Hacker News Reader

Comment by kop316 | Hacker News Reader

This reminds me of something that happened to my brother's Tesla the last time I saw him. He purchased a new Tesla about a year ago.

He normally lives in an area where winter temps are at a low of 40 F (~5 C). He came to visit, an I live in an area where temperatures routinely go above and below the freezing point of water. I also live in a very humid environmant (close to a large body of water).

My brother plugged in his Tesla overnight to charge, and the morning he was suppoed to leave, the charger would not come out. After after 15 minutes of searching online for a fix, it turns out that it is surprisngly common that the charger was frozen into the charger! Thankfully, we had a hair dryer and were able to unfreeze it.

I share this story because I an frankly surprised that for buying a new tesla, something like that was not tested and/or accounted for, and frankly makes me worry about buying one, because I wonder what else they do not test/account for.

View on HN

Watch Bjorn's videos and you'll see that it certainly isn't confined to Tesla. Newer models have heated charge ports. With older vehicles, preconditioning the cabin for ~30 minutes supposedly helps.

Are you referring to https://www.youtube.com/user/bjornnyland ?

Yes

Interesting. I live in a similar climate with fluctuating temperatures and I haven't had this issue but maybe the charge port on my PHEV is heated and I didn't realize. I have had the problem though where sometimes the charge port door is frozen shut during cold temperatures.

Just like Apple: "Designed in California"

We need a new mark of quality to account for environmental ruggedness.

"Designed in Chennai and Winnipeg."

I believe that's why they still use Unibody. It's too cold!

I learned from my friends who lived in upstate midwest that regular cars need electric heaters to warm the engine oil before the car can be started, which seems like a very similar story but without the tesla.

It's a car company from California, not Detroit.

A lot of people don't seem to know this but California is a vast state with practically every single kind of climate and an incredible range in altitude.

I don't have enough experience in California to say just how cold it gets in some parts but it certainly does snow in mountainous areas.

Engineering centers are not close to these areas though.

I would drive past the Tesla offices in Palo Alto and be in S. Lake Tahoe in under 4 hours. Plenty of folks who work in that area head up to Tahoe for relaxation.

A not quite four hour drive, after a storm, when folks make allowances knowing batteries don't do well in the cold... is not quite the same as living in say, Detroit. Where it is frozen consistently maybe 1/3 of the year.

I'm confused on the point you are making?

What I am getting out of your comment is that their weather doesn't go below freezing (which as a sister comment pointed out, California has plenty of places that are cold and snowy), which was my point. They don't have a test plan to include testing their cars for regular usage (I would think plugging in a car charger outside of a garage qualifies as normal usage) in weather conditions that a significant portion of the US population in fact have (weather conditions below freezing and humidity), but such weather conditions are not in their area.

What else is their test plan missing then?

Another interpretation is that Detroit (historical city of American car manufacturers) may have the legacy/institutional knowledge to build and test such edge cases whereas new Tesla does not.

https://jalopnik.com/tesla-finally-admits-model-3-bumpers-fa...

https://cleantechnica.com/2019/07/06/tesla-rolls-out-uv-ligh...

https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/319722-tesla-will-recall...

Are engineers more thorough and thoughtful in Michigan?

Detroit automakers test their vehicles in places like Arizona and Alaska to account for different climates. I’d imagine Tesla does similar though with fewer test units and models to test some issues are not captured.

I saw a Model S driving in the Chicago suburbs a year or so before the introduction. There was a Roadster owner in my town and I wonder if he was offered the chance to do long-term testing in the weather here.

Winters get much much colder in Michigan, so this particular fault would have been uncovered early.

Most major automotive and ev companies use tools such as environmental chambers to do phases of R&D. (quite possibly all do but obvs can’t confirm, but do have first hand knowledge of several major companies adopting this) Even companies much smaller than Tesla.

Would be shocked if Tesla did not have this capability.

So who knows if this is part of their testing and validation, but it is not true that you can’t test for different environments than where the core design takes place. It is extremely common to do this in rapid fashion without having to transport things to an alternate climate.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com