larryh

This is battery degradation for a Tesla Model S with an 85 kWh battery from reports submitted to pluginamerica.org. It shows range vs. odometer reading. After 30,000 miles, degradation appears to be about 4%. After 60,000 miles, it is about 5%. Most of the degradation occurs in the first 30,000 miles. After that it levels off. The Telsa has a much more expensive battery than the Energi and it is Tesla's only source of power. Thus it is critical that the engineers do everything possible to minimize battery degradation. The Tesla's battery alone costs more than an Energi. I don't think Ford would be able to sell many Energi's if they took all the precautions Tesla did to protect the battery, i.e. liquid cooling. The cost of the Energi would probably be too prohibitive and no one would buy it. The Energi does have an ICE so it is still much better than a hybrid even with 20% degradation. Also, the Tesla has a much larger battery than the Energi. Thus the Energi's battery is discharged much more deeply than the Tesla's, on average, and has many more and deeper charge cycles. This only exacerbates degradation of the battery. It probably doesn't make much economic sense to use liquid cooling in such a small battery--it is not going to reduce degradation enough to make it worthwhile.

The amount of energy stored in the HVB varies significantly with temperature. In the winter, you can expect to get less energy out of the battery. When mine was new, the greatest amount of energy recorded by MFM for a trip was about 6.0 kWh. My car has just over 30,000 miles. Today, I observed 4.9 kWh when the HVB temperature when I started out was 48 F. About 0.3 kWh can be accounted for by battery degradation. The rest is simply because the HVB was much colder in the Winter vs. the Summer. In order to determine the amount of battery degradation, you need to make sure the temperature of the battery is the same for your trips. Since you live in a warmer climate, you can expect more degradation than I have experienced. Degradation is a function of many other factors, including how many times you have charged the car, how deeply you discharge the battery, and the length of time it is kept at full charge.

According to the FAQs at MFM: Value Charge Profiles allow you to control charge settings for a specific location to optimize savings. Value Charge Profiles allow MyFord Mobile users to reduce their electricity costs by taking advantage of reduced rates offered by their utility without a complicated set-up process. If the driver establishes a GO Time, he or she needs the car to be ready; the Value Charge Profile figures out when to start charging based on how empty the batteries are, and what hours electricity is cheapest. Otherwise the default is to be fully charged within 24 hours If no GO time is set within 24 hours, it probably charges the car to ensure it has been fully charged within 24 hours of plugging in.

The DTCs caused by the engine block heater were a result of a programming error. When they programmed the modules, they forgot to take into account that the engine block heater warms up the engine outside the normal temperature tolerances used to detect fault conditions. There was 30 C degree threshold difference allowed between the engine coolant temperature and the motor/generator inverter coolant temperature. If the engine coolant temperature was more than 30 C degrees warmer than the inverter coolant temperature the MIL would illuminate provided the car had been off for at least x hours. The idea was, that If the car is not running, then everything should cool down to approximately the same temperature. If that doesn't happen, then something is wrong (probably a sensor is malfunctioning). That is going to happen frequently with the EBH. Perhaps something similar happens with the car is remote started.

The dealer should be able to determine what the error code means. Ford engineers created the error codes, so they should know what they mean. The dealer should simply be able to ask Ford to determine the meaning. If Ford does not know what they mean, then Ford needs better engineers that actually talk to each other. What was the DTC? The error is apparently intermittent. Without knowing more about it, one cannot determine how serious it is. But one would not expect an intermittent error to appear multiple times in a month or two.

When the car detects a powertrain fault, it should record the DTC which can be retrieved using an OBD scanner or via ET mode. If the fault is no longer detected after three restarts, the light will then go off.

Elon Musk would not: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/elon-musk-heres-why-we-call-apple-the-tesla-graveyard-2015-10-09?siteid=rss&rss=1 “Important engineers? They have hired people we’ve fired. We always jokingly call Apple the ‘Tesla Graveyard.’ If you don’t make it at Tesla, you go work at Apple. I’m not kidding.”

The HVB is expected to degrade with time. I have 28000 miles. The capacity has degraded by about 5%.

