different from my fiance's Grand Caravan?"
Am I in the minority where I don't think every car should have electric or keyless everything? I'm just waiting the day where her keyfob won't work because the fob battery is dead or something. What's wrong with a plain standard physical key and mechanical ignition system?
(Now get of my lawn, dag nabbit!)
The dead 12V battery isn't specific to Teslas. All EVs suffer from this because there is no alternator recharging it while you drive. Instead, some EVs charge the 12V battery from the traction...
The dead 12V battery isn't specific to Teslas. All EVs suffer from this because there is no alternator recharging it while you drive. Instead, some EVs charge the 12V battery from the traction battery when it's off. In my case, I just recently purchased a MY23 Hyundai Kona Electric and it stops charging the 12V battery if the traction battery is below 40%. Once the 12V battery dies, literally nothing works (door locks too) until you jump-start it. Luckily Hyundai provides an actual key inside the key fob to open the door and because there is no starter motor, jump-starting the 12V battery doesn't take that many amps.
Until EVs start coming up with a solution for dead 12V batteries, they should always have a keyed door as a back up. That way, you can always keep a backup jump starter battery in the car for these situations.
Good. The lack of actual physical door locks was a main reason I skipped a few cars when shopping for one. It's such a stupid omission for 1cm² that looks marginally neater. Sure, you can always...
Luckily Hyundai provides an actual key inside the key fob to open the door
Good. The lack of actual physical door locks was a main reason I skipped a few cars when shopping for one. It's such a stupid omission for 1cm² that looks marginally neater. Sure, you can always get in, but it's a lot of faffing about that a simple key would solve immediately.
A key fob’s battery can die too, and sometimes physical keys don’t work reliably. So ideally you’d test using the manual key before you actually need it.
A key fob’s battery can die too, and sometimes physical keys don’t work reliably. So ideally you’d test using the manual key before you actually need it.
Pardon me for asking what might be somewhat of a stupid question, but are there no way of charging the 12V battery from an external battery? I don't really know what the 12V battery looks like or...
Pardon me for asking what might be somewhat of a stupid question, but are there no way of charging the 12V battery from an external battery? I don't really know what the 12V battery looks like or where it is located, so maybe this is really ignorant.
In the case of the Tesla driver, is there a way for him to jumper something to the thing that died like you would a normal car battery or does he have to get somebody to tow his vehicle and have it fixed up elsewhere?
The 12V battery in a tesla is literally the exact same as any normal car battery (which are 12V batteries). Afaik you can't use the car's lithium ion batteries to jump the 12V battery, but all the...
The 12V battery in a tesla is literally the exact same as any normal car battery (which are 12V batteries).
Afaik you can't use the car's lithium ion batteries to jump the 12V battery, but all the normal car jumping strategies work - another car battery, a backup car battery, one of those battery things you buy from amazon, etc.
You can, of course, just replace the battery, with any off the shelf car battery. By yourself, or get someone else to do it.
Not a stupid question at all. Sure you can charge the 12V battery using a battery tender but you would need to pop the hood (bonnet) every time to disconnect/connect it with a wrench. It's just...
Not a stupid question at all.
Sure you can charge the 12V battery using a battery tender but you would need to pop the hood (bonnet) every time to disconnect/connect it with a wrench. It's just inconvenient to do so since battery tenders are meant for storing batteries for long periods of time.
This isn't too bad IMO. I remember reading an article, or at least a headline, sometime in the past two years where some guy couldn't use his car because it didn't have fucking internet access...
This isn't too bad IMO. I remember reading an article, or at least a headline, sometime in the past two years where some guy couldn't use his car because it didn't have fucking internet access while he was in the middle of nowhere.
He's not the first person to have it happen to him but yeah, Glenn talked about that on the It's Always Sunny podcast and his rage about the matter was delightful. The thing that pissed him off...
