Tesla gives update on battery degradation: only 12% after 200k miles | Hacker News Reader

Tesla gives update on battery degradation: only 12% after 200k miles

electrek.co

32 pointsmfiguiere23 comments

And yet I have 12% degradation on my 2020 SR+ after only 42k miles. Tesla can cherry pick all they want but on average most of their battery packs are around ~13% at 100k if things like teslascope etc are to believed.

Wondering as a potential buyer… What climate do you live in? Do you ever drive it down to 0% battery?

Only got under 10% twice in the last 3 years, mainly due to temp and headwinds having a bigger effect than I expected on a climb up to Tahoe. I moved from the Bay to Tahoe (where it was in a heated garage and mainly used my 4x4 during the winter) to San Diego currently so it’s been pretty babied. Granted I didn’t have charging at home in the bay, but was also careful not to leave it over night with less than 60% charge.

I think a lot of it has to do with luck of the draw, but most tend to loss 10% in the first year then hang out there losing a 1% or so each following year.

Is your battery chemistry, lithium ion or lithium iron phosphate?

Degradation is not necessarily linear. I have seen reports before that EV batteries show a sharp decline for the first few years and then level off but I don't have any references that I can find right now.

2020 YLR W 42K miles. I have 6.15% range loss, and the reported average range loss is 5.33% of cars with a similar age and miles. That puts my total loss at 304 miles the day I bought it, to 285 today. Range loss generally slows down after the first little bit too.

This is only for S and X, which, as far as I know, still use 18650 cells by Panasonic, so this says nothing about Tesla battery tech. The really interesting thing is to see how their cost saving changes, especially the change to non-nickel chemistry, impact battery longevity.

Data from my Tesla Model 3 SR+ 2019, France, average consumption 151 Wh/km

Lost rapidly 9-10% from the new range (386km IIRC, I didn't write it down) since then range seems to not move much, up and down.

   date     range odometer
   20190921           0km
   20200815 363km
   20201024 364km 
   20210606 360km
   20210703 362km
   20210803 357km
   20210926 353km 
   20220205 356km 49593km
   20220407 350km 55761km
   20220411 353km 56055km
   20220625 356km 64213km
   20221008 353km 69588km
   20221207 354km 73195km
   20230407 353km 83100km

Am I the only one who read the title as "only 12% left after 200k miles"?

No, to me it is clear as in 12% capacity loss after 200k miles.

Title is ambiguous, but the focus on "degradation" being 12% makes it clear the intent. You need extra words to get to the notion of "12% capacity remaining"

I looked at the impact report released by Tesla this came from and I couldn't see anything about the methodology, I have to guess this is best case (keeping change between arund 30% and 80%, never fuly charging up) which is a bit impractical I think? I don't have enough experience to know how big the scale of difference. I don't say this as a gotcha or whatever, I just wish the methodology was clear because the exact figure would be useful to know as an owner or user

They do however mention in the slides that battery age is also a factor, with batteries degrading even when not in use.

> (keeping change between arund 30% and 80%, never fuly charging up) which is a bit impractical I think?

If you have a reliable place to charge (i.e. home and/or work) then it’s actually a complete non issue. For most people, you aren’t going to be driving hundreds of miles in a day and you can just plug in every day or every other day and be fine. A battery isn’t a gas tank, you don’t have to fill it all the way up, and you don’t have to make a trip to a special station to charge.

is it easy to set it to not charge to 100%? a timer or something?

Your app has a battery with a slider. "When should I stop charging".

98% of the time, I leave mine set at 70%. The car will charge to 70% and then stop. I generally use 20-30% of a charge during my day max. Get home, plug it in, and it's back at 70% in a few hours.

When I am going on a 100+ miles daytrip, I bump my charge to 90%.

When I am going on a 300+ mile trip, I bump my charge to 100% for the initial charge.

Takes a few seconds, pretty simple.

neat. I like that - good functionality to have. Now we just need a similar thing for other electrical devices-as-tools

I wonder if there’s any impact from prolonged use from Superchargers?

I’ve supercharged a 2018 100kw Model S over 100k miles the past five years and only have 6% degradation.

And counter point I’ve got 42k miles on my 2020 3 SR+ and am at 12% with about half of those miles on super chargers.

You def have very high degradation per my other comment. The model Y fleet average at 40k miles is under 6%.

And what is the "usable capacity " ?

How does this compare to the industry?

Most cars makers don't have enough cars on the rode to provide this number. I think in another few years we will.

The biggest datapoint we have outside of tesla is Nissian. The leaf used air cooling, and degraded MUCH faster. Something like 50% after 6-7 years is common. It is a cautionary tale about making sure your battery temps stay sane.

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