Where Do You Service A Tesla In Michigan

I'm sufficiently disoriented at this point to scarce recall what I expected of the Tesla Model 3. For years nosotros knew the progression was from the elevation down starting with very premium high margin low volume vehicles and working our way down toward higher volumes and lower prices.

This made perfect sense to me and I rather scorned the Nissan approach of taking a really lame lower terminate machine, the Nissan Versa, and calculation technology until it was quite unaffordable in an attempt to produce a really lame electric vehicle for the masses. I much preferred Tesla's top down migration equally it covers a multitude of sins and missteps forth the way, but also because of the upscale imprimatur it stamps on the electrical vehicle more generally. My view of the mission from the start was that this was not a technological problem. It is about acculturation of the public to the thought and concept of electric cars. They should be shown how to DESIRE one. The actual building of one is sufficiently simple minded that a 54 year old unemployable working half days falling downward drunk in yellow shoes could brand a car in three months that would become 110 miles on a charge and striking 94 mph. Don't ask me how I know.

I did not purchase a Roadster. By the fourth dimension they were widely available the toll had risen to about $126,000 for a ii-seat sports luxury car and I only couldn't quite get my head around all that as a personal value proposition. But of course I did indeed pony upward $107,000 for the $55,000 Model S using Musk pricing metrics – that never was really about $55,000.

And then it didn't faze me particularly to coughing up $56,000 for the $35,000 Model 3, using the aforementioned ElonMath I was by at present accepted to.

Just I guess what I was expecting was a tamed down/toned downwardly Model Southward – smaller, less ability, just basically a miniS for the masses. And I was hoping the disappointments would be minimal and mostly near things I didn't care almost as well much.

When push button comes to shove, I do care. Just it's a mixed basket. Some things seemed really improved – similar the bright solution to the $400 car key thing and I was delighted with the air conditioning and heat, the visibility, and actually the performance if you must know. The interior seems easily equally large and spacious every bit the South. And actually the weeny door geometry of the S was improved a very important have inch for ingress and egress. The car looks great and the little fleck of additional range over the Southward is actually key to a St. Louis urban area 120 miles away. The Southward just won't really get at that place and back without charging, and the Model iii will. I've done iii roundtrips with at least 50 miles remaining on the clock on my return. The 310 miles is very real if you continue it 70mph or under.

True, the ride is stiff and the controls and display screen, I'm sorry they are just comically bad. My initial experiences with autopilot, autopark, summon, and even the garage door opener have been poor. I really view autopilot non as improved prophylactic as Musk hopes, merely mayhap fatal in even the proper hands. Autopilot is a bent arrow and information technology's hard to predict where it will strike in the terminate. But it isn't looking expert. It's actually Acquired me three harrowing virtually misses on excellent Interstate highway in astringent clear atmospheric condition. I've been an aviation pilot for years, and rather think I drive a machine very conservatively but with precision and I've a driving tape of some 45 years at present without a reportable accident. I only don't have close calls.

This past few weeks nosotros have received our first salvaged Model iii assuasive us to do a bit deeper dive than I was quite willing to make in my brand new daily commuter. And the thot plickens most curiously.

And so to give you the end punch line BEFORE the reasons why, the Tesla Model 3 is not at all a tamed down/toned downwardly Model S. In fact, despite my personal choice of color and wheels to match my Due south, it simply isn't an S at all and I've been viewing this car through entirely the incorrect lens. Broadly speaking, it has nothing to do with a Tesla Model Due south at all and I can't observe whatsoever indication internally that it is even manufactured by the same company. It doesn't even use the aforementioned LOGO on the components. The familiar Tesla T has been replaced with a Model 3 logo that I don't fifty-fifty know what to brand of, which kind of matches my impression of all that we are seeing inside the car itself.