He's not the first person to have it happen to him but yeah, Glenn talked about that on the It's Always Sunny podcast and his rage about the matter was delightful. The thing that pissed him off most clearly wasn't that the issue happened but that Tesla support was entirely useless.
Personally, I drive a beater and I don't even prefer electric window controls over manual, never mind all the bells and whistles on a Tesla. However, I am curious about how likely this is with...
Personally, I drive a beater and I don't even prefer electric window controls over manual, never mind all the bells and whistles on a Tesla.
However, I am curious about how likely this is with either electric cars generally or Teslas specifically.
I was looking into getting a Tesla when I finally got a career, until I realized that 1) they were unlocking the "long range" feature when hurricane Harvey was approaching and 2) when I realized...
I was looking into getting a Tesla when I finally got a career, until I realized that 1) they were unlocking the "long range" feature when hurricane Harvey was approaching and 2) when I realized little shenanigans like when the battery dies, you can't even get in.
Personally I prefer the privacy aspect, and I will likely never get one (unless I can mod/hack it). But I believe my friend's issue was the main battery died, and they wanted to open the door but couldn't because the secondary little battery (or whatever) had somehow also died. Unrelated to Texas heat, but I can see how that would easily affect any battery...
Honestly, I would love to see Tesla do better than this (and a lot of what I've seen), and electric cars in general. I'm definitely curious as to how this will progress.
I own a Chevy Bolt and love it, it’s not a fancy car but it’s cheaper than the Teslas and other big EVs. Plus with the tax credit it comes out around the same as other little economy cars. But...
I own a Chevy Bolt and love it, it’s not a fancy car but it’s cheaper than the Teslas and other big EVs. Plus with the tax credit it comes out around the same as other little economy cars. But it’s got some nice features like automatic cruise control, 360 camera etc.
We mostly use it to drive around town/run errands and then just plug it in the garage whenever the charge is getting low. Not having to pay for gas in busy city traffic is nice. The range is 200+ miles which we never come anything close to.
The con to the Bolt is the charging is slow, very slow. Which doesn’t matter to me, but if I had a large commute or needed to do long road trips it gets tricky. Either need to plan long stops or many short ones to top off and charging infrastructure between major cities isn’t great yet.
I actually work in the power generation field, and an electric vehicle would be a huge benefit, as I could just charge it at work. But I also commute approximately 120 miles/day... so it'd be...
I actually work in the power generation field, and an electric vehicle would be a huge benefit, as I could just charge it at work.
But I also commute approximately 120 miles/day... so it'd be worthless on the weekends unless I wanted to pay for the charge. Not that I can't afford it, but pricing is WAY more crazy in my new location vs when I was in Texas. Also it gets a lot colder here, which I presume would affect the batteries as well.
Yes I’ve heard the range drops a good amount in the cold, we are in Texas hah so not really a problem for us. I definitely wouldn’t want a Bolt with a commute that long. Honestly any EV at that...
Yes I’ve heard the range drops a good amount in the cold, we are in Texas hah so not really a problem for us. I definitely wouldn’t want a Bolt with a commute that long. Honestly any EV at that point it gets dicey if you don’t have a garage/house to put a charger in.
Yep, and sadly I really couldn't afford the housing in the closer areas last year, due to all the craziness. We moved from across the US with two large dogs, so it wasn't easy to just find a quick...
Yep, and sadly I really couldn't afford the housing in the closer areas last year, due to all the craziness. We moved from across the US with two large dogs, so it wasn't easy to just find a quick apartment to then look for closer options. For now it's cheaper to drive (and I do like driving) for the past year and next year or three at least. Then we'll know the areas better, and have chances for this stupid housing market to hopefully settle out. Or I may have some other opportunities in or out of the company which may present a closer location.
5 years ago I wanted my next car to be an electric, self driving car. 5 years later my old car still works fine, but my dream of getting a fully self driving car still looks to be a long way away...
