Comment by jd | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jd | Hacker News Reader

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I'm not going to point out how Tesla car batteries have to follow the laws of physics. Other people did that already.

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.

>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. No big deal.

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.

I read the original post. $40.000 is roughly 1/3rd of the original cost of purchase. So it's completely reasonable. If you can't afford that you have no business buying a first-generation $100.000 toy.

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

Then you also know that the Model S that's being aimed at average consumers is rolling out soon with the same shortcoming, negating your expensive toy argument.

The Model S will be hitting the streets soon with the same fundamental physics limitations, but much better systems to mitigate that problem. (ie. lower idle discharge rate and more reserve capacity)

The article mentions that it would take 30 days of being at 0 charge before the battery break.

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.)

Did that article provide any proof or detail about these bricked vehicles? It's easy to make claims and scare people, much harder to do real reporting.

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.

Forget to turn off the stove before you leave for holiday? Your house might burn down.

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.

No, if you pay good money for something, you expect the product has good feature to pamper its user. It is more true with a car where if you pay good money for a car, the car should take care of you more than the other way around. If not, it is not worth the money to buy in the first place.

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.

This problem is due to the laws of physics rather than bad product design, however. There is no battery technology that would scale to a car and not self-discharge. Yes, the thing discharges to keep some systems online, but even if it didn't, the battery would still brick itself over time.

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.

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