The car and the EVSE negotiate the maximum power that the car can draw from the EVSE. 3850 watts is the negotiated maximum power that the EVSE will provide to the car. However, the car does not actually draw that much power from the EVSE. The actual power consumed by my EVSE is about 3430 watts at 240 volts. You can see the power provided to the HVB by monitoring the following current and voltage PIDs: BAT_CHARG_OUT_V Battery Charger Output Voltage BAT_OPC_MEAS High Voltage Battery Charger Output Current - Measured The power consumed by the on-board charger can be observed with: BAT_CHARG_INP Battery Charger Input Voltage BAT_CHR_IN_CUR Battery Charger Input Current

The MFM server must have lost the GO times in the car. MFM needs to resync with the car.

BAT_CHARG_PWR is the "Available Battery Charger Input Power" which can be provided by the Level 2 EVSE to the car. It is not the power being consumed by the charger. I have a very accurate meter attached to the Level 2 EVSE which shows the power being consumed to be about 3430 watts. About 100 of those watts are consumed by the car's fans and internal electronics. The rest goes to the car's internal charger. Generally, the car's internal charger consumes 14 amps of current for the HVB.

The GO times still display in the car. They are just not available from MFM.

MFM does not show any GO times for my car either.

From Ford's press release on Active Noise Cancellation: At the lower speeds that help efficiency, engines produce booming, low-frequency sounds that can be unpleasant to the driver and passengers. Without Active Noise Cancellation, engineers have to keep the engine out of this operating range, sacrificing efficiency. Active Noise Cancellation allows the ICE to operate more efficiently in regions that would otherwise make the car unpleasant to drive.

It takes more energy the faster you drive. If you accelerate fast, your average speed will be faster (you get to your destination faster) than if you accelerate slowly. Approximately 90% of the extra energy consumed by faster acceleration is due to this factor. The remaining 10% is due purely to motor efficiency. The motor isn't quite as efficient during hard acceleration.

This is what consumer reports claims. I don't trust their reviews. Do you have the larger tires? The Tesla is among the quietest cars we've tested; only the Lexus LS was quieter. Even at maximum acceleration, powertrain noise is drowned out by light wind noise and just a little road noise. Summer-only 21-inch performance tires, transmits more tire noise into the cabin.

I was under the impression that active noise cancellation was for the ICE. Does active noise cancellation do anything about road noise? Is the model S a noisier car at all speeds? Is it noisier because of road noise or motor noise?

The car takes more electricity in the winter mainly due to preconditioning. It can take up to 3 kWh of electricity to precondition the car. If you click on the Fuelly signature below, you can see the charging efficiency ratio for my car throughout the year by looking at the notes for each fuel up. The ratio is given as the kWh of electricity from the wall outlet divided by the kWh output by the HVB (the reciprocal of efficiency). This is mostly level 2 charging. In the winter, the ratio is as high as 1.65 (61%). In the summer, it is as low as 1.29 (78%).

In order to provide new functionality, the modem is going to have query or command the other modules in the car for things they may not be programmed to handle. If the other modules can't currently process those queries or commands, then there is no new functionality. Already, the 2014 and newer TCU's are incompatible with the other modules in the 2013 FFE (personalization functionality is lost). In the 2014+ MY versions of the Sync and display software, they removed features like MPGe and HVB range. Are they going to do the same if they were to update Sync for the 2013 FFE?

How would the car support the 3G modem or the new functionality provided by the modem. Sync and/or other modules in the car would have to be upgraded also to support a new modem. Is Ford really planning any more updates for Sync now that they are changing to another OS?

The car does not charge the HVB to capacity. It only charges it to a maximum of 7.2 kWh. It usually charges the car to 98% of capacity. The car does not allow you to discharge the HVB below 1.0 kWh. So about the most you will get out of the HVB is about 6.0 kWh. The car does not charge the HVB to capacity or complete discharge it to prolong the life of the HVB.

You might have to disconnect the 12 V battery when the car is not running so you can start the car.

I use a volt meter plugged into a power point. I plug it in and let the car sit for about 20 minutes. Then look at the reading through the windows. It is usually above 12.75 V. I'm not sure exactly what the BCM cumulative discharge counts measure. There are are cumulative discharge count PIDs for when the car is running, off, and sleeping. There is also a cumulative charge count for when the car is running. I have always observed them to increment between 0 and 0.2 in a day.

Do you monitor the the BCM 12 V battery cumulative discharge counts to see if they are increasing faster than normal? They usually don't change by more than 0.2 per day. What is the voltage of the 12 V battery after it has rested for a while?

That is a moire pattern due to poor anti-aliasing of the camera.