Tesla’s Model S was not even available until 2012, so it is hard to say what would happen if it had run 200,000 miles. You may know what happens when a gas-powered car completes a hundreds of thousands of miles, but most of us do not know what happens when electric cars run hundreds of thousands of miles. This is mostly due to the fact that electric cars were a relatively new phenomenon in the past. But believe it or not, one Model S has now covered more than 200,000 miles, and that in less than two years, notes TechCrunch.
Tesla Model S – minimum degradation on battery
Now the first vehicle of Tesloop, a Tesla Model S which was put into service in July 2015, has completed a new milestone: 200,000 miles on the odometer, according to TechCrunch. Tesloop takes passengers back and forth between Las Vegas and Los Angeles in a Model S. Kristen Hall-Geisler of TechCrunch, who was curious to know how the car was doing after 200,000 miles, called up Tesloop.
According to the company, the battery of the Model S did not experience the type of degradation one commonly expects or associates with lithium-ion batteries. Also Rahul Sonnad of Tesloop told her that the battery on the Model S degraded by only 6%. That, of course, does not mean there are no issues.
The range estimator became inaccurate just when the electric sedan hit 200,000 miles. The estimator would say it could go another ten miles, even when the Model S did not actually lose any range. Tesla looked into the problem and told Tesloop that there is a battery chemistry state that high-mileage cars go into, and the software is not properly compensating for that change, notes TechCrunch.
Minimum spending on repair and maintenance
Tesla replaced the battery to solve the problem, even though a firmware update due in three months would have taken care of this problem. Sonnad told TechCrunch that they got their 6% range back with the new battery.
“But had the firmware been updated, we’d be fine and plugging along,” he added.
Tesloop paid $190 to replace the 12-volt battery. In addition, the company buys 40,000-mile Goodyear tires regularly for a total of $2,500. Those are the only repair and maintenance cost made by Tesloop because of Tesla’s unlimited 8-year warranty.
“We haven’t even replaced the brakes,” said Sonnad.
On being asked if Tesloop has any special service deal with Tesla, Sonnad said, “It’s nothing special; we’re under the standard warranties and everything.”
