EEVBlog2 - Tesla Model S - Australian Test Drive

[Towger]

Yes they are. Tesla eats anything. The car comes with adapters for J1772 , standard household plug and high power plug . In US you can charge from 110 outlet or 220 outlet.

You will have to let this fellow have a go at charging yours :-)

[max_torque]

Standard on automotive electronics is a really good hermetic seal, and I would guess Tesla has sealed both the battery pack, the connections to it, the inverter and the motor connections. It would have resulted in failure long ago if they were not sealed and protected internally with conformal coatings. That would just be from temperature cycling in daily use, and the fact that road dust is both corrosive and conductive, from all the lead compounds and the rubber and steel particles in it from car exhaust and tyre wear particles. Plus rain makes for a very effective power wash that pushes dirt and water in everywhere under the car.

And crucially, the HV DC system isolation to the chassis CONTINUOUSLY monitored.  Should that impedance fall below acceptable levels, due to water contamination, damaged wiring/ insulation or similar, the system will immediately disconnect the mid battery string HV disconnect circuit breaker, and "safe" the system automatically.

[tom66]

Risks are different with EV - not necessarily better or worse.

It is interesting how Tesla driver will deal with situation where he drives his car and fall into... 0.5 meter deep water  flooded valley at small speed (maybe with regen active so huge HV currents flowing to battery while he pushes brake probably before falling into water) with its 350V battery and active HV 3 phase motors? 
Classic car engine might simply stop working and its 12V starter battery is not dangerous but in the case of HV electric Tesla?
In custom converted electric car I can imagine some kind of sensors which will detect lower free space resistance or diffrent capacitance (in general water where should be air) and cut off power supply without any driver intervention.

Battery pack is IP67/68 sealed (it's mounted on the bottom of the car, and the car has to be able to "wade" through water.) It contains a pair of internal contactors. Current on bat+ and bat- constantly monitored. If there's a disagreement of more than a few hundred mA, a fault will be triggered and both pack contactors will open.

HV system is completely floating wrt to the  chassis and 12V system. 5kV isolation everywhere.

Even if the HV system did continue operating... it probably wouldn't lead to any harm beyond about 10cm. The potential difference across any point in the water will be limited.

http://www.teslamotorsclub.com/showthread.php/34934-Pics-Info-Inside-the-battery-pack
Doesn't change the fact that the pack is inherently very safe.

Trying to figure out if those ICs
(snip)
images slightly "improoved" using image processing tools to get those numbers more visible  from link above here Tesla BMS front are some common ICs used in BMSes or custom Tesla's?

BTW: Those BMS module images are in such high resolution & quality that probably we'll have China electric car Chesla soon 

They are common parts:
TI BMS controller: http://www.ti.com/product/bq76pl536A
Silicon Labs MCU: http://www.ko4bb.com/Manuals/12)_Components_Specs&Datasheets/Silabs/C8051F520A-F530A.pdf
Silicon Labs digital isolator: http://www.mouser.com/ds/2/368/Si864x-51666.pdf

Can almost guarantee every major automaker (except possibly Toyota and Honda with their oddly anti-EV stance) will have opened a Tesla pack and taken very careful notes.

[Rasz]

- the instrument cluster runs on a Tegra 2
-the main touchscreen runs on Tegra 3. They communicate through ethernet. When music is playing the mai. Screen serves a webpage with album art that gets shown by the instrument cluster.

- each critical systems run on its own special dual core processor. One is 32 bit, the other 16 bit and they are not binary compatible. This allows trapping of software bugs (majority voting systems)

and all this combined shit pulls 100W when the car is turned OFF, because Nvidia/Tesla geniuses couldnt figure out how to boot all those Tegras quickly enough - so they leave them running all the time.

When you have 7kW free solar energy grid at home

yes, im sure all Tesla owners will leave their Teslas at home to charge during peak hours .. they will simply take a bus to work

My next car will be fully electric for that reason.

You already have one, UK made

He pulls songs from live streaming. That is why a list pops up with everything it finds on the cell network. ( they use rdio and slacker to stream)

Maps is slow for the same reason. Tesla does not cache the map data. Everything is streamed over the 3g link. Only the real gps map is stored but that is for the instrument cluster. The center console uses a live google maps coming in over the cell metwork.

and how all of this makes experience any less shitty? users dont care, users see laggy map

[eneuro]

Current on bat+ and bat- constantly monitored. If there's a disagreement of more than a few hundred mA, a fault will be triggered and both pack contactors will open.

Trying findout when we'll have this disagreement while we have quite good isolation-when HV isolation is broken in powertrain and current flows back to the battery by damaged case, while we expect him on battery terminal where those current sensors sits?