5 years ago I wanted my next car to be an electric, self driving car. 5 years later my old car still works fine, but my dream of getting a fully self driving car still looks to be a long way away haha, maybe I'll settle for highway self driving
When my oldest was born, I had high hopes that self driving cars would be the norm before it was time for Driver's Ed. With just a few years to go, it's not looking likely.
When my oldest was born, I had high hopes that self driving cars would be the norm before it was time for Driver's Ed. With just a few years to go, it's not looking likely.
I think in order for self-driving cars to be the norm, AI needs to be at Skynet level of intelligence. Currently, computing power has come a long way but AI is still in its early stages.
I think in order for self-driving cars to be the norm, AI needs to be at Skynet level of intelligence.
Currently, computing power has come a long way but AI is still in its early stages.
I don't think I'll ever be able to trust a self driving car simply because ice and snow are their mortal enemy and I live in a climate that brings both of those for a good portion of the year...
I don't think I'll ever be able to trust a self driving car simply because ice and snow are their mortal enemy and I live in a climate that brings both of those for a good portion of the year every year.
I own a Model 3. There are flaws to it. This isn't one of them.
The entire article is dumb. It hinges on one owner being upset that his 12v battery died and he's "speculating" it's because of the heat. That's it.
I had it happen to me too. About every 3-4 years the lead acid battery will die. Just like in every other normal vehicle.
The issue with a Tesla is when the 12v dies, you can't use any of the passive electronics, including the door locks (you can open the doors, but it's a PITA to do). The 12v also doesn't charge via the normal outlet either, so the complaint by the person in the article about moving it to charge it is...well, bullshit. Even if you could open the car to plug it in, it won't do anything...the same thing as if you had a dead battery in your car and you can't turn the car over to start it.
This has nothing to do with the car being hot from the Texas heat. It's just because the battery died. You don't see articles from people saying, "MY TOYOTA WOULDN'T TURN ON BECAUSE OF THE TEXAS HEAT!" because 12v car batteries die all the time. It's a common occurrence and usually requires a trip to AutoZone to get a new one.
All this person needs to do is just call Tesla service. They'll send a mobile mechanic to swap out the battery. When this happened to me, they sent someone out within an hour, took literally five minutes to replace the battery and I was on my way. This didn't need an article.
Edit: Literally, read the article and the dude just says, "this is annoying as hell." Yeah, when your car battery dies and you can't turn it over, it's annoying as hell. That's annoying to every human being who owns a car. Tesla isn't immune to it.
Edit 2: You can replace the 12v yourself and it's not hard to access. Even if the 12v battery is dead, you can pop the frunk to access the battery with a 9v battery. This only works if the 12V is dead. Here it is on the official website as well if you have one of those jump start batteries.
Again, this entire article is just dumb. The person could have easily opened the frunk via the methods above, swapped out the battery...or even jump started the vehicle.
You shouldn't have to call a mobile service to replace your battery. I can run to the auto store, be back home, and have a new battery in my car in 15 minutes. If Tesla makes it unnecessarily difficult to do a simple task like replacing this particular battery, to the point you have to call their mobile service, then that's a pretty bad design flaw.
With the exception of the early Model S, the 12V is pretty easy to get to. They don’t require mobile service, you can go get a 12V from the store like anyone else. As the article mentions Tesla installs LiIon LV batteries now that are 16V, but you can install a normal 12V if you want. The LiIon ones just last longer for this use case.
From the article:
So this is really no different than writing an article about any car owner who doesn’t know the service details of their vehicle. The charge point is the high voltage pack access. The spot to jump the 12V is in the front. The user manual documents the process in detail, and is featured prominently in the app so it can be accessed even if you can’t get into the vehicle.
As another poster pointed out, it's not hard to get to and you can replace it yourself. You can absolutely take preventative maintenance to mitigate this problem, just like any other car. You literally pop the frunk, remove the plastic cover and remove two bolts. My Audi was a bigger pain in the ass to replace the battery than the Tesla.