I don't fifty-fifty know what it is just it shows upward EVERYWHERE on components within the vehicle. It looks similar a Bricklayer Jar used to "put up" peaches but with a cape that has a stylized 3 on it. If anyone can explain where THAT came from I'd love to hear about it. What is it SUPPOSED to be or evoke? Peach Engineering science? SuperPeaches?

But the really stunning matter is that ALL electronics and engineering science in the Model 3 are VERY side by side generation with Null familiar from the Model South in any style shape or form. I haven't seen Anything fifty-fifty vaguely Model S or X in the vehicle. NOTHING. No Deoxyribonucleic acid found. And the improvement, from what I can tell at this early stage, is not at all incremental. It's like its from another planet.

I feel like we are examining a crashed spacecraft from another world. Picture Star Trek with an annoying ping ping tweet sounding every few seconds and an overly dramatic William Shatner ever ready to make huge drama from cypher equally a Tesla Model Due south. And Star Trek Side by side Generation with Patrick Stewart equally the Model three. I'm down in engineering and information technology just doesn't look the same here with Jordy and Commander Information as it was with Scotty ever trying to give Kirk "more power" somehow. In the Model three, we resolve all irresolvable bug in the final five minutes with Tachyon Waves, which nosotros never practise quite have to explain but MAN are they some hot shit.

And in a mode, I am shocked. It's as if everything we thought we knew about the Model 3 is totally wrong. And the story of this remarkable device is just a non still revealed undercover. And with all the hoopla about the Model 3, no one has ventured anything on this at all. What are they doing over at TeslaMotorsClub forums? I was aware they were kind of simple minded, but they practise keep and on and on and I would retrieve SOMEBODY would take really looked under the hood or something.

Nosotros'll be looking further at a number of items in coming weeks, including inside a fascinating drive unit, an phenomenal charging technology, and much more. And I rather doubt I'm going to have all the answers, and mostly likely some of the answers won't even be right. I trust yous'll mention it in the comments.

I guess I fearfulness y'all'll not find this moving with sufficient speed. People seeking sub four second 0-sixty times are not a patient lot generally. But generally the Model 3 engineering is beyond my paygrade. Which is cool.
I've kind of been bored with electrical cars in recent months and increasingly thinking about solar. But I face a huge learning bend on the Model 3 and that makes me all dancy and chipper again.

Inn this episode nosotros removed the heart of the melon, the battery and took a peek within.

In recent months we've been doing a lot of piece of work on Tesla Model S bombardment modules and packs with an middle toward using them for Solar Energy Storage. We did develop a little control kit to use the Tesla Battery Modules and the BMS board that is mounted on them and we can scarce keep them in stock at this point. http://shop.evtv.me/proddetail.php?prod=basicsmodulecontroller I rather had aspirations of starting the investigation into the Model iii battery for a very skillful reason.

In all of Tesla put together since 2004, the visitor has made some amazing strides in initiating the conversion of our personal transportation to electric battery powered magnetic drive. No surprise that I rather favor that as a strategy. Merely understand that in ALL that time and ALL put together, they have sold 300,000 vehicles earth wide.

Today they stand with 450,000 orders in hand, give or have a hundred chiliad equally the whim and the mood of the apostolic following's mood varies, striving heroically to reach a 5000 unit per week production rate. That's 250,000 vehicles PER YEAR. So with the X and S, they intend to manufacture more vehicles in the side by side year than their cummulative total manufacturing to date.

In the Q1 Analysts call, Elon was a fiddling short with a guy asking where the 450,000 orders stand. I initially too thought it odd but on reflection, he was actually very nice almost it. They are all over him as to when he'll exist able to produce enough, WHILE Tesla automobile sales in Cathay have ballooned in the last year to over $2 billion representing xix% of their full automotive revenues. Musk is staring downwards the maw of a monster trying to consume him if he doesn't paddle faster producing cars and here is some freaking moron wanting to talk to him nigh Need for a car that's never been advertised anywhere and which he tin can't possibly brand enough of for well-nigh five years coming NO Affair what he does or how well he does it. At some point irony begets absurdity and absurdity ventures into moronic chant, and that's where he was in a very exasperating moment. I'yard distressing Wall Street, merely you're going to have to upwardly your game or sit this one out. It won't be like you've never missed a big move in technology before.