Thx for this Tesla battery quick teardown.
From this link http://www.esb.ie/electric-cars/electric-car-driving/choice-of-electric-cars.jsp provided above  just tried to estimate electric energy consumption per km in the case of Tesla Roadster with raw 395km range and 53kWh battery pack, so it gives about 0.134kWh/km
 
and Peugeot iOn with average 130km range and 16kWh battery-in this case we have slightly smaller energy usage: 0.123kWh/km.

Unfortunatelly, there is no basic moveing object (those cars) properties like its mass and drag coefficient Cx, so it is not possible to compare those numbers and make estimations of average electric energy usages (so range itself) using real GPS data with altitude values assuming for example average speed 70km/h on known roads we travel everyday using classic cars (so GPS & more accurate altitude data from maps is available).
This electric power consumption will differ and very dependent on average speed and other driving habbits, so those range numbers probably tells nothing how such electric car will perform in given terrain conditions, while there are so many factors that can limit this total theoretical range 
 

[tom66]

Trying findout when we'll have this disagreement while we have quite good isolation-when HV isolation is broken in powertrain and current flows back to the battery by damaged case, while we expect him on battery terminal where those current sensors sits?

One example is in the case of an object impaling the battery pack, but not doing enough damage to trigger a thermal event. This could cause excessive leakage current, which will trigger the fault detect immediately. ("Car Needs Service - Unable to Drive" appears on dash; contactors are isolated.) 8yr battery warranty covers a fault like this.

Another case is an isolation failure on one of the various high voltage boards.

The point is, the failures of this kind are rare, but if they do happen, the pack is protected and such a fault will not harm the user.

[bookaboo]

From www.autotrade.ie

However, the carmaker has no plans for a sales or service dealership in Ireland at this time, but says it can cater for Irish buyers. They can order online but they will need to travel to their nearest service centre for servicing which would at the moment be in the UK.

Well that's not going to work. How hard would it be to set up one service centre in Belfast or Dublin?

[SeanB]

Just what needs servicing? Stuff that breaks can be handled by having a car carrier to transport the vehicle, and a loaner unit if needed dropped off. Same with accident damage that is more than a replacement bumper.

Small issues can be handled by simply having a "Guy In A Van" with all the tools, small wear parts and such, on call somewhere convenient and central, who will travel to wherever you are and do the work on site. If there are less than 100 vehicles in the country that is very easy and will work well with minimal overhead and fuss.

Probably the most used item will be a 20kVA diesel genset on a trailer, used for those who are absent minded and who forget to charge and drive until the vehicle says "enough". It is likely they will only do that once in all the ownership of the vehicle.

[bookaboo]

Perhaps, I was assuming they would need the once over every 10-15k like most cars? Yes there are fewer moving parts but even a well built car can have silly little issues, stuff like wipers not working or a rattle in the dash. Do they really want to be shipping back and forth do deal with stuff like that? Can a normal local mechanic service the brakes? Though if they were offering pick up / drop off under warranty then the problem is theirs. A man in a van may well suffice. I don't know how they plan to organise their dealers, if it's the normal franchise model then I'm sure someone will set something up if there is a demand.

Any one know how often Tesla owners need to be visiting the service centre for both routine and unplanned service?

[SeanB]

Brakes are likely to last a really long time, as most of the work is done by regeneration. Wipers and rattles can most easily be done by a mobile service unit, and this is more likely to be efficient and lower cost overall.

Dealership has massive overheads and you are only able to cover those by charging for every thing done on the vehicle, along with that huge "sundries" line item on all invoices. Most dealerships barely break even on new car sales, and only cover the costs on servicing under warranty by either changing stuff not covered at a price, or by claiming from the supplier.

Your average service plan cost ( built into the price or not) is more than the cost of servicing, unless you have an unlimited mileage one and do the mileage way above average within the time period it covers. Most vehicles here have a 2-5 year service plan that covers typically up to 60 to 100 thousand kilometres. In that time you will have at most 6 minor services and possibly one major service, and possibly 2 brake changes at most. That is about half the price of the contract, even at dealership prices ( not those they publish, the inside actual cost of service) and are a profit centre plus a lock in to non franchise dealerships for that period. In most cases you will run out before you are half way through.

[RupertGo]

I do wonder how long these things will run if Tesla goes bankrupt. Are they sensibly serviceable without the Mothership running all those networked data and diagnostic services? They're not exactly open systems. Say goodbye to all those free supercharger service stations, too - I don't see any sort of multivendor standards evolving any time soon.

It's an aspect of the IoT world that doesn't get enough attention, I think.

[Towger]

Well that's not going to work. How hard would it be to set up one service centre in Belfast or Dublin?

Costs are the main factor, but now would be a good time to set up a dealership, or setup with an existing dealer.  Last time I looked there were plenty of empty car dealership buildings...