Seriously, here's the instructions. All it requires is popping off the plastic and undoing the negative and positive terminals with a 11mm socket.
I only mentioned the Tesla mobile technician because if the car is under warranty, they'll come and replace it for free. If it's not under warranty, it's ~$150 which includes a $100 battery. It's no different than calling AAA...which if you're stranded and don't have access to a second car, a lot of people do.
As a Tesla owner, you're missing one key detail: you'll break all the plastic clips holding the cover in the process lol.
Lmao. Accurate. I replaced the HEPA filter with some fancy ones from Amazon and it came with a clip remover tool!
Well yeah, overall that's barely more complicated than it is for my Peugeot 308SW. Annoying how much plastic covers everything nowadays, though.
Thanks for the clarification.
When you mentioned that the doors are a PITA to get into, I assumed (my bad!) that in order to pop the frunk, you need access to the interior of the car like a lot iof ICE cars. Of course, I've only ever had cars with mechanical locks and handles, so I'm sure there are other vehicles that have the same issue with electronic doors as Tesla.
I appreciate your insight. Journalism is frequently just wrong and even more frequently gets priorities and nuances wrong.
I'm still curious about the strengths and weaknesses although no pressure to respond if you don't want to. I don't/can't park near my home and my work doesn't have dedicated parking, so I won't consider an electric vehicle until charging can reasonably be done as an errand on a busy day. But we are getting closer to that point with the new battery technology.
But the fact that you can't unlock the car and need a 9v battery to open the frunk is a bit of an oversight. Every car I've driven so far that uses keyless still has a physical key that actually turns the lock mechanism so you can get in the car and provide access to the battery (or jum points)
Yes, I've had car batteries die on me too. Although I did have AAA, it takes a while and it felt like a failure at planning ahead and maintaining a vehicle properly. What did I expect? It's ignoring an inevitable problem until it finally fails on you instead of doing scheduled maintenance.
Nowadays you can buy a portable jump starter for $100 or so and keep it in the car, but you still need to keep it charged, and how long those batteries last seems kind of dubious. Jumper cables will last longer, assuming you can get help.
This is a flaw compared to an imagined ideal. When I bought a Prius I was a bit surprised that it didn't have anything fancier than a regular car. Having two separate batteries, one of which starts the other one, seems inelegant? But you jump start a Prius the same way as any other car. You need to buy a special battery and it's installed on one side of the trunk space, so that's a bit worse from a maintenance perspective.
Some Tesla buyers probably imagined it would be better due to high-tech magic.
Admittedly I’ve never owned or researched owning a Tesla, but I’m definitely now one of those people faintly surprised it can’t start at all without the 12V.
I’m not considering it some grave design flaw or anything, I just would’ve thought there’d be some manual override to power on the basics directly from the main battery for at least one journey. Am I right in understanding that the low voltage systems are physically isolated from the main battery, so in reality it can’t read the key even if there were a way to connect it? Intuitively I would’ve expected those systems to be more efficient running from the lithium battery on a long drive, so I was thinking they’d support both, but it’s also pretty far from anything I have actual expertise with.
The voltage difference needed to power the minor electronics like the stereo vs the motors is huge. 12v vs 400v (for the Model 3 in this instance).
The high voltage battery does charge the 12v battery though.
Here's an article with more detailed information.
Totally clear on that, I certainly wouldn’t have expected there to be 400V running through the infotainment or anything. The bit I don’t have the background for is why the voltage converter bringing it down to ~15V to charge the 12V battery can’t also be used to feed the LV system directly, that’s the configuration I would have intuitively assumed. Since people far more knowledgeable than me designed this I’m sure there is a good reason, I just haven’t quite figured it out yet!
