I spotted an interesting story in the New York Times this morning, about a Tesla that had been allowed to sit while its battery completely drained, and then sit some more, unused, while chemical changes in the flat battery rendered it permanently incapable of being recharged.
The event, which Tesla has been unwilling to cover under warranty, means that the owner's EV now requires a $40,000 replacement battery. Tesla claims that most of its products have a set of fail-safes which will prevent this from happening (or at least reduce the risk of it happening) in other models.
Still, it's an example of the kind of problem that can only really become known as the number of EVs in circulation gets large enough to make oddball problems apparent.
It makes me wonder, though, whether the much smaller batteries in EV motorcycles are even more subject to flattening by parasitic power drainage, if left unattended. I have enough trouble keeping my ICE motorcycle batteries charged, and have been frustrated a few times that 'modern' gel batteries seem less capable of being deep-cycled.
Anyway, if you want to read more on the Tesla problem, check it out hereon today's NYT site...
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/04/automobiles/Tesla-Battery-Failures-Make-Bricking-a-Buzzword.html?ref=automobiles
ReplyDeleteHere's the correct link for the story Mark. Very interesting reading (as always coming from you!)
Mike
I hand made a couple of LiPo batteries for my race bikes and let one go flat in the off season .Killed it. The company I work for has several priuses in the fleet and the same thing happened when thay were allowed to sit for long periods time.Until its common knowledge to leave your electric vehicle plugged in this will be a ever more frequent problem.
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