My uncle (RIP) bought a high tech and high performance luxury car and the only dealership for Ireland was in Belfast.  I believe the car made good number of trips up and down for servicing and to be fixed. But it was hard enough to get them to come down and collect/fix the car.  At one stage the power steering failed and the car was almost undriveable, and they expected him to get it from Dublin to Belfast to be fixed under warranty.  This was for a car costing well over twice the price of the top end Teslia.

[free_electron]

Each cell is also packed in an intumescent. Should a cell ignite it becomes self extinguishing before it can set fire to or damage its neighbours.

Think it's worth noting Tesla does not use intumescent material on the production vehicles.

The grey foam sheets are intumescent material. When the first fire happened due to an accident tesla released a technical statement that the pack is self exti guishing in case of internal fire.

[free_electron]

Risks are different with EV - not necessarily better or worse.

It is interesting how Tesla driver will deal with situation where he drives his car and fall into... 0.5 meter deep water  flooded valley at small speed (maybe with regen active so huge HV currents flowing to battery while he pushes brake probably before falling into water) with its 350V battery and active HV 3 phase motors? 
Classic car engine might simply stop working and its 12V starter battery is not dangerous but in the case of HV electric Tesla?
In custom converted electric car I can imagine some kind of sensors which will detect lower free space resistance or diffrent capacitance (in general water where should be air) and cut off power supply without any driver intervention.

Looking into options in Tesla touchscreen in this fatal case is not an option any more
HV is completly insulated in Tesla powertrain or it is low voltage battery inverted to HV 3 phase when engine needs power? How do they solved such scenarios when this car is half submerged in the water while its HV engines might still be active, or in some case should be else you will find yourself in the middle of this valley full of water? 

Dude, get off the internet.
The HV systems are sealed. You can perfectly drive the thing through water. If you get water high enough in the cabin to flood the center co sole you got other problems ...

[free_electron]

Yes they are. Tesla eats anything. The car comes with adapters for J1772 , standard household plug and high power plug . In US you can charge from 110 outlet or 220 outlet.

You will have to let this fellow have a go at charging yours :-)

That red connector adapter is available for tesla in europe

[bookaboo]

Well that's not going to work. How hard would it be to set up one service centre in Belfast or Dublin?

Costs are the main factor, but now would be a good time to set up a dealership, or setup with an existing dealer.  Last time I looked there were plenty of empty car dealership buildings...

My uncle (RIP) bought a high tech and high performance luxury car and the only dealership for Ireland was in Belfast.  I believe the car made good number of trips up and down for servicing and to be fixed. But it was hard enough to get them to come down and collect/fix the car.  At one stage the power steering failed and the car was almost undriveable, and they expected him to get it from Dublin to Belfast to be fixed under warranty.  This was for a car costing well over twice the price of the top end Teslia.

Yeah, it doesn't even have to be a dedicated dealer. Most of the dealers have at least 2 or 3 franchises so I'm sure someone will take it on. By the time the price point coincides with my budget I'm sure the problem will have been solved.

[SeanB]

My uncle (RIP) bought a high tech and high performance luxury car and the only dealership for Ireland was in Belfast.  I believe the car made good number of trips up and down for servicing and to be fixed. But it was hard enough to get them to come down and collect/fix the car.  At one stage the power steering failed and the car was almost undriveable, and they expected him to get it from Dublin to Belfast to be fixed under warranty.  This was for a car costing well over twice the price of the top end Teslia.

The words "High Performance" and "Italian engineering" are not compatible with reliability. Buy a brand like Toyota, VAG, BMW or MB ( even though they have odd designs in them and some weird quirks) and it is likely that you will never see the dealership, aside from when it tells you service is required, or a light bulb fails. Buying a high performance car is like buying a racehorse, both are expensive to keep, eat money and you only get to enjoy them every so often. Otherwise you have a cart horse, which just plods along with regular use and no abuse.

[Towger]

The words "High Performance" and "Italian engineering" are not compatible with reliability.

British Engineering, now owned by Volkswagen.     They first car I sat into which phoned home and that was almost 10 years ago.  Engine bay sealed with carbon fibre cover... No touching...

[eneuro]

You can perfectly drive the thing through water.