Since they can apparently still be jump started I could also see that as an even more isolated option: just a manual jump function that jolts the 12V back to life with a one-off boost from the main battery via that same existing voltage converter, rather than running the circuit through it continuously, but perhaps that still brings in safety or complexity issues that rule it out as an option.
It was a bit magical for me. My 3 reported that the battery was dying and urgently advised me to have it serviced before it did so.
Oh, that’s helpful. It seems similar to tire pressure sensors.
I have a Mac laptop that did that. (Not dying, but it said battery life was affected.)
The portable jump starter doesn't stay plugged into the 12v "power port" and keep itself topped off? Obviously I'm suffering from the "high tech magic" delusion. There's power right there in the other battery. My powerwall shut itself off last year and had to be "jumped" despite being fully charged. It will boot just fine from the grid, but not it's own DC supply. Madness.
That might work, but I haven’t tried it. I should probably check on it.
So if a boxer dies you can't open the hood to jump the battery. You have to open the car, access the fuse panel, pull out a contact, hook up the jumpbox to said contact...THEN you can pop the hood.
Is there a similar process with the Tesla?
Yep. See my second edit on the OP. You can pop the frunk with a 9V battery or a jump via the tow hook.
Seems like less of an issue as the article is making it out to be
Thank you for this. Without even reading the article all I could think about is "how is this any different from my fiance's Grand Caravan?"
Am I in the minority where I don't think every car should have electric or keyless everything? I'm just waiting the day where her keyfob won't work because the fob battery is dead or something. What's wrong with a plain standard physical key and mechanical ignition system?
(Now get of my lawn, dag nabbit!)
The dead 12V battery isn't specific to Teslas. All EVs suffer from this because there is no alternator recharging it while you drive. Instead, some EVs charge the 12V battery from the traction battery when it's off. In my case, I just recently purchased a MY23 Hyundai Kona Electric and it stops charging the 12V battery if the traction battery is below 40%. Once the 12V battery dies, literally nothing works (door locks too) until you jump-start it. Luckily Hyundai provides an actual key inside the key fob to open the door and because there is no starter motor, jump-starting the 12V battery doesn't take that many amps.
Until EVs start coming up with a solution for dead 12V batteries, they should always have a keyed door as a back up. That way, you can always keep a backup jump starter battery in the car for these situations.
Good. The lack of actual physical door locks was a main reason I skipped a few cars when shopping for one. It's such a stupid omission for 1cm² that looks marginally neater. Sure, you can always get in, but it's a lot of faffing about that a simple key would solve immediately.
A key fob’s battery can die too, and sometimes physical keys don’t work reliably. So ideally you’d test using the manual key before you actually need it.
Pardon me for asking what might be somewhat of a stupid question, but are there no way of charging the 12V battery from an external battery? I don't really know what the 12V battery looks like or where it is located, so maybe this is really ignorant.
In the case of the Tesla driver, is there a way for him to jumper something to the thing that died like you would a normal car battery or does he have to get somebody to tow his vehicle and have it fixed up elsewhere?
The 12V battery in a tesla is literally the exact same as any normal car battery (which are 12V batteries).
Afaik you can't use the car's lithium ion batteries to jump the 12V battery, but all the normal car jumping strategies work - another car battery, a backup car battery, one of those battery things you buy from amazon, etc.
You can, of course, just replace the battery, with any off the shelf car battery. By yourself, or get someone else to do it.
Not a stupid question at all.
Sure you can charge the 12V battery using a battery tender but you would need to pop the hood (bonnet) every time to disconnect/connect it with a wrench. It's just inconvenient to do so since battery tenders are meant for storing batteries for long periods of time.
I have never heard of the brand name until today. Interesting, never knew what those were called. Thank you for your response.
This isn't too bad IMO. I remember reading an article, or at least a headline, sometime in the past two years where some guy couldn't use his car because it didn't have fucking internet access while he was in the middle of nowhere.