My point is, California drivers being what they are, it'south going to soon be RAINING Model 3 batteries in the junk yards. Simply we don't know how to employ them. And I haven't heard of anybody else that does either.
So I'm going to share what we learn as we continue hoping to advance the token more than widely as well. But if you lot notice something in the photos and descriptions, please feel complimentary to jump in and propose something. Call back, there ARE no stupid questions, merely stupid people asking them. Note to stock analysts.

The kickoff thing I would note is that in this vehicle, Tesla has integrated MOST of the vehicle electronics INTO the battery assembly which is put together in the Gigafactory in Nevada. The charger, BMS controller, junction box, DC-DC converter and all protection circuitry has been moved into a hump on the end of the battery termed for no apparently good reason the "penthouse". This tin actually be accessed for service by removing the back seat as information technology projects upwards exactly where the seat cushion is for the dorsum seat. Yous would accept to remove the seat bottom, a couple of braces, and then a bunch of star head screws, but it pops off and allows admission to the fuses and contactors and so forth pretty readily.

The combined charger/dc-dc converter is a thorough MARVEL inside. Nosotros will be looking more closely at this in the futurity but it again has NO credible relationship to any previous Tesla charge circuitry, and they clasp 10kW of charger into a remarkably small and cool running package.

Contactors and fuses and so forth are about notable in the meaty arrangement eliminating dozens of feet of expensive cabling and connections. They did add together a pyro-disconnect. Picture a fuse you can blow up with a digital signal totally and most assuredly disconnecting the pack from everything in the issue of say, welded contacts on the control relays. A full failsafe and kind of on the principle of an airbag detonator.

And no show of a Unmarried part in this assembly that has ever been nigh a Model South. Entirely different contactors. Of course a different charger/dc-dc converter which is now a "power conversion unit" and the BMS lath is at present entirely different and referred to every bit a "high voltage controller".

It didn't take long to strip this downwardly and remove all that and we decided to learn to deal with a Model three bombardment every bit a solid assembly in the futurity and probably with another wreck. For this one, we opened the tin can to get right to the modules.

The modules are much larger than in the S or X. They are long narrow logs of cells with 23 cells in two of the modules and 25 cells in the other two.

The two 23 jail cell modules are at each edge of the pack and 67 1/2 inches long, eleven one/2 inches wide and three 1/ii inches thick and counterbalance 191 lbs.

The two 25 cell modules are located in the middle of the pack and 73 inches long, 11 1/2 inches broad and 3 1/2 inches thick and counterbalance 207 lbs.

And of form what caught our firsthand attention was the very very different battery management arrangement boards located on each module and connected by a tiny two wire cable in daisy chain way and dorsum to the high voltage control board.

I've been explaining bombardment direction systems for 10 years now. Information technology's been a shitshow. And an abrasive one. The number of BMS experts available in the earth who know admittedly NOTHING of which they speak is astounding in quantity and awe inspiring in their insipid lack of comprehension every bit to what they know and think they know with almost all of it completely dicked up. And they pose a danger to battery owners everywhere. I gave Upward trying to find one for EV'due south and likewise gave upwards designing 1 of my own and adult survival techniques using LiFePo4 batteries without them entirely. Unfortunately, those techniques are simply impractical with the more energetic NCA cells used hither and with Tesla's packaging techniques.

The consequence is that measuring battery cell voltages is deceptively simple. And unbelievably hard. And for simple minds, the simple office seems to be the role they like. One thing worse than no BMS is a really desperately designed amateurish ass clown BMS that you Recollect is working and decision-making your charge bike, simply it isn't, and your charger burns up your bombardment pack while you snooze peacefully one floor to a higher place the car in your now burning house. And then of course some times the amateur BMS's themselves merely catch fire and find a ready fuel supply in the batteries they are attached to. And if none of that happens, the spaghetti wiring connecting the BMS to the battery catches burn. The end result is the stop consequence. And it's non a good outcome.