Driving in deep water is far from perfection for any car unless it is submarine or ship

Everything works in marketing demonstrations, and exchanging Tesla battery pack in less than 90 seconds... in such perfect show conditions might look impressive for someone, who... doesn't made more than 200000km and 20% in extreme winter, where snow, ice make simple not possible even clean bottom of the car without heating it up.
So, at winter changing battery pack in Tesla is very surrealistic and could take hours, while classic car will be ready in minutes and easy make 1000km, while many modern HDI turbo diesels with Common Railly doesn't go above 5L/100km even at winter 

Internet is very usefull, while one can easy see that do not need Tesla car connected to internet via crappy mobile network which coverage will fail in many places around the world. It looks like it is some kind of spy/inteligence agency monitoring his car  by private network and trying to keep it in good shape like spaceship missions   
I have 10x smaller energy usage in my HPEV and do not have to look for any superhiper charger stations, while any McDonald 230VAC with 25Amax will let me recharge my EV 

BTW: Who will notice Tesla car while it looks like... another car?
But everybody will notice this one 

No question about it this one

2011 Peugeot EX1 electric concept

"The EX1 established a 0 to 60 mph sprint time of 3.49 seconds and a symbolic longitudinal acceleration of 1G over 39 m. The concept also broke its own official records initially set in Montlhéry for the 1/8 mile and 1/4 mile with times of 7:08:62 and 12:67:54 respectively."

Look how electric car might look inside 


However, they should mark this video

"Inappropriate for some viewers"

due to really scary seconds which you can feel on huge display at 1:48 video time in this quite strong electric ride 

[tom66]

The point of Tesla is to create EVs that don't make too much attention to themselves. Model S and Roadster both look nice, but the design is not extraordinary. I like that. It took ages for car manufacturers to understand this. They used to produce all these concept cars that do look good, but I really would not want to be seen dead in. (especially an electric Peugeot...)

[eneuro]

Model S and Roadster both look nice, but the design is not extraordinary.

They haven't got too much time to make extraordinary Tesla, so probably that is why they put this touchscreen to help them setup many things at lower cost, but it is bad idea to put web browsers into cars, while those internet buttons are  in many modern web interfaces very bad designed with buttons not clear visible inside other contest-too much information to proces by humans when looking into such big screen-old school WWW buttons could be much better.

BTW: Peugeot iOn doesn't look great, but at typical lower speeds than classic cars (with 135km/h max) probably better suited for more customers than Tesla, while it does not require such powerfull power stations to recharge them (only 16kWh battery).

http://www.autocar.co.uk/car-review/peugeot/ion

http://www.peugeot.co.uk/media/peugeot-ion-prices-and-specifications-brochure.pdf
http://www.peugeot.co.uk/media/peugeot-ion-range-brochure.pdf

"Peugeot iOn. It’s effectively a re-badged Mitsubishi i-MiEV, which means a 66bhp electric motor powered by lithium-ion batteries, mounted under the centre of the vehicle, that can be fully recharged in seven hours from a standard 13-amp socket, and giving the 3.5-metre long iOn city car a range of 93 miles."

Peugeot EX1 is amazing concept and it shows good feel and  beauty of Peugeot designs in general.
Someone will than click on Peugeot iOn and buy this one or convert good looking Peugeot 607 to electric car 

[bookaboo]

Customer of ours is suitably impressed enough to reserve two car park spaces at his firm. I can only assume he has one on pre-order.

[eneuro]

I can only assume he has one on pre-order.

It will be better... if you take this thing and send to Dave for next videoblog teardown 

It could be interesting to see what is inside this thing while it should provide close to 10kW charge power-less or more?
How charging process is protected from someone else trying to unplug charge wires from this wall socket?
All wires connection between car & this charge box is securred by keys  or only security video monitoring is used and assuming nobody will try to tweak charge process somehow, so anyone can break Tesla charging without additional authorization?

[tom66]

It's literally a set of contactors which only energise the cable when safe to do and a control circuit for them. EVSE (electric vehicle supply equipment.)

There are five pins on the J1772 socket (Tesla use a custom socket, but signalling is compatible, and the high power charger uses the same signals.) PILOT, PROXIMITY, GND, and AC L1/L2. (Or L/N.)

The proximity signal tells the EV to stop pulling current when the connector is unplugged. (The proximity, pilot and GND are longer than the power carrying connectors.) This prevents arcing in the connector if unplugged while charging.

The pilot tells the EV what current it can draw (breaker rating 80%, so 24A on 30A circuit, responsibility of the electrician/installer to set EVSE correctly)  The duty cycle varies from about 10% to about 90% at 1kHz, this indicates somewhere between 5A and 80A, exact specs vary.

When EV stops loading the pilot signal, EVSE disconnects power, making connector safe for any curious fingers. The EVSE is also responsible for testing the incoming mains to make sure that it is acceptable, and that the ground connection is intact. (GFCI not built in though.)

Charger (AC to DC) is onboard the car.

[mikeselectricstuff]

It's literally a set of contactors which only energise the cable when safe to do and a control circuit for them. EVSE (electric vehicle supply equipment.)

There are five pins on the J1772 socket (Tesla use a custom socket, but signalling is compatible, and the high power charger uses the same signals.) PILOT, PROXIMITY, GND, and AC L1/L2. (Or L/N.)

Surprised it doesn't have 3 pins to allow for 3-phase.