If you own a Tesla and want to turn your shiniest toy into a useless brick, all you have to do is park it.
As soon asthe battery is completely discharged, you have a useless, albeit pricey, hunk of metal on your hands, and Tesla will charge you $ 40,000 to get it up and operating again — nearly as significantly as the complete expense of a new Tesla Model S.
Occasional blogger Michael DeGusta is on the waiting list for a Tesla Model X. In carrying out study on the vehicles, he located that if any Tesla automobile’s battery is fully drained, the owner will be unable to recharge it or even push it. The owner will ultimately have to spend the aforementioned $ 40,000 to get a new battery from Tesla.
The battery can be completely drained basically by parking the vehicle too long with out charging it since of the vehicles’ always-on systems operating quietly in the background and employing minuscule amounts of power over the hours and days. For a Tesla Roadster, this can occur more than the course of 11 weeks, less if the battery is not completely charged when the automobile is parked.
“Either these concerns will be resolved by the time it’s prepared, Tesla will be gone by then, or I’ll most most likely give up my spot and get a refund,” he wrote this morning on his blog.
DeGusta discovered five examples of bricked Tesla Roadsters so far, all of which were connected to him by a Tesla service manager. In one case, a client shipped his Roadster to Japan, where incompatible voltages and dwindling time quickly reduced him to a brick with no genuine alternatives for economically advisable reanimation.
The kicker is that the owner’s warranty is voided in these scenarios due to the owner’s “failure to maintain the Battery at a suitable charge level at all instances.” Normal insurance coverage policies don’t cover this scenario, and payment plans are not readily available, DeGusta was told.
Mainly, although, DeGusta was perturbed that Tesla isn’t emphasizing the risks of battery drainage to prospective owners. On its internet site for the Model S, for example, the firm states, “The Tesla battery is optimized for nightly charging… The Model S battery will not shed a substantial amount of charge when parked for extended periods of time.
“For example, Model S owners can park at the airport for extended vacations with out plugging in.”
Unless you park it on a much less-than-fully-charged battery then go on a month-extended honeymoon or hiking expedition or missions trip, to counter Tesla’s example with a couple of rather common ones we can think of off the top of our heads. That sort of scenario may well leave the hapless owner with a bricked vehicle and little recourse.
We’ve contacted Tesla about the concern and are waiting for a reply.
Filed under: VentureBeat 