The problem is common manner voltage. It SHOULD exist evident, simply it apparently is not credible to many, that the cells are in a stack that results in voltages 100, 200, or 400 volts higher than the return terminal. And while there are hundreds of circuits available to measure iii.6v or 3.two 5 very nicely and with bully accuracy, most of the semiconductors simply tin't stand up to do and then at voltages hundreds of volts above ground or above the potential of their ain ability supply.

And and so you have a double problem in that you accept to power the BMS circuitry FROM the battery cell, while measuring them, and you have to isolate each measurement from the others – unremarkably with some sort of isolated communications bus linking them all together, or some combination of all of that. And and so the very simple looking chore apace becomes a monster. I've known PHD level EE who have just dicked such a thing up beyond all possible recognition and at times catastrophically.

The nature of one off EV builds is that EACH is unique and then EACH is a beta test site for something designed past someone else for something different. No possibility of harm there.

And so imagine my horror when BOTH the EV customs AND the solar community began using salvaged EV batteries for their ain concoctions, and by and large without the BMS at all or using something designed for something entirely else?

Only the economics are apparent to anyone. One-half-priced lithium battery cells. This is what everyone has wanted all forth. And so it is GOING to be washed. How to enable them to exercise it safely. Or at to the lowest degree more safely than hoping for proficient things…? And this in a globe where Most of the BMS designers out in that location suffer from delusional fantasies of competence.

Indeed Tesla has had six or eight totally catastrophic vehicle fires with essentially no known cause. Only out of 300,000 cars, you lot know what? That'due south not too bad all things considered. In fact I would agree information technology upward equally a model to aspire to.

Tesla has a multilevel engineered arroyo to battery awarding design and most of the parts are actually quite important. The beginning line of defense is the fusable links they utilize to connect each prison cell to the electric current collectors. If any prison cell does short out, it will immediately receive current from the brethren spirits next and of such quantity that it burns up the piddling connecting wire. That takes information technology OUT of the circuit and it cannot receive further current from the pack or provide any to information technology. It'southward been command ejected from the cockpit electrically.

They practise cool the individual cells with coolant and heat them as necessary to prevent charging below 0C/32F – freezing. This is a major cause of prison cell death. Simply temperature control need not be terribly loftier tech.

The main BMS board and software really is about controlling contactors and monitoring high voltage safety interlocks and threats from the outside world. That's pretty easy stuff.

But the cell stack monitoring and balancing is where the "don't know and don't know they don't knows" striking the fan. Inherently, the semiconductor devices are already LESS reliable than the battery cells. And when you lot put them in hostile mutual mode voltage floats they just tin can't cope. If you lot connect them to a bunch of unshielded antennas (connecting wires) in a noisy automotive environment, y'all court armageddon.

So our strategy is to handle ordinary housekeeping such as DISCONNECTING THE Unabridged THING IF "ANYTHING" is even slightly amiss. And using the highly engineered and somewhat route proven designs Tesla has onboard for the prison cell stack. Nosotros want to TALK to that over an isolated passenger vehicle, larn what it knows virtually the battery cell voltages and temperatures, and otherwise connect NOTHING to it or to the cells at all.

We'll overlay a more configurable contactor and charging command layer on top of it. But cell stack monitoring must remain intact and unmolested.

The Tesla Model S modules characteristic a dedicated stack monitoring BMS board on each module, securely wired to the individual cells and two temperature sensors. This board uses a Texas Instruments cell stock monitoring board that is designed to link vertically using an SPI bus. Serial Peripheral Interface.

Merely Tesla didn't use that because SPI is a scrap twitchy in noisy environments. They used an RF isolation bit on each board to permit it to daisy chain the boards on a simple two wire series connexion to the master BMS lath. Nosotros figured out how to wire to that isolated bus and talk to the Ti chipset over it to get all the jail cell voltages and temperatures and trigger cell balancing and all that.