EDIT: I highly believe this is not the same story, but it's interesting nonetheless. TV star can't get out of parking garage with broken FOB and no internet
He's not the first person to have it happen to him but yeah, Glenn talked about that on the It's Always Sunny podcast and his rage about the matter was delightful. The thing that pissed him off most clearly wasn't that the issue happened but that Tesla support was entirely useless.
I remember what you mean - this one? https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/09/zipcar-into-the-wilderness/597217/
That isn't the title of the article I remember, but that's the same premise.
Personally, I drive a beater and I don't even prefer electric window controls over manual, never mind all the bells and whistles on a Tesla.
However, I am curious about how likely this is with either electric cars generally or Teslas specifically.
I was looking into getting a Tesla when I finally got a career, until I realized that 1) they were unlocking the "long range" feature when hurricane Harvey was approaching and 2) when I realized little shenanigans like when the battery dies, you can't even get in.
Personally I prefer the privacy aspect, and I will likely never get one (unless I can mod/hack it). But I believe my friend's issue was the main battery died, and they wanted to open the door but couldn't because the secondary little battery (or whatever) had somehow also died. Unrelated to Texas heat, but I can see how that would easily affect any battery...
Honestly, I would love to see Tesla do better than this (and a lot of what I've seen), and electric cars in general. I'm definitely curious as to how this will progress.
I own a Chevy Bolt and love it, it’s not a fancy car but it’s cheaper than the Teslas and other big EVs. Plus with the tax credit it comes out around the same as other little economy cars. But it’s got some nice features like automatic cruise control, 360 camera etc.
We mostly use it to drive around town/run errands and then just plug it in the garage whenever the charge is getting low. Not having to pay for gas in busy city traffic is nice. The range is 200+ miles which we never come anything close to.
The con to the Bolt is the charging is slow, very slow. Which doesn’t matter to me, but if I had a large commute or needed to do long road trips it gets tricky. Either need to plan long stops or many short ones to top off and charging infrastructure between major cities isn’t great yet.
I actually work in the power generation field, and an electric vehicle would be a huge benefit, as I could just charge it at work.
But I also commute approximately 120 miles/day... so it'd be worthless on the weekends unless I wanted to pay for the charge. Not that I can't afford it, but pricing is WAY more crazy in my new location vs when I was in Texas. Also it gets a lot colder here, which I presume would affect the batteries as well.
Yes I’ve heard the range drops a good amount in the cold, we are in Texas hah so not really a problem for us. I definitely wouldn’t want a Bolt with a commute that long. Honestly any EV at that point it gets dicey if you don’t have a garage/house to put a charger in.
Even the Houston heat wouldn't affect the battery too much? That's where I moved from. Granted up here we had a mild winter but it can get dang cold.
That's just, wow, do they pay you enough to make 4 hours of commuting a day worth it?
That is 12 hours a day dedicated to work.
Yep, and sadly I really couldn't afford the housing in the closer areas last year, due to all the craziness. We moved from across the US with two large dogs, so it wasn't easy to just find a quick apartment to then look for closer options. For now it's cheaper to drive (and I do like driving) for the past year and next year or three at least. Then we'll know the areas better, and have chances for this stupid housing market to hopefully settle out. Or I may have some other opportunities in or out of the company which may present a closer location.
5 years ago I wanted my next car to be an electric, self driving car. 5 years later my old car still works fine, but my dream of getting a fully self driving car still looks to be a long way away haha, maybe I'll settle for highway self driving
When my oldest was born, I had high hopes that self driving cars would be the norm before it was time for Driver's Ed. With just a few years to go, it's not looking likely.
I think in order for self-driving cars to be the norm, AI needs to be at Skynet level of intelligence.
Currently, computing power has come a long way but AI is still in its early stages.
I don't think I'll ever be able to trust a self driving car simply because ice and snow are their mortal enemy and I live in a climate that brings both of those for a good portion of the year every year.
But...shouldn't the car have a failsafe keyhole just in case?
BFD