So notation well the humble philosophy of this. We are not going to attempt to blueprint a safe BMS for y'all. We're going to steal one that is already proven somewhat safER by those educated in the fine art, supervised by the responsible, and with a shitpot to lose if they don't get information technology right. But even in theft, it comes mounted ON the module y'all've paid for, dug out of the car someone already paid for, so it's not much of a theft. We like to euphemistically refer to it every bit "repurposing." The rag and bone man'southward ancient right. And even there, care is required to go on from defeating important just not readily apparent safeties.

So in that location really are rubber issues regarding the employ of these batteries, and they take zilch to do with the child minds and their preoccupation with rubber gloves and safety glasses. Feel free to fondle the end terminals. They tingle but are mostly harmless. Like a warm stove, y'all'll effigy all that pretty chop-chop. Fires and explosions are not.

The Model 3 battery stores sufficient energy to bung a 3500 pound automobile with a couple of, shall we say, "well fed" adults over 300 miles. A sudden release of that free energy is non-trivial.

And so we look with dandy interest to the BMS board mounted on the Model three cells. And did Tesla build on their experience and expertise with the Ti chipset? Well no. It is ENTIRELY different. Advanced, next generation stuff.

The modules feature what is basically a six pes long flexible printed excursion lath with copper runs insulated by a translucent insulating layer and connecting to each "brick" or "cell" of the bombardment pack plus a couple of temperature sensors. In that location is ane of these copper run "tapes" running downwardly EACH edge of the module. The bricks or what I telephone call "cells" is actually made of of 46 cylindrical cells 21 mm in bore and 70mm long. They are nominally 3.6v at 5 amp-hours capacity with the 46 connected in parallel. So 3.6v x 230 Ah per cell and 25 cells for 90 volts on the long ones and 23 cells for 82.8volts This gives the states a nominal pack voltage of 345.6volts at 230 Ah for a total capacity of 79,488 watt-hours. It has been LISTED at eighty.5 kWh elsewhere and that COULD be true if the amp 60 minutes capacity were 232.92 Ah indicating 5.0636 Ah per cylinder. I'thou good with that merely we're parsing the fine print here.

At that place are Two 38 pivot chips connecting to the left side copper record and two 64 pin fries connecting to the right hand copper tape. One of the ongoing little never discussed bug with measuring jail cell voltage is that if you lot are pumping any current through the same wires you are measuring, the driblet of the wires causes perturbation of the measured voltage. So whenever yous "residual" these cells, y'all throw off the voltage measurement.

Information technology is my belief that this generation chip has a real measurement resolution as small every bit 0.0022volts or two.2 millivolts. And so very very minor resistance values tin can cause errors. Annotation the iii tiny wires connecting to each copper land. And I judge I recall nosotros are doing jail cell balancing on one side of the module, while simultaneously monitoring voltage on the OTHER side of the module entirely out of the current path. This is a stunning solution and very hard to implement commonly considering it means twice the numbers of wires and connections. Just the flexible PCB record arroyo makes this quite feasible. I've never seen annihilation similar it. Information technology's like technology from another planet.

Our interest is of course in communicating with them. And handily there are two connectors on the board apparently just for that featuring precisely Ii pins on each connector. It would be wonderful if this were CAN just of class information technology isn't. On the lath you will annotation 4 modules labelled XFMRS. If you can't spell very well, and y'all say information technology very quickly, information technology comes out like TRANSFORMERS. And indeed there announced to be two in each module, but they aren't very powerful at that size.

And I am curiously drawn of course to the 64 pin flake and it is quite unusual. Starting time there are TWO of them necessary simply one of the modules has 25 cells. And then the previously largest 12cell stack monitors tin can't quite cover the necessary 25 cells. Collin assures me that in that location are indeed 3 or 4 different cell stack monitor chips out there in a 64 pin configuraiton merely I can't discover them.

Linear Technologies was acquired concluding year by Analog Devices for a handsome $46 in cash and .232 shares in the consequence. In 2008 they introduced the LTC6802 Battery Monitoring chip and has done pretty well with it. They have updated it nearly annually and take recently introduced the LTC6813-1 which they refer to every bit 5th generation in this series.

If we blow up our image of the chip, we don't run across much. So Collin etched off the conformal coating and did some light and bending on it with a microscope to make up one's mind a little of the logo and function number.

I did a little photoshop magic on information technology to farther enhance that.

And and so what we THINK nosotros run across there is 1722 T2-A2 PZ38984. Which there is no reference to such a number on planet. This chip is indeed from outer space.

Just at that place is also a curious fiddling effigy on the chip. And it looks like our goofy jar of superpeaches – the Model 3 logo.

And so we're feeling a fiddling dead ended here. A custom scrap made for Tesla. And how are we going to reverse engineer a custom chip? If they KNOW they are going to sell 500,000 Teslas, and each lath has TWO of these fries, and each battery has 4 of these boards, that looks like smells like 8 million fries. I gauge near anyone would brand about annihilation they like and impress anything on it they wanted to run into for forty or l one thousand thousand dollars.

Now all of this had to be done two years agone. Merely concluding year Analog announced the LTC6813-1 in a 64 pin packet. Unmarried units are $22 a pop. But I'm guessing Tesla paid less and one time it was designed, LTC had the right to likewise introduce it separately as the LTC6813-i. So I'yard going out on a limb here to say LTC started working on this chip with Tesla before it was acquired and was allowed as part of the deal to release it every bit their next gen scrap as long equally they didn't place information technology as the aforementioned as the Tesla flake. Or something like that. I hope. Otherwise, I'm nominating a chip that wasn't announced prior to pencils down at Tesla.

The reason I like this theory is that LTC several years ago introduced an isolated 1Mbps serial omnibus on TWO wires they call Isolated Serial Peripheral Interface of ISOSPI. And it uses tiny external TRANSFORMERS to provide isolation. It also steps the standard iv-wire SPI to this unmarried pair of conductors.

And then my hope is that if we use the LTC isoSPI communications protocol and the LTC6813 register commands, that we can talk to this alien beast through the "universal translator" and endeavour to make peace between our species. As you see, I'thou quite willing to throw the prime directive under the bus on this one.

So we are going to gen upwardly a trivial hardware to speak isoSPI to the lath, and endeavor to at to the lowest degree go a wakeup phone call to bring it to life and talk to us a bit.

As the last remaining humanoid on the Internet who COULD actually BE wrong, I have to confess I'm making all of this up out of pretty rarified air budgeted lab vacuum. Hopefully some knowledgeable person will correct me in useful manner and of class we're open to thoughts on the 38 pin bit as well. They are very much in the daisy chain merely my guess is nosotros've separated the balancing from the measurement, at unusual and extreme expense and difficulty.

And so my assertion in the video and more emphatically so at this point, given the level of avant-garde technology and integration I'm seeing in this battery assembly, and assuming the same level of effort from the Panasonic team at the chemistry/prison cell level, this is the Best most ADVANCED large scale lithium battery every produced on planet and is YEARS ahead of annihilation currently in work. Tesla appears to exist saying to the rest of the industry, "We've upped our game… so Upward YOURS!"

Like a 7-year-onetime on Christmas morning, I am in absolute DELIGHT at what we are learning most this remarkable car. The child in me is going ape shit past what nosotros are seeing in the charger and particularly in the motor bulldoze unit. Across the board, this ain't your daddy's Oldsmobile. And I can pretty much affirm that everything you THOUGHT you knew well-nigh the Tesla Model 3 is basically a miss. It's going to be a delight, but a scrap of a longer more fatigued out affair to explore but what IS in this remarkable device.

Jack Rickard